Will of the Nazgul/Creating More Nazgul

[Hakon]

You are not the only one with that theory about the Mouth of Sauron. It is also on Tolkien Gateway. Mouth of Sauron

[radagastly]

Originally posted by Hakon:

You are not the only one with that theory about the Mouth of Sauron. It is also on Tolkien Gateway.

Good to know I'm not alone. It also mentions he may have been the messenger sent to Dale and the Lonely Mountain. He reminded me of that as well, though it's equally difficult to prove.

[Mithadan]

I do not think any of the Rings were intended for Men or Dwarves. LoTR is a bit ambiguous on this issue. In The Shadow of the Past Gandalf tells Frodo as follows:

The Three, fairest of all, the Elf-lords hid from him, and his hand never touched them or sullied them. Seven the Dwarf-kings possessed, but three he has recovered, and the others the dragons have consumed. Nine he gave to Mortal Men, proud and great, and so ensnared them.

In The Council of Elrond it is stated only that the Three were hid by Celebrimbor. So from LoTR it is clear that Sauron gave at least the Nine to Men, but how the Dwarves got the Seven is not clear.

In Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age, it is explicitly stated that when Sauron first put on the One Ring the Elves were aware of him and took off their Rings. Sauron then demanded that all the Rings be turned over to him. When Celebrimbor refused, war ensued and the Three were borne away and hidden.

But Sauron gathered into his hands all the remaining Rings of Power; and he dealt them out to the other peoples of Middle-earth, hoping thus to bring under his sway all those that desired secret power beyond the measure of their kind. Seven rings he gave to the Dwarves; but to Men he gave nine, for Men proved in this matter as in all others the readiest to his will And all those rings that he governed he perverted, the more easily since he had a part in their making.

So the Three, the Seven and the Nine were made and held by the Elves (made with Sauron's aid as to the Seven and the Nine) for their own use and the Dwarves and Men were given them by Sauron to give them "secret power beyond the measure of their kind."

The Three were made to preserve and heal and enhanced the power of their bearers to do so. The precise purposes of the Seven and the Nine are not known, but presumably, to some extent, they enhanced the natural abilities, power and desires of those who bore them. Thus the Dwarves who bore them became even more wealthy and skilled, for example, but being perverted by Sauron they also enhanced the Dwarves' natural tendency to be greedy as well.

Could the Three Dwarven Rings that Sauron recovered have been used to make more Ring Wraiths? Pure speculation, but perhaps. We don't know when Sauron recovered any other than Thrain's Ring (T.A. 2845) but that is said to be the last of the Dwarven rings he recovered. Sauron entered Dol Guldur around T.A. 1100. It seems as if he would have plenty of time to create new wraiths, assuming he could do so. Maybe the "secret powers" of the Dwarven rings were simply not suited for this purpose. Or maybe Sauron kept them to gather their power to himself.

[JeffF.]

I'm away from my books at the moment but I recall reading that only the ring given to Durin's Folk was directly between Celebrimbor and the King of Durin's Folk and that Sauron's hand never touched it. That implies that the other six were given directly by Sauron to the other Dwarf houses sometime after he'd taken them.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by JeffF.

I'm away from my books at the moment but I recall reading that only the ring given to Durin's Folk was directly between Celebrimbor and the King of Durin's Folk and that Sauron's hand never touched it. That implies that the other six were given directly by Sauron to the other Dwarf houses sometime after he'd taken them.

I believe the idea that Celebrimbor, not Sauron, had physically given that ring to Durin's house was the tradition handed down, but I don't think it was certain.

[Mithadan]

Appendix A states that Thrain's ring "was believed" by Durin's Folk to be the first forged of the Seven and "they say" that it was given to Durin III directly by the Elvensmiths. This section of the Appendix also states that Dwarven nature provided a resistance to some of the effects of the Seven and, as a result, they could not be reduced to wraiths or enslaved to Sauron's will and their lives were not extended. Nonetheless, the Seven did have evil effects upon the Dwarves because Sauron assisted in their forging.

To return to the topic, this suggests that it is possible the three remaining Dwarven Rings could have been used to create more wraiths. But the fact is that they were not so used, so either they were not appropriate for this use or Sauron chose not to use them this way.

[JeffF.]

Yet the reference to that ring as the First of the "Seven" gives weight to the theory that the Seven were intended all along for the Dwarves. Celembimbor apparently had very good relations with the Dwarves of Khazud-dum and makes this more likely, if not why distinguish at all between the Seven and the Nine?