The History of Gollum...

People often assume that literary taste is subjective. They could not be more wrong. As W.H Auden once said, if you dislike The Lord of the Rings, I shall never trust your literary judgement again! Anyway, one of the marks of objectively exquisite literature is its ability to manipulate one's emotions. The Lord of the Rings does just this for me. It is at once so sorrowful and poignant but also jovial in places and supremely melodious. It is undoubtedly one of the greatest works of mythopoeic fiction ever to have been composed, and by one man over a period of about 13 years. In one of his letters, Tolkien wrote: ''Hardly a word in its 600,000 or more has been unconsidered;'' and I suppose this gives you at least some measure of the man. I had a delightful conversation the other evening with a friend of mine about the creature Gollum, and I venture to here organise my thoughts about this tragic character, integral to the story, and paradoxically the greatest service to Frodo, who for long pursued him with evil purpose.

We are first introduced to the creature Gollum in The Hobbit, where he is the mysterious furtive creature who dwells on an island deep within the Misty Mountains and plays a riddle game with Bilbo. Tolkien writes that he knows nothing whatever about the wretch, or his origin, and since The Hobbit was not composed by Tolkien as part of the whole, it suffices to give a mere résumé of its content. It is to The Lord of the Rings that we now turn.

Gollum was akin in ancient days to Hobbits of Stoorish kind that dwelt in the Vales of Anduin - indeed, nigh to the Gladden Fields where the Ring was lost. Gandalf tells us that there was among this strange, clever-handed people a family of high repute, governed by a matriarch of some sort, and that the most curious (and devious) member of this family was young Sméagol. He was accustomed to delve into the earth to find the roots of things, the roots of plants and trees, the basins of deep pools, and the roots of the Mountains. He was also interested in the history of things; his sight was therefore constantly downwards, and backwards. On his birthday he and his friend Déagol, a creature of similar sort, went fishing on the Anduin. A great fish caught hold of Déagol's hook, and he was dragged into the river. Whilst underwater, he caught sight of something shiny in the river-bed, and so grabbing hold of it, he came back to the surface. He swam over to the bank and opened the palm of his hand, to find a gold ring.

Sméagol, having espied him from behind a tree, came to him as he gloated over his prize, and whispered into his friend's ear: ''Give us that, Déagol, my love.'' When Déagol refused to give the ring to Sméagol, Sméagol throttled him, put on the ring, and cunningly buried the body. Returning to his home, he found that while wearing the Ring, he was invisible. This was to his liking, and he turned the power to evil uses, until he was shunned by his family, who kicked him. They called him gollum, for he now muttered and cursed, making gargling sounds in his throat, and they cursed him. His grandmother, desiring peace, therefore banished him from the house and he took to wandering. He wept for the hardness of the world, and he sat by the river until the Sun burned him. Seeing, therefore, the Misty Mountains from afar, desire came over him to live there, away from the cruel Yellow Face which burned him. And so, by night he came into the highlands of that region until he discovered a cave out of which flowed a stream. And thus came Gollum, with the Ring of Power, to the Misty Mountains.

In the caves of the Misty Mountains, the Ring became a torment almost unbearable to Gollum, and all the ''great secrets'' concealed in the Mountains just turned out to be darkness. There was nothing left for Gollum to do, except gnaw at the bones of fish he caught (or not seldom, a wandering Orc he ensnared) and remember his life in bitterness. The murder of Déagol was a torment to Gollum, and he would oft repeat in the dark that his ''precious,'' his ''birthday present'' was indeed his own, Déagol ought to have given it to him, it was his birthday present etc. He was altogether ruined and wretched; the Ring devoured him. He hated everything, he hated and loved the Ring, although he could not get rid of it, having no will left in the matter. As the Shadow lengthened in Southern Mirkwood, and the Dark Lord sent forth his dark thought from the woods, it abandoned Gollum, only to be picked up by the most unlikely person imaginable: Bilbo Baggins from the Shire!

There is much to be said for the encounter between Bilbo and Gollum in the Misty Mountains. They had much in common, as can be seen from the riddles that they chose. There was a great deal in both their minds that was similar, and certainly it must have been pleasant for Gollum to hear a kindly voice in the dark, recalling to him long forgotten memories of trees, of wind and of rain. After Bilbo's escape, Gollum endured his loss as long as he could, but in the end his desire for the Ring overcame his fear and hatred of the Orcs, the Sun and the Moon, and he left the Misty Mountains. Significantly, since he lost the Ring (or more accurately, since the Ring lost him), he began to recover somewhat, and he became conscious of his immense age, and he was famished, although cunning. He made his way towards Mirkwood following Bilbo's trail. Later, Gandalf learned that he had made his way to Esgaroth, and even to the streets of Dale, where almost certainly Gollum will have heard rumour of the Quest of Erebor, and the return journey of Bilbo to the Shire. Afterwards, Gollum tried to pursue Bilbo across the leagues of Wilderland and Eriador, but he turned aside. Gollum's trail, when the Wood-elves of Northern Mirkwood essayed to track him, led them through Mirkwood and back, but they found him not, although all the woods was full of the rumour of him. The Woodmen told tales of a new terror, a ghost that drank blood.

The trail turned southwards, out of the regions of the Woodmen and western Mirkwood, and was lost. When he was found, years later by Aragorn by the pools of the Dead Marshes, it was plain that the feet of Gollum had taken him league by league, step by step, down into the land of Mordor. No doubt Gollum felt some kind of ''summons'' (perhaps some residue of the power of the Ring), and was drawn towards the Dark Land; at least there he would find allies to help him get his revenge upon the thief Baggins! He was caught lurking on the confines of that evil realm, and was taken to the Dark Tower for questioning and examination. There he was tortured and thus Sauron discovered that the Ring was not lost, that it was a Great Ring, and that it was long in possession of a halfling, ''Baggins'' from the ''Shire.''

Aragorn brought Gollum through long leagues and much weariness and pain back to Mirkwood, where he was kept in prison by the Wood-elves, who treated him with as much kindness as their wise hearts would allow, hoping for his cure. There he was guarded unceasingly, but at length, the Elves, in the pity of their hearts, would let Gollum out of his prison, and oft in days of fair weather would lead him through the woods where he liked to climb the trees. On one such day, Gollum refused to come down from the great tree, and the Elves were attacked by Orcs from the Mountains. The Elves drove the Orcs back with great slaughter, for they were from the mountains and unused to the woods, but when they returned, they found that Gollum was gone, and the guard about the tree slain or taken prisoner. Thus they learned that the escape was planned, and much of the hidden counsels of the Elven-king were known to the Enemy. In those days, the evil things, long-since driven out since the fall of the Dragon Smaug, returned in greater numbers, and Mirkwood was once again an evil place. The Elves followed the trail of Gollum deep into Southern Mirkwood, but they gave up and dared not continue farther, for the forest was evil, and they were moreover drawing nigh to Dol Guldur.

The tale of Gollum's travels is not clear after this, but I suppose that after he escaped the Orcs, he tried again to find the Shire, and went into Moria. There he would have ''given up,'' being starving hungry and very weary, until the Fellowship of the Ring came to the West Doors, where he would have followed them. The above painting is a ''sketch'' by the Tolkien artist Ted Nasmith, and depicts Gollum by the Forbidden Pool. More on Gollum soon.