The War of the Ring (15 page)

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In his foreword to the Second Edition of The Lord of the Rings my father said that in 1942 he 'wrote the first drafts of the matter that now stands as Book III, 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.'(19) It seems to have been about the end of 1942 or soon after that he stopped; for in a letter to Stanley Unwin of 7 December 1942 (Letters no. 47) he said that the book had reached Chapter XXXI 'and will require at least six more to finish (these are already sketched).' This chapter was undoubtedly 'The Palantir' (not 'Flotsam and Jetsam', Letters p. 437, note to letter 47).

In the foreword to the Second Edition he went on: 'It was during 1944 that ... I forced myself to tackle the journey of Frodo to Mordor', and this new beginning can be very precisely dated; for on 3 April 1944 he said in a letter to me (Letters no. 58): I have begun to nibble at Hobbit again. I have started to do some (painful) work on the chapter which picks up the adventures of Frodo and Sam again; and to get myself attuned have been copying and polishing the last written chapter (Orthanc-Stone).

Two days later, on 5 April 1944 (Letters no. 59) he wrote to me: I have seriously embarked on an effort to finish my book, & have been sitting up rather late: a lot of re-reading and research required.

And it is a painful sticky business getting into swing again. I have gone back to Sam and Frodo, and am trying to work out their adventures. A few pages for a lot of sweat: but at the moment they are just meeting Gollum on a precipice.

The 'copying and polishing' of 'The Orthanc-Stone' that my father did at this time is the second, very finely written manuscript of the chapter. Well over a year had passed since the first manuscript of the chapter was written, but not unnaturally no changes of significance were made m the new text: thus Aragorn's reception of the palantir remains in the simple form it had (p. 75); Gandalf does not refer to the possibility that Wormtongue might have recognised Aragorn on the stairs of Orthanc (note 17); Aglarond was still one of the ancient sites of the palantiri of Gondor, and Gandalf still says that he does not know where the others had been 'for no rhyme says', but maybe in Fornost and with Cirdan at the Grey Havens.(20) NOTES.

1. On 'the road that led to the bridge' see p. 31, where coming in the other direction the company had crossed the bridge and 'found a road that with a wide northward sweep brought them to the great highway to the fords.'

2. In the notes on distances referred to on p. 42 note 14 Eodoras to Isenford is given as 125 miles, which agrees well with the First Map (VII.319) and with the statement in TT ('Helm's Deep', p. 131) that it was forty leagues and more: see p. 12. Eodoras to Isengard is given in these notes as 140 miles (46-6 leagues), which again agrees closely with the First Map (about 2-8 cm.). Eodoras to Helm's Deep or mouth of Coomb is 110 miles; in my -

redrawing this distance is 100 miles (2 cm.), but the map is here very difficult to interpret and I have probably not placed Helm's Deep at precisely the point my father intended: on my map made in 1943 the distance as the crow flies is 110 miles. - The idea that after the visit to Isengard Theoden and his companions returned to Eodoras goes back to the outline 'The Story Foreseen from Fangorn', VII.437.

3. There is a second draft of the opening, which need not be given in full. Here it is noted how they rode: 'Gandalf took Merry behind him, and Aragorn took Pippin; Gimli rode as before with Eomer, and Legolas was upon Arod at his side'; but this was immediately changed to 'Legolas and Gimli rode together again.' After a further hesitation, whether the company went down to the Fords or passed over the bridge below Isengard and went east, this draft ends:

Gandalf's plan had at first been to ride straight to Eodoras from Isengard. But he said 'Victory has its dangers', and Theoden had best ride with secrecy now, and with many men.

They would return to the Deeping Coomb and send on a messenger, bidding the men who were labouring there to hasten their work and be prepared to ride on the morrow by hill-paths. So now the company rode at a gentle [pace]

4. Cf. Unfinished Tales p. 405: 'It needed the demonstration on Dol Baran of the effects of the Orthanc-stone on Peregrin to reveal suddenly that the "link" between Isengard and Barad-dur (seen to exist after it was discovered that forces of Isengard had been joined with others directed by Sauron in the attack on the Fellowship at Parth Galen) was in fact the Orthanc-stone - and one other palantir.'

5. The distance from Orthanc to Barad-dur on the First Map is 12-3 cm., = 615 miles or 205 leagues. - This is a convenient place to notice that in my redrawing of section IV of the First Map (VII.319) what I have represented as a small circle on the western side of the Wizard's Vale seems not to be so, but is rather an alteration in the line marking the edge of the vale. At the upper end of the vale is a minute circle that must represent Isengard.

6. The story here was that the Ents (who at the beginning of the draft on p. 68 are said to have gone back to the sources of the stream, leaving Treebeard alone at the gate of Isengard) had at once obeyed Gandalf's parting request to Treebeard (TT p. 192) that the waters of Isen be again poured into the Ring.

7. From Isenford to Osgiliath on the First Map is 8-6 cm., = 430

miles or 143 leagues.

8. Cf. VII.447: 'If I live, I will come, Lady Eowyn, and then maybe we will ride together.'

9. Cf. Gandalf s words in The Two Towers, p. 203: Alas for Saruman! It was his downfall, as I now perceive'; and in The Return of the King, p. 133: Thus the will of Sauron entered into Minas Tirith.'

10. It is written in fact on the back of one of the pages of the initial continuous drafting of the chapter (p. 73), but seems entirely unconnected with it.

11. Angost was a passing substitution for Angrenost: see p. 44 note 27.

12. One of the pages of this draft carries also drafting of the passage in 'The Voice of Saruman' in which Gandalf, seeing Pippin carrying the palantir, cries out 'Here, my lad, I'll take that! I did not ask you to handle it.' See p. 66.

13. I mention the following as examples of such differences in the detail of this part of the story. In Gandalf's talk with Merry as they rode from Isengard (TT p. 194), after saying that he had not yet fathomed what the link was between Saruman and Sauron and that 'Rohan will be ever in his thought', he used again the words found in the soon abandoned draft for the opening of the chapter (p. 68): 'There is no one of this company, be sure, whose name and deeds are not noted now in the mind of Sauron ., but my father bracketed this, with the marginal note: 'No: Gandalf*s return hidden.' In the night halt beneath Dolbaran (so written, as also in the outline on p. 72) Merry and Pippin lay not far from Gandalf; when Pippin got up from his bed 'the two guards sitting on their horses had their backs to the camp'; Pippin saw a glitter from Gandalf's eyes as he slept 'Under his long dark lashes' ('long lashes' 11 ); the palantir lay beside the wizard's left hand.

14. This was preserved in the First Edition of The Two Towers.

15. As in TT, Gandalf guesses that the palantir of Barad-dur was the Ithil-stone.

16. Mithond must be a mere slip, though it was left uncorrected. It is curious that in the next manuscript, made in 1944 (pp. 77 - 8), the form in this passage was Mithrond, corrected to Mithlond.

17. In TT 'That is what I fear' refers to additional sentences inserted after 'with hobbits at my tail': 'Or that an heir of Elendil lives and stood beside me. If Wormtongue was not deceived by the armour of Rohan, he would remember Aragorn and the title that he claimed.' But this insertion was made long after (on 'the armour of Rohan' borne by Aragorn see TT p. 127, and in this book p. 304 and p. 317 with note 9).

18. Tor-dilluin was emended to Mindolluin. The mountain was added roughly to the First Map and not named, but carefully shown on the 1943 map (VII.310). - With Gandalf's forecast that they will come to Minas Tirith at sunset cf. p. 73 (Gandalf reaches Minas Tirith at sunset on February 5).

19. Cf. my father's letter to Caroline Everett, 24 June 1957 (Letters no. 199):

I was in fact longest held up - by exterior circumstances as well as interior - at the point now represented by the last words of Book iii (reached about 1942 or 3). After that Chapter 1 of Book v remained very long as a mere opening (as far as the arrival in Gondor); Chapter 2 [The Passing of the Grey Company] did not exist; and Chapter 3, Muster of Rohan, had got no further than the arrival at Harrowdale.

Chapter 1 of Book iv [The Taming of Smeagol] had hardly got beyond Sam's opening words (Vol. II p. 209). Some parts of the adventures of Frodo and Sam on the confines of Mordor and in it had been written (but were eventually abandoned).

The last sentence evidently refers to the text that I called 'The Story Foreseen from Lorien', in VII.324 ff.

In fact, there is very clear evidence that my father erred in his recollection that the abandoned beginnings of Chapters 1 and 3

of Book V belonged to the time that we have now reached (i.e. the end of Book III); see pp. 231 ff., where the question is discussed in detail.

20. The text has Mithrond here, corrected to Mithlond: see note 16. -

I collect a few further details from this second manuscript.

Palantirs became Palantiri in the course of writing it. - Osgiliath is named Elostirion (Elostirion being roughly substituted for Osgiliath in the first manuscript, but very probably at this time).

This change was introduced in a note dated February 9 1942

(VII.423), and appears in the outline 'The Story Foreseen from Fangorn' (VII.435). Osgiliath in the drafting and first manuscript of 'The Palantir' was thus a reversion, and Elostirion in 1944

another. Finally Elostirion was afterwards corrected back to Osgiliath on the 1944 manuscript.

Lastly, there was much hesitation about the phase of the moon on the night of the camp below Dol Baran. In the original draft no more was said than that 'The moon was shining' when Pippin got up from his bed. In the first manuscript 'The moon had risen far away but could not yet be seen; a pale sheen was in the sky above the bushes and the eastern rim of the dell'; with this compare perhaps the early notes given on p. 69, where Gandalf looks into the Seeing Stone and says 'The moon is already visible in Osgiliath.' This was changed to 'The moon was shining cold and white into the dell and the shadows of the bushes were black'; but on both the first and second manuscripts my father then shifted back and forth between the two statements, until he finally decided on the latter, which is the reading of TT (p. 196).

On the first manuscript he noted in the margin the following times (which show a much more rapid journey from Isengard than in the outline on p. 72): 'Sunset about 5 p.m. They camped about 6 p.m. This [i.e. Pippin's looking into the palantir]

happened about 11 p.m. Moon rose 6.34 p.m.' According to the elaborate time-scheme that was made after the introduction of changes in October 1944 (VII.368), the New Moon had been on 21 January, the First Quarter on 29 January, and Full Moon was on 6 February, three nights after the camp beneath Dol Baran.

PART TWO.

THE RING GOES EAST.

I.

THE TAMING OF SMEAGOL.

In his letter of June 1957 cited in note 19 to the last chapter (p. 80) my father said that at the time of this long break in the writing of The Lord of the Rings 'Chapter 1 of Book iv had hardly got beyond Sam's opening words (Vol. II p. 209)'. That beginning of a new story of Sam and Frodo in Mordor,(1) for so long set aside, can I think be identified: it consists of a brief narrative opening that soon breaks down into outline form ('A'), and a portion of formed narrative ('B') that ends at Sam's words (TT p. 210) 'a bit of plain bread, and a mug aye half a mug of beer would go down proper'. The original draft A went thus:

'Well Master this is a nasty place and no mistake,' said Sam to Frodo. They had been wandering for days in the hard barren heights of Sarn Gebir. Now at last on the fifth evening since their flight (2) they stood on the edge of a grey cliff. A chill east wind blew. Far below the land lay green at the feet of the cliff, and away S.W. [read S.E.] a pall of grey cloud or shadow hung shutting out the remoter view.

'It seems we have come the wrong way altogether,' went on Sam. 'That's where we want to get, or we don't want to but we mean to. And the quicker the better, if we must do it. But we can't get down, and if we do get down there is all that nasty green marsh. Phew, can you smell it.' He sniffed the wind: cold as it was it seemed heavy with a stench of cold decay and rottenness.

'We are above the Dead Marshes that lie between Anduin and the pass into Mordor,' said Frodo. 'We have come the wrong way - [we >) I should have left the Company long before and come down from the North, east of Sarn Gebir and over the hard of Battle Plain. But it would take us weeks on foot to work back northward over these hills. I don't know what is to be done.%hat food have we?'