And Eru Smiled

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by davem

Before there were stories about mountains there [sic] were just big rocks.

How do you know that? You weren't there. What myth are you espousing in holding forth about something you never experienced? In other words, what story are you presuming was true?

I said nothing about "magical". The word is entirely too limiting. Tolkien used his Elves to communicate this.

'For this is what your folk would call magic, I believe; though I do not understand clearly what they mean'

says Galadriel to Sam, in The Mirror of Galadriel. Consider, all she does is pour whater from a pitcher into a basin. What's magical about that? It is Elvish, because she's an Elf who has lived for perhaps more than ten thousand years, but that is saying much more than "magical".

Mountains are big rocks in the primary world.

Again, how do you know this? It's akin to saying that stars are just hot balls of exploding gas. That's not what a mountain is, it's just what it's made of, to borrow a very good phrase from C.S. Lewis. Be careful about dragging in the (rather bankrupt) myth of mere materialism.