The Rings

Rings of Power.

2 Age.

The Rings of Power was made in the Second age ( from ca. 1500 to 1600 S.A. ) of the world by Eregions elven smiths in the city " Ost-in-Edhil" of whom Celebrimbor was the greatest and their lord too, they did them with the help of the Moria Dwarfs and Sauron who then was hiding his evil. But Celebrimbor saw the dark in his soul and he hid the three Rings he had made himself. Many other rings were made with the help of Sauron but lesser and they were dealt out lavishly to ensnare the peoples of the world. Only Hobbits had never had any until Gollum found one.

The Seven and the Nine rings were chiefly made by Sauron and were made of special potency but the Three were made by Celebrimbor himself and Sauron never touched them but he was aware of them and he made the One Ring in answer to them. By that we may be able to extract that the Seven and Nine were under Saurons control with or without him holding the One Ring.

We know from the chapter, The Grey Havens, in LotR what they were made of "Elrond wore ... and upon his finger was a ring of gold with a great blue stone.... Galadriel sat upon a white.... on her finger was Nenya the ring wrought of Mithril..." The other rings but the One, also had their gems, of what kind they were we do not know but they surely had gems, this Gandalf tells us in LotR. in Imladris "The nine the seven and the three had each their proper gem, not the One, it was round and unadorned as it were one of the lesser rings..."

The Three.

Three of the great Rings had the Elves, those was the most powerful but the One Ring, and had never been touched by the Dark Lord, and he did not know where they were or who kept them. The name of these three rings are Nenya, Narya and Vilya.

Nenya ( Nen = Water ) is the blue Ring, "Ring of Water" it has a white stone of Adamant and it is made of Mithril, given to Galadriel by Celebrimbor S.A.1693.

Narya ( Nar = Fire ) is the red ring "Ring of Fire" with a red stone of Ruby, this ring was given to Gandalf / Olorin by Cirdan the Shipwright who had it from Gil-galad who again had received Narya and Vilya from Celebrimbor. Cirdan thought Gandalf might have better use of it in his quest than himself.

Vilya ( Vil = Air ) the most powerful of the three Elven Rings "Ring of Air" had a blue stone of Sapphire and was made of gold. Elrond half-elven had this ring given to him by Gil-galad before he died in the last battle in the last Alliance of Elves and Men.

The Seven.

The Seven rings was for the seven clans of Dwarves and their power was in kindling the fire of greed for property and lust for gold. Sauron knew that the Dwarves could not easily be turned to him or made into his servants, they were too solid. It is told that the Seven were given to each of the seven hoards of Dwarves and they were used to lay the foundation of the seven Dwarven kingdoms. But Sauron hoped that greed in the end would ruin them and in that he was right. Of the Seven all has returned to Sauron or been destroyed in the hot fire of the Dragons.

The Nine.

The Nine was for the Humans and their power was related to those who received them and depended on the lust and power user but in the end the user would become a wraith subdued to Sauron. The bearer of a ring, it seems, entered over time into a wraith world in which he then became fully visible to the denizens of that world if he put it on his finger.

In the beginning the possessors had what we might call "Good luck" according to what they were themselves and what they desired. It seemed like they had endless life but the rings were under command of the ring-maker and were always drawing the possessor back to him as long as the maker had the Ruling Ring.

The wearer of the rings became at last permanently invisible and that is a terrible cold feeling, everything becomes very faint like grey figures against a black background but the smell becomes more clearly than you can hear or see. The wearer have finally become a wraith under command of Sauron with no power or will of its own unless you have a ring or are lend one by the dark lord.

When Sauron lost his master ring he also lost effective control of the nine. That does not mean that the Ring-Wraiths were definitively destroyed but they had no effective existence for Sauron. They could not function as his servants under his supreme will but were living on their own as evil spirits but through the years he slowly gathered the nine rings. He sought them out and regained the control of the Ringwraiths.

Related links.: Battles.: War of Elves and Sauron. Encyc.: The Rings of Power.