One Ring
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The One Ring, also known as the Ruling Ring, the Great Ring of Power, The Ring, or Isildur's Bane, is an artifact from J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Middle-earth universe. The story of the Quest to destroy the Ring is told in Tolkien's novel The Lord of the Rings, as is most of the Ring's history.
Description
The One Ring was created by the Dark Lord Sauron during the Second Age in order to gain dominion over the free peoples of Middle-earth. In disguise as Annatar, or "Lord of Gifts", he aided the Elven smiths of Eregion and their leader Celebrimbor, in the making of the Rings of Power. He then forged the One Ring himself in the fires of Mount Doom. He intended it to be the most powerful of all Rings, able to rule and control the others (as long as their owners wore them). Since the other Rings were extremely powerful, Sauron was obliged to place most of his native power, life force and will into it to effect his purpose. A side effect of his doing this was that as long as the Ring existed, it was impossible to remove him from the mortal plane. The risk to Sauron was that if he were to lose the Ring, he would also lose a great deal of his own power, and if the Ring were to be destroyed, perhaps even his life.
The Ring appeared to be made of simple gold, but due to the vast power within it, it was impervious to damage. It could only be destroyed by throwing it into the pit of the volcanic Mount Doom where it had originally been forged. Like the lesser rings forged by the Elves as "essays in the craft" (but unlike the other Rings of Power) it bore no gem, but its identity could be determined by a simple (though little-known) test: when heated, it displayed a fiery Tengwar inscription in the Black Speech of Mordor. The lines were later taken up into a rhyme of lore describing the Rings, but they were evidently part of the spell that imbued the One Ring with power, since the Elves heard Sauron utter the same words during the Ring's creation whereupon they took off their own Rings and foiled his plan.
When a person wore the Ring, he would be partly "shifted" out of the physical realm into the spiritual realm. There, if he managed to consciously subdue the Ring's will with his own, he could wield all the powers that Sauron had before he lost the ring; notably, he could control and enslave the will of others. A side effect (but usually the first effect noticed) of the Ring was that it made the wearer invisible to physical beings like living Men but highly visible to spiritual beings like the Nazgûl, dimmed the wearer's sight, and sharpened his hearing. This "shadow world" was the world the Nazgûl were forced to live in always, but it was also a world in which the Calaquendi (Elves of Light) held great power: therefore Glorfindel was able to drive off the Witch-king at the Battle of Fornost and later again at the ford of Bruinen at Rivendell.
The enigmatic Tom Bombadil was unaffected by the Ring. This may be explained in many ways. (See the article on Tom Bombadil, which includes some theories.)
In Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, the wearer of the Ring is always portrayed as moving to a shadowy realm where everything is distorted. Neither Bilbo Baggins nor Frodo Baggins ever mentioned anything about this while using the Ring, but when Sam puts on the Ring at the end of The Two Towers he does experience something similar to this. This is the only time that this is mentioned in the books and could be attributed to Sauron's power increasing. Sam never wore the Ring in Jackson's movie. The actual Ring for the movies was designed and created by Jens Hansen Gold & Silversmith in Nelson, New Zealand.
Part of the nature of the Ring was that it slowly but inevitably corrupted its wearer, regardless of any intentions to the contrary. Whether this effect was specifically designed into the Ring's magic or is simply an artifact of its evil origins is unknown. (Sauron might be expected to endow his One Ring with such a property, but he probably never intended anyone besides himself to wear it.) For this reason the Wise, including Gandalf, Elrond and Galadriel, refused to wield it in their own defence, but instead determined that it should be destroyed. It appears that hobbits, being purer of heart than Men and far less powerful than Elves, are the ideal vessels to resist its seductive power. This explains why Frodo and Bilbo bore it for long periods of time with relatively little ill effect, and why Gollum, who bore it for over 500 years, was not completely corrupted (although he was twisted beyond recognition and killed his best friend soon after seeing the Ring).
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, destroyed Sauron's army, forcing Sauron to return 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 (#211) wrote that the surrender was both "voluntary and cunning" so he could gain access to Númenor. Despite 1,500 years of war with Sauron, the Elves had not revealed to the Númenóreans the existence of the One Ring (or any of the rings of power) and so Ar-Pharazôn was unaware of it. Sauron, however left his ring behind in Mordor during his exile Númenor. Still Sauron was more powerful and cunning in those days, before the breaking of the world and his great fall. He was able to use the Númenóreans' fear of death as a way to turn them against the Vala. In doing so he was able to dominate the will of most of the Númenóreans, turning them to Melkor-worship and human sacrifice.
Although Sauron's body was destroyed in the Fall of Númenor his spirit was able to bear the Ring 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 #211).
The Ring was cut from Sauron's hand by Isildur at the slopes of Mount Doom, and he in turn lost it in the River Anduin (at the Gladden Fields) just before he was killed in an Orc ambush (year 2 of the Third Age). The Ring remained hidden in the river bed for almost two and a half 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 Sauron from reclaiming his 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
The ring-inscription is a Black Speech inscription in Tengwar upon the One Ring, symbolising the Ring's power to control the other Rings of Power.
Normally the One Ring appears perfectly plain and featureless, but when heated in a fire the inscription appears in fiery letters inside and outside the Ring. A drawing of the Inscription appears in Book I, Chapter 2 of The Fellowship of the Ring, "The Shadow of the Past". A transliteration appears in Book II, Chapter 2, "The Council of Elrond", where the inscription is read by Gandalf:
Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
Hearing these words causes everyone in the Council to tremble. The Elves also put their hands over their ears, either due to their hatred of Sauron, or else due to actual pain the words bring.
The change in the wizard's voice was astounding. Suddenly it became menacing, powerful, harsh as stone. A shadow seemed to pass over the high sun, and the porch for a moment grew dark. All trembled, and the Elves stopped their ears.
Roughly translated, the words mean:
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
When the Ring was first forged, Sauron spoke these words aloud, and Celebrimbor, maker of the Three Rings of the Elves, heard him from afar and was aware of his now-revealed purposes.
The inscription uses Elvish lettering because all forms of writing Tolkien describes at that time were invented by the Elves.
Some recent editions of The Fellowship of the Ring accidentally omit the first two clauses of this phrase from Chapter 2, an error which was corrected by the time of the 50th Anniversary editions. The first four lines of the verse introduce three of the races inhabiting Middle-earth, as well as the eponymous title character, the Lord of the Rings:
- Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
- Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
- Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
- One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
- In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
- One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
- One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
- In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
Gandalf first learned of the Ring-inscription when he read the account that Isildur had written before marching north to his death and the loss of the Ring. When Isildur had cut the Ring from Sauron's hand, it was burning hot, and so Isildur was able to transcribe the inscription before it faded.
When Gandalf subsequently heated the ring that Bilbo Baggins had found and passed on to Frodo the inscription appeared, the wizard had no doubt that it was the One Ring.
In adaptations
In the 1981 BBC Radio serial of The Lord of the Rings, the Nazgûl chant the Ring-inscription.
In Peter Jackson's 2001 film of The Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf (Ian McKellen) pronounces the Ring-inscription in a slightly different manner.
Powers
The power of the One Ring was foremost the power to preserve one's life force and willpower against entropy and the decay of time. Wearing the Ring, even briefly, would curse a mortal with an indefinitely long lifespan. (The Ring cannot impart immortality, as Death is a gift of Eru Ilúvatar, the higher power in Tolkien's world.)
The Ring also had the ability to render the one who wore it effectively invisible, except to Sauron and perhaps anyone able to fully utilize its power. Tom Bombadil also remained visible while wearing it and was unaffected by its evil influence.
The Ring also amplified the power of command, and allowed the Ring-bearer to impose his own will upon others, especially orcs and Gollum. Ironically, this is also the least accessible power of the Ring. In addition, the ring granted the wearer increased hearing at the expense of the quality of their eyesight, and the ability to understand languages not known to the wearer. Even though the Ring could not grant the wielder the physical power to control or destroy beings of divine origin such as Sauron or the Valar, it would still be a very useful tool to aid in world domination.
The One Ring could also perform other functions beyond mind control. It could amplify any inherent power its owner possessed. It also might have given the wielder the ability to read people's minds, as Galadriel suggested to Frodo when asked if he could learn to communicate telepathically like she did. Finally, the One Ring had 'mastery over 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 the linked Rings of Power is unknown.
Last but not least, the portion of Sauron's power that passed into the Ring during its creation endowed it with a malevolent sentience of sorts — while separated from Sauron, the Ring would forever strive to return to him, both by compelling its bearer to seek out Sauron or his servants and by directly influencing events toward this end (for example, by slipping off Gollum's finger when the time was right for it to be brought back into the world at large). Frodo Baggins claimed that he wore it on a chain due to its tendency to expand and fall off a finger while being worn.
However, to fully master all of these abilities, the person wearing Sauron's Ring would have to already have had an extremely disciplined and well-trained mind and high spiritual development. As a result, weaker minds, such as hobbits and men, would have gained very little benefit from the Ring (let alone realize its full potential) initially. It might have been possible for lesser minds to acquire a higher level of mastery of the Ring's powers over time and through training and practice, provided they had the strength of will to prevent the Ring from dominating them instead. However, beings that were powerful in their own right, such as Maiar and the more powerful among the Elves, would have had a greater control over the ring from the outset, possibly even enough to successfully use the ring to overthrow Sauron; yet in the end, the Ring's inherent corruption would have gradually twisted its bearer into another Dark Lord as evil as Sauron was, or worse. Ultimately, though the One Ring could be claimed by any being of great power and used in great works of good or evil, the books constantly reiterated the greatest threat to be Sauron reuniting with his Ring and reclaiming that part of his power he had embedded within it during its forging.
Note that Sauron, while wielding the One Ring, was defeated twice: first by Tar-Minastir in the year 1700 of the Second Age and again by the Last Alliance at the very end of the Second Age. The Last Alliance of Elves and Men 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 so, the war lasted several years and saw the deaths of many great heroes before it was finally over. (In his letters, Tolkien stated that Ar-Pharazôn did not defeat Sauron, he defeated Sauron's followers. Sauron surrendered to the King as a stratagem, in order to be taken to Númenor, corrupt it, and mislead the King into attacking Valinor, leading to the destruction of Númenor. Then the disembodied Sauron fled back to Middle-earth, and recovered his strength in a new corporeal body, before he was attacked by the armies of the Last Alliance.) 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 strength of the Elves was fading and they were departing en masse to the Blessed Realm of Aman, 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 this environment, Sauron wielding the One Ring would have been able to conquer the entire continent with ease.
Nevertheless, 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 one's direct control." (Letter #211, 1958).
Tolkien always strongly held that his works should not be seen as an allegory, especially not of the political events of his time (for instance World War II or the Cold War). Many people have nevertheless been inclined to view the One Ring as a symbol or metaphor. 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. By the time the work was published, atomic power and the atomic bomb were common knowledge, and the Ring was often taken as symbolic of them. (Since Tolkien's authorship of his work was completed before either was known to the public, this cannot have been his intent.) Another possible interpretation is that the Ring represents the lust for power, which in Tolkien's view always corrupts. 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 can serve as a powerful metaphor. Actor Andy Serkis who played Gollum in the film trilogy cited drug addiction as an inspiration for his performance.
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 Kjærulff.
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.
Times the One Ring was worn
The One Ring was tried on by several people, at different points in The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit books:
- Sauron wore the ring at the battle of the Last Alliance and many times before that
- Isildur put the Ring on near the Gladden Fields to escape the mob of Orcs, while escaping the Ring fell off his finger exposing him to the orcs.
- Sméagol took the Ring from his cousin, Déagol.
- Bilbo used the ring many times in The Hobbit.
- He used the Ring to evade an encounter with the Sackvile-Bagginses in the Shire.
- He used the Ring after his speech at his "eleventy-first" (111st) birthday party.
- Tom Bombadil put the Ring on. It had no effect on him. Frodo tried on the Ring shortly after this to see if it still worked, yet Tom Bombadil could still see him. This revealed (to Frodo as well as the reader) that Tom Bombadil was a particularly different sort of being.
- Frodo accidentally put the Ring on at Bree as he fell off a table while performing a song in the common room of the inn.
- He put the Ring on during the Nazgûl attack on Weathertop.
- He used the Ring to evade Boromir on the slopes of Amon Hen.
- He used it a second time shortly afterwards to take one of the boats and row across the river Anduin unseen, but Sam spotted the boat.
- He put the Ring on for the final time at the Crack of Doom, where it was bitten off his finger by Gollum and subsequently destroyed.
- Sam put the Ring on to stay hidden from an orc company at Cirith Ungol.
- He used it briefly a second time at the cleft of Cirith Ungol.