Why can Legolas walk on snow? It's fairy-story, not fantasy!

For many years, Legolas' ability to walk on snow vexed me... here, Michael talks about why it's important we remember that--at times--Tolkien opens wide the door of fairy-story, where the rules of physics as we know them simply don't apply.

It happens to Beren and Luthien. It happens to Eärendil and Elwing. And in The Fellowship of the Ring, in a brief glimpse, we see it in Legolas.

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📃 From Tolkien's essay "On Fairy Stories"
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"For the moment I will say only this: a “fairy-story” is one which touches on or uses Faerie, whatever its own main purpose may be: satire, adventure, morality, fantasy. Faerie itself may perhaps most nearly be translated by Magic—but it is magic of a peculiar mood and power, at the furthest pole from the vulgar devices of the laborious, scientific, magician. There is one proviso: if there is any satire present in the tale, one thing must not be made fun of, the magic itself. That must in that story be taken seriously, neither laughed at nor explained away."

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