Is the Arkenstone a 💎Silmaril?

[Olorgando]

Galadriel was never Feanor's match in skill of craft or fire of heart.

I never doubted that. But even in "skill of craft", Fëanor was (almost) one-dimensional: a smith. You might object that Fëanor did more than just create jewels (and don't forget that he was the first Elf in Aman to create weapons!), that he also contributed vastly to what we might call Elven "philology" (something that would make him sympathetic to JRRT). To that I reply with a term I have heard coined for JRRT in real life, a "word-smith", here clearly meant in the fine-arts version of gold- or silversmith. But I utterly refuse to limit a definition of Elven greatness to the very narrow field of Fëanor's positive traits (and is forging weapons in Aman positive?) while ignoring the vastly greater field of his deficits.

Leadership? Here Galadriel is better even at the rebellion of the Noldor, and that grows to orders of magnitude over time. Fëanor was a total failure as a leader. Leadership does not consist of bellowing "Charge!" and then doing so blindly. What Fëanor did with his utterly brain-dead oath. Or, as you have posted speculatively (if I could just find the thread - meh!), that had Fëanor just waited for his seven sons and not charged in a blind fury to the gates of Angband as described in the published Silmarillion, chapter 13 (oops?) of the Quenta section, "Of the Return of the Noldor", things might have been different? I doubt it very seriously. As JRRT wrote it - and you mention of "fire of heart" above seems to me to go in the same direction - such rational considerations were apparently not something Fëanor was capable of. His mortal (properly Hröa-destroying) wounding before the gates of Angband was practically inevitable.

Feanor did what he had to do...

As per JRRT's concept of him, yes. But the following passage in the published Sil sums up Fëanor for me irrevocably:

"And looking out from the slopes of Ered Wethrin with his last sight he beheld far off the peaks of Thangorodrim, mightiest of the towers of Middle-earth, and knew with the foreknowledge of death that no power of the Noldor would ever overthrow them; but he cursed the name of Morgoth thrice, and laid it upon his sons to hold to their oath, and to avenge their father."

Excuse me? This is scorched-earth in its purest form. I assume that I do not need to tell you which rabid human lunatics did likewise, including a very current one. Whatever Fëanor's creation of the three Silmarils may have achieved artistically, they were not just ambivalent in Middle-earth, they led to destruction that relatively exceeded the 20th century's two world wars. Fëanor defines unbridled arrogance to me just short of the ultimate nihilist Melkor.

 

[Olorgando]

... I think Feanor's great hope was that the Valar he once dwelt with would come to his aid and his grief and his pain. ...

Would that maximum psychopath below Morgoth (Sauron was much more reasonable) have done the same for anyone who had rejected / offended his (this applies solely to Fëanor) rampaging megalomania? Not a chance in a zillion. Once again, with your hypothesized "hope" on the part of Fëanor, you are very, very deep in fan-fiction territory, supported by zero writing by the Tolkien Family.

 

[Olorgando]

1. Since when has Stephen Fry been acknowledged as a JRRT expert in any fashion? Granted, I may have missed that, so quotes would help ...
2. I'm not in the least offended by any of your posts. I vociferously disagree with some of them, as you must have noticed by now.
2a. On a more fundamental level, I have come to the conclusion that "taking offence" is one of the most idiotic human responses.
3. You have mentioned your speculation in several of your posts. We (and I certainly include myself in being guilty of this) speculate about the gaps in JRRT's writing, which are many. But by my definition, any such filling of gaps is fan-fiction. You may disagree, with which I have no quibble. But then we must agree to disagree, I would think.

 

[Velotor]

i thought the silmaril were crafted out of the two trees of valinor in the age of the trees by Feanor waaaaay before the arkenstone was found in the depths of the lonely mountain. I doubt that one silmaril would have been planted all the way in the east under the lonely mountain, in a time when nobody was living in or near the mountain. hope i could help

 

[Evafey]

No, all the silmarils are completely lost. *Feanor boos in distance*
However, what is the arkenstone if not a silmaril and how come and it possesses such a power is an interesting question.

 

[Olorgando]

No, all the silmarils are completely lost. *Feanor boos in distance*
However, what is the arkenstone if not a silmaril and how come and it possesses such a power is an interesting question.

As Fëanor has spent tons of time with Námo Mandos, perhaps the latter has let him in on some further prophecies than the ones JRRT bandied about confusingly and inconclusively ...

But as to the power of the Arkenstone ... I don't recall JRRT giving much detail about it, perhaps its effect just a bit more than the gold-sickness affecting the Dwarves and others; the latter perhaps intensified by Smaug's having used it as a bed for some centuries? 🤔

 

[Elthir]

According to a Mannish "hope" -- Yeshua/Isa/Jesus/Hǣlend will undo the Marring of Arda . . . without needing the Silmarils, I'm guessing.

Yes. I said it

 

[Olorgando]

According to a Mannish "hope" -- Yeshua/Isa/Jesus/Hǣlend will undo the Marring of Arda . . . without needing the Silmarils, I'm guessing.

Yes. I said it

The aging JRRT creeping closer to the kind of explicit allegory that he (earlier?) found distasteful in C.S. Lewis's "Narnia" writings ... 😒

 

[Elthir]

Despite me "saying it" I do wonder if Tolkien would have ultimately published The Arthabeth in its current form -- although that said too, JRRT did write that it should be the last item in an Appendix
to the Silmarillion.

Gando wrote: "The aging JRRT creeping closer . . ."

Well, we are all aging

But that made me wonder, when was the Old Hope initially written?

Christopher Tolkien refers to the existence of original draft material for the Athrabeth -- the chief element for this being a small bundle of slips made from Merton College documents of 1955: "but it is plain my father was following an earlier text, no longer extant." And indeed in this draft (text A) we find the idea that Eru himself will enter into Arda and heal Men and all the Marring.

However, Christopher Tolkien warns that his father could have simply (later) used documents dated 1955, and generally dates the Athrabeth at 1959 (he finds a later date possible but "very unlikely") -- while also allowing that 1955 could represent initial work on the Athrabeth -- and keeping in mind this earlier, no longer extant text!

If 1955 we're in the same year, of course, that The Return of the King was published. And even at 1959, we are hardly in what I would call Tolkien's "late writings" period, characterized as 1968 or later.

Not that anyone said otherwise . . . bjust sayin'

 

[Olorgando]

Gando wrote: "The aging JRRT creeping closer . . ."
Well, we are all aging

Technically, from the day we're born ...

But I meant, and I'm pretty sure you (and others) understood it in the usual sense, a later phase of the slow descent towards decrepitude which starts roughly at age 18 for some aspects.
JRRT finished writing LoTR the text in 1949, at age 57, after 12 years of his usual laborious mode of writing (see HoMe volumes 6 to 8 and part of 9 for details).
He then wasted some years in an unnecessary spat with GA&U and a fruitless detour with Collins.
RoTK was published (with serious delay for appendices) when he was 63, and 1959 was the year he also retired from Oxford at 67 (finally an age beyond my current one! 😬 ).
I retired a lot earlier (end of my active phase with the company over four years ago) for several good reasons, which have only gotten better in retrospect.
So I definitely know about aging first-hand - none of the accompanying side-effects having made my disposition "sunnier" even in the almost two years I have been grumping around TTF (as you may have noticed if you have been paying very close attention ... 😜 ... Squint-eyed Southerner could give you helpful pointers from hundreds and hundreds of PMs 😬 )

And I'd love to blame that on Morgoth, too, but I don't see that as being understood by anyone I have contact with regularly (some few might ask me if he was an Ostrogoth or a Visigoth; most would probably ask questions about an obscure - to me - "music sect" )

 

[m4r35n357]

And I'd love to blame that on Morgoth, too, but I don't see that as being understood by anyone I have contact with regularly (some few might ask me if he was an Ostrogoth or a Visigoth; most would probably ask questions about an obscure - to me - "music sect" )

So can I take it you would prefer to hear less Goth, or are you expressing interest?

 

[Olorgando]

So can I take it you would prefer to hear less Goth, or are you expressing interest?

Actually, I'm not sure I ever heard anything by a band belonging to this musical splinter group (I have the vague impression that the music business consists of nothing but splinter groups by now ...). What very little I've heard of post-1975 music that doesn't have its roots here would make me guess that my interest is minimal.

 

[Katia0203]

As much as I wish it was a Silmaril (because that would be really cool), it just can't be one. The location where it was found is too far from where Maedhros jumped into the fiery chasm, mortals (some with evil intent) held it without being burned, and it is possible Thranduil would have recognized it (if we believe he is from Doriath, but I'm not sure where I saw that) and identified it to everyone.
So yeah, I wish it was, but sadly it's not. I really enjoyed all the posts in this thread, and found them very interesting!

 

[HALETH✒🗡]

Maria Shteinman (who works as a professor at HSE University) said that Arkenstone probably could be one of the Silmarils. What do you think about it?

 

[Olorgando]

Maria Shteinman (who works as a professor at HSE University) said that Arkenstone probably could be one of the Silmarils. What do you think about it?

There's been a similar discussion:

Is the Arkenstone a 💎Silmaril?

I wonder if anyone else has heard this. I did a bit of digging and learned, to my amazement, that a Silmaril lies within the Arkenstone. So that whole time everyone was holding the darned thing, a legendary artifact of Morgoth's time lay inside. My question: How in the hell did it go...

thetolkien.forum

 

[Elthir]

According to a Mannish "hope" -- Yeshua/Isa/Jesus/Hǣlend will undo the Marring of Arda . . . without needing the Silmarils, I'm guessing.

By the way, just to clarify, I don't consider Isa the same being as Yeshua/Jesus. I guess I was thinking simply about names here. And with this post I'm not trying to spark any debate (with a Muslim or anyone else) concerning the Christian Trinity -- I'm just clarifying my own earlier post. And of course, Tolkien himself was a Trinitarian.

My earlier post was also a bit tongue-in-cheek with respect to Tolkien possibly publishing the idea of the Old Hope. First, I note what I noted above: "Despite me "saying it" I do wonder if Tolkien would have ultimately published The Arthabeth in its current form -- although that said too, JRRT did write that it should be the last item in an Appendix to the Silmarillion."

And here, please see Christopher Tolkien's full commentary in Morgoth's Ring, especially from the section publishing an isolated slip C, taken from a document dated 1955, which includes Tolkien's phrase "a parody of Christianity" [see page 354, first edition HMC hardcover, Morgoth's Ring], especially CJRT's last paragraph of this commentary, just before the notes.

In any case, to state the obvious, the Athrabeth is not the last item in an appendix to the 1977 constructed Silmarillion, however one interprets that fact in itself.



Anyway, with respect to the topic: Is the Arkenstone a Silmaril? In my opinion. . .

. . . no

 

[HALETH✒🗡]

I find it unlikely, given that only someone with the right could hold a Silmaril unharmed. Even Morgoth and the sons of Feanor couldn't hold it without pain, so it would be odd that all these seemingly unimportant individuals could handle it willy-nilly.

How do we know that Morgoth and the sons of Feanor couldn't hold a Silmaril without pain? Where can we find this information? Excuse me, maybe I should reread "The Silmarillion" but I don't remember this detail. Anyway, maybe Morgoth couldn't hold it because he wasn't good enough, he was evil. Just like in LOTR the things made by elves were too painful to hold for Gollum. Morgoth probably couldn't coup with the light of the Silmarils. In addition, the qualities of the Silmarils could change after so long time.

 

[Olorgando]

How do we know that Morgoth and the sons of Feanor couldn't hold a Silmaril without pain? Where can we find this information? Excuse me, maybe I should reread "The Silmarillion" but I don't remember this detail.

Silmarillion chapter 9 "Of the Flight of the Noldor" (p 85 in my 1999 paperback edition):
"In his right hand Morgoth held close the Silmarils, and though they were locked in a crystal casket, they had begun to burn him, and his hand was clenched in pain; ..."
ibid p 86:
"His hands were burned black by the touch of those hallowed jewels, and black they remained ever after; nor was he ever free from the pain of the burning, and the anger of the pain."
Chapter 24 "Of the Voyage of Eärendil and the War of Wrath" (p 305):
"But the jewel burned the hand of Maedhros in pain unbearable; and he perceived that it was as Eönwë had said, and that his right thereto had become void, and that the oath was vain. And being in anguish and despair he cast himself into a gaping chasm filled with fire (presaging Gollum?), and so ended; and the Silmaril that he bore was taken into the bosom of the earth.
And it is told of Maglor that he could not endure the pain with which the Silmaril tormented him; and he cast it at last into the sea, and thereafter he wandered ever upon the shores, singing in pain and regret beside the waves."