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About

Genius Annotation

The famous riddle from J. R. R. Tolkien’s fantasy classic, The Fellowship of the Ring (part one of the Lord of the Rings trilogy).

The poem as a whole is a prophecy of Aragorn’s ascension from being a mistrusted and uncelebrated ranger in the North, to the recognition of his birthright as the king of Gondor and vanished Arnor.

The poem appears twice in The Lord of the Rings' first volume, The Fellowship of the Ring. It appears first in Chapter Ten, “Strider,” in Gandalf’s letter to the hobbits in Bree, before they know that Strider (Aragorn) is the subject of the verse. It is repeated by Bilbo at the Council of Elrond. He whispers to Frodo that he wrote it many years before, when Aragorn first revealed who he was.

In Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Lord of the Rings for film, the poem appears in The Return of the King, when Arwen recites the last four lines of the poem as her father Elrond prepares to reforge the shards of Narsil for Aragorn. In the 1981 BBC radio dramatisation, the entire poem is heard in its original context, the letter left at Bree by Gandalf.

Q&A

Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning

  1. 12.
    All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter
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