THE THIRD PHASE.
XIX.
THE THIRD PHASE (1):
THE JOURNEY TO BREE.
It seems to me extremely probable that the 'second phase' of writing,
beginning with the fifth version of 'A Long-expected Party' (Chapter
XI V in this book) now petered out, and once again a new start was made
on the whole work. This 'third phase' is constituted by a long series of
homogeneous manuscripts carrying the story from a sixth version of 'A
Long-expected Party' right through to Rivendell. Though subsequently
overwritten, interleaved, struck through, or 'cannibalised' to form parts
of later texts, these manuscripts were at first clear and neat, and their
rather distinctive, regular script makes it possible to reconstitute the
series quite precisely despite the punishment they received later, and
despite the fact that some parts remained in England when others went to
Marquette University. They were indeed fair copies of the now chaotic
existing texts, and few important narrative changes were made. But in
these new texts 'Bingo' is finally supplanted by 'Frodo', and 'Frodo Took'
becomes in turn 'Folco Took', taking over what had been his father's
name (see pp. 251, 290). In describing these third phase versions I
restrict myself here almost exclusively to the form they had when first
written, and ignore the fearsome complexities of their later treatment.
There are three pieces of evidence available for the determination of
the 'external' date. One is my father's letter of 13 October 1938, in which
he said that the book 'has reached Chapter XI (though in rather an
illegible state') (Letters no. 34). Another is his letter of a February 1939,
in which he recorded that although he had not been able to touch it since
the previous December, it had by then 'reached Chapter 12 (and had
been re-written several times), running to over 300 MS pages of the size
of this paper and written generally as closely.' The third is a set of notes,
plot-outlines and brief narrative drafts all bearing the date 'August 1939'.
from these, as will be seen later, it is apparent that the third phase was
already in being.
My guess - it can hardly be more - is that in October 1938 the third
phase had not been begun, or had not proceeded far, since the boot was
'in rather an illegible state', while when my father wrote of having had to
set the work aside in December 1938 it was to the third phase that he was
referring: hence he said that it had been 're-written several times'
(moreover 'Chapter XI I' of this phase is the arrival at Rivendell, and it is
here - as I think - that the new version was interrupted).
The third phase can be described quite rapidly, as far as the end of
'Fog on the Barrow-downs', but first there is an interesting new text to be
given. This my father called a Foreword (precursor of the Prologue in the
published work). There is no preparatory material for it extant, but for a
section of it he took up the passage concerning hobbit architecture from
the second version of 'A Short Cut to Mushrooms', against which he had
directed 'Put in Foreword' (see pp. 294 - 5). This was scarcely changed
for its place in the Foreword, but there was now added a reference to the
'Elf-towers', which goes back to the earliest form of the 'architecture'
passage in the original version of the chapter (pp. 92 - 3), where Bingo
says that he had once seen the towers himself.
A number of changes were made to the manuscript of the Foreword,
but apart from those that seem clearly to belong to the time of writing I
ignore them here and print the text as it was first written.
FOREWORD.
Concerning Hobbits.
This book is largely concerned with hobbits, and it is possible to
find out from it what they are (or were), and whether they are
worth hearing about or not. But finding out things as you trudge
along a road or plod through a story is rather tiring, even when it is
(as occasionally happens) interesting or exciting. Those who wish
to have things clear from the beginning will find some useful
information in the brief account of Mr Bilbo Baggins' great
Adventure, which led to the even more difficult and dangerous
adventures recorded in this book. This account was called The
Hobbit or There and Back again, because it was chiefly concerned
with the most famous of all the old legendary hobbits, Bilbo; and
because he went to the Lonely Mountain and came back again to
his own home. But one story may well be all that readers have time
or taste for. So I will put down some items of useful information
here.
Hobbits are a very ancient people, once upon a time more
numerous, alas! than they are to-day, when (or so I hear it sadly
rumoured) they are vanishing rapidly; for they are fond of peace
and quiet, and good tilled earth: a well-ordered and well-farmed
countryside is their natural haunt. They are quite useless with
machines more complicated than a bellows or a water-mill;
though they are fairly handy with tools. They were always rather
shy of the Big People (as they call us), and now they are positively
scared of us.
And yet plainly they must be relatives of ours: nearer to us than
elves are, or even dwarves. For one thing, they spoke a very
similar language (or languages), and liked or disliked much the
same things as we used to. What exactly the relationship is would
be difficult to say. To answer that question one would have to
re-discover a great deal of the now wholly lost history and legends
of the Earliest Days,(1) and that is not likely to happen, for only the
Elves preserve any traditions about the Earliest Days, and their
traditions are mostly about themselves - not unnaturally: the
Elves were much the most important people of those times. But
even their traditions are incomplete: Men only come in to them
occasionally, and Hobbits are not mentioned. Elves"Dwarves,
Men, and other creatures only became aware of Hobbits after they
had actually existed, jogging along in their uneventful fashion, for
many ages. And they continued, as a rule, to jog along, keeping to
themselves and keeping out of stories. In the days of Bilbo (and
Frodo his heir) they became for a time very important, by what is
called accident, and the great persons of the world, even the
Necromancer, were obliged to take them into account, as these
stories show. Though Hobbits had then already had a long history
(of a quiet kind), those days are now very long ago, and geography
(and many other things) were then very different. But the lands in
which they lived, changed though they now are, must have been
more or less in the same place as the lands in which they still
linger: the North-west of the old world.
They are (or were) a small people, smaller than dwarves: less
stout and stocky, that is, even when they were not in fact much
shorter. Their height was, like the height of us Big People, rather
variable, ranging between two and four feet (of our length):
three feet was more or less an average. Very few hobbits, outside
their own more fantastic legends, touched three foot six. Only
Bandobras Took, son of Isengrim the First, known usually as the
Bullroarer, of all the hobbits of history exceeded four feet. He was
four foot five and rode a horse.(2)
There is, and always has been, very little magic about hobbits.
Of course they possess the power which we sometimes confuse
with real magic - it is really only a kind of professional skill, that
has become uncanny through long practice, aided by close friend-
ship with the earth and all things that grow on it: the power of
disappearing quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like us
come blundering along, making noises like elephants, which they
can hear a mile off. Even long ago their great desire was to avoid
trouble; and they were quick in hearing, and sharpsighted. And
they were neat and deft in their movements, though they were
inclined to be fat in the stomach, and did not hurry unnecessarily.
They dressed in bright colours, being particularly fond of green
and yellow; but they wore no shoes, because their feet grew
natural leathery soles and thick warm brown hair, curly like the
brown hair of their heads. The only trade unknown among them
was consequently shoemaking; but they had long clever brown
fingers and could make many other useful things. They had good-
natured faces, being as a rule good-natured; and they laughed long
and deeply, being fond of simple jests at all times, but especially
after dinner (which they had twice a day, when they could get it).
They were fond of presents, and gave them away freely, and
accepted them readily.
All hobbits had originally lived in holes in the ground, or so they
believed; although actually already in Bilbo's time it was as a rule
only the richest and the poorest hobbits that still did so. The
poorest hobbits went on living in holes of the most antiquated
kind - in fact just holes, with only one window, or even none. The
most important families continued to live (when they could) in
luxurious versions of the simple excavations of olden times. But
suitable sites for these large and ramifying tunnels were not to be
found everywhere. In Hobbiton, in Tuckborough in Tookland,
and even in the one really populous town of their Shire, Michel-
Delving on the White Downs, there were many houses of stone
and wood and brick. These were specially favoured by the millers,
blacksmiths, wheelwrights, and people of that sort: for even when
they had holes to live in hobbits used to put up sheds and barns for
workshops and storehouses.
The custom of building farms and dwelling-houses was be-
lieved to have begun among the inhabitants of the river-side
regions (especially the Marish down by the Brandywine), where
the land was flat and wet; and where perhaps the hobbit-breed was
not quite pure. Some of the hobbits of the Marish in the East-
farthing at any rate were rather large and heavy-legged; a few
actually had a little down under their chins (no pure-bred hobbit
had a beard); and one or two even wore boots in muddy weather.
It is possible that the idea of building, as of so many other
things, came originally from the Elves. There were still in Bilbo's
time three Elf-towers just beyond the western borders of the
Shire. They shone in the moonlight. The tallest was furthest
away, standing alone on a hill. The hobbits of the Westfarthing
said that you could see the Sea from the top of that tower: but no
hobbit had ever been known to climb it. But even if the notion of
building came originally from the Elves, the hobbits used it in
their own fashion. They did not go in much for towers. Their
houses were usually long and low, and comfortable. The oldest
kind were really artificial holes of mud (and later of brick),
thatched with dry grass or straw, or roofed with turf; and the walls
were slightly bulged. But, of course, that stage belonged to very
ancient history. Hobbit-building had long been altered (and
perhaps improved) by the taking of wrinkles from dwarves and
even Big People, and other folk outside the Shire. A preference for
round windows, and also (but to a less extent) for round doors,
was the chief remaining characteristic of hobbit-architecture.
Both the houses and the holes of hobbits were usually large and
inhabited by large families. (Bilbo and Frodo Baggins were in this
point, as in many others, rather exceptional.) Sometimes, as in the
case of the Brandybucks of Brandy Hall, many generations of
relations lived in (comparative) peace together in one ancestral
and ramifying mansion. All hobbits were, in any case, clannish,
and reckoned up their relationships with great care. They drew
long and elaborate family-trees with many branches. In dealing
with hobbits it is most important to remember who is related to
whom, and how, and why.
It would be impossible to set out in this book a family-tree that
included even the more important members of the more import-
ant families of the Shire at the time we speak of. It would take a
whole book, and everyone but hobbits would find it dull. (Hobbits
would love it, if it was accurate: they like to have books full of
things they already know set out fair and square with no contradic-
tions.) The Shire was their own name for the very pleasant little
corner of the world in which the most numerous, thoroughbred,
and representative kind of hobbits lived in Bilbo's time. It was the
only part of the world, indeed, at that time in which the two-
legged inhabitants were all Hobbits, and in which Dwarves, Big
People (and even Elves) were merely strangers and occasional
visitors. The Shire was divided into four quarters, called the Four
Farthings, the North, South, East and West Farthings; and also
into a number of folklands, which bore the names of the important
families, although by this time these names were no longer found
only in their proper folklands. Nearly all Tooks still lived in
Tookland, but that was not so true of other families, like the
Bagginses or the Boffins. A map of the Shire will be found in this
book, in the hope that it will be useful (and be approved as
reasonably correct by those hobbits that go in for hobbit-history).
To complete the information some (abridged) family-trees are
also given, which will show in what way the hobbit-persons
mentioned are related to one another, and what their various ages
were at the time when the story opens. This will at any rate make
clear the connexions between Bilbo and Frodo, and between
Folco Took and Meriadoc Brandybuck (usually called Merry) and
the other chief characters.(3)
Frodo Baggins became Bilbo's heir by adoption: heir not only to
what was left of Bilbo's considerable wealth, but also to his most
mysterious treasure: a magic ring. This ring came from a cave in
the Misty Mountains, far away in the East. It had belonged to a
sad and rather loathsome creature called Gollum, of whom more
will be heard in this story, though I hope some will find time to
read the account of his riddle-competition with Bilbo in The
Hobbit. It is important to this tale, as the wizard Gandalf tried to
explain to Frodo. The ring had the power of making its wearer
invisible. It had also other powers, which Bilbo did not discover
until long after he had come back and settled down at home again.
Consequently they are not spoken of in the story of his journey.
But this later story is concerned chiefly with the ring, and so no
more need be said about them here.
Bilbo it is told 'remained very happy to the end of his days and
those were extraordinarily long.' They were. How extraordinarily
long you may now discover, and you may also learn that remaining
happy did not mean continuing to live for ever at Bag-end. Bilbo
returned home on June 22nd in his fifty-second year, and nothing
very notable occurred in the Shire for another sixty years, when
Bilbo began to make preparations for the celebration of his
hundred and eleventh birthday. At which point the present tale of
the Ring begins.
Chapter I: 'A Lang-expected Party'.
At the beginning of this sixth embodiment of the opening chapter the
revised passage about Bilbo's book (p. 245, note 3) was now removed,
and replaced by: 'He was supposed to be writing a book, containing a full
account of his year's mysterious adventures, which no one was allowed to
see.'
The conversation at The Ivy Bush is taken up from the preliminary
version described on pp. 244- 5, and now reaches virtually the form it has
in FR; but at this stage the Gaffer's instruction on the subject of Bilbo
and Frodo and their antecedents was still recounted in advance by the
narrator also.(4)
The 'odd-looking waggons laden with odd-looking packages', driven
by 'elves or heavily hooded dwarves,' which had survived from the
second version of the chapter (p. 20), were now reduced to a single
waggon, driven by dwarves, and no elves appear (see p. 235); but
Gandalf's mark on the fireworks, here called 'runic', still remains, and he
is still 'a little old man'. The guests still included the Gaukrogers (so
spelt), but the remark that the Brockhouses had come in from Combe-
under-Bree (p. 236) is dropped. The young Took who danced on the
table changes his name from Prospero to Everard (as in FR), but his
partner remains Melissa Brandybuck (Melilot in FR).
The pencilled addition to the fifth version (p. 246, note 12), showing
that Bingo/Frodo was fully aware of what Bilbo intended to do, was taken
up (but as in FR Frodo stays on long enough at the dinner-table to satisfy
Rory Brandybuck's thirst: 'Hey, Frodo, just send that decanter round
again!'); as also was the passage about Bilbo's taking Sting with him
(p.246, note 13). Bilbo now (as in FR) takes a leather-bound manuscript
from a strong-box (though not the 'bundle wrapped in old cloths'), but
gives the bulky envelope, which he addresses to Frodo and into which he
puts the Ring, to the dwarf Lofar, asking him to put it in Frodo's room.
Gandalf still meets Bilbo at the bottom of the Hill after he has left Bag
End with the Dwarves (still named Nar, Anar, and Hannar), and their
conversation remains as it was (pp. 238 - 40): in answer to Gandalf's
question 'He [Frodo] knows about it, of course?' Bilbo replies: 'He
knows that I have a Ring. He has read my private memoirs (the only one I
have ever allowed to read them).' Gandalf's return to Bag End after
saying good-bye to Bilbo is incorporated from the very rough form in the
fifth version (p. 247, note 20), the only difference being that Frodo is
now actually reading Bilbo's letter as he sits in the hall.
The list of Bilbo's parting presents (p. 247, note 21) is now further
changed by the loss of Caramella Chubb and her clock and Primo Grubb
and his dinner-service (survivors from the original draft, p. 15, when
they were Caramella Took and Inigo Grubb-Took); Colombo Horn-
blower and the barometer also disappear. Lofar still plays the role of
Merry Brandybuck on the day following the Party, and Gandalf's con-
versation with Frodo on that day remains the same, with various later
additions and omissions made to the fifth version (p. 248, notes 24 - 6,
28 - 30) incorporated: thus Bingo's reference to Bilbo's use of the Ring to
escape from the Sackville-Bagginses is of course removed, in view of its
use in 'A Conspiracy is Unmasked' (p. 300), as is Gandalf's suggestion
that Bingo might be able to get in touch with him if necessary through
'the nearest dwarves'.
Genealogy of the Tooks.
On the reverse of one of the pages of this manuscript of 'A Long-
expected Party' is the most substantial genealogy of the Tooks that has
yet appeared.
The figures attached to the names are at first glance very puzzling:
they are obviously neither dates according to an independent calendar,
nor ages at death. The key is provided by 'Bilbo Baggins III', and by
the statement in the Foreword (p. 314) that the family-trees (of which
this is the only one that survives, or was made at this time) would show
'what their various ages were at the time when the story opens.' The basis
is the year of the Party, which is zero; and the figures are the ages of the
persons relative to the Party. As between any two figures, the relative
ages of the persons are given. Thus 311 against Ferumbras and 266
against Fortinbras means that Ferumbras was born 45 years before his
son; Isengrim the First was born 374 years before Meriadoc Brandybuck
eight generations later; Drogo Baggins was 23 years younger than Bilbo,
and if he had not been drowned in the Brandywine and had been able to
come to the Party would have been 88; and so on. The daggers of course
show persons who were dead at the time of the Party.
A few of the figures were changed on the manuscript, the earlier ones
being: Isengrim II 172, Isambard 160, Flambard 167, Rosa Baggins
151, Bungo Baggins 155, Yolanda 60, Folco Took 23, Meriadoc 25,
Odo 24.
It will be seen that while there is no external chronological structure,
the internal or relative structure is not so very different from that of the
family tree of Took of Great Smials in LR Appendix C. In LR Meriadoc
was born 362 years after Isengrim II (= Isengrim I in the old tree) and
eight generations later.
Bandobras the Bullroarer (see p. 311 and note 2) is here the son of
Isengrim, first of the Took line in the tree; and in the Prologue to LR
(p. 11) he is likewise the son of that Isengrim (the Second). This was
overlooked when the final Took tree was made, for Bandobras is there
moved down by a generation, becoming the son (not the brother) of
Isengrim's son Isumbras (III).(5)
The Old Took now acquires the name Gerontius, as in LR (earlier he
was 'Frodo the First', p. 251). Four sons are named here; in LR he had
nine. Rosa Baggins, wife of one of them (Flambard), has appeared in the
little genealogy found in Queries and Alterations (p. 222): there she is
the sister of Bungo Baggins, and she married 'Young Took'. The tree
given on p. 267 is maintained here in respect of Merry's parents; Frodo
Took has become Folco Took, and his father Folcard (see p. 309). Odo,
here with a double-barrelled name Took-Bolger, was said earlier (p. 251)
to have a Took mother and to be a third cousin of Merry and Frodo
(Folco), as is shown in this tree.
Donnamira Took, second of the Old Took's daughters, is now named,
(СХЕМА.)
and is the wife of Hugo Boffin, as in LR, where however no issue is
recorded in the tree: on this see p. 386.
Lastly, five further children (six in LR) of Mirabella Took and
Gorboduc Brandybuck are given in addition to Primula, one of them
being Rory Brandybuck (see p. 267, note 4), whose true name is here
Roderick (Rorimac in LR); the other sons have Visigothic names
altogether different from those in the Brandybuck tree in LR.
Chapter II: 'Ancient History'.
The earlier forms of this chapter are found on pp. 76 ff. and pp. 250 ff.
The version in the third phase is in places difficult to interpret, for it was
a good deal changed in the act of composition and very heavily altered
afterwards, and it is not easy to distinguish the 'layers', moreover, it
became divided up, with some of its pages remaining in England and
some going to Marquette University.
In general, the substance of the narrative remains remarkably close to
that of the preceding version; my father had that before him, of course,
and he was largely content merely to alter the expression as he went along
- ubiquitously, but leaving the existing story little affected.
Of the younger hobbits that Frodo went about with, the chief are now
Meriadoc Brandybuck, Folco Took, and Odo Bolger (or. Folco for Frodo
see p. 309); genealogical information about them is not provided (cf.
p. 251). Frodo no longer 'walked all over the Shire,' nor was he 'often
away from home'; rather, 'he did not go far afield, and after Bilbo left his
walks gradually grew shorter and circled more and more round his own
hole.' When he thought of leaving the Shire, and wondered what lay
beyond its borders, 'half of him was now unwilling, and began to be
afraid of walks abroad, lest the mud on his feet should carry him off.' The
'thin feeling' mentioned in the previous version (p. 252), 'as if he was
being stretched out over a lot of days, and weeks, and months, but was
not fully there', is no longer referred to, and Gandalf does not do so later
in the chapter (cf. p. 266).
In the account of Gandalf's visits to Hobbiton, the passage in the
previous version describing his secret comings and taps on the window is
moved, so that it refers to the earlier time when he came often (cf. FR
p. 55), before his long absence of seven years (p. 268, note 6). The
wizard reappeared 'about fifteen years after Bilbo's departure', and
'during the last year he had often come and stayed a long time.' The
conversation at The Green Dragon took place in 'the spring of Frodo's
forty-ninth year' (at the beginning of the next chapter in this phase Frodo
decides to leave Bag End in September of 'this (his fiftieth) year': see
p. 253 and note 8).
In the passage concerning the rumours of trouble and the migrations
in the wide world the site of Sauron's ancient stronghold in the South
'near the midst of the world in those days' (p. 253) becomes 'near the
middle of the Great Land', but this was at once struck out; and the
passage concerning giants becomes: 'Trolls and giants were abroad, of a
new and more malevolent kind, no longer dull-witted but full of cunning
and wizardry.' In the talk at the inn, the passage about the Grey Havens
now appears, and the whole conversation moves almost to the form in FR
(p. 54); but it is still Jo Button who saw the 'Tree-men' beyond the North
Moors, though he works now for 'Mr Fosco Boffin' - with 'of Northope'
added later, and then changed to 'at Overhill'. Fosco Boffin, Bilbo's first
cousin once removed, appears in the Took genealogy given on p. 3 17; see
p. 386.
The opening of the conversation between Gandalf and Frodo at Bag
End was changed, probably at or very soon after the time of composition,
from a form very close to that of the preceding version (p. 255) and still
including Gandalf's mention of his two visits to the land of the Necro-
mancer. The new form reads:
'You say the ring is dangerous, far more dangerous than I
guess,' said Frodo at length. 'How long have you known that? And
did Bilbo know? I wish you would tell me more now.'
'At first I knew very little,' answered Gandalf slowly, as if
searching back in memory. Already the days of the journey and
the Dragon and the Battle of Five Armies began to seem dim and
far-off. Perhaps even he was at last beginning to feel his age; and in
any case many dark and strange adventures had befallen him
since. 'Then after I came back from the South and the White
Council, I began to wonder what kind of magic ring he possessed;
but I said nothing to Bilbo. All seemed well with him, and I
thought that that kind of power was powerless over him. So
I thought; and I was right in a way; but not quite right. I ought
perhaps to have found out more, sooner than I did, and then I
should have warned him earlier. But before he left I told him what
I could - by that time I had begun to suspect the truth, but I knew
very little for certain.'
'I am sure you did all you could,' said Frodo. 'You have been a
good friend, and a wise counsellor to us. But it must have been a
great blow to you when Bilbo disappeared.'
In Gandalf's account of the Rings (p. 260) he now says: 'Slowly
through the years he has been seeking for them, hoping to recall their
power into his own hands, and hoping always to find the One'; and his
words concerning the Three Rings were early changed from their form in
the second version (p. 260, but with 'earth, sea, and sky' for 'earth, air,
and sky'):
What use they made of the Three Rings of Earth, Sea, and Sky, I
do not know; nor do I know what has now become of them. Some
say that hidden Elf-kings still keep them in fast places of the
Middle-earth; but I believe they have long been carried far over
the Great Sea.
Gandalf, again by early or immediate change, now concludes his
remarks about the Seven Rings of the Dwarves, which some say have
perished in the fire of the dragons, with the words: 'Yet that account,
maybe, is not wholly true'; he does not now refer to the belief that some
of the Seven Rings are preserved, though no doubt he implies it (cf. the
first draft for the Council of Elrond, p. 398).
As my father first wrote here the passage about Gil-galad, he began by
following the former text almost exactly, with 'Valandil, King of the
Island' (see p. 260 and note 26), but he changed it in the act of writing to:
'and he made an alliance with Valandil, King of the men of Numenor,
who came back over the sea from Westernesse into Middle-earth in
those days.' Valandil was then changed to Elendil, probably almost
immediately, and also at the subsequent occurrences of the name in this
passage. Isildor of the second text is now written Isildur. Isildur's host
was overwhelmed by 'Orcs', not 'Goblins' (see p. 437, note 35).
To Gandalf's story of Gollum nothing is added or altered from the
preceding version (see p. 261), save that 'his grandmother who ruled all
the family turned him out of her hole.'
The purport of Gandalf's discussion of Gollum's character and
motives in respect of the Ring remains unchanged from the second
version, though of course with continual slight development in expres-
sion, and in some passages with considerable expansion. The words
'Only Elves can stand it, and even they fade' (p. 261) are now omitted.
Gandalf's meaning in his reply to Frodo's objection that Gollum never
gave Bilbo the Ring is now made clearer:
'But he never gave Bilbo the Ring,' said Frodo. 'Bilbo had
already found it lying on the floor.'
'I know, answered Gandalf, 'and I have always thought that
that was one of the strangest things about Bilbo's adventure. That
is why I said that Gollum's ancestry only partly explained what
happened...'
It is still Gandalf himself who found Gollum, though Frodo's excla-
mation 'You found Gollum! ' (p. 263) was subsequently changed to 'You
have seen Gollum!', and Gandalf's reply to Frodo's question 'Did you
find him there [in Mirkwood]?' (p. 264) was changed to 'I saw him there,
but it was friends of mine who actually tracked him down, with the help
of the Wood-elves.' Cf. the first version of the Council of Elrond, p. 401
and note 20. - Gandalf's account of Gollum's own story is expanded
thus:
What I have told you, Gollum was willing to tell - though not, of
course, in the way I have reported it. Gollum is a liar, and you
have to sift his words. For instance, you may remember that he
told Bilbo he had the Ring as a birthday-present. Very unlikely on
the face of it: incredible when one suspects what kind of ring it
really was. It was said merely to make Bilbo willing to accept it as a
harmless kind of toy - one of Gollum's hobbit-like thoughts. He
repeated this nonsense to me, but I laughed at him. He then told
me the truer story, with a lot of snivelling and snarling. He
thought he was misunderstood and ill-treated...
Gandalf still says, oddly, that Gollum 'had found out eventually, of
course, that Bilbo had in some way got his Ring, and what his name was,
and where he came from' (see p. 263 and note 32); indeed the point is
now made more emphatically: 'And the news of later events went all over
Wilderland, and Bilbo's name was spoken far and wide.'
When Gandalf pauses after saying 'he made his slow sneaking way bit
by bit, years ago, down to the Land of Mordor' the heavy silence
mentioned in FR p. 68 falls, and 'there was now no sound of Sam's
shears.' The phrase 'I think indeed that Gollum is the beginning of our
present troubles' is retained: see p. 271, note 33.
From '"Well anyway," said Frodo, "if Gollum could not be killed"' my
father at first followed the earlier text (p.265) very closely, but then
rewrote it in a changed form.
'Well anyway,' said Frodo, 'if Gollum could not be killed, I wish
Bilbo had not kept the Ring. Why did he?'
'Is not that clear from what you have now heard? ' answered
Gandalf. 'I remember you saying, when it first came to you, that it
had its advantages, and that you wondered why Bilbo went off
without it [see p. 242]. He had possessed it a long while before we
knew that it was specially important. After that it was too late:
there was the Ring itself to reckon with. It has a power and
purpose of its own that clouds wise counsel. Even Bilbo could not
altogether escape its influence. He developed a sentiment. Even
when he knew that it came ultimately from the Necromancer he
wished to keep it as a memento...'
Lastly, the passage beginning 'I really do wish to destroy it!' (p. 266)
was changed and amplified:
'I really do wish to destroy it! ' cried Frodo. 'But I wish more
that the Ring need never have come to me. Why was I chosen?'
'Bilbo passed it on to you to save himself from destruction; and
because he could find no one else. He did so reluctantly, but
believing that, when you knew more, you would accept the
burden for a while out of love for him. He thought you were safe:
safe not to misuse it or to let it get into evil hands; safe from its
power for a time; and safe in the quiet Shire of the hobbits from
the knowledge of its maker. And I promised him to help you. He
relied on that. Indeed for your sake and for his I have taken many
perilous journeys.
'Also I may say that I did not discover the letters of fire or their
meaning or know for certain that this was the Ruling Ring until he
had already decided to go. I did not tell him, for then he would not
have burdened you. I let him go. He had had the Ring for sixty
years, and it was telling on him, Frodo. It would have worn him
down in the end, and I dare not guess what might then have
happened.
'But now, alas! I know more. I have seen Gollum. I have
journeyed even to the Land of Mordor. I fear that the Enemy is
searching. You are in a far graver peril than ever Bilbo dreamed of.
So do not blame him.'
'But I am not strong enough! ' said Frodo. 'You are wise and
powerful. Will you not take the Ring?'
'No!' said Gandalf springing to his feet. 'With that Ring I
should have power too great and terrible. And over me it would
gain a power still greater and more deadly.' His eyes flashed and
his face was lit as by a fire within. 'Do not tempt me! For I do not
wish to become like the Dark Lord himself. Yet the way of the
Ring to my heart is by pity for weakness and the desire of strength
to do good. Do not tempt me! '
He went to the window and drew aside the curtain and shutters.
Sunlight streamed back again into the room. Sam passed along the
path outside, whistling. 'In any case,' said the wizard, turning
back to Frodo, 'it is now too late. You would hate me and call me a
thief; and our friendship would cease. Such is the power of the
Ring. But together we will shoulder the burden that is laid on us.'
He came and laid his hand on Frodo's shoulder. 'But we must do
something soon,' he said. 'The Enemy is moving.'
The same curious idea is still present here that Gandalf discovered the
letters of fire on Bilbo's ring, and knew that it was the Ruling Ring, before
Bilbo left but without telling him (i.e. without Bilbo's knowledge that
this test had been made): see p. 266 and note 38. - Gandalf's remark
(p. 321) 'I think indeed that Gollum is the beginning of our present
troubles', retained from the second version, now perhaps becomes less
obscure (see p. 271, note 33): 'I have been to the Land of Mordor. I fear
that the Enemy is searching.'
Chapter III: 'Delays are Dangerous'.
The new text of the third chapter, now given this title (which had been
scribbled in on the second version), was another fine clear manuscript,
replacing its appallingly difficult predecessor (pp. 273 ff.).
The chapter still begins with the gossip in The Ivy Bush and The Creen
Dragon (p. 274 and note 1) before turning to the conversation between
Gandalf and Frodo. In that conversation Gandalf does now refer, as in
FR, to the possibility that it may be Frodo's task to find the Cracks of
Doom - indeed he goes further:
'And to go there but not come back again,' added Gandalf
grimly. 'For in the end I think you must come to the Fiery
Mountain, though you are not yet ready to make that your goal.'
That with Merry's help (6) Frodo had chosen a little house at Crick-
hollow (see p. 299) is now taken up from the pencilled change to the
previous version (p. 283, note 2). Gandalf still leaves Hobbiton 'one wet
dark evening in May'.
But a major change enters the story with the departure of Odo Bolger
(not Took-Bolger, as in the family tree, p. 317) with Merry Brandybuck
in the third cart from Hobbiton. My father had proposed this earlier
(p. 299): 'From here onwards [i.e. after the arrival in Buckland] Odo is
presumed to have gone with Merry ahead. The preliminary journey was
Frodo [Took], Bingo and Sam only. Frodo has a character a little more
like Odo once had. Odo is now rather silent (and greedy).' But the text
that followed this direction was obscure and contradictory, apparently
on account of my opposition to the proposal (see p. 299). Now the deed
was done properly.
In the earlier versions of the chapter the young hobbits Frodo and Odo
had distinct characters (see p. 70). The removal of Odo from the
expedition does not mean, however, that Odo's character was removed;
because my father always worked on the basis of preceding drafts, and a
great deal of the original material of this chapter survived. Though
Frodo Took, now renamed Folco Took (since Bingo had become
Frodo), was the one who remained in the new narrative, he had to
become the speaker of the things that the absent Odo had said - unless
my father was to rewrite what he had written in a far more drastic way
than he wished to. Despite the early note 'Sam Gamgee to replace Odo'
(p. 250), Sam was too particularly conceived from the outset to be at all
suitable to take up Odo's nonchalance. Moreover, in this version of the
chapter the original contribution of Folco (Frodo) Took was in any case
further reduced. The verse The Road goes ever on and on had already
been given to Bingo in the second version (p. 278); now his account of
meeting a Black Rider up on the North Moors was dropped, and his
exclamation of delight when the singing of the Elves was heard ('Elves!
How wonderful! I have always wished to hear elves singing under stars')
was cut out apparently in the act of writing and replaced by Sam's hoarse
whisper: 'Elves! ' So Folco Took, with a diminished part of 'his own', and
acquiring much of 'Odo's', becomes 'Odo' more completely than my
father apparently foresaw when he said 'Frodo [Took] has a character a
little more like Odo once had.'(7)
Yet Folco's genealogical place remains; for Odo himself (once sur-
named Took but now a Bolger with a Took mother) has gone on ahead to
Buckland, where a separate and distinct adventure (already glimpsed in
advance, pp. 302,304) will overtake him, while into Folco's place in the
family tree of the Tooks, as first cousin of Merry Brandybuck (pp. 267,
3 I 7), will later step Peregrin Took (Pippin).
Cosimo Sackville-Baggins' 'overshadowed wife Miranda' disappears
again, together with the remark that he and his mother Lobelia lived at
Bag End 'for many a year after' (p. 283, note 5). - The Road goes ever on
and on now attains the final form (p. 284, note 10). - At the first
appearance of the Black Rider on the road, in the passage cited on p. 278,
'Odo and Frodo' become 'Folco and Sam', and the text of FR (p. 84) is
reached.
As already noticed, Frodo Took's account of his meeting with a Black
Rider on the North Moors of the Shire (p. 278) is now dropped, and the
conversation between Bingo and Frodo Took on the subject of the Black
Riders (p. 279) that follows Sam's revelation moves on to precisely the
form in FR (p. 85), with of course Folco for Pippin. The brief halt of the
Rider by the decayed tree in which the hobbits ate their supper is
however retained in this version, and in the ensuing conversation Frodo
still says, as did Bingo, that he will take the name of Mr Hill of Faraway.
When the singing of the Elves is heard Frodo says, as in FR p. 88: 'One
can meet them sometimes in the Woody End', but he still says as in the
preceding version (p. 280) that they come in spring and autumn 'out of
their own lands far beyond the River'. As in FR, the hymn to Elbereth is
now said to be sung 'in the fair Elven-tongue', and at the end of it Frodo
says: 'These are High-elves! They speak the name of Elbereth! '
Odo's indiscreet remark about their good luck in landing unexpectedly
good food and lodging disappears and is not handed on to Folco. Frodo's
'The stars shine on the hour of our meeting' was at first given as before
(p. 280) only in translation, but my father changed this, clearly in the act
of writing the manuscript, by the introduction of the Elvish words as
well, Eleni silir lumesse omentiemman, and then again to Elen sile..., 'A
star shines...' At this Gildor says, as in FR, 'Here is a scholar in the
Ancient Tongue.'
It is still the Moon that rouses the Elves to song; but the old wording
('The yellow moon rose; springing swiftly out of the shadow, and then
climbing round and slow into the sky') surviving from the original
version of the chapter (p. 61), was changed, apparently at or very near
the time of writing, to: 'Above the mists away in the East the thin silver
rind of the New Moon appeared, and rising swift and clear out of the
shadow it swung gleaming in the sky.' My father no doubt made this
change on account of what he had said elsewhere about the Moon; for
there was a waxing moon as the hobbits approached Weathertop, and it
was 'nearly half-full' on the night of the attack (pp. 168, 184): the attack
was on 5 October (p. 175), and there could not be a full or nearly full
Moon on 24 September, the night passed with the Elves in the Woody
End (see p. 16o). On that night it must have been almost New Moon.
The dates of the phases of the Moon in the autumn and early winter of
that year cited on p. 434, note 19, in fact give New Moon on 25
September, the First Quarter (half-full) on z October, and Full Moon on
10 October. But it is an odd and uncharacteristic aberration that my
father envisaged a New Moon rising late at night in the East.(8) In FR, of
course, there is no mention of the Moon in this passage: it was 'the
Swordsman of the Sky, Menelvagor with his shining belt' that caused the
Elves to burst into song.
In the passage describing the memories of the meal eaten with the
Elves the text of FR is reached, with Folco retaining those of Frodo Took
together with Odo's recollection of the bread.
Gildor's advice to Bingo (Frodo) that he should take trusty com-
panions, and his opinion that his present companions have already
confused the Riders, is retained (see p. 282); but at the end there is now
no mention of the Ring, and their talk ends as in FR (p. 94).
Chapter IV: 'A Short Cut to Mushrooms'.
In this new version of the chapter there is only to notice the curious result
of the exclusion of Odo Bolger: with Folco Took adding Odo's part to
that which he retained from Frodo Took's in the former narrative. In the
previous version Odo argued against taking a short cut to the Ferry,
because, while he did not know the country, he did know The Golden
Perch at Stock, and Frodo Took argued for it - because he did know the
country.(9) Now, the Frodo-element in Folco, retaining a knowledge of
the country, uses it to support the desire of the Odo-element in him for
the beer at Stock, and his opponent in the argument is Frodo (Baggins);
thus Folco is here, and throughout the chapter, Pippin in all but name
(see pp. 286 - 7).
Deephallow now disappears from the text (see p. 286).
Chapter V: 'A Conspiracy Unmasked'.
This chapter had already reached in the second version (pp. 298 ff.) a
form very close to that in FR, but there remained the confusion over
whether Odo had been on the walk from Hobbiton or whether he had
gone on ahead to Buckland with Merry (see pp. 299, 323). Following the
new version of Chapter III, this is now resolved, of course: Odo is at
Crickhollow, opens the door when they arrive, and cooks the supper with
Merry - in fact, until the end of the chapter, he has become Fredegar
(Fatty) Bolger. The text now reaches, until the end of the chapter, the
form in FR, down to the smallest particulars of expression, with these
differences only: the passage about Gorhendad Oldbuck is still not
present (p. 298); the Hedge is still forty miles from end to end (ibid.);
and the 'dwarf-song' Farewell. farewell, now hearth and hall! still retains
the form in the previous version (pp. 300 - 1).(10)
The end of the chapter still differs altogether from that in FR,
however. The form in the second version was preserved, with the
pencilled additions incorporated (p. 302). Odo says 'But me shan't have
any luck in the Old Forest' (whereas in FR Fredegar says 'But you won't
have any luck'), because he is still potentially a member of the further
expedition, even though my father had in fact decided that he would stay
at Crickhollow till Gandalf came. I give the text from 'Do you follow
Captain Frodo, or do you stay at home?'
'We follow Captain Frodo,' said Merry and Folco (and of course
Sam). Odo was silent. 'Look here!' he said after a pause. 'I don't
mind admitting that I am more terrified of the Forest than of
anything I know about. I dislike woods of any kind, but the stories
about the Old Forest are a nightmare. But I also think that you
ought to try and keep in touch with Gandalf, who I guess knows
more about the Black Riders than you do. I will stay behind here
and keep off inquisitive folk. When Gandalf comes, as I think 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.'
The others agreed that this seemed on the whole an excellent
plan; and Frodo at once wrote a brief letter to Gandalf, and gave it
to Odo.
'Well, that's settled,' said Merry.
The rest of the chapter is as in the previous version.
A curious trace of this stage survives in the published text. Since Odo's
staying behind had not formed part of the 'conspiracy', Merry had
prepared six ponies, five for the five hobbits and one for the baggage.
When the story changed, and Fredegar Bolger's task 'according to the
original plans of the conspirators' (FR p. 118) was expressly to stay
behind, this detail was overlooked, and the six ponies remained at this
point (FR p. 117).
Chapter VI: 'The Old Forest'.
The chapter now at last receives its title. Odo now said farewell to the
others at the entrance to the tunnel under the Hedge in these words:
'I wish you were not going into the Forest. I don't believe you will
get safely through; and I think it is very necessary that someone
should warn Gandalf that you have gone in. I'm sure you will need
rescuing before to-day is out. Still I wish you luck and I hope,
perhaps, I shall catch you up again one day.'
The hill rising out of the forest was still crowned with a knot of trees
(p. 113), but this was changed to the 'bald head' of FR in the act of
writing this manuscript. The gully which the hobbits were forced to
follow downwards because they could not climb out of it still ends as
before (ibid.):
Suddenly the woodland trees came to an end, and the gully
became deep and sheer-sided; its bottom was almost wholly filled
by the noisy hurrying water. It ran down finally to a narrow shelf
at the top of a rocky bank, over which the stream dived and fell in a
series of small waterfalls. Looking down they saw that below them
was a wide space of grass and reeds...
The old story of the descent down the thirty-foot bank is thus still
present, with Folco falling the last fifteen feet.
In the original form of the story of the encounter with Old Man Willow
(p. 113) Bingo and Odo were trapped in the tree, and Merry (then called
Marmaduke) was the one who rounded up the ponies and rescued Frodo
Took from the river. In the next stage (p. 302) this was changed to the
extent that Sam took over Merry's part, and Merry simply 'lay like a log'.
Now, with Frodo Took and Odo 'reduced' to Folco Took, it is still Frodo
Baggins and Folco who are imprisoned in the tree, but Merry steps into
Frodo Took's role as the one pushed into the river.
In the oldest version the path beside the Withywindle puzzlingly
turned sharply to the left below Tom Bombadil's house and went over a
little bridge; and in later revision this was retained, with, later again, the
word 'left' changed to 'right', implying that Bombadil's house was on the
south side of the Withywindle (see p. 114). The present text read at first
here:
[The path] turned sharply to the right, and took them over a
chattering down.
This retains the turn in the path and the bridge, but the bridge being over
a tributary stream Bombadil's house is on the north side of the Withy-
windle. My father struck the passage out, however, apparently as he
wrote.
Chapter VII: 'In the House of Tom Bombadil'.
Like the last, this chapter now receives its title. The episode of the attack
on Crickhollow (pp. 303 - 4) is now a part of the text, and was repeated
from the earlier form with scarcely any significant change and almost
word for word. The 'grey man' came up the path leading a white horse,
but that Gandalf had a white horse appears later in the first version. More
important, my father at first repeated the words 'Suddenly there was a
movement', but struck them out and substituted: 'A curtain in one of the
windows stirred. Then suddenly the figure by the door moved swiftly'
(this change clearly belongs with the writing of the manuscript). Odo
was in the house, of course. To the words pencilled at the end of the first
version of the episode, 'Behind clung a small figure with Hying cloak', and
'Odo', there is nothing corresponding in the next, and I think that they
had not, in fact, yet been written in on the former; at this stage, it seems,
my father had no further plans for Odo. But there is a pencilled addition
to the second text of which, though it was erased, Mr Taum Santoski has
been able to make out the following: 'Behind him ran Odo... and...
wind. Cf. IX.22.' On this question see p. 336.
The dreams. The content of Frodo's dream remains the same, almost
word for word, as Bingo's in the original version (p. 118), except that
after the words 'hoofs thudding and wind blowing' there follows 'and
faint and far the echo of a horn': this obviously echoes Gandalf's
blowing of the horn at Crickhollow, which in this text immediately
precedes Frodo's dream. But whereas in the story as told in the first phase
'Bingo woke' and then 'fell asleep again' (on the reality of the sounds he
heard see p. 119), in this version Frodo 'lay in a dream without light': this
is as in FR, but nothing is said here to suggest that he woke (contrast FR:
'"Black Riders!" thought Frodo as he wakened.') On the other hand the
passage in the present text ends as in FR: 'at last he turned and fell asleep
again or wandered into some other unremembered dream.' Folco dreams
what was originally Odo's dream, and like Pippin in FR 'woke, or
thought he had waked', and then 'went to sleep again.' Merry takes over
Frodo Took's dream of water, with the words 'falling into his quiet sleep
and slowly waking him' retained from the old version, though struck out,
probably at once; this passage ends, as in FR, 'He breathed deep and fell
asleep again.' Sam 'slept through the night in deep content, if logs are
contented.'
In Tom's talk with the hobbits on the second day, the old phrase
'A dark shadow came up out of the middle of the world' is retained (see
p. 121); and Tom's reply to Frodo's question 'Who are you, Master?' is
almost exactly as in the old version (p. 121): he says 'I am Ab-Origine,
that's what I am,' and the words 'He saw the Sun rise in the West and the
Moon following, before the new order of days was made' are retained (see
my discussion of this passage, pp. 121 - 2).
In all the other minor differences mentioned on pp. 122 - 3 the present
text reaches the final form.
Chapter VIII: 'Fog on the Barrow-downs'.
There is little that need be said about this chapter, which followed on the
original text (pp. 127 - 30), and which now received its title. The 'arm
walking on its fingers' in the barrow crept towards Folco, and Frodo fell
forward upon him (p. 127). Merry's words when he woke remain un-
changed (p. 128); and nothing more is said of the bronze swords that
Tom Bombadil chose for the hobbits from the treasures of the mound
than the words added to the original text: Tom said that 'they were made
many ages ago by men out of the West: they were foes of the dark Lord.'
The conclusion of the chapter moves some way to the final form, but
features of the original version are retained (pp. 129 - 30). Thus Frodo,
riding down onto the Road, still says: 'I hope we shall be able to stick to
the beaten track after this,' to which Bombadil replies: 'That's what you
ought to do, as long as you are able: hold to the beaten way, but ride fast
and wary.' In his parting advice he still says: 'Barnabas Butterbur is the
worthy keeper: he knows Tom Bombadil, and Tom's name will help
you. Say "Tom sent us here", and he will treat you kindly.' After he has
gone there is no conversation among the hobbits recorded, and the
chapter ends much as in the original text. Sam rode with Frodo in front,
Merry and Folco behind, leading the spare pony; and Bree is still 'a little
village'.
NOTES.
1. Earliest Days, occurring twice in this passage, was changed later
to Elder Days. The latter expression occurs once in the Quenta
Silmarillion, where it is not capitalised (V. 259); cf. also Elder Years
(V.90), eldest days (V.245).
2. Bandobras the Bullroarer reappears from The Hobbit (Chapter I);
see further pp. 316 - 17.
3. Only one such tree is known to me, perhaps the only one made by
my father at this time; see pp. 316 - 18.
4. Thus whereas in the preliminary version of the talk in The Ivy Bush
(p. 244) the narrator's opening was to be reduced to a brief para-
graph, my father was now both retaining the account of past history
from earlier versions of the chapter and also adding Gaffer Gamgee's
own characteristic mode of retailing it. In FR the Gaffer becomes
the sole source.
5. In The Hobbit Bandobras is called Bilbo's great-grand-uncle, but
Bilbo himself calls him his great-great-great-grand-uncle - as he is in
the present tree.
6. His cousin Lanorac Brandybuck (p. 275) has disappeared.
7. The discussion whether to walk far or not on the first night was still
present (see p. 276), but Folco does not take on Odo's reluctance;
the result is that all three of them agree, and the discussion being
now rather pointless my father struck it out and replaced it with the
words of FR (p. 80): 'Well, we all like walking in the dark, so let's
put some miles behind us before bed.'
8. It is indeed so extraordinary, in view of his deep and constant
awareness of all such modes and appearances, that one seeks for an
explanation: can he have intended 'the Old Moon' but have written
'the New Moon' because he was thinking of the crescent form
(characteristically 'the New Moon') rather than the phase? This
seems unlikely; and in any case an 'old Moon' as a 'thin silver rind' is
not seen till near dawn, for the Moon to have this appearance must
be very near to the Sun.
9. In the earlier, abandoned variant of the Farmer Maggot episode in
the previous version of the chapter Maggot says that Frodo Took is
'half a Brandybuck' (p. 291). This was already omitted in the second
variant; but he was Merry Brandybuck's first cousin, and he tells
Bingo that Maggot 'is a friend of Merry's, and I used to come here
with him a good deal at one time' - just as Pippin tells Frodo in FR,
p. 101.
10. My father first wrote that it was sung by Merry, Folco, and Odo, but
Odo's name was no doubt due to its presence in the previous version
(p. 300), and he struck it out at once.
XX
THE THIRD PHASE (2):
AT THE SIGN OF THE
PRANCING PONY.
With Chapter IX, now given the title 'At the Sign of the Prancing Pony',
the narrative of this phase underwent a much more substantial develop-
ment, but not at all in the direction of the final story in FR. Before
coming to this, however, there is a curious feature in the opening of the
chapter to be considered.
The opening now advanced far from the early forms given on
pp. 132 - 4: an initial account in which Bree was a village of Men, but
where 'there were hobbits about', changed to the story that there were
only hobbits in Bree, and Mr Butterbur was himself a hobbit. A later
note (p. 233) said however that 'Bree-folk are not to be hobbits.' Now my
father resolved the question by returning, more or less, to the original
idea: Men and Hobbits lived together in Bree. But he found it difficult to
achieve a form of the opening with which he could be satisfied, and there
is version after version soon tailing off, to be replaced by the next. All
these drafts are very similar, differing in the ordering of the material and
in the admission or omission of detail; all obviously belong to the same
time; and there is no need to look at them closely, except in one
particular. All the drafts contain the passage in FR (p. 161) concerning
the origin of the Men of Bree - one of them adding that they were
'descendants of the sons of Beor' - and the return of the Kings of Men
over the Great Seas.' The passage that follows, as in FR, concerns the
Rangers, and is a)most the same in all the draft forms of it:
No other Men lived now so far West, nor so near the Shire by a
hundred leagues and more. No settled people, that is: for there
were the Rangers, mysterious wanderers that the Men of Bree
regarded with deep respect (and a little fear), since they were said
to be the last remnant of the kingly people from beyond the Seas.
But the Rangers were few and seldom seen, and roamed at will in
the wild lands eastward, even as far as the Misty Mountains.
The curious thing is that in the form of the chapter-opening that was
allowed to stand the account of the Rangers is quite different, and does
not follow on from the words 'No other Men lived at that time so far
West, nor so near by a hundred leagues to the Shire', but is placed
further on (after 'There was Bree-blood in the Brandybuck family by all
accounts', FR p. 162). This version reads:
In the wild lands east of Bree there roamed a few unsettled folk
(men and hobbits). These the people of the Bree-land called
Rangers. Some of them were well-known in Bree, which they
visited fairly frequently, and were welcome as bringers of news
and tellers of strange tales.
Later in the chapter, Butterbur answers Frodo's question about Trotter
thus:
I don't rightly know. He is one of the wandering folk - Rangers,
we call them. Not that he really is a Ranger, if you understand me,
though he behaves like one. He seems to be a hobbit of some kind.
He has been coming in pretty often during the past twelve
months, especially since last spring; but he seldom talks.
In the original version at this place (p. 137) Butterbur says: '0! that is
one of the wild folk - rangers we call 'em.' And Gandalf in his letter to
Frodo still refers in the third phase text, as in the old version, to Trotter
as 'a ranger... dark rather lean hobbit, wears wooden shoes' (p. 352).
With these extracts compare the note in Queries and Alterations
(p. 223): Rangers are best not as hobbits, perhaps.
It is difficult to interpret this. In the third phase we find the statement
(in draft versions) that Rangers are 'the last remnant of the kingly people
from beyond the Seas', and also the statements that Rangers are both
men and hobbits, that one particular hobbit is a Ranger (so Gandalf),
and that this same hobbit is 'not really a Ranger, though he behaves like
one' (so Butterbur). The simplest explanation is to suppose that the
Numenorean origin of the Rangers was an idea that my father was
considering in the drafts, but which he set aside when he wrote the text of
the chapter and the subsequent narrative (see further p. 393). Whatever
the explanation, it is clear that the finished conception of the Rangers had
a difficult emergence; and it is characteristic that even when the idea of
the Rangers as the last descendants of the Numenorean exiles had arisen,
and a place thus prepared, as it were, for Trotter, he did not at once move
into that place.
The village of Staddle now reappears (see p. 132), on the other side of
the hill; and Combe is set 'in a deep valley a little further eastward',
Archet 'on the edge of Chetwood'-all as in FR p. 161. That Bree stood at
an old meeting of the ways, the East Road and the Greenway running
north and south, now appears. In the only one of the draft versions of the
opening to reach the actual narrative, the hobbits
passed one or two detached houses before they came to the inn,
and Sam and Folco stared at these in wonder. Sam was filled with
deep suspicion, and doubted the wisdom of seeking any lodging in
such an outlandish place. 'Fancy having to climb up a ladder to
bed!' he said. 'What do they do it for? They aren't birds.'
'It's airier,' said Frodo, 'and safer too in wilder country. There
is no fence around Bree that I can see.'
Here my father stopped; probably at that moment he decided that this
was improbable. In the completed text of the chapter dike, hedge, and
gate appear.
Frodo and his companions came at last to the Greenway-
crossing and drew near the village. They found that it was
surrounded by a deep ditch with a hedge and fence on the inner
side. Over this the Road ran, but it was closed (as was the custom
after nightfall) by a great gate of loose bars laid across strong posts
on either side.
A little sketch-map, reproduced on p. 335, very likely belongs to just this
time. Written beside the line marking the outer circuit of Bree is 'ditch R
f', i.e. 'fence'. (For an earlier, very simple sketch-plan of Bree see p. 174,
note 20).
The text continues:
There was a house just beyond the barrier, and a man was sitting
at the door. He jumped up and fetched a lantern, and looked down
over the gate at them in surprise.
'We are making for the inn here,' said Frodo in answer to his
questions. 'We are journeying east, and cannot go further tonight.'
'Hobbits! ' said the man. 'And what's more, Shire-hobbits from
the sound of your talk! Well, if that is not a wonder: Shire-folk
riding by night and journeying east! '
He removed the bars slowly and let them ride through. 'And
what makes it stranger,' he went on: 'there's been more than one
traveller in the last few days going the same way, and enquiring
after a party of four hobbits on ponies. But I laughed at them and
said there had been no such party and was never likely to be. And
here you are! But if you go on to old Butterbur's I don't doubt
you'll find a welcome, and more news of your friends, maybe.'
They wished him goodnight; but Frodo made no comment on
his talk, though he could see in the lantern-light that the man was
eyeing them curiously. He was glad to hear the bars dropped in
their places behind them as they rode forward. One Black Rider at
least was now ahead of them, or so he guessed from the man's
words, but it was likely enough that others were still behind. And
what about Gandalf? Had he, too, passed through, trying to catch
them up while they were delayed in the Forest and Downs?
The hobbits rode on up a gentle slope, passing a few detached
houses, and drew up outside the inn....
The account of Sam's dismay at the sight of the tall houses, of the
structure of the inn, and of their arrival, is almost word for word as in FR
p. 164; and Barnabas Butterbur is now a man, not a hobbit. But the
passage in the original version in which Bingo (Frodo) refers to Tom
Bombadil's recommendation of The Prancing Pony and is then made
welcome by the landlord (pp. 134 - 5) is retained. Frodo now introduces
them by their correct names, except that he calls himself 'Mr Hill of
Faraway' (see pp. 280, 324). Butterbur replies much as in the old version
(p. 135), but his remarks there about the Tooks are now applied to the
Brandybucks, and not merely in the general context of the Shire-folk but
because Merry has been introduced as Mr Brandybuck; and he now
mentions the strangers who had come up the Greenway the night before.
The passage about their supply of money (see p. 136 and note 7) is
retained, though the urgency is made less ('Frodo had brought some
money with him, of course, as much as was safe or convenient; but it
would not cover the expenses of good inns indefinitely.')
From 'The landlord hovered round for a little, and then prepared (2) to
leave them' the new chapter reaches the final form for a long stretch with
only minor differences and for the most part in the same words. The
people in the common-room of the inn (including the strangers from the
South, who 'stared curiously') are as in FR (and the botanical names of
the Men of Bree, see p. 137 and note 8); but 'among the company
[Frodo] noticed the gate-keeper, and wondered vaguely if it was his night
off duty.' The 'squint-eyed ill-favoured fellow' who in FR foretold that
many more people would be coming north in the near future is here
simply 'one of the travellers' who had come up the Greenway. Folco
Took is now of course 'the ridiculous young Took'; but he does not yet
tell the tale of the collapse of the roof of the Town Hole in Michel
Delving. Frodo 'heard someone ask what part the Hills lived in and
where Faraway was; and he hoped Sam and Folco would be careful.'
As already noticed, Trotter remains a hobbit;(3) and the description of
him in fact follows the original version (p. 137) closely, including the
wooden shoes; his pipe was changed from 'broken' to 'short-stemmed' in
the act of writing, and he had 'an enormous mug (large even for a man)' in
front of him. In Frodo's first conversation with Trotter, and in all that
follows to the end of Chapter g in FR, the present text moves almost to
the final form (which has in any case been virtually attained, in the latter
part, already in the original version, see p.140). Frodo's feeling that the
suggestion that he put on the Ring came to him 'from outside, from
someone or something in the room' is present. At first my father wrote
simply that the 'swarthy-faced fellow' (Bill Ferney) (4) 'slipped out of the
door, followed by one of the southerners: not a well-favoured pair', but
by a change that seems little later than the writing of the manuscript this
became:
Very soon he slipped out of the door, followed by Harry the
gate-keeper, and by one of the southerners: the three had been
whispering together in a corner most of the evening. For a
moment he wondered if the Ring itself had not played him a trick -
or perhaps obeyed orders other than his own. He did not like the
looks of the three men that had gone out, especially not the [dark-
eyed >] squint-eyed southerner.
In this text it has already been mentioned that the gate-keeper was
present at the inn; this is not in FR, though it is said that he went out just
behind the other two. - The text of The Cat and the Fiddle is now exactly
in the final form.
In the original version I divided the text for convenience at the point
where Chapter g ends in FR, though there is no break in the manuscript.
The present version also continues without a break, and in this case it is
more convenient to treat the old chapter as a whole.
The next part of the story follows the original form (pp. 148 - 9) very
closely to the point where Trotter tells Bingo about his 'eavesdropping'
on the Road. There, Trotter had overheard Gandalf and the Dwarves
and Elves (returning from Hobbiton after Bingo Bolger-Baggins' 'long-
expected party' and disappearance) talking about Bingo and his com-
panions who were supposed to be on the Road behind them: the date was
Sunday morning, September 25th (p. 160). The present version here
introduces a major alteration into the narrative structure, but by no
means to the story in FR, where Strider overhears the hobbits talking to
Bombadil when he left them on the East Road (and hears Frodo say that
he must be known as Underhill, not Baggins).
It seems likely that the new story, in which the further adventures of
Odo Bolger first appear in formed narrative, arose when my father came
to this chapter in his writing of the third phase manuscripts, and that it
was at this stage that he pencilled in the notes about Odo leaving
Crickhollow with Gandalf (5) after the rout of the Black Riders (see
p. 328): that is why, in the note to the second text of the attack on
Crickhollow, he gave the reference 'IX.22'. IX.22 is the manuscript page
in which Trotter's story of his eavesdropping on Gandalf and Odo on the
East Road appears in the present chapter.
It will be seen that version 'A' of the original story is used: see pp. 148
and 171 note 1.
The opening of this section of the story is duplicated, both versions
appearing to belong to the same time of writing, and neither being struck
out; but the second form given here was preferred. The one reads:
... I was behind a hedge, when a man on a horse halted on the
Road not far [west of Bree > (at time of writing)] east of Bree. To
my surprise there was a hobbit riding behind him on the same
horse! They got off to take a meal, and started talking. Now, oddly
enough, they were discussing a certain Frodo Baggins and his
three companions. I gathered that these four strange folk were
hobbits that had bolted out of the Shire (by a back-door, as you
might say) last Monday, and ought to be on the Road somewhere.
The travellers were very worried about Mr Baggins, and won-
dered whether he was on the Road or off it, in front of them or
behind. They wanted to find him and warn him.
'A bit incautious, I must say, of Gandalf - there now! Gandalf
it was, of course: there's no mistaking him, you'll agree - to go
talking like that by the Road-side. But actually he was speaking
low, and I happened to be lying very close. That would be
yesterday noon: Wednesday.
The other reads:
... I was hiding under a hedge, by the Road some way west of
Bree, trying to shelter from the rain, when a man on horseback
halted close by. To my surprise there was a hobbit riding behind
him on the same horse! They got off to rest, and take a little food,
and they started talking. If you want to know, they were discus-
sing a certain Frodo Baggins and his three companions. I gathered
that these were four hobbits that had left the Shire in a great hurry
the previous day. The horseman was trying to catch them up, but
he was not sure if they were on the Road or off it, in front or
behind. He seemed very worried, but hoped to find them at Bree.
I thought it very strange, for it is not often that Gandalf's plans go
wrong.'
Frodo stirred suddenly at the mention of the name, and Trotter
smiled. 'Yes, Gandalf!' he said. 'I know what he looks like, and
once seen never forgotten, you'll agree. He was speaking very low,
but he had no idea that old Trotter was so close. That was on
Tuesday evening, just as the light was failing.
The hobbits left Crickhollow early in the morning of Monday 26
September, and arrived in Bree at nightfall on Thursday 29 September
(p- 160). The first of these variants makes Trotter see Gandalf and Odo
on the road east of Bree on the Wednesday, i.e. after passing through the
village; the second places the encounter a day earlier, on the Tuesday
evening, before they reached Bree. Therefore Frodo calculates, in the
passage that now follows, that Gandalf had reached Crickhollow 'on the
Monday, after they had left,' since Bree was a day's riding from the
Brandywine Bridge. The rain on the Tuesday from which Trotter was
sheltering was the rain that fell during the hobbits' second day in the
house of Tom Bombadil. The text continues:
Now up comes a hobbit and three friends out of the Shire, and
though he gives out the name of Hill, his friends call him Frodo,
and they all seem to know a good deal about the doings of Gandalf
and the Bagginses of Hobbiton. I can put two and two together,
when it is as easy as that. But don't let it trouble you: I shall keep
the answer to myself. Maybe, Mr Baggins has a good honest
reason for leaving his name behind. But if so, I should advise him
to remember that there are others besides Trotter that can do such
easy sums - and not all are to be trusted.'
'I am obliged to you,' said Frodo, greatly relieved. Here at any
rate was news of Gandalf; and of Odo too, apparently. Gandalf
must have turned up at Crickhollow on the Monday, after they
had left. But Frodo was still suspicious of Trotter, and was
determined to pretend that the affair was of no special importance.
'I have not left my name behind, as you put it,' he said stiffly. 'I
called myself Hill at this inn merely to avoid idle questions.
Mr Butterbur has quite enough to say as it is. I don't quite see
how anyone would guess my real name from what has occurred,
unless he had your skill in eavesdropping. And I don't see, either,
what special interest my name has for anybody in Bree, or for you,
for that matter.'
Trotter laughed at him. 'Don't you?' he said grimly. 'But
eavesdropping, as you put it, is not unknown in Bree. And
besides, I have not told you all about myself yet.'
At that moment he was interrupted by a knock on the door. Mr
Butterbur was there with a tray of candles, and Nob behind him
with cans of hot water. 'I've come to wish you a good night,' said
the landlord, putting the candles on the table. 'Nob! Take the
water to the rooms.' He came in and shut the door. 'It's like this,
Mr Hill,' he began: 'I've been asked more than once to look out for
a party of four hobbits and five ponies. Hullo, Trotter! You here?'
'It's all right,' said Frodo. 'Say what you wish! Trotter has my
leave to stay.' Trotter grinned.
'Well,' began Mr Butterbur again, 'it's like this: a couple of days
ago, yes, it would be late on Tuesday night, just as I was going to
lock up, there came a ring at the bell in the yard. Who should be
standing at the door but old Gandalf, if you know who I mean! All
wet through he was: it had been raining heavens hard all day.
There was a hobbit with him, and a white horse - very tired the
poor beast was; for it had carried both of them a long way, it
seemed. "Bless me, Gandalf!" says I. " What are you doing out in
this weather at this time of night? And who's your little friend?"
But he winked at me, and didn't answer my questions. "Hot
drinks and warm beds!" he croaked, and stumbled up the
steps.
'Later on he sent for me. "Butterbur," says he. "I'm looking for
some friends: four hobbits. One is a round-bellied little fellow
with red cheeks" - begging your pardon - "and the others just
young hobbits. They should have five ponies and a good deal
of baggage. Have you seen them? They ought to have passed
through Bree some time today,(6) unless they have stopped here."
'He seemed very put out, when I said no such party was at The
Pony, and none had passed through, to my certain knowledge.
"That's bad news!" he said, tugging at his beard. "Will you do two
things for me? If this party turns up, give them a message: Hurry
on! Gandalf is ahead. Just that. Don't forget, because it's import-
ant! And if anyone - anyone, mind you, however strange -
enquires after a hobbit called Baggins, tell them Baggins has gone
east with Gandalf. Don't forget that either, and I shall be grateful
to you."' The landlord paused, looking hard at Frodo.
'Thank you very much!' said Frodo, thinking Mr Butterbur had
finished, and relieved to find that his story was much the same as
Trotter's, and no more alarming. All the same he was extremely
puzzled by Gandalf's mysterious words about Baggins. He won-
dered if Butterbur had got it all wrong.
'Ah! But wait a minute!' said the landlord, lowering his voice.
'That wasn't the end of it. And that's what is puzzling me. On
Monday a big black fellow went through Bree on a great black
horse, and all the folk were talking about it. The dogs were all
yammering and the geese screaming as he rode through the
village. I heard later that three of these riders were seen on the
Road by Combe; though where the other two had sprung from I
couldn't say.
'Gandalf and his little friend Baggins went off yesterday, after
sleeping late, about the middle of the morning. In the evening, just
before the road-gate was shut, in rode the black fellows again, or
others as like them as night and dark. "There's the Black Man at
the door!" shouted Nob, running to fetch me with his hair all on
end. Sure enough, it was: not one nor three, though, but four of
them! One was sitting there in the twilight with his big black horse
almost on my door-step. All hooded and cloaked he was. He bent
down and spoke to me, and very cold I thought his voice sounded.
And what do you think? He was asking for news of four hobbits
riding east out of the Shire! (7)
'I didn't like the sound or the looks of him, and I answered him
short, "I haven't seen any such party," I said, "and I'm not likely
to, either. What may you be wanting with them, or with me?'
'At that he sent out a breath that set me shivering. "We want
news of them. We are seeking Baggins," he said, hissing out the
name like a snake. "Baggins is with them. If he comes, you will tell
us, and we will repay you with gold. If you do not tell us, we will
repay you - otherwise."
'"Baggins!" said I. "He ain't with them. If you are looking for a
hobbit of that name, he went off east this morning with Gandalf."
'At that name he drew in his breath and sat up. Then he stooped
at me again. "Is that truth?" he said, very hard and quiet. "Do not
lie to us!"
'I was all of a twitter, I can tell you, but I answered up as bold as
I could: "Of course it's the truth! I know Gandalf, and he and his
friend were here last night, I tell you." At that the four of them
turned their horses and rode off into the darkness without another
word.
'Now, Mr Hill, what do you make of all that? I hope I've done
right. If it hadn't been for Gandalf's orders, I'd never have given
them news of Baggins, nor of anyone else. For these Black Men
mean no good to anyone, I'll be bound.'
'You've done quite right, as far as I can see,' said Frodo. 'From
what I know of Gandalf, it is usually best to do what he asks.'
'Yes,' said the landlord, 'but I am puzzled all the same. How
came these Black Men to think Baggins was one of your party?
And I must say, from what I've heard and seen tonight, I wonder
if maybe they aren't right. But Baggins or no, you are welcome to
any help I can give to a friend of old Tom, and of Gandalf.'
'I'm very grateful,' said Frodo. 'I am sorry I can't tell you the
whole story, Mr Butterbur. I am very tired, and very worried. But
if you want to know, I am Frodo Baggins. I have no idea what
Gandalf meant by saying that Baggins had gone east with him; for
I think the hobbit's name was Bolger. But these - er - Black Riders
are hunting us, and we are in danger. I am very grateful for your
help; but I hope you won't get into any trouble yourself on our
account. I hope these abominable Riders won't come here again.'
'I hope not indeed! ' said Butterbur with a shiver.
'If they do, you must not risk their anger for my sake. They are
dangerous. Once we have got clear away, you can do us little
harm, if you tell them that a party of four hobbits has passed
through Bree. Good night, Mr Butterbur! Thank you again for
your kindness. One day perhaps Gandalf will tell you what it is all
about.'
'Good night, Mr Baggins - Mr Hill, I should say! Good night,
Mr Took! Bless me! Where's Mr Brandybuck?'
'I don't know,' said Folco; 'but I expect he's outside. He said
something about going out for a breath of air. He ought to be in
before long.'
'Very good!' said Mr Butterbur. 'I'll see that he is not locked
out. Good night to you all! ' With a puzzled look at Trotter, and a
shake of his head, he went out and his footsteps died away in the
passage.
'There you go again!' said Trotter before Frodo could speak.
'Too trusting still! Why tell old Barnabas all that about being
hunted; and why tell him the other hobbit was a Bolger?'
'Isn't he safe?' asked Frodo. 'Tom Bombadil said he was, and
Gandalf seems to have trusted him.'
'Is he safe?' cried Trotter, throwing up his hands. 'Yes, he's
safe, safer than houses. But why give him any more to puzzle
about than is necessary? And why interfere with Gandalf's plan?
You're not very quick, or it would have been plain at once to you
that Gandalf wanted it believed that the hobbit with him was
Baggins - precisely so that you would have a better chance, if you
were still behind. And what about me? Am I safe? You're not sure
(I know that), and yet you talk to Butterbur in front of me!
However, I know now all that he had to say; and at least it will cut
short what I still had to tell you - which was mostly about those
Black Riders, as you call them. I saw them myself. I should say
that seven all told have passed through Bree since Monday. You
won't pretend any longer that you can't imagine what interest your
real name might have. There is a reward offered for anyone who
can report that four hobbits are here, and that one of them is
probably a Baggins after all.'
'Yes, yes,' said Frodo. 'I see all that. But I knew already that
They were after me; and so far at any rate they seem to have been
sent off on a false scent.'
'I should not be too sure that they have all gone right away,' said
Trotter; 'or that they are all ahead of you, and chasing after
Gandalf. They are cunning, and they divide their forces. I can still
tell you a few things you have not heard from Butterbur. I first saw
a Rider on Monday night, east of Bree as I was coming in out of the
wilds. I nearly ran into him, going fast along the Road in the dark.
I hailed him with a curse, for he had almost run over me; and he
pulled up and came back. I stood still and made no sound, but he
brought his horse step by step towards me. When he was quite
close he stooped and sniffed. Then he hissed, and turned his horse
and rode off.(8) Yesterday I saw the four that called at this inn. Last
night I was on the look-out. I was lying on a bank under the hedge
of Bill Ferney's garden; and I heard Bill Ferney talking. He is a
surly fellow, and has a bad name in the Bree-land, and queer folk
are known to call at his house sometimes. You must have noticed
him among the company: a swarthy man with a scowl. He was
very close tonight with Harry Goatleaf, the west-gate keeper (a
mean old curmudgeon); and with one of the southern strangers.
They slipped out together just after your song and accident. I
don't trust Ferney. He would sell anything to anybody, if you
understand me.'
'I don't understand you,' said Frodo.
'Well, I'm not going to say it plainer,' said Trotter. 'I just
wonder whether this unusual arrival of strange travellers up the
Greenway, and the appearance of the hunting horsemen come
together by mere chance. Both might be looking for the same
thing - or person. Anyway, I heard Bill Ferney talking last night. I
know his voice, though I could not catch what was said. The other
voice was whispering, or hissing. And that's all I have to tell you.
You must do as you like about my reward. But as for my coming
with you, I will say this: I know all the lands between the Shire
and the Misty Mountains, for I've wandered over them many
times in the course of my life - and I'm older now than I look. I
might prove useful. You'll have to leave the open Road after
tonight; for if you ask me, I should say that these Riders are
patrolling it - and still looking for your party. I don't fancy that
you wish to meet them. I don't! They give me the creeps!' he
ended suddenly with a shudder.
The others looked at him and saw with surprise that his face was
buried in his hands, and his hood was drawn right down. The
room was very quiet and still and the lights seemed to have grown
dim.
'There! ' he cried after a moment, throwing back his hood and
pushing the hair from his face. 'Perhaps I know more about these
pursuers than you do. You do not fear them enough - yet. It seems
to me only too likely that news of you will reach them before this
night is over. Tomorrow you will have to go swiftly, and secretly -
if you can. But Trotter can take you by paths that are seldom
trodden. Will you have him?'
Frodo made no answer. He looked at Trotter: grim and wild
and rough-clad. It was hard to know what to do. He did not doubt
that most of his tale was true; but it was less easy to feel sure of his
good will. Why was he so interested? He had a dark look - and yet
there was something in it that seemed friendly and even curiously
attractive. And his speech had changed as he talked, from the
unfamiliar tones of the Outsiders to something more familiar,
something that seemed to remind Frodo of somebody.(9) The
silence grew, and still he could not make up his mind.
'Well, I'm for Trotter, if you want any help in deciding,' said
Folco suddenly. 'In any case, I daresay he could follow us
wherever we went, even if we refused.'
'Than kyou!' said Trotter smiling at Folco. 'I could and I
should; for I should feel it was my duty. But here is a letter which I
have for you - that ought to make up your mind for you.' To
Frodo's amazement he took from his pocket a small sealed letter
and handed it over. On the outside was written: F. from G. (X)
'Read it! ' said Trotter.
Here the chapter ends. It will be seen that in this narrative, despite the
radical differences in what Trotter and Butterbur communicated, the
original form of the story (in the 'A' version, but see note 8) was still
closely followed.
The manuscript of this chapter subsequently underwent immensely
intricate alteration, with long insertions and deletions, for my father used
the original text for two distinct developments, both involving major
structural change. The one he called the 'red' version, marked out and
paginated in red, the other the 'blue'; thus a rider on an inserted' slip
bears the number 'rider to IX.3(g) = red IX.9 = blue IX.4'! The
relations can in fact be worked out perfectly satisfactorily. The 'blue'
version is the later, and peters out towards the end; this represents a later
plot, in which all reference to the visit of Gandalf and Odo to The
Prancing Pony is cut out. The 'red' version, on the other hand, may well
be contemporary or nearly contemporary with the primary text; it is
carefully written (the alterations constituting the 'blue' version being
much rougher), and it tells the same story of Gandalf and Odo - but tells
it quite differently. It takes up from the end of the description of Bree,
and begins with Gandalf's arrival there with Odo, now told directly and
not in Butterburian narrative.
The Tuesday had been a day of heavy rain. Night had fallen
some hours ago, and it was still pouring down. It was so dark that
nothing could be heard but the seething noise of the rain, and the
ripple of flood-rivers running down the hill - and the sound of
hoofs splashing on the Road. A horse was slowly climbing up the
long slope towards the village of Bree.
Suddenly a great gate loomed up: it stretched right across the
Road from one strong post to another, and it was shut. There was
a small house beyond it, dark and grey. The horse halted with its
nose over the top bar of the gate, and the rider, an old man,
dismounted stiffly, and lifted down a small figure that had been
riding on a pillion behind him. The old man beat on the gate, and
was just beginning to climb over it, when the door of the house
opened and a man came out with a lantern, muttering and
grumbling.
'A fine night to come hammering on the gate and getting a man
out of his bed! ' he said.
'And a fine night to be out in, wet through and cold, and on the
wrong side of a gate! ' replied the rider. 'Come on now, Harry! Get
it open quick! '
'Bless me! ' cried the gate-keeper, holding up the lantern.
'Gandalf it is - and I might have guessed it. There's never no
knowing when you'll turn up next.' He opened the gate slowly,
peering in surprise at the small bedraggled figure at Gandalf's side.
'Thank you!' said Gandalf, leading his horse forward. 'This is a
friend of mine, a hobbit out of the Shire. Have you seen any more
on the Road? There ought to be four of them ahead, a party on
ponies.'
'There hasn't been any such party through, while I've been
about,' said Harry. 'There might have been up to mid-day, for I
was away in Staddle, and my brother was here. But I've heard no
talk of it. Not that we watch the Road much between sunrise and
nightfall, while the gate's open. But we shall have to be more
heedful, I'm thinking.'
'Why?' asked Gandalf. 'Have any strange folk been about?'
'I should say so! Mighty queer folk. Black men on horses; and a
lot of foreigners out of the South came up the Greenway at dusk.
But if you're going to The Pony, I should get on before they lock
up. You'll hear all the news there. I'll be getting back to my bed,
and wish you good night.' He shut the gate and went in.
'Good night!' said Gandalf, and walked on into the village,
leading his horse. The hobbit stumbled along beside him.
There was a lamp still shining over the entrance to the inn, but
the door was closed. Gandalf rang the bell in the yard, and after a
little delay a large fat man, in his shirt sleeves and with slippers on
his feet, opened the door a crack and peered out.
'Good evening, Butterbur!' said the wizard. 'Any room for an
old friend?'
'Heavens above, if they aren't all washed away! ' cried the
landlord. 'Gandalf! And what are you doing out in this weather
and at this time of night? And who's your little friend?'
Gandalf winked at him. 'Hot drinks and warm beds - that's
what we want, and not too many questions,' he said, and stumped
up the steps.
'What about the horse?' asked the landlord.
'Give him the best you've got! ' answered Gandalf. 'And if Bob
grumbles at being got up again at this hour, tell him the beast
deserves it: Narothal (10) has carried us both, fast and far today. I'll
repay Bob in the morning according as my horse reports of him!'
A little later the wizard and his companion were sitting before
the hot embers of a fire in Mr Butterbur's own room, warming and
drying themselves and drinking mulled ale. The landlord came in
to say that a room was ready for them.
'Don't you hurry yourselves! ' said he, 'but when you're ready,
I'll be going to my own bed. There's been an unusual lot of
travellers in here today, more than I remember for years, and I'm
tired.'
'Any hobbits among them?' asked Gandalf. 'I'm looking for
four of them - a friend of mine out of the Shire and three
companions.' He described Frodo carefully, but did not give his
name. 'They should have five ponies and a fair amoung of bag-
gage; and they ought to have reached Bree today. Harry hasn't
seen them; but I hoped they might have come in without his
noticing them.'
'Nay,' said the landlord, 'a party like that would have been
heard of even by Harry, dull old grumbler though he be. We don't
get many Outsiders from the Shire to Bree these days. There's no
such party at The Pony, and there's been none along the Road to
my certain knowledge.'
'That's bad news! ' said Gandalf, tugging at his beard. 'I wonder
where they have got to! '" He was silent for a moment. 'Look here,
Butterbur!' he went on. 'You and I are old friends. You have eyes
and ears in your head, and though you say a lot, you know what to
leave unsaid. I want to be private while I'm here, and if I see no
one but you and Bob I'll be pleased. Don't tell everyone that I've
asked after this party! But keep your eyes open, and if they turn up
after I've gone, give them this message: Hurry on! Gandalf's
ahead. Just that. Don't forget, because it's important. And if
anyone - anyone, mind you, however strange - enquires after a
hobbit called Baggins, tell them Baggins has gone east with
Gandalf. Don't forget that, either, and I shall be grateful to
you! '
'Right you are!' said Mr Butterbur. 'I hope I'll not forget,
though one thing drives out another, when I'm busy with guests in
the house. Baggins, you say? Let me see - I remember that name.
Wasn't there a Bilbo Baggins that they told some strange tales
about over in the Shire? My dad told me that he had stayed in this
house more than once. But your friend won't be him - he
disappeared in some funny way nigh on twenty years back:
vanished with a bang while he was talking, or so I've heard. Not
that I believe all the tales that come out of the West.'
'No need to,' said Gandalf, laughing. 'Anyway my young friend
here is not old Bilbo Baggins. Just a relation.'
'That's right! ' said the hobbit. 'Just a relation - a cousin in fact.'
'I see,' said the landlord. 'Well, it does you credit. Bilbo was a
fine little fellow, and rich as a king into the bargain, if half I've
heard is true. I'll give your messages, if the chance comes,
Gandalf; and I'll ask no questions, strange though it all seems to
me. But you know your own business best, and you've done me
many a good turn.'
'Thank you Barnabas! ' said Gandalf. 'And now I'll do you
another - let you go to your bed at once.' He drained his mug and
stood up. The landlord put out the lights, and holding a candle in
each hand led them to their room.
In the morning Gandalf and his friend got up late. They
breakfasted in a private room, and spoke to no one but Mr
Barnabas Butterbur. It was close on eleven before Gandalf called
for his reckoning, and for his horse.
'Tell Bob to take him up the lane and wait for me near the
Greenway,' he said. 'I'm not going along the Road to be gaped at
this morning.'
He took his leave of the landlord at a side-door. 'Goodbye, my
friend,' he said. 'Don't forget the messages! One day, perhaps, I'll
tell you the whole story, and repay you, too, with something better
even than good news - that is, I will, if the whole story does not
come to a bad end. Goodbye! '
He walked off with the hobbit up a narrow lane that ran north
from the inn over the ditch round the village and on towards the
Greenway.(12) Bob the ostler was waiting outside the village bound-
ary. The white horse was glossy and well-groomed, and seemed
thoroughly rested and eager for another day's journey. Gandalf
called to him by name, and Narothal (13) whinnied, tossing up his
head, and trotting back to his master, and nuzzling against his
face.
'A good report, Bob!' said Gandalf, giving the ostler a silver
piece. He mounted; and Bob helped the hobbit up on to a cushion
behind the wizard, then he stood back with his cap in his hand,
grinning broadly.
'That's right, my lad! ' laughed Gandalf. 'We look a funny pair,
I daresay. But we're not as funny as we look. When we've gone,
remember that we've gone east, but forget that we set out along
this lane. See? Goodbye! ' He rode off and left Bob scratching his
head.
'Curry me! if these aren't queer days!' he said to himself. 'Black
men riding out of nowhere, and folk on the Greenway, and old
Gandalf with a hobbit on a pillion and all! Things are beginning to
move in Bree! But you watch yourself, Bob my lad - old Gandalf
can hand out something hotter than silver.'
The fair morning that had followed the rain gave way later to
cloud and mist. Nothing more happened in Bree that day until
dusk was falling. Then out of the fog four horsemen rode though
the gate. Harry peered through a window, and then hurriedly
withdrew. He had been thinking of going out and shutting the
gate, but he changed his mind. The horsemen were all clad and
muffled in black, and rode high black horses. Some of the same
sort had been seen in Bree two days before and wild stories were
going about. Some said they were not human, and even the dogs
were afeared of them. Harry locked the door and stood quaking
behind it.
But the riders halted, and one dismounted and came and smote
on the door. 'What do you want?' called Harry from inside.
'We want news! ' hissed a cold voice through the keyhole.
'What of?' he answered, shaking in his boots.
'News of four hobbits,(14) riding on ponies out of the Shire. Have
they passed?'
Harry wished they had, for it might have satisfied these riders,
if he could have said yes. There was a threat and urgency in the
cold voice: but he dared not risk a yes that was not true. 'No sir! '
he said in a quavering voice. 'There's been no hobbits on ponies
through Bree, and there isn't likely to be any. But there was a
hobbit riding behind an old man on a white horse, last night. They
went to The Pony.'
'Do you know their names?' said the voice.
'The old man was Gandalf,' said Harry.
A hiss came through the keyhole, and Harry started back,
feeling as if something icy cold had touched him. 'You have our
thanks', said the voice. 'You will keep watch for four hobbits, if
you still wish to please us. We will return.'
Harry heard the sound of hoofs going off towards the village.
He unlocked the door stealthily, and then crept out, and peered up
the road. It was too foggy and already too dark to see much. But he
heard the hoofs halt at the bend of the Road by the inn. He waited
a while, and then quietly shut and locked the gate. He was just
returning to his house, when in the misty air he heard the sound of
hoofs again, starting up by the inn and dying away round the
corner and down the Road eastward. It was turning very cold, he
thought. He shivered and hurried indoors, bolting and barring the
door.
The next morning, Thursday, was clear again, with a warm sun
and the wind turning towards the South. Towards evening a
dozen dwarves came walking out of the East into Bree with heavy
packs on their backs. They were sullen and had few words for
anybody. But no traveller came past the western gate all day.
Night fell and Harry shut the gate, but he kept on going to his
door. He was afraid of the threat in the cold voice, if he missed any
strange hobbits.
It was dark and white stars were shining when Frodo and his
companions came at last to the Greenway-crossing and drew near
the village. They found that it was surrounded by a deep ditch
with a hedge and fence on the inner side. Over and through this
the Road ran, but it was now barred by the great gate. They saw a
house on the other side, and a man sitting at the door. He jumped
up and fetched a lantern, and looked down over the gate at them in
surprise.
'What do you want and where do you come from?' he asked
gruffly.
'We are making for the inn here,' answered Frodo. 'We are
journeying east and cannot go further tonight.'
'Hobbits! Four hobbits! And what's more, out of the Shire
from the sound of their talk,' said the gate-keeper, quietly and
almost as if he was speaking to himself. He stared at them darkly
for a moment, and then slowly opened the gate and let them ride
through.
'We don't often see Shire-folk riding on the Road by night,' he
went on, as they halted for a moment by his door. 'You'll pardon
' me wondering what business takes you away east of Bree.'
'I do,' said Frodo, 'though it does not seem very wonderful to
us. But this does not seem a good place to talk of our business.'
'Ah well, your business is your own, no doubt,' said the gate-
keeper. 'But you'll find maybe that there are more folk than old
Harry at the gate that will ask questions. Are you expecting to
meet any friends here? '
'What do you mean?' asked Frodo in surprise. 'Why should we? '
'And why not? Many folk meet at Bree even in these days. If you
go on to The Pony, you may find you are not the only guests.'
Frodo wished him good night and made no further answer,
though he could see in the lantern-light that the man was still
eyeing them curiously. He was glad to hear the gate clang to
behind them, as they rode forward. He wondered what the man
had meant by 'meeting friends'. Could anyone have been asking
for news of four hobbits? Gandalf, perhaps? He might have
passed through, while they were delayed in the Forest and the
Downs. But a Black Rider was more likely. There was something
in the look and tone of the gate-keeper that filled him with
suspicion.
Harry stared after them for a moment, and then he went to his
door. 'Ned! ' he called. 'I've business up at The Pony, and it may
keep me a while. You must be on the gate, till I come back.'
From this point the 'red version' is only different from the first text in
that Butterbur's story of Gandalf's visit is of course very greatly reduced
from the form given on pp. 338 - 9.
NOTES.
1. The drafts have 'Few had survived the turmoils of the Earliest
Days', an expression used in the Foreword (p. 329, note i), where
FR has 'Elder Days', the earliest form of the passage has: 'Few had
survived the turmoils of those old and forgotten days, and the wars
of the Elves and Goblins'.
2. prepared: FR has 'proposed to leave them', but this is an error that
arose at the typescript stage.
3. My father wrote 'a queer-looking brown-faced hobbit', struck out
'hobbit', and then wrote 'hobbit' again.
4. In this phase Ferney is spelt thus; Ferny in the original version and
in FR.
5. The word ran in the erased note to the second text of the attack on
Crickhollow ('Behind him ran Odo...', p. 328) is rather surprising,
since it seems pointless: if Odo was to accompany Gandalf there
seems no reason why he should not ride pillion from the first - and in
any case he would have been quickly left far behind.
6. It is perhaps surprising that Gandalf should expect Frodo and his
companions to have passed through Bree on the Tuesday, since he
knew from Odo that they left the house at Crickhollow on the
Monday morning and had gone into the Old Forest. When they
would get to Bree was presumably now far more uncertain than if
they had taken the Road (hostile interventions apart). Possibly this
survives from the old form of the story - 'They should be here by
Tuesday, if they can follow a plain road', p. 151 - when Gandalf had
no reason to think that they had not simply ridden the East Road
from the Brandywine Bridge. See note x x.
7. How dick the Riders know that there were four hobbits? (In the old
variant versions, pp. 152, 157, they knew even that the four hobbits
had five ponies). Presumably they surmised it: they knew that three
had come to Bucklebury Ferry and been met there by another.
Beyond that they had no knowledge (on the Wednesday night when
they came to the inn) of Frodo and his companions. - At some point
my father struck out the word four; see note 14.
8. This episode derives from the old 'B' version, p. 157; but there the
Rider questioned Trotter, who did not answer. The relations
between the versions here are:
Old version 'A'(p. 151):
(Monday) One Rider questions Butterbur at the inn-door
(Tuesday) Four Riders come to the inn-door, and one questions
Butterbur
Old version'B'(p. 157):
(Monday) One Rider questions Trotter on the Road
(Tuesday) Four riders meet Trotter on the Road, and one
questions him
The present version:
(Monday) One Rider goes through Bree (p. 339), and meets
Trotter on the Road east of Bree without speech (p.342)
(Wednesday) Four Riders come to the inn-door, and one ques-
tions Butterbur (pp. 339 - 40); they are seen by Trotter (p.342)
9. The change in Trotter's speech remarked by Frodo, deriving from
the original form of the story (p. 154), survived in FR (p. 178),
though the significance is there quite different: 'I think you are not
really as you choose to look. You began to talk to me like the Bree-
folk, but your voice has changed.'
10. Narothal ('Firefoot'), the first name given to Gandalf's white horse,
was replaced later in pencil by the suggestions: 'Fairfax, Snowfax',
and pencilled in the margin is 'Firefoot Arod? Aragorn', but these
latter were struck out. Arod became in LR the name of a horse of
Rohan.
11. A pencilled note on the manuscript says: 'Since he has been to
Crickhollow he must know of Old Forest' - i.e. Gandalf must know
from Odo that the other hobbits went into the Old Forest. At the
same time my father pencilled into the text at this point: 'I trusted
Tom Bombadil to keep them out of trouble.'
12. This lane is marked on the sketch-map of Bree given on p. 335.
13. 'Narothal' changed in pencil to 'Fairfax'; see note 10.
four hobbits: see note 7. Subsequently my father struck out four, and
wrote instead: hobbits, three or more.
XXI.
THE THIRD PHASE (3):
TO WEATHERTOP AND RIVENDELL.
The next chapter, numbered X and with the title 'Wild Ways to Weather-
top', belongs with the base-form of 'At the Sign of the Prancing Pony'
and is continuous with it; but it begins by repeating almost exactly the
end of that chapter, from 'Frodo made no answer' to '"Read it!" said
Trotter' (p. 343). Then follows:
Frodo looked carefully at the seal before he broke it. It seemed
certainly to be Gandalf's, as did the writing also, and the runic G
@. Inside was the following message. Frodo read it and then
repeated it aloud for the benefit of Folco and Sam.
The Prancing Pony, Wednesday, Sept. 28. Dear F. Where on
earth are you? Not still in the Forest, I hope! Could not help being
late, but explanations must wait. If you ever get this letter, I
shall be ahead of you. Hurry on, and don't stop anywhere!
Things are worse than I thought and pursuit is close. Look out for
horsemen in black, and avoid them. They are perilous: your
worst enemies. Don't use It again, not on any account. Don't
move in the dark. Try and catch me up. I dare not wait here, but
I shall halt at a place known to the bearer, and look out for you
there. I am giving this to a ranger known as Trotter: dark rather
lean hobbit, wears wooden shoes. He is an old friend of mine,
and knows a great deal. You can trust him. He mill guide you to
appointed place through wild country. N.B. Odo Baggins is with
me. Hurry on! Yours ................ (X).
Frodo looked at the trailing handwriting: it seemed as plainly
genuine as the seal. 'It is dated Wednesday and from this house,'
he said. 'How did you come by it?'
'I met Gandalf by appointment near Archet,' answered Trotter.
'He did not leave Bree by the Road, but went up a side lane and
round the hill the other way.'
'Well, Trotter,' said Frodo after a pause, 'it would have made
things easier and saved a lot of time and talk, if you had produced
this letter at once. Why did you invent all that tale about eaves-
dropping? '
'I didn't invent it,' laughed Trotter. 'I gave old Gandalf quite a
shock when I popped up from behind the hedge. But he was very
glad when he saw who I was. He said it was the first bit of luck he
had had for some while. It was then that we arranged that I was to
wait about here in case you were behind, while he pushed on and
tried to draw the Riders after him. I know all about your troubles
including the Ring, I may say.'
'Then there's nothing more for me to say,' said Frodo, 'except
that I am glad we have found you. I am sorry if I have been
unnecessarily suspicious.'
The conversation proceeds very much as in the original story (p. 155),
as far as the 'subsidence' of Folco (Odo) beneath Trotter's opinion of
him.' Then follows:
'We shall all perish, tough or not, unless we have strange good
luck, as far as I can see,' said Frodo. 'I cannot understand why you
want to be mixed up in our troubles, Trotter.'
'One reason is that Gandalf asked me to help you,' he replied
quietly.
'What do you advise then?' asked Frodo. 'I don't quite under-
stand this letter: don't stop anywhere it says, and yet don't move in
the dark. Is it safe to stop here till morning?' Frodo looked at the
comfortable fire and the soft candlelight in the room, and sighed.
'No, it probably isn't safe - but it would be far more dangerous
to start off by night. So we must wait for daylight and hope for the
best. But we had better start early - it is a long way to Weathertop.'
'Weathertop? ' said Folco. 'Where and what is that?'
'The appointed place mentioned in the letter,' Trotter replied.
'It is a hill, just north of the Road, somewhere about halfway to
Rivendell from here.(2) It commands a very wide view all round.
But you will start nearly two days behind Gandalf, and you'll have
to go fast or you won't find him there.'
'In that case let's get to bed now, while there is still some night
left!' said Folco yawning. 'Where's that silly fellow Merry? It
would be too much, if we had to go out now and look for him.'
Merry's story of the Black Rider whom he saw outside the inn and
followed differs in this, that whereas in the original version (pp. 161 - 2)
the Rider went through the village from west to east and stopped at Bill
Ferny's house (hole), here
'He was coming from the east,' Merry went on. 'I followed him
down the Road almost to the gate. He stopped there at the keeper's
house, and I thought I heard him talking to someone. I tried to
creep near, but I did not dare to get very close. In fact, I am afraid
I suddenly began to shiver and shake, and bolted back here.'
'What's to be done?' said Frodo, turning to Trotter.
'Don't go to your rooms! ' he answered at once. 'I don't like this
at all. Harry Goatleaf was here tonight and went off with Bill
Ferney. It's quite likely that they have found out which rooms you
have got.
While in the remainder of the chapter there are advances in detail to
the text of FR (from p. 186, the end of Chapter 10 'Strider', to p. 201, in
the course of Chapter 11 'A Knife in the Dark'), the narrative of this third
phase version follows the original (pp. 162 - 71) closely in almost all
points where that differed from FR, and ends at the same point.
It is now Trotter who imitated Frodo's head in the bed with a mat. The
pony is expressly said to be Bill Ferney's, and is described as 'a bony,
underfed, and rather dispirited animal.' There were two men looking
over the hedge round Ferney's house: Ferney himself, and 'a southerner
with a sallow face, and a sly and almost goblinish look in his slanting
eyes.' This latter is not identified with the 'squint-eyed southerner' who
left the inn the night before with Ferney and the gate-keeper (p. 336). In
the old story (p. 165) it was Bill Ferny standing there alone, whom Bingo
thought 'goblinish'. It is still Trotter who has the apples, and who hits
Ferney on the nose with one. Archet, Combe, and Staddle are referred to
as in FR (p. 193), in keeping with what is said of them in the description
of the Bree-land at the opening of Chapter IX (p. 332), and Trotter's
plan is now to make for Archet and pass it on the east (cf. p. 165 and
note 21).
The lights in the eastern sky seen by the travellers from the Midge-
water Marshes do not appear until the whole story of Gandalf's move-
ments at this time had been changed. Trotter replies to Frodo's question
'But surely we were hoping to find Gandalf there?' (FR p. 195, original
version p. 167) thus:
'Yes - but my hope is rather faint. It is four days since we left
Bree, and if Gandalf has managed to get to Weathertop himself
without being too hotly pursued, he must have arrived at least two
days ago. I doubt if he has dared to wait so long,.on the mere
chance of your following him: he does not know for certain that
you are behind or have got his messages...'
He still says: 'There are even some of the Rangers that on a clear day
could spy us from there, if we moved. And not all the Rangers are to be
trusted...'
The chronology is thus (cf. p. 175):
Wed. Sept. 28. Gandalf and Odo left Bree.
Thurs. Sept. 29. Frodo and companions reached Bree.
Fri. Sept. 30. Trotter, Frodo and companions left Bree; night
in Chetwood.
Sat. Oct. Night in Chetwood.
Sun. Oct. First day and camp in marshes.
Mon. Oct. Second day and camp in marshes.
Tues. Oct. Leaving the marshes. Camp by stream under
alders.
On this day Trotter calculated that Gandalf, if he reached Weathertop,
must have arrived there 'at least two days ago', i.e. on Sunday 2 October,
which allows as much as four days and nights for the journey from Bree
on horseback.
In the original version they reached Weathertop on 5 October,
whereas in FR they camped at the feet of the hills that night (see p. 175).
In the present text my father retained the former story, but then changed
it to that of FR:
By night they had reached the feet of the hills, and there they
camped. It was the night of October the fifth, and they were six
days out from Bree. In the morning they found, for the first time
since they left the Bree-land [> Chetwood], a track plain to see.
It will be seen shortly that this change was made before the chapter was
finished.
The passage following Folco's question 'Is there any barrow on
Weathertop? ' (FR p. 197) remains exactly as in the original text (p. 169),
with Elendil for Valandil; and when they reach the summit all remains as
before, with only the necessary change of Merry's 'I don't blame Gandalf
for not waiting here! He would have to leave the waggon, and horses, and
most of his companions, too, I expect, down near the Road' to 'I don't
blame Gandalf for not waiting long - if he ever came here.' But the paper
that flutters from the cairn bears a different message (see p. 170):
Wednesday Oct. 5. Bad news. We arrived late Monday. Odo
vanished last night. I must go at once to Rivendell. Make for
Ford beyond Trollshaw with all speed, but look out. Enemies
may attempt to guard it. G (X). (3).
'Odo!' cried Merry. 'Does that mean that the Riders have got
him? How horrible!'
'Our missing Gandalf has turned out disastrous,' said Frodo.
'Poor Odo! I expect this is the result of pretending to be Baggins. If
only we could all have been together! '
'Monday! ' said Trotter. 'Then they arrived when we were in the
marshes, and Gandalf did not leave till we were already close to
the hills. They cannot have caught any glimpse of our miserable
little fires on Monday, or on Tuesday. I wonder what happened
here that night. Still it is no good guessing: there is nothing we can
do but make for Rivendell as best we may.'(4)
'How far is Rivendell?' asked Frodo, looking round wearily.
The world looked wild and wide from Weathertop.
From here the text follows the old version (pp. 170 - 1 ) almost exactly -
with the revised form of Trotter's answer concerning the distance to
Rivendell, p. 171 - to the end of the chapter, with Trotter, Frodo, and
Merry slipping down from the summit of Weathertop to find Sam and
Folco in the dell (where the original Chapter Vl I also ended).
Since Gandalf and Odo left Bree on the morning of Wednesday 28
September but did not reach Weathertop till late on Monday 3 October,
they took longer even than Trotter had calculated (p. 355): nearly six
days on horseback, whereas Trotter says (in this text as in the old, p. 171)
that it would take 'a ranger on his own feet' about a week from Bree to
Weathertop (in the rejected passage of the old text, p. 170, Trotter said
that he reckoned it was 'about 120 long-miles' by the Road). Trotter's
words ' I wonder what happened here that night', referring to the night on
which Odo vanished (Tuesday 4 October), show that the night camp at
the foot of the hills on 5 October had entered the narrative, and that it was
now Thursday 6 October, for he would not say 'that night' if he meant
'last night'. The chronology given on p. 355 can therefore be completed
for this stage of the development of the narrative thus:
Mon. Oct. 3. Second day and camp in the marshes
Gandalf and Odo reach Weathertop late.
Tues. Oct. 4. Leaving the marshes. Camp by stream under alders
Odo disappears from Weathertop at night.
Wed. Oct. 5. Camp at feet of hills
Gandalf leaves Weathertop.
Thurs. Oct. 6. Trotter, Frodo and companions reach Weathertop.
*
The next chapter, numbered XI but without title,(5) begins with an
account of what Sam and Folco had been doing (FR p. 201), which is
where the corresponding chapter VIII in the original version began
(p 177).
Sam and Folco had not been idle. They had explored the small
dell and the surrounding valley. Not far away they had found a
spring of clear water, and near it footprints not more than a day or
two old. In the dell itself they had found recent traces of a fire and
other signs of a small camp. But the most unexpected and most
welcome discovery was made by Sam. There were some large
fallen rocks at the edge of the dell nearest to the hill-side. Behind
them Sam came upon a small store of fire-wood neatly stacked;
and under the wood was a bag containing food. It was mostly cakes
of cram packed in two small wooden boxes, but there was also a
little bacon, and some dried fruits.
'Old Gandalf has been here, then,' said Sam to Folco. 'These
packets of cram show that. I never heard tell of anyone but the two
Bagginses and the wizard using that stuff. Better than dying of
hunger, they say, but not much better.'
'I wonder if it was left for us, or if Gandalf is still about
somewhere near,' said Folco. 'I wish Frodo and the other two
would come back.'
Sam was more grateful for the cram when the others did return,
hurrying back to the dell with their alarming news. There was a
long journey ahead of them before they could expect to get help;
and it seemed plain that Gandalf had left what food he could spare
in case their own supplies were short.
'It is probably some that he did not need after poor Odo's
disappearance,' said Frodo. 'But what about the wood?'
'I think they must have collected it on the Tuesday,' said
Trotter, 'and were preparing to wait here in camp for some time.
They would have to go some distance for it, as there are no trees
close at hand.'
It was already late afternoon, and the sun was sinking. They
debated for some while what they ought to do. It was the store of
fuel that finally decided them to go no further that day, and to
camp for the night in the dell.
The text now follows the old version (pp. 177 - 9) fairly closely. To
Merry's question 'Can the enemies see?' Trotter now replies: 'Their
horses can see. They do not themselves see the world of light as we do;
but they are not blind, and in the dark they are most to be feared.' Trotter
no longer says that there were Men dwelling in the lands away to the
South of them; nor is it told that they took it in turns to sit on guard at the
edge of the dell. The passage describing Trotter's tales is a characteristic
blending of the old version (p. 179) with new elements that would
survive into FR (p. 203):
As night fell and the light of the fire began to shine out brightly,
Trotter began to tell them tales to keep their minds from fear. He
knew much lore concerning wild animals, and understood some-
thing of their languages; and he had strange tales to tell of their
hidden lives and little known adventures. He knew also many
histories and legends of the ancient days, of hobbits when the
Shire was still unexplored, and of things beyond the mists of
memory out of which the hobbits came. They wondered how old
he was, and where he had learned all this lore.
'Tell us of Gilgalad,' said Merry suddenly, when he paused at
the end of a story of the Elf-kingdoms. 'You spoke that name not
long ago, and it is still ringing in my ears. I seem to remember
hearing it before, but I cannot remember anything else about it.'
'You should ask the possessor of the Ring about that name,'
answered Trotter in a low voice. Merry and Folco looked at
Frodo, who was staring into the fire.
From this point the manuscript is defective, two sheets being missing;
but a rejected page carries the story a little further before tailing off:
'I know only the little that Gandalf told me,' he said. 'Gilgalad
was the last of the great elf-kings. Gilgalad is Starlight in their
tongue. With the aid of King Elendil, the Elf-friend, he overthrew
the Enemy, but they both perished. And I would gladly hear more
if Trotter will tell us. It was the son of Elendil that carried off the
Ring. But I cannot tell that tale. Tell us more, Trotter, if you will.'
'No,' said Trotter. 'I will not tell that tale now, in this time and
place with the servants of the Enemy at hand. Perhaps in the house
of Elrond you will hear it. For Elrond knows it in full.'
'Then tell us some other tale of old,' said Merry...
Trotter's song, and his story of Beren and Luthien, are thus missing
here; and the manuscript takes up again at 'As Trotter was speaking they
watched his strange eager face...' From this point the text of FR, as far
as the end of Chapter ir 'A Knife in the Dark' was achieved, with
scarcely any difference even of wording, except for these points: Folco
stands for Pippin; there were still three Riders, not five, in the attack on
the dell; and Frodo as he threw himself on the ground cried out Elbereth!
Elbereth!
At this point Chapter 12 'Flight to the Ford' begins in FR, but as in the
original text (p. 190) the present version continues without break to the
Ford of Rivendell. The relations of chapter-structure between the
present phase and FR can be shown thus (and cf. the table on p. 133):
The present 'phase'.
IX. At the Sign of the Pranring Pony.
Ends with Trotter giving Frodo the
letter from Gandalf.
X. Wild Ways to Weathertop. Conclus-
ion of conversation with Trotter.
Attack on the inn, departure
from Bree; ends with sight of the
Riders below Weathertop.
XI. No title. Attack on Weathertop.
Journey from Weathertop to the
Ford.
FR.
9. At the Sign of the Prancing Pony.
Ends with Frodo, Pippin and Sam
returning to their room at the inn.
10. Strider. Conversations with Strider
and Butterbur.
11. A Knife in the Dark. Attack on the
inn, departure from Bree; ends with
the attack on Weathertop.
12. Flight to the Ford.
As is characteristic of these third phase chapters, the present text
advances largely towards the form in FR in detail of wording and
description, but retains many features of the original version; thus the
'red flash' seen at the moment of the attack on Weathertop survives, of
the slash in the black robe Trotter still says only 'What harm it did to the
Black Rider I do not know', and the distant cries of the Riders as they
crossed the Road are not heard, while on the other hand the firewood left
by Gandalf is no longer said to have been taken with them, and the
rejuvenation of Bill Ferney's pony is described (for these elements in
the narrative see pp. 190 - 1). Trotter now speaks aside to Sam, but what
he says is different:
'I think I understand things better now,' he said in a low voice.
'Our enemies knew the Ring was here; perhaps because they have
captured Odo, and certainly because they can feel its presence.
They are no longer pursuing Gandalf. But they have now drawn
off from us for the time, because we are many and more bold than
they expected, but especially because they think they have slain or
mortally wounded your master - so that the Ring will inevitably
come soon into their power.'
The rest of his words to Sam are as in FR (p. 210). - In the discussion
of what it were best to do now (FR p. 211) the present version reads:
The others were discussing this very question. They decided to
leave Weathertop as soon as possible. It was already Friday
morning, and the two days that Gandalf's message had asked for
would soon be up. In any case it was no good remaining in so bare
and indefensible a place, now that their enemies had discovered
them, and knew also that Frodo had the Ring. As soon as the
daylight was full they had some hurried food and packed.
For 'the two days that Gandalf's message had asked for' see notes 3
and 4.
The chronology of the journey remains as in the original text (see
pp. 192 - 3, 219): they still recrossed the Road on the morning of the sixth
day from Weathertop (the seventh in FR), and spent three days in the
hills before the weather turned to rain (two in FR). But the lag of one day
that remained between the original text and FR (owing to their earlier
arrival on Weathertop), so that they reached the Ford of Rivendell on 19
October, is no longer present (see p. 356).
The rain that Trotter judged had fallen some two days before at the
place where they crossed the Road again (FR p. 213) is now mentioned,
but the River Hoarwell (Mitheithel) and the Last Bridge have still not
emerged. The river which they could see in the distance, unnamed in the
first version (p. 191), is now given a name: 'the Riven River, that came
down out of the Mountains and flowed through Rivendell' (later in the
chapter it is called 'the Rivendell River').
The conversation between Trotter, Folco and Frodo arising from the
ruined towers in the hills remains as in the first version (pp. 192 - 3; FR
p.214).
When the rain stopped, and Trotter climbed up to see the lie of the land,
he observed in the first version (p. 193) that 'if we keep on as we are going,
we shall get into impassable country among the skirts of the Mountains.'
This now becomes: 'we shall get up into the [Dimrill-lands >] Dimrill-
dales far north of Rivendell.'(7) He continues, approaching Strider's
words in FR:
'It is a troll-country, I have heard, though I have not been there.
We could perhaps find our way through and come round to
Rivendell from the north; but it would take long, and our food
would not last. Anyway we ought to follow Gandalf's last message
and make for the Rivendell Ford. So somehow or other we must
strike the Road again.'
The encounter with the Stone Trolls follows the first version: Trotter
slapped the stooping troll, called him William, and pointed out the bird's
nest behind Bert's ear. There is still no suggestion of Sam's Troll Song;
and when Frodo saw the memorial stone he 'wished that Bilbo had
brought home no treasure more perilous than stolen money rescued from
trolls.' The description of the Road here is nearly that of the First
Edition of FR (see p. zoo): 'At this point the Road had turned away from
the river, leaving it at the bottom of a narrow valley, and clung close to
the feet of the hills, rolling and winding northward among woods and
heather-covered slopes towards the Ford and the Mountains.'
Glorfindel now calls Trotter not Padathir (p. 194) but Du-finnion,
calling out Ai, Du-finnion! Mai govannen! The passage beginning with
Trotter's signalling to Frodo and the others to come down to the road is
found in two forms, the second to all appearance immediately replacing
the first. The first runs:
Hail and well met at last! ' said Glorfindel to Frodo. 'I was sent
from Rivendell to look for your coming. Gandalf feared that you
might follow the Road.'
'Gandalf has arrived at Rivendell then?' cried Merry. 'Has he
found Odo? '
'Certainly there is a hobbit of that name with him,' said
Glorfindel; 'but I did not hear that he had been lost. He rode
behind Gandalf from the north out of Dimrildale.'
'Out of Dimrildale?' exclaimed Frodo.
'Yes,' said the elf; 'and we thought that you also might go that
way to avoid the peril of the Road. Some have been sent to seek for
you in that country. But come! There is no time now for news or
debate, until we halt. We must go on with all speed, and save our
breath. Hardly a day's ride back westward there are horsemen,
searching for your trail along the Road and in the lands on either
side...
Glorfindel continues as in the first version (p. 195). The replacement
passage differs mostly in small points: Glorfindel does not say of Odo
'but I did not hear that he had been lost', Dimrilldale is so spelt (cf.
p. 360), in place of Dimrildale in the rejected text; and the interjections
of Merry and Frodo are reversed. The important difference lies in
Glorfindel's words:
'There are horsemen back westward searching for your trail along
the Road, and when they find the place where you came down
from the hills, they will ride after us like the wind. But they are not
all: there are others, who may be before us now, or upon either
hand. Unless we go with all speed and good fortune, we shall find
the Ford guarded against us by the enemy.'
From Frodo's faintness and Sam's objection to Glorfindel's urging the
text of FR to the end of the chapter is achieved almost to the last word.(8)
Yet there remain certain differences. Only three Riders came out of the
tree-hung cutting behind the fugitives; and 'out from the trees and rocks
away on the left other Riders came flying. Three rode towards Frodo;
three galloped madly towards the Ford to cut off his escape.' And at the
very end 'Three of the Riders turned and rode wildly away to the left
down the bank of the River; the others, borne by their terrified and
plunging horses, were driven into the Rood and carried away.' This is
derived from the first version (p. 197), where however there were only
two Riders that escaped the flood. The manuscript was changed to the
reading of the final paragraph of the chapter in FR, where no Riders
escaped, and this was done before or in the course of the writing of the
next chapter (see p. 364).
*
The first part of the next chapter, numbered XII, is the direct
development of the original title-less chapter IX, extant in three texts,
none of which goes further than the conversation between Bingo and
Gloin at the feast in Rivendell (pp. 206 ff., 210 ff.). The new version is
given the title 'The Council of Elrond'; see pp. 399-400. Here, for
reasons that will appear presently, I describe only that portion of the
chapter which derives from Chapter IX of the 'first phase'. In this, the
text of FR Book II, Chapter x, 'Many Meetings' is achieved for long
stretches with only the most minor differences of wording, if any; on the
other hand there is still much preserved from the original text. In what
follows it can be understood that where no comment is made the FR text
was present at this time either exactly or in a close approximation.
The date of Frodo's awakening in the house of Elrond is now October
24th, and all the details of date are precisely as in FR (see pp. 219, 360).
The references to Sam in the FR text are none of them present in this
version as written until the feast itself, but were added in to the
manuscript probably after no very long interval.
Gandalf now adds, after 'You were beginning to fade' (p. 210, FR
p. 231), 'Glorfindel noticed it, though he did not speak of it to anyone but
Trotter'; and he still says (see p. 206) 'You would have become a wraith
before long - certainly, if you had put on the Ring again after you were
wounded.' Following his words 'It is no small feat to have come so far and
through such dangers, still bearing the Ring' (FR p. 232) the conver-
sation is developed from the earlier text (p. 210) in a very interesting
way, naturally still far from the form in FR:
'... You ought never to have left the Shire without me.'
'I know - but you never came to my party, as was arranged; and
I did not know what to do.'
'I was delayed,' said Gandalf, 'and that nearly proved our ruin -
as was intended. Still after all it has turned out better than any
plan I should have dared to make, and we have defeated the black
horsemen.'
'I wish you would tell me what happened! '
'All in good time! You are not supposed to talk or worry about
anything today, by Elrond's orders.'
'But talking would stop me thinking and wondering, which are
quite as tiring,' said Frodo. 'I am wide awake now, and remember
so many things that want explaining. Why were you delayed? You
ought to tell me that, at least.'
'You will soon hear all you wish to know,' said Gandalf. 'We
shall have a Council, as soon as you are well enough. At the
moment I will only say that I was held captive.'
'You!'cried Frodo.
'Yes!' laughed Gandalf. 'There are many powers greater than
mine, for good and evil, in the world. I was caught in Fangorn and
spent many weary days as a prisoner of the Giant Treebeard. It
was a desperately anxious time, for I was hurrying back to the
Shire to help you. I had just learned that the horsemen had been
sent out.
'Then you did not know of the Black Riders before.'
'Yes, I knew of them. I spoke of them once to you: for what you
call the Black Riders are the Ring-wraiths, the Nine Servants of
the Lord of the Ring. But I did not know that they had arisen
again, and were let loose on the world once more - until I saw
them. I have tried to find you ever since - but if I had not met
Trotter, I don't suppose I ever should have done so. He has saved
us all.'
'We should never have got here without him,' said Frodo. 'I was
suspicious of him at first, but now I am very fond of him, though
he is rather mysterious. It is an odd thing, you know, but I keep on
feeling that I have seen him somewhere before; that - that I ought
to be able to put a name to him, a name different to Trotter.'
'I daresay you do,' laughed Gandalf. 'I often have that feeling
myself, when I look at a hobbit: they all remind me of one another,
if you know what I mean.'
'Nonsense!' said Frodo, sitting up again in protest. 'Trotter is
most peculiar. And he wears shoes! But I see you are in one of your
tiresome moods.' He lay down again. 'I shall have to be patient.
And it is rather pleasant resting, after all. To be perfectly honest I
wish I need go no further than Rivendell. I have had a month of
exile and adventures, and that is nearly four weeks more than
enough for me.'
He fell silent and shut his eyes.
For the remainder of Frodo's conversation with Gandalf this text is
mostly very close indeed to FR, and only a few differences need be
noticed.
The 'Morgul-knife' (FR p. 234) is still the 'knife of the Necromancer'
(p. 211), and Gandalf says here: 'You would have become a wraith, and
under the dominion of the Dark Lord. But you would have had no ring of
your own, as the Nine have; for your Ring is the Ruling Ring, and the
Necromancer would have taken that, and would have tormented you for
trying to keep it - if any torment greater than being robbed of it was
possible.'
Among the servants of the Dark Lord Gandalf still includes, as in the
previous version, 'orcs and goblins' and 'kings, warriors, and wizards'
(p. 211)..
Gandalf's reply to Frodo's question 'Is Rivendell safe?' derives from
the former text, but moves also towards that of FR:
'Yes, I hope so. He has less power over Elves than over any
other creature: they have suffered too much in the past to be
deceived or cowed by him now. And the Elves of Rivendell are
descendants of his chief foes: the Gnomes, the Elvenwise, that
came out of the West; and the Queen Elbereth Gilthoniel, Lady of
the Stars, still protects them. They fear no Ring-wraiths, for those
that have dwelt in the Blessed Realm beyond the Seas live at once
in both worlds; and each world has only half power over them,
while they have double power over both.'(9)
'I thought I saw a white figure that shone and did not grow dim
like the others. Was that Glorfindel then?'
'Yes, you saw him for a moment as he is upon the other side: one
of the mighty of the Elder Race. He is an elf-lord of a house of
princes.'
'Then there are still some powers left that can withstand the
Lord of Mordor,' said Frodo.
'Yes, there is power in Rivendell,' answered Gandalf, 'and there
is a power, too, of another kind in the Shire....
At the end of this passage Gandalf still says: 'the Wise say that he is
doomed in the End, though that is far away' (see p. 212).
In Gandalf's story of what happened at the Ford he says, as in FR,
'Three were carried off by the first assault of the flood; the others were
now hurled into the water by their horses and overwhelmed.' It thus
appears that the rewriting of the end of the preceding chapter (p. 362)
had already been carried out.
At the end of his conversation with Gandalf the story of Odo re-
appears:
'Yes, it all comes back to me now,' said Frodo: 'the tremendous
roaring. I thought I was drowning, together with my friends and
enemies. But now we are all safe! And Odo, too. At least,
Glorfindel said so. How did you find him again?'
Gandalf looked [oddly )] quickly at Frodo, but he had shut his
eyes. 'Yes, Odo is safe,' the wizard said. 'You will see him soon,
and hear his account. There will be feasting and merrymaking to
celebrate the victory of the Ford, and you will all be there in places
of honour.'
Gandalf's 'odd' or 'quick' look at Frodo can only relate to his question
about Odo, but since the story of Odo's vanishing from Weathertop and
his subsequent reappearance (rescue!) was never told it is impossible to
know what lay behind it. There is a suggestion that there was something
odd about the story of his disappearance. Gandalf's tone, when taken
with his 'look' at Frodo, seems to have a slightly quizzical air. Glorfindel
says (p. 361): Certainly there is a hobbit of that name with him., but I did
not hear that he had been lost'. yet surely the capture of a hobbit by the
Black Riders and his subsequent recovery was a matter of the utmost
interest to those concerned with the Ring-wraiths? But whatever the
story was, it seems to be something that will never be known. - It is
curious that the wizard's sudden quick look at Frodo was preserved in FR
(p. 236), when the Odo-story had of course disappeared, and Frodo's
words that gave rise to the look were 'But now we are safe! '
Gandalf's slip of the tongue ('The people of Rivendell are very fond
of Bilbo') and Frodo's noticing it are retained from the first version
(p. 212), as is Frodo's recollection of Trotter's words to the troll as he fell
asleep.
When Frodo goes down to find his friends in a porch of the house'
the conversation is retained almost exactly from the original form
(p. 209). Odo takes over from Merry 'Three cheers for Frodo, lord of the
Ring!' and further says, as does Pippin in FR, 'You have shown your
usual cunning in getting up just in time for a meal', but despite Odo's
increased prominence in Frodo's reception (in FR given to Pippin) there
is no reference to his adventures. Frodo might surely be expected to
make some remark about Odo's extremely perilous and altogether
unlooked-for experiences since he had last seen him at the entrance into
the Old Forest, especially since Gandalf had refrained from telling him
what had happened on Weathertop and after.
The description of Elrond, Gandalf, and Glorfindel at the banquet
had already appeared in almost the final form in the earlier text. The
mention of Elrond's smile and laughter (p. 213) was at this time still
retained; and there is of course still no hint of Arwen. In the description
of the seating, the statement in the former version (ibid,) that Bingo
'could not see Trotter, nor his nephews. They had been led to other
tables' was retained; but when Frodo 'began to look about him' he did see
them, though not Trotter (the latter passage surviving into FR):
The feast was merry and all that his hunger could desire. He
could not see Trotter, or the other hobbits, and supposed they
were at one of the side tables. It was some time before he began to
look about him. Sam had begged to be allowed to wait on his
master, but was told that he was for this night a guest of honour.
Frodo could see him sitting with Odo, Folco and Merry at the
upper end of one of the side tables, close to the dais. He could not
see Trotter.
Frodo's conversation with Gloin proceeds exactly as in FR as far as
'But I am equally curious to know what brings so important a dwarf so far
from the Lonely Mountain.' In the original texts Gloin said that he
wondered much what could have brought four hobbits on so long a
journey (Bingo, Frodo Took, Odo, Merry; Trotter being excluded -
presumably as being so altogether distinct, and not a hobbit of the
Shire). The number is four in FR (Frodo, Sam, Pippin, Merry); but
four is also found in the present text, where the hobbits (excluding
Trotter) were now five: Frodo, Sam, Folco, Odo, Merry. Either 'four'
was a slip, or Gloin excluded Odo since he knew that Odo had not arrived
at Rivendell with the others. Gloin's reply to Frodo's question remains
less grave than in FR:
Gloin looked at him, and laughed, indeed he winked. 'You'll
soon find out,' he said; 'but I am not allowed to tell you - yet. So
we will not speak of that either! But there are many other things to
hear and tell.'
The conversation (so far as it goes in the portion of the manuscript
dealt with here) remains almost exactly as it was, with the short extension
at the end of the third of the early texts (p. 213), the only difference
of any substance being that Dain had now, as in FR, 'passed his
two-hundred-and-fiftieth-year'.
It will be seen that from the series of once fine manuscripts that
constitute the 'third phase' of the writing of The Lord of the Rings a
wholly coherent story emerges. The following are essential points in that
story in respect of the intricate later evolution:
Gandalf did not return to Hobbiton in time for Frodo's small final
party.
Merry and Odo Bolger went off to Buckland in advance.
Frodo, Sam, and Folco Took walked from Hobbiton to Buckland.
At Buckland, Odo decided not to go with the others into the Old
Forest, but to stay behind at Crickhollow and wait for Gandalf to
come.
Gandalf came to Crickhollow at night on the day that Frodo and his
companions left (Monday 26 September), drove off the Riders,
and rode after them with Odo on his horse.
Gandalf and Odo (whose name was given out to be Odo Baggins)
spent the night of Tuesday 27 September at Bree. Near Bree they
encountered Trotter.
- Gandalf and Odo left Bree on Wednesday 28 September, meeting
Trotter near Archet, as had been arranged.
- Frodo, Sam, Merry and Folco arrived at Bree on Thursday 29
September, and met Trotter, who gave Frodo Gandalf's letter.
- Trotter was a hobbit; Frodo found him curiously familiar without
being able to say why, but there is no hint of who he might really
be.
- Gandalf reached Weathertop on Monday 3 October, and left on 5
October.
- Trotter, Frodo and the others reached Weathertop on Thursday
6 October and found Gandalf's note telling that Odo had dis-
appeared.
- They learned from Glorfindel that Gandalf had reached Rivendell,
with Odo, coming down from the north by way of 'Dimrilldale'.
- At Rivendell, Gandalf explained that he had been delayed in his
return to Hobbiton (having learned that the Ring-wraiths were
abroad) through having been held prisoner in Fangorn by Giant
Treebeard.
- The Shire hobbits at Rivendell are Frodo, Sam, Merry, Folco, and
Odo.
NOTES.
1. After 'I had to make quite sure that you were genuine first, before I
handed over the letter. I've heard of shadow-parties picking up
messages that weren't meant for them...' Trotter now adds:
'Gandalf's letter was worded carefully in case of accidents, but I
didn't know that.' Thus Gandalf no longer names Weathertop in the
letter, but calls it the 'appointed place'.
2. Barbara Strachey, in Journeys of Frodo (Map i x) says:
At this point I must note what I believe to be a real discrepancy in
the text itself. In Bree... Aragorn tells Sam that Weathertop is
halfway to Rivendell. I am sure that this was a slip of the tongue
and that he meant halfway to The Last Bridge. Everything falls
into place on this assumption, since the travellers took 7 days
between Bree and Weathertop (involving a detour to the north)
and 7 days from Weathertop to the Bridge (with Frodo in a
wounded condition and unable to hurry) while there was a further
stretch of 7 days from the Bridge to Rivendell. Aragorn was well
aware of the distance, as he said later (A Knife in the Dark;
Bk. I), when they reached Weathertop, that it would then take
them 14 days to the Ford of Bruinen although it normally took
him only 12.
But it is now seen that Aragorn's words 'about halfway from here
(Bree) to Rivendell' in FR go back to Trotter's here; and at this stage
the River Hoarwell and the Last Bridge on the East Road did not yet
exist (p. 360). I think that Trotter (Aragorn) was merely giving
Folco (Sam) a rough but sufficient idea of the distances before
them. - The relative distances go back to the original version (see
pp. 170- 1 ): about 120 miles from Bree to Weathertop, close on zoo
from Weathertop to the Ford.
3. A draft for Gandalf's message has: 'Last night Odo vanished:
suspect capture by horsemen.'
The message was changed in pencil to read:
Wednesday morning Oct. 5. Bad news. We arrived late Monday.
Baggins vanished last night. I must go and look for him. Wait for
me here for [a day or two >] two days. I shall return if possible. If
not go to Rivendell by the Ford on the Road.
Merry then says: 'Baggins! Does that mean that the Riders have got
Odo?'
Gandalf's message that he would return to Weathertop if he could
may have been intended as an explanation of why they decided to
stay there; see note 4. This pencilled revision preceded the writing
of the next chapter; see p. 359.
4. This was changed in pencil to read:
there is nothing we can do but] wait at least until tomorrow,
which will be two days since Gandalf wrote the note [see note 3].
After that if he does not turn up we must [make for Rivendell as
best we may.
5. The title 'A Knife in the Dark' was pencilled in later, as also on the
original chapter, VIII (p. 177).
6. The passage about cram was retained in this text, but placed in a
footnote.
7. On Dimrill-dale see pp. 432 - 3, notes 3, 13.
8. It may be noted that the name Asfaloth of Glorfindel's horse now
appears.
9. On the conclusion of this passage see p. 225.
10. The porch still faced west (p. 209), not east as in FR, and the odd
statement that the evening light shone on the eastern faces of the
hills far above was repeated, though struck out, probably in the act
of writing.
XXII.
NEW UNCERTAINTIES AND
NEW PROJECTIONS.
The first phase or original wave of composition of The Lord of the Rings
carried the story to Rivendell, and broke off in the middle of the original
Chapter IX, at Gloin's account to Bingo Bolger-Baggins of the realm of
Dale (p. 213):
In Dale the grandson of Bard the Bowman ruled, Brand son of Bain
son of Bard, and he was become a strong king whose realm included
Esgaroth, and much land to the south of the great falls.
This sentence ended a manuscript page; on the reverse side, as noted on
p. 213, the text was continued, but in a different script and a different
ink, and it begins:
'And what has become of Balin and Ori and Oin?' asked Frodo.
Since in the second phase Bingo was still the name of Bilbo's heir, and
since 'Bingo' never appears in any narrative writing falling later in the
story than the feast at Rivendell, it is certain that there was a significant
gap between 'much land to the south of the great falls' and 'And what has
become of Balin and Ori and Oin?'
It is therefore very curious that in Chapter XII of the third phase there
is a marked change of script at precisely the same point. Though still
neatly and carefully written, it is immediately obvious to the eye that
'"And what has become of Balin and Ori and Oin?" asked Frodo' and the
subsequent text was not continuous with what preceded. Moreover, the
latter part of this Chapter XI I is not coherent with what precedes, either:
for Bilbo says - as my father first wrote out the manuscript - 'I shall have
to get that fellow Aragorn to help me' (cf. FR p. 243: 'I shall have to get
my friend the Dunadan to help me.')
I do not think that it can possibly be a mere coincidence that both
versions halt at precisely the same point; and I conclude that the third
phase, in the sense of a fine continuous manuscript series, ended at the
same place as the first phase had done - and did so precisely because that
is where the first phase ended. For this reason I stopped at this point in
the previous chapter. I have suggested earlier (p. 309) that when my
father said (in February 1939) that by December 1938 The Lord of the
Rings had reached Chapter XI I 'and has been rewritten several times' it
was to the third phase that he was referring.
The textual-chronological questions that now arise are of peculiar
difficulty, and I doubt whether a solution demonstrably correct at all
points could be reached. There is no external evidence for many months
after February 1939, and nothing to show what my father achieved
during that time; but we get at last an unambiguous date, 'August 1939',
written (most unusually) on every page of a collection of rough papers
containing plot-outlines, questionings, and portions of text. These show
my father at a halt, even at a loss, to the point of a lack of confidence in
radical components of the narrative structure that had been built up with
such pains. The only external evidence that I know of to cast light on this
is a letter, dispirited in tone, which he wrote to Stanley Unwin on 15
September 1939, twelve days after the entry of England into war with
Germany, apologising for his 'silence about the state of the proposed
sequel to the Hobbit, which you enquired about as long ago as June 21st.'
'I do not suppose,' he said, 'this any longer interests you greatly - though
I still hope to finish it eventually. It is only about 3/1 written. I have not
had much time, quite apart from the gloom of approaching disaster, and
have been unwell most of this year...' There is nothing in the 'August
1939' papers themselves to show why he should have thought that the
existing structure of the story was in need of such radical transformation.
Proposals made at this time for new articulations of the plot were set
down in such haste and so elliptically expressed that it is sometimes not
easy to understand their bearings (here and there one may suspect a
confusion between what had been written in the latest wave of compo-
sition and what had been written earlier); and determination of the order
in which these notes and outlines were set down is impossible. To take
first the most drastic proposals:
(1). New Plot. Bilbo is the hero all through. Merry and Frodo his
companions. This helps with Gollum (though Gollum probably
gets new ring in Mordor). Or Bilbo just takes a 'holiday' - and never
returns, and the surprise party [i.e. the party that ended in a
surprise] is Frodo's. In which case Gandalf is not present to let off
fireworks.
The astonishing suggestion in the first part of this note ignores the
problem of 'lived happily ever after', which had bulked so large earlier
(see pp. 108 - 9). For a brief while, at any rate, my father was prepared to
envisage the demolition of the entire Bilbo-Frodo structure - the now
established and essential idea that Bilbo vanished 'with a bang and a flash'
at the end of his hundred-and-eleventh birthday party and that Frodo
followed him out of the Shire, more discreetly, seventeen years later.
Happily, he did not spend long on this - though he did go so far as to
begin a new text, headed:
New version - with Bilbo as hero. Aug. 1939.
The Lord of the Rings.
This begins: '"It is all most disturbing and in fact rather alarming," said
Bilbo Baggins,' and the matter is the same as in 'Ancient History' - with
Sam's shears audible outside - altered only as was necessary since
Gandalf was here speaking to Bilbo, not Frodo; but this text peters out
after a couple of sides.
The second part of this note is little less drastic: a return to the story as
it was at the end of the first phase of wort on this chapter, where Bilbo
merely disappeared quietly from the Shire shortly before his IIIth
birthday, and the party was given by Bingo (Bolger-Baggins); see p. 40.
: This idea is developed in the following outline:
Go back to original idea. Make Frodo (or Bingo) a more comic
character.
Bilbo is not overcome by Ring - he very seldom used it. He lived
long and then said goodbye, put on his old clothes and rode off. He
would not say where he was going - except that he was going across
the River. He had 2 favourite 'nephews', Peregrin Boffin and Frodo
[written above: Folco] Baggins. Peregrin was the elder. Peregrin
went off and Bilbo was blamed, and after that the young folk were
kept away from him - only Folco remained faithful.
Bilbo left all his possessions to Folco (who thus inherited with
interest all the dislike of the Sackville-Bagginses).
Bilbo lived long, x x x - he tells Gandalf he is feeling tired, and
discusses what to do. He is worried about the Ring. Says he is
reluctant to leave it and thinks of taking it. Gandalf looks at him.
In the end he leaves it behind, but puts on Sting and his elf-
armour under his old patched green cloak. He also takes his book.
Last whimsical saying was 'I think I shall look for a place where
there is more peace and quiet, and I can finish my book.'
'Nobody will read it!'
'0, they may - in years to come.'
Ring begins to have an effect on Folco. He gets restless. And
plans to go off 'following Bilbo'. His friends are Odo Bolger and
Merry Brandybuck.
Conversation with Gandalf as in Tale.
Folco gives the unexpected [read long-expected]' party and
vanishes as in original draft of the Tale.(2) But bring in Black Riders.
Cut out whole part of Gandalf being supposed to come. Make
Gandalf pursue the fugitives since he has found out about Black
Riders (the scene at Crickhollow will do - but without Odo
complication).
Make Gandalf looking for Folco (in that case Gandalf will not be
at final party) - and send Trotter.
Find Bilbo at Rivendell. There Bilbo offers to take up burden of
the Ring (reluctantly) but Gandalf supports Folco in offering to
carry it on.
Trotter turns out to be Peregrin, who had been to Mordor.
Not the least curious feature of these notes is the renewed uncertainty
about names: thus we have 'Frodo (or Bingo)', then 'Frodo' changed to
'Folco' (and at one of the occurrences of 'Folco' my father first wrote a
'B'); see also $$5 and 9. For long I assumed that it was at the very time of
the writing of these notes that 'Bingo' became 'Frodo', and that they
therefore preceded the third phase of the wort. Those third phase
manuscripts were so orderly and so suggestive of secure purpose that
it seemed hard to imagine that such radical uncertainty could have
succeeded them: rather they seemed lite a confident new start when the
doubts had been dissipated. But this cannot possibly be so. This is the
first mention of Bilbo's taking his 'elf-armour' (cf. p. 223, $4), and it is
only by later revision to the third phase version of 'A Long-expected
party' that the story that Bilbo took it with him enters the narrative (see
p. 3 I 5; in FR, p. 40, he packed it in his bag, the 'bundle wrapped in old
cloths' which he took from the strong-box). Similarly, Bilbo's saying that
he wanted to find peace in which to finish his book and Gandalf's
rejoinder 'Nobody will read it! ' only appear in the revision of the third
phase version of the first chapter (surviving into FR p. 41). Or again, the
reference to 'the scene at Crickhollow - but without Odo complication'
shows that the third phase was in being (see p. 336). Other evidence
elsewhere in these 'August 1939' papers is equally clear. It must therefore
be concluded that the temporary confusion and loss of direction from
which my father suffered at this time extended even to established
names: 'Bingo' might be brought back, or 'Frodo' changed to 'Folco'.
The words 'But bring in Black Riders' are puzzling, since the Black
Riders were of course very much present 'in the original draft of the
Tale'; but I suspect that my father meant 'But bring in Black Rider' in the
singular, i.e. the Rider who came to Hobbiton and spoke to Gaffer
Gamgee. The changed story which my father was so elliptically discuss-
ing in these notes can presumably be shown in essentials thus:
(I) Fourth version of 'A. Bilbo departs quietly from Hobbiton at
Long-expected Party',. the age of III.
last in the 'first. Bingo gives the party 33 years later and
phase', see p. 40. vanishes at the end of it.
Gandalf leaves Hobbiton after the fire-
works at the Party and goes ahead
towards Rivendell.
(II) The existing state of. Bilbo gives the Party at the age of 111 and.
the story. vanishes at the end of it.
Frodo departs quietly from Hobbiton
with his friends 17 years later.
Gandalf fails to come as he promised
before Frodo leaves.
A Black Rider comes to Hobbiton on the
last evening.
Gandalf arrives at Crickhollow after the
hobbits have left.
(III) Projected plot. Bilbo departs quietly from Hobbiton at
the age of r x x.
Frodo ('Folco') gives the Party and van-
ishes at the end of it.
Gandalf is not present at the Party.
A Black Rider comes to Hobbiton.
Gandalf arrives at Crickhollow after the
hobbits have left.
If I am right in my interpretation of 'But bring in Black Riders', the
point is that while in a fundamental feature of its structure (III) would
return to (I), the coming of the Rider would be retained - so that he
would arrive in the aftermath of the Party. And unlike (I), Gandalf
would no longer come to the Party (so that, as mentioned in $1, there
would be no fireworks, or at least not of the Gandalfian kind), but would
follow hard on the hobbits ('the fugitives'), 'since he has found out about
the Black Riders'.
Here again, and again happily, my father did not in the event allow
himself to be diverted to yet another restructuring (and consequent very
tricky rewriting at many points) of the narrative that had been achieved.
Most interesting are the statements that Trotter was Peregrin Boffin,
standing in the same sort of relationship to Bilbo as did Frodo, but older
than Frodo, and that running off into the wide world he had found his
way to Mordor. Earlier (p. zan, )6) my father had noted: 'I thought of
making Trotter into Fosco Took (Bilbo's first cousin) who vanished
when a lad, owing to Gandalf. He must have had some bitter acquaint-
ance with Ring-wraiths &c.' See further pp. 385 - 6.
(3) In some points it is still harder to feel sure of the meaning of another
outline dated 'August 1939'. This begins with a proposal to 'alter names'.
Frodo > ? Peregrin Faramond.
Odo > Fredegar Hamilcar Bolger.
My father subsequently added (but struck out): 'Too many hobbits.
Sam, Merry, and Faramond (= Frodo) are quite enough.' He was
evidently dissatisfied with the name 'Frodo' for his central character. In
$2 he changed 'Frodo' to 'Folco', in $2, $5, and $9 'Bingo' reappears, and
here he considers the possibility of 'Faramond'. - This seems to be the
first occurrence of either name, Fredegar or Hamilcar.
The text that follows on the same page, seeming quite at variance with
these notes on names, reads thus:
Alterations of Plot.
(1) Less emphasis on longevity caused by the Ring, until the story has
progressed.
(2) Important. (a) Neither Bilbo nor Gandalf must know much about
the Ring, when Bilbo departs. Bilbo's motive is simply tiredness, an
unexplained restlessness (and longing to see Rivendell again, but this
is not said - finding him at Rivendell must be a surprise).
(b) Gandalf does not tell Frodo to leave Shire - only mere hint that
Lord may look for Shire. The plan for leaving was entirely Frodo's.
Dreams or some other cause [added: restlessness] have made him
decide to go journeying (to find Cracks of Doom? after seeking counsel
of Elrond). Gandalf simply vanishes for years. They are not trying to
catch up Gandalf. Gandalf is simply trying to find them, and is
desperately upset when he discovers Frodo has left Hobbiton. Odo
must be cut out or altered (blended with Folco), and go with F[rodo]
on his ride. Only Meriadoc goes ahead.
In that case alteration of plot at Bree. Who is Trotter? A Ranger or a
Hobbit? Peregrin? If Gandalf is only looking for Frodo, Trotter will
have to be an old associate.(3) Thus if a Hobbit, mate him one who went
off under Gandalf's influence (cf. introduction to Hobbit).(4) E.g. -
After Bilbo's little escapade Gandalf was little seen, and only one
disappearance was recorded during many years. This was the curious
case of Peregrin Boffin -
Since he was a close relation of Bilbo's, Bilbo was blamed 'for putting
notions into the boy's head with his silly fairy-stories; and visits of the
young to Bag-End were discouraged by many of the elders in spite of
Bilbo's generosity. But he had several faithful young friends. The
chief of these was Frodo (Bilbo's cousin).
As regards (1) and (2) (a), these ideas were taken up. In 'A Long-
expected Party' as it was at this time (see p. 239: preserved without
significant change in the third phase version) the Ring is the only motive
that Bilbo refers to in explanation of his decision to leave the Shire; and
he clearly associates his longevity with possession of it: 'I really must get
rid of It, Gandalf. Well-preserved, indeed. Why, I feel all thin - sort of
stretched, if you know what I mean.' Revisions made to the third phase
version brought the text in these respects to the form in FR (pp. 41-3),
where it is clear that the Ring is not consciously a motive in Bilbo's mind
(however strongly the reader is made aware of the sinister influence it was
in fact exerting): he speaks of his need for 'a holiday, a very long holiday'
(cf. $1 above: 'Bilbo just takes a "holiday"'), and his wish 'to see the wild
country again before I die, and the Mountains.' He still says 'Well-
preserved, indeed! Why I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what
I mean', but his sense of great age is now not in any way associated with
possession of the Ring; and so later, in revision to the third phase version
of 'Ancient History', Gandalf says to Frodo: 'He certainly did not begin
to connect his long life and outward youthfulness with the ring' (cf. FR
p. 56: 'But as for his long life, Bilbo never connected it with the ring at
all. He took all the credit for that to himself, and was very proud of it.')
The notes under (2) (b) outline a new idea in respect of Gandalfs
movements: for many years before Frodo left he had never come back at
all to Hobbiton, and Frodo's leaving was entirely independent of the
wizard, Learning (we may suppose) that the Ring-wraiths were abroad,
Gandalf hastened back at last to the Shire, where he heard to his horror
that Frodo had gone. This idea was not taken up, of course (and against
it my father wrote: 'But in this case the Sam chapter is spoilt' - he was
referring to the end of 'Ancient History', where Sam is discovered by
Gandalf eavesdropping outside the window of Bag End).
The words 'They are not trying to catch up Gandalf' are difficult to
understand. It seems incredible that my father would be referring now to
the first phase version of the story, in which Gandalf had left the Party
(given by Bingo) after letting off the fireworks, and was known to be
ahead of Frodo and his friends on the journey east; yet in the subsequent
versions all that is known of him is that he did not come, as he had
promised, to the small farewell party given by Bingo/Frodo before he left
Bag End, and was supposed (rightly) to be behind them rather than
ahead.
Still more baffling is the passage concerning Odo ('Odo must be cut
out or altered (blended with Folco) and go with F [rodo] on his ride. Only
Meriadoc goes ahead'). If the meaning of this is that the entire 'Odo-
story' of the third phase (his journey with Gandalf from Crickhollow
through Bree, the pseudonym of 'Baggins', his disappearance from
Weathertop, and his unexplained arrival with Gandalf at Rivendell) was
to be abandoned, how (one may ask) can he be. 'blended with Folco',
since 'Folco' is already a blend of the original 'Frodo and Odo', with the
advantage heavily to 'Odo'? It must be remembered that these notes were
in no way the logical expression of an ordered programme, but are rather
the vestiges of rapidly-changing thoughts. The withdrawal of Odo, in the
third phase, from the adventures of the other hobbits had caused Folco
(formerly Frodo) Took to take over Odo's part and character in the
narrative of those adventures, since that narrative already existed from
the earlier phases, and Odo had played a large part in the hobbits'
conversation (see pp. 323 - 4). But the retention of Odo in the back-
ground, with adventures of his own, would mean that when he re-
emerged into the foreground again at Rivendell there would be two 'Odo'
characters - the rather ironic result of getting rid of him!
The proposal here is presumably that 'Odo Bolger' and 'Folco Took'
should now be definitively joined together as one character, under the
latter name. 'Folco' seems indeed now too much 'Odo' for 'blending' to
have much meaning; but my father may not have felt this (nor perhaps
did he have so clear a picture of the intricate evolutions of his story as can
be attained from long study of the manuscripts). In 'go with F[rodo] on
his ride', 'ride' is perhaps a mere slip for 'walk': the meaning being that
the resultant 'blend' accompanies Frodo and does not 'go ahead' with
Merry to Buckland. This is all very fine-spun, but it reflects the
extraordinarily intricate nature of my father's changing construction.
With 'Who is Trotter? A Ranger or a Hobbit?'cf. pp. 33 I-2. The story
that Trotter was Peregrin Boffin is now definitively present and would be
fully developed in revision to the third phase text of 'A Long-expected
Party' (pp. 384-6).
(4) The remaining papers in this 'August 1939 collection that are
concerned with the opening part of the story perhaps followed the others.
These pages of very rough narrative drafting are headed Conversation of
Bilbo and Frodo - a relationship never otherwise seen at close quarters,
before they met long afterwards at Rivendell. The conversation takes
place at Bag End before Bilbo's Farewell Party; he speaks to Frodo of the
Ring for the first time, only to discover to his genuine amazement and
mock indignation, that Frodo knew about it already, and had looked at
Bilbo's secret book. This is a different story to that in 'A Long-expected
Party', where Frodo had read Bilbo's memoirs with his permission
(pp.240,315).
Conversation of Bilbo and Frodo.
'Well, my lad, we have got on very well - and I am sorry to leave,
in a way. But I am going on a holiday, a very long holiday. In fact I
have no intention of coming back. I am tired. I am going to cross
the Rivers.' So be prepared for surprises at this party. I may say
that I am leaving everything, practically, to you - all except a few
oddments.'
*
Mr Bilbo Baggins, of Bag-end, Underhill (Hobbiton) was
sitting in his west sitting-room one summer afternoon.
'Well, that's my little plan, Frodo,' said Bilbo Baggins. 'It's a
dead secret, mind you! I've kept it from everyone but you and
Gandalf. I needed Gandalf's help; and I've told you because I
hope you'll enjoy the joke all the better for being in the know - and
of course you're closely concerned.'
'I don't like it at all,' said the other hobbit, looking rather
puzzled and downcast. 'But I've known you long enough to know
that it's no good trying to talk you out of your little plans.'
*
'Well, the time has come to say goodbye, my dear lad,' said
Bilbo.
'I suppose so,' said Frodo sadly. 'Though I don't at all under-
stand why. [But I know you too well to think of trying to talk you
out of your little plans - especially after they have gone so far.]'
'I can't explain it any clearer,' answered Bilbo, 'because I am not
quite clear myself. But I hope this is clear: I am leaving everything
(except a few oddments) to you. My bit of money will keep you
nicely as it did me in the old days; and besides there is a bit of my
treasure left - you know where. Not so much now, but a pretty
nest-egg still. And there's one thing more, There's a ring.'
'The magic ring?' asked Frodo incautiously.
'Eh, what? ' said Bilbo. 'Who said magic ring?'
'I did,' said Frodo blushing. 'My dear old hobbit, you don't
allow for the inquisitiveness of young nephews.'
'I do allow for it,' said Bilbo, 'or I thought I had. And in any case
don't call me a dear old hobbit.'
'I have known about the existence of your Ring for years.'
'Have you indeed?' said Bilbo. 'How, I should like to know!
Come on, then: you had better make a clean breast of it before I
go.
'Well, it was like this. It was the Sackville-Bagginses that were
your undoing.'
'They would be,' grunted Bilbo.
Frodo then tells the story of his observing Bilbo's escape, by becoming
invisible, from the Sackville-Bagginses while out walking one day. This,
in very brief form, had been used in the fifth version of 'A Long-expected.
Party' (p. 242), when Bingo told it to Gandalf after the Party - there,
merely as an example of how Bilbo had used the Ring for small-scale
disappearances to avoid boredom and inconvenience (for of course in the
'received' story Bingo knew about the Ring because Bilbo had told him
about it). It was then, in more elaborate form, given to Merry in 'A
Conspiracy is Unmasked' (p. 300) as an explanation of how Merry knew
of the existence of the Ring (and so was dropped from the sixth version of
A Long-expected Party, p. 315). Now, in the present text, my father
simply lifted the story word for word from 'A Conspiracy (is) Unmasked'
and gave it to Frodo, as his explanation to Bilbo of how he learnt about
the Ring; and Frodo continues here, again almost word for word, with
Merry's account of how he got a sight of Bilbo's book:
'That doesn't explain it all,' said Bilbo, with a gleam in his eye.
'Come on, out with it, whatever it is! '
'Well, after that I kept my eyes open,' stammered Frodo. 'I - er
- in fact I rather kept a watch on you. But you must admit it was
very intriguing - and I was only in my early tweens. So one day I
came across your book.'
'My book!' said Bilbo. 'Good heavens above. Is nothing safe!'
'Not too safe,' said Frodo. 'But I only got one rapid glance. You
never left the book about, except just that once: you were called
out of the study, and I came in and found it lying open. I should
like a rather longer look, Bilbo. I suppose you are leaving it to me
now?'
'No I am not! ' said Bilbo decisively. 'It isn't finished. Why, one
of my chief reasons for leaving is to go somewhere where I can get
on with it in peace without a parcel of rascally nephews prying
round the place, and a string of confounded visitors hanging on to
the bell.'
'You shouldn't be so kind to everyone,' said Frodo. 'I am sure
you needn't go away.
'Well, I am going,' said Bilbo. 'And about that Ring: I suppose I
needn't describe it now, or how I got it. I thought of giving it to
you.'
At this point my father interrupted the text and wrote across the page:
'This won't do because of the use of the Ring at the party!' - i.e., Bilbo
could not have the intention to give it to Frodo then, before the Party.
But without changing anything that he had written he went on with the
story thus:
He fumbled in his pocket and drew out a small golden ring
attached by another ring to a fine chain. He unfastened it, laid it in
the palm of his hand, and looked long at it.
'Here it is! ' he said with sigh.
Frodo held out his hand. But Bilbo put the ring straight back in
his pocket. [A puzzled look )] An odd look came over his face.
'Er, well,' he stammered, 'I'll give it you I expect last thing before
I go - or leave it in my locked drawer or something.'
Frodo looked puzzled and stared at him, but said nothing.
The last lines of the text come after the Party:
Bilbo.... goes and dresses as in the older version (but with
armour under his cloak)(6) and says goodbye. 'The - er - ring,' he
said, 'is in the drawer' - and vanished into [the] darkness.
I think that this new version is to be associated with the opening notes
under 'Alterations of Plot' in $3 above: it represents a movement away
from the idea that Bilbo was troubled about the Ring, that it was his
prime motive for leaving (rather, his tiredness, his desire for peace, is
mentioned). He has never even spoken to Frodo about it. It seems that
my father's intention had been that Bilbo should simply hand it to Frodo
there and then, without any suggestion of inner struggle; but he only
realised, as he wrote, that 'This won't do'- because Bilbo must retain the
Ring till the actual moment of his departure. The gift would therefore
have to be postponed from the present occasion; and it was only now that
he took up the suggestion in 'A Long-expected Party', where Bilbo said to
Gandalf: 'I am not going to throw it away. In any case I find it impossible
to make myself do that - I simply put it back in my pocket.'(7) The curious
result is that the scene actually ends now with a demonstration, in Bilbo's
embarrassed and ambiguous behaviour, precisely of the sinister effect
that the Ring has in fact had on its owner; and this would be developed
into the quarrel with Gandalf in FR, pp. 41 - 3.
(5) Turning now to those papers dated August 1939 that are concerned
with larger projections of the story to come after the sojourn in Rivendell,
there is first a suggestion that a Dragon should come to the Shire and that
by its coming the hobbits should be led to show that they are made of
'sterner stuff', and that 'Frodo (Bingo)' should 'actually come near the
end of his money - now it was dragon gold. He is "lured"?' There is here a
reference to 'Bilbo remarks on old sheet of notes' - obviously those given
on pp. 41 - 2 (where the same suggestion of a Dragon coming to
Hobbiton was made).
(6) Following these notes on the same page is a brief list of narrative
elements that might enter much further on:
Island in sea. Take Frodo there in end.
Radagast ? (8)
Battle is raging far off between armies of Elves and Men v[ersus
the] Lord.
Adventures .. Stone-Men.
With the first of these cf. the note given on p. 41: 'Elrond tells him
[Bilbo) of an island', etc. The reference to the 'battle raging' probably
belongs to the end of the story, when the Ring goes into the Crack of
Doom.
Most interesting is the last item here. A note by my father found with
the LR papers states that he looked through (some, at least, of) the
material in 1964; and it was very probably at that time that he scrawled
against the words 'Adventures .. Stone-Men':
Thought of as just an 'adventure'. The whole of the matter of Gondor
(Stone-land) grew from this note. (Aragorn, still called Trotter, had no
connexion with it then, and was at first conceived as one of the hobbits
that had wanderlust.)
(7) This is a convenient place to give a page of pencilled notes which
bears no date and in which 'Bingo' appears. At the head of the page stand
the words: 'City of Stone and civilized men'. Then follows an extremely
abbreviated outline of the end of the story.
At end
When Bingo [written above: Frodo] at last reaches Crack and Fiery
Mountain he cannot make himself throw the Ring away. ? He hears
Necromancer's voice offering him great reward - to share power with
him, if he will keep it.
At that moment Gollum - who had seemed to reform and had
guided them by secret ways through Mordor - comes up and treach-
erously tries to take Ring. They wrestle and Gollum takes Ring and
falls into the Crack.
The mountain begins to rumble.
Bingo flies away [i.e. flees away].
Eruption.
Mordor vanishes like a dark cloud. Elves are seen riding like lights
rolling away a dark cloud.
The City of Stone is covered in ashes.
Journey back to Rivendell.
What of Shire? Sackville-Baggins....... Bingo makes peace, and settles down in a little hut on the high green
quarters. ... lands........ the four
ridge - until one day he goes with the Elves west beyond the towers.
Better- no land was tilled, all the hobbits were busy making swords.
The illegible words might just possibly be interpreted thus: 'Sackville-
Baggins [and] his friends hurt [the] lands. There was war between the
four quarters.'
Since there is here a reference to 'the City of Stone', while my father
said in 1964 that the whole idea of Gondor arose from the reference to
'Stone-Men' in a note dated August 1939, it would have to be concluded
on a strict interpretation that this outline comes from that time or later;
on the other hand, the hero is still 'Bingo', so that this outline would seem
to be the earlier. I think, however, that the contradiction may be only
apparent, since in other notes dated August 1939 my father seems still to
have been hesitant about the name 'Bingo', and I would therefore ascribe
the outline just given to much the same time as the rest of these notes.
It obviously leaves out some things that my father must already have
known (more or less): such as how Gollum reappeared. But it is most
remarkable to find here - when there is no suggestion of the vast structure
still to be built - that the corruption of the Shire, and the crucial presence
of Gollum on the Fiery Mountain, were very early elements in the whole.
(8) On the reverse of the page bearing this outline is the following:
'The ring is destroyed,' said Bilbo, 'and I am feeling sleepy. We
must say goodbye, Bingo [written above: Frodo] - but it is a good
place to say goodbye, in the House of Elrond, where memory is
long and kind. I am leaving the book of my small deeds here. And
I don't think I shall go to rest till I have written down your tale too.
Elrond will keep it - no doubt after all hobbits have gone their
ways into the past. Well, Bingo my lad, you and I were very small
creatures, but we've played our part. We've played our part. An
odd fate we have shared, to be sure.'
It seems then that at this time my father foresaw that Bilbo died in
Rivendell.
(9) There is one further page dated 'August 1939', and this is of great
interest. It is a series of pencilled notes like the others, and is headed 'Plot
from XII on'.
Have to wait till Spring? Or have to go at once.
They go south along the Mountains. Later or early? Snowstorm in the
Red Pass. Journey down the R. Redway.
Adventure with Giant Tree Beard in Forest.
Mines of Moria. These again deserted - except for Goblins.
Land of Ond. Siege of the City.
They draw near the borders of Mordor.
In dark Gollum comes up. He feigns reform? Or tries to throttle
Frodo? - but Gollum has now a magic ring given by Lord and is
invisible. Frodo dare not use his own.
Cavalcade of evil led by seven Black Riders.
See Dark Tower on the horizon. Horrible feeling of an Eye searching
for him.
Fiery Mountain.
Eruption of Fiery Mountain causes destruction of Tower.
A pencilled marginal note asks whether 'Bingo' (with 'Frodo' written
beside) should be captured by the Dark Lord and questioned, but be
saved 'by Sam?'.
Subsequently my father emended these notes in ink. In the first line,
against 'Or have to go at once', he wrote 'at once', he directed that 'Mines
of Moria...' should precede 'Adventure with Giant Tree Beard in
Forest' and come between 'Snowstorm in the Red Pass' and 'Journey
down the R. Redway', and after 'These again deserted - except for
Goblins' he added 'Loss of Gandalf'.
Some features of this outline have occurred already; the feigned
reform of Gollum, his attack on Frodo, and the eruption of the Fiery
Mountain, in $7; the acquisition of a ring by Gollum in Mordor in $1.
But we meet here for the first time other major ingredients in the later
work. The Ring crosses the Misty Mountains by 'the Red Pass', which
will survive in the Redhorn Pass, or Redhorn Gate. The Mines of Moria
now first reappear from The Hobbit - at any rate under that name:
the mention in Queries and Alterations note 11 (p. 226) of the colony
founded by the Dwarves Balin, Ori, and Oin from the Lonely Mountain
in 'rich hills in the South' does not show that the identification had been
made. The actual link lay no doubt in Elrond's words in The Hobbit
(Chapter III, 'A Short Rest'): 'I have heard that there are still forgotten
treasures to be found in the deserted caverns of the mines of Moria, since
the dwarf and goblin war', and the words here 'These again deserted -
except for Goblins', taken with those in Queries and Alterations (ibid.)
'But after a time no word was heard of them', clearly imply the story in
The Lard of the Rings. The land of the Stone-Men (see $6) is the 'Land of
Ond', and the 'City of Stone' ($7) will be besieged. Here also there is the
first hint of the story of the capture of Frodo and his rescue by Sam
Gamgee from the tower of Cirith Ungol; and most notable of all,
perhaps, the first mention of the Searching Eye in the Dark Tower.
These are references to narrative 'moments' which my father foresaw:
they do not constitute an articulated narrative scheme. They may very
well not be in the succession that he even then perceived. Thus in this
outline Gollum's treachery is brought in long before Frodo reaches the
Fiery Mountain, which in view of what is said in $7 can hardly have been
his meaning; and the Mines of Moria are named after the passage of the
Misty Mountains. This was corrected later in ink, but it may not have
been his conception when he wrote these notes: for in none of the (six)
mentions of the Mines of Moria in The Hobbit is there any suggestion of
where they were (cf. his letter to W. H. Auden in 1955: 'The Mines of
Moria had been a mere name', Letters no. 163).
(10) Something must be said here of 'Giant Treebeard', for he emerged
into a scrap of actual narrative at this time (and had been mentioned
by Gandalf to Frodo in Rivendell. p. 363: I was caught in Fangorn
and spent many weary days as a prisoner of the Giant Treebeard').
There exists a single sheet of manuscript, which began as a letter dated
'July 27 - 29th 1939, but which my father covered on both sides with fine
ornamental script (one side of the sheet is reproduced opposite). Among
the writings on the page are the words 'July Summer Diversions' and
lines from Chaucer's Reeve 's Tale - for these 'Diversions' were a series of
public entertainments held at Oxford in the course of which my father,
attired as Chaucer, recited that Tale. But the page is chiefly taken up
with a text on which he afterwards pencilled Tree Beard.
When Frodo heard the voice he looked up, but he could see
nothing through the thick entangled branches. Suddenly he felt a
quiver in the gnarled tree-trunk against which he was leaning, and
before he could spring away he was pushed, or kicked, forward
onto his knees. Picking himself up he looked at the tree, and even
as he looked, it took a stride towards him. He scrambled out of the
way, and a deep rumbling chuckle came down out of the tree-top.
'Where are you, little beetle?' said the voice. 'If you don't let me
know where you are, you can't blame me for treading on you. And
please, don't tickle my leg! '
The emergence of Treebeard.
'I can't see any leg,' said Frodo. 'And where are you?''You must
be blind,' said the voice. 'I am here.' 'Who are you?' 'I am
Treebeard,' the voice answered. 'If you haven't heard of me
before, you ought to have done; and anyway you are in my
garden.'
'I can't see any garden,' said Frodo. 'Do you know what a
garden looks like?' 'I have one of my own: there are flowers and
plants in it, and a fence round it; but there is nothing of the kind
here.' '0 yes! there is. Only you have walked through the fence
without noticing it; and you can't see the plants, because you are
down underneath them by their roots.'
It was only then when Frodo looked closer that he saw that what
he had taken for smooth tree-stems were the stalks of gigantic
flowers - and what he had thought was the stem of a monstrous
oaktree was really a thick gnarled leg with a rootlike foot and many
branching toes.
This is the first image of Treebeard: seeming in its air to come rather
from the old Hobbit than the new. Six lines in Elvish tengwar are also
written here, which transliterated read:
Fragment from The Lord of the Rings, sequel to The Hobbit.
Frodo meets Giant Treebeard in the Forest of Neldoreth while seek-
ing for his lost companions: he is deceived by the giant who pretends to
be friendly, but is really in league with the Enemy.
The forest of Neldoreth, forming the northern part of Doriath, had
appeared in the later Annals of Beleriand (V. 126, 148); the name from
the old legends (like that of Glorfindel, see p. 214) was to be re-used.
Six months earlier, in a letter of 2 February 1939, my father had said
that 'though there is no dragon (so far) there is going to be a Giant'
(Letters no. 35, footnote to the text). If my suggested analysis of
the chronology is correct (see p. 309) 'Giant Treebeard' had already
appeared, as Gandalf's captor, at the end of the third phase (p. 363).
(11) There remains one further text (extant in two versions) to be given
in this chapter; this is the story of Peregrin Boffin (see under $$2, 3
above). One form of it is found as part of a rather roughly written two-
page manuscript that begins as a new text of 'A Long-expected Party':
very closely related to the sixth or third phase version of that chapter, but
certainly following it. I take it up from the point 'At ninety he seemed
much the same as ever' (FR p. 29).
At ninety-nine they began to call him well-preserved, though
unchanged would have been nearer the mark. Some were heard to
say that it was too much of a good thing, this combination of
apparently perpetual youth with seemingly inexhaustible wealth.
j
'It will have to be paid for,' they said. 'It isn't natural, and
trouble will come of it! '
But trouble had not yet come, and Mr Baggins was extremely
generous with his money, so most people (and especially the
poorer and less important hobbits) pardoned his oddities. In a
way the inhabitants of Hobbiton were (secretly) rather proud of
him: the wealth that he had brought back from his travels became
a local legend, and it was widely believed, whatever the old folk
might say, that most of the Hill was full of tunnels stuffed with
treasure.
'He may be peculiar, but he does no harm,' said the younger
folk. But not all of his more important relatives agreed. They were
suspicious of his influence on their children, and especially of their
sons meeting Gandalf at his house. Their suspicions were much
increased by the unfortunate affair of Peregrin Boffin.
Peregrin was the grandson of Bilbo's mother's second sister
Donnamira Took. He was a mere babe, five years old, when Bilbo
came back from his journey; but he grew up a dark-haired and (for
a hobbit) lanky lad, very much more of a Took than a Boffin. He
was always trotting round to Hobbiton, for his father, Paladin
Boffin, lived at Northope, only a mile or two behind the Hill.
When Peregrin began to talk about mountains and dwarves, and
forests and wolves, Paladin became alarmed, and finally forbade
his son to go near Bag-end, and shut his door on Bilbo.
Bilbo took this to heart, for he was extremely fond of Peregrin,
but he did nothing to encourage him to visit Bag-end secretly.
Peregrin then ran away from home and was found wandering
about half-starved up on the moors of the Northfarthing. Finally,
the day after he came of age (in the spring of Bilbo's eightieth
year)' he disappeared, and was never found in spite of a search all
over the Shire.
In former times Gandalf had always been held responsible for
the occasional regrettable accidents of this kind; but now Bilbo got
a large share of the blame, and after Peregrin's disappearance most
of his younger relations were kept away from him. Though in fact
Bilbo was probably more troubled by the loss of Peregrin than all
the Boffins put together.
He had, however, other young friends, who for one reason or
another were not kept away from him. His favourite soon became
Frodo Baggins, grandson of Mirabella the third of the Old Took's
remarkable daughters, and son of Drogo (one of Bilbo's second
cousins). Just about the time of Peregrin's disappearance Frodo
was left an orphan, when only a child of twelve, and so he had no
anxious parents to keep him out of bad company. He lived with his
uncle Rory Brandybuck, and his mother's hundred and one
relatives in the Great Hole of Bucklebury: Brandy Hall.
Here this new opening ends. A slightly shorter version is found as a
rider to the manuscript of the third phase version itself: there are some
differences of wording but none of substance. Bilbo is here said to have
taken the delinquent back to Northope and apologised to Paladin Boffin,
when Peregrin 'sneaked round to him secretly', and Bilbo 'stoutly denied
having anything to do with the events.'
The village of Northope later became Overhill, and was so corrected on
the second of these texts.' - Paladin is already fixed as the name of the
father of Peregrin: these Boffins are - as names - the origin of Paladin and
Peregrin Took in LR. Donnamira Took, second of the Old Took's
daughters, appears in the family tree of the Tooks given on p. 3 I 7, where
she is the wife of Hugo Boffin (as in LR, but there without recorded
issue): their son was Jago Boffin, and his son was Fosco, Bilbo's first
cousin (once removed), who was 54 at the time of the Party. In the third
phase version of 'Ancient History' (p. 319) Jo Button, who saw the 'Tree-
men' beyond the North Moors, is said to have worked for Fosco Boffin of
Northope, and this is presumably the same person as the Fosco Boffin of
the family tree, grandson of Donnamira. In this case Peregrin Boffin
(Trotter) - who was 64 at the time of the Party (see note g), though of
course he had then long since disappeared from the Shire - has stepped
into Fosco's genealogical place, and his father Paladin into that of Jago.
But only into the genealogical place: the Boffin of Northope for whom
Jo Button was working has obviously nothing to do with the renegade
Peregrin.
It will be seen that in this account Frodo and Trotter were second
cousins, and both were first cousins once removed of Bilbo.(11)
NOTES.
1. With 'unexpected party' for 'long-expected party' cf. p. 245, note 1.
2. Actually, the third and fourth drafts of the first phase: by 'original
draft of the Tale' my father meant the form of 'A Long-expected
Party' as it stood when submitted to Allen and Unwin (see p. 40).
3. I do not understand the force of this sentence.
4. The reference to The Hobbit is to Chapter I 'An Unexpected Party',
a passage already cited (p. 224).
5. the Rivers: the plural form is clear.
6. That Bilbo wore his 'elf-armour' under his cloak when he went is
said in $2; see pp. 371 - 2.
This is the wording of the sixth (third phase) version, little changed
from that of the fifth (p. 239).
8. Radagast had occurred in The Hobbit: in Chapter VII 'Queer
Lodgings' Gandalf spoke to Beorn of 'my good cousin Radagast who
lives near the Southern borders of Mirkwood.'
9. Peregrin Boffin was five years old when Bilbo returned from his
great adventure. The calculation is: 51 to 79 ('the spring of his
eightieth year') = 28, plus 5 = 33 ('coming of age'). According to
this story Peregrin/Trotter was Sr years old when Frodo and his
companions met him at Bree (Bilbo finally departed when he was
x r x; Peregrin/Trotter was then 64, and Frodo left the Shire 17 years
later). As he said at Bree, 'I'm older now than I look' (pp. 153, 342);
Aragorn was 87 when he said the same thing (FR p. 177).
10. Northope > Overhill also on p. 319. - The name Northope appears
here on my father's original map of the Shire (p. 107, item I), but it
was struck out and replaced, not by Overhill, but by The Yale. This
is a convenient place to notice the history of this name. Long after,
my father wrote in The Yale on the Shire map in a copy of the First
Edition of FR, placing it south of Whitfurrows in the Eastfarthing,
in such a way as to show that he intended a region, like 'The Marish',
not a particular place of settlement (the road to Stock runs through
it); and at the same time, on the same copy, he expanded the text in
FR p. 86, introducing the name: 'the lowlands of the Yale' (for the
reason for this change of text, which was published in the Second
Edition, see p. 66, note 10). The Shire map in the Second Edition
has The Yale added here, but in relation to a small black square, as if
it were the name of a farm or small hamlet; this must have been
a misunderstanding. I cannot explain the meaning of The Yale.
Northope contains a place-name element hope that usually means 'a
small enclosed valley'.
My father's earlier suggestion concerning Trotter (p. 223) also
made him Bilbo's first cousin (Fosco Took).