In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Gollum was originally a hobbit-like creature.
His birth name was Sméagol, and he belonged to a river-dwelling people related to hobbits. On his birthday, he encountered the One Ring after Déagol found it in the Anduin. Sméagol murdered Déagol to take the Ring and was eventually expelled by his people.
The Ring’s influence and centuries of isolation transformed Sméagol into the creature known as Gollum. The novels preserve a distinction between Sméagol’s earlier identity and Gollum’s later personality. Readers sometimes mistakenly classify him as an orc or goblin because of his appearance, but Tolkien’s account connects him to the hobbit kind.