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The White CouncilRe: Elven textiles and crop productionTolkien and Inklings Discussion |
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The White CouncilRe: Elven textiles and crop productionTolkien and Inklings Discussion |
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Posted by Jim Gregors on May 28, 2000 at 19:01:12 In Reply to: Re: Elves did eat and farm, because they had to posted by Michael Martinez on May 28, 2000 at 02:43:31:
: [snip] : Er, no, they obviously COULD practice wide-scale agriculture, unless you feel they were running around without any clothes on. I'm not an expert on Elven clothing, but if you are suggesting that they made textiles using natural fibers - cotton, jute, flax, hemp, etc. - I'm not sure I would consider this large scale agriculture. These plants are also not typically found in temperate areas such as Doriath and Northern Mirkwood but are generally sub-tropical, although certain plants do lend themselves to translocation so I suppose its possible the Elves could have brought plants from further south. However, for a forest-dwelling people I would expect clothing more along the lines of leather garments (the forest being a good place to hunt) with perhaps the wealthier elves wearing finer clothes. : Doriath and northern Mirkwood supported large populations. Just because the Elves were living in the woods, however, doesn't mean they couldn't raise crops. Farming in thick woodlands has been practiced for millennia. Farming in woodlands requires an immense expenditure of manual resources. The Iroquois practiced this for generations with corn crops, but agriculture alone could not support them; hunting and fishing still accounted for 60% of their diet. I'm not saying its impossible for the Elves of Mirkwood and Doriath to have practiced farming, I just think it impractical. It would have been much easier to simply import grains from other areas in which they could be more easily grown. Or perhaps the Elves maintained farming communities along the borders of the forests. I don't recall such a thing being mentioned about Thranduil's kingdom in The Hobbit, but its not beyond the realm of possibility. And Doriath in particular had large areas of open land both to the east and south.
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