The Blue Diamond /The Blue Rose and the Blue Silmaril A catalogue dropped through the letter box the other day with the most surprising title – ‘VERVE’. It turned out to be a catalogue for the Garden Centre at Wilton near Salisbury, in Wiltshire. The small town of Wilton nestles at the confluence of the rivers Wyle and Nadder (and some think is a plausible location for Arthur’s Camelot). This beautiful landscape is the setting for the Elizabethan author, Sir Philip Sydney’s famous book, Arcadia, which is a description of a paradise on earth. Beside the curious title of the catalogue was a blue diamond with, perhaps unsurprisingly, the words BLUE DIAMOND written across the faceted gemstone. Ah, that most romantic and potent of images! The story of the Blue Diamond is an ancient one but it can only be pieced together if we include the stories in which it features, stories at which many will scoff, saying “they are just fairy tales”. But that is just the point, “just fairy tales” have come down to us out of the mists of time through an ancient oral tradition of storytelling. Today such stories are still to be found but through the medium of the written word. Such stories have been entirely lost to the human race but certain gifted writers are often ‘inspired’ in their writings and so are often recreating for us just such ‘lost tales’. But we dismiss their writings as ‘fantasy’ story telling. And for many, so they will remain. Nevertheless, in order to trace the story of the Blue Diamond we must use this precious knowledge that has been given to us once again though this fantasy fiction. We take up the story of the Blue Diamond in a series of best selling books known as The Belgariad, by David Eddings. A blue stone of great power features prominently called The Stone of Aldur. It belongs to an ancient royal house to which lesser kingdoms in the West give allegiance because they recognise the significance of the Blue Stone that is housed in the pommel of the High King of the West, Belgarion. The Blue Stone has an evil counterpart, another stone which is red and is called The Sardion. The fact that there are two stones of power brought to mind The Silmarils in Tolkien’s great series of works which includes The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien tells us that all the histories derive from the tale of The Silmarils. They were stones which were made in the undying lands of Aman where the Valar lived and where they brought some of the Elven Race to share their paradise. In Tolkien’s story, there were originally three Silmarils which had been made with great difficulty and skill in order to capture the pure light of The Two Trees of Light on Aman before they were destroyed. After that, the energies fell and a new and lesser light was given to the world, that of the sun and moon. So the light that existed in the Beginning now only resided in The Silmarils. They were stolen by the evil Morgoth who wanted to enslave and rule over Middle Earth and he placed them in an iron crown. The Elves waged war to recover the stolen Silmarils. One of the Silmarils was recovered by Luthien and Beren who became the progenitors of the Royal Numenorean line, of which Arwen and Aragorn were scions. So it made sense that, in The Belgariad, the blue stone of Aldur should be in the safekeeping of the pre-eminent royal house: it seemed an easy step to connect the two stones and perceive that, indeed, they were one and the same. We move on to a later age and another series of books by the same author, David Eddings, in which we are told of a beautiful blue stone of power that has been carved into the shape of a rose. As in the earlier tale, this stone has a consciousness that is, well, pretty vast, and enormously powerful. Which brings us to the Blue Rose and to stories which we still possess in the present. Hollywood produced a film which features The Blue Rose of Forgetfulness. The evil Grand Vizier is determined to marry the Sultan’s beautiful daughter but she is in love with someone else of course. The Grand Vizier is also a magician of some power (which brings to mind Saruman in LOTR) and he brings to the Palace the famous Blue Rose with which to seduce the princess. Moving on. The Blue Rose appears in the opening sequences of recent Dr Who episodes. The blue tardis is seen spinning through a blue tunnel, or vortex, but you will see that the swirling blue light patterns create the shape of a blue rose. This is very fitting because, as one of the Silmarils, the Blue Rose has been with us through Time and, of course, the Doctor is a Time Traveller. Which brings us to the Blue Diamond on the brochure posted through the letter box…
CM 15th April 2014
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