biotrom
Member
Is there any indication that Legolas is on top of the snow when he's not running? If I'm reading the passage correctly, he says his piece about otters, then starts running, then says his thing about the sun while running, runs around the corner, and then an hour later returns. When he passed Boromir and Aragorn, they hadn't reached the corner yet, and the large snow drift is around the corner (because out of sight of the camp). So presumably he could have kept running while they kept burrowing. He would have scouted ahead quite a way and then come back to the Strong Men as they were stuck at the drift. I don't think the text says that he stood on the snow at any point.
The significance, if this reading is correct, is not that the snow-running becomes scientifically comprehensible, but that JRRT was probably envisioning it as some sort of athletic feat (like skipping a stone across water) and not as some innate snow-repellant property of Elves.
The significance, if this reading is correct, is not that the snow-running becomes scientifically comprehensible, but that JRRT was probably envisioning it as some sort of athletic feat (like skipping a stone across water) and not as some innate snow-repellant property of Elves.