Make body adornments, like jewellery, that:

• are appropriate to and symbolic for the characters wearing them
• (sometimes) appear to have a magical quality.

• Share ideas about types of body art and adornment that symbolise (mean) something or have sentimental value.
• Choose a type of symbolic adornment and find out how the meaning has become attached to it. You could research in books or on the Internet or interview someone about an adornment.

e.g. jewellery, piercings, tattoos, body paint, hair accessories

e.g. rings (wedding, engagement, the Pope’s ring), crosses, indigenous adornments, piercings, tattoos

See the body adornments used in The Lord of the Rings:

• Arwen’s Evenstar and Aragorn’s ring Barahir (zone 5 and 10)
• Gandalf’s Ring of Power, Celeborn’s necklace, and Galadriel’s cloak fastener, ring, and golden hairpiece (zone 6 and 2)
• the adornments of the Orcs and Uruk-hai (zone 21)
• Gimli’s hair clasps (zone 3).

Focus questions:

• Which characters in the movie have adornments?
• What might these things symbolise?

e.g. Arwen’s Evenstar symbolises her purity, beauty, and immortality.

• Using available materials, design a piece of jewellery that has symbolic meaning or magical powers. Think about:
  • what the meaning of the piece is
  • how the meaning has become attached to it (e.g. because of its use, its wearer, or its manufacture)
  • how someone might recognise its meaning or magical powers (e.g. it might glow, make a sound, affect the wearer’s behaviour, or change its nature in certain situations).
• Make the piece.
• Present and assess your work.

Possible materials: old pieces of jewellery, wire, aluminium cans, tear tabs from cans, metal chain, aluminium foil, stick-on tattoos, body paint, pewter casting, clay.

Related activity links: