Branch thread: Tolkien's military technology

[Alfirin]

Fun little link (I found it while looking up conformation about the greek elephants)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6913366.stm

Now THOSE are Mumakil Tusks

[Galadriel55]

Hobbits could have seen/heard of an oliphaunt before they populated the Shire. We don't really know their origins, but we do know that they came from somewhere. If they saw a creature like that much earlier in history and turned it into a legend of their own - uncnnected with other nations. (Like Mad-Baggins, perhaps?)

Does anyone know if there is some reason for the apparant similarity between olihaunt and elephant?

[Rumil]

Hi Alfirin and Galadriel,

blimey, big tusks!

Oliphaunt was an archaic spelling of elephant apparently. Also in Afrikaans it's Olifant I believe, and Tolkien did spend some of his early childhood in South Africa. Strangely it's also a surname, though quite rare, and the name of a Scottish clan.

The earliest sighting of hoobits is around TA 1000 in the Gladden Fields-Southern Mirkwood area if I remember. Perhaps they met some Gondorians who told them of the oliphaunt. It sounds a very remote possibility, but perhaps some early proto-hobbits even adventured as far as South Ithilien and met one in person? Certainly the men of Gondor knew all about oliphaunts as Harad was an age old enemy (and ancient colonial possession). Perhaps Tharbad might have been a good location for swapping tall tales of huge oliphaunts and the were-worms of the Eastern desert.