Silmarils
The Silmarils play a central role in Tolkien's book The Silmarillion, which tells of the creation of Eä (the universe) and the beginning of Elves, Dwarves and Men.
They have described the Silmarils as embodying Elvish pride in their own creation, or a Biblical desire for knowledge of good and evil as in the Genesis story of Garden of Eden.
J. R. R. Tolkien describes the history of the Silmarils in The Silmarillion, published after but in fiction long preceding the events of The Lord of the Rings.
[3] The Silmarils are hallowed by the Vala Varda, who kindled the first stars, so that they would burn the hands of any evil creature or mortal who touched them without just cause.
[T 5] Fëanor is furious at Melkor, whom he names Morgoth, "Dark Enemy of the World", and at the Valar's desire to take the gems for their own purposes.
[T 5] Five major battles are fought in Beleriand, but ultimately the Noldor and all the people who took the oath fail in their attempt to regain the Silmarils from Morgoth.
[T 13][4] He decided that Sigelwara's second component, Hearwa, was related to Old English heorð, "hearth", and ultimately to Latin carbō, "soot".
[T 13] The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey states that this contributed to the sun-jewel Silmarils, and "helped to naturalise the Balrog" (a demon of fire).
The Tolkien scholar Jonathan B. Himes states that the Sampo is the "central mythic object" in the Kalevala; it gave its owner "socio-economic supremacy".
[7] He suggests that Tolkien reworked this into "the world war among all races of Middle-earth for the moral and terrestrial stability offered by the Silmarils".
[7] He adds that Tolkien's approach was to present moral conflicts and medieval pagan thought plainly; to fill in gaps from other sources; and to make the scale global.
She states that in both cases, the fates of the objects are "clear but their significance is ill-defined"; in particular, their "medium (light) is not congruent with the message (greed and possessiveness)."
[8] Shippey comments that the Silmarils relate to the book's theme in a particular way: the sin of the Elves is not human pride, as in the Biblical fall, but their "desire to make things which will forever reflect or incarnate their own personality".
[10] She sees the theme as straightforwardly Biblical, the Silmarils symbolising "the same desire for knowledge of good and evil witnessed in the Garden of Eden.
When these too are destroyed, their last fragment of light is made into the Silmarils, and a sapling too is rescued, leading to the White Tree of Númenor, the living symbol of the Kingdom of Gondor.
Wars are fought over the Silmarils, and they are lost to the Earth, the Sea, and the Sky, the last of these, carried by Eärendil the Mariner, becoming the Morning Star.
