Riddles in the Dark

"He guessed as well as he could, and crawled along for a good way, till suddenly his hand met what felt like a tiny ring of cold metal lying on the floor of the tunnel. It was a turning point in his career, but he did not know it. He put the ring in his pocket almost without thinking; certainly it did not seem of any particular use at the moment."

Perhaps the most awaited moment of this book is when Bilbo acquires the Ring of Power. Especially to fans of the books or movies of The Lord of the Rings, that scene is one that has us reading through the book hastily in anticipation of this moment. And it comes sooner than expected, very early in the book. Chapter 4, Over Hill and Under Hill, consists of the troupe of dwarves, Bilbo, and Gandalf crossing through the Misty Mountains and finding a cave for shelter. That night, however, they are captured by a the goblins, and taken prisoners. Gandalf however followes behind, slays the Great Goblin, and gathers his troupe to escape the caverns. But Dori, whom was carrying Bilbo in his shoulders, collapses losing hold of Bilbo, and immediately gets up and goes without Bilbo (which was seen as an incredible act of greed and unselfishness on the race of the dwarves, and how they don't care or believe much in Bilbo.

"Deep down here by the dark water lived old Gollum, a small slumy creature. I don't know where he came from, nor who or what he was. He was Gollum - as dark as darkness, except for two big round pale eyes in his thin face."

Riddles in the Dark is not famous because it demonstrates the discovery of the Ring, but because it is the introduction to Gollum, a very vital and integral character of the Middle-Earth saga. Bilbo and Gollum meet very deep inside the cave, near a lake where the mysterious creature lives. Gollum and Bilbo ensue in a riddle game, out of which Bilbo would not survive if he had failed. "It must have a competition with us, my precious! If precious asks, and it doesn't answer, we eats it, my preciousss. If it asks us, and we doesn't answer, the we does what it wants eh? We shows it the way out, yes!"


After many riddles vacillate between the two, Bilbo asks "What have I got in my pocket?" This of course is a very arbitrary and inappropriate question, for there is no possible way Gollum would know, and there was no riddle to guess for. So Gollum answers incorrectly, and infuriated, he goes to his hiding-place "where he kept one very beautiful thing, very beautiful, very wonderful. He had a ring, a golden ring, a precious ring." Of course it is the ring Bilbo has in his pocket. "He wanted it because it was a ring of power, and if you slipped that ring on your finger, you were invisible; only in the full sunlight could you be seen, and then only by your shadow, and that would be shaky and faint." Gollum planned to use it to sneak up on Bilbo, kill him and eat him. Obviously though, he does not find it.

"Where iss it? Where iss it? Lost it is, my precious, lost, lost! Curse us and crush us, my precious is lost! It's lost, gollum, gollum, gollum."

The creature chases Bilbo, but he slips on the ring, trips, and Gollum runs past him crazed and panicked. Bilbo hears it form a distance, formulating a plan to wait for the Baggins at the exit of the cave, so Bilbo follows Gollum, unseen. Bilbo jumps over Gollum at the place where he dared go no further because the goblins guarded the other passages. Bilbo had escaped.

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

Bilbo's destiny had instantly been changed. The robbery of the ring is the first successful step Mr. Baggins takes towards becoming a burglar, since he hadn't managed to rob the trolls alone. Frightened, alone and anxious, yet witty and audacious he manages to confront the wretched creature, steal his ring, and escape the goblins cave. Of course that the invisibility of the ring helped a vast amount, allowing him to exit the cave unseen. But considering he is a hobbit, completely lost and new to these bold and daring experiences, much should be credited to him later by the dwarves. The Took side of Bilbo had emerged even further through this experience, and without it, he might have not survived or endured the experiences that would follow.