The Disaster of the Gladden Fields

The Gladden Fields are a marshy area in the north of Middle-earth, where the Gladden River flows into the great River Anduin. This place is famous not for its beauty, but for a great tragedy that happened there at the very start of the Third Age. It was here that Isildur, the High King of the Dúnedain who had cut the One Ring from Sauron's hand, was ambushed and killed by orcs. This event marked a dark beginning for the new age, as a great leader was lost just two years after the victory that was supposed to bring peace to the world.

More importantly than the death of a king, the Gladden Fields were where the One Ring was lost to the world for thousands of years. As Isildur tried to escape his attackers by swimming across the Anduin, the Ring betrayed him. It had grown heavy or changed its size, and it slipped from his finger, disappearing into the dark, murky water of the river. Isildur, suddenly visible to his enemies, was killed by their arrows, and the Ring, the most powerful and dangerous object in Middle-earth, was gone.

The loss of the Ring at the Gladden Fields was a turning point in history. Because it was not destroyed, the spirit of Sauron was able to survive and slowly regain its strength over the next few thousand years. The Ring itself passed out of knowledge and into legend, lying hidden at the bottom of a river. This single event set in motion the entire story of the Third Age, leading eventually to the Ring's rediscovery and the great War of the Ring that would decide the fate of all peoples of Middle-earth.

At the end of the Second Age, a great army of Elves and Men, known as the Last Alliance, fought a long and terrible war against the Dark Lord Sauron. After years of battle and a seven-year siege of Sauron's fortress of Barad-dûr, the war came to a final, desperate fight on the slopes of Mount Doom. Sauron himself came out to fight, and though he was powerful, the Alliance was victorious. Sauron's physical body was destroyed, and his armies were defeated, bringing an end to his dark reign for a time.

This victory was not without a heavy price. In the final battle against Sauron, many great heroes fell. Elendil, the High King of the Dúnedain of Arnor and Gondor, was killed. Gil-galad, the High King of the Noldorin Elves, also died fighting the Dark Lord. Their deaths left the victorious armies without their most powerful leaders. The world was freed from Sauron, but it was a wounded world, with many of its greatest champions gone forever.

After his father Elendil was struck down, his son Isildur took up the hilt-shard of his father's broken sword, Narsil, and used it to cut the One Ring from Sauron's hand. With the Ring gone, Sauron's spirit fled, and the war was officially over. Isildur, now the High King, left the blackened lands of Mordor as the victor. He carried with him the broken pieces of Narsil and the One Ring, which he claimed for himself as a prize of war and a memorial to his family's sacrifice.

After claiming the Ring, Isildur was taken to the fires of Mount Doom by his advisors, Elrond and Círdan, who were two of the wisest Elves in Middle-earth. They urged him to throw the Ring into the volcano's fire, the only place where it could be unmade. They warned him that as long as the Ring existed, Sauron's evil could one day return. But Isildur, who was already falling under the Ring's spell, refused their counsel and decided to keep it.

Isildur justified his decision by declaring that the Ring was his payment for the suffering and loss his family had endured. He called it a weregild, which is an old word for a payment made to the family of someone who has been killed. He said the Ring was his to keep in memory of his father, Elendil, and his brother, Anárion, who had both died in the war against Sauron. He saw it not as an evil thing to be destroyed, but as a treasure and a family heirloom, a symbol of his victory.

This choice was perhaps the most fateful decision in the history of the Third Age. By keeping the Ring, Isildur allowed the source of Sauron's power to remain in the world. If he had destroyed it, the threat of the Dark Lord would have been ended forever. Instead, his personal desire for the Ring meant that evil was only defeated, not destroyed. This single act of keeping the Ring ensured that the shadow of Sauron would one day return to threaten all the free peoples of Middle-earth.

After spending some time in Gondor to organize the kingdom, Isildur began a long journey north. He planned to travel to Rivendell, where his wife and youngest son were waiting, and then on to his own kingdom of Arnor. He traveled with a small company of his most loyal soldiers, and with him he carried two precious items from the war: the shards of the sword Narsil, and hidden on a chain around his neck, the One Ring.

The Ring was already having a powerful effect on Isildur. He wrote in a scroll that it felt cool and beautiful to the touch, and he could not bear to have it heated by a fire. He considered it his most prized possession, a symbol of his royal power. At times during his journey, it is believed he used the Ring's power to become invisible, perhaps to hide from enemies or simply to feel its strength. This showed that he was not its master, but that the Ring was slowly beginning to master him.

Isildur's decision to keep the Ring created a distance between him and the Elves. Elrond, who had been a close ally of his father, was deeply troubled by Isildur's choice. By ignoring the advice of the wisest beings in Middle-earth, Isildur was acting on his own pride. This choice not only damaged his friendship with the Elves but also left an active and intelligent evil loose in the world. Instead of being ended in the fires of Mount Doom, the Ring was now traveling freely, carrying its dark influence wherever it went.

The tragedy happened as Isildur and his small company were marching north along the great River Anduin. They reached a marshy area known as the Gladden Fields, where the Gladden River meets the Anduin. It was evening, and as the sun set, they were suddenly attacked. A huge force of orcs, far outnumbering Isildur's men, charged out of the woods and hills nearby, surrounding them completely in a well-planned ambush.

J.R.R. Tolkien's writing describes a sudden and brutal attack. Isildur's men were caught completely by surprise as orcs swarmed them from all sides. The Dúnedain fought bravely, but they were tired from a long day's march and were hopelessly outnumbered. The orcs, driven by their hatred for the men who had defeated their master, showed no mercy. The battle was short and fierce, taking place in the fading light among the tall reeds and muddy banks of the river.

Seeing that the battle was lost and that all his men, including his three eldest sons, would soon be killed, Isildur made a desperate attempt to escape. His goal was to get the Ring to safety, so he put it on his finger to become invisible and fled the battle. He rode his horse into the River Anduin and began swimming across to the other side. In this moment of crisis, the Ring seemed to offer him protection through its invisibility, but this protection would soon turn into a final betrayal.

As Isildur was swimming across the powerful current of the River Anduin, the Ring made its own move. It seemed to have a will of its own and had no loyalty to its new keeper. Whether it grew larger or heavier, or simply decided to leave him, the Ring slipped from Isildur's finger. Suddenly, the great king was no longer invisible. He was just a man, struggling in the dark water, now completely visible to the orc archers watching from the riverbank.

The One Ring, now free from its owner, sank quickly into the deep water of the Anduin. It settled on the riverbed, where it was soon covered by mud, silt, and weeds. There it lay, completely hidden from sight. For anyone who might come searching for it, finding such a small object in a great river would be impossible. The Ring was lost to the world, safe in its watery hiding place.

This accidental loss was a very important event. For over two thousand four hundred years, the Ring remained at the bottom of the river. It was out of reach of Sauron, who was slowly rebuilding his power, and it was also hidden from the Elves and wise men who knew of its danger. The Ring's long stay in the river meant that it passed from being a known threat into a distant memory, and then into a legend, almost forgotten by the peoples of Middle-earth.

Once the Ring had abandoned him, Isildur became visible to the orcs who were watching from the eastern bank of the river. They immediately let loose a volley of arrows. Isildur, a tall and proud figure even while swimming, was an easy target. He was struck by several arrows and killed, his body falling back into the dark water. The High King of Arnor and Gondor, the man who defeated Sauron, met his end alone in a river, slain by common orcs.

Isildur's body was not found by his enemies. It seems it washed ashore and lay hidden for some time. With him were the things he carried: the Elendilmir, a star-like gem he wore on his brow, and the broken shards of the sword Narsil, which were kept in a sheath. When his body was eventually discovered, the Ring was missing from his hand. This was the final proof that the great treasure he had taken from Sauron was now lost.

The death of Isildur and his three oldest sons in the ambush was a disaster for the kingdoms of Men. Isildur's only remaining heir, his youngest son Valandil, was just a boy living in Rivendell. Without a strong king to rule, the two kingdoms of Arnor in the north and Gondor in the south began to drift apart. The line of kings survived through Valandil, but the unified leadership of the Dúnedain was broken.

The death of Isildur created a major problem for the Dúnedain. He was supposed to be the High King of both Arnor in the north and Gondor in the south. With him gone, his young son Valandil eventually took up the rule in Arnor, but the rulers in Gondor began to govern themselves. Over time, the two kingdoms grew more separate, and the great unified kingdom of Elendil and Isildur was never truly re-established, which weakened the power of Men in Middle-earth.

The most serious consequence of the Disaster of the Gladden Fields was that Sauron's power was not completely destroyed. Because the One Ring survived, Sauron's spirit also survived, though it was very weak. For centuries, he remained a shapeless shadow, but slowly, he began to regain his strength. The Ring's survival meant that the threat of evil was not over, and it eventually allowed Sauron to rise again and build a new fortress in Dol Guldur, and later, return to Mordor.

The story of Isildur's pride and his death became a famous cautionary tale among the wise. Elrond of Rivendell and the leaders of Gondor remembered the story well. It was a lesson about how even a great victory can be spoiled by a single moment of weakness. Isildur's choice to keep the Ring was seen as a great failure, a reminder that the Ring's power to corrupt was a danger to everyone, no matter how strong or noble they might be.

For more than two millennia, the One Ring lay undisturbed at the bottom of the River Anduin. As centuries passed, the river's current slowly carried it downstream until it rested in the mud near the Gladden Fields. There it stayed until one day, around the year 2463 of the Third Age, a hobbit-like person of the Stoor clan named Déagol was fishing in the river. A large fish pulled his line, dragging him into the water, and as he groped in the mud at the bottom, his hand closed around a small, plain gold ring.

Déagol was fishing with his friend, Sméagol. When Déagol came out of the water and washed the mud off his discovery, Sméagol saw the beautiful golden Ring and was immediately filled with a powerful desire for it. He demanded that Déagol give it to him as a birthday present. When Déagol refused, Sméagol, his mind twisted by the Ring's evil influence, attacked his friend and secretly murdered him to take the Ring for himself. He hid Déagol's body and kept the Ring.

This terrible event directly connects the ancient history of Isildur to the later stories of the Third Age. The Ring's journey, from the hand of Sauron to Isildur, to the bottom of the river, and then to the hand of a murderer, shows its dark path through history. Sméagol, who would soon become the miserable creature known as Gollum, took the Ring and hid with it in caves under the Misty Mountains. This chain of events, starting with Isildur's mistake, ensured the Ring would continue its evil work in the world.

For readers who want to learn the full story of the Disaster of the Gladden Fields, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote about it in several of his books. The most important accounts can be found in The Lord of the Rings In Appendix A, which tells the history of the kings, and in the Tale of Years in Appendix B, the basic story is told. There are also brief but important mentions of it in the main story, especially during the Council of Elrond.

Because Tolkien was always working on and improving the history of his world, some small details about the event can be different depending on which book you read. For example, in some early versions, the date of the event is slightly different. The most detailed account is in his son Christopher Tolkien's book, Unfinished Tales in a chapter specifically called "The Disaster of the Gladden Fields." This version provides more context, including a description of Isildur's thoughts from a scroll he wrote before he died. It explains in depth how the ambush happened and how the Ring betrayed him.

To get the most complete picture from the books, it is best to read the story in Unfinished Talesfirst, as it has the most detail. Then, reading the sections in the Appendices of The Lord of the Ringswill show how the story fits into the larger history of Middle-earth. These texts together provide a full and fascinating account of one of the most important events in the history of the One Ring.

The story of what happened at the Gladden Fields is a powerful example of some of the most important ideas in Tolkien's world. It is a story about the danger of pride, as Isildur believed he was strong enough to master the Ring and ignored the wise counsel of the Elves. It is also a clear lesson on the corrupting influence of power, showing how the desire for the Ring could make even a great and noble king make a terrible choice. Finally, it shows how chance and fate work together, as a planned ambush and an accidental slip of a ring changed the course of history.

Isildur's decision to keep the Ring is shown as a personal mistake driven by his grief and his pride. However, Tolkien also suggests that larger forces were at work. The Ring itself is described as having a will of its own, wanting to get back to its master, Sauron. So while Isildur made a bad choice, he was also a victim of the Ring's evil power. His story is a tragedy, where personal weakness and a powerful, evil fate combine to create a disaster.

The legacy of the Disaster of the Gladden Fields can be felt throughout the entire Third Age. The error made by one king created a problem that would not be solved for thousands of years. The lost Ring became the central object of quests and wars. The failure of Isildur cast a long shadow, but it also created the opportunity for future heroes, like Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, to show incredible courage and finally correct the mistake that was made so long ago in the waters of the Anduin.