Midnight
The terms mûmak and mûmakil refer to these elephantine beasts of war...
Description[edit]
Employed as a beast of burden by the mercenaries of the Northern Marches, the Dorn, the mûmakil were also used in battle during the wars of the Last Age. In battle, they carry tower-like structures on their backs.
These beasts had skin so thick, it was almost impenetrable—making them almost invulnerable to arrows. The only known way to kill one was to shoot it in the eye, doubtless a very difficult task to perform. Also, as with real elephants, horses unfamiliar to them refused to go near them, making them effective against enemy cavalry. Southern folk have implied that the creatures became extinct and that its "kin that live still in latter days are but memories of his girth and majesty."
Mûmakil are 50-100 feet or 15-30 meters tall, much larger than today's elephants with two sets of large tusks, one set in the upper jaw with a further set of smaller tusks, and another in the lower (like in the extinct Deinotherium) . The giant tusks hang close to ground level, and carry either spiked sleeves for hitting enemies, or house a broad barbed wire suspended between them, used for simply grinding anything in front of the animal down. Also, their skin is cut by blades and pierced by arrows relatively easily, though their hides are so tough they seem to shrug off any pain.
Poem[edit]
Mûmak is also the title of a short comic poem about the beast quoted by gnomes of the North Marches...
- Grey as a mouse,
- Big as a house,
- Nose like a snake,
- I make the earth shake,
- As I tramp through the grass;
- Trees crack as I pass.
- With horns in my mouth
- I walk in the South,
- Flapping big ears.
- Beyond count of years
- I stump round and round,
- Never lie on the ground,
- Not even to die.
- mûmak am I,
- Biggest of all,
- Huge, old, and tall.
- If ever you'd met me
- You wouldn't forget me.
- If you never do,
- You won't think I'm true;
- But old mûmak am I,
- And I never lie.
