The Treason of Isengard (6 page)

Chapter III: 'Three is Company'.

The third version of this chapter, described in VI.323 - 5, was also revised at this time. The title was now changed from 'Delays are Dangerous' to 'Three is Company' (cf. the original title, 'Three's Company and Four's More', VI.49 and note 2); and the order of the opening passages was reversed, so that the chapter now begins as in FR with ' "You ought to go quietly, and you ought to go soon," said Gandalf', and his conversation with Frodo precedes the speculations in the Ivy Bush and Green Dragon (see VI.274 and note 1). This reorganisation and rewriting was very roughly done on the pages of the third phase manuscript and on inserted riders ('A'); the revised opening was then written out fair ('B'), as far as Gaffer Gamgee's conversation with the Black Rider in Bagshot Row, and the remainder of the existing text added to it, to form textually speaking a hybrid, just as in the case of the first two chapters.

The draft revision A of Gandalf s departure from Bag End takes this form:

Gandalf stayed at Bag-End for over two months. But one evening, soon after Frodo's plan had been arranged, he suddenly announced that he was going off again next morning. 'I need to stretch my legs a bit, before our journey begins,' he said.

'Besides, I think I ought to go and look round, and see what news I can pick up down south on the borders, before we start.'

He spoke lightly, but it seemed to Frodo that he looked rather grave and thoughtful. 'Has anything happened? Have you heard something?' he asked.

'Well, yes, to tell you the truth,' said the wizard, 'I did hear something today that made me a bit anxious. But I won't say anything, unless I find out more for certain. If I think it necessary for you to get off at once, I shall come back immediately. In the meanwhile stick to your plan...'

The remainder of his farewell words are as in FR (p. 76), except that he says 'I think you will need my company on the Road', not that

'after all' Frodo 'may' need it. As written in the fair copy B the passage is the same as this, except that Gandalf no longer refers to 'our journey - he says: I need to stretch my legs a bit. There are one or two things I must see to: I have been idle longer than I should'; and his last words are: 'I think after all you will need my company on the Road.'

Frodo's friends, who came to stay with him to help in the packing up of Bag End, are now (as also in the contemporary rewriting of

'Ancient History', p. 21) Hamilcar Bolger, Faramond Took,(16) and his closest friends Peregrin Boffin and Merry Brandybuck. It is now Hamilcar Bolger who goes off to Buckland with Merry in the third cart.(17) In the draft revision A 'Peregrin Boffin went back home to Overhill after lunch', whereas in B 'Faramond Took went home after lunch, but Peregrin and Sam remained behind', and Frodo 'took his own tea with Peregrin and Sam in the kitchen.' At the end of the meal

'Peregrin and Sam strapped up their three packs and piled them in the porch. Peregrin went out for a last stroll in the garden. Sam disappeared.'

Throughout these manuscripts 'Pippin' appears as a later correction of 'Folco'; and in the passage referred to above, naming Frodo's four friends who stayed at Bag End, 'Faramond Took' was changed subsequently to 'Folco Boffin', 'Peregrin Boffin' to 'Pippin Took', and

'Hamilcar Bolger' to 'Fredegar Bolger'. These, with Merry Brandybuck, are the four who are present on this occasion in FR (p. 76). But such corrections as these prove nothing as to date: they could have been entered on the manuscript at any subsequent time.

Nonetheless, it must have been at this stage, I think, that 'Peregrin Took' or 'Pippin' at last entered. Under Chapter V 'A Conspiracy Unmasked' below, it will be seen that in a rewritten section of the manuscript from this time (as distinct from mere emendation to the existing 'third phase' text) not only does 'Hamilcar' appear, as is to be expected, but 'Pippin' appears for the first time as the text was written.

This rewritten section of 'A Conspiracy Unmasked' certainly belongs to the same time as the rewritten ('fourth phase') parts of 'Ancient History' and 'Three is Company'. The correction of 'Folco (Took)' to

'Pippin' in these manuscripts therefore does in fact belong to the same period; though they are carefully written texts, the final stage in the evolution of the 'younger hobbits' was taking place as my father wrote them; and though at the beginning of the B text of 'Three is Company'

Frodo's friend was Peregrin Boffin, he may have already been Peregrin Took by the time he took his last stroll in the Bag End garden.

The question is not perhaps worth spending very long on, since it is now very largely one of name simply, but I have followed the tortuous trail too long to leave it without an attempt at analysis at the end.

What happened, I think, was as follows. Folco Took of the 'third phase' (who had an interesting and complex genesis out of the original

'young hobbits', Frodo (Took) and Odo, see VI.323-4) was renamed Faramond Took (p. 15, note 1). At this time 'Peregrin Boffin', who had first entered as the 'explanation' of Trotter, became one of Frodo's younger friends. This is the situation in the rewritten or 'fourth phase'

portions of Chapters II and III (pp. 21, 30). In Chapter III Faramond Took 'went home after lunch', and he is then out of the story.

'Peregrin' and Sam stayed on at Bag End, and it is clear that they are going to be Frodo's companions on the walk to Buckland.

'Peregrin' (Boffin) is thus stepping into the narrative place of Folco (briefly renamed Faramond) Took; or rather - since the narrative was now in a finished form - this name takes over the character. Just why Folco/Faramond Took would not do I cannot say for certain. It may have been simply a preference of names. But if Faramond Took is got rid of and Peregrin Boffin made the third member of the party walking to Buckland, there would be no Took at all: my father would have left himself with a Baggins, a Boffin, a Brandybuck, and a Gamgee.

Perhaps this is why the Boffin was changed into a Took, and the Took into a Boffin: Peregrin Boffin became Peregrin (or Pippin) Took, and Faramond Took, reverting to his former name Folco, became Folco Boffin (who 'went home after lunch' in FR, p. 77). These corrections to the new text of Chapter III were evidently made before my father rewrote the ending of Chapter V, where 'Pippin' first appears in a text as written and not by later correction.

Thus it is that Peregrin Took of LR occupies the same genealogical place as did Frodo Took of the earliest phases (see VI.267, note 4): and thus 'Folco' of the 'third phase' manuscripts is corrected everywhere to 'Pippin'.

It would be legitimate, I think, to see in all this a single or particular hobbit-character, who appears under an array of names: Odo, Frodo, Folco, Faramond, Peregrin, Hamilcar, Fredegar, and the very ephemeral Olo (VI.299) - Tooks, Boffins, and Bolgers. Though no doubt a very 'typical' hobbit of the Shire, this 'character' is in relation to his companions very distinct: cheerful, nonchalant, irrepressible, commonsensical, limited, and extremely fond of his creature comforts.

I will call this character 'X'. He begins as Odo Took, but becomes Odo Bolger. My father gets rid of him from the first journey (to Buckland), and as a result Frodo Took (Merry Brandybuck's first cousin), who had been potentially a very different character (see VI.70), becomes

'X', while retaining the name Frodo Took. Odo, however, reappears, because he has gone on ahead to Buckland with Merry Brandybuck while the others are walking; he may be called 'XX'. He will have a separate adventure, riding with Gandalf to Weathertop and ultimately turning up again at Rivendell, where (for a very brief time in the development of the narrative) he will rejoin 'X', now renamed 'Folco Took' (since Bingo Baggins has taken over the name Frodo).

In the 'third phase' of the narrative, then, 'X' is Folco Took, Merry's cousin; and 'XX' is Odo Bolger. But now 'X' is renamed Faramond Took, and 'XX' is renamed Hamilcar Bolger. A new character called Peregrin Boffin appears: beginning as a much older figure, originally a hobbit of the Shire who became through his experiences a most unusual person, known as 'Trotter', he, or rather his name, survives to become one of Frodo's younger friends. 'Faramond Took' is pushed aside and left with scarcely any role at all, becoming the shadowy Folco Boffin; and 'Peregrin Boffin', becoming 'Peregrin Took' or

'Pippin', becomes 'X' - and Merry's first cousin.

Looking back to the beginning, therefore, 'Pippin' of LR will largely take over 'Odo's' remarks; but as I said (VI.70), 'the way in which this came about was strangely tortuous, and was by no means a simple substitution of one name for another.' For Pippin is Merry's first cousin, and is derived through Folco/Faramond from the original Frodo Took: he is not derived from Odo, who was moved sideways, so to speak, becoming Hamilcar (Fredegar). But Pippin is derived from Odo, in the sense that he like Odo is 'X'.

For the rest, Lobelia Sackville-Baggins' son, while keeping his name Cosimo, loses his pimples and gains 'sandy-haired' as his defining epithet. Gaffer Gamgee's observation on the subject of having Lobelia as his neighbour is recorded: ' "I can't abide changes at my time of life, said he (he was 99),(18) "and anyhow not changes for the worst.

In FR the Gaffer's complaint was reported by Gandalf to the Council of Elrond (p. 276).

From the point where my father merely retained the manuscript of the 'third phase', and in subsequent chapters, 'Folco' was corrected to

'Pippin'.

Chapter IV: 'A Short Cut to Mushrooms'.

In this case the third phase manuscript was retained intact (apart from

'Peregrin' or 'Pippin' for 'Folco' throughout), the final form having already been attained (see VI.325).

Chapter V: 'A Conspiracy Unmasked'

(with 'The Dream of the Tower').

A rough draft of a rewriting of the end of this chapter survives (for the previous forms of the passage see VI.104-5, 301 - 2, 326). Odo has become Hamilcar, and the conversation proceeds now almost exactly as in FR p. 118: that Hamilcar should stay behind was part of the original plan. Frodo no longer gives a letter to Odo/Hamilcar (VI.326), but says: 'It would not have been safe to leave a written message: the Riders might get here first, and search the house.' The only elements in FR that are still lacking are that Hamilcar's family came from Budgeford in Bridgefields,(19) and that 'he had even brought along some old clothes of Frodo's to help him in playing the part.' This rewriting stops before the account of Frodo's dream that night, of a sea of tangled trees and something snuffling among the roots (VI.302), but it is clear that at this stage it remained unchanged.

It is necessary here to turn aside for a moment from the end of 'A Conspiracy Unmasked' and to bring in a remarkable brief narrative of this time, extant in several texts, which may be called 'The Dream of the Tower'. In the narrative outline dated 'Autumn 1939' given on p. 9

Gandalf is 'besieged in the Western Tower. He cannot get away while they guard it with five Riders. But when Black Riders have located Frodo and found that he has gone off without Gandalf they ride away.' This is what Frodo saw in his dream.

My father was much exercised about the placing of it (see p. 11). In the Time-schemes A and B the date of Gandalf's escape from the Western Tower was first given as 24 September, and there is a suggestion that Frodo dreamt his dream of the event that night, when with the Elves in the Woody End. The date was then changed to the 25th, when Frodo was at Crickhollow, and so appears in schemes A, B, and C. Scheme D gives no date for Gandalf's escape, and places the

'Dream of the Tower' variously on the 24th, 25th, or 26th. For some reason, however, my father decided to place it after the event, on the night of the 29th, when Frodo was at Bree, and Gandalf was at Crickhollow.

The text of Frodo's dream at-Bree is found in three forms, two preparatory drafts and a finished manuscript.(20) I give it here in the third form, since the only significant difference from the drafts is that in them the figure who summons the watchers from the Tower is seen by the dreamer ('another dark-robed figure appeared over the brow of the hill: it beckoned and gave a shrill call in a strange tongue').

The narrative begins almost exactly as in FR p. 189, with Frodo waking suddenly in the room at The Prancing Pony, seeing Trotter sitting alert in his chair, and falling asleep again.

Frodo soon went to sleep again; but now he passed at once into a dream. He found himself on a dark heath. Looking up, he saw before him a tall white tower, standing alone upon a high ridge. Beyond it the sky was pale, and far off there came a murmur like the voices of the Great Sea which he had never heard nor beheld, save in other dreams. In the topmost chamber of the tower there shone dimly a blue light.

Suddenly he found that he had drawn near and the tower loomed high above him. About its feet there was a wall of faintly shining stones, and outside the wall sat silent watchers: black-robed figures on black horses, gazing at the gate of the tower without moving, as if they had sat there for ever.