River Anduin in the context of "Isildur"

Gollum is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy world of Middle-earth. He was introduced in the 1937 fantasy novel The Hobbit, and became important in its sequel, The Lord of the Rings. Gollum was a Stoor Hobbit of the River-folk who lived near the Gladden Fields. In The Lord of the Rings, it is stated that he was originally known as Sméagol, corrupted by the One Ring, and later named Gollum after his habit of making "a horrible swallowing noise in his throat".

Sméagol obtained the Ring by murdering his relative Déagol, who found it in the River Anduin. Gollum called the Ring "my precious", and it extended his life far beyond natural limits. Centuries of the Ring's influence twisted Gollum's body and mind, and, by the time of the novels, he "loved and hated [the Ring], as he loved and hated himself." Throughout the story, Gollum was torn between his lust for the Ring and his desire to be free of it. Bilbo Baggins found the Ring and took it for his own, and Gollum afterwards pursued it for the rest of his life. Gollum finally seized the Ring from Frodo Baggins at the Cracks of Doom in Mount Doom in Mordor, but he fell into the fires of the volcano, where he was killed and the Ring destroyed.

The Battle of the Pelennor Fields ([pɛˈlɛnnɔr]), in J. R. R. Tolkien's novel The Lord of the Rings, was the defence of the city of Minas Tirith by the forces of Gondor and the cavalry of its ally Rohan, against the forces of the Dark Lord Sauron from Mordor and its allies the Haradrim and the Easterlings. It was the largest battle in the War of the Ring. It took place at the end of the Third Age in the Pelennor Fields, the townlands and fields between Minas Tirith and the River Anduin.

In search of Tolkien's sources, scholars have compared the battle with the historic account of the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields where King Theodoric I was trampled to death by his own men after he fell from his horse. Others have likened the death of the Witch-King of Angmar to the death of Macbeth, who was similarly prophesied not to die by the hand of man "of woman born"; and the crowing of a cockerel at the moment the Witch-King was about to enter the city has been said to recall the cock-crow heralding the resurrection of Jesus at the moment that Simon Peter denied knowing him.