<P> The first Ballantine paperback edition of The Fellowship of the Ring printed the inscription upside - down . Some recent editions accidentally omit the first half of the translation in Book I, Chapter 2 . This error was corrected in the 50th Anniversary edition . </P> <P> The term Ring - bearer is used in The Lord of the Rings to describe a person who has possessed the One Ring . The term is also used to refer to bearers of other Rings of Power . </P> <P> In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo Baggins was appointed Ring - bearer by the Council of Elrond in Rivendell . His task was to carry the One Ring from Rivendell to the Crack of Doom in Mordor and to destroy it before Sauron or his servants could recover it . During this journey, Frodo's companion Samwise Gamgee also carried the ring briefly while Frodo was held captive in the Tower of Cirith Ungol . Near the onset of this journey the Ring was handled also by Tom Bombadil, upon whom the Ring had no apparent effect, and by Gandalf, who cast it into Frodo's fireplace to verify that it was the One Ring . </P> <P> Frodo inherited the Ring from his uncle Bilbo Baggins . In Tolkien's earlier novel, The Hobbit, Bilbo found the Ring in the caverns beneath the Misty Mountains . It had been lost in the caverns by Gollum, who used the invisibility it conferred to hunt orcs to eat . Gollum, a hobbit previously known as Sméagol, had kept the Ring for hundreds of years . He had murdered his friend Déagol to get the Ring shortly after Déagol found it in the river Anduin . Many centuries earlier the Ring had betrayed Isildur and fallen from his finger into the Anduin as he was eluding orcs--who killed him when he became visible . Isildur in turn had cut the Ring from the hand of Sauron, who had made the Ring and let much of his power flow into it . Sauron was the Ring's true master, and the only being who could bend it completely to his will . </P>

Owner of the ring in lord of the rings