New evidence for the Arkenstone-Silmaril case

[lindil]

Saucepan wrote:

Well, JRRT came out with The Hobbit before the Silmarillion. So, the arkenstone was, in reality, created (by JRRT) before the silmarils were. If JRRT wanted to have the arkenstone be a silmaril, then he would not have made the point that the silmarils could not be fasioned or cut, as the arkenstone was.

Even though the Hobbit was published after the Silmarillion, the silmarilli had already been written about in detail and in synopsis long before.

My own take on it is that Tolkien sub-conciously felt the Lost Tales/Silmarillion to be 'buried' and the Arkenstone was something of a sub-concious symbol of the whole earlier work, coming to the 'surface'.