I judge that it is OK to ask this question now because drogo drogo invited
other questions about the passages, and we have passed the point where the
dwarves escaped from prison.
But really, who ever stayed in the Elvenking's jail other than the dwarves and
Gollum? Aragorn took Gollum on a 900-mile journey just to get
Gollum incarcerated, apparently because the elves of Lothlorien had no such
facilities. (I'm not sure why Aragorn didn't turn Gollum over to the
Woodmen he victimized, but that's the subject for another post).
Heck, why did the Elvenking need a prison when he considered it impossible to
escape from his fortress? If an elf got in a brawl (possible for these
elves, I suppose), was it really necessary to incarcerate him? And why so
many cells? Did they have drunken elf riots?
On the other hand, I can't imagine the elves imprisoning spiders and goblins,
as opposed to killing them outright. So who would they imprison when they
were not capturing dwarves, or doing a favor for Aragorn and Gandalf?
My best answer is that there are outlaw men, and perhaps outlaw dwarves or even
outlaw elves about, like the outlaws Turin stayed with in Beleriand, or like
the Master of Laketown after he embezzles public funds. (Outlaw elves
seem unlikely, but there are a couple of precedents in The Silmarillion.)
There are also the Easterlings under Sauron's control, who might have sent
spies into the neighborhood over the past several centuries, as Saruman did to
the Shire and Bree.
Any other
ideas?
“I dislike Allegory - the conscious and intentional allegory - yet any attempt to explain the purport of myth or fairytale must use allegorical language. (And, of course, the more 'life' a story has the more readily will it be susceptible of allegorical interpretations: while the better a deliberate allegory is made the more nearly will it be acceptable just as a story.)” (From Tolkien Letter # 131.)
