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thranduillion
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Post The Arkenstone - What is it really?
on: April 10, 2014 05:49
Hello all!
So I've just recently finished the Silmarillion, and ever since there's been a question tickling my mind.

Do we really know what the Arkenstone is, other then the "Heart of the Mountain?" At the end of "Of The Voyage of Eärendil," Maedhros casts himself and one of the Silmarils into a "gaping chasm filled with fire, and so ended; and the Silmaril that he bore was taken into the bosom of the Earth."

Now I don't know about any of you, but the Arkenstone was the first thing I thought of when I read that last bit. Is there a possibility that two are one in the same?
I could go a lot farther into this, what with all the similarities and differences, but I'd love to hear someone else's thoughts first.

So what do you think; could the Arkenstone be the Silmaril Maedhros took with him into the earth?

(I'm not exactly an expert on any of this so I could be horribly wrong, but there's no harm in asking, eh?)

[Edited on 04/11/2014 by thranduillion]
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cirdaneth
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on: April 11, 2014 01:58
Gosh Thranduilion! That's a tricky one. It would be neat to think so, wouldn't it, but ... a number of people touched it in The Hobbit, without suffering ill effects so it probably isn't a Silmaril. It might, however, be one of Feanor's early experimental pieces which found its way to middle earth, but was not subject to the oath and its curse. What do others think?
Gandolorin
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on: April 11, 2014 01:02
Beleriand was drowned after the Great Battle, so the forces of Aman must have camped in Eriador before the return voyage of the Elves to the West, or the voyage of the Edain to Númenor. And my guess is that they would have stayed in the west of Eriador. The statement that Maglor threw his Silmaril into the sea would seem to support this. Because of that I would think that Maedhros, suffering the same burning of his hand for touching "his" Silmaril as Maglor did for "his", would not have traveled far to find his fiery chasm (and would not have had to, such opportunities would have been much more numerous on the edge of destroyed Beleriand than farther inland).
So assuming that Maedhros's Silmaril had been cast into lava on the western edge of Eriador, how does it travel the hundreds of miles underground to the Lonely Mountain? Especially, how does it manage to get past the Misty Mountains underground?
Free-form wild imagination: of course Aulë lent a helping hand!
Ah ... no, the Valar definitely decided to stop "meddling" in Middle Earth after the Great Battle.
(this is Friday evening, so) Free-form wild imagination squared: the Balrog of Moria is the only one to become known to us, and was a baddie. The others (numbers unknown) somehow helped to transport Maedhros's Silmaril to the Lonely Mountain. They were doing a sort of penance in this ...

I think I'd better head over to the Games Forum now ...
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thranduillion
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on: April 11, 2014 01:24
Ahh, thanks Cirdaneth, I hadn't thought about the effects of touching it! But that's a good theory about it maybe being one of Feanor's experimental pieces. I suppose it's plausible that some of his works other than the Silmarils made their way to Middle Earth and were lost when the land was changed.
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thranduillion
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on: April 11, 2014 01:30
Good point about the location, Gandolorin. So it's pretty much definitely not a Silmaril, then! Still love Cirdaneth's theory, though! Any other ideas about what the Arkenstone might be out there?
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tarcolan
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on: April 11, 2014 03:09
I am no linguist but I notice the similarity between the words Arkenstone and Oakenshield, especially the source word Eikinskjaldi from the Norse, found in the Icelandic Eddas ('Voluspa: The Vala's Prophesy' which also has the names of the dwarves). Perhaps it was a subliminal trigger when inventing the Arkenstone.

Tolkien always said that aspects of the greater legendarium inevitably leaked into The Hobbit, and as the Silmarils were already created when making up the story perhaps he 'borrowed' the idea of a powerful jewel, never thinking it would one day be published.
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Elthir
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on: April 16, 2014 06:10
Gandolorin said: Beleriand was drowned after the Great Battle, so the forces of Aman must have camped in Eriador before the return voyage of the Elves to the West, or the voyage of the Edain to Númenor. And my guess is that they would have stayed in the west of Eriador. (...)'



The Drowning of Beleriand is itself a knotty subject when we look at the existing references and external details. At one point Christopher Tolkien generally noted:

'What little was ever told of the Drowning of Beleriand is very difficult to interpret; the idea shifted and changed, but my father never at any stage clearly expounded it.'


In a version of the Silmarillion, for example, there are great isles left after the drowning:

'In those days there was a great building of ships upon the shores of the Western Sea, and especially upon the great isles, which, in the disruption of the northern world, were fashioned of ancient Beleriand.'

JRRT Quenta Silmarillion, the third version, nearing completion at the end of 1937


It is also said in this version that not all the Elves were willing to forsake the 'Hither Lands' and some lingered in the West and North, and 'especially in the western isles and in the land of Leithien.'

Leithien is England (or was)!

And the western isles probably were the British Isles (at one point) or included them. In the 'Earliest Silmarillion' for example, also called The Sketch of the Mythology (S), and in the Qenta Noldorinwa of 1930 (Q), it was said:

S: 'The Northern and Western parts of the world are rent and broken in the struggle [added in pencil] and the fashion of the lands altered. (...) The Elves march to the Western Shore, and begin to set sail from Leithien (Britain or England) for Valinor.'

Q: this part of the Qenta has two versions, and QI reads: '... and most upon the great isles...' revised in QII to read: '... and especially upon the great isles...' (as above, in the '1937 version').


Tolkien would later revise this sentence a bit, essentially removing the word 'especially' from the earlier version; but Christopher Tolkien warns that the fact that he did so need not imply a final approval of content.

Of course after The Lord of the Rings was completed in the early 1950s the British Isles were no longer a surviving part of drowned Beleriand. But JRRT did not return to this section of Quenta Silmarillion again with any real attention -- he never truly updated this section.

Tolkien did make a manuscript Tale of Years that was essentially a fair copy with fuller entries of an earlier pre-Lord of the Rings version. In this he wrote [which doesn't indicate later date changes]:

540 'The last free Elves and remnants of the Fathers of Men are driven out of Beleriand and take refuge in the Isle of Balar.

547 The Host of Valar comes up out of the West (...)

550-597 The last war of the Elder Days, and the Great Battle, is begun. In this war Beleriand is broken and destroyed. Morgoth is at last utterly overcome (...) and the last two Silmarils are regained.

597 Maidros and Maglor, last surviving sons of Feanor, seize the Silmarils. (...)

600 The Elves and the Fathers of Men depart from Middle-earth and pass over Sea. (...)'


The matter is actually more complicated than that, so for now I'll just say...

... the Arkenstone is a great jool fashioned by Dwarves
Gandolorin
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on: April 16, 2014 11:27
Elthir said:
The matter is actually more complicated than that, so for now I'll just say...

... the Arkenstone is a great jool fashioned by Dwarves



That would make another point where PJ gets his "History" wrong (I LOVE picking on him on this aspect, though he offers so many exposed flanks that the "sport" to be had comes close to shooting fish in a barrel. ) In AuJ the Dwarves clearly FIND the Arkenstone. In the original Hobbit book it was naturally simply some nice sparkly thingy.
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tarcolan
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on: April 16, 2014 12:05
But fairest of all was the great white gem, which the dwarves had found beneath the roots of the Mountain, the Heart of the Mountain, the Arkenstone of Thrain.
- 'The Hobbit, Inside Information'
True, it doesn't say it was mined but I think it's reasonable to assume it wasn't just sitting there.
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Elthir
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on: April 17, 2014 07:26
I also mean fashioned in this sense...

'... cut and fashioned by the Dwarves, who had dug it from the heart of the mountain long ago, it took all light that...'

JRRT, The Hobbit
tarcolan
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on: April 17, 2014 10:50
So there are four main reasons why the Arkenstone isn't a Silmaril:
1. Even if a Silmaril could have ended up under the roots of the Mountain, it would not need to be fashioned.
2. The Dwarves could not have fashioned it anyway.
3. The Silmarils had an internal light of their own, unlike the Arkenstone.
4. Tolkien didn't mention it being a Silmaril.

However, on looking into the earliest versions of the 'Annals of Valinor' in HoME IV which were written in Old English, the term used for Silmarils is Eorclanstánas (possibly Holy Stone). CT states that the name of the Arkenstone was derived from this. So the jewel was obviously inspired by the Silmarils. It also says in LOTR Appendix A that Thrain himself discovered the jewel.
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Gandolorin
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on: April 17, 2014 11:45
Oh dear, PJ, you goofed again. In the film, it was a plain ol' miner.
Our favorite Kiwi has no reason to complain about my niggling, I just bought "Smaugs Einöde" (or Einoede for the umlaut-challenged).
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Elthir
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on: April 18, 2014 05:41
I thought a major reason some wondered if the Arkenstone was a Silmaril was its arguable inner light, but we now know that the gem contained an inner light even when it was a gift to the Dwarves, from Men.

In other words, the 'Gem of Girion' [as literary precursor to the Arkenstone] shone with its own light too -- in this earlier conception Girion had given the Gem in payment for the arming of his sons:

'It was a great white gem, that shone of its own inner light within, and yet cut and fashioned by the Dwarves to whom Girion had given it, it caught and splintered all light that it received...'

While The Dragon's Away, The History of The Hobbit part II, JD Rateliff


Plus, I'm not sure it's the only other gem [besides a Silmaril] or artifact that seemed to shine with an inner light -- if I recall correctly it's also not told how the Elendilmir [the one lost by Isildur, see Unfinished Tales] at least seems to shine of its own accord, or how certain blades glow blue in the presence of orcs -- although here one naturally assumes by some artistic power of the Elves.


It's said that the three Silmarils found their 'long homes' but that the joy of the victory of the War of Wrath was diminished

'... for they returned without the Silmarils from Morgoth's crown, and they knew that those jewels could not be found or brought together again unless the world be broken and remade.'


Of course one can always question the internal characters or scribes [as in something like: 'hey, what did the Vanyar know anyway'], but for me the finality here is desired by the author. And again for me, even if a Silmaril had somehow ended up on Celebrimbor's breast for example [himself at least a Feanorean], it still would have undermined the elegance to some degree. Celebrimbor is rather connected to the next great 'making', the Rings of Power.

To my mind the Silmarils 'reappearing' [well, obviously with Earendil in mind in any case] await the future within the legends of Men regarding the End Times. Tolkien, in 1951, writes to Milton Waldman [letter number 131].

'The jewels are recovered (by the final intervention of the gods) only to be lost for ever to the Elves, one in the sea, one in the deeps of earth, and one as a star of heaven. The legendarium ends with a vision of the end of the world, its breaking and remaking, and the recovery of the Silmarilli and the light 'before the Sun' -- after a final battle...'


In short: their future is [as different from finding their long homes as a/in the: Star/Sky, Sea, Earth], I think, legendary, major stuff.

Some measure of literary borrowing (or a better term that I can't think of at the moment) does not necessarily make the Arkenstone a Silmaril [not that anyone said it did], no more than it makes the Elven-king of The Hobbit 'Thingol' or an earlier incarnation.


No offense to Thorin and Company

[Edited on 04/18/2014 by Elthir]
Gandolorin
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on: April 20, 2014 01:00
If I recall rightly, the Noldor and Fëanor did not just think up gems all by themselves, but were inspired by gems they found in the earth. Now there is only one possible source for these, the Vala Aulë, who was the prime former of the solid earth in the Valaquenta. So the Arkenstone may be immensely older than the Silmarils, having been fashioned by Aulë himself. And Fëanor may have gotten part of his inspiration for the Silmarils from Aulë.The other part was the color of Galadriel's hair. Here Gimli trumps Fëanor, because he gets locks of Galadriel's hair, while she adamantly refused to give Fëanor even a single strand.
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