The Treason of Isengard

In 'The History of Middle-earth' I have tried to make each book as much an independent entity as possible, and not merely a section cut off when the book had reached a certain size; but in the history of the writing of The Lord of the Rings this has proved difficult. In The Return of the Shadow I was able to bring the story to the point where my father, as he said, 'halted for a long while' while the Company of the Ring stood before the tomb of Balin in the mines of Khazad-dum; but this meant leaving till later the further complex restructurings of earlier parts of The Fellowship of the Ring that belong to that period.

In this volume my hope and intention was to reach the second major halt in the writing of The Lord of the Rings. In the Foreword to the Second Edition my father said that in 1942 he

'wrote the first drafts of the matter that now stands as Book III

[the story from 'The Departure of Boromir' to 'The Palantir'], and the beginnings of Chapters 1 and 3 of Book V ['Minas Tirith' and 'The Muster of Rohan']; and there as the beacons flared in Anorien and Theoden came to Harrowdale I stopped.

Foresight had failed and there was no time for thought.' It seems to have been around the end of 1942 that he stopped, and he began again ('I forced myself to tackle the journey of Frodo to Mordor') at the beginning of April 1944, after an interval of well over a year.

For this reason I chose as a title for this book The Treason of Isengard, that being a title my father had proposed for Book III (the first Book of The Two Towers) in a letter to Rayner Unwin of March 1953 (The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien no. 136). But I have found repeatedly that a history of the writing of The Lord of the Kings tends to set its own pace and scale, and that there comes a sort of critical point beyond which condensation of the intricacies of the evolving structure is not possible, without changing the nature of the enterprise. Finding that the story was not moving rapidly enough to reach the great ride of Gandalf with Pippin on Shadowfax before I ran out of space, I rewrote a great part of the book in an attempt to shorten it; but I found that if I rejected material as being less essential or of less interest I was always confronted at a later point with the need for explanations that destroyed my gains. Finally I decided that

'The King of the Golden Hall' does in fact provide a very suitable stopping-place, not in terms of the movement of composition but in terms of the movement of the story; and I have retained the title The Treason of Isengard, because that was the central new element in this part of The Lord of the Rings, even though in this book the account of the destruction of Isengard and the reward of Saruman's betrayal is only reached in a preliminary outline.

Of course it would be possible to shorten my account very considerably by treating such matters as the chronology and geography far more superficially, but as I know well there are some who find these often exceedingly complex questions of great interest, and those who do not can easily pass them by. Or I might have omitted some passages of original writing where it is not very distinctively different from the published work; but it has been my intention throughout this 'History' that the author's own voice should be largely heard.

The way in which The Return of the Shadow was constructed has meant that the first part of The Treason of Isengard must deal at some length with further developments in The Fellowship of the Ring up to the point reached in the first book, and this part is of necessity a continuation of the account in The Return of the Shadow and stands in very close relation to it -

though most of the many page-references made to it are no more than references and need not be looked up in order to follow the discussion.

This book is again very largely descriptive in intent; and in general I have thought it more useful to explain why I believe the narrative to have evolved as I describe it than to enlarge on my own views of the significance of particular features.

As the writing of The Lord of the Rings proceeds the initial draftings become more and more difficult to read; but for obvious reasons I have not hesitated to try to present even the most formidable examples, such as the original description of Frodo's vision on Amon Hen (pp. 372 - 3), though the result must be peppered all over with dots and queries.

In the preparation of this book I have again been greatly indebted to the help of Mr Taum Santoski generously and unfailingly given, and to that of Mr John D. Rateliff who has assisted in the analysis of manuscripts in the possession of Marquette University. I thank also Mr Charles B. Elston, the Archivist of the Memorial Library at Marquette, for providing photographs of the designs on the West Gate of Moria and the inscription on Balin's Tomb, and Miss Tracy Muench, who has been responsible for the photocopying of many manuscripts.

Mr Charles Noad very kindly undertook an additional and independent reading of the proofs, together with a meticulous checking of all references and citations from published works.

In this connection I must explain, what I should have explained in The Return of the Shadow, a perhaps rather misleading device that I have employed in these books: when relating an earlier text to the published form I often treat passages as identical although the wording actually differs in unimportant ways. Thus for example (p. 370) 'Sam broke in on the discussion... with "Begging your pardons, but I don't think you understand Mr Frodo at all (FR p. 419) is not a misquotation of The Fellowship of the Ring (which has Begging your pardon," said Sam. "I don't think you understand my master at all"'), but a 'shorthand' by which I indicate the precise point in The Fellowship of the Ring but also cite accurately the reading of the earlier text. I do this also when relating successive early versions to each other.

The illustration of Orthanc in the Ring of Isengard reproduced as the frontispiece is the earliest of successive conceptions of the tower, and may be taken to represent my father's image of it at the time when the texts in this book were written. It was done on the back of an examination script in 1942, and was found, together with other drawings, among the original drafts of 'The Road to Isengard'. The evolution of Orthanc will be described in Volume VIII, but it seemed suitable to use this picture as the frontispiece to The Treason of Isengard.

As in The Return of the Shadow, when citing texts I follow my father's representation of names, which was very inconsistent, especially in the use of capital letters. I abbreviate The Fellowship of the Ring as FR, The Two Towers as TT, and The Lord of the Rings as LR; and I refer to the previous volumes in this 'History', listed on the title-page, as (e.g.) 'II.189, V.226'.

I take this opportunity to explain an error in The Return of the Shadow (not present in the first American printing). After correction of the second proofs, lines 11 - 12 on page 32 of that book came to be repeated in lines 15 - 16 in place of the correct text, which should read:

Bingo's last words, 'I am leaving after dinner', were

corrected on the manuscript to 'I am leaving now.'

I.

GANDALF'S DELAY.

In The Return of the Shadow, after citing and discussing the remarkable notes and plot-outlines bearing the date August 1939 (Chapter XXII: 'New Uncertainties and New Projections'), I turned to the continuation of the story at Rivendell and after, as far as Moria. But at this time (towards the end of 1939) my father was also engaged in substantial further revision to what ultimately became Book I of The Fellowship of the Ring (FR), arising primarily from a changed story of Gandalf's movements, and an explanation of his delay. I doubt that it would be possible to deduce a perfectly clear and coherent, step-by-step chronology of this period in the narrative evolution, or to relate precisely the development of the early chapters of what became Book II to the new work on Book I; for my father moved back and forth, trying out new conceptions and then perhaps abandoning them, and producing such a tangle of change as cannot always be untied: and even if it could be, it would require a vast amount of space to make it all remotely comprehensible without the manuscripts. However, granting that many uncertainties remain, I do not think that they constitute a real impediment to understanding the development in all essentials.

Most of this new work on the story as far as Rivendell can be treated in terms of the individual chapters, but some outlines, time-schemes, and notes are best collected together, though I cannot certainly determine the order in which they were set down. These are the subject of this chapter.

(1). This slip of paper begins 'State of Plot assumed after XI. (Much of explanation in XII and of incident in Bree chapter will have to be rewritten.)' The reference is clearly to Chapter XII 'The Council of Elrond', which at this stage included the narrative afterwards separated off as 'Many Meetings' (see VI.399-400). Then follows: Bilbo gives Party and goes off. At that time he does not know anything about the ring's powers or origin (other than invisibility).

Motive writing book (bring in his wry expression about 'living happily to end of [his] days') - and a restlessness: desire to see either Sea or Mountains while his days last. Confesses to a slight reluctance to leave the ring, mixed with an oddly opposite feeling.

Says to Gandalf he sometimes feels it is like an eye looking at [him].

These two things give Gandalf food for thought. He helps Bilbo therefore with his preparations - but keeps an eye on the Ring.

(Cut out a lot of the genealogical stuff and most of the Sackville-Baggins stuff.)

Then Gandalf goes off and is absent for 3 and 7 years. At the end of the last absence (14 - 15 years after Bilbo's disappearance) Gandalf returns and actually stays with Frodo. Then he explains what he has discovered. But he does not advise Frodo yet to go off, though he does mention the Cracks of Doom and the Fiery Mountain.

He departs again; and Frodo becomes restless. As Gandalf does not come back for a year and more Frodo forms the idea of going perhaps to the Cracks of Doom, but at any rate to Rivendell. There he will get advice. He finally makes his plans with his friends Merry and [Folco >] Faramond' (no Odo) and Sam. They go off just as the Black Riders come to Hobbiton.

Gandalf finds out about the Black Riders but is delayed, because the Dark Lord is hunting him (or because of Treebeard). He is alarmed at finding Frodo gone and immediately rides off to Buckland, but is again too late. He loses their trail owing to the Old Forest escapade, and actually gets ahead. He falls in with Trotter. Who is Trotter?

At the end of this sketch my father for a moment contemplated an entirely novel answer to this question: that Trotter was 'a disguised elf

- friend of Bilbo's in Rivendell.' He was one of the Rivendell scouts, of whom many were sent out, and he 'pretends to be a ranger'. This was struck out, probably as soon as written.

If this is compared with the note dated August 1939 given in VI.374

it will be seen that a passage in the latter bears a distinct similarity to what is said here:

Gandalf does not tell Frodo to leave Shire ... The plan for leaving was entirely Frodo's. Dreams or some other cause [added: restlessness] have made him decide to go journeying (to find Cracks of Doom? after seeking counsel of Elrond). Gandalf simply vanishes for years.... Gandalf is simply trying to find them, and is desperately upset when he discovers Frodo has left Hobbiton.

That Treebeard was a hostile being, and that he held Gandalf in captivity during the crucial time, appeared in the 'third phase' Chapter XII (VI.363); cf. also VI.384, 397.

(2) In another undated scrap is seen the actual emergence of

'Trotter's' true name - as a Man: Aragorn.

Trotter is a man of Elrond's race descendant of [struck out at once: Turin] the ancient men of the North, and one of Elrond's household. He was a hunter and wanderer. He became a friend of Bilbo.