The Treason of Isengard (20 page)

Get up beside. There's a cloth; none too white,

But cover him over, and think of a prayer. I'll drive.

Pudda. Heaven grant us good journey, and that we arrive!

Where do we take him? How these wheels creak!

Tibba. To Ely! Where else?

Pudda. A long road!

Tibba. For the weak.

A short road for the dead - and you can sleep.

This text is extremely rough, one would say in the first stage of composition, were there not another text still rougher, but in very much the same words (though with no ascription of the speeches to speakers), in the Bodleian Library, where it is preserved (I believe) with my father's pictures. This begins at In the shadows yonder and continues a few lines further. On it my father wrote:

'early version in rhyme of Beorhtnoth'.

11. sigaldry: sorcery (see note 14). glamoury: magic.

12. Preliminary lines of a new ending were written on the manuscript of the first version:

So now he must depart again

and start again his gondola,

a silly merry passenger,

a messenger, an errander,

a jolly, merry featherbrain,

a weathervane, a mariner.

Other differences in the second version from that published in 1933 were:

he wrought her raiment marvellous

and garments all a-glimmering

in the fifth verse; and 'He made a sword and morion' in the eighth (with spear for sword in the third line).

13. Maurice Bowra, at that time Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University.

14. In the letter to Donald Swann cited on p. 85 my father gave an example of this (Swann had himself known the poem by 'independent tradition' for many years before its publication in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil): 'A curious feature was the preservation of the word sigaldry, which I got from a 13th century text (and is last recorded in the Chester Play of the Crucifixion).' The word goes back to the second version of Errantry; it was used also in the Lay of Leithian line 2072, written in 1928 (The Lays of Beleriand, p. 228).

15. cardamon is so spelt, but cardamom in preliminary rough workings, as in the Oxford Magazine version of Errantry.

16. I ignore all variants (though a few, as merry written above gallant in line 1, ladyfern above everfern in line 10) may belong to the time of writing. A few inconsistencies of hyphenation are preserved. In the latter part of the poem the stanza-divisions are not perfectly clear. Line-numbers at intervals of 8 are marked on the original.

17. This verse is absent from the first text, but a space was left for it, with the note: 'They enchant his boat and give it wings'.

18. A four-line stanza follows here:

She caught him in her stranglehold

entangled all in ebon thread,

and seven times with sting she smote

his ringed coat with venom dread.

But this was struck out, apparently at once, since the line-numbering does not take account of it. - ebon: old form for ebony; here meaning 'black, dark'.

19. In the second version (that printed here) merry was written as a variant to gallant; in the third gallant is a variant to merry.

20. The encounter of the Messenger with the Attercops in Errantry was a point of contact with the Earendel legend.

21. The texts are found in II.252 - 77; IV.37 - 8, 41, 148 - 54; V.324 - 9.

22. The manuscript was perhaps a development from the third version parallel to the first typescript, for it takes up certain variants from the former (as everfern in line 10, Gloaming-bree (bree 'hill') in line 17), where the first typescript takes up others (lady fern, Gloaming-fields).

23. An intermediate version of these lines was:

He heard there moan in stony caves

the lonely waves of Orfalas;

the winds he heard of Tarmenel:

by paths that seldom mortals pass

they wafted him on flying wings

a dying thing across the grey

and long-forsaken seas distressed;

from East to West he passed away.

24. This is the typescript of 'Many Meetings' that followed the version described at the beginning of this chapter.

25. These were made on B also, and so appear in the other line of development as well.

26. It could be argued of course that my father actually rejected all the subsequent development after the text C, deciding that that was the version desirable at all points; but this would seem to me to be wholly improbable and far-fetched.

27. This case is slightly different, in that it is the only point where text C does not reach the form in FR (in Ilmarin on mountain sheer), but has the line found also in D (followed by E and F), for ever king on mountain sheer. This must have been a final emendation in the 'first line' of development, and might of course have been made to the 'second line' as well if that had been available.

VI.

THE COUNCIL OF ELROND (1).

The Second Version.

A new version of this part of the narrative (1) is a characteristic 'fair copy': too close to the preceding text (VI.399 ff.) to justify the space needed to set it out, but constantly differing in the expression chosen.

The chapter is numbered XIV (see p. 81), but has no title.

The story was still that Bilbo and Gandalf came to Frodo's room in the morning (VI.395); and those present at the Council were in no way changed (VI.400). Boromir still comes from 'the Land of Ond, far in the South'.(2) The first important change comes after Gandalf's speech, in which he 'made clear to those who did not already know it the tale of the Ring, and the reasons why the Dark Lord so greatly desired it.'

Here, in the original version, Bilbo's story followed; but in this text the following passage enters:

When he told of Elendil and Gilgalad and of their march into the East, Elrond sighed. 'I remember well their array,' he said.

'It reminded me of the Great Wars and victories of Beleriand, so many fair captains and princes were there, and yet not so many or so fair as when Thangorodrim was broken [> taken].'

'You remember?' said Frodo, breaking silence in his astonish-ment, and gazing in wonder at Elrond. 'But I thought the fall of Gilgalad was many ages ago.'

'So it was,' said Elrond, looking gravely at Frodo; 'but my memory reaches back many ages. I was the minstrel and counsellor of Gilgalad. My father was Earendel, who was born in Gondolin, seven years before it fell; and my mother was Elwing, daughter of [Dior, son of] Luthien, daughter of Thingol, King of Doriath; and I have seen many ages in the West of the World. I knew Beleriand before it was broken in the great wars.'

This is the origin of the passage in FR p. 256; but it goes back to and follows quite closely part of an earlier and isolated writing, given in VI.215 - 16,(3) in which the story of Gil-galad and Elendil was told at much greater length by Elrond to Bingo, apparently in a personal conversation between them; and that text was in turn closely related to the conclusion of the second version of The Fall of Numenor (V.28 - 9).

The new text continues:

They passed then from the winning and losing of the Ring to Bilbo's story; and once more he told how he had found it in the cave of the Misty Mountains. Then Aragorn took up the tale, and spoke of the hunt for Gollum, in which he had aided Gandalf, and of his [> their] perilous journey through southern Mirkwood, and into Fangorn Forest, and over the Dead Marshes to the very borders of the land of Mordor. In this way the history was brought slowly down to the spring morning...

(&c. as VI.401).

In the first version Trotter was still the hobbit Peregrin, with his wooden shoes (VI.401 and note 20).

Gandalf in his reply to Elrond's question about Bombadil 'Do you know him, Gandalf?' now says:

'Yes. And I went to him at once, naturally, as soon as I found that the hobbits had gone into the Old Forest. I dare say he would have kept them longer in his house, if he had known that I was so near. But I am not sure - not sure that he did not know, and not sure that he would have behaved differently in any case.

He is a very strange creature, and follows his own counsels: and they are not easy to fathom.'

It seems that when my father wrote this he cannot have had in mind the outline dated August 26-27 1940, in which Gandalf arrived at Crickhollow and found it deserted (p. 72), since Gandalf could only have learnt from Hamilcar Bolger that the other hobbits had gone into the Old Forest. On the other hand my father was still uncertain (p.

72), in that outline and with that plot, whether Gandalf had visited Bombadil or not. At any rate, by what looks to be an almost immediate change, the wizard's remarks were rewritten:

'I know of him, though we seldom meet. I am a rolling stone, and he is a gatherer of moss. Both have a work to do, but they do not help one another often. It might have been wiser to have sought his aid, but I do not think I should have gained much. He is a strange creature...'

It must have been at this point that my father finally decided that there had been no visit to Bombadil, and the story reverted to its earlier form (see VI.413 note 23).

The sentence in Gandalf's reply to Erestor 'I doubt whether Tom Bombadil alone, even on his own ground, could withstand that Power'(4) (VI.402) was soon rewritten thus (anticipating in part both Gandalf and Glorfindel in FR p. 279): 'Whether Bombadil alone, even on his own ground, could withstand that Power is beyond all guessing. I think not; and in the end, if all else is conquered, Tom will fall: last as he was first, and the Night will come. He would likely enough throw the Ring away, for such things have no part in his mind.'

Gloin's answer to Boromir's question concerning the Seven Rings remains almost exactly as it was (VI.403 - 4),(5) but Elrond's reply to the question about the Three Rings has certain changes: notably, he now states as a fact known to him what Gandalf (in 'Ancient History', VI.320) had asserted only as his belief: 'The Three Rings remain still.

But wisely they have been taken over the Sea, and are not now in Middle-earth.' He continues:

From them the Elvenkings have derived much power, but they have not availed them in their strife with Sauron. For they can give no skill or knowledge that he did not himself already possess at their making. To each race the rings of the Lord bring such power as each desires and can best wield. The Elves desired not strength, or domination, or hoarded wealth, but subtlety of craft and lore and knowledge of the secrets of the world's being.

These things they have gained, yet with sorrow. But all in their mind and heart which is derived from the rings will turn to their undoing, and become revealed to Sauron, if he regains the Ruling Ring, as was his purpose.'

The omission here of the words in the original text 'For they came from Sauron himself' does not, I think, show that the conception of the independence of the Three Rings of the Elves from Sauron had arisen, in view of the following words which were retained: 'For they can give no skill or knowledge that he did not himself already possess at their making'; moreover Boromir still in his question concerning them says that 'these too were made by Sauron in the elder days', and he is not contradicted. See further pp. 155-6.

The next text then follows the old very closely indeed (VI.404-7), until the point where Gandalf, in the afternoon following the Council, overtakes Frodo, Merry, and Faramond (still so called, with Peregrin written in later) walking in the woods; and here the new version diverges for a stretch, Gandalf's remarks about the composition of the Company being quite different - and not only because Trotter is now Aragorn: a doubt here appears about the inclusion of the two younger hobbits.

'... So be careful! You can't be too careful. As for the rest of the party, it is too soon to discuss that. But whether any of you go with Frodo or not, I shall make other arrangements for the supply of intelligence.'

'Ah! Now we know who really is important,' laughed Merry.

'Gandalf is never in doubt about that, and does not let anyone else forget it. So you are already making arrangements, are you?'

'Of course,' said Gandalf. 'There is a lot to do and think of.

But in this matter both Elrond and Trotter will have much to say. And indeed Boromir, and Gloin, and Glorfindel, too. It concerns all the free folk left in the world.'

'Will Trotter come?' asked Frodo hopefully. 'Though he is only a Man, he would add to the brains of the expedition.'

' "Only a Man" is no way to speak of a tarkil, and least of all Aragorn son of Celegorn,' said Gandalf. 'He would add wit and valour to any expedition. But as I said, this is not the time and not the place to discuss it. Yet I will say just this in your ears.'

. His voice sank to a whisper. 'I think I shall have to come with you.'

So great was Frodo's delight at this announcement that

: Gandalf took off his hat and bowed. 'But I only said: I think I shall have to go, and perhaps for part of the way only. Don't count on anything,' he added. 'And now, if you want to talk about such things, you had better come back indoors.'

They walked back with him in silence; but as soon as they were over the threshold Frodo put the question that had been in

: his mind ever since the Council. 'How long shall I have here, Gandalf?' he asked.