Boulders are there just for the "grinding" sound?

[Odola]

The word "grind" makes me thinks of the ancient proverb "the mills of the gods grind slowly(, but they grind exceedingly fine.)" There must have been an equivalent for that proverb known to the Ringwraiths.

Mills of God - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

If so, the grinding sound itself is the message, the boulders are just there to make it.

 

[Arnthro]

Love the grinding notion... though I'm wondering that if these are indeed liquid boulders then they might not be making a stone on stone grinding sound as water generally doesn't make that noise on its own. But this is "magic" and spiritual so who knows. There certainly is a lot of earth shaking rumbling going on sonically and when the Earth shakes and makes loud noises it definitely catches ones attention.

 

[Arnthro]

...I mentioned this "grinding" notion in another thread and I am wondering if the grinding is actually referring to the sound. I know that I certainly think of the sound when I think of the word grind. But anything grindable can grind, silent or not, and with varying sounds.

The sound would tell us so much. If this passage refers to the grinding of stone on stone then I would lean towards actual boulders. But water boulders can certainly grind and I imagine they wouldn't make the same noise as stone on stone but a sound nonetheless.

 

[Jim Deutch]

If this passage refers to the grinding of stone on stone then I would lean towards actual boulders. But water boulders can certainly grind and I imagine they wouldn't make the same noise as stone on stone but a sound nonetheless.

It never occurred to me to think of "water boulders". I always thought "rocks". That's perhaps a bit strange, since I never thought the white horses were real horses... But real boulders would probably have been available already in the stream bed: Gandalf may have simply made sure enough of them were picked up by the (actual) water to do a nice job of grinding as the flood carried them down. Seems more like an anti-horse weapon than one directly targeted at the bodiless Nazgul, but that's all right with me: they're evil horses, aren't they?

 

[Arnthro]

Essentially the notion you just put forth was what the group more or less came to in last night's class.

The theory being that Gandalf, true to his ability to inspire or "enhance," augmented the vigor of the Loudwater's flood thus dislodging boulders. And he was worried he had done too much because of said boulders being dislodged.

There may well be spiritual water boulders along with the spiritual water horses. Though, I now like to think (thanks to the group) that he put his aesthetic efforts into the horses and his "augmenting abilities" into the vigor or the water and any boulders that are there are seen by all (meaning it is likely that Aragorn and the other Hobbits did not see Gandalf's horses).

The class may have lingered on boulders last night but I don't think it's about the boulders so much as an opportunity to analyze Gandalf's power when it is in play and accounted for. Matt DeForrest's direction to go back to the passage of Frodo's live account was smart.