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'.