112-593: Gollum is a monster with a distinctive style of speech in J. R. R. Tolkien 's fantasy world of Middle-earth . He was introduced in the 1937 fantasy novel The Hobbit , and became important in its sequel, The Lord of the Rings . Gollum was a Stoor Hobbit of the River-folk who lived near the Gladden Fields . In The Lord of the Rings , it is stated that he was originally known as Sméagol , corrupted by
224-421: A cobra ." — King Solomon's Mines , 1885 Rogers and Underwood note that Gagool rejoices in "blood and death". Like Gollum, she is human-like but distorted to a parody; she is shrunken and extremely old; her large eyes and speech are distinctive; and she is wholly materialistic, with a "terrible greediness and self-referencing" and "the insatiable claims of the naked ego". They mention also the cultural background of
336-613: A definite article ("the"), a demonstrative adjective ("that"), and demonstrative pronoun . Other demonstratives are þēs ("this"), and ġeon ("that over there"). These words inflect for case, gender, and number. Adjectives have both strong and weak sets of endings, weak ones being used when a definite or possessive determiner is also present. Verbs conjugate for three persons : first, second, and third; two numbers: singular, plural; two tenses : present, and past; three moods : indicative , subjunctive , and imperative ; and are strong (exhibiting ablaut) or weak (exhibiting
448-694: A version of the Latin alphabet . Englisċ , from which the word English is derived, means 'pertaining to the Angles '. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes who settled in many parts of Britain in the 5th century. By the 9th century, all speakers of Old English, including those who claimed Saxon or Jutish ancestry, could be referred to as Englisċ . This name probably either derives from Proto-Germanic *anguz , which referred to narrowness, constriction or anxiety, perhaps referring to shallow waters near
560-468: A "bleached look", "strange large grayish-red eyes" with "a capacity for reflecting light", and run in a low posture somewhere close to all fours, looking like "a human spider", through having lived for generations underground in darkness. Tom Birkett, writing in A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien , likens Gollum to Hreiðmarr 's son in the Völsunga saga , who took the shape of an otter to catch fish; in
672-398: A back vowel ( /ɑ/ , /o/ , /u/ ) at the time of palatalization, as illustrated by the contrast between fisċ /fiʃ/ ('fish') and its plural fiscas /ˈfis.kɑs/ . But due to changes over time, a knowledge of the history of the word in question is needed to predict the pronunciation with certainty (for details, see palatalization ). In word-final position, the pronunciation of sċ
784-656: A birthday present; when Déagol refused, Sméagol strangled him. Sméagol later used the Ring for thieving, spying and antagonising his friends and relatives, who nicknamed him "Gollum" for the swallowing noise he made in his throat, until his grandmother disowned him. He wandered in the wilderness for a few years until he finally retreated to a deep cavern in the Misty Mountains . The Ring's malignant influence twisted his body and mind, and prolonged his life well beyond its natural limits. Gollum left his cave in pursuit of Bilbo
896-400: A crisis; a group of male characters on a quest; dangers in caves; a goal of treasure; and return to a happy countryside. Gollum and Gagool both have a monstrous character, Gagool being described as a withered-up monkey [that] crept on all fours ... a most extraordinary and weird countenance. It was (apparently) that of a woman of great age, so shrunken that in size it was no larger than that of
1008-449: A debate between the two, with the nefarious "Stinker" ultimately coming out on top. However, as shown in "The Stairs of Cirith Ungol" chapter, Gollum often oscillates between good and evil. When Gollum stumbles upon Frodo and Sam outside of Shelob's Lair, he is briefly overcome and nearly repents, but this is ultimately ruined by Sam's skeptical remarks. Tolkien describes this as the story's most tragic moment, and he claims "Sam failed to note
1120-406: A dental suffix). Verbs have two infinitive forms: bare and bound; and two participles : present and past. The subjunctive has past and present forms. Finite verbs agree with subjects in person and number. The future tense , passive voice , and other aspects are formed with compounds. Adpositions are mostly before but are often after their object. If the object of an adposition is marked in
1232-625: A few years after losing the Ring, eventually reaching Dale by the Lonely Mountain and learning of Bilbo's return to the Shire . However, he was then drawn away from Bilbo's trail and towards Mordor . There he met the monstrous spider Shelob and became her spy, worshipping her and bringing her food. He was eventually captured by Sauron's forces and tortured, revealing to Sauron the names of "Baggins" and "the Shire". His testimony alerted Sauron to
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#17327825799751344-517: A following ⟨m⟩ or ⟨n⟩ . Modern editions of Old English manuscripts generally introduce some additional conventions. The modern forms of Latin letters are used, including ⟨g⟩ instead of insular G , ⟨s⟩ instead of insular S and long S , and others which may differ considerably from the insular script, notably ⟨e⟩ , ⟨f⟩ and ⟨r⟩ . Macrons are used to indicate long vowels, where usually no distinction
1456-467: A friction that led to the erosion of the complicated inflectional word endings. Simeon Potter notes: No less far-reaching was the influence of Scandinavian upon the inflexional endings of English in hastening that wearing away and leveling of grammatical forms which gradually spread from north to south. It was, after all, a salutary influence. The gain was greater than the loss. There was a gain in directness, in clarity, and in strength. The strength of
1568-568: A leash, but the mere touch of the rope pained him. Taking pity on the wretched creature, just as Bilbo once had, Frodo made Gollum swear to help them. Agreeing to the oath, Gollum swore by the Ring itself, and Frodo released him. The unlikely company, guided by Gollum, made their way to the Black Gate , the main entrance to Mordor. Frodo's kindness brought out Gollum's better nature, and he made at least some effort to keep his promise. Sam, however, despised Gollum upon sight, and often warned Frodo of
1680-413: A member of the secluded branch of the early Stoorish Hobbits . He spent the early years of his life with his extended family under a matriarch , his grandmother. On Sméagol's birthday, he and his relative Déagol went fishing in the Gladden Fields . There, Déagol found the Ring in the riverbed after being pulled into the water by a fish. Sméagol fell immediately under the Ring's influence and demanded it as
1792-490: A name based on Old English smygel of similar meaning. The rhyming name of his relative "Déagol" is from Old English : dēagol , meaning ' secretive, hidden ' . In Tolkien's Red Book of Westmarch , the name "Déagol" is again supposedly a translation of the "original" name in the author-invented language of Westron , Nahald . Gollum was introduced in The Hobbit as "a small, slimy creature" who lived on
1904-530: A period of 700 years, from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 5th century to the late 11th century, some time after the Norman invasion . While indicating that the establishment of dates is an arbitrary process, Albert Baugh dates Old English from 450 to 1150, a period of full inflections, a synthetic language . Perhaps around 85% of Old English words are no longer in use, but those that survived are
2016-637: A shadow for Théoden , Boromir for Aragorn , Saruman for Gandalf , Ted Sandyman for Sam Gamgee, the Barrow-wight for Tom Bombadil , and Shelob for Galadriel , but the Gollum/Frodo pairing is by far the most widely accepted. The Tolkien scholar Charles W. Nelson described Gollum as an evil guide, contrasted with Gandalf, the good guide (like Virgil in Dante 's Inferno ) in The Lord of
2128-504: A small island in an underground lake at the roots of the Misty Mountains . He survived on cave fish, which he caught from a small boat, and small goblins who strayed too far from the stronghold of the Great Goblin . Over the years, his eyes adapted to the dark and became "lamp-like", shining with a sickly pale light. Bilbo Baggins stumbled upon Gollum's lair, having found the Ring in the network of goblin tunnels leading down to
2240-457: A span of 556 years separates Gollum's finding of the Ring and its destruction, by which time he was almost 600 years old. Commentators including the theologian Ralph C. Wood , and the critics Brent Nelson, Kathleen Gilligan, and Susan and Woody Wendling have remarked that Sméagol's murder of Déagol echoes Cain's killing of Abel in Genesis (4:1-18). Cain is jealous of his brother Abel; Sméagol
2352-407: A year-old child, and was made up of a collection of deep yellow wrinkles ... a pair of large black eyes, still full of fire and intelligence, which gleamed and played under the snow-white eyebrows, and the projecting parchment-coloured skull, like jewels in a charnel-house . As for the skull itself, it was perfectly bare, and yellow in hue, while its wrinkled scalp moved and contracted like the hood of
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#17327825799752464-537: Is Christian ". Callaway describes Gollum as fitting into this framework as a being not wholly evil, able to make moral choices. The Episcopal priest Fleming Rutledge writes that at the Council of Elrond , Frodo angrily resists the notion that Gollum was a Hobbit like himself. She adds that Gandalf describes the tale of Gollum's enslavement to the Ring as "a sad story" rather than as Frodo's description of him, "loathsome". Gandalf says that Gollum "had no will left in
2576-552: Is also sparse early Northumbrian evidence of a sixth case: the locative . The evidence comes from Northumbrian Runic texts (e.g., ᚩᚾ ᚱᚩᛞᛁ on rodi "on the Cross"). Adjectives agree with nouns in case, gender, and number, and can be either strong or weak. Pronouns and sometimes participles agree in case, gender, and number. First-person and second- person personal pronouns occasionally distinguish dual-number forms. The definite article sē and its inflections serve as
2688-422: Is as follows. The sounds enclosed in parentheses in the chart above are not considered to be phonemes : The above system is largely similar to that of Modern English , except that [ç, x, ɣ, l̥, n̥, r̥] (and [ʍ] for most speakers ) have generally been lost, while the voiced affricate and fricatives (now also including /ʒ/ ) have become independent phonemes, as has /ŋ/ . The open back rounded vowel [ɒ]
2800-621: Is evidenced by the continued variation between their successors in Middle and Modern English. In fact, what would become the standard forms of Middle English and of Modern English are descended from Mercian rather than West Saxon, while Scots developed from the Northumbrian dialect. It was once claimed that, owing to its position at the heart of the Kingdom of Wessex, the relics of Anglo-Saxon accent, idiom and vocabulary were best preserved in
2912-668: Is followed by Middle English (1150 to 1500), Early Modern English (1500 to 1650) and finally Modern English (after 1650), and in Scotland Early Scots (before 1450), Middle Scots ( c. 1450 to 1700) and Modern Scots (after 1700). Just as Modern English is not monolithic, Old English varied according to place. Despite the diversity of language of the Germanic-speaking migrants who established Old English in England and southeastern Scotland, it
3024-475: Is great and gives him a strength hardly to be believed in one so lean and withered." In The Two Towers , Gollum's grip is described as "soft, but horribly strong" as he wrestles with Sam. Sam notes that Gollum has two distinct personalities: the sinister "Stinker" and the submissive "Slinker", with a green glint in his eyes showcasing the change between them. In "The Passage of the Marshes" chapter, Sam overhears
3136-425: Is jealous of the shiny gold ring that his friend Déagol has found. Nelson observes that the names of the friends are similar, hinting that at least figuratively they are "brothers". Cain is guilty of Abel's murder, and ends up as a restless wanderer, never finding peace; Sméagol likewise is disowned and exiled by his family, and "wandered in loneliness". Nelson, describing Gollum as a "famous monster", notes that Tolkien
3248-864: Is possible to reconstruct proto-Old English as a fairly unitary language. For the most part, the differences between the attested regional dialects of Old English developed within England and southeastern Scotland, rather than on the Mainland of Europe. Although from the tenth century Old English writing from all regions tended to conform to a written standard based on Late West Saxon, in speech Old English continued to exhibit much local and regional variation, which remained in Middle English and to some extent Modern English dialects . The four main dialectal forms of Old English were Mercian , Northumbrian , Kentish , and West Saxon . Mercian and Northumbrian are together referred to as Anglian . In terms of geography
3360-434: Is replaced by ⟨þ⟩ ). In contrast with Modern English orthography , Old English spelling was reasonably regular , with a mostly predictable correspondence between letters and phonemes . There were not usually any silent letters —in the word cniht , for example, both the ⟨c⟩ and ⟨h⟩ were pronounced ( /knixt ~ kniçt/ ) unlike the ⟨k⟩ and ⟨gh⟩ in
3472-472: Is very different from Modern English and Modern Scots, and largely incomprehensible for Modern English or Modern Scots speakers without study. Within Old English grammar nouns, adjectives, pronouns and verbs have many inflectional endings and forms, and word order is much freer. The oldest Old English inscriptions were written using a runic system , but from about the 8th century this was replaced by
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3584-526: The Angles , Saxons and Jutes . As the Germanic settlers became dominant in England, their language replaced the languages of Roman Britain : Common Brittonic , a Celtic language ; and Latin , brought to Britain by the Roman conquest . Old English had four main dialects, associated with particular Anglo-Saxon kingdoms : Kentish , Mercian , Northumbrian , and West Saxon . It was West Saxon that formed
3696-683: The BBC 's 1981 radio adaptation of The Lord of the Rings . He was portrayed through motion capture by Andy Serkis in Peter Jackson 's Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies. The "Gollum and Sméagol" scene in The Two Towers directly represents Gollum's split personality as a pair of entities. This has been called "perhaps the most celebrated scene in the entire film". The Tolkien scholar Douglas A. Anderson , editor of The Annotated Hobbit , suggests that Tolkien derived
3808-652: The Latin alphabet was introduced and adapted for the writing of Old English , replacing the earlier runic system. Nonetheless, the largest transfer of Latin-based (mainly Old French ) words into English occurred after the Norman Conquest of 1066, and thus in the Middle English rather than the Old English period. Another source of loanwords was Old Norse , which came into contact with Old English via
3920-522: The One Ring , and later named Gollum after his habit of making "a horrible swallowing noise in his throat". Sméagol obtained the Ring by murdering his relative Déagol , who found it in the River Anduin . Gollum referred to the Ring as "my precious" or "precious", and it extended his life far beyond natural limits. Centuries of the Ring's influence twisted Gollum's body and mind, and, by the time of
4032-480: The Tower of Cirith Ungol and, dressed in scavenged Orc-armour , the two made their way across the plateau of Gorgoroth to Mount Doom . When Frodo and Sam had almost reached their destination, Gollum attacked them, but Frodo threw him down. Sam faced Gollum on his own, letting Frodo continue up the mountain to finish their mission. Like Bilbo and Frodo before him, Sam spared Gollum's life out of pity, turned his back on
4144-603: The dialect of Somerset . For details of the sound differences between the dialects, see Phonological history of Old English § Dialects . The language of the Anglo-Saxon settlers appears not to have been significantly affected by the native British Celtic languages which it largely displaced . The number of Celtic loanwords introduced into the language is very small, although dialect and toponymic terms are more often retained in western language contact zones (Cumbria, Devon, Welsh Marches and Borders and so on) than in
4256-609: The kingdom of Northumbria . Other parts of the island continued to use Celtic languages ( Gaelic – and perhaps some Pictish – in most of Scotland, Medieval Cornish all over Cornwall and in adjacent parts of Devon , Cumbric perhaps to the 12th century in parts of Cumbria , and Welsh in Wales and possibly also on the English side of the Anglo-Welsh border ); except in the areas of Scandinavian settlements, where Old Norse
4368-409: The lembas bread Sam and Frodo carried with them, and rejects cooked rabbit in favour of raw meat or fish. Gollum speaks in an idiosyncratic manner, indeed in an idiolect , often referring to himself in the third person , and frequently talks to himself. In The Hobbit , he always refers to himself as "my precious". When not referring to himself in the third person, he sometimes speaks of himself in
4480-422: The 8th century, the runic system came to be supplanted by a (minuscule) half-uncial script of the Latin alphabet introduced by Irish Christian missionaries. This was replaced by Insular script , a cursive and pointed version of the half-uncial script. This was used until the end of the 12th century when continental Carolingian minuscule (also known as Caroline ) replaced the insular. The Latin alphabet of
4592-406: The English language; some of them, such as Pope Gregory I 's treatise Pastoral Care , appear to have been translated by Alfred himself. In Old English, typical of the development of literature, poetry arose before prose, but Alfred chiefly inspired the growth of prose. A later literary standard, dating from the late 10th century, arose under the influence of Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester , and
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4704-633: The Fellowship to the edge of Lothlórien . He picked up their trail again as they left, following them all the way to Rauros , then pursued Frodo and Samwise Gamgee across the Emyn Muil when they struck out on their own towards Mordor. Frodo and Sam confronted Gollum in the Emyn Muil; Gollum nearly strangled Sam, but Frodo subdued him with his Elvish sword, Sting , which had once belonged to Bilbo . Sam tied an Elvish rope around Gollum's ankle as
4816-608: The Great . From that time on, the West Saxon dialect (then in the form now known as Early West Saxon) became standardised as the language of government, and as the basis for the many works of literature and religious materials produced or translated from Latin in that period. The later literary standard known as Late West Saxon (see History , above), although centred in the same region of the country, appears not to have been directly descended from Alfred's Early West Saxon. For example,
4928-410: The Northumbrian dialect retained /i(ː)o̯/ , which had merged with /e(ː)o̯/ in West Saxon. For more on dialectal differences, see Phonological history of Old English (dialects) . Some of the principal sound changes occurring in the pre-history and history of Old English were the following: For more details of these processes, see the main article, linked above. For sound changes before and after
5040-880: The Northumbrian region lay north of the Humber River; the Mercian lay north of the Thames and south of the Humber River; West Saxon lay south and southwest of the Thames; and the smallest, Kentish region lay southeast of the Thames, a small corner of England. The Kentish region, settled by the Jutes from Jutland, has the scantest literary remains. The term West Saxon actually is represented by two different dialects: Early West Saxon and Late West Saxon. Hogg has suggested that these two dialects would be more appropriately named Alfredian Saxon and Æthelwoldian Saxon, respectively, so that
5152-467: The Old English period is also often attributed to Norse influence. The influence of Old Norse certainly helped move English from a synthetic language along the continuum to a more analytic word order , and Old Norse most likely made a greater impact on the English language than any other language. The eagerness of Vikings in the Danelaw to communicate with their Anglo-Saxon neighbours produced
5264-478: The Old English period, see Phonological history of English . Nouns decline for five cases : nominative , accusative , genitive , dative , instrumental ; three genders : masculine, feminine, neuter; and two numbers : singular, and plural; and are strong or weak. The instrumental is vestigial and only used with the masculine and neuter singular and often replaced by the dative . Only pronouns and strong adjectives retain separate instrumental forms. There
5376-564: The Orcs describes him as "rather like a spider himself, or perhaps like a starved frog." The Hobbit states that Gollum had pockets, in which he kept a tooth-sharpening-rock, goblin teeth, wet shells, and a scrap of bat wing; it describes him as having a thin face, "big round pale eyes", and being "as dark as darkness". In The Two Towers , rangers of Ithilien wonder if he is a tailless black squirrel. According to Sam in The Fellowship of
5488-412: The Ring , he had "paddle-feet, like a swan's almost, only they seemed bigger" when Gollum was following their boat by paddling a log down the River Anduin . In a manuscript written to guide illustrators to the appearance of his characters, Tolkien explained that Gollum had pale skin, but wore dark clothes and was often seen in poor light. In The Fellowship of the Ring , Aragorn states that "his malice
5600-535: The Ring was destroyed and Sauron defeated. Sam cursed Gollum after his death, but Frodo urged his friend to forgive him, as without him the quest would have failed. In the first edition of The Hobbit , Tolkien made no reference to Gollum's size, leading illustrators such as Tove Jansson to portray him as very large. Tolkien realised the omission, and added in later editions that Gollum was "a small slimy creature." The Two Towers characterises him as slightly larger than Sam; and later, comparing him to Shelob, one of
5712-516: The Ring's evil". The English literature scholars William N. Rogers II and Michael R. Underwood compare Gollum to the similarly named evil and ancient hag Gagool in Rider Haggard's 1885 novel King Solomon's Mines ; Tolkien acknowledged Haggard, especially his novel She , as a major influence. They note that Haggard's tales share many motifs with Tolkien's The Hobbit , including a non-heroic narrator who turns out to be brave and capable in
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#17327825799755824-616: The Ring. For Gollum's literary origins, scholars have compared Gollum to the shrivelled hag Gagool in Rider Haggard 's 1885 novel King Solomon's Mines and to the subterranean Morlocks in H. G. Wells 's 1895 novel The Time Machine . Gollum was voiced by Brother Theodore in Rankin-Bass 's animated adaptations of The Hobbit and Return of the King , and by Peter Woodthorpe in Ralph Bakshi 's animated film version and
5936-802: The Rings , Gollum is one of the three monsters that Frodo encounters. The Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger suggests that Gollum is Tolkien's central monster -figure, likening him to both Grendel and the Beowulf dragon , "the twisted, broken, outcast hobbit whose manlike shape and dragonlike greed combine both the Beowulf kinds of monster in one figure". Jamie McGregor, writing in Mythlore , compares Sméagol's murder of Déagol to Fafner 's murder of his brother Fasolt in Richard Wagner 's Der Ring des Nibelungen . He notes that Tolkien denied any comparison of his Ring with Wagner's, and that this
6048-463: The Rings . He notes, too, that both Gollum and Gandalf are servants of The One, Eru Ilúvatar , in the struggle against the forces of darkness, and "ironically" all of them, good and bad, are necessary to the success of the quest. David Callaway, writing in Mythlore , notes that Tolkien, a devout Roman Catholic , had made Middle-earth a place where good and evil are in conflict under an omnipotent god, Eru Ilúvatar: in other words, "his cosmology
6160-526: The Scandinavian rulers and settlers in the Danelaw from the late 9th century, and during the rule of Cnut and other Danish kings in the early 11th century. Many place names in eastern and northern England are of Scandinavian origin. Norse borrowings are relatively rare in Old English literature, being mostly terms relating to government and administration. The literary standard, however,
6272-606: The Viking influence on Old English appears from the fact that the indispensable elements of the language – pronouns , modals , comparatives , pronominal adverbs (like hence and together ), conjunctions and prepositions – show the most marked Danish influence; the best evidence of Scandinavian influence appears in the extensive word borrowings because, as Jespersen indicates, no texts exist in either Scandinavia or Northern England from this time to give certain evidence of an influence on syntax. The effect of Old Norse on Old English
6384-506: The basic elements of Modern English vocabulary. Old English is a West Germanic language , and developed out of Ingvaeonic (also known as North Sea Germanic) dialects from the 5th century. It came to be spoken over most of the territory of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which became the Kingdom of England . This included most of present-day England, as well as part of what is now southeastern Scotland , which for several centuries belonged to
6496-577: The basis for the literary standard of the later Old English period, although the dominant forms of Middle and Modern English would develop mainly from Mercian, and Scots from Northumbrian. The speech of eastern and northern parts of England was subject to strong Old Norse influence due to Scandinavian rule and settlement beginning in the 9th century. Old English is one of the West Germanic languages , and its closest relatives are Old Frisian and Old Saxon . Like other old Germanic languages, it
6608-559: The beginnings of the compound tenses of Modern English . Old English verbs include strong verbs , which form the past tense by altering the root vowel, and weak verbs , which use a suffix such as -de . As in Modern English, and peculiar to the Germanic languages, the verbs formed two great classes: weak (regular), and strong (irregular). Like today, Old English had fewer strong verbs, and many of these have over time decayed into weak forms. Then, as now, dental suffixes indicated
6720-494: The borrowing of individual Latin words based on which patterns of sound change they have undergone. Some Latin words had already been borrowed into the Germanic languages before the ancestral Angles and Saxons left continental Europe for Britain. More entered the language when the Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity and Latin-speaking priests became influential. It was also through Irish Christian missionaries that
6832-499: The cluster ending in the palatal affricate is sometimes written ⟨nċġ⟩ (or ⟨nġċ⟩ ) by modern editors. Between vowels in the middle of a word, the pronunciation can be either a palatalized geminate /ʃː/ , as in fisċere /ˈfiʃ.ʃe.re/ ('fisherman') and wȳsċan , /ˈwyːʃ.ʃɑn 'to wish'), or an unpalatalized consonant sequence /sk/ , as in āscian /ˈɑːs.ki.ɑn/ ('to ask'). The pronunciation /sk/ occurs when ⟨sc⟩ had been followed by
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#17327825799756944-461: The coast, or else it may derive from a related word *angô which could refer to curve or hook shapes including fishing hooks. Concerning the second option, it has been hypothesised that the Angles acquired their name either because they lived on a curved promontory of land shaped like a fishhook , or else because they were fishermen (anglers). Old English was not static, and its usage covered
7056-557: The complete change in Gollum's tone and aspect. Gollum's repentance was blighted, Frodo's pity was wasted, and Shelob's Lair became inevitable." Tolkien describes Gollum's personality after he had been captured by Frodo and Sam: For that moment a change, which lasted for some time, came over him. He spoke with less hissing and whining, and he spoke to his companions direct, not to his precious self. He would cringe and flinch, if they stepped near him or made any sudden movement, and he avoided
7168-543: The creature's deception and slipperiness. When they reached the Black Gate and found it well-guarded, Gollum offered to lead them toward an alternative entrance into Mordor. Along the way, Frodo and Sam were seized by Faramir , and Gollum slipped away uncaught (but not unseen) and followed them. When Frodo allowed Faramir to briefly take Gollum prisoner in order to spare his life, Gollum felt betrayed, and began plotting against his new "master". Faramir found out that Gollum
7280-457: The creature, and followed Frodo. Moments later, Frodo stood on the edge of the Crack of Doom, but claimed the Ring for himself and put it on. Gollum struck, struggled with the invisible Frodo, bit off Frodo's finger, and seized the Ring. Gloating over his "prize" and dancing madly, he stepped over the edge and fell into the Crack of Doom, taking the Ring with him with a last cry of "Precious!" Thus,
7392-421: The dative case, an adposition may conceivably be located anywhere in the sentence. Remnants of the Old English case system in Modern English are in the forms of a few pronouns (such as I/me/mine , she/her , who/whom/whose ) and in the possessive ending -'s , which derives from the masculine and neuter genitive ending -es . The modern English plural ending -(e)s derives from the Old English -as , but
7504-431: The east. However, various suggestions have been made concerning possible influence that Celtic may have had on developments in English syntax in the post–Old English period, such as the regular progressive construction and analytic word order , as well as the eventual development of the periphrastic auxiliary verb do . These ideas have generally not received widespread support from linguists, particularly as many of
7616-676: The existence and significance of hobbits in general and the Baggins family in particular. He was freed, but was soon caught by Aragorn and placed in the care of the Wood Elves of Mirkwood . Gandalf interrogated him about the Ring. He escaped from them (with the help of Sauron's Orcs ) and descended into Moria . Gollum began following the Fellowship of the Ring in Moria, but was noticed by Frodo Baggins , Gandalf, and Aragorn. He trailed
7728-414: The fires of the volcano, where both he and the Ring were destroyed. Commentators have described Gollum as a psychological shadow figure for Frodo and as an evil guide in contrast to the wizard Gandalf , the good guide. They have noted, too, that Gollum is not wholly evil, and that he has a part to play in the will of Eru Iluvatar , the omnipotent god of Middle-earth , necessary to the destruction of
7840-645: The former diphthong /iy/ tended to become monophthongised to /i/ in EWS, but to /y/ in LWS. Due to the centralisation of power and the destruction wrought by Viking invasions, there is relatively little written record of the non-West Saxon dialects after Alfred's unification. Some Mercian texts continued to be written, however, and the influence of Mercian is apparent in some of the translations produced under Alfred's programme, many of which were produced by Mercian scholars. Other dialects certainly continued to be spoken, as
7952-531: The futhorc. A few letter pairs were used as digraphs , representing a single sound. Also used was the Tironian note ⟨⁊⟩ (a character similar to the digit 7) for the conjunction and . A common scribal abbreviation was a thorn with a stroke ⟨ꝥ⟩ , which was used for the pronoun þæt ( that ). Macrons over vowels were originally used not to mark long vowels (as in modern editions), but to indicate stress, or as abbreviations for
8064-603: The inscriptions on the Franks Casket ) date to the early 8th century. The Old English Latin alphabet was introduced around the 8th century. With the unification of several of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (outside the Danelaw ) by Alfred the Great in the later 9th century, the language of government and literature became standardised around the West Saxon dialect (Early West Saxon). Alfred advocated education in English alongside Latin, and had many works translated into
8176-403: The lake. At his wits' end in the dark, Bilbo agreed to a riddle game with Gollum on the chance of being shown the way out of the mountains. In the first edition of The Hobbit , Gollum's size is not stated. Originally, he was also characterised as being less bound to the Ring than in later versions; he offered to give the Ring to Bilbo if he lost the riddle game, and he showed Bilbo the way out of
8288-483: The language of the upper classes. This is regarded as marking the end of the Old English era, since during the subsequent period the English language was heavily influenced by Anglo-Norman, developing into what is now known as Middle English in England and Early Scots in Scotland. Old English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or Ingvaeonic dialects originally spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally known as
8400-487: The late 19th century, combining economic recession , fear of moral decline and degeneration leading indeed to eugenics , and a "for-the-moment hedonism " in the face of these concerns. They comment that Gagool can be seen as a "worst-case" embodiment of such Victorian era fears. Dale Nelson, writing in the J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia , suggests that Gollum may derive from H. G. Wells 's Morlocks in his 1895 novel The Time Machine . They have "dull white" skin with
8512-449: The latter applied only to "strong" masculine nouns in the nominative and accusative cases; different plural endings were used in other instances. Old English nouns had grammatical gender , while modern English has only natural gender. Pronoun usage could reflect either natural or grammatical gender when those conflicted, as in the case of ƿīf , a neuter noun referring to a female person. In Old English's verbal compound constructions are
8624-430: The matter", and could not get rid of the Ring; instead, "the Ring itself .. decided things". Rutledge comments that the sad story has happened to everybody, trapped, as Christians believe, in "Sin and Death", and states that The genuinely revolting Gollum is central not only to the surface narrative, ... but also to the underlying theological drama. Eru makes use of every being's choices for good: Callaway gives as example
8736-456: The modern knight ( /naɪt/ ). The following table lists the Old English letters and digraphs together with the phonemes they represent, using the same notation as in the Phonology section above. After /n/ , /j/ was realized as [dʒ] and /ɣ/ was realized as [ɡ] . The spellings ⟨ncg⟩ , ⟨ngc⟩ and even ⟨ncgg⟩ were occasionally used instead of
8848-470: The mountains after losing. To fit the concept of the ruling Ring that emerged during the writing of The Lord of the Rings , Tolkien revised later editions of The Hobbit . The version of the story given in the first edition became the lie that Bilbo made up to justify his possession of the Ring to the Dwarves and Gandalf . In the new version, Gollum pretended that he would show Bilbo the way out if he lost
8960-507: The myth, the gods pay a ring as ransom when they kill the otter. Birkett comments on the resemblance to Gollum of "this semi-aquatic creature, greedily devouring fish in a mountain pool". A 2004 paper in the British Medical Journal by supervised students at University College London noted that over 1300 websites had discussed possible diagnoses for Gollum's apparent mental illness , and argued that Gollum meets seven of
9072-505: The naive reader would not assume that they are chronologically related. Each of these four dialects was associated with an independent kingdom on the islands. Of these, Northumbria south of the Tyne , and most of Mercia , were overrun by the Vikings during the 9th century. The portion of Mercia that was successfully defended, and all of Kent , were then integrated into Wessex under Alfred
9184-547: The name "Gollum" from Old Norse gull/goll , meaning ' gold ' ; this has the dative form gollum , which can mean ' treasure ' . Another suggestion is that it derives from golem , a being in Jewish folklore. In Appendix F of The Lord of the Rings , Tolkien pretends that the name "Sméagol" is a "translation" of the Middle-earth name Trahald (having to do with the idea of "burrowing"), and rendered with
9296-459: The nine diagnostic criteria for schizoid personality disorder . Gollum's first known screen adaptation is in Gene Deitch 's 1967 short film The Hobbit , where his role is reduced from the action described in the novel to appearing in a single scene which depicts him sitting in his boat. In the 1977 Rankin/Bass adaptation of The Hobbit and its 1980 The Return of the King , Gollum
9408-625: The novels, he "loved and hated [the Ring], as he loved and hated himself." Throughout the story, Gollum was torn between his lust for the Ring and his desire to be free of it. Bilbo Baggins found the Ring and took it for his own, and Gollum afterwards pursued it for the rest of his life. Gollum finally seized the Ring from Frodo Baggins at the Cracks of Doom in Mount Doom in Mordor , but he fell into
9520-512: The past tense of the weak verbs, as in work and worked . Old English syntax is similar to that of modern English . Some differences are consequences of the greater level of nominal and verbal inflection, allowing freer word order . Old English was first written in runes , using the futhorc —a rune set derived from the Germanic 24-character elder futhark , extended by five more runes used to represent Anglo-Saxon vowel sounds and sometimes by several more additional characters. From around
9632-402: The plural as "we" , hinting at his alter ego. The rare occasions when he actually says "I" are interpreted by Frodo as an indication that Sméagol's better self has the upper hand. Gollum also uses his own versions of words similar to the original words. He usually adds -es to the end of a plural , resulting in words such as "hobbitses" instead of hobbits or "birdses" instead of birds. When forming
9744-420: The present tense of verbs, he frequently extends the third person singular ending -s to other persons and numbers, resulting in constructions like "we hates it" (by analogy with "he hates it"). Gollum's speech emphasises sibilants , often drawing them out. Through the influence of the Ring, Gollum's life was extended far beyond that of other members of his clan. An average hobbit lifespan is over 100 years, but
9856-407: The riddle-game, but he actually planned to use the Ring to kill and eat him. Discovering the Ring missing, he suddenly realised the answer to Bilbo's last riddle – "What have I got in my pocket?" – and flew into a rage. Bilbo inadvertently discovered the Ring's power of invisibility as he fled, allowing him to follow Gollum undetected to a back entrance of the caves. Gollum was convinced that Bilbo knew
9968-616: The ring as a bird's voice suggests it. Alberich had cursed the "thief" who took the ring; Gollum curses Bilbo for taking his Ring. On the other hand, McGregor writes, Siegfried is a hero, Bilbo, an anti-hero ; and the shrunken Mime is the most Gollum-like character in Wagner's Ring Cycle. A variety of commentators have suggested that Gollum constitutes a " shadow figure " for Frodo, as his dark alter ego ("other self") according to Carl Jung 's theory of psychological individuation . Some have identified many such "pairings", such as Denethor as
10080-553: The ring with the Rhinemaidens ' innocent rejoicing in their gold: "And behold! when he washed the mud away, there in his hand lay a beautiful golden ring; and it shone and glittered in the sun, so that his heart was glad". He draws a parallel between Sméagol's asking for the Ring with Fafner's; Déagol refuses, saying "I'm going to keep it", just as Fasolt says "I hold it: it belongs to me"; Sméagol derisively says "Oh, are you indeed, my love", and strangles him, turning by degrees into
10192-409: The theorized Brittonicisms do not become widespread until the late Middle English and Early Modern English periods, in addition to the fact that similar forms exist in other modern Germanic languages. Old English contained a certain number of loanwords from Latin , which was the scholarly and diplomatic lingua franca of Western Europe. It is sometimes possible to give approximate dates for
10304-564: The time still lacked the letters ⟨j⟩ and ⟨w⟩ , and there was no ⟨v⟩ as distinct from ⟨u⟩ ; moreover native Old English spellings did not use ⟨k⟩ , ⟨q⟩ or ⟨z⟩ . The remaining 20 Latin letters were supplemented by four more: ⟨ æ ⟩ ( æsc , modern ash ) and ⟨ð⟩ ( ðæt , now called eth or edh), which were modified Latin letters, and thorn ⟨þ⟩ and wynn ⟨ƿ⟩ , which are borrowings from
10416-419: The touch of their elven-cloaks; but he was friendly, and indeed pitifully anxious to please. He would cackle with laughter and caper if any jest was made, or even if Frodo spoke kindly to him, and weep if Frodo rebuked him. Gollum hates everything Elf -made. In The Two Towers , Sam bound Gollum's neck with Elven rope, which caused Gollum excruciating pain by its mere presence. He was unable or unwilling to eat
10528-578: The truth when questioned by Frodo, and guides them through the Dead Marshes . In short, as Tolkien writes, Gollum is "not altogether wicked". Finally, at the end of the quest inside Mount Doom, Gollum takes the Ring from Frodo, and causes it to be destroyed, completing the quest successfully at the moment that Frodo had announced that he would keep the Ring. Callaway calls this "the ultimate heroic self-sacrifice", arguing that Gollum acted "consciously" using "the good fraction in his mind finally overpowering
10640-404: The usual ⟨ng⟩ . The addition of ⟨c⟩ to ⟨g⟩ in spellings such as ⟨cynincg⟩ and ⟨cyningc⟩ for ⟨cyning⟩ may have been a means of showing that the word was pronounced with a stop rather than a fricative; spellings with just ⟨nc⟩ such as ⟨cyninc⟩ are also found. To disambiguate,
10752-407: The way out all along, and hoped to intercept him near the entrance, lest the goblins apprehend Bilbo and find the Ring. Bilbo at first thought to kill Gollum in order to escape, but was overcome with pity, and so merely leaped over him. As Bilbo escaped, Gollum cried out, "Thief, Thief, Thief! Baggins! We hates it, we hates it, we hates it forever!" Gollum's real name was Sméagol, and he had once been
10864-695: The way that Gríma Wormtongue 's angry throwing of the palantír , a crystal ball-like stone of seeing, enables Pippin Took to look in the stone and reveal himself to Sauron ; in turn, Sauron jumps to a wrong conclusion about the stone and the hobbit, which assists the Fellowship in completing their quest, destroying the One Ring. Similarly, Callaway argues, Gollum "is being partly manipulated by Eru in this cosmic chess game" citing Gandalf's remark that Gollum "has some part to play yet, for good or ill". Indeed, Gollum's alter ego , Sméagol, struggles to be good, speaks
10976-423: The word was so nearly the same in the two languages that only the endings would put obstacles in the way of mutual understanding. In the mixed population which existed in the Danelaw, these endings must have led to much confusion, tending gradually to become obscured and finally lost. This blending of peoples and languages resulted in "simplifying English grammar". The inventory of Early West Saxon surface phones
11088-443: The wretched creature Gollum, while Fafner sourly says "Hold it fast in case it falls" and clubs Fasolt to death, becoming by degrees a treasure-fixated dragon. Much later, Bilbo blunders into Gollum's cave and finds the Ring by accident; he holds off Gollum with his sword, and escapes by winning a peaceful battle, a riddle contest; Siegfried is led by Mime to the dragon's den, kills Fafner to save himself from being eaten; and takes
11200-586: Was a famed scholar of the Old English poem Beowulf , which he acknowledged was a major source of his own fiction ; and that the Beowulf poet calls the monster Grendel one of the sons of Cain. Among the many parallels between Gollum and Grendel are their affinity for water, their isolation from society, and their bestial description. The Wendlings add that just as Beowulf confronts three monsters, starting with Grendel, in The Hobbit Bilbo confronts three, starting with Gollum; and again in The Lord of
11312-464: Was accepted by his biographer Humphrey Carpenter . All the same, McGregor notes that Arthur Morgan identified evident parallels, starting with Alberich 's curse: there is only one ring; it is cursed; it gives limitless power; owning it brings only misery, and it consumes its owner, who becomes its slave; its owner is called the Lord; owning it is living death. McGregor further compares Déagol's delight in
11424-443: Was an allophone of short /ɑ/ which occurred in stressed syllables before nasal consonants (/m/ and /n/). It was variously spelled either ⟨a⟩ or ⟨o⟩. The Anglian dialects also had the mid front rounded vowel /ø(ː)/ , spelled ⟨œ⟩, which had emerged from i-umlaut of /o(ː)/ . In West Saxon and Kentish, it had already merged with /e(ː)/ before the first written prose. Other dialects had different systems of diphthongs. For example,
11536-439: Was based on the West Saxon dialect , away from the main area of Scandinavian influence; the impact of Norse may have been greater in the eastern and northern dialects. Certainly in Middle English texts, which are more often based on eastern dialects, a strong Norse influence becomes apparent. Modern English contains many, often everyday, words that were borrowed from Old Norse, and the grammatical simplification that occurred after
11648-469: Was done. When he returned, he found the hobbits asleep, and the sight of Frodo sleeping nearly moved Gollum to repent. However, Sam woke up and spoke harshly to him, and the opportunity for redemption was lost. Gollum followed through with his plan and led Frodo and Sam into Shelob's Lair . There, Frodo was stung by Shelob, taken prisoner by Orcs, and hauled to the Tower of Cirith Ungol. Sam rescued Frodo from
11760-481: Was either /ʃ/ or possibly /ʃː/ when the preceding vowel was short. Doubled consonants are geminated ; the geminate fricatives ⟨ff⟩ , ⟨ss⟩ and ⟨ðð⟩ / ⟨þþ⟩ / ⟨ðþ⟩ / ⟨þð⟩ are always voiceless [ff] , [ss] , [θθ] . The corpus of Old English literature is small but still significant, with some 400 surviving manuscripts. The pagan and Christian streams mingle in Old English, one of
11872-616: Was followed by such writers as the prolific Ælfric of Eynsham ("the Grammarian"). This form of the language is known as the " Winchester standard", or more commonly as Late West Saxon. It is considered to represent the "classical" form of Old English. It retained its position of prestige until the time of the Norman Conquest, after which English ceased for a time to be of importance as a literary language. The history of Old English can be subdivided into: The Old English period
11984-562: Was made between long and short vowels in the originals. (In some older editions an acute accent mark was used for consistency with Old Norse conventions.) Additionally, modern editions often distinguish between velar and palatal ⟨c⟩ and ⟨g⟩ by placing dots above the palatals: ⟨ċ⟩ , ⟨ġ⟩ . The letter wynn ⟨ƿ⟩ is usually replaced with ⟨w⟩ , but ⟨æ⟩ , ⟨ð⟩ and ⟨þ⟩ are normally retained (except when ⟨ð⟩
12096-411: Was spoken and Danish law applied. Old English literacy developed after Christianisation in the late 7th century. The oldest surviving work of Old English literature is Cædmon's Hymn , which was composed between 658 and 680 but not written down until the early 8th century. There is a limited corpus of runic inscriptions from the 5th to 7th centuries, but the oldest coherent runic texts (notably
12208-425: Was substantive, pervasive, and of a democratic character. Old Norse and Old English resembled each other closely like cousins, and with some words in common, speakers roughly understood each other; in time the inflections melted away and the analytic pattern emerged. It is most important to recognize that in many words the English and Scandinavian language differed chiefly in their inflectional elements. The body of
12320-458: Was taking them to the pass of Cirith Ungol , an entrance to Mordor through the Ephel Dúath mountains. He warned Frodo and Sam of the evil of that place, as well as the treachery he sensed in Gollum. Frodo, Sam, and Gollum left Faramir and climbed the stairs to Cirith Ungol. Gollum slipped away and visited Shelob, planning to feed the hobbits to her and then get the Ring for himself when she
12432-556: Was the earliest recorded form of the English language , spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages . It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th century, and the first Old English literary works date from the mid-7th century. After the Norman Conquest of 1066, English was replaced for several centuries by Anglo-Norman (a type of French ) as
12544-604: Was voiced by Brother Theodore . He appeared somewhat froglike. Tolkien%27s monsters Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.132 via cp1112 cp1112, Varnish XID 945365734 Upstream caches: cp1112 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 08:29:40 GMT Old English language Old English ( Englisċ or Ænglisc , pronounced [ˈeŋɡliʃ] ), or Anglo-Saxon ,
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