Nauglamír
the Necklace of the Dwarves; the setting of the Silmaril
Name and Making
Nauglamír — “the Necklace of the Dwarves” — the greatest of the Dwarvish works of the age: a necklace that the Quenta calls “the fairest of the works of the Dwarves, and the most renowned” (“the Dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost made the Nauglamír”). Wrought with uncounted gems, it was given by the Dwarves to Finrod for the friendship and the gold of Nargothrond, and so came at last, through the blood of his house, to Doriath.
The Silmaril and the Fall of Doriath
- Thingol’s pride: When Beren and Lúthien brought the Silmaril to Doriath, and the king desired the necklace to set the jewel in worthy state, Thingol — for all his offences — summoned the Dwarves of Nogrod to work the wonder: the great necklace was reforged, and the Silmaril set in it — the brief age of the “Nauglamír’s” beauty over the king’s halls.
- The slaying: But the Dwarves, lusting after the treasure (and their jealousy of the Elves), murdered Thingol in his deep chambers; and though the healing of — “the Dwarves of Nogrod fled… carrying the necklace”, and the ruin of Doriath followed (the avenging of Beren, the Second Kinslaying).
- The wanderings: The Nauglamír, with the Silmaril, passed from Doriath to the last hands: borne to Húrin in his bitter wanderings (per one version), then to Dior, and at last to the sea with Elwing — “the necklace… at last borne to Eärendil’s ship” — it is among the treasures the greatest woe of the age moved through.
Significance
The Nauglamír is the symbol of the greed that kills: the Dwarves’ masterwork, hoarded over the king’s corpse, whose very beauty (in union with the holy Silmaril) was the instrument of the ruin of the oldest kingdom of the Eldar — a Midas-tale at the heart of the doom of Doriath.