The Company of the Ring, also called the Fellowship of the Ring and the Nine Walkers, is a fictional group of nine representatives from the free peoples of Middle-earth: Elves, Dwarves, Men, and Hobbits; and a Wizard. The group is described in the first volume of The Lord of the Rings, itself titled The Fellowship of the Ring. The number nine is chosen, as the book's author J. R. R. Tolkien states, to match and oppose the nine Black Riders or Ringwraiths.
Scholars have commented that Tolkien saw community as the right way to live. They note, too, that the Company is diverse both in culture and in personal qualities, and bound together by friendship, a model very different from the western image of the lone hero. Tolkien uses the term "company" far more often than "fellowship", the word coming from Latin companio, a person who shares bread, suggesting a co-traveller on the road or a group with a shared purpose. The Company of the Ring has been likened to the Arthurian order of the Knights of the Round Table, a group that has many points of similarity including a person carrying the burden of a quest, a returning King, an accompanying Wizard, and a treacherous knight.
Context
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) was an English <!--a powerful influence on his writing-->Roman Catholic writer, poet, philologist, and academic, best known as the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit, published in 1937, and its sequel The Lord of the Rings, published in 1954–55. Set in the fictional world of Middle-earth, The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling books ever written, with over 150 million copies sold.
Narrative
The main plot of The Lord of the Rings is a quest to destroy the One Ring, to prevent it from falling into the hands of its creator, the Dark Lord Sauron. A council is held in Rivendell to decide how to achieve this. A hobbit, Frodo Baggins, is to bear the Ring to the land of Mordor to destroy it in the fires of Mount Doom. Elrond announces that