returnoftheshadow72

by Miguel

  My guess - it can hardly be more - is that in October 1938 the third phase had not been begun, or had not proceeded far, since the boot was 'in rather an illegible state', while when my father wrote of having had to set the work aside in December 1938 it was to the third phase that he was referring: hence he said that it had been 're-written several times' (moreover 'Chapter XI I' of this phase is the arrival at Rivendell, and it is here - as I think - that the new version was interrupted).

  The third phase can be described quite rapidly, as far as the end of 'Fog on the Barrow-downs', but first there is an interesting new text to be given. This my father called a Foreword (precursor of the Prologue in the published work). There is no preparatory material for it extant, but for a section of it he took up the passage concerning hobbit architecture from the second version of 'A Short Cut to Mushrooms', against which he had directed 'Put in Foreword' (see pp. 294 - 5). This was scarcely changed for its place in the Foreword, but there was now added a reference to the 'Elf-towers', which goes back to the earliest form of the 'architecture' passage in the original version of the chapter (pp. 92 - 3), where Bingo says that he had once seen the towers himself.

  A number of changes were made to the manuscript of the Foreword, but apart from those that seem clearly to belong to the time of writing I ignore them here and print the text as it was first written.

  FOREWORD.

  Concerning Hobbits.

  This book is largely concerned with hobbits, and it is possible to find out from it what they are (or were), and whether they are worth hearing about or not. But finding out things as you trudge along a road or plod through a story is rather tiring, even when it is (as occasionally happens) interesting or exciting. Those who wish to have things clear from the beginning will find some useful information in the brief account of Mr Bilbo Baggins' great Adventure, which led to the even more difficult and dangerous adventures recorded in this book. This account was called The Hobbit or There and Back again, because it was chiefly concerned with the most famous of all the old legendary hobbits, Bilbo; and because he went to the Lonely Mountain and came back again to his own home. But one story may well be all that readers have time or taste for. So I will put down some items of useful information here.

  Hobbits are a very ancient people, once upon a time more numerous, alas! than they are to-day, when (or so I hear it sadly rumoured) they are vanishing rapidly; for they are fond of peace and quiet, and good tilled earth: a well-ordered and well-farmed countryside is their natural haunt. They are quite useless with machines more complicated than a bellows or a water-mill; though they are fairly handy with tools. They were always rather shy of the Big People (as they call us), and now they are positively scared of us.

  And yet plainly they must be relatives of ours: nearer to us than elves are, or even dwarves. For one thing, they spoke a very similar language (or languages), and liked or disliked much the same things as we used to. What exactly the relationship is would be difficult to say. To answer that question one would have to re-discover a great deal of the now wholly lost history and legends of the Earliest Days,(1) and that is not likely to happen, for only the Elves preserve any traditions about the Earliest Days, and their traditions are mostly about themselves - not unnaturally: the Elves were much the most important people of those times. But even their traditions are incomplete: Men only come in to them occasionally, and Hobbits are not mentioned. Elves"Dwarves, Men, and other creatures only became aware of Hobbits after they had actually existed, jogging along in their uneventful fashion, for many ages. And they continued, as a rule, to jog along, keeping to themselves and keeping out of stories. In the days of Bilbo (and Frodo his heir) they became for a time very important, by what is called accident, and the great persons of the world, even the Necromancer, were obliged to take them into account, as these stories show. Though Hobbits had then already had a long history (of a quiet kind), those days are now very long ago, and geography (and many other things) were then very different. But the lands in which they lived, changed though they now are, must have been more or less in the same place as the lands in which they still linger: the North-west of the old world.

  They are (or were) a small people, smaller than dwarves: less stout and stocky, that is, even when they were not in fact much shorter. Their height was, like the height of us Big People, rather variable, ranging between two and four feet (of our length): three feet was more or less an average. Very few hobbits, outside their own more fantastic legends, touched three foot six. Only Bandobras Took, son of Isengrim the First, known usually as the Bullroarer, of all the hobbits of history exceeded four feet. He was four foot five and rode a horse.(2)

  There is, and always has been, very little magic about hobbits. Of course they possess the power which we sometimes confuse with real magic - it is really only a kind of professional skill, that has become uncanny through long practice, aided by close friendship with the earth and all things that grow on it: the power of disappearing quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like us come blundering along, making noises like elephants, which they can hear a mile off. Even long ago their great desire was to avoid trouble; and they were quick in hearing, and sharpsighted. And they were neat and deft in their movements, though they were inclined to be fat in the stomach, and did not hurry unnecessarily. They dressed in bright colours, being particularly fond of green and yellow; but they wore no shoes, because their feet grew natural leathery soles and thick warm brown hair, curly like the brown hair of their heads. The only trade unknown among them was consequently shoemaking; but they had long clever brown fingers and could make many other useful things. They had good- natured faces, being as a rule good-natured; and they laughed long and deeply, being fond of simple jests at all times, but especially after dinner (which they had twice a day, when they could get it). They were fond of presents, and gave them away freely, and accepted them readily.

  All hobbits had originally lived in holes in the ground, or so they believed; although actually already in Bilbo's time it was as a rule only the richest and the poorest hobbits that still did so. The poorest hobbits went on living in holes of the most antiquated kind - in fact just holes, with only one window, or even none. The most important families continued to live (when they could) in luxurious versions of the simple excavations of olden times. But suitable sites for these large and ramifying tunnels were not to be found everywhere. In Hobbiton, in Tuckborough in Tookland, and even in the one really populous town of their Shire, Michel- Delving on the White Downs, there were many houses of stone and wood and brick. These were specially favoured by the millers, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, and people of that sort: for even when they had holes to live in hobbits used to put up sheds and barns for workshops and storehouses.

  The custom of building farms and dwelling-houses was believed to have begun among the inhabitants of the river-side regions (especially the Marish down by the Brandywine), where the land was flat and wet; and where perhaps the hobbit-breed was not quite pure. Some of the hobbits of the Marish in the East- farthing at any rate were rather large and heavy-legged; a few actually had a little down under their chins (no pure-bred hobbit had a beard); and one or two even wore boots in muddy weather. It is possible that the idea of building, as of so many other things, came originally from the Elves. There were still in Bilbo's time three Elf-towers just beyond the western borders of the Shire. They shone in the moonlight. The tallest was furthest away, standing alone on a hill. The hobbits of the Westfarthing said that you could see the Sea from the top of that tower: but no hobbit had ever been known to climb it. But even if the notion of building came originally from the Elves, the hobbits used it in their own fashion. They did not go in much for towers. Their houses were usually long and low, and comfortable. The oldest kind were really artificial holes of mud (and later of brick), thatched with dry grass or straw, or roofed with turf; and the walls were slightly bulged. But, of course, that stage belonged to very ancient history. Hobbit-building had long been
altered (and perhaps improved) by the taking of wrinkles from dwarves and even Big People, and other folk outside the Shire. A preference for round windows, and also (but to a less extent) for round doors, was the chief remaining characteristic of hobbit-architecture. Both the houses and the holes of hobbits were usually large and inhabited by large families. (Bilbo and Frodo Baggins were in this point, as in many others, rather exceptional.) Sometimes, as in the case of the Brandybucks of Brandy Hall, many generations of relations lived in (comparative) peace together in one ancestral and ramifying mansion. All hobbits were, in any case, clannish, and reckoned up their relationships with great care. They drew long and elaborate family-trees with many branches. In dealing with hobbits it is most important to remember who is related to whom, and how, and why.

  It would be impossible to set out in this book a family-tree that included even the more important members of the more important families of the Shire at the time we speak of. It would take a whole book, and everyone but hobbits would find it dull. (Hobbits would love it, if it was accurate: they like to have books full of things they already know set out fair and square with no contradictions.) The Shire was their own name for the very pleasant little corner of the world in which the most numerous, thoroughbred, and representative kind of hobbits lived in Bilbo's time. It was the only part of the world, indeed, at that time in which the two-legged inhabitants were all Hobbits, and in which Dwarves, Big People (and even Elves) were merely strangers and occasional visitors. The Shire was divided into four quarters, called the Four Farthings, the North, South, East and West Farthings; and also into a number of folklands, which bore the names of the important families, although by this time these names were no longer found only in their proper folklands. Nearly all Tooks still lived in Tookland, but that was not so true of other families, like the Bagginses or the Boffins. A map of the Shire will be found in this book, in the hope that it will be useful (and be approved as reasonably correct by those hobbits that go in for hobbit-history). To complete the information some (abridged) family-trees are also given, which will show in what way the hobbit-persons mentioned are related to one another, and what their various ages were at the time when the story opens. This will at any rate make clear the connexions between Bilbo and Frodo, and between Folco Took and Meriadoc Brandybuck (usually called Merry) and the other chief characters.(3)

  Frodo Baggins became Bilbo's heir by adoption: heir not only to what was left of Bilbo's considerable wealth, but also to his most mysterious treasure: a magic ring. This ring came from a cave in the Misty Mountains, far away in the East. It had belonged to a sad and rather loathsome creature called Gollum, of whom more will be heard in this story, though I hope some will find time to read the account of his riddle-competition with Bilbo in The Hobbit. It is important to this tale, as the wizard Gandalf tried to explain to Frodo. The ring had the power of making its wearer invisible. It had also other powers, which Bilbo did not discover until long after he had come back and settled down at home again. Consequently they are not spoken of in the story of his journey. But this later story is concerned chiefly with the ring, and so no more need be said about them here.

  Bilbo it is told 'remained very happy to the end of his days and those were extraordinarily long.' They were. How extraordinarily long you may now discover, and you may also learn that remaining happy did not mean continuing to live for ever at Bag-end. Bilbo returned home on June 22nd in his fifty-second year, and nothing very notable occurred in the Shire for another sixty years, when Bilbo began to make preparations for the celebration of his hundred and eleventh birthday. At which point the present tale of the Ring begins.

  Chapter I: 'A Lang-expected Party'.

  At the beginning of this sixth embodiment of the opening chapter the revised passage about Bilbo's book (p. 245, note 3) was now removed, and replaced by: 'He was supposed to be writing a book, containing a full account of his year's mysterious adventures, which no one was allowed to see.'

  The conversation at The Ivy Bush is taken up from the preliminary version described on pp. 244- 5, and now reaches virtually the form it has

  in FR; but at this stage the Gaffer's instruction on the subject of Bilbo and Frodo and their antecedents was still recounted in advance by the narrator also.(4)

  The 'odd-looking waggons laden with odd-looking packages', driven by 'elves or heavily hooded dwarves,' which had survived from the second version of the chapter (p. 20), were now reduced to a single waggon, driven by dwarves, and no elves appear (see p. 235); but Gandalf's mark on the fireworks, here called 'runic', still remains, and he is still 'a little old man'. The guests still included the Gaukrogers (so spelt), but the remark that the Brockhouses had come in from Combe- under-Bree (p. 236) is dropped. The young Took who danced on the table changes his name from Prospero to Everard (as in FR), but his partner remains Melissa Brandybuck (Melilot in FR).

  The pencilled addition to the fifth version (p. 246, note 12), showing that Bingo/Frodo was fully aware of what Bilbo intended to do, was taken up (but as in FR Frodo stays on long enough at the dinner-table to satisfy Rory Brandybuck's thirst: 'Hey, Frodo, just send that decanter round again!'); as also was the passage about Bilbo's taking Sting with him (p.246, note 13). Bilbo now (as in FR) takes a leather-bound manuscript from a strong-box (though not the 'bundle wrapped in old cloths'), but gives the bulky envelope, which he addresses to Frodo and into which he puts the Ring, to the dwarf Lofar, asking him to put it in Frodo's room. Gandalf still meets Bilbo at the bottom of the Hill after he has left Bag End with the Dwarves (still named Nar, Anar, and Hannar), and their conversation remains as it was (pp. 238 - 40): in answer to Gandalf's question 'He [Frodo] knows about it, of course?' Bilbo replies: 'He knows that I have a Ring. He has read my private memoirs (the only one I have ever allowed to read them).' Gandalf's return to Bag End after saying good-bye to Bilbo is incorporated from the very rough form in the fifth version (p. 247, note 20), the only difference being that Frodo is now actually reading Bilbo's letter as he sits in the hall.

  The list of Bilbo's parting presents (p. 247, note 21) is now further changed by the loss of Caramella Chubb and her clock and Primo Grubb and his dinner-service (survivors from the original draft, p. 15, when they were Caramella Took and Inigo Grubb-Took); Colombo Hornblower and the barometer also disappear. Lofar still plays the role of Merry Brandybuck on the day following the Party, and Gandalf's conversation with Frodo on that day remains the same, with various later additions and omissions made to the fifth version (p. 248, notes 24 - 6, 28 - 30) incorporated: thus Bingo's reference to Bilbo's use of the Ring to escape from the Sackville-Bagginses is of course removed, in view of its use in 'A Conspiracy is Unmasked' (p. 300), as is Gandalf's suggestion that Bingo might be able to get in touch with him if necessary through 'the nearest dwarves'.

  Genealogy of the Tooks.

  On the reverse of one of the pages of this manuscript of 'A Long- expected Party' is the most substantial genealogy of the Tooks that has yet appeared.

  The figures attached to the names are at first glance very puzzling: they are obviously neither dates according to an independent calendar, nor ages at death. The key is provided by 'Bilbo Baggins III', and by the statement in the Foreword (p. 314) that the family-trees (of which this is the only one that survives, or was made at this time) would show 'what their various ages were at the time when the story opens.' The basis is the year of the Party, which is zero; and the figures are the ages of the persons relative to the Party. As between any two figures, the relative ages of the persons are given. Thus 311 against Ferumbras and 266 against Fortinbras means that Ferumbras was born 45 years before his son; Isengrim the First was born 374 years before Meriadoc Brandybuck eight generations later; Drogo Baggins was 23 years younger than Bilbo, and if he had not been drowned in the Brandywine and had been able to come to the Party would have been 88; and so on. The daggers of course show persons who were dead at the time of the Party.

  A few of the figures were cha
nged on the manuscript, the earlier ones being: Isengrim II 172, Isambard 160, Flambard 167, Rosa Baggins 151, Bungo Baggins 155, Yolanda 60, Folco Took 23, Meriadoc 25, Odo 24.

  It will be seen that while there is no external chronological structure, the internal or relative structure is not so very different from that of the family tree of Took of Great Smials in LR Appendix C. In LR Meriadoc was born 362 years after Isengrim II (= Isengrim I in the old tree) and eight generations later.

  Bandobras the Bullroarer (see p. 311 and note 2) is here the son of Isengrim, first of the Took line in the tree; and in the Prologue to LR (p. 11) he is likewise the son of that Isengrim (the Second). This was overlooked when the final Took tree was made, for Bandobras is there moved down by a generation, becoming the son (not the brother) of Isengrim's son Isumbras (III).(5)