J.R.R. Tolkien’s Bilbo Baggins meets Gollum beneath the Misty Mountains. Their encounter occurs in The Hobbit after Bilbo becomes separated from Thorin Oakenshield’s company inside the mountain tunnels.
Gollum lives on an island in an underground lake and possesses a ring that makes its wearer invisible. Bilbo finds the ring before meeting him, then agrees to a riddle contest. Bilbo eventually escapes by using the ring’s power, although Gollum does not yet know that Bilbo has taken it.
The Hobbit presents Gollum as a sinister, isolated creature, while The Lord of the Rings later gives him a more tragic history and identifies his former name as Sméagol. Readers sometimes treat Gollum as an ordinary goblin, but Tolkien’s mythology distinguishes him from the Orcs and goblins who inhabit the mountains. His encounter with Bilbo becomes crucial because the ring later reaches Frodo.