Magic by Melkor, No Returns Accepted - Page 11
© Michael Martinez
Galadriel's fear that her people would be diminished in the age of Men, doomed to become a rustic folk of cave and dell, is thus founded on a very real problem. Once the Rings of Power failed, the Elves (who had been sheltered from the effects of Time) had to leave Middle-earth. The Elves lost not just a great part of their pool of talent, but also of their "power reserve". That is, there were fewer Elves left to build new cities. Some of the High Elves remained in Imladris and Lindon but there would never again be a great Eldarin nation. There were no more artifacts, no more cities to be built in the lands of Men. And the Elves who understood that Arda still possessed the Morgoth-element might be reluctant to use it again on the scale of creating Rings of Power. They had learned through many bitter lessons what the price of working such magic would be.
Something might be said here of Mithril. If gold is highly magical, is Mithril even more so? I should think so. Unfortunately, it was extremely difficult to come by. Gold was much more plentiful. So were jewels, for that matter. And a lot of the Mithril which had been brought to light was lost. Tar-Telemmaite, fifteenth king of Numenor, gathered all he could find of Mithril. Sauron, too, collected all the Mithril he could. Although it's doubtful the Numenoreans were sorcerors, Sauron may indeed have found sorcerous uses for his Mithril. And when the Barad-dur was destroyed a great deal of Mithril may have been destroyed with it. Slowly Mithril vanished from Middle-earth.
There may be good reason for why the Balrog of Moria hid itself in or near a vein of Mithril. The Mithril in its raw state might have masked his power. And it may be that if dragons could in fact draw power from gold and jewels they could draw it from Mithril, too. But then, if silver (normal silver) possessed less of the Morgoth-element than gold, would Mithril possess more than silver? Or, being "true silver", was Mithril nearly free of the Morgoth-element? We'll probably never know.
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