Interesting topic and thoughts this far, everyone!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mithalwen
I can't think of any references to them either (which doesn't mean there aren't any!) but I assumed the trial rings were part of Tolkien's idea to create a plausible mythology for England. Magic rings are part of folklore: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_ring |
Indeed! And we see exactly this in Bilbo's story and his reaction to the magic ring - he is not like "huh, what is that?" but "okay, so I just found one of these magic rings known from fairytales, cool!" So the Elven "trifles" would be an explanation for the existing folk stories in Middle-Earth.
I can see endless possibilities with the lesser rings. Many could have found their way to the hands of men, Dwarves, Orcs... after all, Eregion was
sacked, it was inevitable that there would occur things like "Sauron's Captain X killed certain Elven smith - took his ring for himself - later, he was randomly killed while raiding Dwarves from Moria - Dwarves took it - later, the owner was killed when Orcs sacked Moria - etc etc..." So the Rings really could have scattered throughout Middle-Earth.
I also think it very likely that Saruman would have gotten his hands on at least a couple of the lesser rings (surely he would be very keen to follow any remark of "hey, this and that guy might own a Ring, let's check it out"), given his interest in Ring-lore, he might have "dissected them" in order to learn how they are made (cf. Gandalf's words about white light broken
).
I do not entirely agree with
Inziladun on the power issue. Sure, usurping power for yourself through various means is a bad thing in M-E, but we see these limits crossed many times, especially by proud and gifted people, which the Ring-makers certainly were. Even without the corruption by Sauron, such Rings could have been made.
In any case, I don't see why the lesser rings would only be made to preserve like the Elven ones; after all, the Three were made for special purpose, but these were not, they were
experiments - so the Elves could make them do all sorts of things, where they were just
testing what they can do. That could, in fact, have produced even more interesting results than the "true" Rings, because the Elves did not make them with specific purpose - or with necessary the same results they expected. (As in: "I want to make a Ring which will allow me speak with animals, but I have never done that before - lo, I just managed to create a ring that will transform me into a bear!" This might be a bit exaggerated example, but I hope you got the point...)