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History of the Ring See Timeline of Arda for details. After its original forging (about 1600 S.A.) Sauron wielded the ring and waged war against all who opposed him, specifically the Elves (this is known as the War of the Elves and Sauron). At first the war went well for Sauron and Eregion was destroyed along with Celebrimbor, the maker of the other rings of power. But later (about 1700 S.A.) Tar-Minastir led a great army to Middle-earth and together with Gil-galad, they destroyed Sauron's army, forcing Sauron back to Mordor. In the year 3261 S.A., Ar-Pharazôn, the last and most powerful king of Númenor, landed at Umbar at the head of a gigantic army to do battle with Sauron. The sheer size and might of the Númenórean army was enough to cause Sauron's forces to flee. Sauron surrendered to Ar-Pharazôn and was taken back to Númenor as a prisoner. Tolkien, in a letter written in 1958 ( Although Sauron's body was destroyed in the Fall of Númenor his spirit was able to bear it back to Middle-earth and he wielded it in his renewed war against the Last Alliance of Elves and Men in the years 3429 to 3441. Wrote Tolkien "I do not think one need boggle at this spirit carrying off the One Ring, upon which his power of dominating minds now largely depended." (letter The Ring was cut from Sauron's hand by Isildur, who in turn lost it in the River Gladden just before he was killed (year 2 of the Third Age). The Ring remained hidden in the river bed for almost two millennia, until it was discovered on a fishing trip by a Stoor Hobbit named Déagol. He was murdered by his friend and relative Sméagol, who stole the Ring, and was changed by the Ring's influence over many ages into the creature known as Gollum. The Ring, which Sauron had endowed with a will of its own, manipulated Gollum into settling in the Misty Mountains near Mirkwood, where Sauron was beginning to resurface. There he and it remained for nearly five hundred years, until the Ring tired of him and fell off his finger as he was returning from killing a goblin. As is told in The Hobbit, Bilbo found the Ring while he was lost in the caverns of the Misty Mountains, near Gollum's lair. When The Hobbit was written, Tolkien had not yet conceived of the Ring's sinister back-story. Thus, in the first edition of The Hobbit, Gollum surrenders the Ring to Bilbo as a reward for winning the Riddle Game. However, as Tolkien was conceiving the nature of the Ring, he realized that the Ring's grip on Gollum would never permit him to give it up willingly. Therefore, Tolkien revised this chapter in the second edition of The Hobbit: after losing the Riddle Game to Bilbo, Gollum went to get his "Precious" (as he always called it) so he could kill and eat him, but flew into a rage when he found it missing. Deducing that Bilbo had it from his last riddle— "What have I got in my pocket?"— Gollum chased him through the caves, not knowing that the Hobbit had discovered the Ring's powers of invisibility and was following him to the cave's exit. Bilbo escaped Gollum and the goblins who inhabited the Misty Mountains by remaining invisible, but left that power out of the story he told the dwarves he was travelling with. In fact, the version of the events that Bilbo told was the version of the first edition of the Hobbit. Gandalf, who was also travelling with the dwarves, later forced the real story out of Bilbo, and was immediately suspicious of the Ring's powers. Gollum, meanwhile, eventually left the Misty Mountains to track down and reclaim the Ring. He wandered for decades, to be captured and interrogated by Sauron himself, to whom he revealed the existence of Bilbo and the Shire. In 3001 of the Third Age, following Gandalf's counsel, Bilbo gave the Ring to his nephew and adopted heir Frodo. This first willing sacrifice of the Ring in its history sparks the chain of events which eventually led to its unmaking. It is one example of the frequent interplay between apparent chance and destiny, a ubiquitous theme in The Lord of the Rings. By this time Sauron had begun to regain his power, and the Dark Tower in Mordor had been rebuilt. In order to prevent the recapture of the Ring, Frodo and eight other companions set out from Rivendell for Mordor in an attempt to destroy the Ring in the fires of Mount Doom. During the quest, Frodo gradually became more and more susceptible to the Ring's power, and feared that it was going to corrupt him. When he and Sam discovered that Gollum was on their trail and "tamed" him into guiding them to Mordor, he began to feel a strange bond with the wretched, treacherous creature, seeing a possible future of himself that he felt he had to save in order to save himself. Gollum gave in to the Ring's temptation, however, and betrayed them to the spider Shelob. Believing Frodo to be dead, Sam bore the Ring himself for a short time and experienced the temptation it induced, although he never gave in to it. Sam rescued Frodo from a band of orcs at the Tower of Cirith Ungol and returned the Ring to him, but feared that the toll it was taking was too great. It nearly was: although Frodo and Sam, followed by Gollum, eventually arrived at Mount Doom, Frodo was overcome by its corrupting nature and claimed the Ring for himself rather than destroy it. However, he was attacked by Gollum, who bit off the finger holding the Ring before falling into the fires of Mount Doom, finally destroying the Ring. Appearance Physically, the Ring is an unadorned and geometrically perfect circle of pure gold; this perfection and purity is part of its allure. It seems to have been able to expand and contract in order to snugly fit its wearer's finger or slip from it treacherously. In Peter Jackson's film The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the Ring can be seen contracting to fit Isildur's finger. When heated in fire, the Ring would bear the following inscription in Elvish (Fëanorian) Tengwar letters in the Black Speech of Mordor: Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul. These words, spoken by Sauron as part of the creation of the Ring, were translated and memorialized as two lines in a verse of Elven lore about the Rings of Power: Powers The power of the One Ring was foremost the power to preserve ones life force and willpower against entropy and the decay of time. Wearing the Ring, even briefly, will curse a mortal with an indefinitely long lifespan. (The Ring cannot impart immortality, as Death is a gift of a higher power in Tolkien's world.) Ring amplifies the power of command, extending this to imposing the Ring-bearer's own will upon others. Ironically, this is also the least accessible power of the Ring. Even though the Ring could not grant the wielder the physical power to control or destroy angelic beings such as Sauron or the Valar unless he already had that power within him, it would still be a very useful tool to aid in world domination. It also has a mind of its own, using it to go back to his master when its user can't help it to achieve what it wants. The One Ring could also perform other functions beyond mind control. It could multiply the inherent power of its owner. It has been shown to give the wearer the ability to understand other languages. While wearing the Ring, Sam Gamgee was able to understand the Black Speech of the Orcs. It also might give the wielder the ability to read people's minds. Galadriel suggested this to Frodo when he asked if he could learn to communicate with thoughts like her. Finally, the True One Ring has the powers of all the other Rings. Whether Tolkien meant the Ring could reproduce their powers or he was just reiterating the Ring's ability to control others who wore Rings of Power is unknown. However, to fully realize all of these abilities, the person wearing Sauron's Ring would have to already have an extremely well-trained mind and high spiritual development. As a result, the weak, such as the hobbits and men, would gain very little benefit initially from the Ring, let alone figure out what it truly does. That is of course in the unlikely instance that they could avoid becoming Sauron's slave through the Ring, which was virtually impossible. However, already powerful beings, such as Galadriel and Saruman would immediately realize its strengths. They might even have strength enough to destroy Sauron. Yet, though they could overthrow Sauron once they claimed the Ring, in the end, the Ring's inherent ability to corrupt its owner would have eventually twisted them into another "Dark Lord". Although the One Ring could be claimed by a being of great power and used for evil, The Lord of the Rings books constantly reiterated the greatest threat to be Sauron reuniting with his Ring and returning to full power. Indeed, he would have made the best use of it, as the power within it was ultimately his. Note that Sauron, while wielding the One Ring, was defeated twice. First by Ar-Pharazôn in the year 3255 of the Second Age and again at the very end of the Second Age. The Last Alliance that defeated Sauron and took his Ring at the end of the Second Age was made up of legendary heroes of great strength and divine blood. Even then, it was a concerted effort between the races of Elves and Men. That war lasted several years and saw the deaths of many great heroes before it was finally over. In the book Tolkien strongly suggests that this would not have been possible during the waning years of the Third Age when the strength of the free peoples were greatly diminished. At the end of the Third Age, the Elves were greatly diminished, the Dwarves had been driven out of Moria and were strong only in a few locations, and the kingdoms of Men were disorganized with some actively supporting Sauron. In that environment, Sauron wielding the One Ring would have been able to conquer the entire continent with ease. Never-the-less, despite its dangerous reputation, the Ring was not omnipotent, nor its power over other people's minds absolute. Symbolism Tolkien wrote the following about the idea behind the One Ring "I should say that it was a mythical way of representing the truth that potency (or perhaps potentiality) if it is to be exercised, and produce results, has to be externalized and so as it were passes, to a greater or lesser degree, out of ones direct control." (Letter Although Tolkien always strongly held that his works should not be seen as a metaphor for anything, and especially not for the political events of his time (for instance WWII or the Cold War; note that much of The Lord of the Rings was written prior to and during World War II and well before the Cold War), many people have felt an urge to see the One Ring as a symbol or metaphor for various things. Among them are atomic energy and the atomic bomb, which would both be anachronistic, as the Ring was invented in the late 1930s, and the atom bomb did not become public knowledge until 1945. The notion of a power too great for humans to wield safely is an evocative one, and already in the 1930s there were plenty of technologies available to make people think of that idea. Other possible interpretations are that the ring represents the urge for power, which in Tolkien's view is always corrupting. The lure and effect of the Ring and its physical and spiritual after-effects on Bilbo and Frodo are obsessions that can be compared with drug addiction, for which the Ring serves as a powerful metaphor. Actor Andy Serkis who played Gollum in the film trilogy cited drug addiction as an inspiration for his performance, in that Gollum was an addict to the One Ring. Cursed rings, such as those described by both Plato in his ''Republic'' (the Ring of Gyges), and in Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle operas, have a long history in literature. Although Tolkien strongly denied any connection, it is possible that the One Ring was inspired by the Andvarinaut of the Volsunga saga, the central artifact of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), without being meant to "symbolise" it. A recent philosophical interpretation has been built around the literary device of the Cursed Ring by Danish author Peter Kjaerulff. It is likely that the One Ring inspired (at least partially) Crenshinibon, R.A. Salvatore's Crystal Shard, a likewise evil artifact that wants nothing more than power. Unlike the Ring, however, Crenshinibon is a sentient being and has no master seeking it. In the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford there is a collection of English "Posy Rings" dating from the 17th and 18th centuries, which bear a striking resemblance to the One Ring. The rings, all in gold have short rhyming inscriptions on their inside, typically messages of love. The collection was presented to the museum in 1933 by Dr Joan Evans. It seems likely that Tolkien was aware of the existence of these rings at that date. A photograph of the collection is up on flickr. List of times the One Ring was worn in The Lord of the Rings The One Ring was tried on by several people, at different points in the book: | ||||||||||
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