Thief, thief! Baggins! We hates it for ever!

[TrackerOrc]

So, not to put too fine a point on things, did Bilbo actually steal the Ring?

He found it, for sure, but he knew that it wasn't his, and then fairly quickly knew (from Gollum's mutterings and cursing) that it was Golllum's. The fact that it wasn't Gollum's at all doesn't hold any relevance, as Bilbo didn't know about the slight unpleasantness with Deagol; that it was Sauron's was neither here nor there for the same reason - Bilbo only 'knew' the fact that it was Gollum's.

Obviously from the point of view of the story as a whole and especially in the specifics of getting Bilbo out of the tunnels alive, this doesn't matter, but I think it's quite interesting how much is made of Gandalf's reaction to Bilbo's story - he never believed it from the start, and when he finally got the real story out of Bilbo he was really disturbed as lying was so out of character for him.

Is Gandalf's being so upset Tolkien's way of letting us know that Bilbo wasn't entirely innocent here? And is this meant to be indicative of the horrible power of the Ring on someone straight away? This would certainly help to explain Smeagol's instant reaction to it?

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

In the first edition of The Hobbit, Gollum promised to give his ring to Bilbo, and "apologized many times" when he couldn't find it. Instead, he actually did show Bilbo the way out.

The revision came after the ring became the Ring. I recommend Douglas Anderson's The Annotated Hobbit for more on this.

I'd also recommend looking up some of Yay Gollum's old posts here. I think you'll enjoy them.

 

[TrackerOrc]

In the first edition of The Hobbit, Gollum promised to give his ring to Bilbo, and "apologized many times" when he couldn't find it. Instead, he actually did show Bilbo the way out.

The revision came after the ring became the Ring. I recommend Douglas Anderson's The Annotated Hobbit for more on this.

I'd also recommend looking up some of Yay Gollum's old posts here. I think you'll enjoy them.

Well I'm afraid that if I open the floodgates and start buying more editions of the books, I'll never stop! I've even given some thought to re-buying HoME; good heavens

 

[Alcuin]

I don’t think Bilbo was a thief, at least in the matter of obtaining the One Ring. Theft requires mens rea, the knowledge that you are doing something wrong. Bilbo happened upon the Ring in the dark after being whacked on the head and left behind by both Thorin & Co and the Orcs in pursuit of them. That isn’t theft. As for “What have I got in my pocket?” that seems more an absent-minded question: he had quite forgotten about the Ring while confronting and conversing with Gollum in what can only be described as a life-threatening encounter: I agree with Frodo’s observation that Gollum really meant to cheat, kill, and eat Bilbo all along. When Bilbo said that Gollum would have killed him had he not kept the Ring, Gandalf implicitly agreed, and gently reminded his halfling friend that he had never called him a thief. A thief Bilbo was not, at least not in the matter of the Ring.

As I write this, I wonder if Gollum is not projecting his own sense of guilt, particularly in murdering his friend Déagol, onto Bilbo. Gandalf said his murdering and robbing Déagol “haunted” Gollum.

Now later on, Bilbo takes the golden cup from Smaug’s hoard, and Smaug calls him a thief. Certainly Smaug saw it that way, but Smaug’s opinions can hardly be normative for anyone but Smaug. By all accounts, though Bilbo pilfered the Elf-king’s fortress; even Bilbo admitted it.

 

[Deleted member 12094]

The finding of someone else's lost property does not give anyone the right of ownership. Had Bilbo known the Ring was Gollum's, he should have returned it. TrackerOrc does have a point there.

I also agree with Alcuin: by the time Bilbo realized he held something from Gollum, the latter had opened hostilities, was in hot pursuit and intended to kill Bilbo. Bilbo had no alternative but to save his life and the option of returning property was undone by Gollum himself.

So let us think kindly of Master Bilbo! 😇

 

[Erestor Arcamen]

The finding of someone else's lost property does not give anyone the right of ownership. Had Bilbo known the Ring was Gollum's, he should have returned it. TrackerOrc does have a point there.

But from that point of view, the Ring didn't belong to Gollum, Deagol or Isildur either for that matter, did it? Technically it should have been returned to Sauron 😁.

💵

🎼

 

[Deleted member 12094]

Technically

Well, now this - since when have you become technical here, I wonder!? 🙃

 

[Alice]

I guess, if someone was in Bilbo's situation, he would never return the Ring to Gollum willingly. Not only because of it's bad impact on it's owner, but also because of Gollum's reaction to his loss (which is pretty scary). Also this thing didn't look like Gollum's rightful possession (I think so)

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

The relationship among first edition Hobbit, LOTR, and second edition Hobbit is complicated, and confused further by Tolkien's Prologue in LOTR. Rather than repeat quotes I've given on another thread, here's a link to it:

https://thetolkien.forum/threads/does-it-seem-that-there-was-a-lot-left-out-in-the-hobbit.23522/

I give quotes in post #8.

 

[Alcuin]

The finding of someone else's lost property does not give anyone the right of ownership. Had Bilbo known the Ring was Gollum's, he should have returned it.

But from that point of view, the Ring didn't belong to Gollum, Deagol or Isildur either for that matter, did it? Technically it should have been returned to Sauron 😁.

───◊───

...Around the inner surface was written something in a language unknown to Frito. “I can’t make out the words,” said Frito.​

​

“No, you cannot,” said Goodgulf.“ They are elvish, in the tongue of Fordor. A rough translation is:​

This Ring, no other, is made by the elves,​

Who'd pawn their own mother to grab it themselves.​

Ruler of creeper, mortal, and scallop,​

This is a sleeper that packs quite a wallop.​

The Power almighty rests in this Lone Ring.​

The Power, alrighty, for doing your Own Thing.​

If broken or busted, it cannot be remade​

If found, send to Sorhed (the postage is prepaid).”​

– Bored of the Rings, Harvard Lampoon, 1969, Chapter 2: “Three’s Company, Four’s A Bore”​

───◊───

“Then it belongs to you, and not to me at all!” cried Frodo in amazement, springing to his feet, as if he expected the Ring to be demanded at once.​

​

“It does not belong to either of us,” said Aragorn; “but it has been ordained that you should hold it for a while.”​

– Fellowship of the Ring, “Many Meetings”​

───◊───
Bilbo and Frodo were correct. Had he not kept the Ring, Gollum would have murdered Bilbo. He really had no choice; he did not know nor had he any way of knowing the Ring “belonged” to Gollum (it was in Gollum’s possession, just as the golden cup was in Smaug’s hoard and so, from Smaug’s point of view, belonged to him); and if we follow Gandalf’s logic in “Shadow of the Past”, it seems to be Gandalf’s opinion that the Ring itself deserted Gollum and lay in the goblin’s tunnel where Bilbo, of all people, found it rather than a goblin, which as Frodo observed “would[] have suited it better.” There was no ethical or moral ambiguity about Bilbo’s or Frodo’s actions regarding the Ring: this is one of the factors that preserved them from its worst effects.

 

[TrackerOrc]

I don’t think Bilbo was a thief, at least in the matter of obtaining the One Ring. Theft requires mens rea, the knowledge that you are doing something wrong. Bilbo happened upon the Ring in the dark after being whacked on the head and left behind by both Thorin & Co and the Orcs in pursuit of them. That isn’t theft. As for “What have I got in my pocket?” that seems more an absent-minded question: he had quite forgotten about the Ring while confronting and conversing with Gollum in what can only be described as a life-threatening encounter: I agree with Frodo’s observation that Gollum really meant to cheat, kill, and eat Bilbo all along. When Bilbo said that Gollum would have killed him had he not kept the Ring, Gandalf implicitly agreed, and gently reminded his halfling friend that he had never called him a thief. A thief Bilbo was not, at least not in the matter of the Ring.

As I write this, I wonder if Gollum is not projecting his own sense of guilt, particularly in murdering his friend Déagol, onto Bilbo. Gandalf said his murdering and robbing Déagol “haunted” Gollum.

Now later on, Bilbo takes the golden cup from Smaug’s hoard, and Smaug calls him a thief. Certainly Smaug saw it that way, but Smaug’s opinions can hardly be normative for anyone but Smaug. By all accounts, though Bilbo pilfered the Elf-king’s fortress; even Bilbo admitted it.

I would still say that Bilbo can be seen as a thief (with any number of qualifications and the knowledge that almost anyone would act in exactly the same manner!), especially once he knew that the ring was Gollum's (actually Sauron's, but he didn't know that).
What really interests me here is the way in which Tolkien shows Bilbo lying as well - something which really disturbed Gandalf.
I've always seen this as Tolkien letting us see just how malign the ring was, almost instantaneously - look at the extreme actions of almost everyone who comes into contact with it: Isildur takes it as weregild, though he must know what a cosmically awful idea this is; Smeagol murders his friend; the upright Bilbo becomes a thief and a liar. Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, won't touch the thing with a bargepole, leaving Frodo to take it on, at least somewhat forewarned and forearmed.
This consistency really lets us know how bad an idea it would have been for the likes of Boromir or Denethor to take the ring, even though at first glance it could seem like a tool you could use to beat Sauron with.

 

[TrackerOrc]

The finding of someone else's lost property does not give anyone the right of ownership. Had Bilbo known the Ring was Gollum's, he should have returned it. TrackerOrc does have a point there.

I also agree with Alcuin: by the time Bilbo realized he held something from Gollum, the latter had opened hostilities, was in hot pursuit and intended to kill Bilbo. Bilbo had no alternative but to save his life and the option of returning property was undone by Gollum himself.

So let us think kindly of Master Bilbo! 😇

But not too kindly, perhaps? Once he was safe he had the option to confess all, and refused. Apparently he stuck to the fiction that Gollum promised him a present even after the Council of Elrond.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Not to get picky, but do you have a citation for this? I don't remember it at all.

 

[TrackerOrc]

Not to get picky, but do you have a citation for this? I don't remember it at all.

In the Prologue:
"Now it is a curious fact that this is not the story as Bilbo first told it to his companions. To them his account was that Gollum had promised to give him a present, if he won the game...this account Bilbo set down in his memoirs, and he seems never to have altered it himself, not even after the Council of Elrond. Evidently it still appeared in the original Red book"

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Oh, right. I always took that to mean he never got around to revision, rather than "sticking to the story". He had already told the truth about finding the ring, in "Flies and Spiders". It wouldn't be much use trying to keep up any kind of deception at the Council, with Gloin there.

As I said, the various accounts are a bit confused, and again, Anderson points out that "Bilbo's dishonesty, of great importance in The Lord of the Rings, is nowhere explicitly present in The Hobbit".

The real truth, of course, is that it allowed the author, in his guise as "translator" to reconcile the discrepancy between the two editions: he first got hold of the "unrevised" account, but later discovers a "corrected" copy.

 

[Aramarien]

In the original The Hobbit, Gollum did promise to give Bilbo the ring if he won the riddle game. When there was an audience demand for more stories about hobbits, Tolkien tried to think of a way to tie the two stories and The Ring was the key he chose. Bilbo's rendition of the "true story" of Gollum and The Riddle Game was written before the revised version of The Hobbit that we are familiar with.
According to the revised version and the story that Bilbo told at the Council of Elrond, is Bilbo a thief?
Bilbo did not know that the Ring he found in the tunnels belonged to Gollum. He was not even thinking about it when he played Riddles in the Dark. He was scared witless of Gollum and really believed Gollum would kill him.
When Gollum went back to his island and Bilbo heard him screaming, it seems that Bilbo did not really know what was going on. I believe he started to put two and two together that perhaps the Ring that Bilbo found was what Gollum was looking for. At this point, Bilbo was in fear for his life. He was not going to call out to Gollum, "Is this what you're looking for?" Bilbo ran for his life.
Technically, the "right" thing to do was to somehow give Gollum back his ring, but how was this to be done when the creature is running after you intent on killing you? Bilbo was not only escaping death, but needed to get out of the Orc tunnels.
Of course, in Gollum's point of view, Bilbo was a thief. Bilbo had something of his and wasn't giving it back. It didn't matter the circumstances or that he was threatening to kill Bilbo or planning on using the Ring to kill Bilbo.

 

[Alcuin]

But not too kindly, perhaps? Once he was safe he had the option to confess all, and refused. Apparently he stuck to the fiction that Gollum promised him a present even after the Council of Elrond.

Bilbo told the truth at the Council of Elrond, not that Gollum had given him the Ring as a present.

“Isildur’s Bane is found, you say,” said Boromir. “…How do the Wise know that this ring is his? And how has it passed down the years, until it is brought hither by so strange a messenger?”

“That shall be told,” said Elrond. “…Come! Tell us your tale. …”

“Very well,” said Bilbo. “I will do as you bid. But I will now tell the true story, and if some here have heard me tell it otherwise” – he looked sidelong at Glóin – “I ask them to forget it and forgive me. I only wished to claim the treasure as my very own in those days, and to be rid of the name of thief that was put on me. …”
​

Two things here. First, Bilbo concocted the tale of the present “to be rid of the name of thief that was put on” him by Gollum. Second, Boromir said the Ring was Isildur’s – and so, by inheritance, Aragorn’s, as Frodo assumed. Now Isildur could and did claim the Ring both by conquest of Sauron and as weregild for Elendil and Anárion; but Aragorn set aside his forefather’s claim to the thing, though he maintained all the other rights, privileges, and inheritances of Isildur. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law,” is a well-known adage in English. The Ruling Ring was in the possession of Sauron, then Isildur, then Déagol, then Gollum who murdered Déagol to rob him, then Bilbo who found it, then Frodo who inherited it, and briefly in the possession of Bombadil, who returned it to Frodo. But Elrond said the Ring

belongs to Sauron and was made by him alone, and is altogether evil. Its strength … is too great for anyone to wield at will, save only those who have already a great power of their own. But for them it holds an even deadlier peril. The very desire of it corrupts the heart. … If any of the Wise should with this Ring overthrow the Lord of Mordor, using his own arts, he would then set himself on Sauron’s throne, and yet another Dark Lord would appear.
​

In the original The Hobbit, Gollum did promise to give Bilbo the ring if he won the riddle game. When there was an audience demand for more stories about hobbits, Tolkien tried to think of a way to tie the two stories and The Ring was the key he chose. Bilbo's rendition of the "true story" of Gollum and The Riddle Game was written before the revised version of The Hobbit that we are familiar with.
According to the revised version and the story that Bilbo told at the Council of Elrond, is Bilbo a thief?
Bilbo did not know that the Ring he found in the tunnels belonged to Gollum. He was not even thinking about it when he played Riddles in the Dark. He was scared witless of Gollum and really believed Gollum would kill him.
When Gollum went back to his island and Bilbo heard him screaming, it seems that Bilbo did not really know what was going on. I believe he started to put two and two together that perhaps the Ring that Bilbo found was what Gollum was looking for. At this point, Bilbo was in fear for his life. He was not going to call out to Gollum, "Is this what you're looking for?" Bilbo ran for his life.
Technically, the "right" thing to do was to somehow give Gollum back his ring, but how was this to be done when the creature is running after you intent on killing you? Bilbo was not only escaping death, but needed to get out of the Orc tunnels.
Of course, in Gollum's point of view, Bilbo was a thief. Bilbo had something of his and wasn't giving it back. It didn't matter the circumstances or that he was threatening to kill Bilbo or planning on using the Ring to kill Bilbo.

Precisely the points of an earlier post.

 

[TrackerOrc]

Bilbo told the truth at the Council of Elrond, not that Gollum had given him the Ring as a present.

​

“Isildur’s Bane is found, you say,” said Boromir. “…How do the Wise know that this ring is his? And how has it passed down the years, until it is brought hither by so strange a messenger?”​

​

“That shall be told,” said Elrond. “…Come! Tell us your tale. …”​

​

“Very well,” said Bilbo. “I will do as you bid. But I will now tell the true story, and if some here have heard me tell it otherwise” – he looked sidelong at Glóin – “I ask them to forget it and forgive me. I only wished to claim the treasure as my very own in those days, and to be rid of the name of thief that was put on me. …”​

​

Two things here. First, Bilbo concocted the tale of the present “to be rid of the name of thief that was put on” him by Gollum. Second, Boromir said the Ring was Isildur’s – and so, by inheritance, Aragorn’s, as Frodo assumed. Now Isildur could and did claim the Ring both by conquest of Sauron and as weregild for Elendil and Anárion; but Aragorn set aside his forefather’s claim to the thing, though he maintained all the other rights, privileges, and inheritances of Isildur. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law,” is a well-known adage in English. The Ruling Ring was in the possession of Sauron, then Isildur, then Déagol, then Gollum who murdered Déagol to rob him, then Bilbo who found it, then Frodo who inherited it, and briefly in the possession of Bombadil, who returned it to Frodo. But Elrond said the Ring

​

belongs to Sauron and was made by him alone, and is altogether evil. Its strength … is too great for anyone to wield at will, save only those who have already a great power of their own. But for them it holds an even deadlier peril. The very desire of it corrupts the heart. … If any of the Wise should with this Ring overthrow the Lord of Mordor, using his own arts, he would then set himself on Sauron’s throne, and yet another Dark Lord would appear.​

​

Precisely the points of an earlier post.

Bilbo told the truth at the Council, but he never seems to have written the truth when he had all the time in the world to do so; it seems that even Sam and Frodo never deleted anything that he wrote (as a mark of respect, I suppose), though they learned the true account and put it down in their various notes (Prologue). I can't help but see real similarities between Bilbo and Gollum here - they both cling to the idea of the ring being a present, when they both knew deep down that this was false. With Gollum, because he is presented as an evil character, we see this as a bad thing; with Bilbo, we excuse him as he is one of the good guys. It's a mark of how well written the story is that there can still be such depth of shading here.

 

[Alcuin]

I certainly agree with that. In other threads, Squint-eyed Southerner has pointed out that Frodo and Gollum are in a way mirror images of one another. (I am no taking time to find them today, but I encourage you to look for them: he expresses it more clearly and succinctly that I.) Bilbo and Gollum have much the same relationship, and Tolkien points this out in The Hobbit near the end of “Riddles in the Dark” when Gollum senses Bilbo’s invisible presence and tenses, crouched before the exit from the Goblins’ tunnels:

Bilbo … was desperate. … He must stab the foul thing, … kill it. It meant to kill him. No, not a fair fight. He was invisible now. Gollum had no sword. Gollum had not actually threatened to kill him, or tried to yet. And he was miserable, alone, lost. A sudden understanding, a pity mixed with horror, welled up in Bilbo’s heart: a glimpse of endless unmarked days without light or hope of betterment, hard stone, cold fish, sneaking and whispering. All these thoughts passed in a flash of a second. He trembled.
​

So there is a strong connection between them. Gandalf also discusses it with Frodo in FotR’s “Shadow of the Past”:

“Gollum!” cried Frodo. …

“I think it is a sad story,” said the wizard, “and it might have happened to others, even to some hobbits that I have known.”

“I can’t believe that Gollum was connected with hobbits, however distantly,” said Frodo with some heat. “What an abominable notion!”

“It is true all the same,” replied Gandalf. “About their origins, at any rate, I know more than hobbits do themselves. And even Bilbo’s story suggests the kinship. There was a great deal in the background of their minds and memories that was very similar. They understood one another remarkably well, very much better than a hobbit would understand, say, a Dwarf, or an Orc, or even an Elf. …”
​

And in the Prologue part 4, “Of the Finding of the Ring”, Tolkien writes,

To [his companions] [Bilbo’s] account was that Gollum had promised to give him a present, if he won the game; but when Gollum went to fetch it from his island he found the treasure was gone: a magic ring, which had been given to him long ago on his birthday. Bilbo guessed that this was the very ring that he had found, and as he had won the game, it was already his by right. But being in a tight place, he said nothing about it, and made Gollum show him the way out, as a reward instead of a present. This account Bilbo set down in his memoirs, and he seems never to have altered it himself, not even after the Council of Elrond [where he publicly admitted the truth]. Evidently it still appeared in the original Red Book, as it did in several of the copies and abstracts. But many copies contain the true account (as an alternative), derived no doubt from notes by Frodo or Samwise, both of whom learned the truth, though they seem to have been unwilling to delete anything actually written by the old hobbit himself.

Gandalf, however, disbelieved Bilbo’s first story, as soon as he heard it, and he continued to be very curious about the ring. Eventually he got the true tale out of Bilbo after much questioning, which for a while strained their friendship; but the wizard seemed to think the truth important. Though he did not say so to Bilbo, he also thought it important, and disturbing, to find that the good hobbit had not told the truth from the first: quite contrary to his habit. The idea of a ‘present’ was not mere hobbitlike invention, all the same. It was suggested to Bilbo, as he confessed, by Gollum’s talk that he overheard; for Gollum did, in fact, call the ring his ‘birthday present’, many times. That also Gandalf thought strange and suspicious; but he did not discover the truth in this point for many more years…​

 

[Aramarien]

It was suggested to Bilbo, as he confessed, by Gollum’s talk that he overheard; for Gollum did, in fact, call the ring his ‘birthday present’, many times. That also Gandalf thought strange and suspicious; but he did not discover the truth in this point for many more years…

In the LOTR chapter "A Long-Expected Party" it says:
"Hobbits give presents to other people on their own birthdays. Not very expensive ones, as a rule, and not so lavishly as on this occasion, but it was not a bad system. Actually in Hobbiton and Bywater every day in the year was somebody's birthday, so that every hobbit in those parts had a fair chance of at least one present at least once a week. But they never got tired of them."

Also, many gifts were "mathoms" ,".....for anything that Hobbits had no immediate use for but were unwilling to throw away, they called a "mathom. Their dwellings were apt to become rather crowded with mathoms, and many of the presents that were passed from hand to hand were of that sort." [ LOTR, Prologue]
I wonder if this may be another reason that Gandalf may have thought that Gollum calling the ring his "birthday present" was strange and suspicious?