Quote:
Originally Posted by Badenov
I just finished rereading The Hobbit, first time rereading since having read the Silmarillion some 25 years ago (I know, poor showing for a fan!), and I immediately jumped to the same conclusion: That gem seems awfully like a Silmaril!
So I jumped on the internet to see if anyone else had thought so, and Google brings me directly to this forum and this thread some nine years after its creation.
The parallels between the Arkenstone and the Silmarils are uncanny, and in addition, there is a great desire in any scholarly pursuit to unearth hidden connections.
A couple things first that seem important:
1. The size of the Arkenstone: It had to fit in Bilbo's pocket. And a hobbit's pocket can't be that big. Thorin was obsessing over the Arkenstone, if Bilbo had a big lump wrapped in a cloth in his pocket, Thorin would presumably have inquired. If not held him upside down and shaken him. It may not have fit entirely in the hand of a 3-foot person. But for a human, that's 2-4 years old. So, not a large hand at all. Age 3-6 years, if we assume a 3.5 foot height. So, much larger than your diamond wedding ring, but certainly no larger than, for instance, a superball. This isn't really perinent to if it's a silmaril, but I wanted to bring it up.
2. The others' reactions: The elvenking was wildly surprised, Gandalf not so much. Presumably Gandalf knew, or knew of, the Arkenstone from before Smaug drove the dwarves out of the Lonely Mountain. But he never mentions anything useful to regular folks, so what he keeps to himself could be anything.
3. No other stone that was made shone with inner light (I read that in this thread, and no one seemed to take issue with it).
4. While there's a lot of discussion on both sides of the 'the dwarves cut and shaped the Arkenstone' vs 'chipped off rock to expose what was inside', I think that 'finding a perfectly shaped stone in a shell of rock' would be remarkable enough in its own right to be remembered that way.
So I find my own opinion swaying from the initial OMG, it's a Silmaril!
But ...
What if the Arkenstone was a naturally occuring stone with it's own inner light? Not light from the Two Trees, but some natural source (Moonstone, or what have you). A similar stone might in turn have inspired the creation of the Silmarils, but brought to its most magnificent possible state, using the light of the Two Trees as its source rather than whatever lay within the Arkenstone type gem. Very little is said about their creation and what was going through Feanor's mind when he did so, even The Silmarillion presents his motives phrased as speculation.
Silmaril or not, it'd certainly catch the attention of the Elven king, for the similarity it shares. Even if he'd seen a silmaril, a naturally glowing gem has to be pretty unique. (I at first thought that since he was a Dark Elf and had not been to Valinor, he would not have seen a Silmaril before, but I gather from the posts in this thread that he had in fact seen them.)
And if the Arkenstone was a naturally-occuring (if wildly rare) gem, it might then have been possible for the dwarves to shape the raw gem into its magnificent state.
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This actually may bring up an interesting point. You have mentioned two possibilites for the Arkenstone, that is is a Simaril or natural. However there exists in ME a third possibility sort of in the middle,namely that the Arkenstone is not a Silmaril but it IS an Elf Gem, a product of Noldor craftmanship. Just bear with me now.
We know that the Noldor had the skills to make gems that while no where near a Silmaril in majesty were yet far fairer than any found naturally in the ground. Moreover many of these gems have unsual properties with regards to light. Some can transmit light (i.e. images), Such as the Palantiri, assuming you consider the Palantiri "gems" (they are described as being made of crystal, so they presumably fall into the definition). Some seem to be able to magnify light, like the Ellesar (The fact that Aragorn, when the fellowship parts at Isengard, is able to hold up the Elessar have the sun hit it and make a green fire so noticeable that it is remarked upon as being like fire by individuals sitting on
horses a fair distance away from him indicates properties above and beyond those of an ordinary chunk of emerald or even a green diamond (my own personal belif of what sort of stone the Ellesar is). There is Galadriel's vial (again it's crystal, so that may mean "gem" or not) which can call up light on cue (of course that light likey comes from the water but the case may help). Finally and most convicingly, I remeber reading somwhere in the
Unfinished Tales in one of the footnotes, that some elves had gems that did as the Arkenstone did, produced light
continually and were, kept in filligree holders and used as lanterns. Granted these don't match up exactly to the Arkenstone (they're described as blue and the Arkenstone is white) but the elves may have made more than one kind. Such a lantern gem, lost by an elf (they were made to sound fairly common and utiliarian at some point in elf history) buried deep and then found by the dwarves might fit the Arkenstone defintion nicely