The Return Of The Shadow Part 13
There are other very roughly written texts giving a resume of a part of 'The Silmarillion' found among the papers at this point. They attempt to condense a much greater part of the history of the Elder Days than that strictly concerned with the story of Beren and Luthien, and have interesting features which must be mentioned, though their discussion scarcely falls within the history of the writing of The Lord of the Rings. Most notable is the following pa.s.sage: For as it is told the Blessed Realms of the West were illumined by the Two Trees, Galathilion the Silver Cherry, and Galagloriel that is Golden Rain. But Morgoth, the greatest of the Powers, made war upon the G.o.ds, and he destroyed the Trees, and fled. And he took with him the immortal gems, the Silmarils, that were made by the Elves of the light of the Trees, and in which alone now the ancient radiance of the days of bliss remained. In the north of the Middle-earth he set up his throne Angband, the Halls of Iron under Thangorodrim the Mountain of Thunder; and he grew in strength and darkness; and he brought forth the Orcs and goblins, and the Balrogs, demons of fire. But the High Elves of the West forsook the land of the G.o.ds and returned to the earth, and made war upon him to regain the jewels.
The names Galathilion and Caladloriel first appear in the Quenta Silmarillion (V.209 - 10) as the Gnomish names for Silpion and Laurelin. 'Silver Cherry' and 'Golden Rain' are not the actual meanings of the names (as seems to be implied here): see the Etymologies in Vol. V, stems GALAD- (where the form Galagloriel is also given), LAWAR-, THIL-. That the blossom of Silpion was like that of a cherry-tree, and the flowers of Laurelin like those of the laburnum ('Golden Rain') was however often said (see e.g. V.209). On Morgoth 'the greatest of the Powers' see V. 157 and note 4. Very curious is the statement here that when Morgoth returned to Middle-earth after the destruction of the Trees 'he brought forth the Orcs and goblins, and the Balrogs, demons of fire.' It was certainly my father's view at this period that the Orcs were then first engendered (see V. 233, $62 and commentary), but the Balrogs were far older in their beginning (V. 212, $18), and indeed came to rescue Morgoth from Ungoliante at the time of his return: 'to his aid there came the Balrogs that lived yet in the deepest places of his ancient fortress.'
The term 'High Elves' is here used to mean the Elves of Valinor, not, as in the Quenta Silmarillion, the First Kindred (Lindar, Vanyar): see V. 214, $25 and commentary.
A very surprising point is the mention, a little later in this text, of Finrod Inglor the fair (see p. 72). In the first edition of LR (Appendices) Finrod was still the name of third son of Finwe, as in the Quenta Silmarillion, and his son was Felagund (in QS also named Inglor); it was not till the second edition of 1966 that Finrod son of Finwe became Finarfin, and his son Inglor Felagund became Finrod Felagund.
In another of these drafts the minstrel of Doriath is named Iverin, not Dairon; see note 6.
10. My father first wrote here: 'upon their long grey hair were crowns and helms of pale gold'. This was no doubt changed at once, with the emergence immediately below of the tall king, a crown on his long hair. See p. 198 note 6.
11. For Morthu see V.393, stem THUS-.
My father's practice at this time of overwriting his first pencilled drafts largely denies the possibility of seeing the earliest forms of the narrative. In this chapter the underlying text can only be made out here and there and with great difficulty; but at least it can be seen that the opening pa.s.sage quickly declined into an abbreviated outline for the story. Trotter's tales were only to be concerned with animals of the wild; and then follows at once: 'Fight in dell', with a sketch in a few lines, scribbled down at great speed, of which however something can be disinterred: Bingo is tempted to put on ring. He does so. The riders [?come] at him. He sees them plain - fell white faces..... He draws his sword and it shines like fire. They draw back but one Rider with long silver hair and a [? red hand] leaps forward. Bingo..... hears himself shouting Elbereth Gilthoniel..... struck at the leg of the Rider. He felt ..... cold [? pain] in the shoulder. There was a flash.....
The attack on the dell entered before the idea that Trotter should chant to them, and tell them a tale of ancient days; and the material of his tale remains in this ma.n.u.script in a very rough state, the primary stage of composition, obviously demanding the compression that it afterwards received.
More developed pencilled drafting takes up again from the point where Trotter comes to an end, and from what can be read it seems that the final story of the attack by the Ring-wraiths was now fully present. Then, apart from a few details (as that there are three Ring-wraiths, not five), the text written in ink on top of the draft achieved the finished story: no element in the potent scene, the fearful suspense on the cold hillside in the moonlight, the dark shapes looking down on the hobbits huddled round the fire, the irresistible demand on the Ringbearer to reveal himself, and the final revelation of what lay beneath the black cloaks of the Riders, is absent - and all is told virtually in the very words of The Fellowship of the Ring. The significance of the Ring, in its power to reveal and to be revealed, its operation as a bridge between two worlds, two modes of being, has been attained, once and for all.
The completeness, and the resonance, of this scene on Weathertop Hill is the more remarkable, when we consider that (in relation to The lard of the Rings as it was ultimately achieved) all was still extremely restricted in scope. If the nature of the Ring in its effect on the bearer was now fully conceived, there is as yet no suggestion that the fate of Middle- earth lay within its tiny circle. It is indeed far from certain that the idea of the Ruling Ring had yet arisen. Of the great lands and histories east and south of the Misty Mountains - of Lothlorien, Fangorn, Isengard, Rohan, the Numenorean kingdoms - there is no shadow of a hint. I very much doubt that when the Ring-wraiths rose up over the lip of the dell beneath Weathertop my father foresaw any more of the Journey than that the Ring must pa.s.s over the Mountains and find its end in the depths of the Fiery Mountain (p. 126). In October 1938 he could still say to Stanley Unwin (see p. 173) that he had hopes of being able to submit the new story early in the following year.
XI. FROM WEATHERTOP TO THE FORD.
The ma.n.u.script of the original Chapter VIII continues, without any break, in the same form, ink over pencil. While in the earlier part of this chapter I have given the full original text even in the concluding pa.s.sage, where there is scarcely any material difference from FR (since the attack of the Ring-wraiths is a scene of exceptional importance), in this part I do not do so throughout. The narrative is very close to that of FR Chapter 12, 'Flight to the Ford' (with a fair number of minor differences and some less minor), and for much of its length the wording almost the same. In those parts where the original text is not given, however, it can be understood that all differences of any significance are remarked. After it is told that the hobbits (Sam in FR) heard Bingo's voice crying out strange words, it is further said that they 'had seen a red flash; and Trotter came dashing up with flaming wood.' So also in the fragmentary outline given on pp. r 88 - g 'There was a flash'; but this is absent in FR. Perhaps the reference is to Bingo's sword that 'flickered redly as if it was a firebrand' (p. 186), a detail preserved in FR p. 208. Trotter's first return to the dell is slightly differently told, but this is chiefly because Sam's distrust of Strider is of course absent, and there is nothing in the old version corresponding to Strider's words to Sam apart (FR pp. 209-10). When Trotter lifted the black cloak from the ground he said only: 'That was the stroke of your sword. What harm it did to the Rider I do not know. Fire is better.'
Athelas is not said to have been brought by Men of the West to Middle- earth: 'it is a healing plant, known only to Elves, and to some of those who walk in the wild: athelas they name it.'(1) A curious detail is that when athelas was applied to Bingo's wound he 'felt the pain and the sense of frozen cold lessen in his right side'; and again later in the chapter 'his right arm was lifeless' (FR p. 215). Similarly, when Bingo drew his sword and faced the Riders at the Ford, my father first wrote: 'His sword he had hung at his right side; with his left hand he gripped the hilt and drew it', though this he struck out. He evidently decided that it was Bingo's left shoulder that was stabbed, and therefore wrote in the word 'left' in the description of the actual wounding (p. 186); but he did not correct the occurrences of 'right' just mentioned.
When they left the dell beneath Weathertop they took Gandalf's firewood with them ('For Trotter said that from now onwards fire-wood must always be a part of their stores, when they were away from trees'). Nothing is said of the rejuvenation of Bill Ferny's pony (if indeed it was Bill Ferny's, p. 175). The distant cries of Black Riders which they heard as they crossed the Road in FR (p. 211) are absent from the old version. The description of the eastward journey from Weathertop is at first fairly close to that in FR, though the timing is slightly different; but the geography was to be significantly altered. I give the pa.s.sage following the words 'Even Trotter seemed tired and dejected' (FR p. 212) in full.
Before the first day's march was over Bingo's pain began to grow again, but for a long time he did not speak of it. In this way three or four days pa.s.sed without the ground or the scene changing much, except that behind them Weathertop slowly sank, and before them the distant mountains loomed a little nearer. The weather remained dry, but was grey with cloud; and they were oppressed with the fear of pursuit. But of this there was no sign by day; and though they kept watch by night nothing happened. They dreaded to see black shapes stalking in the dim grey night under the waxing moon veiled by thin cloud; but they saw nothing, and heard nothing, but the sigh of withering leaves and gra.s.s. It seemed that, as they had hardly dared to hope, their swift crossing of the Road had not been marked, and their enemy had for the moment lost their trail.
At the end of the fourth day the ground began once more to rise slowly out of the wide shallow valley into which they had come. Trotter now bent their course again towards the north-east; and before long, as they reached the top of a slow-climbing slope, they saw ahead a huddle of wooded hills. Late on the fifth day they came to a ridge on which a few gaunt fir-trees stood. A little below them the Road could be seen curving away towards a small river that gleamed pale in a thin ray of sunshine, far away on their right. Next day, early in the morning, they again crossed the Road. Looking anxiously along it, westward and eastward, they hurried quickly across, and went towards the wooded hills.
Trotter was still leading them in as straight a line as the country allowed towards the distant Ford. In the hills their path would be more uncertain, but they could no longer keep to the south side of the Road, because the land became bare and stony and ahead lay the river. 'That river,' he said, 'comes down out of the Mountains, and flows through Rivendell.(2) It is not wide, but it is deep and strong, being fed by the many small torrents that come out of the wooded hills. Over these the Road goes by little fords or bridges; but there is no ford or bridge over the river until we come to the Ford under the Mountains.' The hobbits looked at the dark hills ahead, and though they were glad to leave the cheerless lands behind them, the land ahead seemed threatening and unfriendly.
In the developed geography, the Road traverses two rivers between Weathertop and Rivendell: the h.o.a.rwell or Mitheithel that flowed down out of the Ettenmoors, crossed by the Last Bridge, and the Loudwater or Bruinen, crossed by the Ford of Rivendell; these rivers joined a long way to the south, becoming the Greyflood. In the original story, on the other hand, there is only one river, not named, flowing down through Rivendell and crossed at the Ford.
In FR the travellers came down, early in the morning on the seventh day out from Weathertop, to the Road (i.e. approaching it from the south), and went along it for a mile or two to the Last Bridge, where Strider found the elf-stone lying in the mud; they crossed the bridge, and after a further mile turned off the Road to the left and went up into the hills. In the original story, they came to the Road early on the sixth day and crossed it, going up into the hills; there is no river (h.o.a.rwell) and no bridge. Some sort of explanation is given why they had to cross the Road here and stay no longer to the south of it: 'the land became bare and stony and ahead lay the river.' But the fact of there being no ford or bridge over the river except that below Rivendell only meant that that is where they would have to cross; it does not in itself explain why they could not stay south of the Road until they got there. Thus it is only the 'bare and stony' nature of the land south of the Road that really offers an explanation: Trotter sought to pa.s.s through country that provided more concealment? The 'real' explanation, it might be said, why they crossed the Road and went up into the wooded hills is quite other: my father had already suggested, when sketching out the story from the Barrow-downs to Rivendell (p. 126), that the hobbits should 'foolishly turn aside to visit Troll Stones'. On the other hand, Trotter was taking the straightest line to the Ford that he could (p. 191), and the sketches on p. 201 show clearly that the great southward loop of the Road (already mentioned in the original text, p. 199) must force him to cross it and go up into the hills to the north. - On the different chronology in the two versions see the Note on Chronology, p. 219.
When they came into the hills, the conversation with Trotter arising from their sight of the ruined towers is somewhat different from that with Strider in FR (pp. 213 - 14): 'Who lives in this land?' he [Bingo] asked; 'and who built these towers? Is this troll-country?'
'No,' said Trotter; 'trolls do not build. No one lives in this land. Men once dwelt here, ages ago. But none now remain. They were an evil people, as far as tales and legends tell; for they came under the sway of the Dark Lord. It is said that they were overthrown by Elendil, as King of Western Men, who aided Gilgalad, when they made war on the Dark Lord.(3) But that was so long ago that the hills have forgotten them, though a shadow still lies on the land.'
'Where did you learn such tales?' asked Frodo, 'if all the land is empty and forgetful? The birds and beasts do not tell tales of that sort.
'Many things are remembered in Rivendell,' said Trotter.
'Have you often been to Rivendell?' said Bingo.
'I have,' said Trotter; 'many a time; and I wonder now that I was ever so foolish as to leave it. But it is not my fate to sit quiet, even in the fair house of Elrond.'
The journey in the hills north of the Road had lasted for three days when the weather turned to rain, but two in FR (p. 214); thus the shorter journey from Weathertop till the return to the Road is made up, though there is still a difference of one day, since they had reached Weathertop a day earlier in the original story (p. 175): as I understand it, the first morning after the rain (FR p. 215) was in the old version that of October 16, but in FR that of October 17. When the rain stopped, on the eleventh day from Weathertop, and Trotter climbed up to see the lie of the land, he said when he came back: 'We have got too far to the North; and we must find some way to turn southwards, or at least sharp to the East. If we keep on as we are going, we shall get into impa.s.sable country among the skirts of the Mountains. Somehow or other we must strike the Road again before it reaches the Ford. But even if we manage that fairly quickly, we still cannot hope to get to Rivendell for some days yet, four or even five I fear.'
In the night spent up on the ridge (FR pp. 215 - 16) Sam's questioning of Strider concerning Frodo's wound is given to Merry; and Frodo's dream that 'endless dark wings were sweeping over him, and that on the wings rode pursuers seeking for him in all the hollows of the hills' is present. It is not said in the original text that 'the trees about him seemed shadowy and dim', nor on the following day that 'a mist seemed to obscure his sight' (FR pp. 215, 217); but later, when Glorfindel searched Bingo's wound with his finger (FR p. 223), 'he saw his friends' faces more clearly, though all day he had been troubled by the feeling that a shadow or a mist was coming between him and them.'
When they came to the old trolls turned to stone, 'Trotter walked forward unconcernedly. "Hullo, William!" he said, and slapped the stooping troll soundly.' And he said: '"In any case you might have noticed that Bert has got a bird's nest behind his ear."' In FR the trolls' names from The Hobbit were excluded.
After 'They rested in the clearing for a while, and had their midday meal right under the shadow of the trolls' large legs' the original narrative goes straight on with 'In the afternoon they went on down through the woods'; there is no suggestion that the Troll Song would be introduced here (see p.144). Their return to the Road is thus described: Eventually they came out upon the top of a high bank above the Road. This was now beginning to bend rather away from the river, and clung to the feet of the hills, some way up the side of the narrow valley at the bottom of which the river ran. Not far from the borders of the Road Trotter pointed out a stone in the gra.s.s; on it roughly cut and much weathered could still be seen two runic letters G B in a circle: (X B) 'That,' he said, 'is the stone that once marked the place where Gandalf and Bilbo hid the trolls' gold.' Bingo looked at it - rather sadly: Bilbo and he himself had long ago spent all that gold.
The Road, bending now northward, lay quiet under the shadows of early evening. There was no sign of any other travellers to be seen.
Only minor differences (except in one matter) are to be recorded in the encounter with Glorfindel: the whole scene was present, and in very much the same words, from the beginning. The sentence in FR (p. 221) 'To Frodo it appeared that a white light was shining through the form and raiment of the rider, as if through a thin veil' is absent.(4) To Trotter Glorfindel cried out: Ai Padathir, Padathir! Mai govannen!(5) But it is not said subsequently that he spoke to Trotter 'in the elf-tongue' (FR p. 224); rather he spoke 'in a low tone.' The drink that Glorfindel gave them instantly reminded the hobbits of the drink in Bombadil's house, 'for the drink they took was refreshing like spring-water, but filled them also with a sense of warm vigour.' 'Cram-cake' is mentioned together with the stale bread and dried fruit which is all they had to eat.
The conversation with Glorfindel on the road is different from that in FR (p. 222), for the number of the Black Riders was not known to anybody at this stage (not even to my father), and in FR Gandalf had not yet reached Rivendell when Glorfindel and others were sent out by Elrond nine days before - Elrond having heard news from the Elves led by Gildor whom the hobbits encountered in the Shire. The element of Glorfindel's leaving the jewel on the Last Bridge is also of course absent (p.192) 'This is Glorfindel, one of those that dwell in Rivendell,' said Trotter. 'He has news for us.'
'Hail and well met at last! ' said Glorfindel to Bingo. 'I was sent from Rivendell to look on the Road for your coming. Gandalf was anxious and afraid, for unless something evil had befallen you, you should have come there days ago.'
'We have not been on the Road for many, many days until this day,' said Bingo.
'Well, now you must return to it, and go with all speed,' said Glorfindel. 'A day's swift riding back westward there is a company of evil hors.e.m.e.n, and they are travelling this way with all the haste that frequent search of the land upon either side of the Road allows them. You must not halt here, nor anywhere tonight, but must journey on as long and far as you are able. For when they find your trail, where it rejoined the Road, they will search no longer but ride after you like the wind. I do not think they will miss your footsteps where the path runs down from Trolls-wood; for they have a dreadful skill in hunting by scent, and darkness helps and does not hinder them.'
'Then why must we go on now by night, against the warning of Gandalf?'asked Merry.
'Do not fear Gandalf's warning now,' answered Glorfindel. 'Speed is your chief hope; and now I will go with you. And I do not think that there is any peril ahead; but the pursuit is hard behind.'
'But Bingo is wounded and sick and weary,' said Merry. 'He should not ride any more without rest! '
Glorfindel shook his head and looked grave, when he heard the account of the attack upon the dell under Weathertop, and the hurt to Bingo's arm. He looked at the knife-hilt that Trotter had kept, and now drew out to show him. He shuddered.
'There are evil things written on that hilt,' he said, 'though maybe they are not for your eyes to see. Keep it till we get to Rivendell, Padathir, but be wary, and handle it as little as you may.'
The chief structural difference in the narrative of this chapter from that in FR appears in Glorfindel's words 'I do not think that there is any peril ahead'; contrast FR (p. 222): 'There are five behind us... Where the other four may be, I do not know. I fear that we may find the Ford is already held against us.'
Only three Riders (at first) came out of the tree-hung cutting through which the Road pa.s.sed before the flat mile to the Ford, not five as in FR (p. 225). The story is the same that Bingo halted, feeling the command of the Riders upon him to wait, but filled with sudden hatred drew his sword; and that Glorfindel cried to his horse, so that it sped away towards the Ford. But all the Riders were behind; there was no ambush by four of them lying in wait at the Ford. The conclusion of the chapter I give in full.
'Ride on! Ride on!' cried Glorfindel and Trotter; and then Glorfindel spoke a word in the elf-tongue: nora-lim, nora-lim. At once the white horse sprang away and sped along the last lap of the Road. At the same moment the black horses of the Riders leaped down in pursuit; and others following came flying out of the wood. Bingo looking back over his shoulder thought he could count [as many as twelve >] at least seven. They seemed to run like the wind, and to grow swiftly larger and darker as they overtook him stride by stride. He could no longer see his friends. Through them and over them the Riders must now be hurtling. Bingo turned and lay forward, encouraging with urgent words. The Ford still seemed far ahead. Once more he looked back. It seemed to him that the Riders had cast aside their hoods and black cloaks; they appeared now to be robed in white and grey. Swords were in their pale hands, helm and crown were on their heads;(6) their cold eyes glittered from afar.
Fear now swallowed up Bingo's mind. He thought no longer of his sword. No cry came from him. He shut his eyes and clung to the mane of the horse. The wind whistled in his ears, and wildly the bells rang, clear and shrill. It seemed bitter cold.
Suddenly he heard the splash of water. It foamed about his feet. He felt the stumbling scramble of the horse as it struggled up the stony path, climbing the steep further bank of the river. He was across the Ford! But the Riders were now hard behind.
At the top of the bank the horse halted snorting. Bingo turned about and opened his eyes. [Struck out as soon as written: Forgetting that the horse belonged to the folk of Rivendell and knew all that land, he determined to face his enemies, thinking it useless to] He felt that it was useless to try to escape over the long uncertain path from the Ford to the lip of Rivendell - if once the Riders crossed. Though they had all thought of the Ford as the goal of their flight and the end of peril, it came to him now that he knew of nothing that would prevent the dread Riders from crossing as easily as he. In any case he felt now commanded urgently to halt, and though again hatred stirred in him he had no longer the strength to refuse. He saw the horse of the foremost Rider check at the water, and rear up. With a great effort he stood in his stirrups and brandished his sword.
'Go back! ' he cried. 'Go back to the Dark Lord and follow me no more.'(7) His voice sounded shrill in his ears. The Riders halted, but Bingo had not the power of Tom Bombadil(8). They laughed - a harsh chilling laughter. 'Come back! Come back! ' they called. 'To Mordor we will take you.'(9) 'Go back,' he whispered. 'The Ring, the Ring,' they cried with deadly voices, and immediately their leader rode forward into the water, closely followed by two others. 'By Elbereth and Luthien the fair,'(10) said Bingo with a last effort, lifting up his sword, 'you shall have neither me nor it.' Then the leader, who was now half across the river, stood up menacing in his stirrup and raised up his hand. Bingo grew dumb; he felt his tongue cleave to his mouth, and his eyes grow misty. His sword broke and fell out of his shaking hand. The horse under him reared and snorted, as the foremost of the black horses came near the sh.o.r.e.
Even at that moment there came a roaring and a rushing: a noise of loud waters rolling many stones. Dimly he saw the river rise, and come galloping down along its course in a plumed cavalry of waves. The three Riders that were still upon the Ford disappeared, overwhelmed and buried under angry foam. Those that were behind drew back in dismay.
With his last failing sense Bingo heard cries, and it seemed to him that behind the Riders there appeared suddenly one shining white figure followed by other smaller and more shadowy figures waving flames. Redly they flamed in the white mist that was over all. Two of the Riders turned and rode wildly away to the left down the bank of the river; the others borne by their plunging horses were driven into the flood, and carried away. Then Bingo heard a roaring in his ears and felt himself falling, as if the flood had reached up to the high bank, and engulfed him with his enemies. He heard and saw no more.
NOTES.
1. In the Lay of Leithian my father wrote athelas against the pa.s.sage where Huan came and bore a leaf, of all the herbs of healing chief, that evergreen in woodland glade there grew with broad and h.o.a.ry blade for the allaying of Beren's wound (III.266, 269).
2. That river... flows through Rivendell: see the note on Rivendell, pp. 204-5.
3. In the underlying pencilled text, which is here visible for a stretch, Trotter's words about the 'Big People' who used to live in those regions are much the same, but he says that they were overthrown by Elendil Orendil and Gil-galad; apparently Orendil was subst.i.tuted for Elendil in the act of writing. Both names were struck out, and then Elendil again written in. See p. 174 note 25.
4. The 'bit and bridle' of Glorfindel's horse flickered and flashed, as in the First Edition, where the Second Edition has 'headstall'. Cf. Letters no. 211, p. 279 (14 October 1958): ... bridle was casually and carelessly used for what I suppose should have been called a headstall. Or rather, since bit was added (I.221) long ago (Chapter I 12 was written very early) I had not considered the natural ways of elves with animals. Glorfindel's horse would have an ornamental headstall, carrying a plume, and with the straps studded with jewels and small bells; but Glorfindel would certainly not use a bit. I will change bridle and bit to headstall.
5. The penxilled text, after various forms struck out, had Ai Rimbedir; this was then changed to Ai Padathir, etc., with a translation 'Hail Trotter, Trotter, well met.'
.6. helm and crown were on their heads: in the story of the attack on Weathertop my father first wrote that all three Ringwraiths were crowned, but changed the text to say that only the leader ('the pale king' as Bingo called him) wore a crown (pp. 185 - 6 and note 10). Cf. the citation in note 8 below.
7. The pencilled draft has: 'Ride back to the Dark Tower of your lord.' For early references to the Dark Tower see p. 131 note 5.
8. It is interesting to look back to the earliest sketch for the flight over the Ford (p. 126): One day at last they halted on a rise and looked forward to the Ford. Galloping behind. Seven (3? 4?) Black-riders hastening along the Road. They have gold rings and crowns. Flight over Ford. Bingo flings a stone and imitates Tom Bombadil. Go back and ride away! The Riders halt as if astonished, and looking up at the hobbits on the bank the hobbits can see no faces in their hoods. Go back says Bingo, but he is not Tom Bombadil, and the riders ride into the ford.
At that stage my father envisaged the hobbits crossing the Ford together; and the rising of the river does not destroy the Riders: they 'draw back just in time in dismay.'
The words in the present text, retained in FR, 'Bingo (Frodo) had not the power of Tom Bombadil', must now refer to Bombadil's rout of the Barrow-wight; but behind them surely lies the unused idea of his power to arrest the onset of the evil beings by raising his hand in authority: cf. the outline given on p. 112, 'two Barrow- wights come galloping after them, but stop every time Tom Bombadil turns and looks at them', and the earlier part of the outline just cited (p. 125), where when they reach the Road west of Bree 'Tom turns and holds up his hand. They fly back.'
9. This is the first occurrence of the name Mordor in The Lord of the Rings; see p. 131 note 5.
10. In the pencilled text visible beneath the ink, Bingo took the names of Gil-galad and Elendil, together with that of Luthien.
In this chapter it is made plain that the commands of the Ring-wraiths are communicated wordlessly to the bearer of the Ring, and that they have great power over his will. Moreover the idea has now entered that the wound of the Ring-wraith's knife produces, or begins to produce, a similar effect to that brought about by putting on the Ring: the world becomes shadowy and dim to Bingo, and at the end of the chapter he can see the Riders plain, beneath the black wrappings that to others cloak their invisibility.
Note on the course of the Road between Weathertop and Rivendell This was an element in the geography to which my father made various alterations in the Revised Edition of?he Lord of the Rings (1966). I set out first three pa.s.sages from the chapter 'Flight to the Ford' for comparison.
(1) Page 212.
Original text: (the original text has no pa.s.sage corresponding) First Edition: 'That is Loudwater, the Bruinen of Rivendell,' answered Strider. 'The Road runs along it for many leagues to the Ford.'
Second Edition: 'That is Loudwater, the Bruinen of Rivendell,'
answered Strider. 'The Road runs along the edge of the hills for many miles from the Bridge to the Ford of Bruinen.'
(2) Page 214.
Original text: The hills now shut them in. The Road looped away southward, towards the river; but both were now lost to view.
First Edition: The hills now began to shut them in. The Road bent back again southward towards the River, but both were now hidden from view.
Second Edition: The hills now began to shut them in. The Road behind held on its way to the River Bruinen, but both were now hidden from view.
(3) Page 200.
Original text (p. 194): Eventually they came out upon the top of a high bank above the Road. This was now beginning to bend rather away from the river, and clung to the feet of the hills, some way up the side of the narrow valley at the bottom of which the river ran.
First Edition: After a few miles they came out on the top of a high bank above the Road. At this point the Road had turned away from the river down in its narrow valley, and now clung close to the feet of the hills, rolling and winding northward among woods and heather-covered slopes towards the Ford and the Mountains.
Second Edition: After a few miles they came out on the top of a high bank above the Road. At this point the Road had left the h.o.a.rwell far behind in its narrow valley, and now clung close to the feet of the hills, rolling and winding eastward among woods (etc.) Taking first citation (2), from small-scale and large-scale maps made by my father there is no question that the Road after pa.s.sing south of Weathertop made first a great swing or loop to the North-east: cf. FR p. 211 - when they left Weathertop it was Strider's plan 'to shorten their journey by cutting across another great loop of the Road: east beyond Weathertop it changed its course and took a wide bend northwards.' This goes back to the original text. The Road then made a great bend southwards, round the feet of the Trollshaws, as stated in the original text and in the First Edition in citation (2). All my father's maps show the same course for the Road in respect of these two great curves. The two sketches on p. 201 are redrawn from very rough large-scale maps which he made (the second in particular is extremely hard to interpret owing to the multiplicity of lines made as he pondered different configurations).
In 1943 I made an elaborate map in pencil and coloured chalks for The Lord of the Rings, and a similar map of the Shire (see p. 107, item V). These maps are referred to in Letters nos. 74 and 98 (pp. 86, 112). On my LR map the course of the Road from Weathertop to the Ford is shown exactly as on my father's maps, with the great northward and southward swings. On the map that I made in 1954 (published in the first two volumes of The Lard of the Rings), however, the Road has only a feeble northward curve between Weathertop and the h.o.a.rwell Bridge, and then runs in a straight line to the Ford. This was obviously simply carelessness due to haste on my part. My father doubtless observed it at the time but felt that on so small a scale the error was not very grievous: in any case the map was made, and it had been a matter of urgency. But I think that this error was the reason for the change in the Second Edition given in citation (2), from 'the Road bent back again southward towards the River' to 'the Road behind held on its way to the River Bruinen'. my father was making the discrepancy with the map less obvious. A similar instance has been seen already in the change that he made in the Second Edition in respect of the direction of Bucklebury Ferry from Woodhall, p. 107. In his letter to Austin Olney of Houghton Mifflin, 28 July 1965 (an extract from which is given in Letters no. 274) he said: I have finally decided, where this is possible and does not damage the story, to take the maps as "correct" and adjust the narrative.'
Barbara Strachey (who apparently used the First Edition) deduced the course of the Road very accurately in her atlas, Journeys of Frodo (1981), map 13 'Weathertop and the Trollshaws'.
Citation (1) from the First Edition is perfectly ill.u.s.trated in the sketches on p. 201, which precisely show the Road running alongside the Loud water 'for many leagues to the Ford.' My father made various small- scale maps covering a greater or lesser part of the lands in The Lord of the Rings, on three of which this region appears; and on two of these the Road is shown approaching the Loudwater at a fairly acute angle, but by no means running alongside it. On the third (the earliest) the Road runs close to the river for a long distance before the Ford; and this is less because the course of the Road is different than because on this map the river flows at first (after the Ford) in a more westerly direction towards the h.o.a.rwell (as in the sketch-maps).* On my 1943 map (see above) this is also and very markedly the case. On the published map, on the other hand, the Road approaches the river at a wide angle; and this was another error. It is clear, I think, that the changed Second Edition text in citation (1), with 'runs along the edge of the hills' instead of 'runs along it [the Loudwater]', was again made to save the appearance of the map.
(* Barbara Strachey makes the Loudwater bend sharply west just below the Ford and Row in this direction (before turning south) much further than on my father's maps, so that the land between the h.o.a.rwell and the Loudwater (called 'the Angle' in LR Appendix A, p. 320) ceases to be at all triangular. She makes this a.s.sumption because from the high ground above the Last Bridge the travellers could see not only the h.o.a.rwell but also the Loud water, whereas going by the published map the rivers 'would have been some 100 miles apart and the hill [on which they stood] would have had to have been a high mountain for it [the Loudwater] to have been visible.' By bringing this river so far to the west on her map the distance from the hill above the Last Bridge to the nearest point of the Loudwater is reduced to about 27 miles. On my father's maps the shortest distance from the Bridge to the Loudwater varies between (approximately) 45 (on the earliest), 60, and 62 miles; on the published map it is about 75 miles. Thus the objection that the Loudwater was too far away to be seen is real; but it cannot be resolved in this way.) Citation (3) in the First Edition seems to contradict (1): the Road runs along the Loudwater for many leagues to the Ford (1), but when the travellers came down to the Road out of the Trollshaws it had turned away from the river (3). But it is probably less a contradiction than a question of how closely 'runs along the Loudwater' is interpreted. The second sketch-map seems clear at least to this extent, that it shows the Road approaching the river, running alongside it for a stretch, and then bending somewhat away and 'clinging to the feet of the hills' before returning to it at the Ford.
The changed reading of the Second Edition in (3) - made so as not to alter the amount of text - makes the words 'narrow valley' refer to the h.o.a.rwell, and there is no longer any statement at this point about the course of the Road in relation to the Loudwater. This was clearly another accommodation to the published map (and is not an entirely happy solution), as also was 'northward' (cf. Sketch II) to 'eastward'.
Note on the River h.o.a.rwell.
The absence of the River h.o.a.rwell (p. 192), which had still not emerged in the next version of this part of the story (p. 360), is interesting. In the original story in Chapter II of The Hobbit, when Bilbo, Gandalf, and the Dwarves were approaching the hills crowned with old castles on an evening of heavy rain, they came to a river: ... it began to get dark. Wind got up, and the willows along the river- bank [no river has been mentioned] bent and sighed. I don't know what river it was, a rushing red one, swollen with the rains of the last few days, that came down from the hills and mountains in front of them. Soon it was nearly dark. The winds broke up the grey clouds...
The river here ran alongside the road (described as 'a very muddy track'); they only crossed it finally by a ford, beyond which was the great slope up into the Mountains (beginning of Chapter III, 'A Short Rest'). In the third edition (1966) the pa.s.sage quoted was changed: ... it began to get dark as they went down into a deep valley with a river at the bottom. Wind got up, and willows along its banks bent and sighed. Fortunately the road went over an ancient stone bridge, for the river, swollen with the rains, came rushing down from the hills and mountains in the north. It was nearly night when they had crossed over. The wind broke up the grey clouds...
The river now becomes the h.o.a.rwell, over which the road pa.s.sed by the Last Bridge (and the river which they forded before climbing up towards Rivendell becomes distinct (the Loudwater), by changing 'they forded the river' to 'they forded a river'.) But my father did nothing to change what follows in the original story. There, the company stopped for the night where they did because that is where they were when it got dart, and it was beside a river. From that spot the light of the Trolls' fire became visible. By the introduction of the Last Bridge at this point into the old narrative, while everything else is left untouched, the company stops for the night as soon as they have crossed it - near enough to the river for one of the ponies to break loose and dash into the water, so that most of the food was lost- and the Trolls' fire is therefore visible from the Bridge, or very near it. And at the end of the chapter the pots of gold from the Trolls' lair are still buried 'not far from the track by the river' - a phrase unchanged from the original story, when the river flowed alongside the track.
Karen Fonstad puts the matter clearly (The Atlas of Middle-earth, 1981, p. 97), noting the inconsistency between The Hobbit (as it is now) and The Lord of the Rings as to the distance between the river and the Trolls' clearing: The Trolls' fire was so close to the river that it could be seen 'some way off', and it probably took the Dwarves no more than an hour to reach; whereas Strider led the Hobbits north of the road [turning off a mile beyond the Bridge], where they lost their way and spent almost six days reaching the clearing where they found the Stone-trolls. Lost or not, it seems almost impossible that the time-pressed ranger would have spent six days reaching a point the Dwarves found in an hour.
Earlier, apparently in 1960, in an elaborate rewriting of The Hobbit Chapter II which was never used,* my father had introduced the Last Bridge at the same point in the narrative; but there the pa.s.sage of the river took place in the morning, and the camp from which the Trolls' fire was seen was made at the end of the day and many miles further east. The present text of The Hobbit, deriving from corrections made in 1965 and first published in 1966, here introduces an element from The Lord of the Rings but fails to harmonise the two geographies. This highly uncharacteristic lapse is no doubt to be attributed simply to the haste with which my father worked under the extreme pressure imposed on him in 1965.
(* My father was greatly concerned to harmonise Bilbo's journey with the geography of The Lord of the Rings, especially in respect of the distance and time taken: in terms of The Lord of the Rings Gandalf, Bilbo, and the Dwarves took far too long, seeing that they were mounted (see Karen Fonstad's discussion in The Atlas of Middle-earth, p. 97). But he never brought this work to a definitive solution.) Note on the river of Rivendell.
Trotter says expressly that the river which the Road crosses at the Ford flows through Rivendell (p. 191). In the corresponding pa.s.sage in FR (p. 212) Strider names the river: 'That is Loudwater, the Bruinen of Rivendell.' Later, in 'Many Meetings' (FR p. 250), it is said that Bilbo's room 'opened on to the gardens and looked south across the ravine of the Bruinen'; and at the beginning of 'The Council of Elrond' (FR p. 252) Frodo 'walked along the terraces above the loud-flowing Bruinen.' This is quite unambiguous; the maps, however, are not in this point perfectly clear.
In the map of Wilderland in The Hobbit (endpaper), the unnamed river receives, some way north of the Ford, a tributary stream, and Elrond's house is placed between them, near the confluence, and nearer the tributary - exactly as in Sketch I on p. 201.* On one of his copies of The Hobbit my father pencilled in a few later names on the map of Wilderland, and these included Bruinen or Loudwater against the river north of the house (again as in Sketch I), and Merrill against the tributary flowing just to the south of it (+). When therefore in The Hobbit (Chapter III) the elf said to Gandalf: You are a little out of your way: that is, if you are making for the only path across the water and to the house beyond. We will set you right, but you had best get on foot, until you are over the bridge it would seem to be the Merrill that must be crossed by the bridge.
(* In two of my father's small-scale maps the tributary stream is not marked, and Rivendell is a point on or beside the Bruinen; the third is too rubbed and faint to be sure of, but probably shows the tributary, and Rivendell between the two streams, as in the Hobbit map, and as my 1943 map certainly does (and that published in The Lord of the Rings).
+ This name, which I have found nowhere else, is unfortunately not quite clear, though Me- and -II are certain, and it is hard to read it in any other way. - Another name added to the Wilderland map was Rhimdath 'Rushdown', the river flowing from the Misty Mountains into Anduin north of the Carrock (see the Index to Vol. V, p. 446).) Barbara Strachey (Journeys of Frodo, maps 15 - 16) shows very unambiguously the ravine of Rivendell as the ravine of the tributary stream, Elrond's house being some mile and a half from its confluence with the Loudwater; while Karen Fonstad (The Atlas of Middle-earth, pp. 80, 101, etc.) likewise places Rivendell on the southerly stream - calling it (p. 127) the Bruinen.
The lines of rivers and Road in Sketch I were first drawn in ink, and subsequently coloured over in blue and red chalk. When my father did this he changed the course of the 'tributary stream' south of Elrond's house by bending it up northwards and joining it to the Bruinen some way to the east; thus the house at Rivendell is at the western end of land enclosed between two streams coming down from the Mountains, parting, and then joining again. It might therefore be supposed that both were called 'Bruinen' (discounting the name 'Merrill' written on the Wilderland map in The Hobbit). But I do not think that detailed conclusions can be drawn from this sketch-map.