You know the poem, that's why you downloaded these icons, right? :-)
This set of icons is distributed as freeware at my LOTR graphics site Nenuial,
http://nenuial.nippu.net .
That is, I get no money out of this business. Neither should you.
If you fancy, you can copy this set for your brother/girlfriend/boss but please
DO include this text file. Do NOT sell these icons or claim that you made them.
And please do NOT post this set at your web site. If you really really really want to,
then at least contact me (nerwen@nerwen.cjb.net)
about it. Please. :-)
Arda, and all the creatures of Eru as well as all things bright and beautiful they created during the first three Ages of the world, is copyright JRR Tolkien. Somehow, a lot of people got involved in the business with their companies and money, and finally sold the rights to someone who believed one Peter Jackson could make three movies out of the subject. PJ hired a lot of people to draw, compose, model, paint, sculpt, build, act, re-write, sing and create a piece of his vision of how things are in his opinion in Middle Earth. I am in no way affiliated with any of these parties (Wignut films, WETA, Tolkien Enterprises, Decipher, Noble Collections, Badali Jewelry etc etc) and I do not mean to violate any of their rights. This is just a fan thing, free advertising and all. ;-)
Please note that these icons were made on a Mac OS X (Jaguarrraugh!) and that's where they look best.
However, they are saved in a format that supports most of the older versions and bit
dephts of macs too - they just don't look incredibly nice. They should look okay in Win XP,
though I haven't got the chance to test them. I have no idea how they will look like in older
Win versions, but probably not too good.
Please don't get angry with me if these icons don't work on your preferred background colour,
give you headache or make you spend your money in jewelry replicas.
Once you've downloaded the set and unzipped the ringsofpower.zip-file, you should
see the icons.
You can change the icons of the standard desktop items such as "My Computer", "My Documents" and
"Recycle Bin" icons or the icon of any shortcut. Changing the default icons of other applications and files is more
dangerous and requires editing the system registry which may damage your software!
First, right-click on an empty part of the desktop and choose "Properties" from the pop-up menu.
Then select the "Effects" or "Plus!" tab. After that, select the icon you want to change and
in the icon selection window, click "Browse". Locate the icons that you want to use and choose
the .ICO file you want to use as a replacement. Press "Open" and "OK".
Please note that I have never used Win XP and these instructions are just second-hand knowledge.
The One Ring to rule them all is available with both with and without the lettering in it. The original pictures were from Noble Collections and Decipher.
Narya, the ring of Fire is one of the three elven rings and was given to Gandalf by Círdan. It had a stone red as fire. The picture is from Noble Collections.
Nenya, the ring of Adamant, the Ring of Water, was kept by Galadriel and is the only one of the three elven rings that we've seen properly in the movies so far. There seems to be lots of different kind of replicas available to buy, but I think this one looked most like the original one. Unfortunately, I don't know the origin of the picture or if you can buy this one, but the original picture is the one with a real leaf under the ring. According to Tolkien, Nenya was wrought of mithril and bore a single white stone.
Vilya, the third elven ring and often mentioned as the greatest (though it seems to be unclear whether the greatest was Narya or Vilya) was made of gold and had a great blue stone attached to it. It was worn by Elrond. The picture is (if memory serves) from Noble Collections, too.
"a dwarven ring" is from either Noble Collections or Badali Jewelry. I guess it's supposed to represent one of the seven rings of the Dwarf-lords although I'm not sure whether the rest of the rings of power were supposed to have stones at all according to Tolkien or PJ. Anyway, it fits perfectly with the dwarven style presented in the movies with its straight lines and sharp corners.
"king of men ring" is also a piece made by NC or BJ. I guess it could be one of the nine rings of the mortal men, although it certainly isn't what I've thought the books described.
ring of the Witch King isn't mentioned in the books, but obviously somebody seems to think that Sauron had some sort of reason to gave the Witch King another ring after he was enslaved. The original nine surely didn't have his Eye on them!
the ring of Barahir is worn by Aragorn. We can see it shortly in his finger during both of the first two movies and it has appeared in the teaser poster for RotK. If you look closely, you can also see Saruman studying a drawing of it in his library. The ring of Barahir was originally Finrod Felagund's who gave it to Barahir as a token of his promise to be friends forever with, and to help if neccessary, him and his house after Barahir saved his life in Dagor Bragollach. Barahir was the father of Beren and so it became the heirloom of that house and was finally given to Aragorn. The ring was made by noldor in Valinor and there were green stones attached to it. The shape of the ring was that of the symbol of Finarfin and of his house: two snakes with emeralds as their eyes whose heads meet each other under a blooming crown which the other snake supported and the other was trying to seize. As you can see, the ring from the movies isn't quite like that but it does have a green stone, and two snakes with what appears to be crowns.
Feel free to send me feedback, comments or questions.
Nerwen/Mervi nerwen@nerwen.cjb.net