The Treason of Isengard (62 page)

11. The account of Sam's tracking of Frodo that follows is developed from that in the previous Plot (p. 208):

The search. Sam is lost. He tries to track Frodo and comes on Gollum. He follows Gollum and Gollum leads him to Frodo.

Frodo hears following feet. And flies. But Sam comes up too to his surprise. The two are too much for Gollum. Gollum is daunted by Frodo - who has a power over him as Ringbearer....

Gollum pleads for forgiveness and feigns reform. They make him lead them through the Dead Marshes.

12. Sam is now on the east side of Anduin, and the boat 'knocking against the bank' is the boat in which Frodo has crossed.

13. This paragraph ('Gollum was so intent on the trail...') evidently replaced the story that preceded, although that was not struck OUT.

14. Kirith Ungol was at this time the name of the great pass leading into Mordor in the North-west (pp. 283, 285, and Map III on p. 309).

15. At some time later my father struck it all out and wrote in pencil: Steep place where Frodo has to climb a precipice. Sam goes first so that if Frodo falls he will knock Sam down first. They see Gollum come down by moonlight like a fly.

This is where the story in The Two Towers (IV.1, 'The Taming of Smeagol', p. 219) first appears.

16. Cf. the previous Plot, p. 210. It is seen from the synopsis that immediately follows (pp. 329 - 30) of the chapter telling what happened to Merry and Pippin that my father had still no idea that anything more untoward had happened to them.

17. This passage remains virtually unchanged in substance from the previous Plot (p. 211).

18. At a later stage my father pencilled in various developments to Chapters XXII and XXIII (as renumbered). The synopsis of the former he altered thus: 'Black orcs of Misty Mountains capture Merry and Pippin, bear them to Isengard. But the orcs are attacked by the Rohiroth on borders of Fangorn, and in the confusion Merry and Pippin escape unnoticed.' Also added here was 'Trotter is led astray by [? finding] orc-prints. He follows the orcs believing Frodo, Sam, etc. captured. He meets Gandalf.' To

'What happened to Gimli and Legolas' he added: 'Went with Trotter to rescue Merry and Pippin.'

19. Noted beside this sentence: s G - F asleep. F G - s asleep. s F - c asleep.

20. The origin of this passage is seen in the earlier Plot (p. 209):

'There is a ravine, a spiders' glen, they have to pass at entrance to Gorgoroth. Gollum gets spiders to put spell of sleep on Frodo.

Sam drives them off. But cannot wake him.' Kirith Ungol was not yet its name when that was written: there is mention in that outline of the Gap of Gorgoroth, clearly the pass leading into Mordor (pp. 208, 213), but the words 'a ravine they have to pass'

perhaps suggest that the 'spiders' glen' led off the Gap. In the present Plot, however, Kirith Ungol, ravine of spiders, is the pass itself.

21. It was no doubt put in when the story had gone somewhat past this point, since it is avowedly narrative in form and not outline (present tense).

22. This sentence is enclosed in square brackets in the original.

23. At the top of the page is written: 'All Sauron's folk, however, know that if Ringbearer is taken he is to be guarded as their life, but otherwise to be untouched and undespoiled, and brought intact to the Lord.' This was struck out.

24. On the Sea of Rhun or Rhunaer see p. 307.

25. This passage is enclosed in square brackets in the original.

26. For the site of Minas Morgul see Map III on p. 309. The Orcs appear to have come from there, in view of 'Sam gathers that they are going to Minas Morgul: since they are not allowed to leave their post'; and 'the path led up into the mountains' suggests that the way to Minas Morgul was by a track leading upwards out of Kirith Ungol; hence Sam sees 'from below' the Orcs entering the City.

27. Unless my father had decided to restore the original conception of Minas Anor in the East becoming Minas Morgul, and Minas Ithil in the West becoming Minas Tirith, which seems exceedingly improbable, this can only be a momentary confusion. But it occurs again: p. 366 note 19.

28. This passage is enclosed in square brackets in the original.

29. mithered: 'confused, bewildered'. My father often used this English dialect word, though as I recollect always in the form moithered; but mithered is recorded from Staffordshire and Warwickshire and the neighbouring counties of the. English midlands.

30. This sentence is enclosed in square brackets in the original. Two days seems a very long time to have elapsed since Sam took the Ring from Frodo in Kirith Ungol, and is by no means suggested in the narrative; on the other hand, on Map III (p. 309) Minas Morgul was at least 30 miles from the eastern edge of the Mountains of Shadow at Kirith Ungol. See also the time scheme on pp. 344 - 5.

31. It should be emphasized that the fact of its being written at this stage in the history of The Lord of the Rings, and not later, is clear and certain.

32. This refers of course to Sam's entry into Minas Morgul, alone.

33. Cf. 'The Tower of Cirith Ungol' in The Return of the King, p. 178: 'They were like great figures seated upon thrones. Each had three joined bodies, and three heads facing outward, and inward, and across the gateway. The heads had vulture-faces, and on their great knees were laid clawlike hands.' - A little diagrammatic sketch is included in the manuscript at this point: 34. Duath (replacing Eredwethion, p. 325) is the name of the Mountains of Shadow on the First Map and on my map made in 1943; my father added Ephel before Duath on both maps subsequently (pp. 309 - 10). - The sentence was changed in pencil to read: 'Frodo and Sam journey by night among the slopes and ravines N. of Duath towards the dreadful waste of Gorgoroth.'

35. The brackets are in the original. This notable passage is the origin of the much enlarged description of the cloaks of Lothlorien which first appears as an addition to the fair copy of 'Farewell to Lorien' (p. 285), though expressed in a wholly different way. The question 'Are these garments magical?', here asked by Frodo, was then given to Merry, and finally (FR p. 386) to Pippin ('Are these magic cloaks?').

36. The first devising of an elvish name for Mount Doom (later Amon Amarth).

37. My father first wrote here: 'They come down a long ravine opening on Kirith Un(gol)', striking out this name at once and writing instead 'opening onto Gorgoroth', etc. It is hard to be sure, but it seems likely that he saw a path climbing up to Minas Morgul out of Kirith Ungol (the pass into Mordor), by which Frodo was taken, and another more southerly approach, a road running westwards from the Dark Tower and climbing to Minas Morgul by the 'long ravine' down which Sam and Frodo made their escape (see Map III, p. 309).

38. This word is clearly written cavern, not carven.

39. This short paragraph is very hard to read and not easy to interpret, but at least it is clear that here is the first suggestion of a doubt that it was to Minas Morgul that Frodo was taken. The word I have given as East begins Ea but does not look at all like East; yet that seems appropriate to the sense (see further note 41).

The name of the tower might be Rame or Raine, among other possibilities. The words 'They would not have to cross Kirith Ungol' are at first sight puzzling, since it has just been said that they emerged from the long ravine 'beyond the south-east end of Kirith Ungol'; but I think that my father meant that they would not have to cross the open plain between the Mountains of Shadow and the Ash Mountains (Ered Lithui), whether this be called Kirith Ungol or Gorgoroth at that point.

40. See p. 339; and for an earlier suggestion that Merry and Pippin might find themselves in Mordor see p. 211.

41. On the First Map there are two small circles on either side of Kirith Ungol (on my redrawing, square P 15 on Map II, p. 305).

These reappear on my 1943 map as two small towers. On neither map are they named; but it seems clear that they represent a western and an eastern guard tower - presumably the Nargos and Gorgos named here (cf. 'There are Orc guard-towers on either side of Gorgoroth', p. 208). The words 'From Dire-castle Gorgos (and Nargos) it would be only 70 miles' mean, I think,

'From the eastern tower Gorgos (and for the matter of that from the western tower Nargos also) it was only 70 miles to Mount Doom.'

42. The three fissures and Sauron's well of fire appear in the earlier Plot (p. 209), but this is the first glimpse of the Sammath Naur.

43. Windbeam: if this name occurs elsewhere in my father's writings I have not found it, except in the Last Letter of Father Christmas, where he calls it the Great Horn, and says that he has not had to blow it for over four hundred years (cf. 'only in extremity' here) and that its sound carries as far as the North Wind blows. (Cf.

Old English beme (beam) 'trumpet'.)

XVII.

THE GREAT RIVER.

It has been seen (pp. 324, 330) that having written an outline of the story from the departure from Lorien to the 'Scattering of the Company' at 'Tollernen' my father decided that the first element in the outline, 'The Company sets off from Tongue', should in fact form the conclusion to Chapter XX ('Farewell to Lorien'), and XXI should take up with 'They are attacked with arrows'.

As I have mentioned (p. 283), the original draft for the last section of 'Farewell to Lorien' (i.e. 'The Company sets off from Tongue') was written in ink in a clear script with little hesitation. That draft section ends with the words 'End of Ch. XX', showing that the chapter-arrangement just referred to had already been devised. The characteristic very pale ink used for this section was also used for the text 'The Story Foreseen from Lorien' and for the first part of the new chapter XXI: the three texts have a strong general likeness, and were obviously written at the same time.

The draft of the last section of 'Farewell to Lorien' ends halfway down a page, and is followed by 'XXI: The Scattering of the Company'; at this stage my father assumed that the narrative outlined on pp. 324 - 8, 329 (i.e. excluding the story of Sam's tracking of Frodo) would constitute a single chapter. For the journey down the River to

'Tollernen' he had set down no more in the way of event than 'They are attacked with arrows.' I give now the opening draft of the new chapter as it was first written.(1)

Sam woke him. He was lying in a bed of blankets and furs under tall grey-stemmed trees near the river bank. The grey of morning was dim among the bare branches. Gimli was busy with a small fire near at hand. He had slept the first night of their river journey away. They started again before the day was broad. Not that most of the Company were eager to hurry southwards: they were content that the decision which they must make when they came to Rauros and the Isle of Eregon (2) lay yet some days ahead, and still less did they wish to run swiftly into the perils that certainly lay beyond, whatever course they took, but Trotter felt that the time was urgent and that willing or not they should hasten forward.

As the second day of their voyage wore on the lands changed slowly: trees thinned and then failed: on the East bank to their left, long formless slopes stretched up and away towards the sky; brown they looked as if a fire had passed over them, leaving no living thing of green; an unfriendly waste without even a withered tree or a bold stone to break the emptiness. They were come to the Brown Lands, the Withered Wold that lay in a vast desolation between Dol Dughul in Southern Mirkwood and the hills of Sarn-Gebir: what pestilence of war or fell deed of the Lord of Mordor had so blasted all that region they did not know.(3) Upon the west bank to their right the land was treeless and quite flat, but green: there were forests of reeds of great height in places that shut out the view as the little boats went rustling by along their fluttering borders: the great withered flowering heads bent in the light cold airs hissing softly and waving like funeral plumes. Here and there in open spaces they could see across the wide rolling meads hills far away, or on the edge of sight a dark line where still the southernmost phalanx of the Misty Mountains marched.

'You are looking out across the great pastures of Rohan, the Riddermark, land of the Horsemasters,' said Trotter; 'but in these evil days they do not dwell nigh the river or ride often to its shores. Anduin is wide, yet the orc-bows will with ease shoot an arrow across the stream.'

The hobbits looked from bank to bank uneasily. If before the trees had seemed hostile, as if harbouring secret dangers, now they felt that they were too naked: afloat in little open boats in the midst of wide bare land, on a river that was the boundary of war. As they went on the feeling of insecurity grew upon them.

The river broadened and grew shallow: bleak stony beaches lay upon the east, there were gravel shoals in the water and they had to steer carefully. The Brownlands rose into bleak wolds over which flowed a chill air from the East. Upon the other side the meads had become low rolling downs of grey grass, a land of fen and tussock. They shivered thinking of the lawns and fountains, the clear sun and gentle rain of Lothlorien: there was little speech and no laughter among them. Each was busy with his own thoughts. Sam had long since made up his mind that though boats were maybe not as dangerous as he had been brought up to believe, they were far more uncomfortable. He was cramped and miserable, having nothing to do but stare at the winter lands crawling by and the dark grey water, for the Company used the paddles mainly for steering, and in any case they would not have trusted Sam with a paddle. Merry and Pippin in the middle boat were ill at ease. [Added and then struck out: Merry was at the stern, facing Sam and steering.]