The Treason of Isengard (48 page)

'Elfstone'. From this I judge that it belongs to the period we have reached, i.e. before 'Aragorn' was restored (see pp. 277 - 8). But this typescript stops at the bottom of its sixth page, at the words The air was cool and soft, as if it were (FR p. 374); and the text is continued to the end of the chapter in a very carefully written manuscript that I made when I was seventeen, beginning at the head of 'page 7* with the words that follow: early spring, yet they felt about them the deep and thoughtful quiet of winter (it is thus obvious that my manuscript simply took up from the point where the typescript stopped). The text in my copy shows no further development from my father's manuscript: thus Galadriel's ring remains the Ring of Earth, and she still laughs 'with a sudden clear laugh of merriment'. At the end of it I wrote the date: 4 August 1942.

Whatever the date of the typewritten part of this composite text, my continuation of it in manuscript was certainly made well after my father had completed work on the 'Lothlorien' story. He himself declared, many years later, that he reached Lothlorien and the Great River late in 1941, and it will be seen subsequently that he was writing

'The Breaking of the Fellowship' and 'The Departure of Boromir' in the middle of the winter of that year (p. 379).

NOTES.

1. My father first wrote here 'Welcome to Nelennas', immediately striking out Nelennas and substituting Caras Galadon (which here first appears), and continuing 'the city of Nelennas which

[?mayhap] in your tongue is called Angle'. This seems to show that Nelennas was very briefly the name of the city, as I have suggested (p. 242 note 39) is the case in the plot-notes given on p. 233: 'They journey to Nelennas'. But the alteration changes the meaning of Nelennas back to the 'Gore' or 'Angle', replacing Nelen (see p. 231 and note 34).

2. A little rough diagram set in the body of the text shows a circular figure shaped like one ring of a coil, with a very substantial overlap between the ends of the line: the external opening (the entrance into Caras Galadon through the walls) is on the left side of the figure, and the internal opening (the opening from the

'lane' into the city) is at the bottom (i.e. the walls overlap for a full quarter of the circuit or more).

There is no mention of how they passed through the gates (contrast FR p. 368). My father actually wrote here: 'They saw

... the elves on guard at the gate they saw no folk on guard', etc., striking no words out.

3. This is the first appearance of Celeborn and Galadriel. Just visible in the underlying pencilled text are other names: Tar and Finduilas struck out, and then Aran and Rhien. Rhien is perhaps to be equated with Rian (the name of Tuor's mother); cf. the Etymologies, V.383, stem RIG: 'Rhian name of a woman, =

"crown-gift", rig-anna'. See notes 5 and 9.

4. The first occurrence of Halldir (sic) for Hathaldir; a few lines further on the name is spelt Haldir and so remains. Haldir was the original name for this Elf; see p. 240 note 28. In the underlying text the superseded name Hathaldir can be seen.

5. This passage (from 'The roof was a pale gold') was retained (i.e.

not overwritten in ink or erased) from the original pencilled text, and here reappear (after the words 'side by side') the names Aran and Rhien (see note 3), subsequently struck out. On the white hair of Galadriel cf. the plot-notes given on p. 233.

6. Ingold son of Ingrim for Aragorn replaced Elfstone (see p. 239

note 23), since that name can be made out in the pencilled text beneath. At his last appearance in this manuscript (p. 232) he was still Aragorn; and it is thus here that Elfstone first appears ab initio (as also does Ingold in the secondary text).

7. Written in here is the following, apparently of the same time but disconnected from the narrative:

'Nay, there was no mistake,' said Galadriel, speaking for the first time. Her voice was deeper but clear and musical / clear and musical but deep, and seemed to carry knowledge that was too deep for mirth.

This depends on something said by Keleborn, of which however there is no trace in this manuscript; see p. 257.

8. See p. 227 and note 29.

9. In the underlying pencilled text Aran was changed here, as my father wrote, to Galdaran; and at the head of the page are written the names Galdaran and Galdrin (perhaps miswritten for Galdrien, see pp. 249 - 50).

10. On the survival of Balrogs from the Elder Days see V.336, $16.

11. Parts of the underlying pencilled text of this passage can be made out, and the purport of Keleborn's words was very much the same - except that it was Keleborn (Galdaran) himself, not Galadriel, who raised a doubt:

'A Balrog,' said [Aran >] Galdaran. 'Of them I have not heard since the Elder Days ... had hidden in Mordor but of them naught has been seen since the fall of Thangorodrim. I doubt much if this Balrog has ... and I fear rather ... Orodruin in Mordor by Sauron. Yet who knows what lies hid at the roots of the ancient hills...'

At the bottom of the page is a variant, added to the revised text but belonging to the same time, in which it is Galadriel who expresses the opinion previously given to Keleborn, and more decisively:

'No Balrog has lain hid in the Misty Mountains since the fall of Thangorodrim,' said Galadriel. 'If truly one was there, as is told, then it is come from Orodruin, the Mountain of Fire, and was sent by the Lord whom we do not name in this land.'

In FR, of course, the view expressed here by Keleborn or Galadriel that the Balrog, sent from Mordor, had entered Moria not long since ('it is come from Orodruin') has no place. In LR

the Balrog of Moria came from Thangorodrim at the end of the First Age, and 'had lain hidden at the foundations of the earth since the coming of the Host of the West' (see pp. 142 - 3).

I have suggested (p. 186) that although a Balrog appears in the original sketch of the Moria story, the connection with the flight of the Dwarves from Moria had not yet been made. The present passage is the chief evidence for this. It is true that in the version in the main text Galadriel is less positive than Keleborn, but in the subsequent variant she utters an emphatic denial that a Balrog could have 'lain hid in the Misty Mountains since the fall of Thangorodrim' (not that anybody present had suggested that it did). This must have been my father's view, since it would be strange indeed to introduce the Lord and Lady of Lothlorien,

'accounted wise beyond the measure of the Elves of Middle-earth', in the immediate expression of an erroneous opinion.

12. The phrases 'The lord and lady of Lothlorien are accounted wise beyond the measure of the Elves of Middle-earth' and 'For we have dwelt here since the Mountains were reared and the Sun was young' strongly suggest that my father conceived them to be Elves of Valinor, exiled Noldor who did not return at the end of the First Age. The Noldor came to Middle-earth in exile at the time of the making of the Sun and the Hiding of Valinor, when the Mountains of the West were 'raised to sheer and dreadful height'

(V.242). Afterwards, when my father returned to The Silmarillion again, Galadriel entered the legends of the First Age as the daughter of Finarfin and sister of Finrod Felagund.

13. The first word in this sentence could be 'Nor' or 'Now', but must in fact be 'Now' since it is followed by 'we will', not 'will we'. But in FR Galadriel says 'I will not give you counsel', and her explanation of why she will not is almost word for word the same as what she says here. I think therefore that my father must have changed his mind concerning Galadriel's speech as he wrote, but failed to alter her opening words.

14. A scribble at the foot of the page advances Boromir's words towards the form in FR (p. 373): 'she was tempting me, and offered something that she had the power to give. It need not be said that I refused to listen.' Cf. p. 258.

15. A first suggestion of Keleborn's offer to Legolas and Gimli appears in the plot-notes on p. 233. The last two sentences of Keleborn's speech and the first part of Gimli's reply were subsequently used in Gloin's conversation with Frodo at Rivendell (FR p. 241): 'Frodo learned that Grimbeorn the Old, son of Beorn, was now the lord of many sturdy men, and to their land between the Mountains and Mirkwood neither orc nor wolf dared to go. "Indeed," said Gloin, "if it were not for the Beornings the passage from Dale to Rivendell would long ago have become impossible." '

16. The biscuit factory of Sandyman &c Son (p. 216).

17. This is the first appearance of the name Mithrandir (see V.345).

18. Scribbled notes at this point direct that Merry and Pippin should speak of Gandalf, and that they should speak of the 'temptation of Galadriel'; there is also a reference to the 'Song of Frodo and Sam' (FR pp. 374-5). A page of rough workings for the song is found with these papers, though without any narrative framework. The first and third verses were almost in final form; the second at this time read:

When morning on the Hill was bright

across the stream he rode again;

beside our hearth he sat that night

and merry was the firelight then.

The second verse in FR, From Wilderland to Western shore, was added in, apparently to stand between verses 2 and 3. The fourth verse ran:

A shining sword in deadly hand,

a hooded pilgrim on the road,

a mountain-fire above the land,

a back that bent beneath the load.

The fifth verse had virtually reached the form in FR; the sixth read:

Of Moria, of Khazaddum

all folk shall ever sadly tell

and now shall name it Gandalf's tomb

where hope into the Shadow fell.

19. The meeting with Galadriel was altered at the time of writing to the form given. At first my father did not say that it was the evening of the third day, and when they came to 'a green hollow over which there was no roof or trees' the sun, which was in the south, looked down into it; cf. the outline given on p. 249;

'Mirror is of silver filled with fountain water in sun'.

A note in the margin directs that Sam should also be present, and another reads: 'Answer to remarks of Sam and Frodo that these elves seem simple woodland folk, skilled, but not specially magical' (cf. FR pp. 376 - 7).

20. At this point the following was entered disconnectedly in the manuscript: 'Frodo (Sam?) had been heard to say to Elfstone: Elves seem quiet, and ordinary. Have they magic as is reported?'

Cf. note 19.

21. Against this passage my father wrote in the margin: Bilbo. In an isolated draft developing this passage the vision of Bilbo in his room at Rivendell (FR p. 379) is found almost as in the final form. In this draft the vision of 'a fortress with high stone walls and seven towers' is followed by 'a vast figure of a man who seemed to be standing leaning on a tree that was only up to his breast'; this was placed in brackets. This is followed by 'a great river flowing through a populous city' (as in FR), and then by the vision of the Sea and the dark ship, as in the primary text.

22. Cf. the outline of the visions in the Mirror given on p. 250: 'Sees Gollum?'

23. It is notable that in this earliest form of the story the visions that Frodo sees in the Mirror have no reference to Sauron, yet Galadriel at once speaks of him, and the contest of their minds, introducing thus her revelation that she is the keeper of the Ring of Earth. In FR (p. 380) it is because Galadriel knows that Frodo has seen the Eye that she at once speaks to him of the Dark Lord, and the showing of her Ring is directly related to his vision: 'it cannot be hidden from the Ring-bearer, and one who has seen the Eye.'

24. For 'the Ring of Earth' see VI.260, 269, 319.

25. Cf. the isolated note concerning the fading of the power of the Elf-rings if the One Ring were destroyed, p. 237.

26. The word could be equally well read as 'shall' or 'should';

'should' in the next manuscript of the chapter (and in FR).

27. Cf. pp. 115, 162. In FR Sam says here that 'Elrond knew what he was about when he wanted to send Mr. Merry back'; earlier (FR

p. 289) Elrond had said that he had thought to send both Merry and Pippin back to the Shire, but after Gandalf's support for their inclusion in the Company he expressed doubt specifically concerning Pippin.

28. In the outline given on p. 249 'They dwell 15 days in Caras Galadon'. Starting from 15 December as the date of arrival in Lothlorien, even though that seems to be two days out (see p. 215

note 1), and seeing that in the original story it was only a single day's journey from the night spent on the flet near the falls of Nimrodel to the arrival in Caras Galadon at nightfall, the date of departure can be reckoned to be 1 January.

29. Up to this point the pagination is doubled, e.g. 'XVIII.34 /

XIX.8'; from this point only that of 'XIX' is given.

30. At three occurrences Ingold was never changed; at one it was changed afterwards to Elfstone, and at one to Aragorn. See pp.