"The Rings Saga"

[Deleted]

I've seen several instances of Gary Gygax and assorted 1e grognards use the phrases "Rings Saga" or "Rings Trilogy" to refer to Lord Of The Rings. Was this common terminology in the seventies or just a Gygaxian quirk?

[Vile Traveller]

I've never heard it referred to as that. It would be a good joke, though, referencing the fact that Tolkien basically ripped off the Ring Saga. 😜

[talysman]

I remember hearing the phrase once or twice, but don't know how common it was. I suspect it originated in the '60s in lit crit circles as part of a comparison of LotR to The Ring Saga (not necessarily as a joke or insult, as Vile Traveller suggests, just a comparison.)

I seem to remember first seeing it in Lin Carter's Tolkien bio, but don't remember for sure.

[Deleted]

Oct 23, 2021 12:18:39 GMT -6 Vile Traveller said:

I've never heard it referred to as that. It would be a good joke, though, referencing the fact that Tolkien basically ripped off the Ring Saga. 😜

I wanna say Gary calls it that in Appendix N and for sure did in several articles and forum posts over the years. Others also have, though usually at DF and other 1e hangouts, so I think maybe they're borrowing his term.

[Zenopus]

A few "data points":

Chainmail, 2nd Edition refers to "Tolkien's trilogy" in the entry for Rocs

In "Fantasy Wargaming and the Influence of J.R.R. Tolkien" (1974), Gygax calls it "Tolkien's "Ring Trilogy""

In the Basic Set rulebook, Holmes calls it "Tolkien's great Lord of the Rings trilogy"

In the Appendix N list of the DMG, it's "Ring Trilogy".

In the revised Basic set rulebook, Moldvay calls it the "Lord of the Rings (trilogy)".

* * * *

I'd say it's natural to shorthand "Lord of the Rings trilogy" down to "Rings Trilogy", but that sounds little weird when you say it out loud, so it's further easy to switch to "Ring Trilogy", particularly because the first book also uses the singular ("Fellowship of the Ring").

Nowadays we are more aware that Tolkien thought of it as one long book, so we are more likely to refer to it as just "Lord of the Rings" without appending trilogy.

[aramis]

Oct 23, 2021 11:47:41 GMT -6 @ampleframework said:

I've seen several instances of Gary Gygax and assorted 1e grognards use the phrases "Rings Saga" or "Rings Trilogy" to refer to Lord Of The Rings. Was this common terminology in the seventies or just a Gygaxian quirk?

Common? Not really. Unique? no. Tolkien set out to write an "English Saga"...

There was a competing usage, tho'...
a reference to Wagner's Ring Cycle. I've known two professors of music who used "Ring Saga" in reference to Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Ring_des_Nibelungen

Oh, just for reference, the Harlock series inspired by the Ring Cycle are fun...

[Falconer]

LotR didn’t become an accepted acronym till the 2000s. Before then, LR or LOR were more common. More correct, but ambiguous if context not already established.

[tkdco2]

I've only seen the phrase in the D&D appendices. I thought the writers were just trying to save space instead of typing the entire title.