XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm   
      
   On Sun, 18 Mar 2012 01:05:03 +0100, Troels Forchhammer wrote:   
   > I frankly think that the answer to   
   > 'where are the Three Rings kept' must actually have been fairly   
   > obvious to any Elf who was around at about TA 800 -- the Elves seems   
   > to have shared the author's admiration for /lore/, and if you apply   
   > that logic, the Keepers of the Three are actually fairly inevitable.   
   > It is likely that most Elves had conditioned themselves not to think   
   > about it consciously, but subconsciously I find it difficult to   
   > accept that they would not suspect at least as much as did Sauron.   
      
   "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age" does tend to corroborate   
   that:   
      
   "Of the Three Rings that the Elves had preserved unsullied no open   
   word was ever spoken among the Wise, and few even of the Eldar knew   
   where they were bestowed. Yet after the fall of Sauron their power   
   was ever at work, and where they abode there mirth also dwelt and all   
   things were unstained by the griefs of time. Therefore ere the Third   
   Age was ended the Elves perceived" that one Ring was in Rivendell and   
   one in Lórien; but only Elrond, Galadriel, and Círdan knew the   
   whereabouts of the third Ring.   
      
   It's at moments like this that I wish we had a better idea of what   
   the Rings actually *did*.  The quoted passage says, in effect,   
   Rivendell and Lórien endured in peace and beauty, which tipped off   
   the Elves that each of them must have a Ring.  Yet (a) Elrond and   
   Galadriel each had great native power, and of course the Elves of   
   both places were doing maintenance all the time, so what was it that   
   screamed "here be Rings"?  And (b) the Havens also endure in peace   
   and beauty. What was different between the Havens and Rivendell that   
   *didn't* cause Elves to think that a Ring was at the Havens?  (Yes, I   
   know that there was one until about TA 1000, when Gandalf appeared   
   and Círdan gave him his Ring; but in the quoted passage "ere the   
   Third Age was ended" doesn't seem consistent with Círdan's holding of   
   a Ring for only the first third of the Third Age.)   
      
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