Rings of Power

• 1. One Ring, No Backstory

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  The Rings of Power began as a single, unexplained magic ring in J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 children's novel The Hobbit. Bilbo Baggins found it in a deep cave, used it to turn invisible, and that was nearly all the explanation Tolkien offered. No backstory, no maker, no hint of menace attached to it.

  When his publishers Allen & Unwin persuaded him to write a sequel, that prop began to expand. Tolkien built around it a mythology of twenty Great Rings and a dark lord's elaborate deception. A war at the close of the Second Age followed from that starting point. He tied the Ring to mythical elements from unfinished manuscripts. He also added a question he said the whole work was designed to examine: what happens when power is placed in an external object?

  Sam Gamgee, a gardener, and Galadriel, one of the oldest Elven rulers, each come to face that question directly. So does a warrior of Gondor named Boromir, and a creature called Gollum, long warped by centuries of carrying the Ring. The story behind the Rings starts in the Second Age. A figure calling himself Annatar appeared among the Elven-smiths of Eregion, offering knowledge and gifts.

• 2. Annatar's Deception

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  In the Second Age, Sauron arrived disguised as a handsome emissary of the godlike Valar, calling himself Annatar, the Lord of Gifts. He offered the Noldorin Elves of Eregion knowledge that could transform Middle-earth with the light of Valinor, the gods' own home. Gil-galad and Elrond, the Elven leaders of Lindon, turned him away. The craftsmen of Eregion were persuaded.

  Their leading smith was Celebrimbor, grandson of Fëanor, the greatest craftsman the Noldor had ever produced. He worked alongside his friend Narvi, a Dwarven-smith from the mines of Khazad-dûm. Under Annatar's guidance, they first created many lesser rings as an exercise in skill. Then came the Seven and the Nine, and Celebrimbor forged the Three Great Rings alone. In Mordor, Sauron invested almost all of his own power in forging the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom. It was made using the Black Speech and designed to govern every other Ring.

  When Sauron set the completed One Ring upon his finger, the Elves felt his true intent immediately. They hid their rings. Sauron waged war on Eregion, destroyed it, and captured the Nine. He tortured Celebrimbor until the hiding places of the Seven were revealed. Celebrimbor refused to betray the Three, and died for that refusal. One of the Three went to Galadriel; the other two were sent to Gil-galad and Círdan.

  The Nine rings were now Sauron's, and the leaders of Men who would soon bear them were still kings.

• 3. Three, Seven, and Nine

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  Named for the elements of fire, water, and air, the Three Elven Rings were the last forged before Sauron made the One. Narya, set with a ruby, gave its bearer resistance to the weariness of time and could rekindle hope and courage in those nearby. Gandalf received Narya from Círdan at the Grey Havens during the Third Age. Nenya, made of mithril and set with a shimmering white stone, served Galadriel as she protected and preserved Lothlórien. Vilya, set with a sapphire and made of gold, was the mightiest of the Three. Elrond inherited it from Gil-galad and used it to safeguard Rivendell. The Three did not make their wearers invisible. Tolkien described their primary purpose in his letters as "the prevention and slowing of decay".

  Sauron distributed the Seven Rings among the seven kindreds of the Dwarves: Durin's Folk, Firebeards, Broadbeams, Ironfists, Stiffbeards, Blacklocks, and Stonefoots. He could not bend Dwarven minds to his will. The rings amplified greed and anger instead, swelling treasure hoards without enslaving their bearers. Four of the Seven were consumed by dragons over the centuries. Sauron reclaimed three; the last he wrested from Thráin II while Thráin was held captive in Dol Guldur.

  Nine Rings went to leaders of Men who were, in their time, kings, sorcerers, and warriors. They gained unending lifespans and the ability to perceive things invisible to mortal eyes. But as the Rings drew them further into the spirit world, they faded. Their lives stretched beyond any natural limit, and by the end of the Second Age all nine had become the Nazgûl. Sauron called them the Ringwraiths, his most terrible servants.

  Saruman, as quoted by Gandalf, had observed that each of the Great Rings was adorned with its "proper gem". The One Ring alone was bare, an unadorned gold band. Its inscription in the Black Speech became visible only when heated by fire or by Sauron's hand.

• 4. Roots and Rivals

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  The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey considered one particular piece of professional work a "pivotal" influence on the Rings of Power. Tolkien had studied a Latin inscription at a Roman temple at Lydney Park. The temple was dedicated to Nodens, a god-hero Tolkien traced to the Irish hero Nuada Airgetlám, meaning Nuada of the Silver-Hand. The inscription contained a curse upon a stolen ring, and the site was called Dwarf's Hill. Tolkien noticed that Silver-Hand translates in Sindarin as Celebrimbor, the very name he gave to the Elven-smith who made the Rings. One ancient site had concentrated a god-hero, a ring, dwarves, and a silver hand in a single location.

  Plato's Republic features a magical ring called the Ring of Gyges, which grants its wearer the power of invisibility. It creates a moral dilemma: if one could commit injustice without fear of punishment, would that person remain moral? The scholar Frederick A. de Armas noted that both Bilbo Baggins and Gyges discover their rings in deep, dark underground places. De Armas suggested both may have undergone a Catabasis, a psychological descent into the Underworld. Eric Katz draws a sharper distinction. Plato's ring simply enables injustice by removing the fear of punishment. Tolkien's One Ring actively exerts an evil force on whoever bears it. Katz frames The Lord of the Rings as Tolkien's sustained answer to Plato's question of why anyone should choose to be moral.

  In Germanic legend, Andvaranaut is a magical ring that can make its wielder wealthy. Draupnir is a self-multiplying ring that holds dominion over all the rings it creates. Richard Wagner adapted Norse mythology in his opera series Der Ring des Nibelungen, giving it a magical but cursed golden ring. Tolkien denied any connection to Wagner; most scholars disagreed. Stefan Arvidsson, a scholar of religion, wrote that Tolkien's ring differs from Wagner's in being concerned with power for its own sake. Edward Pettit, writing in Mallorn, called nine "the commonest 'mystic' number in Germanic lore". He noted its appearance in the Nine Herbs Charm from the Lacnunga, an Old English book of spells.

• 5. Drafts and Decisions

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  Tolkien struggled for years to give the Elven rings what he called a "special status". He needed them somehow linked to the One Ring and endangered by it, but also unsullied, with no direct connection to Sauron. He briefly considered having Fëanor, creator of the Silmarils, forge the Rings of Power under Morgoth's influence. He settled instead on Celebrimbor, Fëanor's descendant, working under Sauron's guidance.

  Jason Fisher, writing in Tolkien Studies, noted that Tolkien developed the Three Rings "late and slowly through many drafts". Their names, descriptions, and powers all evolved across many revisions. Some details, including Vilya's status as the mightiest of the Three, were not settled until the galley proof stage, just before printing. Narya's title "The Great" was also added at that late point. Earlier drafts had named the Three Rings Kemen, Ëar, and Menel, meaning the Rings of Earth, Sea, and Heaven.

  For the 1954 publication of The Two Towers, Tolkien made a sketch of the Rings. It arranged the Three and the Seven around the One Ring, with the Nine surrounding that group. A ribbon bearing the Ring's inscription crossed the design. Two flying Nazgûl appeared above a landscape Tolkien identified as most likely Minas Tirith and Barad-dûr. He abandoned it for a simpler composition: just the One Ring at the centre, with the two towers now identified as Minas Morgul and Orthanc.

  An unused draft shows Galadriel counselling Celebrimbor to destroy all the Rings when Sauron's deception was first revealed. When he could not bear to ruin them, she suggested instead that the Three be hidden. Tolkien also considered freeing the Three from the One Ring's influence when it was finally destroyed, then set the idea aside. Unfinished Tales records that Celebrimbor gave both Narya and Vilya to Gil-galad at the start of the War of the Elves and Sauron.

• 6. Power and Its Cost

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  The science fiction author Isaac Asimov described the Rings of Power as symbols of industrial technology. Tolkien denied that The Lord of the Rings was an allegory but acknowledged it could be applied to real-world situations. The scholars Gregory Bassham and Eric Bronson read the Rings as a modern form of an older idea. They argued that absolute power conflicts with behaviour that respects the wishes and needs of others.

  Sam Gamgee briefly holds the One Ring out of need and resists its vision of "Samwise the Strong, Hero of the Age". Galadriel sees what she would become if she accepted it, and refuses. Boromir, son of the Steward of Gondor, begins with virtuous intentions but is corrupted by the Ring's temptation of power. He wants to use it for good, cannot hold against it, and redeems himself by defending the hobbits to his own death. Gollum is eventually destroyed by it. Frodo gradually succumbs but is saved in the end by the mercy he had earlier shown Gollum. Eric Katz concluded that Tolkien's answer to Plato's "Why be moral?" is "to be yourself". Tom Bombadil stands entirely apart: the only being unaffected by the One Ring, he could see its wearer and remained visible when he wore it.

  Gwyneth Hood, writing in Mythlore, identified two Catholic elements in the story of the Three Rings. To the Hobbits of the Fellowship, the bearers of the Elven-Rings appear as angelic messengers offering wise counsel. To save Middle-earth they must accept the plan to destroy the One Ring, knowing it will cost them the power of the Three as well. W. H. Auden, an early supporter of The Lord of the Rings, wrote in the Tolkien Journal. He noted that good triumphs over evil in the War of the Ring. But the Three Rings lose their power, just as Galadriel had prophesied. Galadriel had said: "yet if you succeed, then our power is diminished, and Lothlórien will fade, and the tides of time will sweep it away." Hood noted that Tolkien was not condemning technology itself. Both the Elves and Sauron forged Rings of Power, made swords and mail armour, and shot with bows. The bearers of the Three Rings sailed from Middle-earth to Valinor at the close of the Third Age. Tolkien named what followed the Dominion of Men.