Sting (Middle-earth)
Sting has the magical ability to detect orcs or goblins nearby, glowing blue in their presence, as it did when the Fellowship encountered orcs in the mines of Moria. Tolkien establishes this as a common property of First Age Elf blades, particularly those forged in Gondolin. Sting is also exceptionally sharp. Bilbo manages to thrust it without effort deep into a wooden beam at Rivendell. Frodo also wounds a troll in Moria, after Boromir notches his own sword with his attempt. Sam uses Sting to cut through the giant spider Shelob's strong webs with ease, and also wound the spider, driving it away from the paralyzed Frodo.
J. R. R. Tolkien's influences
Tolkien was heavily influenced by Norse mythology. During his education at King Edward's School in Birmingham, the then young Tolkien read and translated from the Old Norse on his own time. One of his first Norse purchases was the "Völsunga saga". It is known that while a student, Tolkien read the only available English translation of the "Völsunga saga", that by William Morris of the Victorian Arts and Crafts Movement and Icelandic scholar Eiríkur Magnússon. The Old Norse "Völsunga saga" and the Old High German "Nibelungenlied" were coeval texts made with the use of the same ancient sources. Both of them provided some of the basis for Richard Wagner's opera series, "Der Ring des Nibelungen", featuring in particular a magical golden ring and a broken sword reforged. In the "Völsunga saga", these items are respectively Andvarinaut and Gram, and they correspond broadly to the One Ring and the sword Narsil (reforged as Andúril). The "Volsunga Saga" also gives various names found in Tolkien. Tolkien wrote a book entitled "The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún", in which he discusses the saga in relation to the myth of Sigurd and Gudrún.