![]() I am excluding Celegorm’s dog Huan from the consideration here only because he could actually speak with words (though only was permitted to do so three times) and thus probably was not a real dog, but rather one of the less powerful Maiar who had assumed dog form, which would explain his unusual gifts, his power, and his longevity. He is explicitly stated to have “ great knowledge of birds and beasts, and all their tongues he knew.” Celegorm also is described as both a great hunter and horseman. One clear case of an Elf in close connection with animals is Celegorm, the third son of Fëanor and a follower of the Vala Oromë in Aman. Consider, for example, the statement that they were capable of understanding the Music of the Ainur from the water, but also Legolas hearing the lament of the stones of Eregion and his understanding of the Huorn host that had come to Helm’s Deep, or even the early Elves waking trees and teaching them (and potentially the Ents) their speech, as Treebeard reports. ![]() In part this may derive from the close connection of Elves to nature (both animate and inanimate) around them. The books offer relatively little evidence of that directly, though enough to make the educated guess that they did not adopt animal speech for their own use (though were capable of learning it) but had animals capable of understanding verbal speech rather than mere commands they might have been trained to react to. To be straightforward – yes, Elves very likely could talk to animals, especially their horses. ((This post was written by the incredible Elleth ( awildellethappears), as part of the Scribe Sunday Project!))
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