In the fair copy the text of FR was almost reached, through a good deal of correction as the manuscript was being written.
Trotter's words as they passed through the chasm (' "Fear not!" said a strange voice behind him...') are exactly as in FR (p. 409), except in two notable respects: 'In the stern sat Elfstone son of Elfhelm' - a decisive demonstration of the correctness of the view (p. 277) that Elfstone had reappeared and supplanted Ingold; and 'Under their shadow nought has Eldamir son of Eldakar son of Valandil to fear.'(18) It seems very improbable indeed that some other Valandil is meant and not the son of Isildur: only shortly before Valandil has been named in a draft ('in the days of Valandil', p. 359 and note 17, where the text immediately replacing this has 'in the days of Isildur'), and in the corresponding passage to the present in FR Aragorn calls himself 'son of Arathorn of the House of Valandil Isildur's son'. But if this Valandil is the son of Isildur, then at this stage Trotter/Elfstone/ Aragorn was the great-grandson of Isildur; and what then are we to make of the Pillars of the Kings, carved many ages ago, preserved through the suns and rains of many forgotten years, the silent wardens of a long-vanished kingdom? How can Frodo's amazement at the Council of Elrond that Elrond should remember the array of the Last Alliance ('But I thought the fall of Gilgalad was many ages ago', p. 110) be reconciled to a matter of four generations of mortal Men? And Gandalf had said to Frodo at Rivendell (p. 105 note 3) that 'he is Aragorn son of Kelegorn, descended through many fathers from Isildur the son of Elendil.' For the moment, at any rate, I can cast no light on this.(19)
After the description of the Pillars of the Kings there is no further initial drafting, and the earliest, or earliest extant, text is the fair copy manuscript, in which the conclusion of the chapter 'The Great River' in FR is very closely approached. Trotter, so called throughout the chapter until he becomes 'Elfstone son of Elfhelm' when they pass the Pillars of the Kings, is called 'Elfstone' when he points to Tol Brandir at the far end of the lake (which is not named): see p. 370. And after 'Behold Tol Brandir!' he says no more than 'Ere the shade of night falls we shall come thither. I hear the endless voice of Rauros calling.' The journey had taken nine days; in FR 'the tenth day of their journey was over.'
In the foregoing account I have attempted to discern the form of the fair copy manuscript as my father first set it down; but the text was heavily worked on, and certainty in distinguishing immediate from subsequent corrections is not possible without close examination of the original papers. This manuscript, as emended and added to, reached in fact almost the form of the final text; yet an object of this history is to try to determine the mode and pace in which the whole structure came into being. Since some error is inevitable, I have erred by assuming, if uncertain, a correction to be 'later' rather than 'immediate'; but that a good deal of the development took place during this present phase of writing is clear. In particular, it is clear that the entire section of the narrative from the end of the Gollum episode to the escape of the Company from the rapids had been rewritten before my father reached 'The Departure of Boromir', because an outline for the opening of that chapter (p. 380) refers to Trotter's having seen an eagle far off from the river 'above the rapids of Sarn Ruin',(20) and this element (previously absent, p. 357) is inseparable from the whole complex of revision at this point in the present chapter.
This revision was carried out on inserted slips, one of which is an Oxford University committee report dated 10 March 1941. This slip provides of course only a terminus a quo, and proves no more than that my father was revising this chapter during or after March 1941; while a similar slip, dated 19 February 1941, used for initial drafting at a later point in Chapter XXI (i.e. in the part corresponding to 'The Breaking of the Fellowship' in FR), proves no more. It might be argued that he would scarcely have preserved such reports of committee meetings for use long after, and that these revisions therefore belong to 1941, but this is much too flimsy to support any view of the external dating. See further p. 379.
The next version of the chapter was a manuscript made by myself, presumptively after 4 August 1942, the date that I wrote at the end of my copy of '[The Mirror of] Galadriel' (p. 261). I think that this copy of mine provides exact evidence of the state of this chapter when my father moved on from it to new regions of the story, and I shall now therefore turn to it, noticing first certain names (in the form in which I wrote them, of course, and before subsequent emendation by my father).
Sarn-Gebir remains in my copy, for later Emyn Muil; the Gates of Gebir or the Gates of Sarn-Gebir for the (Gates of) Argonath;(21) and Ondor for Gondor. Trotter remains Trotter, because my father had not emended it on his manuscript, until the end of the chapter, where the Company passes beneath the Pillars of the Kings, and he is called in the first manuscript 'Elfstone son of Elfhelm': this my father had changed to 'Aragorn son of Arathorn', and my copy follows. On the other hand he did not correct 'Under their shadow nought has Eldamir son of Eldakar son of Valandil to fear', and my copy retains it. This might be thought to be a mere inconsistency of correction on his part; but this is evidently not the case, since on both manuscripts he added a further step in the genealogy: 'Eldamir son of Valatar son of Eldakar son of Valandil.' Since he did not strike out 'Eldamir son of Eldakar son of Valandil' on my copy, but on the contrary accepted the genealogy and slightly enlarged it, it must be presumed that Eldamir beside Aragorn was intentional; cf. FR (p. 409): 'Under their shadow Elessar, the Elfstone son of Arathorn... has nought to dread!', and cf. Eldamir > Elessar, p. 294. My father's retention of the genealogy, with the addition of Valatar, is also remarkable in that it shows him still accepting the brief span of generations separating Aragorn from Isildur.
By the criterion of presence or absence in my copy of the chapter the flight of the black swans was added early. The chronology remained as it was, the attack at the rapids taking place on the night of the seventh day; and the references to the New Moon in FR pp. 400 - 1 are still absent. The New Moon still first appears in the course of the attack, but changed in that the clouds through which it broke were now in the South, and the Moon rode 'across' not 'up' the sky (see pp. 353, 358). The conversation concerning Time in Lothlorien (p. 358) was developed in several competing and overlapping riders, and when I came to make my copy my father evidently instructed me to set the passage out in variant forms. The opening speeches (Sam's and Trotter's - the latter given in FR to Frodo) remained effectively unchanged - Sam's now ending: 'Why, anyone would think we had come straight on, and never passed no time in the Elvish land at all.'(22) The conversation that follows contains two pairs of alternatives, which I here mark with numbers: 1 to 1 or 2 to 2 being alternatives, and (within 2) 3 to 3 or 4 to 4 being alternatives.
1. 'The power of the Lady was on us,' said Frodo. 'I do not think that there was no time in her land. There are days and nights and seasons in Lothlorien; and under the Sun all things must wear to an end sooner or later. But slowly indeed does the world wear away in Caras Galadon, where the Lady Galadriel wields the Elven Ring.'{1}
2. Legolas stirred in his boat. 'Nay, I think that neither of you understand the matter aright,' he said. 'For the Elves the world moves, and it moves both very swift and very slow. Swift, because they themselves change little, and all else fleets by: it is a grief to them. Slow, because they do (23) not count the running years, not for themselves. The passing seasons are but ripples ever repeated in the flowing/endless stream. Yet beneath the Sun all things must wear to an end at last.'
3. 'But Lorien is not as other realms of Elves and Men,' said Frodo. 'The Power of the Lady was upon us. Slow for us there might time have passed, while the world hastened. Or in a little while we could savour much, while the world tarried. The latter was her will. Rich were the hours and slow the wearing of the world in Caras Galadon, where the Lady Galadriel wields the Elven Ring.'{3}
4. 'But Lothlorien is not as other realms of Elves and Men,' said Frodo. 'Rich are the hours, and slow the wearing of the world in Caras Galado
n. Wherefore all things there are both unstained and young, and yet aged beyond our count of time. Blended is the might of Youth and Eld in the land of Lorien, where Galadriel wields the Elven Ring.'{4,2}
'That should not have been said,' muttered Trotter, half rising and looking towards the other boats; 'not outside Lorien, not even to me.'
The night passed silently...
At the end of the chapter the lake remains nameless in my copy, first Kerin-muil and then Nen-uinel being added to both manuscripts; but an addition to my father's manuscript in which Aragorn speaks of Amon Hen and Amon Lhaw was made before my copy was written. This addition is precisely as in FR p. 410, except that both manu- scripts have 'In the days of Isildur' for 'In the days of the great kings', and both add after Amon Lhaw '[Larmindon]' and after Amon Hen '[Tirmindon]'.
The original drafting shows that my father included all the narrative to the end of 'The Fellowship of the Ring' as Chapter XXI, and the fair copy manuscript likewise; but it is convenient to interrupt it at the point where the break (present in my copy) between XXI 'The Great River' and XXII 'The Breaking of the Fellowship' was subsequently made.
NOTES.
1. Like the companion texts, the last section of 'Farewell to Lorien' and 'The Story Foreseen from Lorien', this was written very legibly for one of my father's initial drafts, and with remarkably little hesitation. I take up small changes made at the time of composition into the text given.
2. This is the first occurrence of Rauros in a text ab initio. For ' Eregon see p. 345 note 3.
3. I have attempted to set out the evolution of the Brown Lands in relation to the First Map on pp. 313 - 16. In this passage appears the description of them that survived with very little change into FR (p. 396).
4. It looks as if this addition were made immediately. See note 6.
5. My father wrote here first Sarn, then Pen, striking them out in turn before arriving at Pensarn (cf. the Etymologies, stems P E N, SAR, V.380, 385).
6. The brackets are in the original. - The weather described is obscure. Nothing is in fact said in this earliest form of the narrative about the weather during the journey down Anduin until the evening of the seventh day, when the weather was clear and cold, and starlit (but this was an addition); now, not much later, it was very dark, though the water reflected here and there a misty star. Then, 'as Legolas gazed into the blackness away east the clouds broke.'
7. 'Sam looked up at it in wonder': as well he might, seeing 'the white rind of the new moon' rising in the East and 'riding up the sky'. This is strangely paralleled in VI.325, where the moon on the night spent by the hobbits with the Elves in the Woody End was described thus: 'Above the mists away in the East the thin silver rind of the New Moon appeared, and rising swift and clear out of the shadow it swung gleaming in the sky.' In FR (pp. 400 - 1) the new moon is seen glimmering in the western sky on the evening before the Orc-attack, and on the evening of the attack 'the thin crescent of the Moon had fallen early into the pale sunset.'
As the text was written it was Trotter who 'looked up at it in wonder'. This was changed first to Merry, then to Sam; see note 9.
8. The dark shape 'like a cloud yet not a cloud' that momentarily cut off the moon's light is surely reminiscent of the shadow that passed over the stars as the Company journeyed on from Hollin in 'The Ring Goes South' (VI.421 - 2), and which Gandalf unconvincingly suggested might be no more than a wisp of cloud. Then too Frodo shivered, as here he 'felt a sudden chill'. As I noted (VI.434), the former incident was retained in FR but never explained: the Winged Nazgul had not yet crossed the Anduin. But it seems likely to me that the shadow that passed across the stars near Hollin was in fact the first precocious appearance of a Winged Nazgul.
9. Sam is again (see note 7) changed from Merry, and Merry from Trotter. In fact, the speech was given to Sam before its end was reached, as is seen from ' "And that Sam is probably about the truth of it," said Trotter'; and the transition from one speaker to another is seen in the transition from the very un-Samlike 'The moon I suppose does not change his courses in Wilderland?' to 'up pops a New Moon'.
10. Cf. the original draft of 'Lothlorien', p. 228: 'The last thin rind of the waning moon was gleaming dimly in the leaves.'
11. Cf. the comment on Time in Lorien written on the fair copy manuscript of 'Farewell to Lorien', p. 286; and see further on this matter the 'Note on Time in Lorien' that follows.
12. On the emergence of the idea of the inaccessibility of the island see p. 328.
13. any enemy is the correct reading, not an enemy (FR p. 396).
14. Sixty leagues (180 miIes) south of Sarn Ford agrees well with the more southerly confluence of Limlight and Anduin on Map IV(D) (p. 319).
15. Aragorn says this ('not even to me') also in FR (p. 405); but at this stage he had no previous knowledge of Lorien, and presum- ably had no knowledge until this moment of Galadriel's Ring.
16. No doubt the first reference to the Entwade, which was pencilled in on map IV(C) and entered on IV(D) (pp. 318 - 19).
17. Valandil is named as the son of Isildur in texts of 'The Council of Elrond' (pp. 121, 128, 147).
18. For an earlier occurrence of Eldakar see p. 276. An isolated scrap (in fact the back of an envelope) has this note:
Trotter's names
Elessar
Eldamir (= Elfstone) son of Eldakar (= Elfhelm). Or Eldavel = Elfwold.
On the same envelope is written, in almost identical words, the passage concerning Frodo's thoughts under Galadriel's scrutiny that was added to the fair copy manuscript of 'Galadriel' (p. 266 note 32: 'Neither did Frodo...').
19. On the back of the preceding page in the fair copy manuscript my father scribbled down a first version of Trotter's words (in which no genealogy appears), and it is curious that he wrote here: 'How my heart yearns for Minas Ithil...', changing Ithil, probably at once, to Anor: see p. 333 and note 27. - Also noted down here in extreme haste are thoughts for the story immediately to come:
Frodo on Tol Brandir.
[?Strong] sight. Sees Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul opposed.
Sees Mordor. Sees Gandalf. Suddenly feels the Eye and wrenches off the ring and finds himself crying Wait, wait!
20. A passing name for the rapids, replacing Pensarn, was Ruinel. Sarn-Ruin is the name on map IV(C), p. 317. Cf. Dant-ruin, Dant-ruinel, earlier names of Rauros (p. 285).
21. A passing form which my father entered on both manuscripts before Argonath was reached was Sern Aranath.
22. When the chronology was changed, with the attack at the head of the rapids taking place on the eighth night, and the New Moon seen far away in the West on the seventh and eighth evenings, Sam's words were expanded (and entered on both manuscripts), though subsequently largely rejected:
Yesterday evening I saw it, as thin as a nail-paring, and this evening it wasn't much bigger. Now that's just as it should be, if we'd only been in the Elvish land for about a day, or more than a month. Why, anyone would think that time slowed down in there!
23. The phrase as my father wrote it was 'because they need not count the running years', but in copying I missed out the word need. Looking through my copy, but without consulting his own ' manuscript, he wrote in do; and do survives in FR (p. 405).
Note on Time in Lorien.
The narrative passages that introduce this question are found on pp. 285 - 6, 354 - 5, 358, 363, and in note 22 above. This note is primarily concerned with the various time-schemes that bear on it, but for their understanding it is necessary to consider the chronology a little more widely.
The first time-scheme to be considered here I will call 'I'; for previous references to it see pp. 169, 215 note 1, and 344 - 5. In its 'Lothlorien' section it obviously belongs with the first drafting of the story, and preceded the emergence of the idea that there was a different Time in the Golden Wood. Here the dates are:
Nov. 24. Leave Rivendell.
Dec. 6. Hollin (Full Moon).
9. Snow on Caradras.
11. Reach Moria.
13. Escape to Lothlorien (Moon's last quarter).
14. Go to Caras Galadon.
15. Night at Caras Galadon.
16. Mirror of Galadrien.
17 - 21. Stay in Caras Galadon (Dec. 21 New Moon).
This stands at the foot of a page, but a second page, though in pencil and not in ink, was clearly continuous:
Dec. 22 - 31 Remain at Caras Galadon, leave with the New Year
(Dec. 28 Moon's first quarter)
Jan. 1 - 4 No notes against these dates except Jan. 4 Full Moon. On the departure of the Company from Lorien on New Year's Day see p. 253 and note 28. But at this point, it seems, the idea of the disparity of time entered; for after Jan. 4 my father wrote: 'Dec. 15 onwards time at Caras does not count, therefore they leave on morning of Dec. 15' (cf. p. 286: 'if Lorien is timeless ... nothing will have happened since they entered'). The rest of the scheme is based on this chronology (and has been given on pp. 344 - 5)
At first the journey down the Great River was only to take two days: 'Dec. 17 Reach Tolondren. Dec. 18 Flight of Frodo. Dec. 19 Frodo meets Sam and Gollum.' This was struck out, with the note: 'Take ten days to reach [Emris ) Eregon >] Tolbrandir' (on Emris see pp. 316 - 18 and note 12). The New Moon that caused Sam to raise the question of Time in Lorien was still on Dec. 21; and they reached Tolbrandir in the evening of Dec. 25.
The History of Middle Earth: Volume 7 - The Treason of Isengard Page 47