Mithril

Etymology The name comes from two words in Tolkien's Sindarin language—, meaning "grey", and , meaning "glitter". A little later the narrator describes "a small coat of mail, wrought for some young elf-prince long ago. It was of silver-steel which the elves call mithril". and the inaccessible continent of Aman. In the first 1937 edition, the mail shirt given to Bilbo Baggins is described as being made of "silvered steel". Bilbo wore the mithril shirt during the Battle of the Five Armies. When Sam Gamgee believed Frodo to be dead outside Shelob's Lair, he left the shirt with Frodo. Frodo was taken by the orcs, who fought over the shirt. Frodo was saved, but one of the orcs escaped with the shirt. In both Tolkien's and Peter Jackson's versions, the shirt was, along with Frodo's other possessions, shown to Frodo's allies at the Battle of the Morannon to imply falsely that he was imprisoned in Barad-dûr. Gandalf took the shirt and other tokens, but refused any offer of parley. At the end of the story, Frodo wore the shirt at the celebrations and on the trip home. The shirt saved his life one last time when Saruman, who had taken over the Shire, tried to stab Frodo after Frodo spared his life. When he left to sail to Elvenhome, he gave all his possessions to Sam. The guards of the citadel of Minas Tirith wore helmets of mithril, "heirlooms from the glory of old days". They were the only soldiers in Gondor who still bore the emblems of the lost kings during the days of the stewards. As Aragorn's ships sailed up the Anduin to relieve the besieged Minas Tirith during the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, the standard flying on his ship showed a crown made of mithril and gold. After Gimli became lord of Aglarond, he and his Dwarves forged great gates of mithril and steel to replace the gates of Minas Tirith, which had been broken by the Witch-king of Angmar. The Elendilmir, the Star of Arnor, was a "white star of Elvish crystal upon a fillet of mithril". It was made for Silmariën, mother of Valandil; it passed down to Elendil. The linguist of Elvish languages Anthony Appleyard wrote that this machine, with "no shaven oar nor sail", was evidently of an advanced technology, "sound[ing] suspiciously like most people's image of a spaceship." == Analysis ==

Origins Norse culture contains myths of impenetrable armour, such as the shirt made by elves and used in battle by Örvar-Oddr (Ørvar Odd), as related in the Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks. The saga was translated by Christopher Tolkien, with a commentary, and his father was certainly familiar with the text. of Kimberley Diamond Mine in South Africa, 1885. Tolkien was born near deep mines, and may have chosen to use them in his fiction. Metallurgy The chemist Suze Kundu describes mithril as a metal, a pure chemical element with "a range of amazing chemical and physical properties" not matched by any real metal, and many applications. Of those that approach it, titanium is light (has a low density) and strong, but it is not malleable (able to be beaten into shape) like mithril. In Kundu's view the nearest material would be a stainless steel alloy of iron with enough nano-scale carbon to make it hard. The metallurgist James Owen suggests that Mithril could be "an fcc [face-centred cubic] metal like aluminium or nickel, or possibly a bcc [body-centred cubic]" metal like titanium". The geologist William Sarjeant, however, notes that mithril crystallises out "at so high a temperature that it is only found in veins at great depths", and proposes that it may be a native alloy of platinum with another metal, which might be palladium. Significance The scholar of English literature Charles A. Huttar writes that mithril was the only mineral that Tolkien invented. He notes that in Tolkien's underworld, whether the caves at Helm's Deep or the mines of Moria, "beauty and terror [were] side by side". Greed for mithril could unleash the terror of the Balrog, by digging too far down into the dark realm, but at the same time, he writes, the metal was prized for both its beauty and its usefulness, yielding the best armour. He compares the Dwarves' greed for mithril with that of the Barrow-wights for treasure, and indeed that of the dragons in The Hobbit and Beowulf for gold. In his view, these symbolise the evil "inherent in the mineral treasures hidden in the womb of Earth", The name "mithril" (also spelt mith, mithral, or mythril) is used in multiple fictional contexts influenced by Tolkien. For example, the Final Fantasy game series, begun in 1987, involves dwarves and mithril. == References ==