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Shhh! It's a Secret Ring! - Page 14

© Michael Martinez

The answer must be that Boromir only paid attention to the facts of the case. That is, he was probably only interested in the neato gizmos of power, and not the motivations which led to their creation, nor the events which surrounded them. Boromir was a warrior at heart and not really much of a scholar. So Boromir makes a poor first impression on the reader insofar as the scholarship of Gondor is concerned. Faramir tells Frodo and Sam that he and his brother were taught the story of their city and sires, and that the Stewards preserved much ancient lore which only a few people ever accessed. The fact of the One Ring's existence, (and of the existence of a general group of magic "Rings of Power") was thus, if not common knowledge, then still well-known to the rulers and elite classes of Middle-earth at one time. Even Gloin seems to know something of the Rings when he speaks at Elrond's council, though he knows less about the Elven Rings than he implies. It may be that Dain opened up Erebor's library and gave Gloin a briefing, but Gloin was Dain's cousin, a member of the royal family. It seems unlikely that he would have been completely excluded from the family's records. He probably knew as much about the general history of the Rings of Power as most scholarly nobles of his day. Knowledge of the Rings of Power would not have been available among the "younger" peoples and nations. The Northmen were ancient, but their cultures had evolved and diverged through the long years of the Third Age. The Rohirrim didn't keep written records, and they weren't interested in ancient matters except where their ancestors figured as the heroes of songs. The Men of Dale and the Woodmen of Mirkwood, even if they did keep a few records, didn't really have the ancient history to sustain a full account of the Rings of Power. Arnor and its successor realms, Arthedain, Rhudaur, and Cardolan, had fallen. All that remained were the Breelanders, the Hobbits of the Shire, and Aragorn's people. And the Hobbits weren't very concerned with history at all, let alone ancient history. And as the centuries passed, the Rings became less and less important to the peoples of Middle-earth. Sauron wanted them, and the White Council knew they still posed a threat to the Free Peoples. But there were no new quests to find them, as the people who knew of the Rings knew they were perilous. Or at least they should have known that great and terrible wars had been fought over the Rings in the past. The full history was probably known only to Elrond, Galadriel, and Cirdan, and most likely to Saruman and Gandalf. Maybe a few other members of the White Council knew the full account as well. For everyone else, there were bits and pieces of lore handed on generation after generation.

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