ANCIENT CURSED RING known to TOLKIEN goes on display

A supposedly cursed gold ring that may have been the inspiration for the One Ring in JRR Tolkien's Middle Earth fantasies has gone on display at The Vyne house in Hampshire. Frodo and the One Ring Unusually complex disposal and recycling guidelines on this exhibit The National Trust and the Tolkien Society have put the …

[Elmer Phud]

Ancient and cursed ring?

My Arse!

[Jedit]

Re: Ancient and cursed ring?

So that was you in the Goatse picture?

[Magister]

Re: Ancient and cursed ring?

I was going to say that I know all about ancient cursed rings

I've been using the cream for ages, but it doesn't seem to have made a difference....

Icon = ring of fire

[Amorous Cowherder]

Re: Ancient and cursed ring?

Exactly! My car has cost me a bloody fortune in the last 6 months every month something has gone wrong on it , "It is bedevilled and cursed by Lucifer himself!".

Nope, it's just come out of it's 5 year guarantee and done 80,000 so some of its bits are knackered and need replacing. Nothing to do with curses, simple and modern variation on Sod's Law, "The split second anything comes out of its guarantee period, the only guarantee left is that it will go wrong!".

[Elmer Phud]

Missed a bit

" is linked to a tablet that curses any thief who steals it"

Where's all the fanbois at?

[Fading]

Hmm Tolkien Ring Network anyone?

http://home.agh.edu.pl/~szymon/humor/tolkienring.txt

[Jon Green]

My tablet curses anyone who steals it, too.

I've got an app for that. Well - I wrote an app for that, anyway.

[proto-robbie]

Nice that visitors are invited to decide for themselves...

...rather than viewing an exhibit being publicised entirely on its connection to Tolkien?

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

"The only similarity is that both rings are round!"

As J.R.R. Tolkien said when a (Swedish, I think) translator drew lengthy comparison with Wagner's "Ring des Nibelungen." I think the museum is hoping to ride on the popularity of the film to draw in visitors (can't blame them).

Magic rings abound in myths and legends, and Tolkien new many (Kalevala, Mabinogion, Edda, etc.), and inspiration has many sources. Also, in the Hobbit, the ring is simply a handy tool, and only in the LotR does it become sinister.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: simply a handy tool

only in LoTR does it become sinister? You might want to check that idea with Gollum first. :-)

[John Ruddy]

Re: simply a handy tool

In the first edition of the Hobbit, it is just that - an ordinary magic ring which makes the wearer invisible.

Tolkien revised the Hobbit while he was writing LotR (I believe it's called retconning now) so that the ring took on more sinister aspects - which were revealed in LotR.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "The only similarity is that both rings are round!"

The ring of power is also inspired by Norse mythology; especially Odinn's ring Draupnir which granted its owner control over the Nine Worlds. It's safe to say that Tolkein was an expert in many cultures and combined them with his own imagination to produce Middle Earth.

[Oninoshiko]

Re: expert in many cultures

Norse mythology was a particular intrest to him, or so I've read.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: expert in many cultures

He learned to read Kalevala in Finnish, which is quite a thing to do for share interest.

[Stevie]

Re: "The only similarity is that both rings are round!"

"and only in the LotR does it become sinister."

Depends on which hand one wears it, surely?

[ratfox]

Annulum unum ut omnia imperire. Annulum unum ut illa invenire.

Annulum unum ut omnia ferre. Et in tenebris illa alligare.

[Professor Clifton Shallot]

Translation

One thing to lure them all, one thing to rouse them,

One thing to bring them all, and in the gift shop, gouge them.

[Tom 13]

Re: Translation

For some of us the gouging would start well before we got to the gift shop. I mean, for you locals it might be a quick day trip at minimal cost, but for me it would start with a $1000 flight. If not for that, I'd make the trip.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm intrigued by the 'Tolkein inspired menu' in the tea room..

OK here goes (I expect some better ones from the rest of you though)

Strawberry Froyo Baggins

'return of the' Burger King

Fellowship of the Onion Rings

Aragorn on the cob

plus cakes from the Riven Deli

[IronSteve]

Re: I'm intrigued by the 'Tolkein inspired menu' in the tea room..

...You shall not pasta!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I'm intrigued by the 'Tolkein inspired menu' in the tea room..

Un-elvened bread

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I'm intrigued by the 'Tolkein inspired menu' in the tea room..

Black riders gateaux

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: I'm intrigued by the 'Tolkein inspired menu' in the tea room..

Topically, there's our Rohan 'special' lasagna...

Smaugasbord - for a sandwich that can't be topped

If it's chilli you like, then you can destroy your ring with our snacks of Doom. They're so hot we were nearly closed down by elf and safety.

You can have a ploughman's lunch, with dwarf bread, cheese, pickle and an orc pie.

After your meal, like any true adventurer, you can enjoy a pipe in our smoking room. Be careful, tobacco can be hobbit forming.

I'd best get my coat. My pun-generator appears to have malfunctioned.

[Ralph B]

Pics or it didn't happen

This is what the ring actually looks like.

(Why does The Reg think that a pic of the ring from the fillum is a better illustration than one of the ring itself? Is it a copyright thing?)

[ravenviz]

giant warrior's helmet

Is that the helmet of a giant wariror, or a warrior helmet that is very large?

[Arbee]

Re: giant warrior's helmet

Ummm - I don't think it would matter. A giant warrior would have a large helmet for his giant head.

[Gray Ham]

Re: giant warrior's helmet

Well, it would if he was a giant warrior with a tiny head ....

(see Goscinny & Uderzo's "La Zizanie")

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: giant warrior's helmet

I just thought of something rude and now I have a fit of the giggles. I was trying to eat my lunch!

[Halfmad]

I didn't think the Black Speech of Mordor was Elvish or has The Reg got a sources somewhere that says it is? It was made by Sauron and he certainly wasn't and Elf.

[ratfox]

Script is Elvish

The same as we write English with Latin characters.

[Admiral Grace Hopper]

I can send them about two dozen redundant file servers that were all called "Gandalf" by a seemingly never-ending series of Middle Earth obsessed developers.

(I congratulated the devs that called their servers Kimball, Worsel, Tregonsee and Nadreck - it made a refreshing change to inhabit a different universe).

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

Alternatively you could name your servers

Ankh, Morpork, Quirm, Pseudopolis, Lancre, Genua, Sto Lat, ..........

Here they used Pallas, Zeus, and Poseidon. I got some blank stares from the CIT crowd (Philistines, the lot of them ;-) ) when I suggested Offler, Om, and Nuggan

I'll get me coat!

[MajorTom]

Re: Alternatively you could name your servers

>Here they used Pallas, Zeus, and Poseidon. I got some blank stares from the CIT crowd (Philistines, the lot of them ;-) ) when I suggested Offler, Om, and Nuggan

>I'll get me coat!

Ahem, Quezovercoatl. As in, "I'll get me overcoatl."

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell you what....

...well chuck you a rack called that to put them in...

[Bunglebear]

Eh?

Its been on display for a while now...still quite cool in a geeky way though

[John Savard]

Valkyries

And here I thought it was well settled that Tolkien drew his inspiration from the Ring of the Nibelungs. Still, having seen an actual artifact, with a curse on it, yet, would have affected him, even if the one in the Nibelungenlied made from Rhinegeld is a bit closer in details, it (the Roman artifact) might have helped to decide him on using that other source of inspiration.

[The Indomitable Gall]

Re: Valkyries

Nope, that's a well-established myth. JRR Tolkien was a complete world folklore geek and was aware of more ring stories than Steven Seagal has made crappy straight-to-video action flicks.

[MacroRodent]

More magic rings

Some rings used to be powerful in a quite literal sense: Rulers had signet rings to sign their commands. The Pope still has one, broken after his death (or abdication, like just recently). No wonder there are many magic ring stories.

One I know of (and Tolkien himself might also have known) was written by the Finnish 19. century author Zachris Topelius in Swedish, called "Fältskärns berättelser" (?field surgeon's stories? ). It is a long historical story starting from the 30 Years War spanning multiple generations, with a ring that brings power and wealth, and also downfall forming one unifying thread.

[Ageless Stranger]

My wedding ring

was ancient and cursed

[Zog The Undeniable]

Coincidentally, we took the kids there last week

The ring display was a bit "meh" (it's next to the secondhand bookshop and not exactly pride of place) but the curse seems to have worked on nearby Tadley, which has some of the most depressing housing outside the former USSR and a nuclear warhead factory.

My daughter bought a rubber dragon from the gift shop, which I suppose might have been Smaug.