The War of the Ring (7 page)

In the completed manuscript of the first version the description begins in the same way,(25) but after 'left by the ancient builders and smoothers of the plain' it continues:

(B) ... a tower of masonry marvellously tall and slender, like a stone horn, that at the tip branched into three tines; and between the tines there was a narrow space where a man could stand a thousand feet above the vale.

This accompanies the drawing labelled 'Orthanc (2)', reproduced on p. 33, where the basal cone is black, and steeper than in 'Orthanc (1)', and the tower much more slender. Against this second description of the tower my father subsequently wrote:

(C) Or - if first picture [i.e. 'Orthanc (1)'] is adopted (but with cone-like rock as in second picture) [i.e. 'Orthanc (2)']:

[a tower of masonry] marvellously tall and strong. Seven round tiers it had, dwindling in girth and height, and at the top were three black horns of stone upon a narrow space where a man could stand a thousand feet above the plain.

This precisely fits 'Orthanc (1)'. It seems likely then that that picture was made after the first description 'A' was written, since it differs from 'A' in that the tower possess three horns at the summit.

The accounts 'B' and 'C' were rejected together and replaced in the manuscript by the following (all this work obviously belonging to the same period):

(D) And in the centre, from which all the chained paths ran, there stood an island in a pool, a great cone of rock, two hundred feet in height, left by the ancient builders and smoothers [> levellers]

of the plain, black and smooth and exceeding hard. A yawning chasm clove it from tip to middle into two great fangs and over the chasm was a mighty arch of masonry, and upon the arch a tower was founded, marvellously tall and strong. Seven round tiers it had, dwindling in girth and height, and at the top were three black horns of stone upon a narrow space, where a man could stand a thousand feet above the plain.

This conception is illustrated in the drawings 'Orthanc (3)' and '(4)'

on the same page as 'Orthanc (2)' and reproduced below (the distinc-tion between the two enters into successive descriptions of the tower in 'The Voice of Saruman', pp. 61-2). On the back of the page bearing 'Orthanc (1)' my father wrote: 'This is wrong. The rock should be steeper and cloven, and the tower should be founded over an arch (with greater "horns" at top), as is shown in small sketch (3).'

He also wrote here: 'Omit the water-course', but struck this out. A stream or 'moat' surrounding the basal cone is seen in 'Orthanc (1)'. In description 'D' the tower stands on 'an island in a pool' ('in the lake', see note 25).

Finally, a rider was inserted into the first manuscript bearing the definitive description as found in TT (p. 160): 'A peak and isle of rock it was, black, and gleaming hard; four mighty piers of many-sided stone were welded into one, but near the summit they opened into (Orthanc '2', '3' and '4'.)

(Orthanc '5'.)

gaping horns, their pinnacles sharp as the points of spears, keen-edged as knives'. The only difference here from the final text is that my father first wrote that the top of Orthanc was three hundred feet above the plain; but this was changed, perhaps at once, to five hundred as in TT.

On this rider he wrote: 'to fit Picture (5)', which is reproduced on p. 34. Here the conception is radically changed, and the 'horns', now four, are no longer a device surmounting the tower of diminishing cylindrical tiers but are integral to the marvellous structure of Orthanc.(26)

The successive versions of the description of the tower differ in the statements made about the name Orthanc (the earliest statement on the subject appears in a rejected note to the manuscript of 'Treebeard', VII.419: 'It is not perhaps mere chance that Orthanc which in Elvish means "a spike of rock" is in the tongue of Rohan "a machine".'). The preliminary draft, following description 'A', has: This was Orthanc, the citadel of Saruman, the name of which had double meaning (by design or chance); for in the tongue of the Mark Orthanc signified cunning craft, invention, (machine such as those have who fashion machines), but in the elvish speech it means the stony heart, [? tormented] hill.

The original text of the first completed manuscript, following description 'B', has:

... for in the language of the Mark orthanc signified 'cunning craft', but in the elvish speech it means 'Stone Fang'.

To this 'Cloven-hill' was added subsequently - when the conception of the great cleft in the basal cone arose. Following the description ('D') of that conception the statement about the meaning of the name is the final form: 'for in the elvish speech orthanc signifies Mount Fang, but in the language of the Mark of old the Cunning Mind.' It may be therefore that the translation 'Mount Fang' actually arose in association with the description of the cone as cloven 'into two great fangs'.

From here on the text of TT was reached at almost all points in the manuscript of this version to the end of the chapter (27) but there are some interesting points in the preliminary drafting.

Gandalf's reply to the opening address of Merry (who declares himself 'Meriadoc, Caradoc's son of Buckland'), ending 'or doubtless he would hasten hither to welcome such honourable guests', originally took this form:

'Doubtless he would,' laughed Gandalf. 'But what he would say to find two young hobbits mocking him before his gates I do not know. Doubtless it was he that ordered you to guard his doors and watch for their arrival.'

Pippin's first observation and its effect on the Riders went thus:

'... Here we are sitting on the field of victory amid the plundered ruins of an arsenal and you wonder where we came by this and that.'

All those of the Riders that were near laughed, and none more loudly than Theoden.

Theoden's loud laughter remained into the completed manuscript, but then his gravity (at least of bearing) was restored and it was removed.

The dialogue concerning hobbits went like this in the draft:

'... This day is fated to be filled with marvels: for here I see alive yet others of the folk of story: the half-high.'

'Hobbits, if you please, lord,' said Pippin.

'Hobbits,' said Theoden. 'Hoppettan?(28) I will try to remember.

No tale that I have heard does them justice.'

In the completed manuscript Theoden said: 'Hobbits? It is a strange name, but I will not forget it.' In the preliminary draft he said subsequently: 'all that is told among us is that away in the North over many hills and rivers (over the sea say some) dwell the half-high folk,

[holbylta(n)>] holbytlan that dwell in holes in sand-dunes...' This is where the word Holbytla arose.(29) The manuscript follows this, and Theoden does not say, as he does in TT, 'Your tongue is strangely changed.'

A wholly different and much longer lecture on the subject of tobacco was delivered by Merry in the first of several drafts of this passage:

'For one thing,' said Theoden, 'it was not told that they spouted smoke from their lips.'

'Maybe not. We only learned the pleasure of it a few generations back. It is said that Elias Tobiasson of Mugworth (30) brought the weed back to Manorhall in the South Farthing. He was a much travelled hobbit. He planted it in his garden and dried the leaves after a fashion he had learned in some far country. We never knew where, for he was no good at geography and never could remember names; but from the tale of leagues that he reckoned on his fingers people calculated that it was far South, 1200 miles or more from Manor Hall. [Here is written Longbottom.]'

'In the far South it is said that men drink smoke, and wizards I have heard do so. But always I had thought it was part of their incantations or a process aiding in the weaving of their deep thoughts.'(31)

'My lord,' said Merry, 'it is rest and pleasure and the crown of the feast. And glad I am that wizards know it. Among the wreckage floating on the water that drowned Isengard we found two kegs, and opening them what should we discover but some of the finest leaf that ever I fingered or set nose to. Good enough is the Manorhall leaf - but this is...(32) It smells like the stuff Gandalf would smoke at times when he returned from journeys.

Though often he was glad enough to come down to Manorhall.'

At this time, and still in the same context (conversation at the Gate of Isengard), my father developed Merry's disquisition through three further drafts to a form approaching $2 Concerning Pipe-weed in the Prologue to LR. In the next stage, his account to Theoden of the history of tobacco in the Shire (33) proceeds thus:

'It is said that the art was learned of travelling dwarves, and that for some time folk used to smoke various herbs, some fairer and some fouler. But it was Tobias Smygrave (34) of Longbottom in the Southfarthing that first grew the true pipe-weed in his garden in the year 902, and the best Home-grown comes still from that part. How old Tobias came by the plant is not known for certain, for he never told, and the Smygraves own all

[> most (of)] the crops to this day.'

'In the far East uncouth men drink smoke, or so I have heard,'

said Theoden. 'And it is said that wizards do so also. But I supposed that this was but part of their secret lore, and a device to aid the weaving of their thoughts.'

'Maybe it does, lord,' said Merry, 'but even wizards use it for no better reason than common folk. It is rest and pleasure and the crown of the feast....'

The remainder of this draft is as the first, except that Merry here says 'Good enough is Longbottom leaf, but this far surpasses it' (see note 32), and he says that Gandalf 'did not disdain Longbottom if he stayed until his own store was short. Before Saruman took to making worse things with greater labour, he must once have had some wisdom.'

In the next version the context has probably changed to the conversation between the hobbits and Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas after Gandalf and Theoden had gone (see p. 49 and note 8). Here Tobias (not Tobold) Hornblower appears,(35) the date of his first growing of the plant in his gardens becomes 953 ('according to our reckoning'), and Merry says that 'some think that he got it in Bree': to which Aragorn replies:

'True enough, I guess. Bree-folk smoked long before Shire-folk, and the reason is not far to seek. Rangers come there, as you may remember, unless you have already forgotten Trotter the ranger. And it was Rangers, as they call them in Bree, and neither wizard nor dwarf who brought the art to the North, and found plants that would thrive in sheltered places. For the plant does not belong there. It is said that far away in the East and South it grows wild, and is larger and richer in leaf; but some hold that it was brought over the sea. I expect Saruman got his leaf by trade; for he had little knowledge or care for growing things. Though in old days the warm valley of Nan Gurunir could have been made to grow a good crop.'

Finally, and still in the same context, the passage was developed to a form that my father evidently felt had outgrown its place, for he marked it 'Put into Foreword'.(36) Here the date of the first growing of pipe-weed at Longbottom by 'Old Toby' (still standing for Tobias) becomes 'about the year 1050', 'in the time of Isengrim Took the First';(37) and Merry now says of Old Toby:

'... He knew a great deal about herbs, but he was no traveller.

It is said he went often to Bree, but he certainly never went further from the Shire than that. Some think he got the plant in Bree; and I have heard it said that Bree-folk claim to have found its uses long before Shire-folk. Certainly it grows well now on the south side of Bree-hill. And it was probably from Bree that the art spread in the last couple of hundred years, among dwarves and such folk as ever come westward nowadays.'

'Meaning Rangers,' said Aragorn smiling. 'They go to Bree as you may remember. And if you really want to know the truth I will tell it you. It was the folk that Bree-folk call Rangers who brought the plant from the South. For it does not belong natively to Bree and the Shire, and only flourishes so far north in warm and sheltered places. Green [Fuilas > Marlas > Romloth

>] Galenas we called that kind. But it had long run wild and unheeded. This credit is certainly due to hobbits: they first put it into pipes. Not even the wizards thought of that before them, though one at least that I know took up the notion, and is now as skilful in that art as in all other things he puts his mind to.'

'More than one,' said Merry. 'Saruman likely enough got the idea from Gandalf: his greatest skill seems to have been in picking other people's brains. But I am glad of it, in this case.

Among the wreckage floating on the water...'

This version concludes with Merry's saying 'Longbottom Leaf is good enough, but this is better. I wonder where it came from. Do you think Saruman grew it?' And Aragorn replies: 'I expect so. Before he took to making worse things with greater labour, he must have had some wisdom. And this warm valley would grow a good crop, if properly tended.'