Snow angels

[alatar]

Note that, if you walk on a light dusting of granular snow (not the wet sticky kind) that sits atop concrete or other hard surface, in a moderate to strong wind, you will leave no (or almost no) footprints. Maybe Legolas, and the elves entire, just knew where to place their slippers.

[Folwren]

Well, now, we had an ice/snow storm a couple months ago, and everyone, including horses, could walk on top of it all without leaving any marks at all!

[Bêthberry]

Good to see such a sweet thread bumped up and maintained with light-hearted faire. It would be a grim bit of northern humour to see a jaundiced post consider the gravity, specific or otherwise, of yellow snow.

[alatar]

I'm restraining myself...and just how would a jaundiced eye perceive yellow snow? White and untainted? Anyone with some lemonade and a pair of appropriately tinted glasses/goggles can put this too to the test.

Speaking of yellow eyes, do we know the color variation of the elven eye, and just what spectra are perceptible from the same? Elves see things that remain unseen to the human eye (moon letters, portends, running orcs at great distances, etc). Do elves see the thicker patches of snow, and again, just know where to step? Do they guard this secret to make themselves more interesting?

[Celuien]

While yellow snow's specific gravity and density may be higher than that of the surrounding white snow, I suspect that its other properties make it unsuitable for travel or snow angels. I believe that I am fortunate in having the ability to distinguish yellow from white easily.

Roa's theory regarding the Elven spirit of flame suggests a new possibility. What if the Elves are able to slightly melt the snow as they stand on it, then allow it to refreeze in the cold temperatures? They could then skate on a film of ice (as I saw a few enthusiastic skaters at the edge of a nearby horse farm doing yesterday). I know that I can't tell the difference between frozen and non-frozen snow visually unless I look very closely. Perhaps the difference produced by this sleight-of-hand (or, more accuratelym slight of foot) was imperceptible to the non-Elf members of the Fellowship.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by alatar

Do elves see the thicker patches of snow, and again, just know where to step? Do they guard this secret to make themselves more interesting?

Well, if this be so, it suggests that their art or 'magic' leads them into a wee bit of deception, a quality which was recently attributed to the Ring on one of our serious threads. This could be interesting to explore as elves exist in the same dimension, simultaneously as they exist in ours, as that of the Ringwraiths. (Yes, there is a Tolkien comment about this, which I posted elsewhere, but my books are not at hand at the moment.) Maybe elves do have a different density than humans or hobbits?

Is Legolas' ability to walk upon snow (not water, now, snow), part of elven knowledge of the dark dimension? This is a very different take from that of Roa and Celuien's thoughts on the warming condition of the secret flame.

Originally Posted by Celuien

What if the Elves are able to slightly melt the snow as they stand on it, then allow it to refreeze in the cold temperatures? They could then skate on a film of ice (as I saw a few enthusiastic skaters at the edge of a nearby horse farm doing yesterday). I know that I can't tell the difference between frozen and non-frozen snow visually unless I look very closely. Perhaps the difference produced by this sleight-of-hand (or, more accuratelym slight of foot) was imperceptible to the non-Elf members of the Fellowship.

Now this raises in interesting possibility. Could elves have invented the game of hockey? Note, I am assuming that Celuien's friends at the horse farm were engaging in a game of shinny, but perhaps elves would limit themselves to the more elegant form of freeskate or figure skating. Not that Legolas would have been wearing blades on his slippers, although if swords could be fired and tempered to great sharpness, there's no reason why elves wouldn't have come up with the idea of attaching them to their slippers.

I seem to be developing two different lines of arguments here. The topic is so slippery.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Well, if this be so, it suggests that their art or 'magic' leads them into a wee bit of deception, a quality which was recently attributed to the Ring on one of our serious threads. This could be interesting to explore as elves exist in the same dimension, simultaneously as they exist in ours, as that of the Ringwraiths. (Yes, there is a Tolkien comment about this, which I posted elsewhere, but my books are not at hand at the moment.)

My very own thoughts have been skating down this very path! The Ringwraiths, it is said, 'see' the living as shadows on their minds, which only the noon day sun erases. Aragorn tells us that these same undead creatures fear fire. Now, I don't know much about overt or covert 'flames' nor much about dimensions, save the usual four, but I have read something about light.

We see in, obviously, what is called the visible spectrum (7000 - 4000 Angstroms). Bugs can see in ultraviolet, and so organisms aren't limited to the visible. The sun puts out much UV light, especially in the morning hours, as those that tan might have noted. Fire and other sources of heat emit infrared radiation. So, knowing these facts and what we've heard about the Nazgul, I would hypothesize that the Ringwraiths 'see' in both the infrared and ultraviolet spectra. This is why they dislike heat - it's like a blinding light - and minds are scrambled by noon (unlike mine which is done well before).

What does this have to do with elven snow angels? Well, if the elves can perceive that which we cannot, it may be that they too see in other spectra, and this permits them to see the ice and snow in a more favorable (and favoring) light.

[Roa_Aoife]

It seems to me that Nazgul cannot see visible, or "White", light. If they could, they would see the living as more than just shadows. You see, cameras designed specifically to pick up UV light and nothing else will almost always create "black and white" photos, or "shadowy" looking objects. This being the case, I could believe that Nazgul see in UV, but not in Infrared. The wavelengths are far too different and on opposite sides of the visible spectrum. It wouldn't make sense that they could pick up light of such widely different wavelengths, but not the wavelengths in between.

As for Elves using UV to see which snow can be stepped on, I'm afraid not. You see, snow relfects UV light so well that no difference can be seen between varying depths, etc, as you can see here. The picture on the left is with a regular camera, and the one on the right is taken with a UV camera. As you can see there are no differences in the snow. Also, this picture was taken under UV, and there is no difference in the snow.

However, polarized white light is plausible. Here is an article about NASA using the same method to prepare snow for the different events in the winter Olympics. Using polarized white light, they can tell how hard or soft the snow or ice is, and even how dense it is.

Though it is still possible that Elves could view UV light. Many birds do this. Here's a quote from an article on it:

Birds, though, see differently than we. They can see in the UV, which we cannot. Birds seem to use their UV vision much as the rest — finding prey and mates.

Also, like many reptiles, birds see four primary colors (that is, they have four types of color cones in their eyes that receive light), not merely three like bees or us . Their 4-color system may produce "a range of hues we cannot imagine," says Innes Cuthill, professor of behavioral ecology at the University of Bristol

So, it is entirely possible that Elves have a 4th type of cone in their eye, and infact see in 4 primary colors. Could explain the difference in their art.