Minor Works -- 3 - Smith of Wootton Major

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

Just a side remark about "mere ironmongers": I am sure we are all aware that smiths and their craft in other Tolkien's works are the most important craft of all, at least in terms of their impact on the world. They are given prominent place. Rings, Silmarils, swords (Andúril)... Fëanor, Celebrimbor AND Sauron. Aulë and his making of the Dwarves gets a separate story and is the closest anybody got to actual creation. In the terminology of Tolkien from On Fairy Stories, Aulë is the subcreator - par excellence. And it is his former Maiar and "apprentices" who are responsible for every great and problematic in Arda's history.

The Silmarils, the Rings... Things of great beauty and power but also of great danger. Just like Faerie itself. It seems to me that it is not a coincidence that it was the Smith who gained the access to Faery. The association of smithcraft and faery appears too often in all his works not to be a pattern.

For clarification, I do not think Tolkien thought the smithing skill to be somehow inherently "magical" like the early-Post-stone-age cultures often did; I simply think that the had that association in his mind, somehow. And that explains why he does not see Iron as the traditionally "anti-faery" metal, but quite the opposite, THE faery metal.

Well argued, Legate.