I can’t discuss this chapter all in one post, as it would be too long and bore any of the few readers I have gathered here. So I will make two parts of it, starting with what is probably the longer one. I was fascinated with all the Lore of Rings and especially the One Ring in chapter 2. I was also fascinated by the clear and unmistakable glimmerings of providence and its opposite, the design of evil in the world. Those glimmerings of divinity and evil I will save for part 2.
There was more to Ring Lore than I remembered in chapter 2.
First, and this surprised me, Frodo also showed signs of not aging. I had not remembered that the Ring so affected Frodo before he even set out. But Frodo did engage in some odd behavior during this period: Pippin suspected he visited the Elves at times, as Bilbo had done. I wonder if Frodo put the Ring on to come and go secretly. I am guessing he did more than wear it on a chain about his neck.
Not only did he not age, but Frodo had strange visions of mountains that he had never seen. Was that Mordor or simply the Ring showing him the Misty Mountains and luring him to adventure where he might be caught?
The facts to be gathered about the Rings and the One Ring in chapter 2 include:
(1) They were forged in Eregion (except the One) and there were many lesser rings that were also dangerous, but the Greater Rings were all that really concerned Gandalf.
(2) The language on the One Ring is that of Mordor though the letters are Elvish.
(3) The One Ring, of course, rules the others.
(4) The three for Elven lords contain no evil (Sauron put no deception into them, I suppose, except that he could control them with the One).
(5) Four of the seven Dwarf Rings were destroyed by Dragons and Sauron had already taken possession of the other three.
(6) The nine for mortal men deceived them and turned them into shades, the Ringwraiths or Nazgul.
(7) Those who wear Greater Rings, except for the three of Elven lords, do not age, but grow weary, and become invisible continually until, growing ever thinner, they become shades like the Nazgul. They will walk in the twilight under the eye of the Dark Power that rules the Rings.
(8) The One Ring has a will of its own and influences its fate by leaving owners when it can.
(9) The One can only be destroyed in Orodruin (Mount Doom), where it was forged.
(10) The One could turn Gandalf into a Dark Lord (later we will learn Gandalf’s true nature and understand how akin to Sauron he actually is).
The Road Goes Ever On . . . 