The effect of the Great Rings upon Men

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

Does Professor Tolkien ever specifically use the phrase "Rings of Power" to include the Three?

As already mentioned by me, Tolkien first has Gandalf use the term “Rings of Power” when explaining the creation of the Elven-rings by the Elven-smiths of Eregion. He makes Gandalf then say:

The lesser rings were but essays in the craft before it was full-grown, and to the Elven-smiths they were but trifles – yet still to my mind dangerous for mortals. But the Great Rings, the Rings of Power, they were perilous.

This implies, though does not prove, that Gandalf here uses “the Rings of Power” as a synonym for the Elven-rings. Gandalf could be conceived as jumping ahead to the Sauronic Rings in his explanation.

Thrór giving his Sauronic Ring freely to Thráin is a difficulty. Gandalf must be conceived of not to know that Thrór gave the Ring to Thráin freely. That is a possibility I admit, though it seems to me unlikely. But unlikely possibilities occur in real life. In “The Council of Elrond” Tolkien makes Gandalf say openly:

Thrór gave it [the Ring] to Thráin his son, but not Thráin to Thorin. It was taken with torment from Thráin in the dungeons of Dol Guldur.

In short, if Gandalf did not know that Thrór gave his Ring freely to his son Thráin, and if the term “Rings of Power” is used at times specifically for the Sauronic Rings as opposed to the Three Elven Rings, then Gandalf is telling the truth.

I would prefer an explanation with less hair-splitting, but that is the best explanation that I have heard.

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

You're not helping anyone that way, just aggravating people around you.

My intent was not to open up a discussion on Gandalf’s statement in “The Shadow of the Past” but only to indicate that Tolkien had made far more errors than Mithadan believed and that this is well known and indicated in the prefix material in current editions of The Lord of the Rings and in Hammond and Scull’s The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion.

That one of the examples I chose, one noted by Hammond and Scull, raised such a fury in Morthoron with unsupported accusations of hairsplitting I did not expect. Honestly! I found Zigûr’s possible and admittedly dubious explanation calm and reasonable, as usual with him. Also, very hair-splitting.

I am very sorry you were aggravated by this sub-discussion. But no single individual poster is responsible for where a thread goes.

Originally Posted by Faramir Jones

I don't know what people think, but I've always got irritated with Elrond stating that it was 'not permitted' to speak about the Three. My question has been in response, 'Not permitted by whom?' If Elrond had just said that it was dangerous to talk openly about those rings, it would have been understood by everyone present.

I have always thought that Elrond was referring to agreements among ruling Elves: Círdan, Elrond, Galadriel and Celeborn, and possibly a few others. Aragorn also at least knows that Galadriel was a ring-bearer, but this may be only from Frodo’s loose-lipped talk, and Frodo only knows, it is implied, because he sees Galadriel’s Ring on her hand. According to Tolkien’s essay “The Istari” Saruman also knows that Gandalf bears Narya. But in Tolkien’s essay “Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age”:

But the Red Ring remained hidden until the end, and none save Elrond and Galadriel and Círdan knew to whom it had been committed.

The real question it seems to me is why the identity of the bearers of the Elvish Rings is a secret at all. Originally they were held secretly and unused for fear of Sauron discovering them. But when Sauron was defeated at the end of the Second Age the secrecy remained.

The answer may be in “Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age” where it is written:

And Master Elrond foretold that this [the reforging of Narsil] would not be done until the Ruling Ring should be found again and Sauron should return.