Posted on 04/03/2013 9:44:42 AM PDT by Altariel
In what was once the housekeeper's office of a Tudor mansion in Hampshire, a very odd golden ring glitters on a revolving stand in a tall perspex column. In chapter five of The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins finds a ring in the gloom of Gollum's cave. Not just any ring. "One very beautiful thing, very beautiful, very wonderful. He had a ring, a golden ring, a precious ring."
A new exhibition opening today at The Vyne, now owned by the National Trust, raises the intriguing possibility that the Roman ring in the case, and the ring of power in JRR Tolkien's book The Hobbit, and in his Lord of the Rings trilogy, are one and the same.
As Dave Green, the property manager, explains, there's more to the story than the ring – an iron-age site with ancient mine workings known as "the Dwarf's Hill", a curse on the thief who stole the ring, and a strong link to Tolkien himself.
Tolkien was a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford before he found fame as an author, with the publication of The Hobbit in 1937, and the first of the Rings trilogy in 1954. He certainly knew the story of the curse and the ring, and was researching the subject two years before he began work on The Hobbit.
The ring was in the collection of the Chute family – which for generations was interested in politics, collecting, and antiquarian research – for centuries before the house came to the National Trust in the 1930s.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Perhaps, but “ring” mythology shows up all over northern European written history, which Tolkein clearly studied and attempted to emulate in part. It’s hard to say what, exactly, was the primary inspiration.
You know how unlucky it is to say that, much less print it? I hope you don’t live anywhere near me.
Fo’shizzle.
and look what it got him...he’s dead!
Gesundheit.
Never before have the words of that tongue been uttered in this thread.
LOL
The change in KC_Lion’s typing was astounding. Suddenly it became menacing, powerful, harsh as stone. A shadow seemed to pass over the forum, and the Freepers for a moment were silent. All trembled, and the Viking Kitties stopped their ears.
“Never before has any poster dared to utter words of that tongue in The Hobbit Hole, KC_Lion.”
(Lookie what YOU’VE done....)
"Ummm, that's not the precious..."
It does look a bit similar, but I think it’s the fact that it glows in the dark and takes over people’s souls that really inspired Tolkien.
I have it on good authority that the ring in question is presently in the possession of the present occupant of the ‘White Hut’.
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.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.