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TheSilmarils (Quenya in-universepl. Silmarilli[sil.maˈril.li],lit. 'radiance of pure light')[T 1] are three fictional brilliantjewels inJ. R. R. Tolkien'slegendarium, made by theElfFëanor, capturing the pure light of theTwo Trees of Valinor. The Silmarils play a central role inTolkien's bookThe Silmarillion, which tells of the creation ofEä (the universe) and the beginning ofElves,Dwarves andMen.
Tolkien, aphilologist, derived the idea of Silmarils, jewels that actually contained light, from theOld English wordSiġelwara; he concluded thatSiġel meant bothsun andjewel. Scholars have remarked on their similarities to theSampo in theKalevala and to theHoly Grail of Arthurian legend. They have described the Silmarils as embodying Elvish pride in their own creation, or a Biblical desire forknowledge of good and evil as in theGenesis story ofGarden of Eden.Verlyn Flieger analyzesThe Silmarillion as a story of splintering of the created light, which in her view Tolkien equates with God. The light is embodied first in two great lamps atop tall pillars to lightMiddle-earth. When these are destroyed, the light is held in theTwo Trees of Valinor, and Fëanor crafts the Silmarils using their light. When the trees are killed, the last available splinters of the created light in Middle-earth are the Silmarils. When the Silmarils are scattered, to Earth, Sea, and Sky, the skyborne one becomesEärendil's Star. The Elf-ladyGaladriel collects light from the star and captures a little of it in thePhial of Galadriel, which enables theHobbit protagonists ofThe Lord of the Rings to fulfil their quest.
J. R. R. Tolkien describes the history of the Silmarils inThe Silmarillion, published after but in fiction long preceding the events ofThe Lord of the Rings. The Silmarils—"the most renowned of all the works of the Elves"—are created byFëanor, a prince of the most skilful clan of Elves, theNoldor, from the light of theTwo Trees of Valinor.[3] The Silmarils are made of the crystalline substancesilima.[4]The Silmarils are hallowed by theValaVarda, who kindled the first stars, so that they would burn the hands of any evil creature or mortal who touched them without just cause.[T 2]
Together with the evil spiderUngoliant, the rebellious ValaMelkor destroys the Two Trees of Valinor.[T 3] Later, at the healing effort of the Valar, one of the trees bears a silver flower, and the other bears a golden fruit, just before they die. These are sent to the sky, and became the Sun and the Moon, to illuminateMiddle-earth against Melkor. But neither sphere radiates the original light of the trees, free of Ungoliant's poison.[T 4] The Silmarils then contain all the remaining unmarred light of the Two Trees. Therefore, the Valar entreat Fëanor to give them up so they can restore the Trees, but he refuses. Then news comes that Melkor has killed Fëanor's fatherFinwë, the High King of theNoldor, and stolen the Silmarils. After this deed, Melkor flees from Valinor to his fortressAngband in the north of Middle-earth. Thereafter he wears the Silmarils in his Iron Crown.[T 5]
Fëanor is furious at Melkor, whom he namesMorgoth, "Dark Enemy of the World", and at the Valar's desire to take the gems for their own purposes. Together with hisseven sons he swears theOath of Fëanor, which binds them to fight anyone who withholds the Silmarils from them. This terrible oath results in much future trouble including mass murder and the war of Elf against Elf.[T 5] Fëanor leads many of the Noldor back to Middle-earth. His flight, during theFirst Age of Middle-earth, leads to unending grief for the Elves and eventually for theMen of Middle-earth.[T 5] Five major battles are fought inBeleriand, but ultimately the Noldor and all the people who took the oath fail in their attempt to regain the Silmarils from Morgoth.[T 6][T 7][T 8]
One of the Silmarils is recovered byBeren and Lúthien through great peril and loss, when Lúthien sends Morgoth to sleep with her singing and Beren cuts it from his crown. The werewolfCarcharoth attacks them as they leave Angband and swallows Beren's hand containing the Silmaril; this drives Carcharoth mad. He is killed byHuan the Hound, who dies from his wounds, and the Elf-captain Mablung cuts the Silmaril out.[T 10] It is taken to the Valar in the West byEärendil, heir of Beren and Lúthien, as a token of repentance for Fëanor's rebellion. The Valar then set this Silmaril as a star in the sky: it is fixed to the mast of Eärendil's ship, forever sailing across the sky.[T 9] The other two gems remain in Morgoth's hands, until they are taken from him by a servant of the ValaManwë at the end of theWar of Wrath. However, soon afterwards, they are stolen by Fëanor's two remaining sons,Maedhros and Maglor, as they try to fulfil the oath they had sworn so many years before. But the jewels burn their hands, in denial of their rights of possession, as they had burned Morgoth's hands before. In agony, Maedhros throws himself and his Silmaril into a fiery pit, and Maglor throws his Silmaril into the sea. Thus the Silmarils remainin the sea, the earth, and the sky—their light present but inaccessible to those in Middle-earth.[T 9]
According to a prophecy ofMandos, following Melkor's final return and defeat in theDagor Dagorath (Battle of Battles), the world will be changed and the Silmarils will be recovered by the Valar. Then Fëanor will be released from the Halls of Mandos, and he will giveYavanna the Silmarils. She will break them, and with their light she will revive the Two Trees. ThePelóri Mountains will be flattened, and the light of the Two Trees will fill the world in eternal bliss.[T 11][T 12]
The idea of the Silmaril is connected to Tolkien'sphilological exploration of the Old English wordSiġelwara, which was used in theOld EnglishCodex Junius to mean "Aethiopian".[6] Tolkien wondered why the Anglo-Saxons should have had a word with this meaning, and conjectured that it had once meant something else, which he explored in his essay "Sigelwara Land".[T 13]
He stated thatSiġel meant "bothsun andjewel", the former as it was the name of the Sunrune*sowilō (ᛋ), the latter from Latinsigillum, aseal.[T 13][5] He decided thatSigelwara's second component,Hearwa, was related to Old Englishheorð, "hearth", and ultimately to Latincarbō, "soot". He suggested this implied a class of demons "with red-hot eyes that emitted sparks and faces black as soot".[T 13] TheTolkien scholarTom Shippey states that this contributed to the sun-jewel Silmarils, and "helped to naturalise theBalrog" (a demon of fire).[7] The Aethiopians suggested to Tolkien theHaradrim, a dark southern race of men.[T 14]
Another likely origin is theSampo inElias Lönnrot's 1849Kalevala, a text that Tolkien studied with interest, thinking to use it in a story in 1914. The Tolkien scholar Jonathan B. Himes states that the Sampo is the "central mythic object" in theKalevala; it gave its owner "socio-economic supremacy".[8] He suggests that Tolkien reworked this into "the world war among all races of Middle-earth for the moral and terrestrial stability offered by the Silmarils".[8] He adds that Tolkien's approach was to present moral conflicts andmedieval pagan thought plainly; to fill in gaps from other sources; and to make the scale global. Tolkien's goal was tocreate a mythology through "feigned history". Lönnrot's account of the Sampo is vague, leading scholars to speculate as to its nature. One view is that it was "a world pillar which grinds like a gigantic mill under the 'decorated lid' of the sky."[8] Himes comments that Tolkien wanted something more comprehensible, so he chose to split the Sampo's parts into desirable objects. The pillar became theTwo Trees of Valinor with theirTree of life aspect, illuminating the world. The decorated lid became the brilliant Silmarils, which embodied all that was left of the light of the two Trees, thus tying the symbols together.[8]
The scholar of mythology and medieval literatureVerlyn Flieger writes that the similarities between the Sampo and the Silmarils are "obvious". She states that in both cases, the fates of the objects are "clear but their significance is ill-defined"; in particular, their "medium (light) is not congruent with the message (greed and possessiveness)." She adds that the Silmarils share attributes with theHoly Grail ofArthurian legend, being the "symbolic centre" of their story, having a "mystical dimension", being called "holy", and being the objects of "a life-changing quest". Unlike the Sampo, which brings wealth, the Silmarils bring pain, misfortune, and death, in her view contradicting their light-filled nature.[9]
Shippey comments that the Silmarils relate to the book's theme in a particular way: the sin of the Elves is not human pride, as in theBiblical fall, but their "desire to make things which will forever reflect or incarnate their own personality".[10] This Elvish form of pride leads Fëanor to forge the Silmarils, and, Shippey suggests, led Tolkien to write his fictions: "Tolkien could not help seeing a part of himself in Fëanor and Saruman, sharing their perhaps licit, perhaps illicit desire to 'sub-create'."[10]
The criticJane Chance views the Silmarils as "created things misused by their creators", like indeed theOne Ring inThe Lord of the Rings; and like it, they give their name to their book and help "to unify the entire mythology".[11] She sees the theme as straightforwardly Biblical, the Silmarils symbolising "the same desire forknowledge of good and evil witnessed in theGarden of Eden."[11]
Flieger states in her bookSplintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World that Tolkien equates light with God and theability to create.[12] In her view, the whole ofThe Silmarillion can be seen as a working-out of the theme of Man splintering the original white light of creation, resulting in many conflicts.[12]
| Age | Light | Jewels |
|---|---|---|
| Years of the Lamps | Illuin andOrmal atop tall pillars | |
| ending whenMelkor destroys both Lamps | ||
| Years of the Trees(First Age) | Two Trees of Valinor, giving light to Aman | Fëanor crafts 3Silmarils with light of the Two Trees. |
| ending when Melkor strikes the Two Trees, and the giant spiderUngoliant kills them | ||
| First Age(Years of the Sun) | Last flower and fruit of the Two Trees become the Moon and the Sun. | There is war over the Silmarils. |
| One Silmaril is buried in the Earth, one is lost in the Sea, one sails in the Sky asEärendil's Star.[a] | ||
| Third Age | Galadriel collects light of Eärendil's Star reflected inher fountain mirror. | |
| A little of that light is captured in thePhial of Galadriel. | ||
| HobbitsFrodo Baggins andSam Gamgee use the Phial to defeat the giant spiderShelob. | ||
The light begins inThe Silmarillion as a unity, and is divided into more and more fragments as the myth progresses. Middle-earth is peopled by the angelicValar and lit by two great lamps; when these are destroyed by the fallen ValaMelkor, the world is fragmented, and the Valar retreat toValinor, which is lit byThe Two Trees. When these too are destroyed, their last fragment of light is made into theSilmarils, and a sapling too is rescued, leading to the White Tree ofNúmenor, the living symbol of the Kingdom ofGondor. Wars are fought over the Silmarils, and they are lost to the Earth, the Sea, and the Sky, the last of these, carried byEärendil the Mariner, becoming theMorning Star. Some of the star's light is captured inGaladriel's Mirror, the magic fountain that allows her to see past, present, and future; and some of that light is, finally, trapped in thePhial of Galadriel, her parting gift toFrodo, protagonist inThe Lord of the Rings, to counterbalanceSauron's evil and powerful Ring that he also carries. At each stage, the fragmentation increases and the power decreases, echoing Tolkien's theme ofdecline and fall in Middle-earth.[14]
The Jungian analyst and author Pia Skogemann interprets the three Silmarils and their fiery maker Fëanor as amandala of the self, one ofseveral such mandalas which she sees in Tolkien's Middle-earth writings. The three Silmarils end up in the sky, the sea, and the earth, symbolising the elements of air, water, and earth; the Silmarils' unruly creator Fëanor completes the mandala as the element of fire.[15]
