I went into it a little bit on my post about the physical and psychological effects of the Helcaraxë on the elves but I just think there’s so much horror potential for this landscape as well as the legends and lore that grew from it.
The bodies of the elves who died there are preserved in the ice indefinitely. This is especially unsettling when those fallen there are re embodied. The knowledge that their mummified bodies, theirselves, are still potentially trapped in the ice until it is washed away into the sea.
There are creatures upon the Helcaraxë that are monstrous to the elves who crossed it. Looming shadows or attacks on the unwary and vulnerable. Few of the exhausted, desperate elves who did see them were in a position to document in detail and so later writings become a combination of fact and myth, like old bestiaries.
The cold itself also becomes a monster. Biting, covering, choking…I think about the different ways the cold, snow, ice or winter are personified in Noldorin art and lore in the years after.
The seemingly endless expanse of ice is disorienting. On several occasions, a member of the Nolofinwëan host would venture off seemingly with no reason and would not return. Sometimes, they had been displaying signs of confusion or listlessness before. Sometimes there was no warning. This unsettling phenomenon leant its way into stories that last into the end of the first age and travel beyond those who lived through it.
