Samwise Gamgee the saga in one of his letters: he places special emphasis on Sam's "rustic love" for Rosie, a union that serves to establish a family in which allusions to Elvish wonders (embodied in Sam's daughter Elanor) are combined with the best qualities of traditional Shire-life. Sam and his descendants also became the keepers of the history of the War of the Ring (in the form of the "Red Book of Westmarch") and upheld the memory of events that most 'ordinary' hobbits took little interest in. During the journey to destroy the Ring, Sam's relationship with Frodo exemplifies that of a
Samwise Gamgee a number of essays on the Old English poem "The Battle of Maldon". Likewise, Sam's rejection of the Ring is a rejection of power, but can also be seen as a "desire for renown which the defeat over Sauron will bring". Tolkien took the name "Gamgee" from a colloquial word in Birmingham for cotton wool. This was in turn derived from Gamgee Tissue, a surgical dressing invented by a 19th-century Birmingham surgeon named Sampson Gamgee. Tolkien originally used it as a nickname for a man living in Lamorna Cove, England before adapting it into his stories: "There was a curious