IS THIS the One Ring that inspired them all? This ‘cursed’ ancient Roman ring may have launched Tolkien on his imaginative quest.
One Ring to rule them all,
One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all
and in the darkness bind them
With this verse, J.R.R. Tolkien launched a storytelling revolution that has stuck at the top of the best-seller-lists ever since his books were released early last century.
Now the possible source of his inspiration is being revealed for all to see.
Britain’s National Trust and the Tolkien Society are putting the artifact on display for fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to decide for themselves whether this was Tolkien’s precious ring of power.
Found in a field near a historic Roman town in southern England in 1785, the gold ring is inscribed in Latin, “Senicianus live well in God,” and inset with an image of the goddess Venus. It is larger than average, weights 12 grams, and is believed to date from the 4th century. The ring is believed to be linked to a curse tablet found at the site of a Roman temple dedicated to a god named Nodens in Gloucestershire, western England. The tablet says a man called Silvianus had lost a ring, and it asks Nodens to place a curse of ill health on Senicianus until he returned it to the temple.
An archaeologist who looked into the connection between the ring and the curse tablet asked Tolkien, who was an Anglo-Saxon professor at Oxford University, to work on the etymology of the name Nodens in 1929. The writer also visited the temple several times, and some believe he would have been aware of the existence of the Roman ring before he started writing The Hobbit.
“The influences most often cited for Tolkien’s creation of The One Ring usually take the form of literary or legendary rings,” said Lynn Forest-Hill, education officer for the Tolkien Society. “It is, then, particularly fascinating to see the physical evidence of the (ring), with its links to Tolkien through the inscription associating it with a curse,” she said.
The gold ring is displayed at The Vyne, a historic mansion in southern England.
