# Is the Arkenstone a Silmaril?



## CirdanLinweilin (May 18, 2016)

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 unnoticed, especially by Thranduil and Gandalf! Particularly Gandalf!

(Anyone may feel free to correct me on anything in this post!!)

-CL


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## Deleted member 12094 (May 20, 2016)

CirdanLinweilin said:


> 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.
> 
> ...



Is it ok for you to ask where/how you found this?


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## CirdanLinweilin (May 20, 2016)

I've been keeping tabs on the argument. It actually seems pretty popular.

Although I have been debunked already: This is from Tolkien Gateway 'Misconceptions'


The Arkenstone was a Silmaril, probably the one thrown into a fiery pit by Maedhros, and found its way (geologically?) to the north, to be rediscovered by the Khazad of Erebor. Tolkien wrote that the two lost Silmarils would remain lost until the end of Arda. However, in a partial translation of early Silmarillion texts into Old English Tolkien used the etymologically related term 'Eorclanstanas' ('holy stones') to translate 'Silmarils' - suggesting that he may have borrowed the name and other concepts from the Silmarils in describing the Arkenstone.
A Silmaril is a gemstone hallowed by Varda which would not suffer the touch of mortal or evil hands.[4] It only allowed Beren to handle it, but Beren also lost the hand that held it. Many mortals handled the Arkenstone without a consequence, and they did not all have good intent. It would have burned them and possibly burned Smaug if it were truly a Silmaril. As attractive as this theory is, because it would have made the Arkenstone such a poignant element in _The Hobbit_, it can only be, at best, Silmaril-like or Silmaril-inspired. The latter being the most likely case. It is not a Silmaril.

Just ignore my post. I feel so stupid now. Ah well, lesson learned.


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## Yalerd (Jan 8, 2018)

Complete speculation. EVEN IF the Arkenstone was some mutation of the Silmaril Maedhros spent, you'd assume it would be in Beleriand or somewhere even remotely West, not in Erebor, over 2.5 major mountain ranges East.

Is TProphecies going to copy and paste this post everywhere?


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## CirdanLinweilin (Jan 8, 2018)

Yalerd said:


> Complete speculation. EVEN IF the Arkenstone was some mutation of the Silmaril Maedhros spent, you'd assume it would be in Beleriand or somewhere even remotely West, not in Erebor, over 2.5 major mountain ranges East.
> 
> Is TProphecies going to copy and paste this post everywhere?




I did more research and found this theory flawed, this was an early post of mine, sorry.

Yeah, I'm considering his posts spam at this point...

CL


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## Yalerd (Jan 9, 2018)

Oh, gotcha Cirdan. I've never had so much giddiness over talking M.E. with people I'm responding without checking dates!


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## CirdanLinweilin (Jan 9, 2018)

Yalerd said:


> Oh, gotcha Cirdan. I've never had so much giddiness over talking M.E. with people I'm responding without checking dates!



All's good!

That giddiness is good!

CL


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## Elthir (Jan 9, 2018)

CirdanLinweilin said:


> All's good!
> 
> That giddiness is good!
> 
> CL



True!

I like to see it!

Silliness too...

... at least a sprinkle now and again to offset any serious Balrog wing discussions


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## Deleted member 12094 (Jan 9, 2018)

May I write some appreciative things here:


CirdanLinweilin showed great decency by admitting a small error. True netiquette, great manners! Saw it, liked it, waw!
Trash from TProphecies was removed from this site. Moderators are working here!

While exploring these great books first time, people who are "beginners" could be sidetracked easily by wild contributions.

This tread actually reminds me of an unrelated forum I was interested in for some time: someone put in some porn and it did not get removed because nobody was caring about monitoring that forum. Moderating an internet forum is an all-out important quality aspect. It's the root value of any internet forum, in my view.

So thumbs up for the moderators here!


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## BalrogRingDestroyer (Feb 20, 2018)

In one of my own fanfiction ideas, I suggested that the Arkenstone was part of one of the busted lamps that predated the Sun and Moon and that the heroes tried to put those lamps back together and defeat Morgoth, who returned in Dagor what's it's face (Middle Earth Armageddon.)

However , on Youtube, I did find this about the Arkenstone and the idea of it being a Simiral:


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## Spirit of Fire (Jun 20, 2020)

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.


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## Ealdwyn (Jun 21, 2020)

Ever had that feeling where you read the thread title of the latest posts and have a WAIT. _WHAT???_ moment? 😂


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## Spirit of Fire (Jun 21, 2020)

Ealdwyn said:


> Ever had that feeling where you read the thread title of the latest posts and have a WAIT. _WHAT???_ moment? 😂



Never in this thread.


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## Miguel (Jun 21, 2020)

I think it would have been cool if it was, Nogrod dwarves went nuts about it just like Thorin did but the crazyness that a Silmaril caused over those dwarves was greater than that of the Arken stone. In my mind, a single Silmaril could illuminate great sections of caverns while the Arken stone could not so the sight of Morgoth was even more terrifying to them orcs etc, as if he was wearing a super bright chandelier in his head


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## Spirit of Fire (Jun 21, 2020)

It would be an interesting tie-in to the Silmarillion, just like Smaug. But the gaps with this theory leave no room for suspension of disbelief. The fact that these characters are able to hold the stone without harm seems to dash the hopeful, but ultimately untrue theory.


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## wsx04321 (Dec 30, 2020)

I think that it's somewhat of a lesser Silmaril. Because when mortals touch the true Silmarils they burn (Well that's what I believe anyway).


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## m4r35n357 (Dec 30, 2020)

CirdanLinweilin said:


> 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.
> 
> ...


No, it is _not_ a silmaril. They shone with the light of the two trees, and were all lost long ago and far away. The Arkenstone is merely a gem.

See: http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Misconceptions#The_Arkenstone_was_a_Silmaril


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## Hisoka Morrow (Dec 31, 2020)

Just use some common sense, if it really was, everyone would consider the One Ring as feces. The Valinor light wrapped by the Similari had been proved as the Key that why Noldor armed forces had been all bad ass so lethal that even Balrogs had been being bulleted like a piece of cake by them. In comparison with the One Ring, the Similari was obviously the much worthier target to hunt.


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## ZehnWaters (Jan 13, 2021)

It should also be noted that the dwarves were said to have shaped the Arkenstone, something impossible if it was a Silmaril (only Fëanor could have broken those open, and it wouldn't have needed shaping anyhow).


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## Olorgando (Jan 16, 2021)

Azanathel of Emyn Uial said:


> Feanor was the Greatest of ALL elves in Arda, although he would spend little time in Middle-Earth before his death.


Galadriel was his match, and immensely wiser even in Aman, never mind later.


Azanathel of Emyn Uial said:


> Even Aule himself, the Vala of Craft was bewildered by the works of Feanor Son of Finwe.


Citation from published works, please?


Azanathel of Emyn Uial said:


> In my opinions.... Feanor was not evil at all.


Totally disagree. We have a sort of "dark lord" for all four of the Eruhini (as the Valar and Maiar certainly also are):

Valar - Melkor
Maiar - Sauron
Elves - Fëanor
Men - Túrin

Who's a bit of the "odd man out"?

Sauron, the only one capable of rational thought in some measure. The other three register near zero on any self-control meter.


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## Olorgando (Jan 18, 2021)

Azanathel of Emyn Uial said:


> 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.


Azanathel of Emyn Uial said:


> 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.


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## Olorgando (Jan 18, 2021)

Azanathel of Emyn Uial said:


> ... 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.


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## Olorgando (Jan 18, 2021)

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.


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## Velotor (Jul 16, 2021)

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


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## Evafey (Jul 26, 2021)

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.


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## Olorgando (Jul 27, 2021)

Evafey said:


> 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? 🤔


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## Elthir (Jul 27, 2021)

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


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## Olorgando (Jul 27, 2021)

Elthir said:


> 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 ... 😒


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## Elthir (Jul 27, 2021)

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 ag*ing* 

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'


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## Olorgando (Jul 27, 2021)

Elthir said:


> *Gando* wrote: _"The aging JRRT creeping closer . . ."_
> Well, we are all ag*ing*


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"  )


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## m4r35n357 (Jul 27, 2021)

Olorgando said:


> 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?


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## Olorgando (Jul 27, 2021)

m4r35n357 said:


> 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.


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## Katia0203 (Aug 12, 2021)

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!


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