ec514b63   
   XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: Troels@ThisIsFake.invalid   
      
   In message   
      
   Mike Scott Rohan  spoke   
   these staves:   
   >   
   > On Sep 20, 4:14 am, Stan Brown  wrote:   
   >>   
   >> On Mon, 19 Sep 2011 21:35:06 -0400, FL Teacher wrote:   
   >>>   
      
   I thought I might anticipate Christopher Kreuzer and try to come up   
   with a list of destroyed blades in the legendarium (though it is   
   certain to be incomplete)   
      
   - Angrist snapping as Beren tried to pry a second Silmaril from   
     the Iron Crown   
   - Androg breaking his bow on the insistence of Mîm   
   - Túrin's black blade breaking under him as he threw himself upon it   
   - Narsil breaking beneath Elendil 'as he fell'   
   - Many broken swords and axe-heads in the Chamber of Mazabul   
   - The morgul-knife leaving a shard inside Frodo   
   - Frodo's sword being broken at a distance by the Witch-king   
   - Gandalf's staff breaking asunder as he smote the Bridge of   
     Khazad-dûm   
   - Boromir's sword breaking   
   - Broken swords left by the Rohirrim next to the fire where they   
     burned the dead orcs   
   - Gandalf breaking Saruman's staff   
   - The Southron that Sam sees die held a broken sword   
   - Sam breaking his walking-staff on Gollum's back   
   - The broken sword of Baldor on the Paths of the Dead   
   - Merry's sword dissolving   
   - Éowyn's sword breaking 'sparkling into many shards'   
      
   >>> There isnt anything about meteoric iron that cant be duplicated   
   >>> with modern metallurgy, but the implication is that magic is   
   >>> involved. Same with Narsil, it didnt break because it was not   
   >>> strong, it broke because of the magic associated with Sauron's   
   >>> blow.   
   >>   
   >> Yes, that's my reading too.   
      
   I don't think Narsil broke as a result of magic: it didn't break from   
   striking Sauron, but because Elendil fell upon it.  Elrond describes   
   it in 'The Council of Elrond':   
       I beheld the last combat on the slopes of Orodruin, where   
       Gil-galad died, and Elendil fell, and Narsil broke beneath   
       him   
   And in 'Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age' it is described   
   thus:   
       [Sauron] wrestled with Gil-galad and Elendil, and they both   
       were slain, and the sword of Elendil broke under him as he   
       fell   
      
   The breaking of Gurthang appears to have been of the same sort -- it   
   broke because of the dead weight of Túrin upon it. Of course in both   
   cases there is a symbolism attached to the breaking of the sword (one   
   which also plays into the reforging of the shards of Narsil), but   
   this seems to me related to the question of fate rather than magic.   
      
   >> Compare to Merry's sword, which didn't shatter but dissolved.   
   >> That's magic, pure and simple.  So I think the explanation for   
   >> Narsil is equally magical, not metallurgical.   
   >   
   > Yet Eowyn's sword shattered at the blow.   
   >   
   > Personally I think that both shatterings, and Narsil's, were   
   > profoundly bound up with the nature of Sauron and the Wraiths,   
   > whose physical form was only a cloak for their spiritual   
   > reality;   
      
   Well, I don't think it is entirely fair to put Sauron and the Witch-   
   king (possibly including the rest of the Ringwraiths) on the same   
   footing here: Sauron was an Ainu -- a self-arrayed eäla that had   
   become bound to his form, while the Ringwraiths were still Men, men   
   with material bodies that had become invisible -- there may have been   
   other changes to their material bodies involved (they don't appear to   
   need sustenance), but in essence they are still the intended   
   combination of a hröa and an indwelling fëa.   
      
   Narsil, as I say above, was /not/ broken because it was used to   
   strike at Sauron, but because Elendil fell upon it, and there is, as   
   far as I remember, no evidence that any other weapon used to strike   
   at Sauron (or other incarnate Ainur of evil, including Morgoth)   
   suffered any ill effects from being used for that.   
      
   > thus they could armour themselves to some extent, except against   
   > swords imbued with magic of their own.   
      
   I believe that the only known case of this is the Witch-king, but   
   there are many for whom the issue must remain unsettled because they   
   were either never struck by a metal weapon, or that weapon had some   
   kind of magic (the Balrog, for instance, is struck only by Glamdring,   
   the magical sword out of Gondolin).   
      
   Overall, however, I do think that the evidence suggests that it is   
   only the Witch-king who is protected in this way:   
   Aragorn explicitly specifies the Witch-king:   
       A foot above the lower hem there was a slash. 'This was the   
       stroke of Frodo's sword,' he said. 'The only hurt that it   
       did to his enemy, I fear; for it is unharmed, but all   
       blades perish that pierce that dreadful King. More deadly to   
       him was the name of Elbereth.'  (LotR I,11 'A Knife in the Dark')   
      
   Also in an excerpt from 'The Hunt for the Ring' published in Hammond   
   & Scull's /Reader's Companion/ the implication is that of personal   
   danger to the Witch-king himself:   
       But above all the timid and terrified Bearer had resisted   
       him, had dared to strike at him with an enchanted sword   
       made by his own enemies long ago for /his/ destruction.   
       (emphasis added, RC, comments for p. '196 (I: 208).')   
      
   > Eowyn's probably wasn't; Merry's, we are told, was, which might   
   > explain the delay in its dissolution, to make the blow bite   
   > deeper.   
      
   > Of course, it could dissolve in whatever the Witch-King had for   
   > blood -- move over, Alien! -- but it doesn't read that way, no   
   > drippings and acrid odour.   
      
   -)  I agree -- that is not the impression one gets here. Such might   
   have been the case with Glaurung or Shelob, but neither of the swords   
   that bit into these were affected, though the wielders, Túrin and   
   Sam, were affected by whatever seeped from the monster (Túrin is   
   burned by the venom in Glarung's blood and Sam reels under the stench   
   from Shelob).   
      
      
      
   > What would make a sword shatter like a mirror, though, as it seems   
   > Narsil does? Really only one characteristic, and that's cold, a   
   > very low temperature indeed.  Perhaps that was Old One-Eye's "body   
   > temperature" anyhow.   
      
   I don't think we know exactly /how/ Narsil broke in Tolkien's   
   imagination, only that it broke when Elendil fell upon it and the   
   resultant pieces are called 'shards'. I imagine that the 'shards'   
   were perhaps a couple of pieces of the blade in addition to the hilt-   
   shard. Though my knowledge of metallurgy is mainly atomic (literally:   
   I know something about what happens at an atomic level ), I know   
   very little about the dynamic and static qualities of a blade, so I   
   can't say if such would be consistent with the blade being trapped   
   under a falling man.   
      
   Gurthag, on the other hand, seems to have snapped a little below the   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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