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The naming of weapons in Middle-earth is the giving of names to swords and other powerful weapons in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. 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. Among the many weapons named by Tolkien are Orcrist and Glamdring in The Hobbit, and Narsil / Andúril in The Lord of the Rings. Such weapons carry powerful symbolism, embodying the identity and ancestry of their owners.

There are multiple parallels between Tolkien's usage of named weapons in his Middle-earth writings, and the Medieval epics. 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.

Background

Naming of Medieval weapons

In Medieval epics, heroes gave names to their weapons. The name, lineage, and power of the weapon reflected on the hero. Among the major tales are those of Sigurd the Volsung and his sword Gram that he used to kill the dragon Fafnir; Beowulf and the swords Hrunting and Nægling; King Arthur's Excalibur, the "Sword in the Stone"; Roland's Durendal; Waldere's Mimming; and the Elder Edda's account of the "Waking of Angantyr" (the Hervararkviða) and the sword Tyrfing.

Heroic literature did not always name its weapons; in ancient Greece, Homer describes the shield and spear of Achilles in detail but does not give them names. He does not name the crucial bow of Odysseus: the weapon that allows him to demonstrate his own identity, his own name as he returns home to Ithaca, functions anonymously in the story. 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." Some 200 sword names are recorded in medieval writings, in line with the Norse practice of naming objects in stories, such as the Dwarf-made chain Gleipnir that unbreakably fastened Fenris the giant wolf.

• Hervör wakes her father Angantýr's ghost from his barrow to demand the cursed sword Tyrfing as an heirloom.
• Sigurd holding the sword Gram on the Ramsund carving, c. 1030

Powerful swords

Such weapons were praised both for their strength and for their history. For example, Nægling is repeatedly described with epithets such as "sharp", "gleaming", "bright", "mighty", and "strong", while its history is explicitly recalled in phrases such as "excellent ancient sword", "ancient heirloom", and "old and grey". They might have magical powers: Excalibur shines

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.

In Norse mythology, similarly, a sword may shine like the sun, as in the Poetic Edda: "Surt from the south comes / With flickering flame; Shines from his sword / The Val-god’s sun."

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. A sword-blade could be adorned with runes; these might attach power, history, and magic spells to the weapon, just as Sigurd was instructed to engrave runes of wisdom and victory on his sword Gram. The historian of arms Ewart Oakeshott described the sword as having "a potent mystique which sets it above any other man-made object". Swords had two attributes which made them especially highly prized: they were costly to manufacture, and effective as weapons.

In Middle-earth

Weapons of power

Tolkien named many weapons, mainly swords, but also including Aeglos, the spear of the Elf-king Gil-Galad; Belthronding, Beleg's bow; Dramborleg, Tuor's axe; and Grond, the name both of the evil battering-ram from Minas Morgul, and of the mace of the first Dark Lord, Morgoth, in his Middle-earth writings. As in medieval epics, the sword in particular symbolised the heroism and position of its owner. As the Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger put it, the sword "proclaims the emergence of the hero"; further, "the fates of sword and man are linked, and the destruction of one signals the end of the other".

Such themes can be seen clearly with Aragorn's sword Andúril, but they run similarly through Tolkien's accounts of many other named weapons. 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. Reforging and rediscovery effectively pass old power to the new weapon and its new owner, and renew that power.

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.

Glamdring and Orcrist, and Bilbo's knife used as a sword, which he named Sting, gleam when Orcs are nearby; the ancient swords terrify the Orcs, and are recognised by them; indeed, the Orcs have their own nicknames for the two famous swords, Biter and Beater. These weapons have numerous connections to the famous swords of Medieval mythology, including, according to the Tolkien scholars K. S. Whetter and R. Andrew McDonald, the style and content of their names, which recall the names of swords in Norse mythology such as Fotbitr and Dragvandil ("Leg-biter" and "Slicer"). Indeed, in The Hobbit, when Bilbo's party arrive at Rivendell, Elrond reads the swords' runic inscriptions and describes the heroic history and lineage of the recovered weapons:

They are old swords, very old swords of the High Elves of the West, my kin. They were made in Gondolin for the Goblin-wars. They must have come from a dragon's hoard or goblin plunder, for dragons and goblins destroyed that city many ages ago. This, Thorin, the runes name Orcrist, the Goblin-cleaver in the ancient tongue of Gondolin; it was a famous blade. This, Gandalf, was Glamdring, Foe-hammer that the king of Gondolin once wore. Keep them well!"

"Renewed shall be blade that was broken"

The Lord of the Rings hero Aragorn, heir of the kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor, carried the shards of the sword Narsil, broken when his ancestor Elendil died in battle with the Dark Lord Sauron. Its name, Narsil, contained the roots for "fire" and "white light", meaning "Sun and Moon" in Quenya. It had been forged in the First Age by the greatest of the Dwarf-smiths, Telchar. He worked into the enchanted sword the ability to shine "with the light of the sun and of the moon", with the result that "the sword of Elendil filled Orcs and Men with fear". After it was broken "its light was extinguished and it was not forged anew", 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:

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. Very bright was that sword when it was made whole again; the light of the sun shone redly in it, and the light of the moon shone cold, and its edge was hard and keen. And Aragorn gave it a new name and called it Andúril, Flame of the West.

The seven stars were Elendil's heraldic device, which in turn denoted the stars, one per ship, for the seven ships that carried the seven palantirs from Númenor, the island of the West, to Middle-earth. The sword thus carried the symbolism of the lineage of Elendil and the power of the kingdom of Númenor. In addition, Tolkien wrote that the sword's original name, Narsil, "symbolised the chief heavenly lights , as enemies of darkness".

The poem that Aragorn says goes with his own name, "The Riddle of Strider", calls the sword the "blade that was broken":

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

There are multiple parallels here with Arthurian legend. The Sword in the Stone is broken. Just as Excalibur delimits King Arthur's reign, so Narsil delimits the Third Age, beginning when Isildur cuts the Ring from Sauron's hand, and ending when the remade Andúril helps to end Sauron's power and restore Aragorn as King. Both Kings lead their peoples to victory. The sword's magical scabbard, too, which the Elf-queen Galadriel gives to Aragorn as he leaves Lothlórien with the words "The blade that is drawn from this sheath shall not be stained or broken even in defeat", parallels Excalibur's sheath, which guarantees that its wearer "shall never lose no blood, be ye never so sore wounded". The elven scabbard describes the sword it was made for:

It was overlaid with a tracery of flowers and leaves wrought of silver and gold, and on it were set in elven-runes formed of many gems the name Andúril and the lineage of the sword.

The theme of the sword that was broken is found in various places in Norse mythology. Burdge and Burke write that Tyrfing, like Narsil, was Dwarf-forged, in its case by Dvalin and Durin. They made Tyrfing shine like fire; Andúril shines like Sun and Moon. Sigurd's sword Gram, too, was remade, by the Dwarf-smith Regin; Sigurd's father Sigmund's dying wish was for his sword to be reforged; and flames leapt from Gram's edges. Aragorn's sword thus combines the natures of the Norse sword Gram and the Arthurian Excalibur.

The reforged and renamed Narsil / Andúril pair has a parallel, too, within Tolkien's legendarium. The hero of the First Age, Túrin's sword, is similarly renamed: Anglachel becomes Gurthang. The Tolkien scholars K. S. Whetter and Andrew McDonald call these weapons almost "living personalities"; 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" nature. Like the flawed hero Túrin, who likewise takes on different names, its character cannot be changed by giving it a new name. In contrast, Aragorn's sword represents the true hero.

Notes

1. Gram is indeed so strong and sharp that it can cut an anvil in half.

References

Primary

1. Tolkien 1937, The Hobbit, ch. 2 "Roast Mutton"
2. ^ Tolkien 1937, The Hobbit, ch. 3 "A Short Rest"
3. ^ Tolkien 1977, The Silmarillion, "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age"
4. ^ Carpenter 2023, #347 to Richard Jeffery, 17 December 1972
5. Tolkien 1954a, The Fellowship of the Ring, book 2, ch. 3 "The Ring Goes South"
6. ^ Tolkien 1954a, The Fellowship of the Ring, book 1, ch. 10 "Strider"
7. ^ Tolkien 1954a, The Fellowship of the Ring, book 2, ch. 8 "Farewell to Lórien"

Secondary

1. ^ Ogden 2013, p. 265.
2. ^ Whetter & McDonald 2006, article 2.
3. ^ Burdge & Burke 2013, pp. 703–705
4. ^ Croft 2015, article 1.
5. Stephens 1866–1867, p. 407.
6. Culbert 1960, pp. 13–20.
7. Malory 2014, p. 30.
8. Guerber 1909, pp. 1–15.
9. Byock 1990, pp. 67–68.
10. ^ Brisbois 2008, article 9.
11. ^ Flieger 1981, pp. 40–62.
12. Hammond & Scull 2005, p. 263.
13. ^ Hall 2012, article 6.
14. ^ Arvidsson 2002, pp. 45–52.
15. Terry 1969, pp. 250–253.
16. Byock 1990, pp. 53–54.

Sources

• Arvidsson, Håkan (November 2002). "The Ring 'An essay on Tolkien's mythology'". Mallorn (40): 45–52. JSTOR 45321616.
• Brisbois, Michael J. (2008). "The Blade Against the Burden: The Iconography of the Sword in The Lord of the Rings". Mythlore. 27 (1). article 9.
• Byock, Jesse (1990). The Saga of the Volsungs : the Norse epic of Sigurd the dragon slayer. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-52006904-6.
• Burdge, Anthony; Burke, Jessica (2013) . "Weapons, Named". In Drout, Michael D. C. (ed.). J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment. Routledge. pp. 703–705. ISBN 978-0-41586511-1.
• Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. (2023) . The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien: Revised and Expanded Edition. New York: Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-35-865298-4.
• Croft, Janet Brennan (2015). "Noms de Guerre: The Power of Naming in War and Conflict in Middle-earth". Mythlore. 34 (1). article 9.
• Culbert, Taylor (1960). "The Narrative Functions of Beowulf's Swords". Journal of English and Germanic Philology. 59 (1): 13–20. JSTOR 27707401.
• Flieger, Verlyn (1981). "Frodo and Aragorn: The Concept of the Hero". In Isaacs, Neil D.; Zimbardo, Rose A. (eds.). Tolkien: New Critical Perspectives. University Press of Kentucky. pp. 40–62. ISBN 978-0-81311408-8.
• Guerber, Hélène A. (1909). "1: The Beginning". Myths of the Norsemen From the Eddas and Sagas. London: George G. Harrap and Co. pp. 1–15.
• Hall, Mark R. (2012). "Gandalf and Merlin, Aragorn and Arthur: Tolkien's Transmogrification of the Arthurian Tradition and Its Use as a Palimpsest for The Lord of the Rings". Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016. 8. article 6. OCLC 825553191.
• Hammond, Wayne G.; Scull, Christina (2005). The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-00720907-1.
• Malory, Sir Thomas (2014). Delphi Complete Works of Sir Thomas Malory (Illustrated). Delphi Classics. ISBN 978-1-91063035-8.
• Ogden, Daniel (2013). Dragons, Serpents, and Slayers in the Classical and Early Christian Worlds: A Sourcebook. Oxford University Press. p. 265. ISBN 978-0-19-992509-4.
• Stephens, George (1866–1867). Handbook of the Old-Northern Runic Monuments of Scandinavia and England. Vol. Part 3. London.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Terry, Patricia (1969). Poems of the Vikings: The Elder Edda. Bobbs-Merrill. ISBN 978-0672603327.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1937). Douglas A. Anderson (ed.). The Annotated Hobbit. Boston: Houghton Mifflin (published 2002). ISBN 978-0-618-13470-0.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1954a). The Fellowship of the Ring. The Lord of the Rings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. OCLC 9552942.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1977). Christopher Tolkien (ed.). The Silmarillion. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-395-25730-2.
• Whetter, K. S.; McDonald, R. Andrew (2006). ""In the Hilt is Fame": Resonances of Medieval Swords and Sword-lore in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings". Mythlore. 25 (1). article 2.

v t e The Lord of the Rings
J. R. R. Tolkien Constructing The Lord of the Rings
About	Volumes The Fellowship of the Ring The Two Towers The Return of the King Stories "The Shadow of the Past" "The Council of Elrond" "The Scouring of the Shire" "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen" Translating List of translations Swedish Reception Impact Literary Fandom Fan fiction Oxonmoot Tolkienmoot Works inspired Tolkien's impact on fantasy
Analysis	Elements Artwork Company of the Ring Family trees Heraldry Languages Black Speech Elvish Quenya Sindarin Khuzdul Maps Poetry A Elbereth Gilthoniel Namárië Song of Eärendil The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late The Road Goes Ever On A Walking Song Proverbs Themes Addiction to power Ancestry as guide to character Architecture Christianity Death and immortality Decline and fall Dreams and visions Economy England Environmentalism Evil Forests Hell Heroism Luck and fate Magic Mental illness Moral dilemma Music Naming of weapons Northern courage Paganism Plants Psychological journeys Quests Race Sexuality Sound and language Time Trees Women Influences Antiquarianism Beowulf Celtic Classical world First World War Norse Medieval Modern sources Modernism A mythology for England Philology Shakespeare Techniques Anachronism Character pairing Editorial framing Frame stories Pseudotranslation Impression of depth Narrative structure Interlacing Storytelling Prose style Ambiguity Epic Pooh
Peoples	Maiar Balrogs Sauron Wizards Gandalf Radagast Saruman Free peoples Dwarves Balin Gimli Elves Galadriel Glorfindel Half-elven Arwen Elrond Legolas Thranduil Ents Treebeard Hobbits Bilbo Frodo Merry Pippin Sam Men Beornings Drúedain Dúnedain Aragorn of Gondor Boromir Denethor Faramir of Rohan Éomer Éowyn Théoden Wormtongue Monsters Barrow-wight Gollum Nazgûl Witch-king of Angmar Old Man Willow Orcs Shelob Trolls Wargs Watcher in the Water Other Eagles Goldberry Tom Bombadil
World	Geography Eriador Bree Old Forest Rivendell The Shire Bag End Gondor Harad Lothlórien Mirkwood Moria Mordor Rohan Isengard Battles Helm's Deep Pelennor Fields Morannon Things Mithril Oliphaunts Palantírs Phial of Galadriel Rings of Power One Ring List of weapons and armour
Related works	The Hobbit The Adventures of Tom Bombadil Errantry Fastitocalon The Sea-Bell The Road Goes Ever On Bilbo's Last Song The Silmarillion Unfinished Tales The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien The History of Middle-earth The Children of Húrin The History of The Hobbit Beren and Lúthien The Fall of Gondolin The Nature of Middle-earth
Adaptations and derivative works Books Bored of the Rings (1969) The Last Ringbearer (1999) Muddle Earth (2003) Illustrations A Map of Middle-earth Pauline Baynes Barbara Remington John Howe Alan Lee Margrethe II of Denmark Ted Nasmith Theatre Fellowship! (2005) Lord of the Rings (2006) Music Music Inspired by Lord of the Rings (1972) Symphony No. 1 The Lord of the Rings (1988) Led Zeppelin "Ramble On" (1969) "Misty Mountain Hop" (1971) "The Battle of Evermore" (1971) Radio The Lord of the Rings (BBC, 1955) The Lord of the Rings (NPR, 1979) Hordes of the Things (1980) The Lord of the Rings (BBC, 1981) Der Herr der Ringe (1992) Film Animated The Lord of the Rings (Bakshi, 1978) The Return of the King (Rankin/Bass, 1980) The War of the Rohirrim (Kamiyama, 2024) Peter Jackson series The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) The Two Towers (2002) The Return of the King (2003) Music "Concerning Hobbits" "Into the West" "May It Be" Approach Production Hobbiton Movie Set Peter Jackson's interpretation Picturing Tolkien Tolkien on Film Other Sagan om ringen (1971) Khraniteli (1991) Hobitit (1993) The Rings of Power (2022) music Fan-made The Hunt for Gollum (2009) Born of Hope (2009) Video games Journey to Rivendell Game One Game Two: Shadows of Mordor War in Middle Earth Vol. I (1990) Vol. I (SNES) Riders of Rohan Elendor Vol. II: The Two Towers The Fellowship of the Ring The Two Towers The Return of the King War of the Ring The Third Age Game Boy Advance The Battle for Middle-earth Tactics The Battle for Middle-earth II The Rise of the Witch-king Conquest Aragorn's Quest War in the North Lego The Lord of the Rings Guardians of Middle-earth Shadow of Mordor Shadow of War Gollum Return to Moria The Lord of the Rings Online Mines of Moria Siege of Mirkwood Rise of Isengard Riders of Rohan Helm's Deep Mordor Minas Morgul War of Three Peaks Fate of Gundabad Before the Shadow Tabletop role- playing games Middle-earth Role Playing The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game The One Ring Roleplaying Game Adventures in Middle-earth Board games Middle Earth War of the Ring Gondor: The Siege of Minas Tirith Sauron Lord of the Rings War of the Ring Card games Middle-earth Collectible Card Game The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game Other games Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game Lego The Lord of the Rings

• Middle-earth weapons
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