The History of Middle Earth: Volume 7 - The Treason of Isengard
Page 11
The XIII and wood are Sam's discovery. Trotter says it is a rangers' camp.
Weakness of this is that Black Riders are sure to make some attempt on Crickhollow. How was it foiled?
Ham flies as shown overleaf.
Then Gandalf can come and find house deserted and only old cloak of Frodo's. He thinks Frodo [struck out: is capt(ured)]. He follows like thunder.
'Ham flies as shown overleaf' refers to a third version, labelled 'C', which (though at first differently ordered in the articulation of the narrative) scarcely differs from that in FR (with Ham opening the door of the house, seeing a black shape in the garden, and fleeing out of the back door and over the fields), apart of course from the fact that this is Hamilcar and not Fredegar, and apart from the notable words, afterwards lost, following 'Ham Bolger had not been idle': 'Terror will drive even a Bolger to action'. The hobbit-cloak let fall by one of the Riders as he fled reappears from the 'August 1940' outline (p. 72). At the head of this version my father noted:
Gandalf does not follow [i.e. he does not follow the Black Riders from Crickhollow]. Either he comes later, Saturday Oct. 1 or [Sunday Oct.] 2 (and finds cloak), or else he is taken by eagles... to Rivendell.
This no doubt preceded the notes given above. These are certainly the first references to Gandalf's escape from captivity by the aid of the Eagles., and the entry of Radagast is now on the threshold.(15)
The apparently irrelevant mention of Trotter's saying that 'it is a rangers' camp' is presumably associated with the idea that the Eagles found Gandalf and carried him to Rivendell - so that, with this story, he would never go to Weathertop at all. But what the significance of 'The XIII and wood are Sam's discovery' may be I cannot say. Sam's interpretation of the 'X:IIII' has appeared, but that was only a refinement of Trotter's view that they were marks made by Gandalf on the stone found on the summit of Weathertop and referred to the date: see pp. 56-7. I have noticed there that Sam's intervention does not fit the story, since there is never any suggestion that he was among those who went up to the high place where the stone was found; and also that 'X:IIII' was subsequently changed to 'X:III'. Conceivably, the passing idea here was that the 'X III', retained but given a different significance (a Rangers' mark?), was not found on the stone on the cairn, but on the firewood in the dell.
At this time Chapter X, 'At the Sign of the Prancing Pony (ii)', was once more heavily overhauled.(16) This revision was carried out in two stages, clearly not long separated. The completion of the revision was written on pages of the August 1940 examination script; and with this the chapter as it stands in FR was achieved in all points, save for a few minor additions and alterations that were certainly later.
By this time 'Pippin' was firmly established. In the first stage of revision Frodo's assumed name at Bree was still 'Green', but became 'Underhill' in the second. Mr Butterbur is still Barnabas, not Barliman. His account of Frodo's distinguishing marks as received from Gandalf (in addition to his bring 'a round-bellied little fellow with red cheeks') at first gave him 'a white lock of hair by his left ear and a wart on his chin.' The second version made him 'broader than most and fairer than some', and still with a wart on his chin. The final description came in later.
The scribbled suggestion on the manuscript of the 'New Plot' (p. 73), 'Leaves Butterbur a letter which he forgets to send to Frodo', was now taken up, but it was not until the second stage of revision that the form of the episode in FR was reached. At first the preceding version was more largely retained, notably in the story of the two letters (pp. 49 ff.). The substance of Gandalf's letter to Frodo reaches the form in FR (with the date now Friday July 2nd), but there are differences in the postscripts:
PS. Look out for horsemen in black. Deadly enemies, especially after dark. Do not move by night. Do not use IT again, not for any reason whatever.
PPS. Make sure it is the real Trotter. His true name is Aragorn son of Celegorn.(17)
All that is gold does not glitter,
not all those that wander are lost;
All that is old does not wither,
and pre may burn bright in the frost;
Not all that have fallen are vanquished,
not only the crowned is a king;
Let blade that was broken be brandished,
and Fire be the Doom of the Ring!(18)
Aragorn would know that rhyme. Ask him what follows after All that is gold does not glitter.
PPPS. I hope Butterbur sends this promptly. A worthy man, but his mind is like a lumber-room: things wanted always buried. If he forgets, I shall have words with him one day.
The real Trotter will have a sealed letter (addressed to you) with these words inside: All that is gold does not glitter etc.
At this stage Frodo still read Gandalf's letter aloud; and Trotter produced the second letter, which after the verse reads:
This is to witness that the bearer is Aragorn son of Celegorn [> Kelegorn] knoum as the Trotter. Who trusts Gandalf may trust him.
As there is now no mention of Elendil, the passage that followed in the former version ('Then It belongs to you as much as to me, or more' etc., p. 50) was removed (see p. 105, note 3); and Trotter now says, after 'The Enemy has set traps for me before now', 'I was puzzled - because you did not produce your letter or ask for the pass-words. It was not till old Barnabas confessed that I understood.'
I do not think that it was long before my father abandoned the story of the second letter, and on pages of the August 1940 script the FR text was reached - with Gandalf's letter read silently, Trotter using the words All that is gold does not glitter quite independently, and drawing out the Sword that was Broken (see p. 116). The date of Gandalf's letter now becomes Wednesday June 30th, and (probably at this time) the verse was changed again:
All that is gold does not glitter,
not all those that wander are lost;
All that is old does not wither,
and bright may be fire in the frost.
The fire that was low may be woken;
and sharp in the sheath is the sting;
Forged may be blade that was broken;
the crownless again may be king.(19)
Gandalf's signature remains still in Old English runes.
Aragorn's account of his last meeting with Gandalf at Sarn Ford on the first of May (FR p. 184) now appears, and in the same words.(20) The story in the 'New Plot' (p. 70) that 'Trotter hears that Black Riders are out and moving towards the Shire.... He sends word to Gandalf, who leaves Hobbiton at the end of June' had presumably been abandoned, and the role of Radagast in telling Gandalf of the emergence of the Ringwraiths introduced (see pp. 82, 131).
The now chaotic text of the chapter, a mass of emendations, rejected pages, and inserted riders, was later replaced by a typescript fair copy: how much later I cannot say. Near the end of the chapter (FR p. 184) Trotter says (in the manuscript): 'Well, with Sam's permission we'll call that settled. Trotter shall be your guide. And now I think it is time you went to bed and took what rest you can. We shall have a rough road tomorrow....' In the typescript text that followed (the latter part of which was not typed by my father) the italicised words were omitted; but there is no suggestion in the manuscript that they should be, and indeed the words 'We shall have a rough road tomorrow' clearly depend on them. But the omission was never picked up, and the sentence does not appear in FR.
The series of rewritings of the beginning of Chapter XI, 'A Knife in the Dark', leading to the final elimination of Ham Bolger's ride with Gandalf, have been considered already (pp. 74-6). An associated revision belonging to this time removed the passage (pp. 57-8) in which Trotter thought that he found hobbit footprints in the dell below Weathertop that might be distinct from those of Pippin and Sam, and replaced it by a form very close to that in FR p. 201 (beginning
'Rangers have been here lately. It is they who left the firewood behind'; cf. 'Trotter says it is a rangers' camp', p. 75).
NOTES.
1. The
candidate's name was Richard Creswell Rowland. The scripts had been sent from the United States. At first my father received only the scripts in the subjects that personally concerned him as an examiner, but subsequently most or all of the candidate's writing came to him. He used not only the blank verso sides of the paper, but also the blue covers of each booklet, where his writing becomes peculiarly hard to decipher.
2. A further argument in favour of this dating can now be adduced. In notes dated Autumn 1939 and October 8 1939 (pp. 8-9) Trotter has definitively ceased to be a hobbit and has become a man, Aragorn; but in the original 'Moria' chapter he was still a hobbit (or at any rate he certainly was in the original version of 'The Ring Goes South', with which 'The Mines of Moria' was continuous). See further p. 379.
3. 'Before dawn on Friday morning' was an immediate change from 'Thursday night'; cf. p. 55.
4. I do not think that there is any suggestion here that Galeroc was a horse from Rohan: he is simply Gandalf's horse, and it is essential that he be extraordinarily swift.
5. In the preceding sentence 'Some Riders' (those sent to Weather- top) was first written 'Two Riders', and 'Five' here (those who rode along the Road to Bree) was written 'Seven', agreeing with the scheme D (p. 13). 'Two' was then changed to 'Four' and 'Seven' to 'Five'; finally 'Four' to 'Some'. - By roaring along the Road my father meant going at wild speed, with also a suggestion of the great noise of their passage.
6. This refers to the markings on the stone at Weathertop, which (by a change introduced into the 'fourth phase' version of 'A Knife in the Dark') Sam realised were to be read, not as G.4, but as G.1.3, and which Trotter in his turn thought might mean that Gandalf and another were at Weathertop on 3 October; see pp. 56-7.
7. With this cf. Unfinished Tales p. 348: 'The Black Captain established a camp at Andrath, where the Greenway passed in a defile between the Barrow-downs and the South Downs.' On the First Map (p. 305) Andrath (very probably first written Amrath, p. 298) is marked as a point beside the Greenway a little nearer to Bree than to Tharbad.
8. Cf. the end of the short text given on pp. 73 - 4.
9. The date Tuesday Sept. 27 was subsequently altered to 'late Monday 26th ., see p. 63, note 10, and note 12 to this chapter.
10. Frodo's assumed name 'Green' (replacing 'Hill') has already appeared (pp. 37, 41, etc.).
11. Tuesday 27 September was the second night spent by the hobbits in the house of Tom Bombadil.
12. The riders H and I, according to the outline (p. 71), where their arrival in Bree was altered from Tuesday 27 September to Monday the 26th (note 9).
13. 'turned left at the Cross Roads': i.e. from the point of view of the gatekeeper, who was looking out westwards.
14. Word reaches Rivendell that Gandalf is missing on Saturday 8 October: cf. the time-scheme D, p. 14.
15. Radagast has been named, but no more, in previous texts (VI.379, 397), and with no indication of what part my father was envisaging for him.
16. A development from this time in Chapter IX, 'At the Sign of the Prancing Pony (i)', has been given on pp. 73-4.
17. Aragorn was later changed here to Elfstone, Erkenbrand, again Elfstone, Ingold, and finally back to Aragorn, and in the passage 'I am Aragorn son of Kelegorn, and if by life or death I can save you, I will' the name was changed to Elfstone son of Elfhelm. But these changes were made after the second stage of revision had been completed. The renaming of Aragorn and its implications are discussed on pp. 277 - 8.
18. An earlier stage in the evolution of the verse, following from the original form in the 'fourth phase' version of the chapter (pp. 49 - 50), was:
All that is gold does not glitter;.
not all those that wander are lost.
All that grows old does not wither;
not every leaf falls in the frost.
Not all that have fallen are vanquished;
a king may yet be without crown,
A blade that was broken be brandished;
and towers that were strong may fall down.
19. In all these versions of All that is gold does not glitter, including the original form on pp. 49 - 50, the verses are written in the manuscript as long lines (i.e. four lines not eight).
20. In FR Gandalf arrived at Bag End after his long absence on an evening of early April (pp. 54-5); 'two or three weeks' later he advised Frodo that he ought to leave soon (p. 74); and he 'stayed in the Shire for over two months' (p. 76) before he left at the end of June. There is no reference to his having left Hobbiton during this time.
V. BILBO'S SONG AT RIVENDELL: ERRANTRY AND EARENDILLINWE.
We come now again to Rivendell, and to Book II of The Fellowship of . the Ring. In the 'third phase' the chapter which afterwards became 'Many Meetings' was numbered XII and entitled 'The Council of Elrond' (VI.362) - because at that stage my father thought that it would include not only Frodo's conversation with Gandalf when he awoke at Rivendell, the feast, and his meeting with Bilbo, but the deliberations of the Council also. Trotter was still at that time, of course, a hobbit. I have argued (VI.369) that this chapter (and the 'third phase' of writing) ended abruptly in the middle of Gloin's conversation with Frodo at the feast - at precisely the same point as did the original form of the story in the 'first phase'; and that the remainder of the chapter in this manuscript was added in later - when Trotter had become Aragorn. Simply for the purpose of this discussion I will call the first or 'third phase' part of the manuscript (VI.362-6) 'I', and the second part 'II'. Behind 'II' lie the rough draftings given in VI.391-4 (in which Trotter was still the hobbit Peregrin Boffin). I have not been able to determine when 'II' was written, but it per- haps comes from the period of work represented by the notes and rewritings of the 'fourth phase' in the first three chapters of this book. Both 'I' and 'II' were subjected to emendation at different times: for one substantial passage of rewriting the August 1940 examination script was used, but many other minor alterations may be earlier or later. In view of these uncertainties I shall do no more here than look briefly through the chapter (now numbered XIII, since the 'Bree' chapter had been divided into two, IX and X) and show what seems to have been its form at the stage of development we have now reached.
Looking first at changes made to section 'I' of the manuscript, the passage in the third phase version (VI.362-3) beginning 'It is no small feat to have come so far and through such dangers, still bearing the Ring', in which Gandalf told of his captivity at the hands of Giant Treebeard and teased Frodo's curiosity about Trotter, was entirely rewritten. It now begins:
'We should never have done it without Trotter,' said Frodo.
'But we needed you. I did not know what to do without you.' .
'I was delayed,' said Gandalf; 'and that nearly proved our ruin. And yet I am not sure: it may have been better so.
Knowing the peril I should not have dared to take such risks, and we might either have been trapped in the Shire, or if I had tried some long way round we might have been hunted down in some wild place far from all help. As it is we have escaped the pursuit - for the moment.'
To Frodo's astonished 'You?' when Gandalf said that he was held captive his reply now takes this form:
'Yes, I, Gandalf the Grey,' said the wizard solemnly. 'There are many powers greater than mine, for good or evil, in the world. I cannot stand alone against all the Black Riders.'(1)
'Then you knew of the Riders already - before I met them?'
The text is then as in FR, including Gandalf's words 'But I did not know that they had arisen again or I should have fled with you at once. I heard news of them only after I left you in June' (see p. 78). He says: 'There are few left in Middle-earth like Aragorn son of Kelegorn.(2) The race of the Kings from over the Sea is nearly at an end', and Frodo in reply says: 'Do you really mean that Trotter is of the race of Numenor?'(3) To Frodo's 'I thought he was only a Ranger' Gandalf replies 'indignantly':
'Only a Ranger! Many of the Rangers are of the same race, and the followers of Aragorn:
all that he has left of the realm of . his fathers. We may need his help before all is over. We have: reached Rivendell; but the Ring is not yet at rest.'
From this point to the end of section 'I' of the manuscript the 'third phase' text was little changed, and the differences from FR noted in VI.363 - 6 were mostly still present. Gandalf's words 'And the Elves of Rivendell are descendants of his chief foes' (VI.364) were changed to 'And among the Elves of Rivendell are some descendants of his chief foes', and 'the Wise say that he [the Dark Lord] is doomed in the End, though that is far away' (ibid.) was removed. Also removed of course were the references to Odo's arrival, and when Frodo goes down with Sam to find his friends in the porch Odo's remarks are given to Pippin. The sentence describing Elrond's smile and laughter (VI.365) was struck out, and Gloin's wink (VI.366) also disappears: his reply to Frodo's question concerning his errand from the Lonely Mountain now takes the form it has in FR (p. 240).
In section 'II' of the manuscript (see p. 81), beginning at Frodo's question 'And what has become of Balin and Ori and Oin?', the text of FR (pp. 241 ff.) was very largely reached (apart from the absence of Arwen), and there are only a few particular points to notice.