Naming of weapons in Middle-earth

He derived the naming of weapons from his knowledge of Medieval times; the practice is found in Norse mythology and in the Old English poem Beowulf.

These include their inheritance as heirlooms, sometimes royal; their rediscovery in ancient treasure-hoards; their being broken and reforged; their adornment with runic inscriptions; and their interlinking with the lives of their owners.

The case is different in the stories and myths of medieval Northern Europe, where the name of a weapon, especially of a sword, gave it an identity, almost a personality.

The name, writes the Tolkien scholar Janet Brennan Croft, "marks a weapon as an heirloom tying generations together and legitimizing the heir who holds it.

[6] They might have magical powers: Excalibur shines[2] so bryght in his enemyes eyen that it gaf light lyke thirty torchys, and therwith he put hem on bak and slew moche peple".in Modern English:so bright in his enemies' eyes that it gave light like thirty torches, and therewith he drove them back and killed many people.

"[8] Swords may be heirlooms within a royal family, or may be recovered from ancient hoards of treasure, in either case having a lineage and story of their own.

The swords Glamdring and Orcrist named in The Hobbit fit two strands of the Medieval pattern, as they are both ancient, having been forged in the First Age, and were retrieved from a treasure-hoard, having been held by the three Trolls in their cave.

[3][2] These two swords actually each have three names (polyonymy): in the high and ancient tongue (Sindarin); a translation into the Common Speech (Westron), rendered as English; and a goblin nickname.

[T 3] After it was broken "its light was extinguished and it was not forged anew",[T 3] until Aragorn brought it to Rivendell at the end of the Third Age and the quest to destroy the One Ring.

It was then remade as Andúril, meaning "Flame of the West" in Quenya:[T 4] The Sword of Elendil was forged anew by Elvish smiths, and on its blade was traced a device of seven stars set between the crescent Moon and the rayed Sun, and about them was written many runes; for Aragorn son of Arathorn was going to war upon the marches of Mordor.

[12] In addition, Tolkien wrote that the sword's original name, Narsil, "symbolised the chief heavenly lights [Sun and Moon], as enemies of darkness".

[4] The Tolkien scholars K. S. Whetter and Andrew McDonald call these weapons almost "living personalities";[2] Croft notes that at the end, Gurthang actually speaks to Túrin.

However, while the reforging of Andúril symbolizes the remaking of Middle-earth and the transformation of Aragorn from Ranger to King, the mere renaming of Gurthang fails to change its "essentially malefic"[4] nature.