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Timeline Event

Isildur puts on the One Ring to escape the Disaster of the Gladden Fields

Event Type: Military/Strategic

Age: 3rd Age - The Kings

Date: October 4, 0002

Description:

An event in the Disaster of the Gladden Fields; see that entry for an overview.
Isildur himself escaped by means of the Ring, for when he wore it he was invisible to all eyes....

The Silmarillion, Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age

Elendur kissed him. 'Go! Go now!' he said.

Isildur turned west, and drawing up the Ring that hung in a wallet from a fine chain about his neck, he set it upon his finger with a cry of pain, and was never seen again by any eye upon Middle-earth. But the Elendilmir of the West could not be quenched, and suddenly it blazed forth.... Men and Orcs gave way in fear; and Isildur, drawing a hood over his head, vanished1 into the night....

[It] is told that he was in great pain and anguish of heart, but at first he ran like a stag from the hounds, until he came to the bottom of the valley. There he halted, to make sure that he was not pursued; for Orcs could track a fugitive in the dark by scent, and needed no eyes. Then he went on more warily, for wide flats stretched on into the gloom before him, rough and pathless, with many traps for wandering feet.

So it was that he came at last to the banks of Anduin at the dead of night....

Unfinished Tales, Part 3, Ch 1, The Disaster of the Gladden Fields


Notes
1   The meaning, sufficiently remarkable, of this passage appears to be that the light of the Elendilmir was proof against the invisibility conferred by the One Ring when worn, if its light would be visible were the Ring not worn; but when Isildur covered his head with a hood its light was extinguished.

Unfinished Tales, Part 3, Ch 1, The Disaster of the Gladden Fields: Notes, Note 25

Contributors:
Elena Tiriel 11Nov07

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