The Shadow of the Past - Gandalf's knowledge

[JeyEn]

Well in Silmarillion, he said "for he rules the Nine, and of the Seven he has recovered three. " So 4 rings were considered lost. And Gandalf could have thought that Nine and other three were maybe redistributed. What is interesting - in early draft of this chapter, Gandalf says that he firstly believed Bilbo has a lesser ring. But for some reason, Tolkien did not write that. So I doubt it was a editing mistake.

Here is the quote from early draft (I don't know how to put it in the nice box):

'Yes, I let him,' said Gandalf. 'But at first of course I did not even imagine that it was [one] of the nineteen Rings of Power: I thought he had got nothing more dangerous than one of the lesser magic rings that were once more common - and were used (as their maker intended) chiefly by minor rogues and villains, for mean wickednesses. I was not frightened of Bilbo being affected by their power. But when I began to suspect that the matter was more serious than that, I told him as much as my suspicions warranted. He knew that it came in the long run from the Necromancer. But you must remember there was the Ring itself to reckon with. Even Bilbo could not wholly escape the power of the Ruling Ring. He developed - a sentiment. He would keep it as a memento. Frankly - he became rather proud of his Great Adventure, and used to look at the Ring now and again (and oftener as time went on) to warm his memory: it made him feel rather heroic, though he never lost his power of laughing at the feeling.

'But in the end it got a hold of him in that way. He knew eventually that it was giving him "long life", and thinning him. He grew weary of it - "I can't abide it any longer", he said - but to get rid of it was not so easy. He found it hard to bring himself to it. If you think for a moment: it is not really very easy to get rid of the Ring once you have got it.'

[Huinesoron]

JeyEn - the box is the Quote function. You can access it through the rectangular speech bubble above the message entry box, or by typing your text in the appropriate tags: <QUOTE="Title">Text goes here</quote>, with the <> replaced by [], gives:

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I think the fact that the early drafts have Gandalf thinking it wasn't a Great Ring points directly at a continuity error: Gandalf now knows what the Ring is, but treats it as if he doesn't. Part of the reason he was "dismayed and in doubt" in the Silm quote is because Tolkien knew that he hadn't written him to follow the most logical course of action.

But if we set that aside: I think we come back to him thinking the Ring is one of the Seven. He trusted Saruman too much (like many others before and after him!); and after all, he knew that the One had been lost somewhere in Anduin, so a cave in the mountains was an implausible place for it to re-appear. A Dwarven Ring is far, far more likely; and just as dangerous in the hands of one of the Wise, because unlike the Three they're solidly under Sauron's power.

Given Saruman's known jealousy of the bearers of the Three, Gandalf's main concern was almost certainly that Saruman would take possession of the Ring and fall under Sauron's control. What was the best way to avoid that? "Keep it secret - keep it safe." You leave it in the Shire that nobody visits and most people have never heard of, don't tell anyone on the White Council, and quietly get the best warriors in Arnor to keep a close watch on the entire country. Which is exactly what Gandalf did.

hS

[William Cloud Hicklin]

I think Gandalf was in a position where deduction and simple arithmetic told him it could only be the One, but that was almost too much to believe, and then there was Saruman's definitive statement. There seemed no way the One could have made its way from Isildur's finger to a tunnel under the mountains, and if Saruman could be wrong about the One than surely he could be wrong about one of the others instead (in the first instance, the Seven- maybe one wasn't actually melted by a dragon but simply dropped?). He could not reconcile the data available, and certainly didn't want to make a definitive move until he was certain, or at least more certain. That certainty didn't come until he had found and questioned Goillum.