Generic Rings?

[Manwe Sulimo]

Just something that's been bugging me:

In Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age, there is text that suggests that the Elves of Eregion made a multitude of Rings of Power.

But the Elves fled from him; and three of their rings they saved, and bore them away, and hid from them.

Notice neither "Three" nor "Rings" is capitalized, as they were whenever Narya, Nenya, and Vilya were referred to.

Now these were the Three that had last been made, and they possesed the greatest powers. Narya, Nenya, and Vilya, they were named, the Rings of Fire, and of Water, and of Air, set with ruby and adamant and sapphire; and of all the Elven-rings Sauron most desired to possess them, for those who had them in their keeping could ward off the decays of time and postpone the weariness of the world.

"And of all the Elven-rings" could either signify the nineteen Rings made by the Elves, or the Three most significant of a number of Rings made for the Elves.

But Sauron gathered into his hands all the remaining Rings of Power; and he dealt them out to the other peoples of Middle-earth, hoping thus to bring under his sway all those that desired secret power beyond the measure of their kind.

"All the remaining Rings of Power"....Does this mean the other sixteen (minus the Three), or the sixteen that were not destroyed by the Elves when Sauron attacked them? It then goes on to describe how Sauron gave the Rings to each race, how he decided how many Rings to give to the Dwarves and Men.

Does this mean that there were a lot more Rings of Power than the original nineteen? That they were destroyed, leaving only those nineteen and the One existing? That the Rings were "manufactured", each with similar powers (that Sauron desired them to have), except the Three which were the last to have been made? That the poem "Three Rings for the Elven-kings...." was written based around "One Ring to rule them all...."?

Also, on a completely unrelated note, how did Smaug exist?

Then the sun rose, and the host of the Valar prevailed, and well-nigh all the dragons were destroyed....
~Quenta Silmarillion: Of the Voyage of Eärendil and the War of Wrath

If they were all destroyed....

Thanks in advance.

[ January 15, 2003: Message edited by: Manwe Sulimo ]

[Child of the 7th Age]

Look at that little tricky word 'well-nigh'. It's an adverb, from the 12th century no less, and means 'nearly' or 'almost'. So one or two dragons could have slipped through.

[Beren87]

Also, there was a quote by Gandalf that said something about there being many magic rings in the world, and none were to be taken lightly. Understandbly from The Hobbit, but simply furthur evidence.

[Aratlithiel]

When he awoke after Morgoth's defeat and the Breaking of Thangorodrim, Sauron came to the Elves in disuise and taught Celebrimbor the craft of ring-making. The first rings of power crafted by this pair were the lesser rings of power (you could almost call them Celebrimbor's "practice" rings). They didn't hold enough power for anyone to seriously worry about their whereabouts and Gandalf himself rather dismisses them in LotR in relation to the problem of the One Ring.

I believe these rings are what this passage refers to when it says "Elven-rings." "All the remaining Rings of Power," would refer to the sixteen.

You have to think rings of power (the practice rings) and Rings of Power (the twenty).