returnoftheshadow72

by Miguel

  For another nearly all the 'motives' that I can use were packed into the original book, so that a sequel will appear either 'thinner' or merely repetitional. For a third: I am personally immensely amused by hobbits as such, and can contemplate them eating and making their rather fatuous jokes indefinitely; but I find that is not the case with even my most devoted 'fans' (such as Mr Lewis, and? Rayner Unwin). Mr Lewis says hobbits are only amusing when in unhobbitlike situations. For a last: my mind on the 'story' side is really preoccupied with the 'pure' fairy stories or mythologies of the Silmarillion, into which even Mr Baggins got dragged against my original will, and I do not think I shall be able to move much outside it - unless it is finished (and perhaps published) - which has a releasing effect.

  (* Rayner Unwin had said that the second and third chapters 'have I think a little too much conversation and "hobbit talk" which tends to make it lag a little.')

  At the beginning of this extract my father was repeating what he had said in his letters of 17 and 18 February quoted on pp. 43 - 4, when he had written no more than 'A Long-expected Party'. But it is very hard to see why he said here that he found the sentence in The Hobbit, that Bilbo 'remained very happy to the end of his days and those were extraordinarily long', 'an almost insuperable obstacle to a satisfactory link", since what he had written at this stage was not about Bilbo but about his 'nephew' Bingo, and in so far as Bilbo was mentioned nothing had been said to show that he did not remain happy till the end of his extraordinarily long days.

  This then is where the narrative stopped, and stayed stopped through some six months or more. With abundant 'hobbit-talk' on the way, he had got Bingo, Frodo, and Odo to Buckland on the way to Rivendell, whither Gandalf had preceded them. They had encountered the Black Riders, Gildor and his company of Elves, and Farmer Maggot, where their visit ended in a much less satisfactory way than it would do later, through an outrageous practical joke on Bingo's part (the comic potential of which had by no means been exhausted); they had crossed the Brandywine, and arrived at the little house prepared for them by Marmaduke Brandybuck. In his letter to Charles Furth just cited he said that he had 'no idea what to do with it', but Tom Bombadil, the Willow- man and the Barrow-wights were already envisaged as possibilities (see pp. 42-3).

  On 31 August 1938 he wrote again to Charles Furth, and now a great change had taken place:

  In the last two or three days... I have begun again on the sequel to the 'Hobbit' - The Lord of the Ring. It is now flowing along, and getting quite out of hand. It has reached about Chapter VII and progresses towards quite unforeseen goals.

  He said 'about Chapter VII' on account of uncertainty over chapter- divisions (see p. 132).

  The passage in manuscript at the end of the present chapter (see note 16 above) was (I feel certain) added to the typescript at this time, and was the beginning of this new burst of narrative energy. My father had now decided that the hobbits' journey would take them into the Old Forest, that 'dubious region' which had appeared in the third version of 'A Long- expected Party' (p. 29), and where he had already suggested in early notes (p. 43) that the hobbits should become lost and caught by the Willow-man. And 'the sequel to The Hobbit' is given - for the first time, it seems - a title: The Lord of the Ring (see p. 74 and note 3).

  V. THE OLD FOREST AND THE WITHYWINDLE.

  In the letter of 31 August 1938 quoted at the end of the last chapter my father said that 'in the last two or three days' he had turned again to the book, that it was 'flowing along, and getting quite out of hand', and that it had reached 'about Chapter VII'. It is clear that in those few days the hobbits had passed through the Old Forest by way of the Withywindle valley, stayed in the house of Tom Bombadil, escaped from the Barrow- wight, and reached Bree,

  There is very little preliminary sketching of the original fourth chapter, and such as there is I give here. There is first a page dashed down in soft pencil and now very difficult to read; I introduce some necessary punctuation and small connective words that were omitted, and expand the initial letters that stand for names.

  They got on to the ponies and rode off into the mist. After riding more than an hour they came to the Hedge. It was tall and netted over with silver cobwebs.

  'How do we get through this?' said Odo.

  'There is a way,' said Marmaduke. Following him along the Hedge they came to a small brick-lined tunnel. It went down a gully and dived right under the Hedge, coming out some twenty yards at the far side, where it was closed by a gate of close iron bars. Marmaduke unlocked this, let them out, and locked it again. As it snapped back they all felt a sudden pang.

  'There,' said Marmaduke. 'You have now left the Shire - and are [?outside] and close to the edge of the Old Forest.'

  'Are the stories about it true?' said Odo.

  'I don't know what stories you mean - if you mean the old bogey stories our nurses used to tell us, about goblins and wolves and things of that sort, no. But it is queer. Everything in the Old Forest is very much more alive, more aware of what is going on, than in the Shire. And they don't like strangers. The trees watch you. But they don't do much in daylight. [?Occasionally] the most malicious ones may drop a branch or stick a root out or grasp at you with long trailers. But at night things can get most disturbing - I am told. I have only once been in the Old Forest, and then only near the edge, after dark. I thought the trees were all whispering to each other although there was no wind, and the branches waved about and groped. They do say the trees actually move and can surround strangers and hem them in. They used long ago to attack the Hedge, come and plant themselves right by it and lean over it. But we burn[t] the ground all along the east side for miles and they gave it up. There are also queer things living deep in the Forest and on the far side. But I have not heard that they are very fierce - at least not in daytime. But something makes paths and keeps them open. There is the beginning of a great and broad one that goes more or less in our direction. That is the one I am making for.'

  The ground was rising steadily and as their ponies plodded along the trees became darker and thicker and taller. There was no sound, save an.occasional drip; but they all got an uncomfortable feeling which steadily increased that they were being watched - with disapproval if not dislike. Marmaduke tried to sing, but his voice soon fell to a hum and then died away. A small branch fell from an old tree with a crack on the ground behind them. They stopped, startled, and looked round.

  'The trees seem to object to my singing,' said Marmaduke cheerfully. 'All right, we'll wait till we get to a more open point.'

  Clearing hillock view sun up mist goes

  turns hot

  Trees bar way. They turn [?always...... side]

  Willowman. Meeting with Tombombadil.

  [Struck out: Barrow-wights]

  Camp on the downs

  Whereas this piece begins as narrative and tails off into notes, another page is expressly a 'sketch' of the story to be written:

  The path winds on and they get tired. They cannot get any view. At last they see a bare hillock (crowned by a few pines) ahead looking down onto the path. They reach this and find the mist gone, and the sun very hot and nearly above. 11 o'clock. They rest and eat. But they can see only forest all round, and cannot make out either Hedge or line of the road northward, but the bare downland East and South lies green-grey in the distance. Beyond the hillock the path turns southwards. They determine to leave it and strike N.E. by the sun. But trees bar the way. They are going downhill, and brambles and bushes, hazels and whatnot block them. Every..... [?opening] leads them away to their right. Eventually when it is already afternoon they find themselves coming to a willow-bordered river - the Withywindle.(1) Marmaduke knows this flows through the forest from the downs to join the Brandywine at Haysend. There seems some sort of rough path going upstream. But a great sleepiness comes on them. Odo and Bingo cannot go on without a rest. They sit down with their backs to a great willow, while Frodo and Marmaduke attend to the ponies. Willowman traps B
ingo and Odo. Suddenly a singing is heard in the distance. (Tom Bombadil not named). The Willow relaxes its hold.

  They get through to end of forest as evening comes on, and climb on to the downs. It gets very cold - mist is followed by a chilly drizzle. They shelter under a big barrow. Barrow-wight takes them inside. They wake to find themselves buried alive. They shout. At last Marmaduke and Bingo begin a song. An answering song outside. Tom Bombadil opens the stone door and lets them out. They go to his house for the night - two Barrow- wights come [?galloping] after them, but stop every time Tom Bombadil turns and looks at them.

  At this stage, then, their first encounter with Tom Bombadil was to be very brief, and they would not be his guests until after their escape from the barrow up on the downs; but no narrative of this form is found, and doubtless none was written.

  It is of course possible that other preliminary drafting has been lost, but the earliest extant text of the original fourth chapter (numbered 'IV' but with no title) looks like composition ab initio, with many words and sentences and even whole pages rejected and replaced at the time of writing. For most of its length, however, this is an orderly and legible manuscript, though rapidly written, and increasingly so as it proceeds (see note 3). It is then remarkable that this text reaches at a stroke the narrative as published in FR (Chapter 6, 'The Old Forest'), with only the most minor differences - other than the different cast of characters (largely a matter of names) and different attribution of 'parts', and often and for substantial stretches with almost exactly the wording of the final form. My father might well say that The lard of the Ring was 'now flowing along'.

  There are a few particular points to notice. First, as regards the characters, the 'spoken parts' are variously distributed as between the first form and the final. Fredegar Bolger is of course not present to see them off at the entrance to the tunnel under the Hedge, and his question 'How are you going to get through this?' (FR p. 120) is given to Odo ('How do we get through this?', cf. p. x to). The verse 0! Wanderers in the shadowed land,(2) Frodo's in FR (p. 123), is here Marmaduke's, but changed, probably immediately, to Frodo Took's. Pippin's objection to taking the path by the Withywindle (FR pp. 126 - 7) is Bingo's; and in the scene with Old Man Willow the parts are quite distinct. In the original version it is Bingo and Odo who are totally overcome by sleep and lay themselves against the willow-trunk, and it is Marmaduke who is more resistant and alarmed at the onset of drowsiness. Frodo Took ('more adventurous') goes down to the river-bank (as does Frodo Baggins in FR), and falling asleep at the Willow's feet is tipped into the water and held under by a root, while Marmaduke plays the later part of Sam in rounding up the ponies, rescuing Frodo (Took or Baggins) from the river, and discussing with him how to release the prisoners from the tree. Yet despite the later redistribution of parts in this scene, and the advent of Sam Gamgee, the old text is very close to the final form, as may be seen from this example (cf. FR p. 128).

  Marmaduke gripped him [Frodo Took] by the back of his jacket, and dragged him from under the tree-root, and laid him on the bank. Almost at once he woke, and coughed and spluttered.

  'Do you know,' he said, 'the beast threw me in! I felt it and saw it: the big root just twizzled round and threw me in.'

  'You were dreaming,' said Marmaduke. 'I left you asleep, though I thought it rather a silly place to sit in.'

  'What about the other two? ' asked Frodo. 'I wonder what sort of dreams they've had?'

  They went round to the landward side. Marmaduke then understood the click. Odo had vanished. The crack he lay in had closed to, so that not a chink could be seen. Bingo was trapped; for his crack had closed to about his waist...

  There are also a few minor points of topography to mention. It is said in the outline (p. 111) that the hillock was crowned with pines, and this was retained: it had 'a knot of pine-trees at the top', under which the hobbits sat. In FR (p. 124) the hill is likened to a bald head, and the trees about it to 'thick hair that ended sharply in a circle round a shaven crown.' - When later they came to the end of the gully and looked out from the trees at the Withywindle, they were at the top of a cliff:

  Suddenly the woodland trees came to an end, and the gully ended at the top of a bank that was almost a cliff. Over this the stream dived, and fell in a series of small waterfalls. Looking down they saw that below them was a wide space of grass and reeds... Marmaduke scrambled down to the river, and disappeared into the long grass and low bushes. After a while he reappeared and called up to them from a patch of turf some thirty feet below. He reported that there was fairly solid ground between the bank and the river...

  In FR (p. 126) it is clear that the hobbits, following the little stream down the gully, had reached the level of the Withywindle valley while still in the deep woodland:

  Coming to the opening they found that they had made their way down through a cleft in a high steep bank, almost a cliff. At its feet was a wide space of grass and reeds...

  [Merry] passed out into the sunshine and disappeared into the long grasses. After a while he reappeared, and reported...

  Subsequently, in the original version, there is anxiety about the descent of the ponies from the cliff; they got down in fact without difficulty, but Frodo Took 'put too much weight on a grassy lump that stuck out like a step, and went down with his head over heels for the last fifteen feet or so; but he came to no great harm at the bottom, for the ground was soft.' In FR (p. 127) the hobbits merely 'filed out' from the trees.

  The last part of the chapter, in which Tom Bombadil appears, and which ends with the same words as in FR ('a golden light was all about them'), is so close to the final form (3) that only one small matter need be mentioned. It is made just as clear here as in FR that the path which the hobbits followed beside the Withywindle lay on the north side of the river, the side from which they descended out of the forest, and it is therefore strange that the approach to Tom Bombadil's house should be described thus:

  The grass under their feet was smooth and short, and seemed to be mown and shaven. The forest edge behind them was as clipped and trim as a hedge. The path was edged with white stones; and turning sharp to the left went over a little bridge. It then wound up onto the top of a round knoll...

  But the path was already on the left side of the river as it went upstream. Later on, this text was very heavily corrected, and the FR version all but achieved; yet this detail was retained: 'The path was bordered with white stones; and turning sharp to the left it led them over a wooden bridge.' Later again, the word 'left' was changed to 'right', implying that Tom Bombadil's house lay on the south side of the Withywindle. In FR there is no mention of a bridge. My father's map of the Shire (see p. 107: map I) probably shows that he changed his mind on this point; for the underlying pencil shows 'TB', with a dark mark beside it, on the south side, whereas the ink overlay shows the house to the north of the stream. See further pp. 327 - 8.

  NOTES.

  1. The first occurrence of the name Withywindle,

  2. The verse has shadow-land for shadowed land in the first line, but is otherwise as in FR. Rough working for a verse in this place is also found. My father first wrote: 'O wanderers in the land of trees I despair not for there is no wood', but this was broken off and the following suggested:

  think not of hearth that lies behind

  but set your hearts on distant hills

  beyond the rising of the sun.

  The journey is but new begun,

  the road goes ever on before

  past many a house and many a door

  over mater and under wood

  3. Towards the end of the chapter the manuscript becomes extremely confused. From the point where Marmaduke and Frodo Took discover that Bingo and Odo are trapped by the Willow-man my father changed from ink to pencil, and degenerating into a rapid scribble the chapter seems to have petered out in the course of their rescue by Tom Bombadil; but he subsequently erased most of the pencilled text, or overwrote it in ink, and continued on in
ink to the end of the chapter. This concluding portion departs from the preliminary sketch given on p. 112, where the hobbits after their rescue went up on to the Downs and were captured by the Barrow- wight; here, as in FR, Tom invites them to come to his house, and goes on ahead up the path beside the Withywindle. The last part of the manuscript is probably, strictly speaking, a subsequent addition; but the matter is of slight importance, since all this writing obviously belongs to the same period of work, at the end of August 1938.

  Note on Tom Bombadil.

  Tom Bombadil, Goldberry, Old Man Willow, and the Barrow-wight had already existed for some time, appearing in print in the pages of The Oxford Magazine (Vol. LII, no. 13, 15 February 1934). In a letter of 1954 my father said:

  I don't think Tom needs philosophizing about, and is not improved by it. But many have found him an odd or indeed discordant ingredient. In historical fact I put him in because I had already 'invented' him independently (he first appeared in the Oxford Magazine) and wanted an 'adventure' on the way.*

  (* The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, no. 153. Some major observations on Tom Bombadil are found in this letter and in no. 144.)