I'm surprised at the appearent consensus in this matter.

An interesting question in this respect is weather Tolkien (or perhaps his wife of mother) played the piano.
This was quite a bourgeois way of spending your time from the 1860's onward (it was respectable hobby for culturally interested people) and if Tolkien ever had piano lessons he would always have numbered the fingers from thum to little finger as 1,2,3,4 and 5.
The biting of Gollum could mean to freudians that he in fact did have to play ... and hated every minute of it!

Tolkien had piano lessons, but he didn't enjoyed them very much. And his mother and his wife played the piano ... [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

But, I think that when Tolkien says that Frodo wore the ring on his third finger, he referred to the 'ring finger' [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img]

I thought that it was his middle finger?
Just like Sauron's and it was supposed to be ironic or something?
I might be wrong, I'll just go back to my trusty book and find out.

From what I know of tradition and culture, any ring that is not a wedding or engagement band is worn on the right hand on the Ring Finger. There seems to be some confusion as to what this finger is. I will explain it. Hold up your right hand. At the far left is the thumb. Next is the Index Finger. Then the Middle Finger. Then the Ring Finger. And finally the Pinky finger. If the ring is a wedding or engagement band, then it is worn on the Ring Finger of the left hand. I have a High School ring and I wear it on my right hand on the Ring Finger. This should stop all contestation as to which finger the Ring was on. As to the Sauron question I like the Movie's interpretation, where as Sauron is reaching for Isildur, Isuldur takes the hilt of Narsil and cuts all of Sauron's fingers(minus the thumb, I think) off his hand. The absense of the Ring's power causes Sauron to be defeated and to flee his physical form. Then Isildur picks up the finger and removes the ring.

I hope this helped

Isildur cut off only one of Sauron's fingers [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[ August 07, 2003: Message edited by: Amarie of the Vanyar ]

[ August 07, 2003: Message edited by: Amarie of the Vanyar ]

Yes, but realistically speaking, unless Sauron was giving Isildur the finger, it would have been extremely difficult to just cut off one finger, and precisely the right one. I think the way that the movie showed it was more realistic. What Isildur probably did was, distraught with grief and rage, he took a wild swing at Sauron with the hilt-shard of Narsil, and luckily managed to lop off a few fingers. It was pure luck that he did that, and didn't cut off Sauron's nose or something.

In my opinion, it is not so difficult if you look at how things really happened, which is slightly different to the version given in the movies [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

It took a while, but I finally found the definite answer to the old question of this topic: