Bilbo Baggins meets Gollum in the cave beneath the Misty Mountains in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.
Bilbo becomes separated from the dwarf company after falling into the underground passages beneath the mountains. There he encounters Gollum, a solitary creature living beside an underground lake. Gollum challenges Bilbo to a riddle game, with Bilbo’s life at stake if he loses. During this episode, Bilbo discovers a mysterious ring that helps him escape.
The encounter is central to the later plot of The Lord of the Rings because the ring is the One Ring, although Bilbo does not initially understand its nature. Gollum was once Sméagol, a hobbit-like member of a river people, and the ring’s influence transformed his life. Readers sometimes confuse this scene with Bilbo’s later meeting with Smaug, but Smaug is the dragon guarding the Lonely Mountain.