He sometimes referred to himself as “precious” (though in the early versions, never called the ring “precious”).Īnd there was also the riddle game. For starters, we learn that he said “Gollum” when “he swallowed unpleasantly in his throat – that’s how he got his name.” Also, Gollum “only spoke to himself not you,” we’re told. He was Gollum, as dark as darkness except for two big round pale eyes.”Įven in this early draft several features of Gollum’s character can already be found. I don’t know where he came from or who or what he was. “Deep down here by the dark water lived old Gollum. His first pen strokes about this odd creature were: Perhaps with this in mind, when Tolkien brought Bilbo, the Dwarves, and the Wizard into the dark caverns of the Misty Mountains, he might have brought old Glip along too. Sneaking and crawling under fishy stones, “Glip” was the poem’s title, as well as the name of this “slimy little thing.” It was part of a series entitled “Tales and Song of Bimble Bay.” There’s a small hint, however, that Gollum’s character was based upon one of his own poems from two years prior. This was, of course, where Bilbo met Gollum who “lived on a slimy island in the middle of the lake.” Bilbo Baggins, on a quest which soon saw them separated in the caverners under the mountains. It was the summer of 1930, and on a blank page in a student’s exam book Tolkien had written “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” He soon followed this mysterious little line, allowing it to lead him where it would: to a wizard named Bladorthin and a brood of dwarves whose leader was named Gandalf (there was still a bit of name-shuffling to do).
The changes, which we’ll be uncovering today, are as curious as they are drastic. In doing this, he made the two Gollums one. In the original 1937 edition of The Hobbit, Gollum’s motives and demeanor were markedly milder than in Lord of the Rings. In 1951, Tolkien heavily revised his original 1937 version of the “Riddles in the Dark” chapter, completely changing Gollum’s story. The character of Gollum, as read in The Hobbit, matches up perfectly with the Gollum we know from The Lord of the Rings.
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