Fans of Tolkien's Hobbit and Lord of the Rings are familiar with these lines:
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
But this week the ring that is thought to have inspired Tolkien went on display in England.
A Roman ring found in 1785 near Silchester, a town that thrived before the Roman invasion and was then abandoned, bears an inscription that links it to a stone tablet cursing the thief who stole it. The tablet was found at a Roman site known as Dwarf's Hill and bears a curse from a Roman named Silvanius asking the god Nodens to curse the thief with ill health until he brings the ring back to the temple of Nodens.
A Roman ring found in 1785 near Silchester, a town that thrived before the Roman invasion and was then abandoned, bears an inscription that links it to a stone tablet cursing the thief who stole it. The tablet was found at a Roman site known as Dwarf's Hill and bears a curse from a Roman named Silvanius asking the god Nodens to curse the thief with ill health until he brings the ring back to the temple of Nodens.
When the site was excavated in 1929, Tolkien, an Oxford University professor, was called in to trace the etymology of the name Nodens and was aware of the connection between the ring and the curse. In 1937 Tolkien published The Hobbit. The influences most often cited for Tolkien's creation of The One Ring are literary or legendary rings. The possibility that this was the physical object that spurred his creation has Tolkien scholars intrigued.
The ring is now on display at The Vyne, a National Trust historic mansion in southern England, along with a copy of the curse and a first edition copy of The Hobbit. Visitors can decide for themselves if this is truly Tolkien's One Ring.
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