Ring of Erreth-Akbe

“ What is it, the Ring of Erreth-Akbe? Well, you can see that it’s not precious looking, and it’s not even a ring. It’s too big. An arm-ring, perhaps, yet it seems too small for that. No man knows who it was made for. Elfarran the Fair wore it once, before the Isle of Soléa was lost beneath the sea; and it was old when she wore it. And at last it came into the hands of Erreth-Akbe. . . . ” – Sparrowhawk, The Tombs of Atuan

The Ring of Erreth-Akbe is a magical object needed for peace in Earthsea once the two halves are united. It was originally the Ring of Morred.

Markings

“ The metal is hard silver, pierced with nine holes. There’s a design like waves scratched on the outside, and nine Runes of Power on the inside. The half you have bears four runes and a bit of another; and mine likewise. The break came right across that one symbol, and destroyed it. It is what’s been called, since then, the Lost Rune. ” – Sparrowhawk, The Tombs of Atuan

Nine True Runes on the inside, one of which is the broken lost rune e.g. Bond Rune or Rune of Peace, the sign of peace.

Other True Runes are:

1. Pirr (protects against madness, fire and wind)
2. Ges (gives endurance)
3. Agnen, the Rune of Ending (closes roads, written on coffin lids)
4. Simn ('work well') painted on tools
5. Sifl ('speed well'), painted on, for example, ships

History

The Ring's origins are lost in the mists of time: it was given by Morred to Elfarran and was said to be old at that time. It may have originated in the time of the original Rune Makers, but this is not certain.

According to details in The Tombs of Atuan and A Description of Earthsea, the Ring, as well as the Bond Rune upon it, were ancient treasures of the family of Morred, the legendary first wizard-king who united Earthsea under the wise, prosperous and peaceful rule of the Kings and Queens of Enlad (later, of Havnor). Morred gave the ring as a wedding present to his beloved, Elfarran, who wore it as an arm ring. Immediately after Morred gave his life to defeat a powerful dark wizard, known only as the Enemy of Morred, Elfarran gave the ring to her infant daughter, Serriadh, who escaped by boat from the destruction of the island of Soléa, in which Elfarran was drowned.

The ring passed down through the line of kings and queens for four centuries, until Queen Heru of Havnor sent it as a peace offering to the Kargad Lands with her peace emissary, Erreth-Akbe. He was to give it as a gift to King Thoreg, the wise king of the Kargish island of Karego-At. However, the powerful high priest Intathin opposed peace between the Kargish Lands and the Archipelago and challenged Erreth-Akbe to a duel of magic. Tricking the wizard into proximity of an Old Power of the Earth, which neutralized his magic, the High Priest defeated Erreth-Akbe, breaking the ring in half, with the crack destroying the Bond Rune and the unity that its power conferred on the islands of Earthsea. Erreth-Akbe was rescued by Tiarath, the maiden daughter of King Thoreg, escaping with half of the ring. The other half was captured by the High Priest, who sent it into the Tombs of the Nameless Ones on the island of Atuan as an offering Old Powers. Many wizards and thieves attempted to recover the ring from the Tombs over the centuries, but few escaped with their lives.

Meanwhile, Erreth-Akbe gave his half of the ring to the princess as part of her dowery, to be passed down to her descendants, mother-to-daughter, and remain in the Kargad Lands until the two halves could be reunited. After about six hundred years, it came into possession of the last daughter of the House of Thoreg, Anthil, who took it with her when she and her brother Ensar were marooned as children on a tiny island far off the coast of Karego-At. There she gave it as a present to Ged, who was also briefly marooned on the island in A Wizard of Earthsea. Ged valued the ring as a symbol on Anthil's generosity, wearing it on a chain around his neck, but did not know what it really was until years later, when the extremely amused dragon Orm Embar told him what he had. Ged embarked on a quest to reunite two halves of the ring. In The Tombs of Atuan, he succeeding in doing so with the help of Tenar, First Priestess of the Nameless Ones. Ged reunited the two halves with a Patterning spell, making it as though the Ring had never been broken, and he and Tenar returned it to Havnor. After a few years, in The Farthest Shore, the promise of the Bond Rune was fulfilled when Prince Arren was crowned as the first king of the Archipelago since Erreth-Akbe's time, leading in time to a new golden age for the Archipelago.