:Golem:

A Golem (noun) in Jewish folklore is an artificial human being given life by supernatural powers. It is also an automaton, a robot that moves automatically. Source: WordNet

Golem comes from the gelem, meaning 'raw material'. Golem is an ancient Hebrew and Medieval term for an alchemical man, such as the "Homunculus" of Paracelsus: an image or form made of clay or stone that is animated by a magic or religious inscription, scroll, parchment or charm. Ancient stories of Golems tell of resurrection of the dead by putting a Shem, a name of God, such as Emet ('truth' in Hebrew), on a clay tablet under the tongue, or on the forehead or arm. A golem is a mixed blessing, since it lacks intelligence, but can repeat simple tasks ad infinitum, like a computer. The problem is stopping a Golem. By removing one letter of 'Emet' to make 'Met' ('death' in Hebrew) a Golem is destroyed.

Poster for Paul Wehener's 1917 film, "The Golem and the Dancer"

Statue of the Golem in Prague

A Golem is a servant of his creator, but tends to develop dangerous powers, growing day by day like a governmental organization or other crime syndicate. To keep the Golem from taking over the estate from the living, the Golem must be returned to dust by removing or erasing the letter alef (Hebrew "a", the first letter of the aleph-bet, as in Greek: alpha, beta, or English: a, b) from his forehead. The unrestrained power of the elements (power, greed, love of money) can bring about death, destruction and war. The Golem may have supernatural prescience, and may follow the orders of his Cabalistic creator with alertness, like a well-paid agent.

Living human beings, in a sense, are like God's Golems: dust, clay or earth-minerals animated spiritually by His breath and inscribed in our hearts with His laws. The Golem is outwardly a real person, yet he lacks the human dimension of personality and intellect. He is created from the ground, as was the first man. When his mission is over, the name of God is removed from him and he returns to the ground. Without God, we are nothing. Only with God's grace do we hope to overcome the mortal nature of our body vessels, and achieve the eternal life of the soul.

Golems are used in metaphor as entities serving man at times, but doing harm to man at others. In Yiddish, Golem means clumsy or slow. A Golem is essentially an ancient name for an android and is now the name of a major project in robotics. In Discworld, Golems are a sub-type of troll (as in: Pa-trolling the world for the ruin of souls -wizard). Role-playing games have Golems of clay, stone, iron, wood, rope, straw, flesh and other materials. Legends.

Golem is in the Talmud and the Bible as an embryonic or incomplete substance. Psalms 139:16:

:Gollum:

How to handle a Gollum: Sting with Divine Love.

An artifact from J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy universe of Middle-earth, Sting was an Elvish knife made of mithril [myth-real] in Gondolin in the First Age. It was used as a sword by Bilbo, who found it in a troll-hoard together with Glamdring and Orcrist. Bilbo gave Sting to Frodo, just before the Fellowship of the Ring set off from Rivendell.
It has the magic ablilty to detect an orc presence near it. When this presence is felt, it glows blue, as it did before the fight in the mines of Moria when the orcs attacked the Fellowship.
Gollum is afraid of Sting (one meaning of which is a pang of conscience, another is to catch doing wrong -wizard). This fear helped Bilbo when confronting Gollum under the mountain in The Hobbit . It also helped Frodo tame Gollum (temporarily) in The Lord of the Rings. Source: Wikipedia

Tolkien's focus on mercy and grace, especially apparent in the kindness Frodo shows to Gollum, is Christ like, as is Gandalf's self-sacrifice in Moria (Mor = Death; Moria = land of the dead at law; prison -wizard) and his glorious return evoke Christ's death and resurrection.