The whole premise of The Lord of the Rings was to keep the One Ring (which existed for a long time) away from the Dark Lord Sauron. If he got a hold of it, he would have become a nearly unstoppable force. So, Frodo and the rest of the Fellowship undertook a long and arduous quest to try to destroy the Ring in the fires of Mount Doom. Along the way, they encountered all kinds of monsters, warriors and obstacles, but Frodo’s mission was a success in the end.
While Sauron’s One Ring was easily the most powerful, there were multiple rings of power. Besides the ring-bearing Nazgûl, there were three particularly influential Elven rings that appeared in The Lord of the Rings: Vilya (Elrond), Nenya (Galadriel) and Narya (Gandalf). However, casual LOTR fans may not know that Saruman the White also secretly had a ring of power. Here’s where he got it and why it’s so important.
Who Was Saruman the White in LOTR?
With Sauron on the rise during the Third Age, the Valar sent five Istari to Middle-earth. Their mission was to exhort the free peoples of the world to rise up against evil. Chief among them was Saruman the White, who was originally a vassal of the Valar Aulë. When the Valar were preparing to send the Istari to Middle-earth, Saruman was the first to volunteer, and when he arrived, he was easily the most powerful.
Unfortunately, Saruman didn’t hold to his mission. Rather than subtly combating the evils of Sauron, Saruman joined them. He pledged Isengard’s loyalty to the Dark Lord and didn’t look back. He created Fighting Uruk-hai, and they ravaged Rohan, nearly destroying the whole kingdom.
Saruman and His Secret Ring of Power
However, Saruman’s evil ran deeper than anyone thought. Well before the time of LOTR, he had begun to desire the One Ring. So, he searched for it and found Isildur’s remains in the process. Thanks to Gollum, Saruman never found the One Ring. Yet, Saruman’s failure only prompted a new hobby: ring-making. At the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring, Saruman used Radagast to get Gandalf to Isengard. When Gandalf arrived, the FOTR novel says, “[Saruman] met me and led me up to his high chamber. He wore a ring on his finger.” That was when Gandalf first noticed Saruman’s ring.
It’s certainly possible that Saruman found one of the lesser rings that the Elves of Eregion made in the Second Age. It’s also possible that Sauron gifted the White Wizard a lesser ring as a show of good faith. However, it’s more likely that Saruman made the ring for himself. When he imprisoned Gandalf in Orthanc, he said this: “And here you will stay, Gandalf the Grey, and rest from journeys. For I am Saruman the Wise, Saruman Ring-maker, Saruman of Many Colours!”
Saruman’s skills would have been severely lacking when compared to Sauron, but the fact that he had begun to investigate ring-making could have been problematic. In the foreword to The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien wrote that if Sauron had not been defeated, Saruman would have found the advanced secrets of ring-making in Mordor. With that knowledge, he would have eventually “made a Great Ring of his own with which to challenge the self-styled Ruler of Middle-Earth.” So, his ring in FOTR may not have been super powerful, but it was only the first step in his own plan for domination.