THE SECOND PHASE.
XIV.
RETURN TO HOBBITON.
My father now settled at last for the 'simpler story' which he had roughed
out in the Queries and Alterations (note 13); and so the Birthday Party
at Bag End returns again to Bilbo, with whom it had begun (pp. 13, 19,
40). The following rough outline no doubt immediately preceded the
rewriting of the opening chapter: the fifth version, and an exceedingly
complicated document.
Bilbo disappears on his 111th birthday. 'Long-expected Party'
chapter' suitably altered up to point where Gandalf disappears
into Bag-End. Then a short conversation between Gandalf and
Bilbo inside.
Bilbo says it is becoming wearisome - stretched feeling. He
must get rid of it. Also he is tired of Hobbiton, he feels a great
desire to go away. Dragon gold curse? or Ring. Where are you
going? I don't know. Take care! I don't care. He gets Gandalf to
promise to hand on Ring to his heir Bingo. He leaves it to him -
but I don't want him to worry or to try and follow: not yet. So he
does not even tell Bingo of the joke. At end of chapter make Bilbo
say goodbye to Gandalf at gate, hand him a package (with Ring)
for Bingo, and disappear.
Chapter 11 is then Bingo. Furtive visits of Gandalf. Gandalf
urges him to go off - for reasons of his own. Bingo on his side never
tells Gandalf that looking for Bilbo is his great desire. Gandalf
does not [? tell? talk] of the Ring. The Gollum business must come
in later (at Rivendell) - after Bingo has met Bilbo; and Gandalf
has now found out much more. It will probably be necessary to
run this Chapter I I on to head of present II 'Two's company - and
three's more'.(2)
The fourth version of 'A Long-expected Party' had in fact reached
quite an advanced stage in most respects - in some respects virtually the
final form; but the Party was Bingo's on his 72nd birthday, Bilbo having
quietly disappeared out of the Shire for good thirty-three years before,
when he was 111 and Bingo was 39, and apart from providing the
fireworks Gandalf played no part in the chapter at all.
The outline just given says that the chapter must be 'suitably altered
up to the point where Gandalf disappears into Bag-End', and the story
now begins: 'When Bilbo Baggins of the well-known Hobbiton family
prepared to celebrate his one-hundred-and-eleventh (or eleventy-first)
birthday, there was some talk in the neighbourhood,' etc. (see pp. 28,
36). The fourth version is then followed (3) as far as 'And if he was in, you
never knew who you would find with him: hobbits of quite poor families,
or folk from distant villages, dwarves, and even sometimes elves' (p. 36);
here a new passage concerning Gandalf and Bilbo was introduced.
Gandalf the wizard, too, was sometimes seen going up the hill.
People said Gandalf 'encouraged' him, and accused him in turn of
'encouraging' some of his more lively nephews (and removed
cousins), especially on the Took side; but what exactly they meant
was not clear. They may have been referring to the mysterious
absences from home, and to the strange habit Bilbo and his
encouraged young friends had of walking all over the Shire in
untidy clothes.
As time wore on the prolonged vigour, not to say youthfulness,
of Mr Bilbo Baggins also became the subject of comment. At
ninety he seemed much the same as ever he had been. At 99 they
began to call him 'well-preserved'; but 'unchanged' would have
been nearer the mark. Nevertheless he surprised them all that year
by making a considerable change in his habits: he adopted as his
heir his favourite and most completely 'encouraged' nephew,
Bingo. Bingo Baggins was then a mere lad of 27,(4) and was strictly
speaking not Bilbo's nephew (a title he used rather loosely), but
both his first and his second cousin, once removed in each case,(5)
but he happened to have the same birthday, September 22, as
Bilbo, which seemed an additional link between them.(6) He was the
son of poor Primula Brandybuck and [> who married late and as
last resort] Drogo Baggins (Bilbo's second cousin but otherwise
quite unimportant).
In Queries and Alterations, note a, my father had said that he was 'too
used to Bingo' to change his name to Frodo, but he was now following up
the suggestions in that note that Bolger-Baggins ('a bad name') should be
got rid of, and that Bingo should be a Baggins in his own right. Later
in this passage Drogo takes over the rumoured boating accident on the
Brandywine from Rollo Bolger (see p. 37): some said that Drogo
Baggins had died of over-eating while staying with the old gormandizer
Gorboduc; others said that it was his weight that had sunk the boat.' It is
now told that Bingo was twelve years old at the time, and that he
afterwards lived mostly with his grandfather [Gorboduc Brandy-
buck, p. 37] and his mother's hundred and one relatives in the
Great Hole of Bucklebury,(7) the ancestral and very overcrowded
residence of the gregarious Brandybucks. But his visits to 'Uncle'
Bilbo became more and more frequent, until at last, as has been
said, Bilbo adopted him, when he was a lad of 27.
But all that was old history. People had become in the last 12
years used to having Bingo about. Neither Bilbo nor Bingo did
anything outrageous. Their parties were sometimes a bit noisy
(and not too select), perhaps; but hobbits don't mind that kind of
noise now and again. Bilbo - now in his turn 'encouraged' by
Bingo - spent his money freely, and his wealth became a local
legend. It was popularly believed that most of the Hill was full of
tunnels stuffed with gold and silver. Now it was suddenly given
out that Bilbo, perhaps struck with the curiosity of the number
x x x, was planning to give something quite unusual in the way of
birthday-parties. 111 was a respectable age even for hobbits.(8)
Naturally tongues wagged, and old memories were stirred, and
new expectations aroused. Bilbo's wealth was guessed afresh...
(etc. as before, see p. 30) .
In the account of the comings and goings at Bag End there are a few
slight changes. The Men and the waggon painted with a D (pp. 20, 30)
have been removed, as proposed in Queries and Alterations (note 1), but
Elves as well as Dwarves are still mentioned. The bundles of fireworks
were labelled not only with a big red G but also with (X)- 'That was
Gandalf's mark' (the same rune appears in his letter at Bree and in his
note left on Weathertop). The disappointed children given pennies but
no fireworks are introduced (FR p. 33); and now at last appears the 'short
conversation between Gandalf and Bilbo inside Bag-End' sketched in the
outline on p. 233.
Inside Bag-End Bilbo and Gandalf were sitting at the open
window of the sitting-room looking west onto the garden. The late
afternoon was bright and peaceful; the flowers were red and
golden; snapdragons, and sunflowers, and nasturtians trailing all
over the turf walls and peeping in at the windows.
'How bright your garden is! ' said Gandalf.
'Yes,' said Bilbo. 'I am very fond indeed of it, and of all the dear
old Shire; but I think the time has come.'
'You mean to go on with your plan then?' asked Gandalf.
'Yes, I do,' Bilbo answered. 'I have made up my mind at last. I
really must get rid of It.(9) "Well-preserved" indeed!' he snorted.
'Why, I feel all thin - sort of stretched, if you know what I mean:
like a string that won't quite go round the parcel, or - or - butter
that is scraped over too much bread. And that can't be right.'
'No!' said Gandalf thoughtfully. 'No. I daresay your plan is the
best, at any rate for you. At least at present I know nothing against
it, and can think of nothing better.'
'Yes, I suppose it may seem a bit hard on Bingo,' said Bilbo.
'But what can I do? I can't destroy it, and after what you have told
me I am not going to throw it away; but I don't want it, in fact I
can't abide it any more. But you did promise me, didn't you, to
keep an eye on him, and help him if he needs it later on?
Otherwise, of course, I should have to.'
'I will do what I can for him,' said Gandalf. 'But I hope you will
take care of yourself.'
'Take care! I don't care!' said Bilbo, and then going suddenly
into verse (as was becoming his habit more and more) he went on
in a low voice looking out of the window with a far-away look in his
eyes:
The Road etc. as II .5.
(This is a reference to the typescript of 'Three's Company', p. 53). All of
this new passage, from the words 'I really must get rid of It', was struck
out in pencil and marked 'Later' (see pp. 237 and 239 - 40).
The text continues: 'More carts rolled up the Hill next day, and still
more carts. There might have been some grumbling about "dealing
locally",' etc. (p. 20). From this point in the fourth version (essentially
the same as the third and second, pp. 31, 28, and as FR) the fifth of
course very largely follows the old drafts, 'Bingo' being changed to 'Bilbo'
where necessary. To the guests at the select dinner party are now added
members of the families of Gawkroger (10) (Goodbody in FR) and Brock-
house: the latter 'did not live in the Shire at all, but in Combe-under-
Bree, a village on the Eastern Road beyond Brandywine. They were
supposed to be remotely connected with the Tooks, but were also friends
Bilbo had made in the course of his travels.' On this see Queries and
Alterations note 5, and my comment on it; cf. also the original Chapter
VII (p. 137), of the hobbits at The Prancing Pony: 'there were also some
(to hobbits) natural names like Banks, Longholes, Brockhouse... which
were not unknown among the more rustic inhabitants of the Shire.'
A curious point is that at this stage there were 'eight score or one
hundred and sixty' guests at the dinner party in the pavilion under the
tree, not 144; and in his speech Bilbo said: 'For it is of course also the
birthday of my heir and nephew, Bingo. Together we score one hundred
and sixty. Your numbers were chosen to fit this remarkable total.'
Emendations to the preceding part of the chapter relate to this: Bingo's
age at his adoption was changed from 27 to 37, so that when Bilbo was
111 (twelve years later) Bingo was 49 - totalling 160. My father had of
course decided - the party being Bilbo's, and both he and Bingo being
present - that the significance of the number of guests must now relate,
not as previously to the elder hobbit's years, but to the total of their
combined ages; but why he did not stick to 144 and reduce Bingo's age
accordingly to 144 minus 111 I cannot say.
Bilbo now refers to its being the anniversary of his arrival by barrel at
Lake-town; but there is still no flash when he stepped down and vanished.
This part of the text was soon revised - indeed before the story had
gone much further,(11) and in a rewritten version of Bilbo's speech the
number of guests reverts to 144, Bingo becomes 33 (which is the year of
his 'coming of age'), and there is a blinding flash of light when he
vanishes. Emendation to the earlier part of the text now changed Bingo's
age at adoption once more, and finally, to 21.
In the hubbub that followed Bilbo's disappearance
there was one person harder hit than all the rest: and that was
Bingo. He sat for some time quite silent in his seat beside the
empty chair of his uncle, ignoring all remarks and questions; and
then abandoning the party to look after itself he slipped out of the
pavilion unnoticed.'
'What do we do now?' This question became more and more
popular, and louder and louder. Suddenly old Rory Brandybuck,
whose wits neither old age, nor surprise, nor an enormous dinner,
had quite clouded was heard to shout: 'I never saw him go. Where
is he now, anyway? Where is Bilbo - and Bingo, too, confound
him?' There was no sign of their hosts, anywhere.
As a matter of fact, Bilbo Baggins, even while he was making his
speech, had been fingering a small ring in his pocket: his magic
ring, that he had kept secret for so many years. As he stepped
down he slipped it on - and was never seen in Hobbiton again.
There now enters a wholly new element in the narrative, and it was
clearly at this time that the passage of conversation between Gandalf
and Bilbo inside Bag End before the party was largely struck out and
marked 'Later' (pp. 235 - 6); at this time also that that conversation was
re-extended from the point where Bilbo says 'Yes, I do. I have made up
my mind at last', as follows (cf. FR pp. 33 - 4):
'Very well,' said Gandalf. 'I can see you mean to have your own
way. I hope it will turn out all right - for all of us.'
'I hope so,' said Bilbo. 'Anyway I mean to enjoy myself on
Thursday, and have my little joke in my own way.'
'Well, I hope you will still be laughing this time next year,' said
Gandalf.
'And I hope you will, too,' retorted Bilbo.
The new version continues (from 'and he was never seen in Hobbiton
again'):
He walked briskly back to his hole, and stood listening with a
smile for a moment to the sounds of merrymaking going on in
various parts of the field. Then he went in. He took off his party
clothes, folded up and wrapped in tissue paper his embroidered
waistcoat with the silk [) gold] buttons and put it away. Then he
put on some old and untidy garments,(13) and from a locked bottom
drawer (reeking of mothballs) he got out an old cloak and an old
hood that seemed to have been laid up as carefully as if they were
very precious, though they were so weatherstained and mended
that their original colour (probably dark green) could hardly be
guessed. They were rather too big for him. He put a large bulky
envelope on the mantelpiece, on which was written BINGO.
He chose his favourite thick stick from the hall stand, and then
whistled. Several dwarves appeared from various rooms where
they had been busy.
'Is everything ready?' Bilbo asked. 'Everything packed up
[added: and labelled]?'
'Everything,' they said.
'Well, let's start then. Lofar, you are stopping behind, of course
[added: for Gandalf]: please make sure that Bingo gets the letter
on the dining room mantelpiece as soon as he comes in. Nar, Anar,
Hannar, are you ready?(14) Right. Off we go.'
He stepped out of the front door. It was a fine clear night, and
the black sky was full of stars. He looked up, sniffing the air. 'What
fun!' he said. 'What fun to be off again - on the Road with
dwarves: this is what I have really been longing-for for years.' He
waved his hand to the door: 'Goodbye,' he said. He turned away
from the lights and voices in the field and the tents, and followed
by his three companions went round to the garden on the west side
of Bag-End, and trotted down the long sloping path. They
jumped the low place in the hedge at the bottom and took to the
meadows, passing like a rustle in the grasses.
At the bottom of the Hill they came to a gate opening on to a
narrow lane. As they climbed over, a dark figure in a tall hat rose
up from under the hedge.
'Hullo, Gandalf!' cried Bilbo. 'I wondered if you would turn
up.
'And I wondered if you would,' replied the wizard; 'or if you
would think better of it.' I suppose you feel that everything has
gone off splendidly, and just as you intended?'
'Yes,' said Bilbo. 'Though that flash was surprising: it quite
startled me, let alone the others. A little addition of yours, I
suppose? '
'It was,' answered Gandalf. 'You have wisely kept that Ring
secret all these years; and it seemed to me necessary to give them
all some reason to explain their not noticing your sudden vanish-
ment [> to give them all something they would think explained
your sudden vanishment].'
'You are an interfering old busybody,' laughed Bilbo; 'but I
expect you know best, as usual.'
'I do,' said Gandalf, 'when I know anything. But I do not feel
too sure about the whole affair. Still, it has now come to the final
point. You have had your joke, and successfully alarmed or
offended all your friends and relations, and given the whole Shire
something to talk about for nine days (or ninety-nine more likely).
Are you going to go any further? '
'Yes, I am,' answered Bilbo.(16) 'I really must get rid of It,
Gandalf. Well-preserved, indeed,' he snorted. 'Why, I feel all thin
- sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like string that won't
quite go round a parcel, or, or, butter that is scraped over too
much bread. And that can't be right.'
'No,' said Gandalf thoughtfully. 'No. I was afraid it might come
to that. I dare say your plan is the best, at any rate for you. At least
at present I do not feel I know enough to say anything definite
against it.'
'What else can I do? I can't destroy the thing, and after what
you have told me I am not going to throw it away. Oddly enough I
find that impossible to make up my mind to do - I simply put it
back in my pocket. I find it very hard even to leave behind! And
yet I don't want it, indeed I can't abide it any more. But you did
promise to keep an eye on Bingo, didn't you, and to help him if he
needs it, later on? Otherwise, of course, I should hardly be able to
go. I should have to stop and put up with it.'
'I will do what I can for him,' said Gandalf. 'What have you
done with it meanwhile? '
'It is in the envelope with my will and other papers. Lofar is
giving it to Bingo as soon as he comes in.'
'My dear Bilbo! And with Otho Sackville-Baggins about the
place, and that Lobelia wife of his! Really you are getting reckless.
And I suppose you left the door unlocked as usual?'
'Yes, I am afraid I did. I rather fancy Bingo will be creeping off
home before anyone else.'
'Fancy is not safe enough! But you may be right. He knows
about it, of course?'
'He knows that I have, or had, the Ring: he has read my private
memoirs,(17) for one thing; and he also has some idea [> he may
have an inkling] that it has some other - er - effects than just
making you invisible on occasion. But he doesn't, or didn't, know
quite what I was beginning to feel about it. But after all, as it
cannot be destroyed, and can only be handed on - it had best be
handed on to him: I chose him as the best in all the Shire: and he
is my heir. He knows that I am leaving that to him with all the rest.
I don't suppose he would ask to be excused this responsibility, and
take only the money.'
'He will miss you pretty badly, you know? '
'Yes, I found it very hard to make up my mind. It is hard on him
- but not too hard, I think. The time has come for him to be his
own master. After all, if things had been more - er - normal, he
would have been losing me soon anyway, if he had not already
done so. I am sorry to cheat all my dear people of a grand funeral -
how they all did enjoy Old Took's - but there it is.'
'Does he know where you are going?'
'No! I am not sure myself, really. And I think that is just as well
for everybody. He might want to follow me.'
'So might I. I hope you will take care of yourself! '
'Take care! I don't care. And don't be unhappy about me: I am
as happy as ever I have been, and that is saying a lot. But the time
has come. I am being swept off my feet,' he added mysteriously,
and then in a low voice as if to himself he sang softly in the
darkness.
The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the Door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow if I can,
Pursuing it arith weary feet,
Until it joins some larger may,
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.(18)
He stopped silent a moment. Then 'Goodbye, Gandalf! ' he cried,
and made off into the night. Nar, Anar, and Hannar followed
him.(19) Gandalf remained by the gate for a little, and then sprang
over it and made his way up the Hill.(20)
It will be seen that in this passage, far different from that which
occupies the same narrative place in FR pp. 40 - 4, my father was
thinking about the effect of the Ring on its possessor on very much the
same lines as in the chapter on Gollum (the 'foreword'), pp. 79 - 80.
Moreover in FR the conversation - and quarrel - between Bilbo and
Gandalf takes place in Bag End, so that the elements in the present
version of Gandalf's anxiety about the Ring, left unguarded in an
envelope at Bag End, and his going up the Hill to find Bingo, do not
arise; Gandalf was sitting there waiting for him when he came in.
The clearing up of the party follows the earlier version, of course (FR
p. 45); but the end of the chapter exists in two variant forms, marked as
such. One of the variants, very much longer than the other and preceding
it, is itself heavily modified. To look at this first: the list of presents
remains the same, with some further changes in the names.(21) With 'Of
course, this was only a selection of the presents' the new text advances
very close to the form in FR (pp. 46-7), with the reflections on the
cluttered nature of hobbit-holes (on which Bingo had remarked: 'We
soon shan't be able to sit down for stools or tell the time for clocks in Bag-
End'), and the gifts to Gaffer Gamgee (but Bilbo's collection of magical
toys, pp. 33, 38, still remains); the dozen bottles of Old Winyards go to
Rory Brandybuck, and are said to come from 'the south Shire', not yet
the Southfarthing.
From 'not a penny piece or a brass farthing was given away' there is a
rejected text and a replacement, differing from each other chiefly in the
arrangement of the elements. As written first, the Sackville-Bagginses
are introduced immediately, demanding to see the will - which is given at
length;(22) then follows the rumour that the entire contents of Bag End
were being distributed, and 'in the middle of the commotion' Bingo finds
Lobelia investigating, ejects the three young hobbits, and has a fight with
Sancho Proudfoot;(23) and the passage concludes with 'The fact is that
Bilbo's money had become a legend...' (FR p. 48).
In the replacement text the structure in FR (pp.47-8) is reached, with
the sole important difference that Merry's role is taken by the dwarf
Lofar, who had stayed behind after Bilbo's departure (p. 238); and the
only minor differences from FR are that Otho Sackville-Baggins is still a
lawyer, the date of Bingo's entry into his inheritance is stated (midnight
on 22 September), the witnessing of the will was by three hobbits of more
than 33 years old, according to the custom, and the Sackville-Bagginses
'more than hinted that he or the wizard (or the pair of them together)
were at the bottom of the whole business.' The exchange between Frodo
and Merry on the subject of Lobelia's calling Frodo a Brandybuck is of
course not present - Bingo merely 'shut the door behind her with a
grimace.'
The short variant is very short, and was not adopted. The large crowd
who arrived at Bag End on the morning after the party does no more than
go away again when they see a notice on the gate saying: 'Mr Bilbo
Baggins has gone away. There is no further news. Unless your business is
urgent, please do not knock or ring. Bingo Baggins.' The Sackville-
Bagginses 'thought that their business was urgent. They knocked and
rang several times.' Admitted by Lofar the Dwarf, the remainder of the
passage is the same as in the (revised) long variant and FR - the interview
between Bingo and the Sackville-Bagginses in the study, ending with
Bingo's telling Lofar not to open the front door even against battering-
rams (and omitting the mopping-up operations against the three young
hobbits and Sancho Proudfoot). Thus the entire 'business' of the pre-
sents, and the invasion of Bag End, was in this variant removed. For my
father's intention here see p.276.
The reappearance of Gandalf at Bag End now enters the story, and
begins pretty well exactly as in FR (p.48), but soon significant differ-
ences enter the conversation, from the point where Gandalf says to Bingo
'What do you know already?' (FR p.49):
'Only Bilbo's tale of how he got it,(24) from that Gollum creature,
and how he used it afterwards, on his journey I mean. I don't think
he used it much after he came home; though he used to disappear
(or not be findable) rather mysteriously sometimes, if things were
a bit inconvenient. We saw the Sackville-Bagginses coming when
we were out walking one day, and he disappeared, and came out
from behind a hedge after they had gone by.(25) Being invisible has
its advantages.'
'But it also has its disadvantages. It does not do much harm as a
joke, nor even to avoid "inconveniences" - but even these things .
have to be paid for. Also making you invisible, when you wish, is
not the only property of the Ring.'
'I know what you mean,' said Bingo; 'Bilbo did not seem to
change much. They called him well-preserved. But I must say
that also seems to me to have its advantages. I cannot make out
why the dear old thing left the Ring behind.'
'No, I expect you cannot yet. But you may find out the
disadvantages of that as well, in time. For instance, Bilbo seemed
a bit restless of late years, didn't he?'
'Yes, for quite a long time,'
'Well, I think that was a symptom too. I don't want to alarm
you, but I want you to be careful. Take care of the Ring, and take
care of yourself, and watch yourself. Don't use the Ring,(26) or let it
get any more, er, power over you than you can help. Keep it secret,
and let me know, if you hear, see, or feel anything at all odd.'
'All right. But what is all this about?'
'I am not quite sure. I begin to guess, and I don't like the
guesses. But I am now going off to find out as much as I can.
Before I have done so, I am not going to say any more, except to
warn you, and to promise you what help I can give.'
'But you say you are going off?'
'Yes, for a bit. But you'll be safe for a year or two, in any case.
Don't worry. I shall come and see you again as soon as I can -
quietly, you know. I don't think I shall be visiting the Shire openly
again very much. I find I have become rather unpopular: they say
I am a nuisance and a disturber of the peace; and some people are
accusing me of spiriting Bilbo away. It is supposed to be a little
plot between me and you (if you want to know).'
'That sounds like Otho and Lobelia.(27) How outrageous! I only
wish I knew why and where old Bilbo has gone. Do you? Do you
think I could catch him up or find him if I went off at once? I
would give Bag-end and everything in it to the Sackville-Bagginses
if I could do that.'
'I don't think I should try. Let poor Bilbo get rid of the Ring -
which he could only do (reluctantly) by handing it on to you, for a
bit.(28) Do what he wished and hoped you would.'
'What is that?'
'Live on here; keep up Bag-end; guard the Ring - and wait.'
'All right - I will try; but I should prefer to go after Bilbo.(29) I
don't know if that is a symptom, as you call it - though I have only
had the Ring a day or less?'
'No, not yet. It merely means you were fond of Bilbo. He knew
it was hard on you. He hated leaving you. But there it is. We may
all understand this better before the end. I must say goodbye now.
Look out for me - at any time, especially unlikely ones. If you
really need me send a message to the nearest dwarves: I shall try
and give them some knowledge of where I am.(30) Goodbye!'
Bingo saw him off. The dwarf Lofar went with him carrying a
large bag. They walked away down the path to the gate at a
surprising pace,(31) but Bingo thought the wizard looked rather
bent, almost as if bowed under a heavy burden. The evening was
closing in, and he soon vanished into the twilight. Bingo did not
see him again for a long time.
About this time my father wrote a new experimental opening to the
chapter, in which the facts and assertions about the family history were
communicated through the talk of Gaffer Gamgee, Old Noakes, and
Sandyman the miller in The Ivy Bush. The mention of Sam Gamgee as
the Bag End gardener shows that it was in fact written after the second
chapter, 'Ancient History', which now follows; for if this text had been
already in existence my father would not have given an explanation of
who Sam Gamgee was when he appears in 'Ancient History' (p. 253).
But it is convenient to notice it here.
This version of the conversation had still a good way to go before it
reached the form in FR (pp. 30 - 2). The opening of the chapter was now
to be greatly compressed:
When Mr Bilbo Baggins of Bag-end, Under-hill, announced
that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday
with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and
excitement in Hobbiton. Before long rumour of the event travel-
led all over the Shire, and the history and character of Mr Baggins
became once again the most popular topic of conversation. The
older folk who remembered something of the strange happenings
sixty years before found their reminiscences suddenly in demand,
and rose to the gratifying occasion with entertaining invention
when mere facts failed them.
No one had a more attentive audience than old Ham Gamgee,
commonly known as the Gaffer. He held forth at the Ivy Bush,(32) a
small inn on the Bywater Road; and he spoke with some authority,
for he had tended the garden at Bag-end for half a century, and
had helped his father in the same job before that. Now that he was
grown old and creaky in the joints he had passed the job on to one
of his own sons, Sam Gamgee.
The subject of Bingo is treated thus:
'And what about this Mr Bingo Baggins that lives with him?'
asked old Noakes of Bywater.(33) 'I hear he is coming of age on the
same day.'
'That's right,' said the Gaffer. 'He has the same birthday as Mr
Bilbo, September the twenty-second. It is a sort of link between
them, as you might say. Not but what they get on remarkably well,
and have done all the last twelve years, since Mr Bingo came to
Bag-end. Very much alike in every way, they are, being closely
related. Though Mr Bingo is half a Brandybuck by rights, and
that's a queer breed, as I've heard tell. They fool about with boats
and water, and that isn't natural. Small wonder that trouble came
of it, I say.'
For the rest, Mr Twofoot of Bagshot Row does not appear; Gorboduc
Brandybuck is called by the Gaffer 'the head of the family, and mighty
important down in Buckland, I'm told'; the miller does not suggest that
there was anything more sinister in the drowning of Drogo Baggins and
his wife than Drogo's weight; the hobbit who introduces the topic of the
tunnels packed with treasure inside the Hill is not 'a visitor from Michel
Delving' but 'one of the Bywater hobbits', and there are many differences
of phrasing.
NOTES.
1. My father actually wrote '"Unex[pected]P[arty]" chapter' - think-
ing of the first chapter of The Hobbit. Cf. my suggestion about his
use of the word 'sale' in Queries and Alterations, note z.
2. The actual title of Chapter II was 'Three's Company and Four's
More' (p. 49). - A pencilled note on the same page says: 'Should
Bingo spend all his money? Is it not better he should be sacrificing
something? Though he must give out that he has spent it.'
3. The passage about Bilbo's book and the reception accorded to it,
which had survived unchanged from the second version (p. 19), was
at first repeated here, but subsequently replaced by the following:
He told many tales of his adventures, of course, to those who
would listen. But most of the hobbits soon got tired of them, and
only one or two of his younger friends ever took them seriously. It
is no good telling ordinary hobbits about dragons: they either
disbelieve you or want to disbelieve you, and in either case stop
listening. As he grew older Bilbo wrote his adventures in a private
book of memoirs, in which he recounted some things that he had
never spoken about (such as the magic ring); but that book was
never published in the Shire, and he never showed it to anyone,
except his favourite 'nephew' Bingo.
4. This was Bingo's age at the time of his adoption in the fourth version
(p. 36), but it was changed in the course of the writing of the present
text (see p. 236).
5. In Queries and Alterations (note 2) the suggestion was that Drogo
Baggins should be Bilbo's first cousin.
6. This remark about Bilbo and Bingo having the same birthday was a
pencilled addition, but the idea goes back to the third version
(p. 29),when Bingo was Bilbo's son.
7. The Great Hole of Bucklebury: Brandy Hall has been named and
described in the original version of 'A Short Cut to Mushrooms'
(p. 99).
8. Added in pencil:
and the Old Took himself had only reached the age of 125 (though
the title Old was bestowed on him, it is true, not so much for his
age as for his oddity, and because of the enormous number of the
young, younger, and youngest Tooks).
9. This was to be the first, intentionally obscure, reference to
the Ring in the story. With the shortening and alteration of this
initial converation between Gandalf and Bilbo before the Party
(p. 237) this reference was removed, and it is then first spoken of
only after Bilbo's vanishment.
10. Gawkroger is an English (Yorkshire) surname, meaning 'clumsy
Roger'.
The textual situation is in fact of fearful complexity in this part, the
manuscript being constituted from two 'layers', and the earlier of
the two being constituted partly from new manuscript and partly
from the typescript of the fourth version. With the actual texts in
front of one it can be worked out how my father was proceeding, but
to present the detail in a printed book is neither possible nor
necessary. It is demonstrable that the second 'layer', with revised
dating of Bingo's life and the flash which accompanied Bilbo's
vanishing, entered in the course of the composition of the
chapter.
12. This perhaps suggests that Bingo had not been told of Bilbo's 'joke',
cf. the outline on p. 233: 'So he does not even tell Bingo of the joke.'
A pencilled correction and addition changed the passage towards
that in FR (p. 39).
The only one who said nothing was Bingo, the most concerned.
His feelings were mixed. On the one hand he appreciated the joke
(if no one else did). It was quite after his own heart: he would
have liked to laugh and dance with mirth; and was grateful that he
had been allowed to get the full and delicious suspense, for on the
other hand he would have liked to weep. He was immensely fond
of Bilbo, and the blow was crushing. Was he really never to see
him again - not even to take another farewell? He sat for some
time quite silent in his seat...
13. Added later:
and fastened on a leather belt round his waist. On it hung a short
sword in an old black leather scabbard.
Cf. Queries and Alterations, note 4, on the subject of Sting.
14. My father took all these four Dwarf-names from the same source in
the Old Norse Elder Edda as those in The Hobbit.
15. Added later:
But I want just a final word with you. Now, my good dwarves,
just walk on down the lane a bit. I shan't keep you long!' He
turned back to Bilbo. 'Well,' he said in a lowered voice.
16. From this point the earlier, rejected conversation between Bilbo and
Gandalf before the Party (pp. 235 - 6, there marked 'Later') is taken
up again, though not in the same form, and much extended.
17. A pencilled addition here probably says: '(the only one who has)',
see note 3.
18. This verse came into existence in the original form of the chapter
'Three is Company' (pp. 47, 53), where it will now become a
recollection of Bilbo's verse from years before. The two versions are
the same, except that in lines 4 and 8 Bilbo's form here has I for toe.
In FR (pp. 44, 82) both versions have I, not toe; but Bilbo's has
eager in the 5th line where Frodo's has weary. In the present text
eager is written above weary, and with this change the final form is
reached in this instance (see p. 284 note 10).
19. This sentence was struck out when the addition given in note x g was
made.
20. The remainder of this part of the text is in very rough pencilled
form, with alteration of the last passage in ink preceding it:
'Goodbye, Gandalf!' he cried, and made off into the night.
Gandalf remained by the gate for a moment, staring into the dark
after him. 'Adieu, my dear Bilbo,' he said, ' - or au revoir.' [This
was marked with an X: Gandalf would not use French, however
useful the distinction.] And then he jumped over the low gate and
made his way quickly up the Hill. 'If I find Lobelia sneaking
round,' he muttered, 'I'll turn her into a weasel! '
But he need not have worried. At Bag-End he found Bingo
sitting on a chair in the hall with the envelope in his hand. He
refused to have any more to do with the party.
21. The umbrella now goes, not to Mungo Took, but to Uffo Took
(Adelard Took in FR). Semolina Baggins becomes Drogo's sister,
aged 92 (in FR she is Dora Baggins, aged 99). The feather-bed goes
now not to Fosco Bolger (who had been Bingo's uncle when he was
still a Bolger), but to Rollo Bolger (an equally suitable recipient),
'from his friend', Rollo Bolger has survived his displacement from
Primula Brandybuck's husband and death by drowning in the
Brandywine. The 'rather florid' dinner-service goes to Primo (not
Inigo) Grubb; and the Hornblower who received the barometer
now changes from Cosimo (by way of Carambo) to Colombo.
Caramella Chubb, Orlando Burrows (so spelt), Angelica Baggins,
Hugo Bracegirdle, and of course Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, re-
main, and their gifts. For the earlier lists see pp. 15, 32 - 3, 38.
22. 'This is how the will ran:
Bilbo (son of Bungo son of Mungo son of Inigo) Baggins hereinafter
called the testator, now departing being the rightful owner of all
properties and goods hereinafter named hereby devises, makes
over, and bequeathes the property and messuage or dwelling-hole
known as Bag-End Underhill near Hobbiton with all lands thereto
belonging and annexed to his cousin and adopted heir Bingo (son
of Drogo son of Togo son of Bingo son of Inigo) Baggins hereinafter
called the heir, for him to have hold possess occupy let on lease sell
or otherwise dispose of at his pleasure as from midnight of the
twenty-second day of September in the one hundred and eleventh
or eleventy-first year of the aforesaid Bilbo Baggins. Moreover the
aforesaid testator devises and bequeathes to the aforesaid heir all
monies in gold silver copper brass or tin and all trinkets, armours,
weapons, uncoined metals, gems, jewels, or precious stones and
all furniture appurtenances goods perishable or imperishable and
chattels movable and immovable belonging to the testator and
after his departure found housed kept stored or secreted in any
part of the said hole and residence of Bag-end or of the lands
thereto annexed, save only such goods or movable chattels as are
contained in the subjoined schedule which are selected and
directed as parting gifts to the friends of the testator and which the
heir shall dispatch deliver or hand over according to his conven-
ience. The testator hereby relinquishes all rights or claims to all
these properties lands monies goods or chattels and wishes all his
friends farewell. Signed Bilbo Baggins.
Otho, who was a lawyer, read this document carefully, and snorted.
It was apparently correct and incontestable, according to the legal
notions of hobbits. "Foiled again!" he said to his wife...' (etc. as in
FR p. 47).
23. 'Old Proudfoot's son' (in FR 'old Odo Proudfoot's grandson', p. 48).
24. This sentence was extended in pencil as follows:
'Just what Bilbo's parting letter said: "Here's the Ring. Please
accept it. Take care of it, and yourself. Ask Gandalf, if you want
to know more." And of course I have read and heard Bilbo's tale of
how he got it...'
25. This mention of Bilbo's disappearance when he saw the Sackville-
Bagginses approaching was struck out in pencil, with the note 'Put
in later'. See p. 300.
26. 'Don't use the Ring' was struck out in pencil, with 'If you take my
advice you will not use the Ring' substituted; and before the words
'Keep it secret' in the next sentence was added 'But have it by you
always.'
27. In this version, Otho and Lobelia have as good as said this to Bingo
(p. 241) - a passage not in FR.
28. This was rewritten in pencil: 'I don't think I should try. I don't
think it would please or help Bilbo. Let him get rid of the Ring -
which he can only do, if you will accept it, for a bit.'
29. This was rewritten in pencil: 'All right - I will try. But I want to
follow Bilbo. I think I shall in the end, anyway, if it is not then too
late ever to find him again.'
30. This sentence ('If you really need me...') was bracketed (in ink) for
probable exclusion.
31. This was rewritten in pencil:
Bingo saw Gandalf to the door. There the dwarf Lofar was
waiting. He popped up when the door was opened, and picked up
a large bag that was standing in the porch. 'Goodbye, Bingo,' he
said, bowing low. 'I am going with Gandalf.' 'Goodbye,' said
Bingo. Gandalf gave a final wave of his hand, and with the dwarf
at his side walked off down the path at a surprising pace...
At the end of the chapter my father wrote: 'Perhaps alter this -
Gandalf has ring. Meeting at gate prearranged: ring handed over
there. Gandalf's last visit is to give it to Bingo?' He struck this out
and wrote 'No' against it. This had in fact been his idea when he
wrote the outline given on p. 233, where Bilbo is to 'say goodbye
to Gandalf at gate, hand him a package (with Ring) for Bingo, and
disappear.'
32. Ivy Bush: changed at the time of writing from Creen Dragon. See
note 33.
33. old Noakes of Bywater: changed at the time of writing from Ted
Sandyman, the miller's son. This is a further indication that this
version of the opening of 'A Long-expected Party' followed 'Ancient
History', where the miller's son was named Tom until the very end
of it (p. 269, note 9). The conversation between Sam Gamgee and
Ted Sandyman in 'Ancient History' was in The Green Dragon at
Bywater, and my father probably changed the rendezvous of Gaffer
Gamgee's cronies to The Ivy Bush (note 32) for the same reason as
he replaced the miller's son by Old Noakes.
I give here as much of the genealogy of Bilbo and Bingo as is established
from the text at this time. The Baggins ancestry is derived from Bilbo's
will (note 22); the names in brackets are those that differ in LR Appendix
C, Baggins of Hobbiton.
The Old Took was evidently already known to have had many children
beside his 'three remarkable daughters' (see note 8).
Old Took.
Bungo. Gorboduc.
= Belladonna. Mirabella.= (third daughter).
Baggins. Brandybuck.
Primula. Drogo.
Bilbo. =
Brandybuck. Baggins.
Bingo.
Inigo Baggins (Balbo).
Mungo. Bingo (Largo).
Bungo. Togo (Fosco).
Bilbo. Drogo. Semolina (Dora).
Bingo.
XV.
ANCIENT HISTORY.
A chapter titled 'II: Ancient History', precursor of 'The Shadow of the
Past' in FR, was now introduced to follow 'A Long-expected Party'. It is
of central importance in the evolution of The Lord of the Rings: for it was
here that there emerged in the actual narrative the concept of the Ruling
Ring, and Sam Gamgee as the companion of Bingo (Frodo) on his great
journey. There is no trace of earlier drafting, save for a few notes so
scrappy and disjointed that they can scarcely be reproduced. In these my
father scribbled down salient features of Bingo's life after Bilbo's dis-
appearance, and first devised the story of Bingo's own departure 17 years
later, celebrated by a dinner party for Merry, Frodo, and Odo (here
apparently said to have been given on the proceeds of the sale of Bag
End). Against these notes my father wrote: 'Sam Gamgee to replace
Odo' (cf. Queries and Alterations, p. 221).
The manuscript is rough, and in places very rough indeed, but legible
virtually throughout. There is some emendation from a later phase, here
ignored, and a good deal of pencilled change that can in some cases be
seen to have been made while the chapter was in progress. These latter I
adopt into the text, but in some cases refer in the notes to the text as first
written.
The talk did not die down in nine or even ninety-nine days. The
second and final disappearance of Mr Bilbo Baggins was discussed
in Hobbiton and Bywater, and indeed all over the Shire, for a year
and a day, and was remembered much longer than that. It became
a fireside story for young hobbits; and eventually (a century or so
later) Mad Baggins, who used to disappear with a bang and a flash
and reappear with bags of gold and jewels, became a favourite
character of legend and lived on long after all the true events were
forgotten.
But in the meantime sober grown-ups gradually settled to the
opinion that Bilbo had at last (after long showing symptoms of its
coming on) gone suddenly mad, and had run off into the blue;
where he had inevitably fallen into a pit or a pool, and come to a
tragic but hardly untimely end. There was one Baggins the less
and that was that.' In face of the evidence that this disappearance
had been timed and arranged by Bilbo himself, Bingo was eventu-
ally relieved of suspicion. It was also plain that the departure of
Bilbo was a grief to him - more than to any other even of Bilbo's
closest friends. But Gandalf was held finally responsible for incit-
ing and encouraging 'poor old Mr Bilbo', for dark and unknown
ends of his own.
'If only that wizard will leave young Bingo alone, perhaps he
will settle down and grow some hobbit-sense,' they said. And to all
appearances the wizard did leave Bingo alone, and he did settle
down, though the growth of hobbit-sense was not so noticeable.
Indeed Bingo at once carried on his uncle's reputation for oddity.
He refused to go into mourning; and the next year he gave a party
in honour of Bilbo's 112th birthday, which he called the Hundred-
weight Party; although only a few friends were invited and they
hardly ate a hundredweight between them. People were rather
pained; but he kept up the custom of giving 'Bilbo's birthday
party' year after year, until they got used to it. He said he did not
think Bilbo was dead. When they asked: 'Where is he, then?' he
shrugged his shoulders.(2) He lived alone, but he went about a
lot with certain younger hobbits that Bilbo had been fond of,
and continued to 'encourage' them. The chief of these were
Meriadoc Brandybuck (usually called Merry), Frodo Took, and
Odo Bolger.(3) Merry was the son of Caradoc Brandybuck (Bingo's
cousin) and Yolanda Took, and so the cousin of Frodo, son of
Folco (whose sister was Yolanda). Frodo, or Frodo the Second,
was the great-great-grandson of Frodo the First (otherwise known
as the Old Took), and the heir and rather desperate hope of the
Hole of Took, as the clan was called. Odo also had a Took mother
and was a third cousin of the other two.(4) With these Bingo went
about (often in untidy clothes) and walked all over the Shire. He
was often away from home. But he continued to spend his money
lavishly, indeed more lavishly than Bilbo had. And there still
seemed to be plenty of it, so naturally his oddities were over-
looked, as far as possible. As time went on it is true that they began
to notice that Bingo also showed signs of good 'preservation':
outwardly he retained the appearance of a strong and rather large
and well-built hobbit just out of his 'tweens'. 'Some people have all
the luck,' they said, meaning this enviable combination of cash
and preservation; but they did not attach any particular signific-
ance to it, not even when Bingo began to approach the more sober
age of 50.
Bingo himself, after the first shock of loss and change, rather
enjoyed being his own master, and the Mr Baggins of Bag-end.
For a while, indeed several years, he was very happy, and did not
think much about the future. He knew, of course, if no one else
did, that the money was not unlimited, and was fast disappearing.
Money went a prodigious long way in those days, and one could
also get many things without it; but Bilbo had made great inroads
on his inheritance and his acquired treasures in the course of sixty
years, and had blown at least 500 pieces of gold on that last Party.
So an end would come sooner or later. But Bingo did not worry:
down inside though suppressed there still remained his desire to
follow Bilbo, or at all events to leave the Shire and go off into the
Blue, or wherever chance took him.
One day, he thought, he would do it. As he approached 50 - a
number he somehow felt was significant (or ominous), it was at
any rate at that age that adventure had first come upon Bilbo - he
began to think more seriously of it. He felt restless. He used to
look at maps and wonder what it was like beyond the edges: hobbit
maps made in the Shire did not extend very far east or west of its
borders. And he began to feel, sometimes, a sort of thin feeling, as
if he was being stretched out over a lot of days, and weeks, and
months, but was not fully there, somehow. He could not explain
any better than that to Gandalf, though he tried to. Gandalf
nodded thoughtfully.
Gandalf had taken to slipping in to see him again - quietly and
secretly, and usually when no one was about. He would tap an
'agreed signal on the window or door, and be let in: it was usually
dark when he arrived, and while he was there he did not go out. He
went off again, often without warning, either at night or in the
very early morning before sunrise. The only people besides Bingo
who knew of these visits were Frodo and Merry; though no doubt
folk out in the country caught sight of him going along the road
or over the fields, and scratched their heads either trying to
remember who he was, or wondering what he was doing.
Gandalf turned up again first about three years after Bilbo's
departure, took a look at Bingo, listened to the small news of the
Shire, and went off again soon, seeing that Bingo was still quite
settled. But he returned once or twice every year (except for one
other long gap of nearly two years) until the fourteenth year.
Bingo was then 47. After that he came frequently and stayed
longer.(6) He began to be worried about Bingo; and also odd things
were happening. Rumour of them had begun to reach the ears of
even the deafest and most parochial hobbits. Bingo had heard a
good deal more than any other hobbit of the Shire, for of course he
continued Bilbo's habit of welcoming dwarves and odd strangers,
and even occasionally of visiting elves. It was believed by his close
friends Merry and Frodo at any rate that elves were friendly to him
[bracketed at the time of writing: and that he knew some of their
few haunts. This was in fact quite true. Bilbo had taught Bingo all
that he knew, and had even instructed him in what he had learned
of the two elf-languages used in those times and places (by the
elves among themselves). There were very few elves actually in
the Shire, and they were very seldom seen by anyone but Bilbo,
and Bingo. This was replaced at the time of writing by:] and that
he knew something of their secret languages - learned probably
from Bilbo. And they were quite right.
Both elves and dwarves were troubled, especially those that
occasionally arrived or passed by coming from a distance, from
East or South. They would seldom, however, say anything very
definite. But they constantly mentioned the Necromancer, or the
[Dark Lord >] Enemy; and sometimes referred to the Land of
Mor-dor and the Black Tower. It seemed that the Necromancer
was moving again, and that Gandalf's confidence that the North
would be freed from him for many an age had not been justified.(7)
He had flown from Mirkwood only to reoccupy his ancient strong-
hold in the South, near the midst of the world in those days, in the
Land of Mordor; and it was rumoured that the Black Tower had
been raised anew. Already his power was creeping out over the
lands again and the mountains and woods were darkened. Men
were restless and moving North and West, and many seemed now
to be partly or wholly under the dominion of the Dark Lord.
There were wars, and there was much burning and ruin. The
dwarves were growing afraid. Goblins were multiplying again and
reappearing. Trolls of a new and most malevolent kind were
abroad; giants were spoken of, a Big Folk only far bigger and
stronger than Men the [?ordinary] Big Folk, and no stupider,
indeed often full of cunning and wizardry. And there were vague
hints of things or creatures more terrible than goblins, trolls, or
giants. Elves were vanishing, or wandering steadily westward.
In Hobbiton there began to be some talk about the odd folk that
were abroad, and often strayed over the borders. The following
report of a conversation in the Green Dragon at Bywater one
evening [about this time >] in the spring of Bingo's 49th? 50th?
[sic] year (8) will give some idea of the feeling in the air.
Sam Gamgee (old Gaffer Gamgee's (eldest >] youngest and
a good jobbing gardener) was sitting in one corner by the fire,
and opposite him was Ted Sandyman (9) the miller's son from
Hobbiton; and there were various other rustic hobbits listening.
'Queer things you do hear these days, to be sure, Ted,' said
Sam.
There follows in the manuscript the original draft, written very
roughly and rapidly, of the conversation at The Green Dragon found in
FR, pp. 53 - 5 and it was scarcely altered afterwards save in little details
of phrasing. The hobbit who saw the Tree-man beyond the North Moors
(in FR Sam's cousin Halfast Gamgee, who worked for Mr Boffin at
Overhill) is here 'Jo Button, him that works for the Gawkrogers [see
p. 236] and goes up North for the hunting.' Sam's reference to 'queer
folk' being turned back by the Bounders on the Shire-borders is absent;
he speaks of the Elves journeying to the harbours 'out away West, away
beyond the Towers',' but the reference to the Grey Havens is lacking.
Most interesting is the reference to the Tree-men. As my father first
wrote Sam's words, he said: 'But what about these what do you call 'em-
giants? They do say as one nigh as big as a tower or leastways a tree was
seen up away beyond the North Moors not long back.' This was changed
at the time of writing to: 'But what about these Tree-Men, these here -
giants? They do say one nigh as big as a tower was seen,' etc. (Was this
passage (preserved in FR, p. 53) the first premonition of the Ents? But
long before my father had referred to 'Tree-men' in connection with the
voyages of Earendel: II.254, 261).
Sam's words about the Bagginses at the end of the conversation are
different (and explain why the egregious Ted Sandyman used the word
'cracked' in FR):
'Well, I dunno. But that Mr Baggins of Bag-End, he thinks it is
true; he told me and my dad so; and both he and old Mr Bilbo
know a bit about Elves, or so my dad says and he ought to know.
He's known the Bag-End folk since he was a lad, and he worked in
their gardens till his joints cracked too much for bending, and I
took on.'
'And they're both cracked...'
After Ted Sandyman's last words,
Sam sat silent and said no more. He was due for a job of work in
Bingo's garden next day, and was thinking he might have a chance
of a word with Bingo, to whom he had transferred the reverence of
his dad for old Bilbo. It was April and the sky was high and clear
after much rain. The sun was gone, and a cool pallid sky was
fading slowly. He went home through Hobbiton and up the hill
whistling softly and thoughtfully.
About the same time Gandalf was quietly slipping in through
the half-open front door of Bag-End.
Next morning after breakfast two people, Gandalf and Bingo,
were sitting near the open window. A bright fire was on the
hearth; but the sun was warm, and the wind was southerly:
everything looked fresh, and the new green of Spring was shim-
mering in the fields and on the tips of the trees' fingers. Gandalf
was thinking of a spring nearly 80 years before, when Bilbo had
run out of Bag-end without a handkerchief. Gandalf's hair was
perhaps whiter than it had been then, and his beard and eyebrows
were perhaps longer and face wiser; but his eyes were no less
bright and powerful, and he smoked and blew smoke-rings with as
great vigour and delight as ever. He was smoking now in silence,
for they had been talking about Bilbo (as they often did), and
[other things >] the Necromancer and the Ring.
'It is all most disturbing, and in fact terrifying,' said Bingo.
Gandalf grunted: the sound apparently meant 'I quite agree, but
your remark is not helpful.' There was another silence. The sound
of Sam Gamgee giving the lawn its first cut came from the garden.
'How long have you known all this? ' asked Bingo at length. 'And
did you tell Bilbo?'
'I guessed a good deal immediately,' answered Gandalf
slowly...
My father had now returned to the text given on pp. 76 ff, the 'foreword'
as he called it (see p. 224), which I have discussed on pp. 86 - 7, and in
which of course the story was present that Bingo gave the Party: the
conversation with Gandalf took place a few weeks before it, and it was
indeed Gandalf's own idea. But my father followed parts of the old text
closely, while extending it in certain very important ways.
In Gandalf's reply to Bingo's question (original text p. 77) he says:
'I guessed much, but at first I said little. I thought that all was well
with Bilbo, and that he was safe enough, for that kind of power
was powerless over him. So I thought, and I was right in a way;
but not quite right. I kept a. eye on him, of course, but perhaps I
was not careful enough. I did not then know which of the many
Rings this one was. Had I known I might have done differently -
but perhaps not. But I know now.' His voice faded to a whisper.
'For I went back to the land of the Necromancer - twice.'"
'I am sure you have done everything you could,' said Bingo...
Gandalf says rather more about Bilbo: 'I was not greatly worried about
Bilbo - his education was nearly complete, and I no longer felt respon-
sible for him. He had to follow his own mind, when he had made it up.'
And he speaks of the hobbits of the Shire being 'enslaved' (as in FR,
p. 58), not 'becoming Wraiths.'
But with Gandalf's reply to Bingo's 'I do not quite understand what all
this has got to do with me and Bilbo and the Ring' my father departed
altogether from the original text.
'To tell you the truth,' answered Gandalf, 'I believe he has
hitherto, hitherto mind you, entirely overlooked the existence of
hobbits - as Smaug the dragon had. For which you may be
thankful. And I don't think even now that he particularly wants
them: they would be obedient (perhaps), but not terribly useful
servants. But there is such a thing as malice and revenge. Miser-
able hobbits would please him more than happy ones. As for what
it has to do with you and the Ring: I think I can explain that -
partly at any rate. I do not yet know quite all. Give me the Ring a
minute.'
Bingo took it from his trouser pocket where it was clasped on a
chain that went round him like a belt. 'Good,' said Gandalf. 'I see
you keep it always on you. Go on doing so.' Bingo unclasped it and
handed it to Gandalf. It felt heavy, as if either it, or Bingo, were in
some curious way reluctant for Gandalf to touch it. It looked to be
made of pure and solid gold, thick, flattened, and unjointed.(12)
Gandalf held it up.
'Can you see any markings on it?' he said. 'No! ' said Bingo. 'It is
quite plain, and does not even show any scratches or signs of
wear.'
'Well then, look,' said Gandalf, and to Bingo's astonishment
and distress the wizard threw it into the middle of a hot patch in
the fire. Bingo gave a cry and groped for the poker; but Gandalf
held him back. 'Wait! ' he said in commanding tones, giving Bingo
a quick look from under his eyebrows.
No apparent change came over the Ring. After a while Gandalf
got up, closed the shutters outside the round window, and drew
the curtain. The room became dark and silent. The clack of Sam's
shears, now nearer the hole, could be heard outside. Gandalf
stood for a moment looking at the fire; then he stooped and
removed the Ring with the tongs, and at once picked it up. Bingo
gasped.
'It is quite cold,' said Gandalf. 'Take it! '
Bingo received it on his shrinking palm: it seemed colder and
even heavier than before. 'Hold it up!' said Gandalf, 'and look
inside.' As Bingo did so he saw fine lines, more fine than the finest
The original description of the writing on the Ring.
pen strokes, running along the inside of the Ring - lines of fire that
seemed to form the letters of a strange alphabet. They shone
bright, piercingly bright, and yet it seemed remotely, as if out of a
great depth.
'I cannot read the fiery letters,' said Bingo in a quavering voice.
'No,' said Gandalf; 'but I can - now. The writing says:
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.(13)
That is part of a verse that I know now in full.
Three rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mor-dor where the shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them,
In the land of Nor-dor where the shadows lie.(14)
'This,' said Gandalf, 'is the Master-ring: the One Ring to Rule
them all! This is the One Ring that he lost many ages ago - to the
great weakening of his power; and that he still so greatly desires.'
But he must not get it!'
Bingo sat silent and motionless. Fear seemed to stretch out a
vast hand like a dark cloud, rising out of the East and looming up
to engulf him. 'This Ring?' he stammered. 'How on earth did it
come to me?'
'I can tell you the part of the story that I know,' answered
Gandalf. 'In ancient days the Necromancer, the Dark Lord
Sauron,(16) made many magic rings of various properties that gave
various powers to their possessors. He dealt them out lavishly and
sowed them abroad to ensnare all peoples, but specially Elves and
Men. For those that used the rings, according to their strength and
will and hearts, fell quicker or slower under the power of the rings,
and the dominion of their maker." Three, Seven, Nine and One
he made of special potency." for their possessors became not only
invisible to all in this world, if they wished, but could see both the
world under the sun and the other side in which invisible things
move.' And they had (what is called) good luck, and (what
seemed) endless life. Though, as I say, what power the Rings
conferred on each possessor depended on what use they made of
them - on what they were themselves, and what they desired.
The Ring-verse, and the emergence of the Ruling Ring in the narrative.
'But the Rings were under the command of the maker and were
always drawing the possessors back to him. For he retained the
ruling Ring, which, when he wore it, enabled him to see all the
others, and to see even the thoughts of those that possessed
them.(20) But he lost this Ring, and consequently lost control of all
the others. Slowly through the years he has been gathering them
and seeking them out - hoping to find the lost One. But the Elves
resist his power more than all other races; and the high-elves of the
West, of whom some still remain in the middle-world, perceive
and dwell at once both [in] this world and the other side without
the aid of rings.(21) And they having suffered and fought long
against Sauron are not easily drawn into his net, or deluded by
him. What has become of the Three Rings of earth, air, and sky I
do not know.(22) Some say they have been carried far over the sea.
Others say that hidden Elf-kings still keep them. The dwarves too
proved tough and intractable: for they do not lightly endure any
obedience or domination (even of their own kind). Nor are they
easily made into shadows. With the dwarves the chief power of the
Rings was to kindle in their hearts the fire of greed (whence evil
has come that has aided Sauron). It is said that the foundation
of each of the Seven Great Hoards of the dwarves of old was a
golden Ring. But it is said that those hoards are plundered and the
dragons have devoured them, and the Rings have perished molten
in their fire; yet it is also said that not all the hoards have been
broken, and that still some of the Seven Rings are guarded.
'But all the Nine Rings of Men have gone back to Sauron, and
borne with them their possessors, kings, warriors, and wizards of
old,(23) who became Ring-wraiths and served the maker, and were
his most terrible servants. Men indeed have most often been
under his dominion, and are now again throughout the middle-
earth (24) falling under his power, especially in the East and South of
the world, where the Elves are few.'
'Ring-wraiths! ' exclaimed Bingo. 'What are they?'
'We will not speak of them now,' said Gandalf. 'Let us not speak
of horrible things without need. They belong to the ancient days,
and let us hope that they will never again arise. At least Gilgalad
accomplished that.'(25)
'Who was Gilgalad?' asked Bingo.
'The one who bereft the Dark Lord of the One Ring,' answered
Gandalf. 'He was the last in middle-earth of the great Elf-kings of
the high western race, and he made alliance with Orendil (26) King of
the Island who came back to the middle-world in those days. But I
will not tell all that tale now. One day perhaps you may hear it
from one who knows it truly. It is enough to say that they marched
against Sauron and besieged him in his tower; and he came forth
and wrestled with Gilgalad and Orendil, and was overthrown. But
he forsook his bodily shape and fled like a ghost to waste places
until he rested in Mirkwood and took shape again in the darkness.
Gilgalad and Orendil were both mortally hurt and perished in the
land of Mordor; but Isildor son of Orendil cut the One Ring from
the finger of Sauron and took it for his own.(27)
'But when he marched back from Mordor, Isildor's host was
overwhelmed by Goblins that swarmed down out of the moun-
tains. And it is told that Isildor put on the Ring and vanished from
their sight, but they trailed him by slot and scent, until he came
to the banks of a wide river. Then Isildor plunged in and swam
across, but the Ring betrayed him, (28) and slipped from his hand,
and he became visible to his enemies; and they killed him with
their arrows.(29) But a fish took the Ring and was filled with a
madness, and swam up stream leaping over rocks and up water-
falls until it cast itself upon a bank, and spat out the Ring and
died.' Gandalf paused. 'And there,' he said, 'the Ring passed out
of knowledge and legend; and even so much of the story is now
known and remembered by few. Yet I can now add to it, I think.
'Long after, but still very long ago, there lived by the bank of a
stream on the edge of Wilderland a wise clever-handed and quiet-
footed little family....
For Gollum's earlier history my father followed the original text
(pp. 78 - 9) very closely indeed, only introducing a slight change of word-
ing here and there: thus Digol is still Gollum himself, and not his friend.
At the end of the passage the words 'and even the Master lost it' become
'and even the maker, when his power had grown again, could learn
nothing of it', and the following sentence, about the Necromancer count-
ing his rings and always finding one missing, is of course removed.
Gandalf's discussion of Gollum's mind and motives at the time of
Bilbo's encounter with him (still of course based on the original story in
The Hobbit, see p. 86) also remains very close to the old version (pp.
79 - 80). There are indeed many small improvements in the phrasing; but
only two changes need be noticed. Gandalf's words about the longevity
afforded to the possessor of the Ring (p. 79) are thus interestingly
extended:
... Frightfully wearisome, Bingo, in fact finally tormenting (even
if you do not become a Wraith). Only Elves can stand it, and even
they fade.
And when Gandalf speaks of 'the unexpected arrival of Bilbo' (p. 80)
he now goes on:
...You remember how surprised he was, and how soon he began
talking of a present, though he gave himself a chance of keeping it
if luck went that way. Even so I dare say his old habits might have
beaten him in the end, and he might have tried to eat Bilbo, if it
had been easy. But I am not sure: I guess he was using the Riddle
Game (at which even a Gollum dare hardly cheat, as it is sacred
and of immense antiquity) as a kind of toss-up to decide for him.
And anyway Bilbo had the sword Sting, if you remember, so it was
not easy.
But from the point where Bingo objects that Gollum never gave Bilbo
the Ring, for Bilbo had it already, Gandalf's story takes a great step
forward, with his announcement that he himself had found Gollum (in
the original text there is no explanation of how he knew Gollum's
history). I give the next part of the chapter, much of which is in a very
rough state, in full.
'I know,' said Gandalf. 'And that is why I said that Gollum's
ancestry only partly explained events. There was, of course,
something much more mysterious behind the whole affair -
something probably quite beyond the design of the Lord of the
Rings himself, peculiar to Bilbo and his private Adventure. I can
put it no clearer than by saying that Bilbo was 'meant' to have the
Ring, and that he perhaps got involved in the Quest of the treasure
mainly for that reason. In which case you were meant to have it.
Which may (or may not) be a comforting thought. And there has
also always been a queer fate over the Rings on their own account.
They get lost, and turn up in strange places. The One had already
slipped once from its owner and betrayed him to death. It had now
slipped away from Gollum. But the evil they work according to
their maker's design turns often to good that he did not intend,
and even to his loss and defeat.(30) And that too may be a comforting
thought, or not.'
'I don't find either of your thoughts very encouraging,' said
Bingo; 'though I don't really understand what you mean. But how
do you come to know or guess so much about Gollum?'
'As for the guessing, or the putting of one and one and one
together, much of that has not been very difficult,' said Gandalf.
'The Ring that you had of Bilbo, and Bilbo had of Gollum, is
shown by the fire-writing to be the One Ring. And concerning that
the tale of Gilgalad and Isildor is known - to the wise. The filling
in of the tale of Gollum and fitting it into the gap presents no
special difficulty: to one who knows much about the history and
the minds and ways of the creatures of middle-earth that he does
not tell you. What was the first riddle Gollum asked: do you
remember? '
'Yes,' said Bingo, thinking.
What has mots that nobody sees,
Is higher than trees,
Up, up it goes,
And yet neveer grows?
'More or less right! ' said Gandalf. 'Roots and mountains! But as
a matter of fact, I have not had to do much guessing from hints of
that kind.(31) I know. I know because I found Gollum.'
'You found Gollum!' said Bingo astonished.
'The obvious thing to try to do, surely,' said Gandalf.
'Then what happened after Bilbo left? Do you know that?'
'Not so clearly. What I have told you Gollum was willing to tell;
though not of course in the way I have reported it - he thought he
was misunderstood and ill-treated, and he was full of tears for
himself, and hatred of all other things. But after the Riddle Game
he was unwilling to say anything, except in dark hints. One
gathered that somehow or other Gollum was going to get his own
back, and that people would see if he could be kicked and despised
and stuck in a hole, and starved and robbed. They might get worse
coming their way; for Gollum now had friends, powerful friends.
You can imagine the spiteful stuff. He had found out eventually
that Bilbo had in some way got "his" Ring, and what his name was.'
'How?' asked Bingo.
'I asked him, but he only leered and chuckled, and said
"Gollum issn't deaf iss he, no Gollum, and he hass eyes, hassn't
he, yes my preciouss, yes Gollum." But (32) one can imagine various
ways in which that might happen. He could, for instance, have
overheard the goblins talking about the escape of Bilbo from the
gate. And the news of the later events went all over Wilderland,
and would give Gollum plenty to think about. Anyway, after
having been "robbed and cheated", as he put it, he left the
Mountains: the goblins there became few and wary after the
Battle; hunting was poor, and the deep places were more than ever
dark and lonely. Also the power of the Ring had left him: he was
no longer bound by it. He was feeling old, very old, but less timid,
though he did not become less malicious.
'One might have expected wind and even the mere shadow of
sunlight to kill him pretty quickly. But he was cunning. He could
hide from daylight or moonlight, and travel softly and swiftly by
night with his long pale eyes - and catch small frightened and
unwary things. Indeed he grew for a while stronger with new food
and new air. He crept into Mirkwood, which is not surprising.'
'Did you find him there?'
'Yes - I followed him there: he had left a trail of horrible stories
behind him, among the beasts and birds and even the Woodmen of
Wilderland. He had developed a skill in climbing trees to find
nests, and creeping into houses to find cradles. He boasted of it
to me.
'But his trail also ran away south, far south of where I actually
came upon him - with the help finally of the Wood-elves. He
would not explain that. He just grinned and leered, and said
Gollum, rubbing his horrible hands together gleefully. But I have
a suspicion - it is now much more than a suspicion - that he made
his slow sneaking way bit by bit long ago down to the land of -
Mordor,' said Gandalf almost in a whisper. 'Such creatures go
naturally that way; and in that land he would soon learn much,
and soon himself be discovered, and examined. I think indeed that
Gollum is the beginning of our present troubles;(33) for if I guess
right, through him the Necromancer discovered what became of
the One Ring he had lost. He has even, one may fear, at last heard
of the existence of hobbits, and may now be seeking the Shire, if
he has not already found out where it is. Indeed I fear that he may
even have heard (34) of the humble and long unnoticeable name of-
Baggins.'
'But this is terrible!' cried Bingo. 'Far worse than I feared! 0
Gandalf, what am I to do, for now I am really afraid? What a pity
that Bilbo didn't stab the beastly creature, when he said goodbye! '
'What nonsense you do talk sometimes, Bingo!' said Gandalf.
'Pity! It was pity that prevented him. And he could not do so,
without doing wrong. It was against the Rules. If he had done so,
he would not have had the Ring - the Ring would have had him at
once. He would have been enslaved under the Necromancer.'
'Of course, of course,' said Bingo. 'What a thing to say of Bilbo!
Dear old Bilbo! But I am frightened - and I cannot feel any pity
for that vile Gollum. Do you mean to say that you, and the Elves,
let him live on, after all those horrible stories? Now at any rate he
is worse than a goblin, and just an enemy.'
'Yes, he deserved to die,' said Gandalf; 'but we did not kill him.
He is very old, and very wretched. The Wood-elves have him in
prison, and treat [him] with such kindness as they can find in their
wise hearts. They feed him on clean food. But I do not think much
can be done to cure him: yet even Gollum might prove useful for
good before the end.'(35)
'Well anyway,' said Bingo. 'if Gollum could not be killed, I wish
you had not let Bilbo keep the Ring. Why did he? Why did you let
him? Did you tell him all this?'
'Yes, I let him,' said Gandalf. 'But at first of course I did not
even imagine that it was [one] of the nineteen (36) Rings of Power: I
thought he had got nothing more dangerous than one of the lesser
magic rings that were once more common - and were used (as
their maker intended) chiefly by minor rogues and villains, for
mean wickednesses. I was not frightened of Bilbo being affected
by their power. But when I began to suspect that the matter was
more serious than that, I told him as much as my suspicions
warranted. He knew that it came in the long run from the
Necromancer. But you must remember there was the Ring itself
to reckon with. Even Bilbo could not wholly escape the power of
the Ruling Ring. He developed - a sentiment. He would keep it as
a memento. Frankly - he became rather proud of his Great Adven-
ture, and used to look at the Ring now and again (and oftener
as time went on) to warm his memory: it made him feel rather
heroic, though he never lost his power of laughing at the feeling.
'But in the end it got a hold of him in that way. He knew
eventually that it was giving him "long life", and thinning him. He
grew weary of it - "I can't abide it any longer", he said - but to get
rid of it was not so easy. He found it hard to bring himself to it. If
you think for a moment: it is not really very easy to get rid of the
Ring once you have got it.'(37)
From this point the text again follows the old (pp. 81 - 2) very closely.
Bingo now of course draws the Ring out of his pocket 'again', and means
to throw it 'back again' into the fire; and Gandalf says (as in FR, p. 70)
that 'This Ring at any rate has already passed through your fire and come
out unscathed, and even unheated.' Adam Hornblower the Hobbiton
smith remains. Gandalf says here that 'you would have to find one of the
Cracks of Earth in the depth of the Fiery Mountain, and drop it in there,
if you really did wish to destroy it - or to place it out of all reach until the
End.' Against 'Cracks of Earth' (the name in the original text, p. 82) my
father wrote in the margin, at the same time, '? Cracks of Doom', at the
second occurrence of the name he wrote 'Cracks of Doom', but put
'Earth' above 'Doom'.
The original text is developed and extended from the point where
Bingo says 'I really do wish to destroy it' (p. 82):
... I cannot think how Bilbo put up with it for so long. And also, I
must say, I cannot help wondering why he passed it on to me.
I knew, of course, that he had it - though I was the only one who
did or does know; but he spoke of it jokingly, and on the only two
or three occasions when I ever caught him using it he used it more
or less as a joke - especially the last time.'
'Bilbo would: and when your fate has bestowed on you such
perilous treasures it is not a bad way to take them - as long as you
can do so. But as for passing it on to you: he did so only because he
thought you were safe: safe not to misuse it; safe not to let it get
into evil hands; safe from its power, for a while; and safe, as an
unknown and unimportant hobbit in the heart of the quiet and
easily overlooked little Shire, from the - enemy. I promised him,
too, to help and advise you, if any difficulty arose. Also, I may say
that I did not discover the letters of fire, or guess that this ring was
the One Ring, until he had already decided to go away and leave
it.(38) And I did not tell him, for then he would not have burdened
you, or gone away. But for his own sake, I knew he ought to go. He
had had that Ring for 60 years, and it was telling on him, Bingo.
You have tried before now to describe to me your own feeling - the
stretched feeling.(39) His was much stronger. The Ring would have
worn him down in the end. Yet the only sure way of ridding him of
it was to let someone else take on the burden, for a while. He is
free. But you are his heir. And now that I have (since that time)
discovered much more, I know that you have a heavy inheritance.
I wish it could be otherwise. But do not blame Bilbo - or me, if you
can help it. Let us bear what is laid upon us (if we can). But we
must do something soon. The enemy is moving.'
There was a long silence. Gandalf puffed at his pipe in apparent
content...
The new version then develops the old text (p. 83) almost to the form
in FR (pp. 71 - 2), with Bingo's saying that he had often thought of going
off, but imagined it as a kind of holiday, and his sudden strong desire, not
communicated to Gandalf, to follow Bilbo and perhaps to find him, and
to run out of Bag End there and then. The new text continues:
'My dear Bingo!' said Gandalf. 'Bilbo made no mistake in
choosing you as his heir. Yes, I think you will have to go - before
long, though not at once or without a little thought and care. And I
am not sure you need go alone: not if you know of anyone you
could trust, and who would be willing to go by your side - and who
you would be willing to take into unknown dangers. But be careful
in choosing, and in what you say even to your closest friends. The
enemy has many spies, and many ways of hearing.' Suddenly he
stopped as if listening.
The remainder of the chapter (the surprising of Sam outside the
window, and Gandalf's decision that he should be Bingo's companion -
cf. Queries and Alterations note 2, p. 221) is almost word for word the
final form (FR pp. 72 - 3), which was reached almost at a stroke> and
never changed.
NOTES.
1. This passage goes back to the original version of 'A Long-expected
Party' (p. 17).
2. This passage goes back to the fourth version of 'A Long-expected
Party' (p. 37), and indeed in part to the third (p. 29), when Bilbo
was Bingo's father.
3. Odo Bolger: hitherto Odo has been Odo Took - or, at least, he was
still Odo Took when his surname was last mentioned, which was in
the original text of the 'Bree' chapter (p. 141, note 5). At the
beginning, Odo Took could tell Bingo not to be 'Bolger-like' (p. 49);
but perhaps my father felt that Odo had developed strong Bolger
traits as the story proceeded. He retains, however, a Took mother.
This passage, from 'Merry was the son of Caradoc Brandybuck',
was placed within square brackets, apparently at the time of writing.
The genealogy (part of which has appeared before, p. 100) is of
course very different from the final form, but when it is seen that
Frodo Took occupies the place in the 'tree' afterwards taken by
Peregrin Took (Pippin) it becomes at once much closer. In the
following table the names in LR (Appendix C, Took of Creat
Smials) are given in brackets.
Frodo Took I, 'the Old Took' (Gerontius).
Caradoc Brandybuck. = Yolanda Took. Folco Took (Paladin).
(Saradoc.) (Esmeralda.)
Meriadoc Brandybuck. Frodo Took II (Per@grin).
Since Caradoc Brandybuck, Merry's father, is here said to be
Bingo's cousin, it can be presumed that the genealogy given in the
family tree of the Brandybucks in LR was already present, i.e.
Caradoc was the son of Old Rory, the brother of Bingo's mother
Primula. That Rory Brandybuck was Bingo's uncle is never actually
said in LR, though of course it appears in the family tree, but it does
appear in rejected versions of the Farmer Maggot episode (pp. 289,
296), and again later (pp. 385 - 6).
Merry Brandybuck and Frodo Took are the great-great-grandsons
of the Old Took, as are Merry and Pippin in LR.
5. This passage goes back to the third version of 'A Long-expected
Party' (p. 34). '500 pieces of gold' was later changed to '500
double-dragons (gold pieces of the highest value in the Shire)', but
this was not taken up into the next version of 'Ancient History', which
returns to '500 gold pieces'. sixty years: 111 less 51 (see p. 31).
6. Gandalf's visits to Hobbiton. In The Tale of Years (LR Appendix B)
Bilbo's Farewell Party took place in 3001; Gandalf visited Frodo in
the years 3004 - 8, the last visit being in the autumn of 3008; and
returned finally in April 3018 (after g and a half years): Frodo's 50th
birthday was in September of that year, when he left Bag End. Cf.
FR p. 55.
In the present text there was likewise a gap of three years after the
Party before Gandalf came again; but then he came once or twice
every year, with one gap of two years, till the 14th year after the
Party, when Bingo was 47, and after that 'frequently'. The passage
was subsequently rewritten to read:
...seeing that Bingo was still quite settled. After that he returned
several times, until he suddenly disappeared. Bingo heard no
news of him between the 7th and 14th years after Bilbo's depar-
ture, when Gandalf suddenly reappeared one winter's night.
After that the wizard came frequently and stayed longer.
For the year in which the conversation in 'Ancient History' took
place (it was in the month of April, p. 254) see note 8.
7. This is a reference to The Hobbit, Chapter XIX 'The Last Stage':
... they had at last driven the Necromancer from his dark hold in
the south of Mirkwood.
'Ere long now,' Gandalf was saying, 'the Forest will grow
somewhat more wholesome. The North is freed from that horror
for many an age.
On his copy of the sixth impression (1954) my father changed
Gandalf's words to read: The North will be freed from that horror
for many long years, I hope. This is the text from the third edition
(1966).
The following passage is the first clear, if very general, statement
of where the Land of Mordor lay; see p. 218, note 17. Cf. also
Gandalf's account of Gollum's journey (p. 264): 'his trail also ran
away south, far south of where I actually came upon him' (which
was in Mirkwood).
8. in the spring of Bingo's 49th? 50th? year. At the beginning of the next
chapter in this 'phase' it is said that Bingo decided to leave Bag End
on September 22nd 'in this (his 50th) year.'
9. My father first made the miller's son Tom Tunnelly, changing it as
he wrote to Tom Sandyman; Tom was changed to Ted in pencil,
before the chapter was finished, for Ted appears, as first written, at
the end of it. See p. 249, note 33.
10. It is a very old conception that appears here; see II.323 and note 44.
- Bingo describes the Elf-towers to his companions on the walk to
Farmer Maggot's: he says that he saw them once, shining white in
the light of the Moon (p. 93). Trotter at Bree calls them the West
Towers (pp. 155, 159).
11. On Gandalf's visits to the land of the Necromancer see p. 85,
note 12.
Here my father wrote: 'Bingo had never seen it on any finger but his
own forefinger', but at once struck it out.
13. My father first wrote 'One ring to bind them', changing it in pencil
to 'and in the darkness bind them', which is the form as written from
the first in the whole verse that immediately follows.
14. The text of the verse of the Rings. My father's original workings for
this verse are extant. The first complete form reads:
Nine for the Elven-kings under moon and star,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Three for Mortal Men that wander far,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mor-dor cohere the shadows are.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mor-dor where the shadwos are.
He was at this time still uncertain as to the disposition of the Rings
among the different peoples. The verse in the text of the present
chapter as first written also had 'Nine rings for the Elven-kings' and
'Three for Mortal Men' (in the original text, p. 78, 'the Elves had
many', and 'Men had three rings', but 'others they found in secret
places cast away by the elf-wraiths'). But he wrote in the margin (in
ink and at the same time as the verse itself) '3' against 'Nine' and 'g'
against 'Three', subsequently changing the words in the verse itself:
see note 22.
Another preliminary version of the verse has:
Twelve for Mortal Men doomed to die,
Nine for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Three for the Elven-kings of earth, sea, and sky,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne.
'Twelve' and 'Nine' were then changed to 'Nine' and 'Seven'. On
there being at one time twelve Black Riders see p. 196. In the text of
the chapter (p. 260) the Three Rings are called the Rings 'of earth,
air, and sky'.
15. The text as first written here was 'and now that he knows or guesses
where it is he desires so greatly.'
16. My father wrote here: 'In ancient days the Necromancer [servant of
???] the Dark Lord Sauron.' The brackets and queries were put in at
the time of writing or very soon after. I can only explain this on the
assumption that he was momentarily thinking of Morgoth as the
Dark Lord, before he wrote the name Sauron; but it is odd that he
did not simply strike out the words 'servant of'.
17. Against this passage my father wrote in the margin: 'Ring-wraiths
later' (see p. 260). In the original text (p. 78, and cf. the draft on
which that was based, p. 75) the Wraiths are mentioned at this
point.
18. My father wrote 'Nine, Seven, Three, and One', reversing 'Nine'
and 'Three' in pencil. - Here appears explicitly for the first time the
distinction between the lesser Rings and the Rings of Power.
19. The text as written, but probably changed immediately, was: 'but
could see both the world under the sun and the phantom world [>
the world of shadow] in which the invisible creatures of the Lord
moved.'
20. With this account of the relation of the power of the Rings to the
innate qualities of those who bore them, and of the potency of
the One Ring in the hand of its maker, compare Queries and
Alterations, note 12 (p. 227), where the idea of the Ruling Ring first
explicitly appears.
21. Cf. p. 212, and Queries and Alterations, note 10 (p. 225).
22. Here the Three Rings of the Elves appear in the text as first written
(and the Nine Rings of Men in the next paragraph): see note 14. In
the draft of the Ring-verse given at the end of note 14 the Three
Rings are 'of earth, sea, and sky', whereas here they are 'of earth, air,
and sky.'
23. wizards: cf. p. 211, where Gandalf at Rivendell likewise includes
'wizards' among the servants of the Dark Lord.
24. the middle-earth was changed from the middle-world, which is used
earlier in this passage and again subsequently.
25. The meaning appears to be that after the loss of the Ruling Ring to
the Necromancer, the Ring-wraiths could no longer function as his
servants; they were not definitively destroyed, but they had no
effective existence. Gandalf was soon to be proved wrong in this
opinion, of course; and it may be that my father introduced it here to
explain Gandalf's failure to take them into account. In FR he is less
confident: 'It is many a year since the Nine walked abroad. Yet who
knows? As the Shadow grows once more, they too may walk again.'
26. The name of the King of Men was first written Valandil; above this
my father wrote Eand Orendil. The next part of Gandalf's story was
constantly changed in the act of composition, and at subsequent
occurrences the name of the King varies between Valandil >
Orendil/Elendil, Elendil > Orendil, and then Orendil unchanged; I
read Orendil throughout. For previous hesitation over the name see
p. 174 note 25 and p. 197 note 3.
27. Here my father first wrote. "but ere he fell Gilgalad cut the One Ring
from the hand finger of Sauron, and gave it to Ithildor that stood by,
but Ithildor took it for his own.' This was changed at the time of
writing to the text given. hand finger was left thus; I read finger
because that is the word used in the next text of this chapter. -
Ithildor was changed to Isildor at each occurrence until the last in
this passage, where Isildor was the form first written. See note 29.
28. The original reading here was: 'but the Ring [or >] and his fate
betrayed him'.
29. The story of the One Ring now moves further. In the original text
(p. 78) it was simply that the Ring 'fell from the hand of an elf as he
swam across a river; and it betrayed him, for he was Hying from
pursuit in the old wars, and he became visible to his enemies, and
the goblins slew him.' In Queries and Alterations note 12 (p. 226) a
new element was proposed: that the Ring was 'taken from the Lord
himself when Gilgalad wrestled with him, and taken by a flying Elf';
the implication clearly being that Gilgalad took it (as said at first in
the present text, see note 27). Now the Elf becomes Isildor son of
Orendil (Flendil: note 26).
30. This passage, from 'And there has also always been a queer fate',
was enclosed in brackets with a query; and the last sentence, 'But
the evil they work...', additionally enclosed in double brackets
with a double query. The sentences immediately following
(Gandalf's 'And that too may be a comforting thought, or not', and
the first part of Bingo's reply) are a pencilled addition. But it is not
clear to me why Bingo should be discouraged by the suggestion that
the evil wrought by the Rings could turn to good and against the
design of their maker.
31. Bingo's version has slight deviations from the text in The Hobbit. -
It is not very evident what Gandalf had deduced from Gollum's first
riddle.
32. In place of this passage, from 'He had found out eventually', the text
as first written had (much as in the original version, p. So): 'I think it
is certain that Gollum knew after a time that Bilbo had in some way
got "his" Ring. One can imagine...'
With the pencilled extension Gandalf's explanation of how
Gollum knew that the hobbit had got the Ring is extended to cover
the fact that Gollum also found out what his name was. But this is
odd, since in the original story in The Hobbit as in the revised
version Bilbo told Gollum his name: '"What iss he, my precious?"
whisperered Gollum. "I am Mr Bilbo Baggins..."' See further note
34 (and cf. FR p. 66).
33. This phrase of Gandalf's, 'I think indeed that Gollum is the
beginning of our present troubles', is repeated from the original text
(p. 81), and here as there seems to refer to the fact that the Dark
Lord was known to Gandalf to be seeking the Ring in the direction
of the Shire. But it is still not really explained what kind of searching
could lead Gandalf to describe it as 'our present trouble', since he
knew nothing of the Black Riders (see Queries and Alterations, p.
224). He can hardly be referring to those things mentioned earlier in
the chapter (p. 253): Men moving North and West, goblins multi-
plying, new kinds of trolls; for these were surely large manifes-
tations of the growing power of the Dark Lord, rather than of the
search for the Ring.
34. Here follows: '(for his ears are keen and his spies legion)', marked in
pencil for deletion. This change perhaps goes with the puzzling
addition referred to in note 32, where Gandalf suggests that Gollum
had eventually found out Bilbo's name; for in that case, if Gollum
had indeed been to Mordor, he himself could have told the Necro-
mancer that 'Baggins' had taken the Ring.
35. From this point the text is written in faint pencil.
36. Above 'nineteen' is pencilled '20'. This is the first occurrence of the
term 'Rings of Power'.
37. From this point the text is again in ink, a good clear manuscript to
the end of the chapter.
38. The meaning must surely be that Gandalf had 'discovered the
letters of fire' on the Ring before Bilbo left Hobbiton; which is
curious, since Gandalf also says that he did not tell Bilbo, and it is
hard to imagine him conducting the test without Bilbo knowing of
it. In FR (p. 65), when Frodo asked him when he discovered the
fire-writing, he replied: 'Just now in this room, of course. But I
expected to find it. I have come back from dark journeys and long
search to make that final test.' Gandalf's words on p. 256 could be
taken to mean that he did not know for certain until now: 'I do not
yet know quite all. Give me the Ring a minute.' But they cannot
mean this; and he refers (p. 262) to the fire-writing on the Ring as if
it had been one of the main pieces of evidence in his deduction of the
story which he now told to Bingo.
My father later pencilled an 'X' in the margin of the text here, and
scribbled 'did not know until recently'.
39. See p. 252.
40. The original drafting for the episode is extant, scribbled faintly at
the end of the manuscript of the original version of the chapter, and
is naturally less finished; but already in this draft the final text is
fully present except in details of expression.
XVI.
DELAYS ARE DANGEROUS.
From 'Ancient History' my father proceeded to the revision of the
original second chapter, which had been given the title 'Three's Com-
pany and Four's More' (p. 49); this new version becomes Chapter III,
but was given no title. Later, he scribbled in at the head of the text
'Delays are Dangerous' (which is the title ab initio of the following
version of the chapter), and it is convenient to adopt this here.
Some exceedingly rough and fluid notes - the continuation of those
mentioned at the beginning of the last chapter, p. 250 - are all that exist
by way of preparatory writing for this revision. I have already noticed
(p. 250) that the story of Bingo's dinner-party for Merry, Frodo Took,
and Odo Bolger on the eve of departure was devised here, and that
against this my father wrote 'Sam Gamgee to replace Odo' (these notes
preceded the writing of 'Ancient History', where Sam Gamgee first
emerged). But Odo could not be got rid of so easily. The notes continue:
Gandalf was supposed to come to party but did not turn up. Bingo waits
till Friday [September 23] but foolishly did not wait any longer, as
Sackville-Bagginses threaten to turn him out: but sets off on Friday
night. Gives out he is going to stay with Merry and return to his
Brandybuck relations.
A rejected suggestion that Odo remained at Hobbiton 'to give news to
Gandalf' shows my father already pondering this question, which after a
long history of change would ultimately lead to Fredegar Bolger remain-
ing at Crickhollow (FR p. 118). In these notes a Brandybuck with the
Arthurian name of Lanorac (changed from Bercilak), a cousin of Merry's,
'has been ordered to have all ready' in Buckland; and there is a suggestion
for the story after they leave Buckland and enter the Old Forest: 'Frodo
wants to come but is told no: to give news to Gandalf. Merry says nothing
- but does come: locks door and throws key over hedge.' With this cf.
Queries and Alterations, note 2 (p. 221): Frodo says goodbye at
Bucklebury. Only Merry and Bingo ride on into exile - because Merry
insists. Bingo originally intended to go alone' (this was written before
Sam Gamgee entered).
The text of the new version of this chapter is the most complicated
document yet encountered. It begins as manuscript, in which part of the
narrative is in two variant forms, and then turns back to the original
typescript (given in full on pp. 49 - 65), which was heavily corrected in
two forms (with different inks to cover different versions): some of the
more extensive changes are on inserted slips. At the end my father
abandoned the old typescript and concluded the chapter in a new
manuscript - the first part of it in three versions. To present the whole
complex in this book is obviously impossible, and is in any case in no way
necessary for the understanding of the development of the narrative.
The initial portion in manuscript extends as far as the beginning of the
hobbits' walk on the first night ('They went very quietly over fields and
along hedgerows and the borders of coppices, until night fell', p. 50), and
the opening of the chapter presents an entirely new narrative. Leaving
aside for the moment the passage existing in variant forms, the new text
while very rough reaches in all essentials the final form in FR, pp. 74 - 80.
There are many differences still in wording, and the chapter begins with
the local gossip about the sale of Bag End and then proceeds to Bingo's
discussion with Gandalf about his departure, rather than the other way
about," but differences of substance are few and mostly slight. More
emphasis is placed on the fact that the 22nd of September was in that year
again a Thursday (as it was in FR, p. 77): that seemed to [Bingo s] fancy
to mark the date as the proper one for setting out to follow Bilbo.'
Gandalf's tone to Bingo is a bit grimmer, and has more asperity; and he
does not refer to the possibility that it may, or may not, be Bingo's task to
find the Cracks of Doom. His parting words to him are significantly
different from what he says in FR; and Bingo's state of mind on the eve of
his own departure is given a different emphasis. I give here a portion of
the text, taking it up from the point where Gandalf says that the direction
which Bingo takes when he leaves Hobbiton should not be known (FR
p. 74, at bottom).
'Well now,' said Bingo, 'do you know I have mostly thought just
about going, and have never decided on the direction! For where
shall I go, and by what shall I steer, and what is to be my quest?
This will indeed be the opposite of Bilbo's adventure: setting out
without any known destination, and to get rid of a treasure, not to
find one.'
'And to go there but not come back again, likely enough,' added
Gandalf grimly.
'That I know,' said Bingo, pretending not to be impressed. 'But
seriously, in what direction shall I start?'
'Towards danger, but not too rashly, nor too straight towards
it,' answered Gandalf. 'Make first for Rivendell, if you will at least
take that much advice. After that we shall see - if you ever get
there: the Road is not as easy as it was.'
'Rivendell!' said Bingo. 'Very good. That will please Sam.' He
did not add that it pleased him too; and that though he had not
decided, he had often thought of making for the house of Elrond;
if only because he thought that perhaps Bilbo, after he had become
free again, had chosen that way too.
The decision to go Eastwards directed Bingo's later plans. It
was for this reason that he gave out that he was removing to
Buckland, and actually did ask his Brandybuck cousins, Merry
and Lanorac and the rest, to look out for a little place for him to
live in.(2) In the meantime he went on much as usual, and the
summer passed. Gandalf had gone off again. But he was invited to
the farewell party, and had promised to arrive on the day before,
or at latest on the 22nd itself. 'Don't go till you see me, Bingo,' he
said, as he took his leave one wet dark evening in May. 'I may have
news, and useful information about the Road. And I may want to
come with you.'(3)
The autumn came on. No news came from Gandalf. There
began to be signs of activity at Bag-End. Two covered carts went
off laden. They were understood to be conveying such furniture as
Mr Baggins had not sold to the Sackville-Bagginses to his new
house in Buckland by way of the Brandywine Bridge. Odo Bolger,
Merry Brandybuck, and Frodo Took were staying there with
Bingo. The four of them seemed to be busy packing and the hole
was all upside-down. On Wednesday September 21 Bingo began
to look out anxiously for Gandalf, but there was no sign of him.
His birthday morning September 22 dawned, as fair and clear as it
had for Bilbo's party long ago (as it now seemed to Bingo). But still
Gandalf did not appear. In the evening Bingo gave his farewell
party. The absence of Gandalf rather worried Bingo and a little
damped his spirits, which had been steadily rising - as every cool
and misty autumn morning brought him closer to the day of his
going. The only wrench now was parting from his young friends.
The danger did not seem so threatening. He wanted to be off - at
once. Everyone had been told that he was leaving for Bucklebury
as soon as possible after his birthday. The Sackville-Bagginses got
possession after midnight on the 23rd. All the same, he wanted to
see Gandalf first. But his three friends were in high spirits...
From the end of Bingo's birthday dinner to the beginning of the
hobbits' night walk the new text is almost the same as that in FR
(pp. 77-80), apart from the different hobbits present (and still leaving
aside the part existing in variant forms). The third cart, bearing 'the
remaining and more valuable things', went off as in FR on the morning of
the 23rd; at first Odo Bolger was said to be in charge of this, but he was
changed, apparently at once, to Merry Brandybuck. (In FR Merry was
accompanied by Fredegar Bolger, and my father queried in the margin
here: 'Merry and Odo?'). Now enters the story of Bingo's overhearing
Gaffer Gamgee talking (in almost the same words as in FR) to a stranger
at the end of Bagshot Row: the first germ of this has been seen in Queries
and Alterations, note 3 (p. 222). The only real difference is that the old
discussion among the hobbits (p. 49) whether to walk far or not is still
present, Odo disagreeing with Frodo and Bingo; but there are now four
of them, and Bingo asks Sam for his opinion:
'Well, sir,' he answered, taking off his hat and looking up at the
sky, 'I do guess that it may be pretty warm tomorrow. And
walking in the sun, even at this time o' year, with a load on your
back, can be wearisome, like. I votes with Mr Frodo, if you ask
me.'
The variant section was written continuously with the preceding
narrative - that is to say, it is the story as my father first intended to tell it,
and the other version was written subsequently, at first as an alternative.
The divergence begins after Merry's departure for Buckland on Friday
September 23, Bingo's last day at' Bag End.
After lunch people began to arrive - some by invitation, others
brought by rumour and curiosity. They found the door open,
and Bingo on the mat in the hall waiting to greet them. Inside the
hall was piled an assortment of packages, bric-a-brac and small
articles of furniture. On every package and item there was a label
tied....
On the manuscript my father wrote later that 'this variant depending
on shortening in Chapter I and the transference of parting gifts etc. to
I I I' was now rejected. The shortening of Chapter I proposed is in fact the
short variant of the story of the aftermath of Bilbo's party which has been
described on pp. 241 - 2: as I noted there, 'the entire "business" of the
presents, and the invasion of Bag End, was in this variant removed', for it
was now to be transferred to Bingo's departure - orat least, was under the
option of being so transferred. Thus a further twist is given to the
serpentine history of this element in ?he Lard of the Rings: for what is
involved is not of course a simple reversion to the story as it was at the end
of the 'first phase' of 'A Long-expected Party', where also the gifts were
Bingo's, not Bilbo's. The new idea was that the gifts,(4) the invasion of Bag
End, the ejection of the hobbits excavating in the pantry, and the fight
with Sancho Proudfoot (his adversary here being Cosimo Sackville-
Baggins,(5) supported by his mother, who broke her umbrella on Sancho's
head) - that all this took place not after the great Birthday Party (which
was now Bilbo's), but after Bingo's own discreet birthday party before his
departure.
It is possible and even probable that my father's intention in this was to
reduce the element of Hobbiton comedy that confronts the reader at the
outset, and introduce sooner, in 'Ancient History', the very much
weightier matters that had come into being since 'A Long-expected
Party' was first written.
In this version the story of Bingo's walking a little way from Bag End,
and so hearing Gaffer Gamgee talking to the Black Rider, was not yet
present; and when he has sent Sam off with the key to his father, he
leaves by himself. There is no mention of Odo Bolger and Frodo Toot
before the variant text ends, with Bingo going down the garden path,
jumping the fence at the bottom, and passing into the twilight. I cannot
say for certain whether this is significant or not. It seems unlikely to be a
mere casual oversight; but if it is not, it means presumably that my father
was contemplating a wholly new course for the story: Bingo and Sam
journeying through the Shire alone. He had certainly contemplated
something of the sort earlier. However this may be, nothing came of it;
and he passed on at once to the second version of this part of the narrative
(the form in FR), where Bingo after listening to Gaffer Gamgee talking
to the stranger returns to Bag End and finds Odo and Frodo (Pippin in
FR) sitting on their packs in the porch.
Effectively, then, the third chapter of FR, as far as the departure of
Bingo (Frodo) from Bag End, was now achieved. My father here, as I
have said, turned back to the original typescript, and used it as the
physical basis for his new text until near the end of the chapter. He
emended it in different inks, and added this note on the typescript:
Corrections in black are for any version. Those in red are for the revised
version (with Bilbo as party-giver and including Sam).(6) In the new
material, corrections and additions, he distinguished very carefully
between the two types of change: in one case he wrote 'red emendation'
against the first part of a new passage, and 'black emendation' against the
next part, continuous with the first (the passage is given in note x x, and
the reason for the distinction is very clear). It is hard to see why he should
have gone to all this trouble, unless at this stage he was still (remarkably
enough) uncertain about the new story, with 'Bilbo as party-giver and
including Sam', and saw the possibility of returning to the old.
As I have said, the presentation of the results of this procedure here is
impossible,(7) and unnecessary even if possible. The effect of all the
emendations is to bring the original version very close indeed to the form
in FR (pp. 80 ff.). In places the new version is a halfway house between
the two, and in the latter part the corrections are less thoroughgoing, but
only here and there is there anything of narrative importance to note; and
in what follows it can be assumed unless the contrary is said that the FR
text was already present in all particulars other than the choice of
phrasing. But the hobbits are now four: Bingo, Frodo Toot, Odo
Bolger, and Sam Gamgee, so that there is in this respect also an
intervening stage here between the original story (where there are three,
Bingo, Frodo Took, and Odo Took) and FR (where there are again only
three, but a different three, Frodo Baggins, Peregrin Took, and Sam
Gamgee), and some variation between the versions in the attribution of
remarks to different characters (on this matter see p. 70). But things said
by Sam in FR are said by him in this text also.(8)
At the beginning of this part of the chapter, where the old text (p. 50)
had: 'They were now in Tookland; and they began to climb into the
Green Hill Country south of Hobbiton', the new reads: 'They were now
in Tookland and going southwards; but a mile or two further on they
crossed the main road from Much Hemlock (in the Hornblower country)
to Bywater and Brandywine Bridge. Then they struck eastward and
began to climb...' (9) Beside this my father wrote: '? Michel Delving (the
chief town of the Shire back west on the White Downs).' This is the first
appearance of Michel Delving, and of the White Downs (see p. 295).
'Much Hemlock' echoes the name Much Wenlock in Shropshire (Much
'Great', as Michel).
The Woody End is not called 'a wild corner of the Eastfarthing' - the
'Farthings' had not yet been devised - but it is added that 'Not many of
them [hobbits] lived in that part.'
The verse The Road goes ever on and on, now ascribed to Bingo and
not to Frodo Took, is still as in the original version (p. 53).(10)
A slight difference from FR is present at the first appearance of the
Black Rider on the road (old version p. 54):
Odo and Frodo ran quickly to the left, and down into a little
hollow not far from the road. There they lay flat. Bingo hesitated
for a second: curiosity or some other impulse was struggling with
his desire to hide. Sam waited for his master to move. The sound
of hoofs drew nearer. 'Get down, Sam!' said Bingo, just in time.
They threw themselves flat in a patch of long grass behind a tree
that overshadowed the road."
In the discussion that followed the departure of the first Black Rider
my father retained at this time the old version (p. 54), in which Frodo
Took told of his encounter with a Black Rider in the north of the Shire:
... I haven't seen one of that Kind in our Shire for years.'
'There are Men about, all the same,' said Bingo; 'and I have
heard many reports of strange folk on our borders, and within
them, of late. Down in the south Shire they have had some trouble
with Big People, I am told. But I have heard of nothing like this
rider.'
'I have though,' said Frodo, who had listened intently to
Bingo's description of the Black Rider. 'I remember now some-
thing I had quite forgotten. I was walking away up in the North
Moor - you know, right up on the northern borders of the Shire -
this very summer, when a tall black-cloaked rider met me. He was
riding south, and he stopped and spoke, though he did not seem
able to speak our language very well; he asked me if I knew
whether there were any folk called Baggins in those parts. I
thought it very queer at the time; and I had a queer uncomfortable
feeling, too. I could not see any face under his hood. I said no, not
liking the look of him. As far as I heard, he never found his way to
Hobbiton and the Baggins country.'
'Begging your pardon,' put in Sam suddenly, 'but he found his
way to Hobbiton all right, him or another like him. Anyway it's
from Hobbiton as this here Black Rider comes - and I know where
he's going to.'
'What do you mean?' said Bingo, turning sharply. 'Why didn't
you speak up before?'
Sam's report of the Gaffer's account to him of the Rider who came to
Hobbiton is exactly as in FR, p. 85. Then follows:
'Your father can't be blamed anyway,' said Bingo. 'But I should
have taken more care on the road, if you had told me this before. I
wish I had waited for Gandalf,' he muttered; 'but perhaps that
would have only made matters worse.'
'Then you know or guess something about the rider?' said
Frodo, who had caught the muttered words. 'What is he?'
'I don't know, and I would rather not guess,' said Bingo. 'But I
don't believe either this rider (or yours, or Sam's - if they are all
different) was really one of the Big People, not an ordinary Man, I
mean. I wish Gandalf was here; but now the most we can hope is
that he will come quick to Bucklebury. Whoever would have
expected a quiet walk from Hobbiton to Buckland to turn out so
queer. I had no idea that I was letting you folk in for anything
dangerous.'
'Dangerous?' said Frodo. 'So you think it is dangerous, do you?
You are rather close, aren't you, Uncle Bingo? Never mind - we
shall get your secret out of you some time. But if it is dangerous,
then I am glad we are with you.'
'Hear, hear!' said Odo. 'But what is the next thing to do? Shall
we go on at once, or stay here and have some food?...
My father still retained the development (see pp. 55 - 6 and note x x)
that a Black Rider came past, and briefly stopped beside, the great hollow
tree in which the hobbits sat, and only changed this story at its end:
... We are probably making a fuss about nothing [said Odo]. This
second rider, at any rate, was very likely only a wandering stranger
who has got lost; and if he met us, he would just ask us the way to
Buckland or Brandywine Bridge, and ride on.'
'What if he stops us and asks if we know where Mr Baggins of
Bag-end is?' said Frodo.
'Give him a true answer,' said Bingo. 'Either say: Back in
Hobbiton, where there are hundreds; or say Nowhere. For Mr
Bingo Baggins has left Bag-end, and not yet found any other
home. Indeed I think he has vanished; here and now I become Mr
Hill of Faraway.'
An alternative version is provided:
'What if he stops us and asks if we know where Mr Baggins of
Bag-end is? ' said Frodo.
'Tell him that he has vanished! ' said Odo. 'After all one Baggins
of Bag-end has vanished, and how should we know that it is not old
Bilbo that he wants to pay a belated call on? Bilbo made some
queer friends in his travels, by his own account.'
Bingo looked quickly at Odo. 'That is an idea,' he said. 'But I
hope we shall not be asked that question; and if we are, I have a
feeling that silence will be the best answer. Now let us get on. I am
glad the road is winding.'
This entire element was removed in FR (p. 86).
When the singing of the Elves is heard (old version p. 58) Bingo still
attributes to Bilbo his knowledge that there were sometimes Elves in the
Woody End (cf. the passage in 'Ancient History', p. 253), and he says
that they wander into the Shire in spring and autumn 'out of their own
lands far beyond the river', in FR (p. 88) Frodo knows independently of
Bilbo that Elves may be met with in the Woody End, and says that they
come 'out of their own lands away beyond the Tower Hills.' The
conception of Elvish lands west of the Shire was of course fully present at
this time: cf. Sam's words about Elves 'going to the harbours, out away
West, away beyond the Towers' (p. 254). The hymn to Elbereth has the
last emendation needed to bring it to the final form (see p. 59): cold to
bright in the second line of the second verse. It is still said to be sung 'in
the secret elf-tongue'. At its end, Bingo speaks of the High Elves as Frodo
does in FR (p. 89), though without saying 'They spoke the name of
Elbereth! ' - thus it is not explained how he knows they are High Elves.(12)
Odo's unfortunate remark ('I suppose we shall get a really good bed
and supper?') is retained, and Bingo's greeting that Bilbo had taught
him, 'The stars shine on the hour of our meeting', remains only in
translation. Gildor in his reply refers to Bingo's being 'a scholar in the elf-
tongue', changed from 'the elf-latin' (p. 60), where FR has 'the Ancient
Tongue'. It is still the Moon, and not the autumn stars, that is seen in
the sky; and the different recollections by the hobbits of the meal eaten
with the Elves are retained from the old text, with the addition of the
passage about Sam (FR p. 90).
From this point my father abandoned the old typescript, and though
returning to it just at the end continued the text in manuscript. The
beginning of Bingo's conversation with Gildor is extant in three forms.
All three begin as in FR, p. 92 ('They spoke of many things, old and
new'), but in the first Gildor goes on from 'The secret will not reach the
Enemy from us' with 'But why did you not go before?' - the first thing
that he says to Bingo in the original version ('Why did you choose this
moment to set out?', p. 62). Bingo replies with a very brief reference to
his divided mind about leaving the Shire, and then Gildor explains him
to himself:
'That I can understand,' said Gildor. 'Half your heart wished to
go, but the other half held you back; for its home was in the Shire,
and its delight in bed and board and the voices of friends, and in
the changing of the gentle seasons among the fields and trees. But
since you are a hobbit that half is the stronger, as it was even in
Bilbo. What has made it surrender?'
'Yes, I am an ordinary hobbit, and so I always shall be, I
imagine,' said Bingo. 'But a most un-hobbitlike fate has been laid
upon me.'
'Then you are not an ordinary hobbit,' said Gildor, 'for other-
wise that could not be so. But the half that is plain hobbit will
suffer much I fear from being forced to follow the other half which
is worthy of the strange fate, until it too becomes worthy (and yet
remains hobbit). For that must be the purpose of your fate, or the
purpose of that part of your fate which concerns you yourself. The
hobbit half that loves the Shire is not to be despised but it has to be
trained, and to rediscover the changing seasons and voices of
friends when they have been lost.'
Here the text ends. The second of these abandoned versions is nearer to
FR, but has Gildor speak severely about Bingo's lateness on the road:
'Has Gandalf told you nothing?'
'Nothing about such creatures.'
'Is it not by his advice, then, that you have left your home? Did
he not even urge you to make haste? '
'Yes. He wished me to go sooner in the year. He said that delay
might prove dangerous; and I begin to fear that it has.'
'Why did you not go before?'
Bingo then speaks about his two 'halves', though without comment,
moves into an explanation of why he lingered till autumn, and speaks of
his dismay at the danger that is already threatening.
The third text is very close to and quite largely word for word the same
as the final form until near the end of the conversation, where the matter
though essentially the same is somewhat differently arranged. Gildor's
advice about taking companions is more explicit than in FR ('Take such
friends as are trusty and willing', p. 94): here he says 'If there are any
whom you can wholly trust, and who are willing to share your peril, take
them with you.' He is referring to Bingo's present companions; for he
goes on (much as in the old version, p. 64): 'They will protect you. I
think it likely that your three companions have already helped you to
escape: the Riders did not know that they were with you, and their
presence has for the time being confused the scent.' But at the very end
there occurs this passage:
... In this meeting there may be more than chance; but the
purpose is not clear to me, and I fear to say too much. But' - and he
paused and looked intently at Bingo - 'have you perhaps Bilbo's
ring with you?'
'Yes, I have,' said Bingo, taken aback.
'Then I will add this last word. If a Rider approaches or pursues
you hard - do not use the ring to escape from his search. I guess
that the ring will help him more than you.'
'More mysteries!' said Bingo. 'How can a ring that makes me
invisible help a Black Rider to find me?'
'I will answer only this,' said Gildor: 'the ring came in the
beginning from the Enemy, and was not made to delude his
servants.'
'But Bilbo used his ring to escape from goblins, and evil
creatures,' said Bingo.
'Black Riders are not goblins,' said the Elf. 'Ask no more of me.
But my heart forebodes that ere all is ended you Bingo son of
Drogo will know more of these fell things than Gildor Inglorion.
May Elbereth protect you! '
'You are far worse than Gandalf,' cried Bingo; 'and I am now
more completely terrified than I have ever been in my life. But I
am deeply grateful to you.'
The end of the chapter is virtually the same in the old version, the
present text, and FR; but now Gildor adds the salutation: 'and may the
stars shine upon the end of your road.'
NOTES.
1. The different arrangement of the opening of the chapter introduces
Bingo's intention to go and live in Buckland before it actually arose
as a result of his conversation with Gandalf. It may be that my father
afterwards reversed the order of these narrative elements in order to
avoid this.
2. This passage, from 'and actually did ask his Brandybuck cousins',
was struck out in pencil and replaced by the following:
With the help of his Brandybuck cousin Merry he chose and
bought a little house [added subsequently: at Crickhollow] in the
country behind Bucklebury, and began to make preparations for a
removal.
3. Gandalf's words were changed in pencil thus:
'I shall want to see you before you set out, Bingo,' he said, as he
took his leave one wet dark evening in May. 'I may have news, and
useful information about the Road.' Bingo was not clear whether
Gandalf intended to go with him to Rivendell or not.
4. There is no new list of presents in this variant: my father contented
himself with a reference to the latest version of 'A Long-expected
party', which was to be 'suitably emended' (p. 247, note 21).
5. The Sackville-Bagginses' son now first appears. It is said in both
variants that Lobelia 'and her pimply son Cosimo (and his over-
shadowed wife Miranda) lived at Bag-end for a long while after-
wards / for many a year after.' Lobelia was in both versions 92 years
old at this time, and had had to wait seventy-seven years (as in FR)
for Bag-end, which makes her a grasping fifteen year old when
Bilbo came back at the end of The Hobbit to find her measuring his
rooms; in FR she was a hundred years old, and in the second of
these variant versions '92' is changed to '102'. In FR her son is
'sandy-haired Lotho', and no wife is named.
6. The corrections are in fact in blue, black, and red inks. I have said
earlier (p. 48 and note 1) that those in black ink belong to a very early
stage of revision. Those in blue and red were made at the present
stage; but in his note on the subject my father no doubt meant by
'corrections in black' to include all those that were not in red.
7. I give an example, however, to show the nature of the procedure
(original version p. 51):
'The wind's in the West,' said Odo. 'If we go down the other
side of this hill we are climbing, we ought to find a spot fairly dry
and sheltered.'
The red ink corrections are given here in italics; other changes from
the original text are in black (actually blue, see note 6) ink.
'The wind's in the West,' said Sam. 'If we go down the other
side of this hill we are climbing, we shall find a spot that is
sheltered and snug enough, sir. There is a dry fir-wood just
ahead, if I remember rightly.' Sam knew the land well within
about twenty miles of Hobbiton, but that was the limit of his
geography.
See also note 11.
8. The text is actually rendered still more complicated by a layer of
later emendation arising from my father's intention to get rid of Odo
altogether, leaving Bingo, Frodo Took, and Sam, but this is here
ignored.
9. In the original texts the crossing of the East Road had been omitted
(see pp. 46 - 7, 50). - With 'Michel Delving' for 'Much Hemlock (in
the Hornblower country)' and 'south-east' for 'eastward', this is the
reading of FR - in the first edition of LR. In the second edition
(1966) the text was changed to read:
A mile or two further south they hastily crossed the great road
from the Brandywine Bridge; they were now in the Tookland and
bending south-eastwards they made for the Green Hill Country.
As they began to climb its first slopes they looked back and saw
the lamps in Hobbiton far off twinkling...
Robert Foster, in The Complete Guide to Middle-earth, entry
Hornblower, says that 'all or most' of the Hornblowers 'dwelt in the
Southfarthing'; this seems to be based only on the statement in the
Prologue to LR that Tobold Hornblower, first grower of pipeweed,
lived at Longbottom in the Southfarthing, but may well be a legiti-
mate deduction. A few hobbit 'family territories' are marked on my
father's map of the Shire (p. 107, item I), but the Hornblowers are
not among them. (The Bracegirdles are placed west of Girdley
Island in the Brandywine; the Bolgers south of the East Road and
north of the Woody End; the Boffins north of Hobbiton Hill - cf.
Mr Boffin of Overhill, FR p. 53; and the Tooks in Tookland, south
of Hobbiton.) See p. 304, note 1.
10. See p. 246, note 18. The verse is now a repetition, for Bilbo had
sung it before he left Bag End (p. 240); but whereas in FR
(pp. 82-3) the only difference between the two recitations is that
Bilbo says 'eager feet' in the 5th line and Frodo 'weary feet', here
Bingo has also 'we' for 'I' in the 4th and 8th lines (retained from the
original text, p. 53).
11. This passage interestingly exemplifies the 'two-tier' system of
emendation which my father employed in this text (see p. 277). The
new passage in which Bingo wonders if it is Gandalf coming after
them and proposes to surprise him, though feeling certain that it is
not him - exactly as in FR pp. 83 - 4 - is a 'red' emendation: because
according to the new story Gandalf might well be expected to have
just missed them at Hobbiton and be following on their heels,
whereas according to the old story - in which the Birthday Party was
Bingo's - Gandalf left immediately after the fireworks and went east
(see p. 101 and note 12).
The remainder of the new passage (cited in the text), describing
Bingo's conflicting desires to hide and not to hide, is a 'black'
emendation (i.e. covering both 'old' and 'new' stories) - as is the
addition almost immediately following, in which Bingo feels an
urgent desire to put on the Ring, but does not: because, whatever
version is followed, the nature of the Ring demands these changes
(cf. Queries and Alterations, note 7p (p. 224): 'Bingo must NOT put
on his Ring when Black Riders go by - in view of later develop-
ments. He must think of doing so but somehow be prevented.')
12. The text of FR here, 'I did not know that any of that fairest folk were
ever seen in the Shire', was emended in the second edition to 'Few of
that fairest folk are ever seen in the Shire.'- For previous references
to the High Elves (which means now the Elves of Valinor) see
pp 187, 225, 260.
XVII.
A SHORT CUT TO MUSHROOMS.
The third of the original chapters (pp. 88 ff.) was now rewritten,
numbered 'IV', and given a title, 'A Short Cut to Mushrooms'. This is
a readily legible but much altered manuscript, with a great deal of variant
and rejected material. The final result, however, as achieved already at
this time (if a long variant version of the Farmer Maggot interlude, not at
once rejected, is ignored for the moment), is virtually Chapter 5 in The
Fellowship of the Ring, to a very great extent word for word, and there is
not much that needs to be said about it.
The chief difference from FR lies of course in the fact that there were
still Frodo Took and Odo Bolger and not simply Pippin. Pippin's part
and all the things he says in FR are present in almost exactly the same
form; but where in FR it is Pippin who is familiar with the region and
who knows Farmer Maggot, in the present text (as also in the original
version) this is Frodo Took's part, and once they have got down into the
flat country Odo is in the background.
A good deal of new geography enters with the discussion whether to
take a short cut or not (FR p. 97). While the wet low-lying land is
described in the original story (pp. 91 - 2), it is now called the Marish,
and the northward curve of the road (p. 89) is explained: 'to get round
the north of the Marish.' The way south from Brandywine Bridge now
appears - first called 'the raised road', then 'the banked road', then 'the
causeway': 'the causeway that runs from the Bridge through Stock and
past the Ferry down along the River to Deephallow.' Here the village of
Stock is first named (and its inn the Golden Perch, where according to
Odo there used to be the best beer in 'the East Shire'), and also
Deephallow, which though marked on my father's map of the Shire and
on the map in FR is never mentioned in the text of The Lord of the Rings.
(In the original version of this chapter there is no suggestion of the
causeway road, and the hobbits leaving Maggot's lane came out on to the
road they had left, shortly before it reached the Ferry: see p. 97 and note
8. Stock had not then been devised. Later in the old version Marmaduke,
arguing for going through the Old Forest, says that it would be silly of
them to start their journey by 'jogging along a dull river-side road - in full
view of all the numerous hobbits of Buckland', but he is speaking of
the road within Buckland, on the east side of the Brandywine: p. 106,
note 18).
The argument about which way to go is mainly between Odo and
Frodo, and is somewhat different from the final form. Odo, not knowing
the country, argued that there would be 'all kinds of obstacles' when they
got down into the Marish, to which Frodo replied that he did know it,
and that the Marish was now 'all tamed and drained' (in FR Pippin, who
takes Frodo Took's part in that he does know the country, but Odo's in
that he has his eye on the Golden Perch, argues with Frodo (Baggins) that
in the Marish 'there are bogs and all kinds of difficulties').'
The stream that barred their passage is now identified as the Stock-
brook. The only other feature to mention before coming to Farmer
Maggot is a rejected passage that was to take the place of the mysterious
sniffing that interrupted Odo's song in praise of the bottle in the original
version (p. 91). There, a pencilled note on the manuscript (p. 105, note
3) said: 'Sound of hoofs going by not far off.'
Ho! ho! ho! they began again louder. 'Hush! ' said Sam. 'I think I
can hear something.' They stopped short. Bingo sat up. Listening
he caught or thought he caught the sound of hoofs, some way off,
going at a trot. They sat silent for some while after the sound had
died away; but at last Frodo spoke. 'That's very odd,' he said.
'There is not any road that I know of anywhere near, yet the hoofs
were not going on turf or leaves - if they were hoofs.' 'But if they
were, it does not follow that it was the sound of a Black Rider,'said
Odo. 'The land is not quite uninhabited round here: there are
farms and villages.'
This was replaced by the terrible signal cries, exactly as in FR
(pp. 99 - 100). From a rejected page a little later, when they came into the
'tame and well-ordered lands', it is clear that the hoof-beats they heard
were not in fact so mysterious: 'They were just beginning to think that
they had imagined the sound of hoofs, when they came to a gate: beyond
it a rutted lane wound away towards a distant clump of trees' (i.e. Farmer
Maggot's) The horseman they heard was the Black Rider who came to
Maggot's door.
When my father came in this version to Farmer Maggot, he followed
the old story in this: Bingo put on the Ring in the lane outside the farm,
then entered the house invisibly, and drank Farmer Maggot's beer, so
that the departure of the others was highly embarrassing and unhappy.
Considering all that had now been said concerning the Ring this is
remarkable; but I think that my father was reluctant to lose this interlude
(see also note 13), and although at this time he also wrote the story of the
visit to Maggot's in exactly the form it has in FR, he retained this first,
entirely different account of what happened in Maggot's house and
marked it as a variant.
In it, Maggot becomes a violent and intransigeant character, with a
black hatred of all Bagginses - a development clearly arising, as I think,
from the need to explain the intensity of Bingo's alarm when he learns
who is the owner of the farm, an alarm great enough (coupled with the
ferocious dogs) to explain in turn how he could put the Ring on in the
face of all counsel. In the original version Bingo put on the Ring as a
matter of course, as he put it on when the Black Riders came by.
Moreover, as the story stood then Frodo and Odo were perfectly familiar
with his possession of a magic ring that conferred invisibility, and after
they left Farmer Maggot's Odo addressed Bingo while he was still
invisible, calling his behaviour 'a silly trick' (p. 97). But now they were
not (cf. p.245, note 3: Bilbo wrote his adventures in a private book of
memoirs, in which he recounted some things that he had never spoken
about {such as the magic ring); but that book was never published in the
Shire, and he never showed it to anyone, except his favourite "nephew"
Bingo.') The great problem now with this story, my father noted in the
margin of the manuscript, was that it would necessitate making Odo,
Frodo, and Sam all aware of Bingo's ring - 'which is a pity'; or else, he
added, 'making the others equally astonished with Farmer Maggot -
which is difficult.' He was even prepared, however, as he noted in the
same place, to consider altering the structure to the extent of getting rid
of Odo and Frodo from this episode by making them the advance party to
Buckland, while Bingo's walk from Hobbiton would be with Merry and
Sam - which seems to imply that Merry had been let into the secret of the
Ring. Sam might be supposed to have known of it from his eavesdrop-
ping under the window of Bag End at the end of the chapter 'Ancient
History', and my father also revised the text here and there in pencil in
order to 'allow this version to stand if Bingo's ring is unknown to any but
Sam.' A point he did not make here is the distinction between the others
knowing about the Ring and Bingo's knowing that they knew; and when
he reached the conversation in the house in Buckland (not much later, for
the text of the two chapters is continuous in the manuscript) he had
decided that they did know, but had kept the knowledge to themselves
(as in FR, p. 114).
I give now the greater part of this first variant version.
They came to a gate, beyond which a rutted lane ran between
low hedges towards a distant clump of trees. Frodo stopped. 'I
know these fields!' he said. 'They are part of old Farmer Maggot's
land.(2) That must be his farm away there in the trees.'
'One trouble after another! ' said Bingo, looking nearly as much
alarmed as if Frodo had declared the lane to be the slot leading to a
dragon's lair. The others looked at him in astonishment.
'What's wrong with old Maggot?' asked Frodo.(3)
'I don't like him, and he doesn't like me,' said Bingo. 'If I had
thought my short cut would bring me near his farm today, I would
have gone by the long road. I haven't been near it for years and
years.'
'Why ever not? ' said Frodo. 'He's all right, if you get on the right
side of him. I thought he was friendly to all the Brandybuck clan.
Though he is a terror to trespassers, and he does keep some
ferocious-looking dogs. But after all we are near the borders here
and folk have to be more on their guard.'
'That's just it,' said Bingo. 'I used to trespass on his land when I
was a youngster at Bucklebury. His fields used to grow the best
mushrooms.(4) I killed one of his dogs once. I broke its head with a
heavy stone. A lucky shot, for I was terrified, and I believe it
would have mauled me. He beat me, and told me he would kill me
next time I put a foot over his boundaries. "I'd kill you now," he
said, "if you were not Mr Rory's nephew,(5) more's the pity and
shame to the Brandybucks."'
'But that's long ago,' said Frodo. 'He won't kill Mr Bingo
Baggins, late of Bag-end, because of his misdeeds when he was one
of the many young rascals of Brandy Hall. Even if he remembers
about it.'
'I don't fancy Maggot is a good forgetter,' said Bingo, 'especially
not where his dogs are concerned. They used to say he loved his
dogs more than his children. And Bilbo told me (only a year or two
before he left the Shire) that he was once down this way and called
at the farm to get a bite and drink. When he gave his name old
Maggot ordered him off. "I'll have no Baggins over my doorstep.
A lot of thievish murderous rascals. You get back where you
belong," he said, and threatened him with a stick. He's shaken his
fist at me, if we passed on the road, many a time since.'(6)
'Well I'm blest,' said Odo. 'So now I suppose we shall all get
beaten or bitten, if we are seen with the marauding Bingo.'
'Nonsense! ' said Frodo. 'Get into the lane, and then you won't
be trespassing. Maggot used to be quite friendly with Merry and
me. I'll talk to him.'
They went along the lane, until they saw the thatched roofs of a
large house and farm-buildings peeping out among the trees
ahead. The Maggots and the Puddifoots of Stock and most of the
folk of the Marish were house-dwellers...
At this point a long digression was introduced (following that in the
original version, p. 92) on the subject of hobbits living in houses; see
pp.294-5.
... and this farm was stoutly built of brick and had a high wall all
round it. There was a strong wooden gate in the wall opening on to
the lane. Bingo lagged behind. Suddenly as they drew nearer a
terrific baying and barking broke out, and a loud voice was heard
shouting: 'Grip! Fang! Wolf! Go on, lads! Go on! '
This was too much for Bingo. He slipped on the Ring, and
vanished. 'It can't do any harm this once,' he thought. 'I am sure
Bilbo would have done the same.'
He was only just in time. The gate opened and three huge dogs
came pelting out into the lane, and dashed towards the travellers.
Odo and Sam shrank against the wall, while two large grey
wolvish-looking dogs sniffed at them. The third dog halted near
Bingo sniffing and growling with the hair rising on its neck,
and a puzzled look in its eyes. Frodo walked on a few paces un-
molested.
Through the gate came a broad thickset hobbit with a round red
face (7) and a soft high-crowned hat. 'Hullo! hullo! And who may
you be, and what may you be doing?' he asked.
'Good afternoon, Farmer Maggot! ' said Frodo.
The farmer looked at him closely. 'Well now,' he said. 'Let me
see - you'll be Mr Frodo Took, Mr Folco's son, if I am not
mistook. I seldom am, I've a rare memory for faces. It's some time
since I saw you round here, with Mr Merry Brandybuck...
The opening encounter with Maggot is then exactly as in the other
variant of the episode, which is to say exactly as in FR p. 102, as far as 'to
the great relief of Odo and Sam the dogs let them go free.' Then follows:
Odo and Frodo at once went through the gate, but Sam hesitated.
So did the third dog. He remained standing growling and bristl-
ing.
This was altered in pencil to read:
Odo joined Frodo at the gate, but Sam hesitated in the lane. Frodo
looked back to beckon Bingo, and wondered how to introduce
him, whether to give his name, or hope that Maggot's memory was
less good than he boasted, and say nothing; but there was no sign
of Bingo to be seen. Sam was watching one of the dogs. It was still
standing growling and bristling. It all seemed rather queer.
This was one of the changes made 'to allow this version to stand if
Bingo's ring is unknown to any but Sam' (p. 288).
'Here, Wolf!' cried Farmer Maggot, looking back. 'Dang it,
what's come to the dog. Heel, Wolf! '
The dog obeyed reluctantly, and at the gate turned back and
barked.
'What's the matter with you?' said the farmer. 'This is a queer
day, and no mistake. Wolf went near off his head when that fellow
came riding up, and now you'd think he could see or smell
something that ain't there.'
They went into the farmer's kitchen, and sat by the wide
fireplace. The dogs were shut up, as neither Odo nor Sam
concealed their uneasiness while they were about. 'They won't
harm you,' said the farmer, 'not unless I tell them to.' Mrs Maggot
brought out beer and filled four large earthenware mugs. It was a
good brew, and Odo found himself fully compensated for missing
the Golden Perch. Sam would have enjoyed it better, if he had not
been anxious about his master.
'And where might you be coming from and going to, Mr
Frodo?' asked Farmer Maggot with a shrewd look. 'Were you
coming to visit me? For if so you had gone past my gate without
my seeing you.'
'Well, no,' said Frodo. 'To tell you the truth (since you guess it
already) we had been on your fields. But it was quite by accident.
We lost our way back near Woodhall trying to take a short cut to
the causeway near the Ferry. We are in rather a hurry to get over
into Buckland.'
'Then the road would have served you better,' said the farmer.
'But you and Mr Merry have my leave to walk on my land, as long
as you do no damage. Not like those thievish folk from way back
West - begging your pardon, I was forgetting you were a Took by
name, and only half a Brandybuck as you might say. But you
aren't a Baggins or you'd not be inside here. That Mr Bingo
Baggins he killed one of my dogs once, he did. It's more than 30
years ago, but I haven't forgotten it, and I'll remind him of it sharp
too if ever he dares to come round here. I hear tell that he is
coming back to live in Buckland. More's the pity. I can't think why
the Brandybucks allow it.'
'But Mr Bingo's half a Brandybuck too,' said Odo (trying to
keep from smiling). 'He's quite a nice fellow when you get on the
right side of him; though he will go walking across country and he
is fond of mushrooms.'
There seemed to be a breath, the ghost of an exclamation, not
far from Odo's ear, though he could not be quite sure.(9)
'That's just it,' said the farmer. 'He used to take mine though I
beat him for it. And I'll beat him again, if I catch him at it. But that
reminds me: what do you think that funny customer asked me?'
Farmer Maggot then turns to his account of the funny customer, and his
report, though briefer, goes pretty well as in the other variant version and
in FR,(10) with this difference:
'... I had a sort of shiver down my back. But that question was too
much for me. "Be off," I said. "There are no Bagginses here, and
won't be while I am on my legs. If you are a friend of theirs you are
not welcome. I give you one minute before I call my dogs."
From '"I don't know what to think," said Frodo' the story in this
version moves in the direction of farce.
'Then I'll tell you what to think,' said Maggot. 'This Mr Bingo
Baggins has got into some trouble. I hear tell that he has lost or
wasted most of the money he got from old Bilbo Baggins. And that
was got in some queer fashion, in foreign parts, too, they say.
Mark my words, this all comes of some of those doings of old Mr
Bilbo's. Maybe there is some that want to know what has become
of the gold and what not that he left behind. Mark my words.'
'I certainly will,' said Frodo, rather taken aback by old Maggot's
guessing."
'And if you'll take my advice, too,' said the farmer, 'you'll steer
clear of Mr Bingo, or you'll be getting into more trouble yourself
than you bargain for.'
There was no mistaking the breath and the suppressed gasp by
Frodo's ear on this occasion.'
'I'll remember the advice,' said Frodo. 'But now we must be
getting to Bucklebury. Mr Merry Brandybuck is expecting us this
evening.'
'Now that's a pity,' said the farmer. 'I was going to ask if you and
your friends would stay and have a bite and sup with me and my
wife.'
'It is very kind of you,' said Frodo; 'but I am afraid we must be
off now - we want to get to the Ferry before dark.'
'Well then, one more drink!' said the farmer, and his wife
poured out some beer. 'Here's your health and good luck! ' he said,
reaching for his mug. But at that moment the mug left the table,
rose, tilted in the air, and then returned empty to its place.
'Help us and save us! ' cried the farmer jumping up and gaping.
'This day is bewitched. First the dog and then me: seeing things
that ain't.'
'But I saw the mug get up too,' said Odo indiscreetly, and not
fully hiding a grin.
This last sentence was struck out in pencil, as being unwanted 'if Bingo's
ring is unknown to any but Sam.' The remainder of this version was
written on that basis.
Odo and Frodo sat and stared. Sam looked anxious and wor-
ried. 'You did not ask me to have a bite or a sup,' said a voice
coming apparently from the middle of the room. Farmer Maggot
backed towards the fire-place; his wife screamed. 'And that's a
pity,' went on the voice, which Frodo to his bewilderment now
recognized as Bingo's, 'because I like your beer. But don't boast
again that no Baggins will ever come inside your house. There's
one inside now. A thievish Baggins. A very angry Baggins.' There
was a pause. 'In fact BINGO!' the voice suddenly yelled just by
the farmer's ear. At the same time something gave him a push in
the waistcoat, and he fell over with a crash among the fire-irons.
He sat up again just in time to see his own hat leave the settle where
he had thrown it down, and sail out of the door, which opened to
let it pass.
'Hi! here!' yelled the farmer, leaping to his feet. 'Hey, Grip,
Fang, Wolf! ' At that the hat went off at a great speed towards the
gate; but as the farmer ran after it, it came sailing back through the
air and fell at his feet. He picked it up gingerly, and looked at it in
astonishment. The dogs released by Mrs Maggot came bounding
up; but the farmer gave them no command. He stood still
scratching his head and turning his hat over and over, as if he
expected to find it had grown wings.(13)
Odo and Frodo followed by Sam came out of the house.
'Well, if that ain't the queerest thing that ever happened in my
house! ' said the farmer. 'Talk about ghosts! I suppose you haven't
been playing any tricks on me, have you?' he said suddenly,
looking hard at them in turn.
'We?' said Frodo. 'Why, we were as startled as you were. I can't
make mugs drain themselves, or hats walk out of the house.'
'Well, it is mighty queer,' said the farmer, not seeming quite
satisfied. 'First this rider asks for Mr Baggins. Then you folk come
along; and while you are in the house Mr Baggins' voice starts
playing tricks. And you are friends of his, seemingly. "Quite a nice
fellow," you said. If there ain't some connexion between all these
bewitchments, I'll eat this very hat. You can tell him from me to
keep his voice at home, or I'll come and gag him, if I have to swim
the River and hunt him all through Bucklebury. And now you'd
best be going back to your friends, and leave me in peace. Good
day to you.'
He watched them with a thoughtful scowl on his face until they
turned a corner of the lane and passed out of his sight.
'What do you make of that? ' asked Odo as they went along. 'And
where on earth is Bingo?'
'What I make of it,' answered Frodo, 'is that Uncle Bingo has
taken leave of his senses; and I fancy we shall run into him in this
lane before long.'
'You won't run into me because I'm just behind,' said Bingo.
There he was by Sam Gamgee's side.
This version of the episode ends here, with the note: 'This variant
would proceed much as in older typed Chapter III' - i.e. in respect of the
hobbits getting from Farmer Maggot's to the Ferry, if they are not
driven there in Maggot's cart (see pp. 97 - g).
Apart from any other considerations (which there may well have
been), I think that it was primarily the difficulty with the Ring that killed
this version. In the next chapter it turns out that the other hobbits had
known about the Ring, but that Bingo had not known that they knew. So
the ferocious Farmer Maggot, prone to ill-will, had already disappeared,
and with him the last (more or less) light-hearted use of the Ring.(14) The
second version of the Maggot episode in this manuscript evidently
followed quite closely on the first, and this, as I have said, is (names
apart) identical save for a word here and there with the story in FR.
There remains to notice the passage about hobbit architecture men-
tioned above (p. 289). Against it my father wrote 'Put in Foreword',"
and in the second version of the Maggot story it is not included. It
was somewhat developed from that in the original form of the chapter
(p. 92), but has less detail than that in the Prologue to FR (pp. 15 - 16, in
the first edition 16 - 17). The division of hobbits into Harfoots, Fallo-
hides, and Stoors had not yet arisen, and the fact that some of the people
in the Marish were 'rather large, and heavy-legged, and a few actually
had a little down under their chins' is ascribed to their not being of pure
hobbit-breed. In this account the art of house-building still originated,
or was thought to have originated, among the hobbits themselves, down
in the riverside regions (in the Prologue it is suggested that it was derived
from the Dunedain, or even from the Elves); but it 'had long been altered
(and perhaps improved) by taking wrinkles from dwarves and elves and
even Big Folk, and other people outside the Shire.'
The passage in the Prologue concerning the presence of houses in
many hobbit villages is present, and here Tuckborough first appears. As
this passage was first drafted it read:
Even in Hobbiton and Bywater, and in Tuckborough away in Took-
land, and on the chalky Indowns in the centre of the Shire where there
was a large population
My father then struck out Indowns, presumably meaning to include on
the chalky as well, and substituted [Much )] Micheldelving, before
abandoning the sentence and starting again. Michel Delving on the
White Downs has appeared in the last chapter (p. 278), replacing 'Much
Hemlock (in the Hornblower country)'. He was probably going to write
'Much Hemlock' here too. It seems that up till now he had not decided
that the chief town was in the west of the Shire, if indeed there were any
chief town; but he at once rewrote the passage, and it was very probably
at this point that Michel Delving on the White Downs came into
existence (and was then written into 'Delays are Dangerous'). As finally
written, the sentence reads:
In Hobbiton, in Tuckborough away in Tookland, and even in the
most populous [village >] town of the Shire, Micheldelving, on the
White Downs in the West, there were many houses of stone and wood
and brick.
The name Indowns does not occur again; cf. the Inlands (Mittalmar),
the central region of Numenor, Unfinished Tales p. 165.
The text of this chapter, following the arrangement of the original
version, continues straight on without break from 'Suddenly Bingo
laughed: from the covered basket he held the scent of mushrooms was
rising', which ends Chapter 4 in FR, to '"Now we'd better get home
ourselves, said Merry, which in FR begins Chapter 5., but not long after
my father broke the text at this point, inserting the number 'V' and the
title 'A Conspiracy is Unmasked', and I follow this arrangement here.
NOTES.
1. This passage of discussion was much rewritten. In rejected versions
Odo proposes that they split up: 'Why all go the same way? Those
who vote for short cuts, cut. Those who don't, go round - and they
(mark you) will reach the Golden Perch at Stock before sundown',
and Frodo argues for going across country by saying 'Merry won't
worry if we are late.' In another, Odo says: 'Then I must fall in
behind, or go alone. Well, I don't think Black Riders will do
anything to me. It's you, Bingo, they are sniffing for. If they ask
after you, I shall say: I have quarrelled with Mr Baggins and left
him. He lodged with the Elves last night - ask them.'
A minute point in connection with the geography may be men-
tioned here. In 'the woods that clustered along the eastern side of the
hill', FR p. 98 line 5, 'hill' should be 'hills', as it is in the present text.
2. At this first mention of the farmer in this text, he is called Farmer
Puddifoot, but this was changed at once to Maggot, and Maggot is his
name subsequently throughout. At the same place in the original
typescript, and only at that place, Maggot was changed to Puddifoot
(p. 105, note 4).
3. Frodo continued: 'Of course these people down in the Marish are a
bit queer and unfriendly, but the Brandybucks get on all right with
them', but this was struck out as soon as written.
4. This is where the mushrooms entered the story: there is no mention
of mushrooms in the original version.
5. On Bingo's being the nephew of Rory Brandybuck (Merry's grand-
father) see p. 267, note 4.
6. Another version of Bingo's account makes it Bilbo and Bingo who
had the encounter with Maggot, and the farmer a real ogre:
'That's just it,' said Bingo. 'I got on the wrong side of him, and
of his hedge. We were trespassing, as he called it. We had been in
the Shirebourn valley, and were making a cross-country line
towards Stock - rather like today - when we got on to his land. It
was getting dark, and a white fog came on, and we got lost. We
climbed through a hedge and found ourselves in a garden; and
Maggot found us. He set a great dog on us, more like a wolf. I fell
down with the dog over me, and Bilbo broke its head with that
thick stick of his. Maggot was violent. He is a strong fellow, and
while Bilbo ws trying to explain who we were and how we came
there he picked him up and flung him over the hedge into a ditch.
Then he picked me up and had a good look at me. He recognized
me as one of the Brandybuck clan, though I had not been to his
farm since I was a youngster. "I was going to break your neck," he
said, "and I will yet, whether you be Mr Rory's nephew or not, if I
catch you round here again. Get out before I do you an injury!"
He dropped me over the hedge on top of Bilbo.
'Bilbo got up and said: "I shall come around next time with
something sharper than a stick. Neither you nor your dogs would
be any loss to the countryside." Maggot laughed. "I have a
weapon or two myself," he said; 'and next time you kill one of my
dogs, I'll kill you. Be off now, or I'll kill you tonight." That'll be
20 years ago. But I don't imagine Maggot is a good forgetter. Ours
would not be a friendly meeting.'
Frodo Took's reception of this story was strangely mild. 'How very
unfortunate!' [he said.] 'Nobody seems to have been much to
blame. After all, Bingo, you must remember that this is near the
Borders, and people round here are a deal more suspicious than up
in the Baggins country.'
Like Deephallow (p. 286), the Shirebourn, mentioned in this
passage, is never named in LR, though marked both on my father's
map of the Shire and on that published in FR (both are mentioned
in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, p. g).
7. Farmer Maggot is again unambiguously a hobbit: see p. 122 and
note 7.
8. There has in fact been no indication that Frodo Took's mother was a
Brandybuck, as is seen to be the case from Maggot's remark here,
supported also by Frodo's knowledge of the Marish and Maggot's
familiarity with him as a companion of Merry Brandybuck. In LR
the mother of Peregrin (who is related to Meriadoc as Frodo Took is
at this stage, see p. 267, note 4) was Eglantine Banks.
9. This sentence is marked in pencil for deletion.
10. In this version the Black Rider does not say anything beyond 'Have
you seen Mist-er Bagg-ins?' In the second version his words are
almost as in FR, though he still calls him 'Mister Baggins'.
11. In the second version, as in FR (p. 104) 'the shrewd guesses of the
farmer were rather disconcerting' to Bingo (Frodo); but here
Maggot's guesses disconcert Frodo Took, which would suggest
that he knew what the Black Riders were after.
12. This sentence is marked in pencil for deletion; cf. note g.
13. Pencilled changes in this passage substitute the beer jug for Farmer
Maggot's hat: 'He sat up again just in time to see the jug (still
holding some beer) leave the table where he had lain it down, and
sail out of the door... At that the jug went off at a great speed
towards the gate, spilling beer in the yard; but as the farmer ran
after it, it suddenly stopped and came to rest on the gatepost...
He stood still scratching his head and turning the jug round and
round...' (and 'jug' for 'hat' subsequently).
In the margin of the manuscript my father wrote: 'Christopher
queries - why was not hat invisible if Bingo's clothes were?' The
story must have been that Bingo was actually wearing Maggot's hat,
for otherwise the objection seems easily answered (the hat was an
object external to the wearer of the Ring just as much as the beer-
jug, or as anything else would be, whatever its purpose). Clearly, a
subtle question arises if the Ring is put to such uses, a question my
father sidestepped by substituting the jug. - I was greatly delighted
by the story of Bingo's turning the tables on Farmer Maggot, and
while I retain now only a dim half-memory I believe I was much
opposed to its loss: which may perhaps explain my father's retaining
it after it had become apparent that it introduced serious difficulties.
14. Unless the episode in Tom Bombadil's house (FR p. 144) can be so
described.
15. The passage in the 'Foreword' is given on pp. 312 - 13.
XVIII.
AGAIN FROM BUCKLAND TO
THE WITHYWINDLE.
(i)
A Conspiracy is Unmasked.
The text of 'A Short Cut to Mushrooms', as I have said, continues
without break, but my father added in (not much later, see p. 302) a new
chapter number 'V' and the title 'A Conspiracy is Unmasked'. The text
now becomes very close indeed to FR Chapter 5 (apart of course from the
number of and names of the hobbits), and there are only a few particular
points to notice in it. For the earliest form see pp.99 ff.
The history of the Brandybucks does not yet know Gorhendad
Oldbuck as the founder (FR p. 108). As the manuscript was first written,
the village was called Bucklebury-beyond-the-River, and (developing
the original text, p. 100) 'the authority of the head of the Brandybucks
was still acknowledged by the farmers as far west as Woodhall (which was
reckoned to be in the Boffin-country)'," this was changed to 'still acknow-
ledged by the farmers between Stock and Rushey,' as in FR. Rushey here
first appears.(2)
It was in this passage that the Four Farthings of the Shire were first
devised, as the wording shows: 'They were not very different from the
other hobbits of the Four Farthings (North, West, South, and East), as
the quarters of the Shire were called.' Here too occur for the first time the
names Buck Hill and the High Hay - but Haysend goes back to the
original version, p. 100. The great hedge is still 'something over forty
miles from end to end.'(3) In answer to Bingo's question 'Can horses cross
the river?' Merry answers: 'They can go fifteen miles to Brandywine
Bridge', with '20?' pencilled over 'fifteen'. In FR the High Hay is 'well
over twenty miles from end to end', yet Merry still says: 'They can go
twenty miles north to Brandywine Bridge.' Barbara Strachey (Journeys
of Frodo, Map 6) points out this difficulty, and assumes that Merry
'meant 20 miles in all - 10 miles north to the Bridge and 10 miles south on
the other side'; but this is to strain the language: Merry did not mean
that. It is in fact an error which my father never observed: when the
length of Buckland from north to south was reduced, Merry's estimate of
the distance from the Bridge to the Ferry should have been changed
commensurately.'
The main road within Buckland is described (on a rejected page only)
as running 'from the Bridge to Standelf and Haysend.' Standelf is never
mentioned in the text of LR, though marked on my father's map of the
Shire and on both of mine; on all three the road stops there and does not
continue to Haysend, which is not shown as a village or any sort of
habitation.(5)
At the first two occurrences of Crickhollow in this chapter the name
was first Ringhay, changed to Crickhollow (in the passage cited in note a
on p. 283 the name is a later addition to the text). At the third occurrence
here Crickhollow was the name first written. Ringhay refers to the 'wide
circle of lawn surrounded by a belt of trees inside the outer hedge.'(6)
The most important development in this chapter is that after the
words 'the far shore seemed to be shrouded in mist and nothing could be
seen' (FR p. 109) my father interrupted the narrative with the following
note before proceeding:
From here onwards Odo is presumed to have gone with Merry
ahead. The preliminary journey was Frodo, Bingo and Sam only.
Frodo has a character a little more like Odo once had. Odo is now
rather silent (and greedy).
Against this my father wrote: 'Christopher wants Odo kept.' Unhappily
I have now only a very shadowy recollection of those conversations of
half a century ago; and it is not clear to me what the issue really was. On
the face of it, my 'wanting Odo kept' should mean that I wanted him kept
as a member of the party that walked from Hobbiton, since my father had
not proposed that Odo be dropped absolutely; on the other hand, since
he had in mind the blending of 'Odo' elements into the character of Frodo
Took, it may very well be that he was planning to cut him out of the
expedition after the hobbits left Crickhollow. Perhaps the idea that Odo
should remain on at Crickhollow was already present as a possibility, and
'Christopher wants Odo kept' was a plea for his survival in the larger
narrative, as a member of the major expedition. This is no more than
guesswork, but if there is anything in it, it seems that my objection
temporarily won the day, since at the end of the chapter Odo is fully
re-established, and prepared to go with the others into the Old Forest- as
indeed he does, in the revision of that chapter in this 'phase'.
The situation in the text that follows this note on Odo is in any case
extraordinarily difficult to interpret. As first written, Merry says that he
will ride on and tell Olo that they are coming; when Bingo knocked on the
door of (Ringhay) Crickhollow it was opened by Olo Bolger, and Merry
refers to 'Olo and I' having got to Crickhollow with the last cartload on
the day before; Merry and Olo prepared the supper in the kitchen. 'Olo'
here plays the part of Fatty (Fredegar) Bolger in FR (pp. 110 - 11), but
after these mentions he disappears from the text (and never appears
again). In red ink my father noted: 'If Odo is kept alter in red,' and for a
short distance some red ink alterations were made, changing 'You'll be
last either way, Frodo' (concerning the order of entry into the bath) to
'Odo', changing 'three tubs' to 'four tubs', and cutting out the references
to 'Olo'.(7)
The best explanation seems to be that when Odo was to be removed
from the walking party and attached to Merry his name was to be
changed also. Some alterations were made to preserve the option of
retaining the received story. But from the moment when they sat down to
supper Odo reappears in the text as first written, not merely as being
present (which would only show that Olo had been rejected and Odo
restored) but as having walked from Hobbiton (though in this case his
name was bracketed). But Frodo Took now makes 'Odo-Pippin' remarks
(as 'Oh! That was poetry! ' FR p. 116 - he would hardly have said such a
thing previously). See further pp. 323 - 4.
The bath-song (here sung by Frodo in his new Odoesque character) is
all but identical to that which Pippin sings in FR; but in a red ink
addition to the text (one of the optional additions made to bring Odo back
in his original role) specimens of the 'competing songs' (FR p. r x x) sung
by Bingo and Odo are given: the first verse of the bath-song which Odo
sang as they walked from Farmer Maggot's to the Ferry in the original
version (p. 98) and which is thus no longer used, and the first two lines
of the bath-chant sung by Odo when they reached their destination
(p. 102), these last being struck out.
The revelation of the conspiracy is almost exactly as in FR, the burden
of its exposition being taken here as there by Merry (Pippin's interven-
tion 'You do not understand!...' being given here to Frodo Took). As in
FR, Merry recounts the story of how he discovered the existence of
Bilbo's ring, which was previously set in a quite different context (see
p. 242 and note 25), and tells that he had had a rapid glance at Bilbo's
'memoirs' ('secret book' in FR).
The report of what Gildor had said, here referred to by Merry rather
than by Sam himself, on the subject of Bingo's taking companions
reflects the text of that episode at this time (see p. 282): 'I know you have
been advised to take us. Gildor told you to, and you can't deny it! '
The song that Merry and Pippin sang in FR (p. 116) is here sung by
Merry, Frodo Took, and Odo,(9) and is very different:
Farewell! farewell, now hearth and hall!
Though wind may blow and rain may fall,
We must away ere break of day
Far over wood and mountain tall.
The hunt is up! Across the land
The Shadow stretches forth its hand.
We must away ere break of day
To where the Towers of Darkness stand.
With foes behind and foes ahead,
Beneath the sky shall be our bed,
Until at last the Ring is cast
In Fire beneath the Mountain Red.
We must away, me must away,
We ride before the break of day.
In a rejected version of his answer to Bingo's question whether it
would be safe to wait one day at Crickhollow for Gandalf (FR p. 117), a
passage rewritten several times, Merry refers to the gate-guards getting
a message through to 'my father the Master of the Hall.' Merry's father
was Caradoc Brandybuck (Saradoc 'Scattergold' in LR); see p. 251 and
note 4.
When Bingo raises the question of going through the Old Forest, it is
Odo who, filled with horror at the thought, voices the objections given in
FR to Fatty Bolger (who is going to stay behind).
The end of the chapter is different from that in FR, and belongs rather
with the original version (p. 104). (Merry does not mention, incident-
ally, that Bingo had ever been into the Forest).
'... I have often been in - only in the daylight, of course, when the
trees are fairly quiet and sleepy. Still, I have some some know-
ledge of it, and I will try and guide you.'
Odo was not convinced, and was plainly far less frightened of
meeting a troop of Riders on the open road than of venturing into
the dubious Forest. Even Frodo was against the plan.
'I hate the idea,' said Odo. 'I would rather risk pursuers on the
Road, where there is a chance of meeting ordinary honest travel-
lers as well. I don't like woods, and the stories about the Old
Forest have always terrified me. I am sure Black Riders will be
very much more at home in that gloomy place than we shall.' Even
Frodo on this occasion sided with Odo.
'But we shall probably be out of it again before they ever find out
or guess that we have gone in,' said Bingo. 'In any case, if you wish
to come with me, it is no good taking fright at the first danger:
there are almost certainly far worse things than the Old Forest
ahead of you. Do you follow Captain Bingo, or do you stay at
home?'
'We follow Captain Bingo,' they said at once.
'Well, that's settled!' said Merry. 'Now we must tidy up and put
the finishing touches to the packing. And then to bed. I shall call
you all well before the break of day.'
When at last he got to bed Bingo could not sleep for some time.
His legs ached. He was glad that he was riding in the morning. At
last he fell into a vague dream: in which he seemed to be looking
out of a window over a dark sea of tangled trees. Down below
among the roots there was a sound of something crawling and
snuffling.
A note on the manuscript earlier says 'Pencillings = Odo stays behind.'
These pencillings are in fact confined to the section just given. 'Even
Frodo on this occasion sided with Odo' is bracketed and replaced by
further words of Odo's: 'Also I feel certain it is wrong not to wait for
Gandalf.' And after '"We follow Captain Bingo," they said at once' is
inserted:
'I will follow Captain Bingo,' said Merry, and Frodo, and Sam.
Odo was silent. 'Look here!' he said, after a pause. 'I don't mind
admitting I am frightened of the Forest, but I also think you ought
to try and get in touch with Gandalf. I will stay behind here and
keep off inquisitive folk. When Gandalf comes as he is sure to I
will tell him what you have done, and I will come on after you with
him, if he will bring me.' Merry and Frodo agreed that that was a
good plan.
This would be an important development, though ultimately rejected.
These alterations derive, however, from a somewhat later stage.
(ii)
The Old Forest.
Having completed 'A Conspiracy is Unmasked', my father continued his
revision into the next chapter, afterwards called 'The Old Forest'. In this
case he did not make a new manuscript, but merely made corrections to
the original text (described on pp. 112 - 14), which as I have said had
reached with only the most minor differences the form of the published
narrative. The chapter was at this time renumbered, from IV to VI,
showing that Chapter V 'A Conspiracy is Unmasked' had been separated
off from 'A Short Cut to Mushrooms'. Extensive emendations, made in
red ink to the original manuscript, bring the text still closer in detail
of wording to that of FR (but the topographical differences noticed on
pp. 113 - 14 remain). The parts played in the Willow-man episode are
changed by the presence of Sam Gamgee in the party. Bingo and Odo
are still the two who are caught in the cracks of the tree, and Frodo Took
is still the one pushed into the river; but whereas in the original story it
was Marmaduke (i.e. Merry) who rounded up the ponies and rescued
Frodo Took from the water, Sam now takes over this part (as in FR),
while Merry 'lay like a log.'
(iii)
Tom Bombadil.
The manuscript of the Tom Bombadil chapter, the number changed
from V to VII but still title-less, underwent (with one important
exception) minimal revision at this stage (there were indeed few changes
ever made to it): scarcely more than a mention of Sam sleeping, with
Merry, like a log, and the changing of the number of hobbits from four to
five. The points of-difference noticed on pp. 120 - 3 werc nearly all left as
they were; but Bombadil's remark about Farmer Maggot ('We are
kinsfolk, he and I...') was marked with an X, probably at this time.
The one substantial change made is of great interest. On the manu-
script my father marked 'Insert' before the passage concerning the
hobbits' dreams on the first night in Tom Bombadil's house; and that the
insertion belongs to this phase is made clear by the fact that Crickhollow
was empty (i.e. Odo had gone with the others into the Old Forest).
As they slept there in the house of Tom Bombadil, darkness lay
on Buckland. Mist strayed in the hollow places. The house at
Crickhollow stood silent and lonely: deserted so soon after being
made ready for a new master.
The gate in the hedge opened, and up the path, quietly but in
haste, a grey man came, wrapped in a great cloak. He halted
looking at the dark house. He knocked softly on the door, and
waited; and then passed from window to window, and finally
disappeared round the corner of the house-end. There was silence
again. After a long time a sound of hoofs was heard in the lane
approaching swiftly. Horses were coming. Outside the gate they
stopped; and then swiftly up the path there came three more
figures, hooded, swathed in black, and stooping low towards the
ground. One went to the door, one to the corners of the house-end
at either side; and there they stood silent as the shadows of black
yew-trees, while time went slowly on, and the house and the trees
about it seemed to be waiting breathlessly.
Suddenly there was a movement. It was dark, and hardly a star
was shining, but the blade that was drawn gleamed suddenly, as if
it brought with it a chill light, keen and menacing. There was
a blow, soft but heavy, and the door shuddered. 'Open to the
servants of the Lord!' said a voice, thin, cold, and clear. At a
second blow the door yielded and fell back, its lock broken.
At that moment there rang out behind the house a horn. It rent
the night like fire on a hill-top. Loud and brazen it shouted,
echoing over field and hill: Awake, awake, fear, fire, foe! Awake!
Round the corner of the house came the grey man. His cloak
and hat were cast aside. His beard streamed wide. In one hand was
a horn, in the other a wand. A splendour of light flashed out before
him. There was a wail and cry as of fell hunting beasts that are
smitten suddenly, and turn to fly in wrath and anguish.
In the lane the sound of hoofs broke out, and gathering rapidly
to a gallop raced madly into the darkness. Far away answering
horns were heard. Distant sounds of waking and alarm rose up.
Along the roads folk were riding and running northward. But
before them all there galloped a white horse. On it sat an old man
with long silver hair and flowing beard. His horn sounded over hill
and dale. In his hand his wand flared and flickered like a sheaf of
lightning. Gandalf was riding to the North Gate with the speed of
thunder.
Against the end of this inserted text my father wrote in pencil: 'This
will require altering if Odo is left behind', see the pencilled passage
added at the end of the last chapter (p. 302). And at the end of the text,
after the words 'a sheaf of lightning', he added in: 'Behind clung a small
figure with flying cloak', and the name 'Odo'. The significance of this will
become clear later.
NOTES.
1. On my father's map of the Shire the Boffins are placed north of
Hobbiton, and the Bolgers north of the Woody End (p. 284, note g),
but this was an alteration of what he first wrote: the underlying names
can be seen to be in the reverse positions.
2. The spelling Rushy on the published map of the Shire is an error,
made first on my elaborate early map (p. 107, item V) through
misreading of my father's. The second element is Old English ey
'island'.
3. On my father's original map it can be roughly calculated (since Bingo
estimated that they had eighteen miles to go in a straight line from the
place where they passed the night with the Elves to Bucklebury
Ferry) that the High Hay was about 43 miles measured in a straight
line from its northern to its southern end.
4. On my father's later maps (see p. 107) measurement can only be very
approximate, but on the same basis as the calculation in note 3 the
High Hay cannot in these be much more than 20 miles (in a straight
line between its ends).
5. Standelf means 'stone-quarry' (Old English stan-(ge)delf, surviving
in the place-name Stonydelph in Warwickshire).
6. Just as in FR, the hobbits leaving the Ferry passed Buck Hill and
Brandy Hall on their left, struck the main road of Buckland, turned
north along it for half a mile, and then took the lane to Crickhollow.
On my original map of the Shire, made in 1943 (p. 107), the text -
which was never changed here - was already wrongly represented,
since the main road is shown as passing between the River and
Brandy Hall (and the lane to Crickhollow leaves the road south of the
hall, so that the hobbits would in fact, according to this map, still pass
it on their left). This must have been a simple misinterpretation of
the text which my father did not notice (cf. p. 108); and it reappeared
on my map published in the first edition of FR. My father referred to
the error in his letter to Austin Olney of Houghton Mifflin, 28 July
1965 (Letters no. 274); and it was corrected, after a fashion, on the
map as published in the second edition. Karen Fonstad (The Atlas of
Middle-earth, p. 121) and Barbara Strachey (Journeys of Frodo, Map
7) show the correct topography clearly.
7. These alterations to bring Odo back were made at the same time as
the notes on the retention of the story that Bingo entered Farmer
Maggot's house invisibly (p. 288); cf. p. 297, note 13.
8. In this text Merry says 'I was only in my tweens', whereas in FR he
says 'teens'. In LR (Appendix C) Merry was born in (1382 =) 2982,
and so in the year before the Farewell Party he was 13. Here, Merry is
conceived to be somewhat older. - To Merry's question about Bilbo's
book ('Have you got it, Bingo?') Bingo replies: 'No! He took it away,
or so it seems.' Cf. the last note in Queries and Alterations (p. 229):
'Bilbo carries off "memoirs" to Rivendell.'
9. Changed from 'Merry and Frodo'.