But what is the precious ore, and where else have we seen it? Here’s everything you need to know about The Lord of the Rings‘ mithril. In The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, we are introduced to Mithril, a metal described as being stronger than steel but much lighter in weight. It is also shown to have a silver sheen and the crafting of it is implied to require greater skill than steel. Even if each link perfectly holds its shape, when a cave troll puts his bulk behind a spear, you have a spearhead-shaped piece of Mithril piercing your chest cavity nearly as deeply as the spearhead would have. Effectively, you have reduced the sharpness of the edge, but the pounds per square inch have not been reduced sufficiently to withstand the mass of a pissed-off cave troll and convert a potential puncture into a mere bruise.
The Rings of Power: What Is Mithril, and Why Is It Important?
This is curious, given how it’s easily recognized by the Elvish name in the events of LOTR. Perhaps this is due to the lasting friendship Elrond maintained with Durin during these times, it being one of the namesakes of their bond and common secret, or perhaps it’s because Elrond, an Elf, is the surviving witness to this discovery. For fans of The Lord of the Rings, you might recognize it as the ore used for the shirt which saved Frodo’s life from a rampaging cave troll in Moria and was eventually seized by the orcs of Mordor as an offering to Sauron. Impenetrable armour occurs in Norse mythology in Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks, a story that Tolkien certainly knew and could have used for his mithril mail-coat. Mithril is the only invented mineral in his Middle-earth writings. Chemists note mithril’s remarkable properties, strong and light like titanium, perhaps when made into alloys with elements such as titanium or nickel, and in its pure form malleable like gold.
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Once it destroyed the kingdom of the Dwarves at Khazad-dûm, Middle-earth’s only source of new Mithril ore was cut off. For people so in touch with the mountains, it’s exciting to discover an entirely new ore. Durin’s Folk have only just discovered the “grey glitter,” the dwarven name for Mithril on The Rings of Power. The timing of Elrond’s visit to seek help from the dwarves leads Durin to question his motives. And though Elrond didn’t know the true purpose at first, the elves are in fact seeking mithril. They believe it was created when a battle of good versus evil caused lightning to strike a tree containing the light of a Silmaril.
Always extremely valuable, by the end of the Third Age it was beyond price, and only a few artefacts made of it remained in use. Before the Dwarves fled, mithril was worth ten times its own volume in gold. However after the Dwarves had fled, the excavation of mithril ore stopped entirely, it became priceless, as the presence of the Balrog prevented the Orcs in from mining for it. The only way to obtain a mithril object at the end of the Third Age was to either use heirloom mithril weapons and armour that were produced, or to melt down objects to forge new ones. However, most of the mithril produced by the Dwarves was gathered by Orcs and paid as tribute to Sauron, who was said to covet it. The Dwarves mined for mithril “too greedily and too deep”, ultimately releasing a Balrog, Durin’s Bane.
The scholar Paul Kocher interprets the Dwarves’ intense secrecy around mithril as an expression of sexual frustration, given that they have very few dwarf-women. Other than workability, Graphene seems to match the properties. It is being actively researched for a number is mithril real of applications, including electronics. Possibly an alloy of Osmium and iridium, which is extremely hard and used for things like fountain pen nibs which need to resist high wear. I’d say its nearest real world analog is some kind of titanium alloy.
The mithril coat
Afterwards, Elrond recounts an apocryphal tale called The Song of the Roots of Hithaeglir. This song claims the origin of mithril to be when an Elf-warrior and a Balrog fought over a certain tree in the Misty Mountains that contained the light of the last Silmaril. It was then that lightning struck the tree, sending out tendrils of ore into the roots of the mountains beneath.
Gimli and his dwarven kin later rebuilt the gates of Minas Tirith using the precious metal. A new addition to the lore of Middle-earth created by The Rings of Power, resonating is the practice of singing to the stone. Disa first detects mithril and describes how to differentiate earth, ore, air, and water within the mountain. “Sing to it properly, each of those parts will reflect your song back to you,” she says. Elrond watches in amazement as rock shifts while she sings to release the trapped miners.
Nothing is both flexible enough to behave as seen in the movie when held up and examined, yet stiff enough to distribute impact over a wide area, which is what armor does. Armor also diffuses kinetic energy through inertia, if it is heavy, but Mithril is light, so it offers none of that protection. Stack Exchange network consists of 183 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers. The band Mithril is a Celtic music quartet located in Alabama in the United States. Their name was inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s “mithril” substance.
- After all, by the Third Age, a shirt made of mithril is worth more than the Shire and everything in it.
- It reflects only starlight and moonlight and marks the door at the West-gate to Khazad-Dûm.
- “The wealth of the Dwarves was not in gold or jewels, the silver of the Dwarves; nor in iron for it’s worth was more than that of gold, and now it is beyond price; for little is left above ground, and even the Orcs dare not delve here for it.”‘…
- But for now, the dwarves’ discovery of mithril is momentous.
Frodo should at least have had broken ribs and crushed organs; squished like a bug. More likely, he’d have had a deep wound with Mithril chain mail stuffed into it. Elsewhere on Middle-earth, other mithril remnants remain. As mentioned, the elves learned to make the metal ithildin using mithril. It reflects only starlight and moonlight and marks the door at the West-gate to Khazad-Dûm. The helmets of Gondor’s guards of the citadel are also mithril.
It has physical properties that are impossible in a non-magical world. Carbon fiber or titanium alloys may be light and strong, but weave them into chain mail and you’ll still be plenty hurt if skewered with a high-mass spearhead. In woven form, it’s bullet-proof reputation is exaggerated. It doesn’t tear, but it also doesn’t protect all that well. The Dwarves had a secret word for their name of the ore, claimed by Durin to be “Grey Glitter” but the term “Mithril” comes from the equivalent words in Sindarin Elvish.
Of all items made of mithril, the most famous is the “small shirt of mail” retrieved from the hoard of the dragon Smaug, and given to Bilbo Baggins by Thorin Oakenshield. “It was close-woven of many rings, as supple almost as linen, cold as ice, and harder than steel…” and studded with white gems of unknown variety. A new use of Mithril arrives on The Rings of Power in season two.
