# Oliphants



## Talarion (Jan 19, 2002)

I have a simple question but it has bothered me for some time. What are Oliphants exactly? I pictured them as elephants but what are they? And if they are just elephants, what would they be doing in Middle Earth anyway lol... just seems like a strange place for an elephant if you ask me...


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## Cian (Jan 19, 2002)

> "A large elephant of prehistoric size, a war-elephant of the Swertings, is loose, and Sam has gratified a life long wish to see an Oliphaunt, an animal about which there was a hobbit nursery-rhyme (though it was commonly supposed to be mythical)." JRRT 1944


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## Talarion (Jan 19, 2002)

So Oliphaunts are like mammoths? They just don't seem to fit well in ME... well, that's just my opinion...


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## Gothmog (Jan 19, 2002)

Don't forget, something of that size would have trouble fitting anywhere.


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## Ragnarok (Jan 19, 2002)

ME is a very diverse place, geographically. How can you say you dont picture them fitting in ME? ME has mountains, forests, hills, plains, rivers, deserts, tundra. Oliphaunts could live in either the desert like savannah like plains like of Harad or the jungle like Forests of Ithilien.


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## Talarion (Jan 20, 2002)

I don't know why they don't seem to fit in to me... I understand that ME is very diverse and there are millions of different creatures that inhabit it but out of all the creatures that roam ME, the Olphaunts just seem kinda out of place to me... I don't know why either. Maybe my mind is just too weird... yeah, that's probably it.


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## Kuduk (Jan 20, 2002)

No, Talarion, your mind is not too weird (at least not because of oliphaunts ). I agree that there is something about them which doesn't quite fit with the Middle Earth that is depicted during Frodo's journey. But I also think that it was precisely their 'exotic' quality which led Tolkien to include them in the book. I'm venturing into 'what was the author thinking?' territory but I speculate Tolkien had a minor obsession with pachyderms. Not only does he give Sam a fascination with Oliphaunts, but he gives them a greater degree of prominence whenever they are mentioned compared to many other non-sentient creatures in the book. They have important albeit cameo roles in both the Battle of the Pelennor Fields and the battle in Ithilien between Faramir's men and the Southrons. In the Ithilien battle, JRRT devotes this entire paragraph to them:


> On the great beast thundered, blundering in blind wrath through pool and thicket. Arrows skipped and snapped harmlessly about the triple hide of his flanks. Men of both sides fled before him, but many he overtook and crushed to the ground. Soon he was lost to view, still trumpeting and stamping far away. What became of him Sam never heard: whether he escaped to roam the wild for a time, until he perished far from his home or was trapped in some deep pit; or whether he raged on until he plunged in the Great River and was swallowed up.


Plus, in The Hobbit, JRRT has Gandalf use as an exclamation, of all things, "Great elephants!" 

So this is just my speculation, but I think JRRT included oliphaunts in ME precisely because they didn't seem to naturally fit, at least in the part of ME where all the action takes place. And who knows, maybe JRRT wanted one as a pet (I defer to Harad's judgment regarding their suitability).


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## FJURI1 (Jan 22, 2002)

If we can have Ents, Orcs, Flying Nazgul, Tom Bombadil, why not oliphaunts. I picture them as wooly mammoths. And remember elephants were used quite often in war: could you imagine seeing something like that coming at you, I would run the other way


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## Talierin (Jan 22, 2002)

You have to remember, the Haradrim were close to Africans, so to me that explains enough about there being Oliphants.


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## Lantarion (Jan 23, 2002)

Why wouldn't Oliphaunts (argh, let's call them _mûmakil_, _mûmak_ for the singular, m'kay?) fit in Middle-Earth? I think they are a very interesting touch to the world of Arda, and I love the idea that they are very distant relatives of the elephants of today. I see them as enormous (bigger than elephants, surely) pachidermic giants, who wander about in the wilds of the South and East.


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## Harad (Jan 23, 2002)

Of chorus,
Back in those quasi-Panagea days, my land was connected with the Gondor-centric lands. Oliphaunts would occasionally wander north and frighten the decayed Men of Numenor.


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## My_Precious (Jan 23, 2002)

> _Originally posted by Pontifex_
> I see them as enormous (bigger than elephants, surely) pachidermic giants, who wander about in the wilds of the South and East.


Let's not forget that we are getting Sam's perspective on them, and he's smaller than human, so animals will look bigger to him.
I think that they're from Africa. ('south' in the book)


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## Cian (Jan 23, 2002)

Well the Prof himself said a "large elephant of prehistorc size."


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## Harry_Potter (Jan 23, 2002)

oliphants created the silmarils, under melkors fridge


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## My_Precious (Jan 24, 2002)

Harry_Potter, did you even read 'LoTR'?


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## Eomer Dinmention (Jan 25, 2002)

If your going pos "Crap" then get off this forum


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## Lantarion (Jan 25, 2002)

Calm down, Eomer! I think it's a pretty good joke, and I don't see why you should call it crap.
If it wasn't a joke, then I feel sorry for you, H_P. You're mocking and greatly underestimating a fabulous work of fantasy literature, which I supose you might have read through, and all I can say is that it is your loss. If you think it's too difficult, stick to Harry Potter. It's easy, yet pretty good.


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## snapdragon (Jan 25, 2002)

I've read in "The Languages of Middle Earth" that another name for Oliphaunt is "Mumak" -- sounds sort of like Mammoth.


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## Talarion (Jan 27, 2002)

Okay H.P. You're reeeeaallyy beginning to get on my nerves. I won't rant here for there is another thread with rants about you.


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