The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

written by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, & Peter Jackson, from the novel J.R.R. Tolkien

Galadriel: …some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend, legend became myth. And for two and a half thousand years, the ring passed out of all knowledge. Until, when chance came, it ensnared a new bearer.

The Ring came to the creature Gollum, who took it deep into the tunnels of the Misty Mountains. And there it consumed him. The ring brought to Gollum unnatural long life. For five hundred years it poisoned his mind, and in the gloom of Gollum's cave, it waited. Darkness crept back into the forests of the world. Rumor grew of a shadow in the East, whispers of a nameless fear, and the Ring of Power perceived its time had now come. It abandoned Gollum. But something happened then that the Ring did not intend. It was picked up by the most unlikely creature imaginable: a Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, of the Shire. For the time will soon come when hobbits will shape the fortunes of all.

Source: http://www.whysanity.net/monos/