(May is the month of Wyrd and Wonder – details here, Twitter: @wyrdandwonder)

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme where every Tuesday we look at a particular topic for discussion and use various (or more to the point ten) bookish examples to demonstrate that particular topic.  Top Ten Tuesday (created and hosted by  The Broke and Bookish) is now being hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl and future week’s topics can be found here.  This week I’ve picked a topic from the Wyrd and Wonder list instead and the theme is:

Top Ten magical artefacts

So, I’ve had a good think about this and, of course, some of these will be really obvious but I had to go there and some are hopefully not so obvious:

The One Ring.  The Lord of the Rings by JRRTolkien – I had too.  It’s the first one that sprang to mind.  A ring forged by Sauron, the Dark Lord, with an evil purpose in mind – world dominion.  The Lord of the Ring is the story of the quest, taken on by 9 companions known as the Fellowship, to destroy the ring by returning it to the fire’s of Mordor.  One ring to rule them all.

Image from Wikipedia

There are lots of things to choose from in JKRowling’s Harry Potter series from wands, to magical cloaks to the Philosopher’s Stone – I’ve chosen something a bit more mischievous – the Marauder’s Map.  The Map is a magical piece of parchment that when activated, by using the words ‘I solemnly swear that I am up to no good’, reveals a complete map of Hogwarts, including secret passages.  It also reveals the location of people within the castle.

Excalibur – King Arthur’s legendary sword – pulled from a stone? or given to the bearer by the Lady in the lake.  Lots of different stories are available TH White’s Once and Future King, for example, or adaptations – Disney’s Sword in the Stone:

Original theatrical release poster

The Ruby Slippers – The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L Frank Baum’s  – strangely enough I don’t think the shoes in the novel were red – but it was a long time ago that I read the book.  The Ruby slippers originally belonged to the Wicked Witch of the East – who died when Dorothy’s house dropped out of the sky and landed on her!  The Wicked Witch of the West desperately wants the slippers for their powerful magic and pursues Dorothy to try and claim them.

Seven league boots – apparently these are magical items from folklore but I first became aware of them in Diana Wynne Jones wonderful Howl’s Moving Castle.  As you may imagine, the person who wears these boots can travel seven leagues every time they take one footstep – very useful for quests!  And I love this quote:

“It’s amazing the way one can take a step ten and a half miles long and still always land in a cowpat.” 

“Drink Me/Eat Me” – magical food and potions from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.  After following the White Rabbit down a magical rabbit hole Alice drinks from a bottle she finds on a table which causes her to shrink – fortunately a cake with the words ‘eat me’ written in currants reverses the magic – although not with the results she hoped for.

The Magic Mirror from Grimm’s fairytale – Snow White in which the evil queen asks her magic mirror every morning ‘“Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?”   One day, the mirror, which always answers truthfully, tells her that Snow White is the fairest in the land.  Enraged, the Queen sends her hunter to kill Snow White – and I’m sure you know how the story goes from there.

A magic eye – Greek mythology tells of three sisters – witches, who shared one eye and one tooth. Perseus – known for beheading Medusa – stole the witch’s eye to force them to give him information in his search for Medusa and how to defeat her.

Image taken from Villains: Fandom

Shardplate – magically enhanced armour from Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archives.  Shardplate gives the wearer enhanced speed and strength and protects the wearer more than traditional armour.  Shardplate can no longer be forged and therefore the remaining suits of armour are highly prized.

Sting – I started with Tolkien and I thought I’d finish with an artefact from his books.  Sting.  A sword that originally appeared in The Hobbit and was found by Bilbo Baggins who later gives it to Frodo in the Fellowship of the Ring.  Sting is a magical sword that can detect when orcs or goblins are near by.

Frodo and Sting, LotR, taken from Wikipedia

Obviously, I’ve missed some iconic artefacts off here – I’ve tried to go for a mix of obvious and not so obvious – give me your own examples of magical artefacts please.