returnoftheshadow72

by Miguel

  12. On the dividing of the Misty Mountains into an eastern and a western arm see the Note on Geography, p. 438. My father wrote here first 'the great vale', and the replacement word is probably but not certainly 'land'.

  13. The name of the vale was first Carndoom the Red Valley; above was written Carondun and Doon-Caron, but these were struck out. Elsewhere on this page is Narodum = Red Vale; and the name in the text was corrected in red ink to Dimrill-dale: Nanduhiriath (in FR Nanduhirion). On the former application of Dimrill-dale see note 3. At subsequent occurrences the name is Carndoom, Caron-doom, Caron-dun, Dun Caron, and at the last the name was replaced in red ink by Glassmere in Dimrilldale (note 37). Among these forms, all meaning 'Red Valley', I have rather arbitrarily chosen Caron-dun to stand as the consistent form in the text.

  14. The name of the pass was first written Criscarn, with Cris-caron as a rejected alternative; at subsequent occurrences both appear, but with the preference to Cris-caron (also Cris-carron, Cris Caron), which I adopt. Dimrill-stair replaces it twice in red ink, in the present passage thus: 'over the pass that was [read is] called Dimrill-stair (Pendrethdulur) under the side of Caradras.' The pass was afterwards called the Redhorn Gate, the Dimrill-stair being the descent from the pass on the eastern side; cf. note 21. With Pendrethdulur cf. the Etymologies, V.380, pendrath 'passage up or down a slope, stairway'.

  15. The River Redway, the later Silverlode, has been referred to in an outline dated August 1939 (p. 381), and at its occurrence at the beginning of the chapter the Elvish name Crandir is given (note 4). Here, above Redway, are written the names Rathgarn (struck out); Rathcarn; Nenning (struck out); and Caradras or Redway. Written in the margin is also Narosir = Redway. At this time Nenning had not yet appeared in The Silmarillion and the Annals of Beleriand as the name of the river in Beleriand west of Narog, .which was still called Eglor. In red ink the name Celebrin was substituted (Celebrant in FR). The river is called Caradras on the contemporary map (p. 439).

  16. It was said in the outline given on p. 410 that Beleghir the Great River divided into many channels in Fangorn Forest. See the map, p. 439.

  17. While in FR (p. 298) Aragorn says that he has seen hawks flying high up, he does not say, as Trotter does here, 'That would account for the silence.'

  18. southwards: changed in pencil from northwards.

  19. It was now 28 November (since they walked for three nights after this and attempted Cris-caron on 2 December, pp. 422, 424). In notes on phases of the Moon (found on the back of a page in the previous section of this manuscript) my father gave the following dates, showing that on the night of the 28th the Moon was in its first quarter:

  20. This incident was retained in FR, but it is not explained. The Winged Nazgul had not yet crossed the River (The Two Towers pp. 101, 201).

  21. As written in ink, and before changes in pencil produced the passage given, Gandalf said: 'Winter is behind. There is snow coming. In fact it has come. The peaks behind are whiter than they were.' Trotter's reply is the same, but he ends: 'we may get caught in a blizzard before we get over the pass.' In the margin my father wrote: '? Cut out prophecy of snow - let it come suddenly.' He struck this out, but the passage as emended makes the threat of snow seem less certain.

  The words 'on our way to the red pass of Cris-caron' were emended in red ink to 'on our way up the Dimrill-stair'; see note 14.

  22. My father first wrote here (emending it to the text given at the time of writing): 'But we have to go on, and we have to cross the mountains here or go back. The passes further south are too far away, and were all guarded years ago - they lead straight into the country of the [Beardless Men Mani Aroman >] Horsemen.' In the rewritten passage, the reference to the passes further south is removed, but it reappears a little later: 'further south the passes are held' (cf. FR p. 300: Further south there are no passes, till one comes to the Gap of Rohan').

  Before the name Rohan was reached several others were written, Thanador, Ulthanador, Borthendor, Orothan[ador]. After Rohan is written: [= Rochan(dor) = Horseland]. This is unquestionably the point at which the name Rohan arose. Cf. the Etymologies, V.384: Quenya rokko, Noldorin roch, horse.

  A scribble in the margin seems to change 'The Horse-kings have long been in the service of Sauron' to 'Rohan where the Horsekings or Horselords are.' Cf. FR p. 300: 'Who knows which side now the inarshals of the Horse-lords serve?'

  23. In the original story Trotter favoured the passage of Moria and Gandalf the pass; in FR (p. 300) it was Aragorn who favoured the pass.

  24. This passage, from 'Trotter and I have doubts of the weather', is a rewriting in pencil of a much longer passage in which Gandalf introduced at this point the subject of Moria. Gandalf says:

  'Trotter thinks we are likely to be caught in a heavy snow-storm before we get across [see note 21]. I think we shall have to attempt it, all the same. But there is another way, or there used to be. I don't know whether you have heard of the Mines of Moria, or the Black [Pit >] Gulf?'

  Gandalf then describes Moria; and after this the original text continues:

  The hearts of the travellers sank at his words. All of them would have voted at once for the cold and perils of the high pass rather than for the black gulfs of Moria. But Gandalf did not ask for a vote. After a silence he said: 'There is no need to ask you to decide. I know which way you would choose, and I choose the same. We will try the pass.'

  The introduction of Moria was postponed until after the Company had been forced back from the pass by the snowstorm; and Gandalf's words about it reappear there in closely similar form (see p. 429 and note 38). The second occurrence of the passage is in ink and an integral part of the chapter.

  25. 'pack ponies' is a pencilled emendation from 'horses and ponies'; see note 7. But when the travellers halt under the overhanging cliff the reference to 'the two ponies' (p.424) is in the text as first written.

  26. This sentence was marked with a query and enclosed within square brackets at the time of writing. Later my father wrote here: 'Not all evil things are Sauron['s]', and 'The hawks' (referring presumably to the hawks which Trotter saw high up over Hollin, and said 'accounted for the silence', p. 420); and in the margin: 'Gimli says Caradras had an ill name even in days when Sauron was of little account' (see FR p. 303).

  27. As first written (but at once rejected) the content of these speeches (from '"This is hopeless," said Gandalf. "You can call it the wind if you like..."') was more condensed and was given entirely to Gandalf.

  28. In the same passage in FR (p. 303) the date is 12 January; the Company had left Rivendell on 25 December, and so had been in the wilderness for nineteen nights. But in the original story the journey was shorter: 'when they had been about ten days on the road the weather grew better' (p. 418), whereas FR (p. 295) has 'a fortnight'.

  29. This sentence replaced (probably at once): 'But the snow continued to fall unrelenting, and at length Gandalf had to admit that being buried in snow was at the moment the chief danger.' With the words had to admit cf. notes 23 and 30.

  30 'Trotter' was changed in pencil to 'Gandalf'. In the context of the story at this stage Trotter would be the more likely to say this (see notes 23 and 29), but in the rough preliminary draft given in note 1 it is said by Gandalf.

  31. My father pencilled here: 'Boromir knows snow from the Black Mountains. He was born a mountaineer'; but he struck this out. It is said in the outline given on p. 410 that Fangorn Forest extended up to the Black Mountains (changed from Blue Mountains, which are referred to on the contemporary map).

  32. Pencilled changes altered the speakers in this passage, but I believe that these are later. The question 'How are me to get to the turn?' is taken from Trotter and given to Merry (probably because my father had decided that Trotter was a Man), who goes on 'It is a pity Gandalf can't produce flame enough to melt us a pathway'; and it is Merry, not Boromir, who makes the remark about a tame dragon and a wild wizard. But since subsequently it is to Boromir that Gandalf apologises
for his irritability, these changes were casual and not fully integrated into the narrative. Either at this time or later the remark about Gandalf's melting them a path was transferred to Legolas (cf. FR p. 305), and this is obviously a structurally irrelevant addition, like that concerning Gimli in note 26.

  33. The descent of the Company through the deep snow was first told quite differently, though the version given replaced the other before it was completed. As first written, Gandalf relented at once towards Boromir (after 'It will serve you right if you meet a wild dragon') and since he appeared already tired gave him a further sip of Elrond's cordial. Boromir was to carry each hobbit down separately (cf. the preliminary sketch given in note r) and began with Frodo; at the drift he stumbled on a hidden stone and Frodo was thrown into the deep snow and disappeared, but Boromir 'soon recovered him'. Sam was brought down next ('he had disapproved greatly of his master (with the Ring) being left alone and out of reach in any sudden danger'). Boromir was then too tired to repeat the ascent and descent three times more, and this version ends with hasty notes telling that Trotter, Faramond, and Merry were put on the ponies, while Gandalf behind and Boromir ahead, carrying the baggage, 'ploughed their way down dragging and thrusting the ponies forward.'

  My father then wrote: 'Or alter all above', and proposed that the whole Company should go down together. In the second version, given in the text, he neglected to mention that Boromir returned once more to bring down the baggage. The story in FR is of course entirely different since Trotter has become Aragorn.

  34. Moria is translated 'Black Gulf' in the first, rejected occurrence of this passage (note 24). An isolated note earlier in the MS has 'Moria = Black Gulf', with the etymology yago, ia; here 'Gulf' is a correction of some other word which I cannot interpret. Cf. the Etymologies, V.400, stem YAG 'yawn, gape', where Moria is translated 'Black Gulf'.

  35. This is not the first use of the word Orcs in the LR papers: Gandalf refers to 'orcs and goblins' among the servants of the Dark Lord, pp. 211, 364; cf. also pp. 187, 320. But the rarity of the usage at this stage is remarkable. The word Orc goes back to the Lost Tales, and had been pervasive in all my father's subsequent writings. In the Lost Tales the two terms were used as equivalents, though sometimes apparently distinguished (see II. 364, entry Coblins). A clue may be found in a passage that occurs in both the earlier and the later Quenta (I V.82, V.233): 'Goblins they may be called, but in ancient days they mere strong and fell.' At this stage it seems that 'Orcs' are to be regarded as a more formidable kind of 'Goblin', so in the preliminary sketch for 'The Mines of Moria' (p. 443) Gandalf says 'there are goblins - of very evil kind, larger than usual, real orcs.' - It is incidentally notable that in the first edition of The Hobbit the word Orcs is used only once (at the end of Chapter VII 'Queer Lodgings'), while in the published LR goblins is hardly ever used.

  36 Strangely, this is not at all in agreement with what Gloin had said at Rivendell (p. 391): For many years things went well, and the colony throve; there was traffic once more between Moria and the Mountain, and many gifts of silver were sent to Dain.'

  37 It is here that the emendation in red ink to Classmere in Dimrilldale is made (note 13). This is the first appearance of the lake in Dimrill Dale; on the contemporary map it is marked and named Mirror.

  38 Gandalf's account of Moria here differs from the earlier form (see note 24) only in that here there is mention of Durin, of the peace between Elves and Dwarves, and of Orcs (see note 35) - the rejected version refers only to goblins. In that version it is said that the Dwarves of Caron-dun 'sent their goods down the Great River.'

  39 'ten' changed in pencil to '20'. In FR (p. 311) Gandalf says: 'There was a door south-west of Caradhras, fifteen miles as the crow flies, and maybe twenty as the wolf runs.'

  40. See note 23. In the margin, probably made at the time of writing of the manuscript, is a note: 'Trotter was caught there.' This contrasts with what was said earlier, at the Council of Elrond (p. 401): 'Thus it was that Frodo learned how Trotter had tracked Gollum as he wandered southwards, through Fangorn Forest, and past the Dead Marshes, until he had himself been caught and imprisoned by the Dark Lord.'

  Note on the Geography and the contemporary Map.

  The extremely rapid, rough, and now tattered map reproduced on p. 439 can with complete certainty, I think, be ascribed to the time of the original writing of this chapter. It was my father's first representation of Middle-earth south of the Map of Wilderland in The Hobbit - which he had before him, as the courses of the rivers show.

  Going from North to South on the map, there is Carrock at the top; and Gladden (River) and Gl[adden] Fields (see p. 416 and note 4). Hollin is named and roughly marked with a broken line; and the names, struck out, to the right of the mountains are Taragaer, Caradras (with the final form Caradras beside it in pencil), Carnbeleg, and Rhascarn (see note 11). The pass is called Dimrill, with (probably) Cris-caron struck out (note 14); and Mirrormere is marked, the first occurrence of the name (see note 37). West of the mere Moria is marked; below are two illegible names and below them Bliscarn (note 11) and again Carnbeleg, all struck out.

  The division of the Misty Mountains into two arms here, referred to by Gandalf in the present text (pp. 419, 429) and by Gimli in FR (p. 296), is shown far more markedly on this original map than it is on my father's later ones - where the eastern arm is shown as actually less extensive than it is on mine published in LR. For the names of the valley between the arms of the mountains see note 13.

  The vast westward swing of the Great River {marked great bend) is already in being, but the placing of Fangorn Forest (in which my father's writing of the word Forest is a sample of his more rapid script) would later be wholly changed. That the Great River flowed through the midst of Fangorn is stated by Gandalf (p. 419 and note 16). The name Belfalas in the North-east of Fangorn is in red ink (the only item that is); afterwards Belfalas was a coastal region of Gondor, and since falas ('shore') was one of the most ancient of Elvish words (see 1.253) it is hard to see how it could be used to refer to a region of forest far inland. I suspect that my father wrote it on the page after, or before, the making of this extremely rapid map and without any reference to it, so that it has no significance in this context.

  For the various proposed names of the river Redway in the text see note 15; among them is Caradras, which is written on the map (but struck through in pencil).

  Across the Misty Mountains further south is written 'Place this pass into Rohan further south' (on passes over the Mountains south of Caradras see note 22). At the bottom of the map on the left is written: (The earliest map of the lands south of the Map of Wilderland in The Hobbit.)

  'Rohan. Horsekings land Hippanaletians... [possibly kn standing for kingdom] Anaxippians Rohiroth Rochiroth.' The Hippanaletians and Anaxippians ('Horse-lords') are surprising.

  At the right-hand corner is: Below here are the Blue Mts. Compare Gandalf's words in the first sketching of 'The Council of Elrond' (p. 397): 'Giant Treebeard, who haunts the Forest between the River and the South Mountains'; the outline given on p. 410 in which it is said that Fangorn Forest runs up into the Blue (> Black) Mountains; and the rejected note to the present text in which it was said that Boromir was 'born a mountaineer' in the Black Mountains (note 31).

  A question arises concerning the line of the Misty Mountains. In this original text it is said (p. 418), as in FR (p. 295), that south of Rivendell the mountains bent westward; and this is shown on the Map of the Wilderland in The Hobbit. It will be seen that if the line of the mountains where it leaves that map, some distance south of the sources of the Gladden, be continued without further westward curving, a track running south from the Ford of Rivendell will strike the mountain chain somewhere near Caradhras. This is in fact precisely what is shown on my father's three maps that exhibit the whole range of the Misty Mountains. On two of them the mountains run in a straight line from about the latitude of Rivendell (as also on my map published in LR); on one of them (the e
arliest) the line curves very slightly westward from some way north of Hollin; but on all three a line drawn south from the Ford must cut the mountains at an acute angle in the region of Hollin, simply because the line of the mountains is south-south-west.

  It is therefore curious that the original sketch-map discussed here does not really agree with the original text (p. 418). The travellers went south from the Ford; and on the borders of Hollin 'far away south Frodo saw the dim shapes of mountains, that seemed now to lie across their path. To the left of this distant range a tall peak stood up like a tooth': that was Taragaer, the Redhorn (Caradhras). And when Faramond said that he thought that they must have turned east, since the mountains were now in front of them, Gandalf said No, it is the mountains that have turned. But on the old map, a line drawn south from the Ford would only strike the mountains far south of Moria and the Red Pass; and this is because my father bent the mountain-line almost due south in the region of Hollin, so that the course from the Ford and the mountain-line then become nearly parallel. This is possibly no more than a consequence of the speed and roughness with which the map was made - the merest guide; but it is curious that the dotted line marking the route of the travellers does actually turn strongly south-east towards the pass - as Faramond thought that it had!