Giants....

[MatthewM]

Great topic, and great post Legate. You pretty much laid it all out there. I myself always thought of the attacks on The Fellowship due to Caradhras itself. All the references point to so, and I would believe like you said that Giants would have two legs...so why would they hate other two leg beings, if there were Giants present at all? Unless we apply Gimli's "belief" into the mix, whereas if there were Giants, they probably wouldn't care whether or not 2 Men were with the company (Boromir's response), if they knew an Elf and a Dwarf were abroad (doubtless the Hobbits would be unknown and also be considered Dwarves to such a folk as Giants would be, therefore increasing the amount of Dwarves.)

But, I think it's safe to say the evil at work here is Caradhras itself, at least in my opinion. Aragorn agrees with Boromir when he confirms calling it the wind.