 The author first wrote of it in "The Lord of the Rings", and it is retrospectively mentioned in the third, revised edition of "The Hobbit" in 1966.In the first 1937 edition, the mail shirt given to Bilbo Baggins is described as being made of "silvered steel".The name "mithril" comes from two words in Tolkien's Sindarin language—"mith", meaning "grey", and "ril" meaning "glitter".