Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-28852094-20160720050444/@comment-26347028-20160720232933

Recneps wrote: High King Ithilion wrote: Recneps wrote:

High King Ithilion wrote: I see nothing at Tolkien Gateway saying they were anything more than elephants. They were probably African Elephant-sized. These were never used in IRL warfare, but you could fit "what seemed a very war-tower" (obviously not really a wartower) on top of one. And a human looks small compared to an African Elephant. The huge ears also fit.

I'd say we have an animal that fits the description.

Ithilion, Discussions Moderator (Auta i lome) 20:25, July 20, 2016 (UTC) Wrong. From the very same page that Warpig got his quote of: "Big as a house, much bigger than a house, it looked to him, a grey-clad moving hill. Fear and wonder, maybe, enlarged him in the hobbit’s eyes, but the Mûmak of Harad was indeed a beast of vast bulk."

- Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit

I got my own quote.. "Big as a house, much bigger than a house, it looked to him, a grey-clad moving hill. Fear and wonder, maybe, enlarged him in the hobbit’s eyes, but the Mûmak of Harad was indeed a beast of vast bulk, and the like of him does not walk now in Middle-earth; his kin that live still in latter days are but memories of his girth and majesty."

- Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit If the ones that live now are just memories of its immense size.. It must've been much bigger than them. This could just as easily be-in fact, it probably is- saying that in Middle-earth after the Third Age their size shrank. That quote doesn't refer to this Mumak being larger than today's elephants.

Ithilion, Discussions Moderator (Auta i lome) 22:32, July 20, 2016 (UTC) Yes. Middle-Earth no longer had them. Aran is right.. Middle-Earth is supposedly our world. "Middle Earth" or "Endorë" never had elephants of its own. You don't hear about European elephants. It's also entirely possible it was referencing an African elephant compared to an Indian elephant, and vice verse.