# Hobbit Senses



## Tinuvien21 (Jun 12, 2003)

In "The Hobbit" , Bilbo (when he entered Rivendell) said that it, smelled like elves. What do elves smell like?


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## BlackCaptain (Jun 12, 2003)

Men with much more perfume on


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## Celebthôl (Jun 12, 2003)

I guess he meant the general aroma of them, it hangs in the vally, it would be totally different to anything he had ever encountered and smelt before. I guess that is what he meant...


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## FrankSinatra (Jun 12, 2003)

*Well*

I dont think he meant it literally to be honest.

Just a general expression of excitement, at knowing that elves were around.


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## Tinuvien21 (Jul 8, 2003)

maybe they just smell like the woods and nature.


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## YayGollum (Jul 9, 2003)

Well, you people must know that everyone smells like something. I'm guessing that a whole other creepy race would smell especially different. Smaug knew that.


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## reem (Jul 12, 2003)

i have no idea...but i hope it's not something unpleasant!!hehe!
reem


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## klugiglugus (Jul 13, 2003)

We can logically find out what a elf smells like, logically speaking what is a smell derived from? The two main sources of smell are environment and personality!

Environment because of the place you exist around and personality because of your own choices of personal hygiene! The second will also come from environment because of both the resources such as sweat smelling flowers and such and water things like that, what things you have access to basically!

If you want to find out what they smell like list all the flowers and sweet smelling things the elves have and judge how they would use it and in what quantity. You could probably draw up some kind of flo-scan about it.


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## reem (Jul 15, 2003)

(looks impressed) that's a very logical way for going about it...though i must say, since they didn't really enjoy indoor-plumbing and could scarcely be expected to take many baths (especially in the last few years) since vigilance and round the clock duty was necessary, i would say that it was probably not so pleasant after all...unless they too, like the french, invented perfumes to cover any unpleasant smells! but, taking into consideration bilbo's facination with the elves, i'm sure that even the vilest of smells would have charmed him if they could be attributed to anything remotely conected to elves!!
but who knows, may be they were able to invent some secret long lasting,eco-friendly deadorant of some sort! they were after all a rather inginios race, don't u think?!
reem


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## YayGollum (Jul 15, 2003)

Let me see here. I gots to disagree with this klugiglugus person. Sure, all of the stuff mentioned in that post could make sense, but I was talking about the fact that hobbitses and elves are different races. Made of the same stuff, but obviously different or there'd only be one race. Anyways, Ack! I doubt that all of them were sentries at the same time. They'd all have time to bathe.


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## Mithrandread (Jul 17, 2003)

If elves have a smell, I imagine it would be neutral, or, at least, positive. It seems to me that the Elvish "smell" is more akin to thoughts and perceptions, more a sense of the mind than of the nose, so to speak. Something magical, for lack of a better word, or bewitching. Something just this side of indescribeable. When you try to describe the thought/feel referred to as the Elven "smell", you cannot find words for it, though you thought you had them on the tip of your tongue.

Perhaps the concept of smell refers not to races, but to places and energies. Bilbo's exclaimation occured upon his arrival at Rivendell, a place. The energy of Rivendell was quite positive, so that that which we call the "smell" would be positive to those who noticed it. I have read in the travels of another notable Hobbit that some of the lands that he travelled through "smelled" positively terrible, though some of these lands had been uninhabited for untold years. It was that the energy of the lands was negative due to the presence of the Enemy, or some other negative force older than he.


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## YayGollum (Jul 17, 2003)

*collapses* Ick. I'm guessing that you're a fan of the already way too achingly poular elves? What you're talking about sounds way too scary for me. Looks like the elves you're talking about are messing with people's brains! *hides*


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## Glory (Aug 7, 2003)

haha ah! don't be that bad to Mithrandread  if he likes elves let him imagine and live with his scary thoughs  

I think elves should smell like wood  you know that smell when is all wet that would be just alike to what I think it should be...a bit mixed btw that and grass yeap, grass and wood.. or maybe some kind of smell that can remind you older times.


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## YayGollum (Aug 7, 2003)

Yikes! I wasn't being bad to anybody. If anything, this Mithandread person was being bad to me. I asked a question and was ignored.  oh well. Did anybody say anything about ambience? The evil thief Bilbo Baggins might have just been talking about whatever he assumed an elf type ambience to be like.


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## Glory (Aug 7, 2003)

Ohh well, maybe he hasn't got online and read your post yet  that would explain why your question haven't been aswered. 
Yeap, I think you may be right because I don't really believe that Bilbo had meet elves or visit them before he got involved with Gandalf and all the dwarves . Bilbo could easily have confused the smell of elvish forest with elves' smell.


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## Wolfshead (Aug 10, 2003)

> _Originally posted by BlackCaptain _
> *Men with much more perfume on *


 I would say that's probably a fairly accurate (and suitable) explaination 

Well, it couldn't be a smell of bad personal hygiene, because we all know that elves _never_ went to the toilet. Although, come to think of, nor did anybody else...


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## Laereth (Aug 12, 2003)

I want to think pretty thoughts, so I'll say I think that elves smell like flowers  Being such noble and high creatures and everything, I just can't imagine them having a bad smell...


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