[Elentari]

Hmmm...
based on geography, climate and such- just what, exactly, would the elves of Mirkwood do for money? They traded, therefore I am forced to admit they must have something worth trading for.
The hobbit implied they did not mine in Thranduil's realm. Anyone actually know what were the economical activities of Mirkwood?

thanks
sheyla-getting increasingly noisier.

[Thuriniel]

Didn't they trade with the Lake Men? The wood-elves specialty was probably Dorwinion wine !

Just kidding ... I remember reading about trades between the wood-elves and the Lake Men ... but I don't remember exactly what was traded.

Should go and read some Hobbit .

[daw]

Reading "The Hobbit," it's hard to figure out just how the wood-elves lived. We know they got some goods from the Lake men -- wine, apple, and butter are mentioned when the dwarves climb into the barrels to escape.

We just don't know what the elves gave in exchange for these goods. So I think we can use our imaginations. I'd say timber, particularly already fallen wood. Furs and hunting rights, perhaps. They may have been some sort of ore from the mountains of Mirkwood. Maybe some plants and herbs from the woods. The men apparently payed river tolls to the elves, so maybe the elves got money that way and used it for goods.

We just don't know.

[NancyBrooke]

There was some discussion of this in the Hobbit reading group:

http://www.openscrolls.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1113

Might shed some light. Or not.

NB

[ellisk]

As someone else said, we know that the woodelves collected river tolls, so they may have had coins to spend in trade from that.

We know they received barrels from the Lake Men and one would assume they didn't get that as charity (since they give charity to Lake Town themselves later on, one can assume they have something to give).

But what they trade with is not specified. In a forest, they would have: timber (deadwood for fires, cutwood for arrow shafts, bows or even milling), medicinal plants, plants that produce dyes (something that would fetch a good price), plants that would produce foods in great abundance (a group of 10 people can lead a sustained lifestyle without cultivating anything or depleting their environment in one square acre of healthy forest without hunting for animals--Mirkwood was 200 miles across and 400 miles long--you would find tubers, ferns, mushrooms, flour from various barks, meal from various nuts, fruits, berries, greens, and wild varieties of a lot of the things we consider cultivated vegetables especially potatos, asperegus), material for making such things as paper (an expensive comodity but you can make nicely it from the leaves of cattails that grow along rivers), stuffings for blankets, matresses and pillows (again from the heads of cattails), materials for making inks (better ones than the common ashes mixed with some thickener) from plants, depending on the types of rock formations and springs, they may have had salt deposits (extremely valuable from this type of source), furs and meat or hunting rights.

That is off the top og my head. I'll add more when I think of it.

[Elentari]

Whoa, guys. Thanks.

[inglor]

[ellisk]