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Shhh! It's a Secret Ring!

© Michael Martinez

I get asked a lot of questions about Tolkien's world, and sometimes I just file the really interesting ones away for future reference. But the other day someone asked me something I don't believe I've ever come across before. Who knew about the Rings? A very astute reader pointed out to me that Boromir recognized the Ring immediately, Faramir figured out there was a Ring which concerned Gandalf, Denethor seemed to know all about it....When it comes right down to it, everyone who comes into contact with Frodo seems to know about "the precious Ring" (as Bombadil called it). If I may borrow from one of the comparisons Tolkien so detested, it's almost equivalent to every gas station attendant along Route 66 asking J. Robert Oppenheimer if they can have a look at Fat Man and Little Boy as he is driving to Los Alamos. Sauron's Ring was supposed to be a big secret, yet so many people whom Frodo encountered seemed to know about it. Gildor Inglorion figured out what was going on (and how he knew Frodo was "bearing a great burden without guidance", as Glorfindel put it, is never explained anywhere). How would it come about that so many people should know something about the One Ring at the end of the Third Age, especially considering that it had been lost to the knowledge of those who were most concerned with it for three thousand years? The answer must lie in the days of Elendil and Gil-galad, when they first put together their great alliance. Tolkien wrote very little about what actually happened, but we know that Sauron attacked Gondor and took Minas Ithil. Isildur escaped with his wife and sons. Anarion fortified Anduin and held off Sauron's forces while Isildur sailed to Arnor. There Isildur consulted with Elendil and Elendil in turn consulted with Gil-galad. Up until this time, we can be sure, the fullest knowledge of the Rings of Power was limited to only the Elves. But how much did they know in general? Did just any old Elf know there were Rings of Power, or was the knowledge confined only to a select group? Well, there are no facts to answer these questions. That is, no Tolkien essay or note has yet been published which explains how the knowledge of the Rings spread. Elrond told the people at his council the full history of the Rings. "A part of his tale was known to some there, but the full tale to none," Tolkien writes in "The Council of Elrond".

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