“These are not the Silmarilli you are looking for”: A source study of Tolkien’s Silmarilli
Paper given 4 September 2021 at the 3rd day of Oxonmoot 2021
Tolkien’s precious stones made by Fëanor, and stolen by Melkor, are so important to the Legendarium they hardly could escape critical attention. Verlyn Flieger considers them as a reflection of the Two Trees of Valinor, but only Alexander Lewis and Elizabeth Currie tried to find a source for them, and identified it in the Holy Grail as a stone from Paradise, formerly set in the crown of Lucifer. Without necessarily contradicting either of them, I propose as a source for the Silmarilli another rare stone from Paradise which was instead given to Alexander the Great according to medieval legends Tolkien certainly knew.
❧