Ford of Bruinen = Red Sea/Book of Exodus

[Formendacil]

I don't entirely disagree--but that's probably because the latent Biblical scholar in me sees the Red Sea and the crossing of the Jordan under Joshua as types of the same event. I think crossing the Jordan is a comparison in the same ballpark, if only because it's a river, but it's sort of the same thing.

That said, the comparison is slender and not one I'd put a lot of weight on, for all the reasons of difference already made. They ARE both instances where the body of water allows the protagonists through and then rush in behind--and Exodus is the better Biblical comparison at least insofar as it parallels with FotR in sweeping away bad guys. But that fact that the waters don't part to allow them across--the fact that it is a ford, in other words--takes away the most miraculous or notable element of the Biblical story.

That said, it could be part of the leaf-mould that produced the Bruinen scene, but the comparisons aren't such where I think we can say anything definitive one way or another, unless someone with more Anglo-Saxon than me sees phrases from the OE Exodus in the Bruinen scene or something similar.



As to the forum's paucity of replies... well, I suppose to a Fourth Age fisherman, standing on the summit of Tol Himring, the Union of Maedhros doesn't look like it has left much behind, but great things are buried beneath Ulmo's domain in this forum.