"GL1" - читать интересную книгу автора (vol12)

chapter Riddles in the Dark was altered in the edition of 1951. With
all these changes incorporated, the typescript P 2 was a precise copy
of the original version (see note 7).

This ring was brought back by Bilbo from his memorable jour-
ney. He found it by what seemed like luck. He was lost for a
while in the tunnels of the goblins under the Misty Mountains,
and there he put his hand on it in the dark.
Trying to find his way out, he went on down to the roots of
the mountains and came to a full stop. At the bottom of the
tunnel was a cold lake far from the light. On an island of rock
in the water lived Gollum. He was a loathsome little creature:
he paddled a small boat with his large flat feet, and peered with
pale luminous eyes, catching blind fish with his long fingers and
eating them raw. He ate any living thing, even goblin, if he could
catch and strangle it without a fight; and he would have eaten
Bilbo, if Bilbo had not had in his hand an elvish knife to serve
him as a sword. Gollum challenged the hobbit to a Riddle-
game: if he asked a riddle that Bilbo could not guess, then he
would eat him; but if Bilbo floored him, then he promised to
give him a splendid gift. Since he was lost in the dark, and could
not go on or back, Bilbo was obliged to accept the challenge;
and in the end he won the game (as much by luck as by wits). It
then turned out that Gollum had intended to give Bilbo a magic
ring that made the wearer invisible. He said he had got it as
a birthday present long ago; but when he looked for it in his
hiding-place on the island, the ring had disappeared. Not even
Gollum (a mean and malevolent creature) dared cheat at the
Riddle-game, after a fair challenge, so in recompense for the
missing ring he reluctantly agreed to Bilbo's demand that he
should show him the way out of the labyrinth of tunnels. In this
way the hobbit escaped and rejoined his companions: thirteen
dwarves and the wizard Gandalf. Of course he had quickly
guessed that Gollum's ring had somehow been dropped in the
tunnels and that he himself had found it; but he had the sense to
say nothing to Gollum. He used the ring several times later in
his adventures, but nearly always to help other people. The ring
had other powers besides that of making its wearer invisible.
But these were not discovered, or even suspected, until long
after Bilbo had returned home and settled down again. Conse-
quently they are not spoken of in the story of his journey. This
tale is chiefly concerned with the ring, its powers and history.
Bilbo, it is told, following his own account and the ending he



himself devised for his memoirs (before he had written most of
them), 'remained very happy to the end of his days, and those
were extraordinarily long.' They were. How long, and why so