New evidence for the Arkenstone-Silmaril case

[Gwaihir the Windlord]

Compiled by yours truly. Well, not really evidence as such, simply some decent reasoning (or at least I hope so) I've come up with. Anyway, please take the trouble to read it and see what you think. Some points are left out, obviously, like Galadriel's glass; but they are open to discussion. For those who weren't around for that rather old thread on this topic (which it might be a good idea to have a look at), this can serve as introduction.

(In fact I've sent a copy of this to Kittle, to be hopefully published as an article -- it was about a month ago I think -- but, busy as he is I suppose, he hasn't even got back to me, let alone actually done anything with it. Which is a bit of a bugger, but it doesn't matter. You can see it now...)

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Was the Arkenstone of Thráin really Maedhros’ lost Silmaril?
<u>Gwaihir the Windlord</u>

While rereading The Hobbit, a few weeks ago, I suddenly recalled an old discussion thread I had (lightly) taken part in, a year or so back. It’s topic was that upon which I am now writing. As I remember, the general conclusion of the thread had been that no, the Arkenstone was not the Silmaril lost by Maedhros at the end of the First Age. Then I was inclined to agree; but reading The Hobbit that night I changed my mind. And so I reopen the debate.

At the end of the First Age, after the War of Wrath and the recapture of the two remaining Silmarils, Maedhros and Maglor – driven by the Oath of the Sons of Fëanor – took it upon themselves to steal the Silmarils from the camp of Eönwe. In this they succeeded. However the pain that the Silmarils inflicted upon them (as they did on all unlawful handlers of the gems was so great that Maglor cast his Silmaril into the sea, and Maedhros, despairing, threw himself and the Silmaril he was carrying into a fiery chasm. So it was that both the great jewels were lost. Lost, but not destroyed; the Silmarils are indestructible.

<font color="#c71585">‘And they knew that those jewels could not be found and brought together again, unless the world be broken and remade.’

Perhaps not all found and brought together, but I believe that one of them at least was found – the Arkenstone. Could it be that Meadhros’ stolen Silmaril, sucked into the molten bosom of the world, was swirled around and moved by subterranean forces until it resurfaced in Erebor? We do not know where the ‘fiery chasm’ in which Maedhros found his death was; it could have been anywhere. It doesn’t matter though. The convection currents that constantly spin inside the mantle of the Earth can transport matter for thousands of miles, to be forced out in the eruptions of volcanoes.

Volcanoes, for example, like Erebor. The Lonely Mountain was certainly an extinct volcano; all alone in the plain, and with a distinct pointy summit. So the setting for a Silmaril re-surfacing is ideal. The gem found it’s way under Erebor as aforementioned. The next eruption saw it inside the mountain, and when the dwarves came they dug it up. Erebor was long dead by the time the dwarves arrived. (The eruption that carried the Arkenstone was probably the last, weak burst of activity from a volcano that had been ailing for some time.) The gem was even found exactly where it would be, had it been put there in an eruption – at the ‘heart of the mountain’, close to or inside the central lava pipe found in all volcanoes. So as you can see, the setting for a discovery of the Silmaril is near perfect. If the Arkenstone had been found, say, in earth in some shallow mine near Hobbiton, then that would have probably cut the debate off from the start. As it is I have laid out half of the supporting evidence already.

Now let’s look at the similarities between the two stones themselves. First the descriptions, which are amazingly similar…

This is the Silm’s description of the Silmarils:

<font color="#c71585">‘Like the crystal of diamonds it appeared, and yet was more strong than adamant, so that no violence could mar or break it within the Kingdom of Arda. Yet that crystal was to the Silmarils but as is the body to the Children of Illuvítar: the house of its inner fire, that is within it and yet in all parts of it, and is its life. And the inner fire of Silmarils Fëanor made of the blended light of the Trees of Valinor, which lives in them yet, though the trees have long withered and shine no more. Therefore even in the darkness of the deepest treasury the Silmarils of their own radiance shone like the stars of Varda; and yet, as were they indeed living things, they rejoiced in light and received it and gave it back in hues more marvellous than before.’

And in The Hobbit, the Arkenstone:

<font color="#c71585">‘It was the Arkenstone, the Heart of the Mountain. So Bilbo guessed from Thorin’s description; but indeed there could be no two such gems, even in so marvellous a hoard, even in all the world. Even as he climbed, the same white gleam had shone before him and drawn his feet towards it. Slowly it grew to a little globe of pallid light. Now, as he came near. It was tinged with a flickering sparkle of many colours at the surface, reflected and splintered from the wavering light of his torch. At last he looked down upon it, and he caught his breath. The great jewel shone before his feet of its own inner light, and yet, cut and fashioned by the dwarves, who had dug it up from the heart of the mountain long ago, it took all light that fell upon it and changed it into ten thousand sparks of white radiance shot with glints of the rainbow.’

No two such gems, even in all the world? Perhaps this was only Bilbo’s wonder at seeing it, but perhaps it really was true, that the Arkenstone was the most brilliant jewel on Earth. In which case, of course, it was a Silmaril. Both stones shine of their own inner radiance; both reflect light falling upon them, making it more brilliant than before; even in the darkness, they both gleamed. What gem, other than the Silmarils themselves, actually produced light of their own creation?

There are, however, two things in these passages which seem slightly contradictive to this. The material that the Silmarili were forged from – Silma – could not be scratched, marred or broken ‘by any violence within the Kingdom of Arda’. Yet it is said that the Arkenstone was ‘cut and fashioned by the dwarves’. Obviously, if it was a Silmaril, this would not be true. It can be argued that it isn’t. No-one actually knew (maybe some High Elves had suspicions but didn’t disclose them, Gandalf and Saruman may have known, but the general public didn’t) that the Arkenstone (if it was) was a Silmaril. It was simply dug up from the earth, impossible that it should have been cut and polished before the dwarves got to it. And that had happened so long ago, many lives of Men. The shrouding of time and myth, and the thinking of common sense, says that the dwarves were the ones who fashioned it; so that’s what was believed.

The only other point worth wrangling about here is the strength of the light each stone gave. One shone like ‘the stars of Varda’, the other was a ‘white gleam’, a ‘pallid globe’. An explanation can, though, be offered. The Arkenstone had been lying in the darkness of Smaug’s hoard for many, many lightless years; perhaps it was depressed. It’s energies would have been at a low ebb. While Feanor’s Silmarils were kept in a vault, I am sure he would have taken them out for an airing quite often, more than he let on about anyway, and at least a lot more than the Arkenstone was left in the hoard for. So they were joyous and kept shining like the stars, while the Arkenstone – not seeing much light in the Earth for all those millennia, then just sitting in the blackness of Smaug’s lair – shone with a lower wattage.

Another similarity between the Arkenstone and the Silmarili was that they both seemed to affect people, to take a hold on them. The Silmarils, in the First Age, had a great hold on various people around Beleriand – the Sons of Fëanor most notably –and were generally the cause of great chaos and conflict all throughout that Age.

The Arkenstone had the same property, but interestingly it was somewhat more focused. Focused largely on Thorin Oakenshield, but also, to a lesser extent, on Bilbo Baggins the Thief. Thorin was clearly extremely fond of the Arkenstone. When the dwarves reached the hoard of Smaug it was practically all he could think about, and when Bilbo gave it to the Lakemen, he was willing first to pay a very great sum of money for it, and then to fight a large (and likely disastrous) bloody battle over it. It’s hold on him, in fact, was so great that he was driven almost to killing his close companion Bilbo in pure revenge for its loss. Of course, thankfully, he did not in the end commit any great acts of rashness – he had sworn a powerful oath – but still, his good judgement and nature were severely clouded by his lust for the stone. This in turn had an effect on the other dwarves who had come on the expedition.

Bilbo also experienced the attraction of the Arkenstone, although to a far lesser extent. The fact that he was a hobbit probably helped in this. Apparently, he felt the real pull of the gem only on one occasion, related here:

<font color="#c71585">‘Even as he climbed, the same white gleam had drawn his feet towards it… suddenly Bilbo’s arm went towards it, drawn by its enchantment…’

But even after that, he was still somehow reluctant to give it back to the dwarves.

So you see the Arkenstone did have an attraction for people, although, through the aforementioned ‘focused’ effect, not an incredibly great one except for those it was focused on (Thorin and his twelve dwarves). Bilbo submitted to his sense in the end, giving the stone up. When it came to Thorin’s burial, the dwarves were perfectly happy to throw it onto his coffin and cheerfully shovel several feet of rock on top of it. (In fact this carefree burial of the Arkenstone was, as I remember, the main ammunition for the ‘against’ side in the forum. Would they have done this if it was a Silmaril? Perhaps they would.

<font color="#c71585">‘And thus it came to pass that the Silmarils each found their long homes; one in the airs of heaven, and one in the fires of the heart of the world, and one in the deep waters.’

And as Mandos had prophesied:

<font color="#c71585">‘The fates of Arda, earth sea and air, lay locked within them.’

From these two passages we can see that Maedhros’s Silmaril was meant to stay in the Earth; it was its destiny. So it was, maybe, that the dwarves buried it. The period it spent in the air in the halls of the dwarves was but a respite. When it came to Thorin’s burial, the dwarves felt no pull to keep the Arkenstone and put it back into the Earth once more. That was, after all, where it belonged if it was a Silmaril. The dwarves were simply playing their part in the ‘fates of Arda’. This seems solid enough – it explains why the stone was attractive only to certain people, for a start; by being so, it’s fate was completed.

Admittedly, burial under just a few feet or so of rock doesn’t really come close to the ‘fires of the heart of the world’. This, I suppose, would be a bit of a flaw in the theory, but still it was not simply buried in the open ground. Thorin’s tomb was laid under a deep chamber in the roots of the Mountain – certainly more than just six feet under. Who knows? A small rockfall in that part of the tunnel, a geological shift, some slight volcanic activity; once again, the stone is inaccessibly buried. Rocks do move around over time, especially those under mountains.

And there is one more point worth discussing in these passages. In the second one, Mandos’ prophesy, given again for reference:

<font color="#c71585">‘The fates of Arda, earth sea and air, lay locked within them.’

It is easy to miss, but there is a possible interpretation of this other than that readily apparent. It is in the wording. Mandos does not say that the fates of the Silmarils are locked within Arda – meaning simply that the gems themselves are destined to stay within the confines earth, sea and air, of Arda – but the other way around. The fates of Arda, in fact, are contained within the Silmarils.

Does this not mean that the Silmarili will each have a part to play, in the destiny of the world? One in air, one in the sea, one in earth? It is very possible that this is what Mandos actually meant. The Silmaril of air, for one, was certainly important in the fate of Arda. Were it not for Eärendil, and the Silmaril he bears in Vingilot in the heavens, the War of Wrath could not have been won; for the dragons of Morgoth would surely have vanquished Eönwe, if Vingilot had not appeared and overcome them at the last minute. Moreover it is largely Eärendil, wielding the light of his Silmaril, that guard against the return again of Melkor from the Timeless Void:

<font color="#c71585"> ‘…and Eärendil keeps vigilance (against Morgoth’s return) upon the ramparts of heaven…’

The Silmaril that Maglor cast into the sea has not yet played it’s part (not that we know of, anyway). But if the Arkenstone was a Silmaril – the Silmaril of Earth – then it has, I think, performed it’s duty already. Clearly the Quest of Erebor and the after effects had gigantic consequences for Middle-Earth. The finding of the Ring, the reinstating of the King under the Mountain, the slaying of Smaug… how much of this was down to the Arkenstone’s pull on Thorin?

Probably not all that much. His desire to reclaim his old kingdom was probably fiercer because of it, to be sure, but still he would have most likely gone anyway. But what about the events that took place after Smaug’s death? The hostilities between Dwarves, Elves and Men, the Battle of Five Armies, the balance of power that took place between them – they were all tied up with the Arkenstone. Who knows? If the Arkenstone wasn’t present, perhaps the Battle of Five Armies would have been lost.

I wonder whether Tolkien deliberately made this connection between the Arkenstone and the lost Silmarili. Maybe he did; but then again, he may not have. The theory is tantalisingly possible though, regardless.

It is my hope, with this article, to have added a bit more depth to the issue than was there previously (a little one sided perhaps, but then that does happen to be my viewpoint), not to mention resurrecting it from a long-forgotten grave. I haven’t seen any more topics on this plane in the forum after that first one anyway (excuse me if there has been one, I’ve been away from the downs for quite some time…) and it is, in my opinion, a very interesting one. We will never know the answer, of course, but we may have an idea; from the information given us, I am inclined in this case to the affirmative.

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[ December 04, 2002: Message edited by: Gwaihir the Windlord ]