Isildur
the son of Elendil; the taker of the One Ring
Name and Lineage
Isildur — the eldest son of Elendil (with his brother Anárion), of the house of the Faithful — was a prince of Númenor in the last years: keeper (with his father) of the seedling of the White Tree, and (in the flight) the bearer of the seed of Elendil’s hope to Middle-earth; he ruled the South (Gondor) with his father’s blessing and built the city of Minas Ithil (the Tower of the Rising Moon).
The Last Alliance and the Ring His great and terrible deed: at the
The Last Alliance, when his father fell and Sauron was overthrown by the joint ruin of Elendil and Gil-galad, Isildur, taking up Narsil’s broken hilt, cut the One Ring from the hand of the Dark Lord — and, although the Elves (and the counsel of the wise) would have destroyed the Ring in the fire of Orodruin, Isildur kept it for his own. The Ring’s keeping, and his words, are the seed of the Third Age’s shadow.
The Death and the Loss
When Isildur, leaving South to take up the North-kingship, was ambushed by Orcs at the Gladden Fields (beside the Anduin) in the second year of the Third Age, the Ring slipped away from him in the water — “the Ring of Isildur, that was lost” — it was lost in the Anduin (where Gollum later found it), and his death left the shards of Narsil and the line of Elendil to the later centuries.
Significance
Isildur is the hinge of the Ring’s history — the conqueror who, in pride, would not destroy the instrument of the Enemy’s power, thereby (despite his own goodness) handing the world the Third Age’s danger; his name is remembered with both honour and “the rebuke of the Wise”.