Q: Where Did Tolkien Get the Idea for a Ring of Invisibility?
ANSWER: There seem to be two schools of thought about this. The first and most well-known is that Tolkien “borrowed” the idea from Wagner. However, the ring in Wagner’s saga is nothing like Sauron’s ring, although his Tarnhelm (“Helm of Invisibility”) has been credited with being a source for Tolkien’s ring of invisibility. The timing seems right: Tolkien and C.S. Lewis discussed the Wagnerian cycle (and its source material, the medieval German poem Das Nibelungenlied) in the early 1930s and they even saw one operatic performance. However, given Tolkien’s dislike of Wagner it seems a real stretch (to me) that he should then choose to blend two Wagnerian elements together to create Bilbo’s ring of invisibility in The Hobbit.
What seems to me the more likely source is the second proposed source (I am not sure who first raised this point but it has been discussed in Tolkien scholarship for some years): Plato’s Ring of Gyges. The Ring is a philosophical device, what Alfred Hitchcock might have called a MacGuffin. Plato’s dialogue suggests that all men are corruptible and one of his characters, Glaucon, relates the story of Gyges, a humble shepherd who finds the ring that confers invisibility upon its wearer in the remains of a bronze horse that is uncovered by an earthquake. Seizing upon his good fortune, Gyges commits all sorts of horrendous evil. Glaucon concludes that men only behave morally because they are held responsible for their deeds.
The ring represents the idea of power embodied in an object that can be possessed and used at will; as well as the idea that such power would inevitably corrupt its possessor. This sounds very much like Sauron’s ring, does it not?
The arguments in favor of the Wagnerian point of view sometimes include etymological comparisons of Tarnhelm to Dernhelm (the name Eowyn assumes when she offers to take Merry to Gondor on her horse). Wagner’s Deutsch word tarn is traced back to Middle French ternir, which the Online Etymology Dictionary also credits with being the root of the English word tarnish. Wagner’s tarn some people loosely translate as “invisible” (although other sources suggest something more like “hidden” or “disguised as in camouflage“).
Tolkien’s dern (“hidden, secret”) (used in Dernhelm and Derndingle) is not associated with “invisibility” but rather with “secret” or “disguised”. This word shares the same root as tarn, which also occurs in tarnkappe (a cloak of invisibility). In the original medieval German story, Das Nibelungenlied, the device of invisibility is a cloak (shades of Harry Potter!), not a helmet. I have no idea of why Wagner changed the cloak to a helmet. Of course, he changed many other things, as well.
Given Tolkien’s immense knowledge of the archaic English language, it seems unlikely to me that he would have been inspired to use a variant of tarn by some familiarity with Wagner’s work. Of course, we will never know the facts leading up to Tolkien’s word choices. People will propose various theories and perhaps enjoy debating them.
Another possible source might be The Mabinogion, a medieval Welsh epic which includes three “Late Arthurian” stories. The first story, “Owein or The Lady of the Fountain” tells how Owein, a knight in King Arthur’s court, is imprisoned in a castle where a maiden gives him an invisible ring. A number of Tolkien scholars, including Tom Shippey and Carl Hostetter, have pointed to possible/probable influences on Tolkien from The Mabinogion.
It’s quite possible that the medieval stories of rings that confer invisibility owe something to Plato. Not only were many Greek and Roman classics preserved throughout the Middle Ages, they provided inspiration and education for many generations of medieval poets, philosophers, and clerics. Many of the ancient works that have survived to this day were, in fact, preserved and passed on by European monasteries. The monasteries were often the only schools available to enlightened classes and generations throughout Europe, since independent universities would not exist until the late 11th and early 12th centuries (it’s a curious fact that students formed and controlled the first independent universities as a means of imposing quality control on their “masters”, the teachers of higher education).
So, that is all I know about Tolkien’s probable, possible, unlikely, or interesting sources for rings of invisibility. I’ll leave it to J.K. Rowling scholars to explain Harry’s cloak of invisibility (but I would be interested in reading any such works if they are available online).
See also:
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Something is wrong with this page, at least for me; the article is cut off after the words “is traced back to Middle French ternir, which”
Yep, the same with me here.
One little incorrect character….:)
Fixed. Thanks for pointing that out.
Re Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak: I don’t know of any sites which go into detail on possible sources, but I have seen one suggestion. The Mantle of Arthur, one of the Thirteen Treasures of Britain, made the wearer invisible; and, interestingly, the thirteen treasures were also known as the Thirteen Hallows of Britain.