dChan
Anonymous ID: d31e04 Nov. 6, 2021, 1:12 p.m. No.14938945   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>8964

>>14938930

Sam sat silent and said no more. He had a good deal to

think about. For one thing, there was a lot to do up in the

Bag End garden, and he would have a busy day tomorrow,

 

if the weather cleared. The grass was growing fast. But Sam

 

had more on his mind than gardening. After a while he

 

sighed, and got up and went out.

It was early April and the sky was now clearing after heavy

rain. The sun was down, and a cool pale evening was quietly

fading into night. He walked home under the early stars

 

through Hobbiton and up the Hill, whistling softly and

 

thoughtfully.

It was just at this time that Gandalf reappeared after his long

absence. For three years after the Party he had been away.

Then he paid Frodo a brief visit, and after taking a good look

 

at him he went off again. During the next year or two he had

 

turned up fairly often, coming unexpectedly after dusk, and

 

going off without warning before sunrise. He would not

 

discuss his own business and journeys, and seemed chiefly

 

interested in small news about Frodo’s health and doings.

Then suddenly his visits had ceased. It was over nine years

since Frodo had seen or heard of him, and he had begun to

 

think that the wizard would never return and had given up

 

all interest in hobbits. But that evening, as Sam was walking

 

home and twilight was fading, there came the once familiar

 

tap on the study window.

Frodo welcomed his old friend with surprise and great

delight. They looked hard at one another.

‘All well eh?’ said Gandalf. ‘You look the same as ever,

Frodo!’

‘So do you,’ Frodo replied; but secretly he thought that

Gandalf looked older and more careworn. He pressed him

 

for news of himself and of the wide world, and soon they

 

were deep in talk, and they stayed up far into the night.

Next morning after a late breakfast, the wizard was sitting

with Frodo by the open window of the study. A bright fire

Anonymous ID: d31e04 Nov. 6, 2021, 1:28 p.m. No.14939081   🗄️.is 🔗kun

was on the hearth, but the sun was warm, and the wind was

in the South. Everything looked fresh, and the new green of

spring was shimmering in the fields and on the tips of the

 

trees’ fingers.

Gandalf was thinking of a spring, nearly eighty years

before, when Bilbo had run out of Bag End without a hand-

 

kerchief. His hair was perhaps whiter than it had been then,

and his beard and eyebrows were perhaps longer, and his

 

face more lined with care and wisdom; but his eyes were as

 

bright as ever, and he smoked and blew smoke-rings with the

 

same vigour and delight.

He was smoking now in silence, for Frodo was sitting still,

deep in thought. Even in the light of morning he felt the dark

 

shadow of the tidings that Gandalf had brought. At last he

broke the silence.

‘Last night you began to tell me strange things about my

ring, Gandalf,’ he said. ‘And then you stopped, because you

 

said that such matters were best left until daylight. Don’t you

 

think you had better finish now? You say the ring is danger-

 

ous, far more dangerous than I guess. In what way?’

‘In many ways,’ answered the wizard. ‘It is far more power-

ful than I ever dared to think at first, so powerful that in the

 

end it would utterly overcome anyone of mortal race who

 

possessed it. It would possess him.

‘In Eregion long ago many Elven-rings were made, magic

rings as you call them, and they were, of course, of various

 

kinds: some more potent and some less. The lesser rings were

 

only essays in the craft before it was full-grown, and to the

 

Elven-smiths they were but trifles – yet still to my mind

 

dangerous for mortals. But the Great Rings, the Rings of

 

Power, they were perilous.

‘A mortal, Frodo, who keeps one of the Great Rings, does

not die, but he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely

 

continues, until at last every minute is a weariness. And if

 

he often uses the Ring to make himself invisible, he fades: he

becomes in the end invisible permanently, and walks in the

 

twilight under the eye of the Dark Power that rules the Rings.

Anonymous ID: d31e04 Nov. 6, 2021, 2:03 p.m. No.14939380   🗄️.is 🔗kun

Yes, sooner or later – later, if he is strong or well-meaning to

begin with, but neither strength nor good purpose will last –

sooner or later the Dark Power will devour him.’

‘How terrifying!’ said Frodo. There was another long

silence. The sound of Sam Gamgee cutting the lawn came

 

in from the garden.

‘How long have you known this?’ asked Frodo at length.

‘And how much did Bilbo know?’

‘Bilbo knew no more than he told you, I am sure,’ said

Gandalf. ‘He would certainly never have passed on to you

anything that he thought would be a danger, even though I

 

promised to look after you. He thought the ring was very

 

beautiful, and very useful at need; and if anything was wrong

or queer, it was himself. He said that it was ‘‘growing on his

 

mind’’, and he was always worrying about it; but he did not

 

suspect that the ring itself was to blame. Though he had

 

found out that the thing needed looking after; it did not seem

 

always of the same size or weight; it shrank or expanded in

 

an odd way, and might suddenly slip off a finger where it

 

had been tight.’

‘Yes, he warned me of that in his last letter,’ said Frodo,

‘so I have always kept it on its chain.’

‘Very wise,’ said Gandalf. ‘But as for his long life, Bilbo

never connected it with the ring at all. He took all the credit

 

for that to himself, and he was very proud of it. Though he

 

was getting restless and uneasy. Thin and stretched he said.

A sign that the ring was getting control.’

‘How long have you known all this?’ asked Frodo again.

 

‘Known?’ said Gandalf. ‘I have known much that only the

Wise know, Frodo. But if you mean ‘‘known about this ring’’,

well, I still do not know, one might say. There is a last test to

make. But I no longer doubt my guess.

‘When did I first begin to guess?’ he mused, searching back

in memory. ‘Let me see – it was in the year that the White

 

Council drove the Dark Power from Mirkwood, just before

Anonymous ID: d31e04 Nov. 6, 2021, 2:21 p.m. No.14939507   🗄️.is 🔗kun

fell on my heart then, though I did not know yet what I

feared. I wondered often how Gollum came by a Great Ring,

as plainly it was – that at least was clear from the first. Then

 

I heard Bilbo’s strange story of how he had ‘‘won’’ it, and I

 

could not believe it. When I at last got the truth out of him,

 

I saw at once that he had been trying to put his claim to the

 

ring beyond doubt. Much like Gollum with his ‘‘birthday-

present’’. The lies were too much alike for my comfort.

 

Clearly the ring had an unwholesome power that set to work

 

on its keeper at once. That was the first real warning I had

 

that all was not well. I told Bilbo often that such rings were

 

better left unused; but he resented it, and soon got angry.

 

There was little else that I could do. I could not take it from

 

him without doing greater harm; and I had no right to do so

anyway. I could only watch and wait. I might perhaps have

 

consulted Saruman the White, but something always held

 

me back.’

‘Who is he?’ asked Frodo. ‘I have never heard of him

before.’

‘Maybe not,’ answered Gandalf. ‘Hobbits are, or were, no

concern of his. Yet he is great among the Wise. He is the

 

chief of my order and the head of the Council. His knowledge

 

is deep, but his pride has grown with it, and he takes ill any

 

meddling. The lore of the Elven-rings, great and small, is his

 

province. He has long studied it, seeking the lost secrets of

 

their making; but when the Rings were debated in the Coun-

 

cil, all that he would reveal to us of his ring-lore told against

 

my fears. So my doubt slept – but uneasily. Still I watched

 

and I waited.

‘And all seemed well with Bilbo. And the years passed.

Yes, they passed, and they seemed not to touch him. He

 

showed no signs of age. The shadow fell on me again. But I

 

said to myself: ‘‘After all he comes of a long-lived family on

 

his mother’s side. There is time yet. Wait!’’

‘And I waited. Until that night when he left this house. He

said and did things then that filled me with a fear that no

 

words of Saruman could allay. I knew at last that something