Bye Bye Balrogs

[HerenIstarion]

Deadnight Chanter
Posts: 1591

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

First, to HI's most recent comment: I don't think we can really take Elvish philology too far in this direction. Just because two words come from the same root does not mean that there is any kind of fundamental connection between those two words. Moreover, the Elves themselves probably didn't learn anything about Balrog and Orc origins until they reached Valinor - a fairly late stage in their lingual development

Ah, you hit the mark, but you made quite an opposite conclusion

That is the point - is not it natural that they called anything horrible using ruku stem? And is not it natural to suppose, that, if, and cause they learned of the origins only in Valinor, that they may have been mixing up ruku-s of different origins, lacking sufficient knowledge of later time, still more that annals represented are history of the grey elves, who have never been to Valinor at all! Hence my remark of Legolas, for whom any creature resembling fire spirit will be a balrog, (and if we take elvish philology far enough, any more or less physically strong orc can be a balrog too)


edit: license agreement - the last statement is included rhetorically, and may not be considered as a section to be teared up

Edited by: HerenIstarion at: 9/4/01 11:46:08 am