The Treason of Isengard (39 page)

XXIX Sam and Frodo go into a green land by the Sea?

Certain of these narrative ideas had appeared before, in the earlier plot-sketches referred to on p. 207, such as the siege of Minas Tirith, Frodo's separation from the Company and Sam's seeking for him, Gollum's seeming reform and guidance to the Mountain of Fire, the Searching Eye, the 'host of evil' led by Black Riders, Gollum's treachery, Frodo's inability to cast the Ring into the Fire, and the and secure.

To look through this new outline in sequence: the fact that nothing is told herc about Loth l6rien (though its people are mentioned- 'Elves befriend them', and later it is told that it was Legolas' intention 'to join Elves of Lothlorien for a while') suggests, not that the Lothlorien story had been written, but that my father was on the verge of writing it and had no need to set down much about it. If it had been written he would surely not have included it in the outline at all; and the words

'While they are up trees orcs go by - also Gollum' look like the first written emergence of this element in the story. But the actual name Lothlorien has already made its appearance in the LR papers, in the new version of 'The Ring Goes South', p. 167.

The 'angle' between the river flowing down from Dimrill Dale (Redway, Blackroot, Silverlode) and the Great River (see the original rough sketch-map given in VI.439) is now called Angle. Here the Company 'remained long', but there is no indication whether Elves of Lothlorien were present. It is at Angle that a major feature of the structure of LR first enters. In an earlier outline (VI.410) Frodo becomes separated from the Company, involuntarily as it seems, through fear of Gollum; but now (being already determined to go directly to Mordor rather than by way of Minas Tirith) he is brought to the point of fleeing away alone through Boromir, who desires to appropriate the Ring for the purposes of Minas Tirith. Already my father foresaw that Boromir, speaking to Frodo apart, would ask to see the Ring again, that (as is implied) Frodo would refuse, and that Boromir would then try to take it by force and oblige Frodo to put it on in order to escape from him - explaining how it was that Frodo got clear away and could not be found despite the hunt for him. On the other hand, since all this takes place at Angle, there is no journey down Anduin, boats are never mentioned - and there is no mention even of Frodo's need to cross the river. The whole story of how Sam i would come to accompany Frodo on his journey to the Fiery Mountain would be entirely changed (though not before it had been further developed from its form in this outline).

In the account of that journey several new names appear. Lithlad the Plain of Ash appears once in LR (The Two Towers IV.3, 'the mournful plains of Lithlad and of Gorgoroth'), though for some reason the name was not entered on either of the maps published in LR; it is found however on the First Map (p. 309) and subsequently.

The plain of Lithlad lay south of Ered Lithui, the Ash Mountains, away to the east of Barad - dur; there would thus seem no reason for Frodo and Sam ever to have come to it, as seems to be implied in this outline. The valley of Gorgoroth, above which was built the Dark Tower, appears in the fifth version of 'The Council of Elrond' (p. 144), and the Gap of Gorgoroth ('with Orc guard-towers on either side') in this outline is the first intimation of a pass between the mountain-walls fencing Mordor on north and west (afterwards Udun, between the Morannon and the Isenmouthe).

The winged Nazgul - Black Riders horsed now upon vultures -

appear, but here in the role of leaders of the host of Mordor as it rides out to battle. Sam's part in the final events was still very shadowy and speculative, but already the idea enters that Gollum (whose inner motives seem to have been far less complex in respect of Frodo than they afterwards became) would betray Sam and Frodo to spiders in a ravine or glen 'at the entrance to Gorgoroth'. At this stage, as will be seen later, the entry into Mordor by way of the Stairs of Cirith Ungol did not exist, and when that name appears it will bear a different geographical sense. The spiders seem to have arisen in the context of explaining how Sam came to take the Ring from Frodo; and features of the later story begin to take shape: Sam's rout of the spider(s), Gollum's betrayal of the unconscious Frodo to the orcs, his capture and imprisonment (but here in Minas Morgol), Sam's entry into the fortress wearing the Ring, Frodo's sudden hatred of Sam whom he sees as an orc, and their escape.

The Breaking of the Fellowship imposed on my father the need to follow two distinct narrative paths, but he would still follow the fortunes of Frodo and Sam somewhat further before returning to the others (since the reunion of Sam and Frodo, involving Sam's first falling in with Gollum, was much less swiftly achieved than it is in FR).

The second narrative again takes a huge step forward here, but there was still a great way to go. Most important, Merry and Pippin now move into a central position in the story, and it is they (not as in a former outline Frodo, VI.410) who encounter Treebeard - although the entire narrative of the attack by Orcs on the camp beneath Amon Hen, Boromir's death, the forced march across Rohan, and the battle between the Rohirrim and the Orcs on the eaves of Fangorn is absent.

Merry and Pippin merely become lost as they seek for Frodo and Sam, and wandering along the river Entwash (which here first appears) come to the Forest of Fangorn without any relation to the larger story; but through them Treebeard (now finally established as a 'decent' sort of person, cf. p. 71) comes to play a part in the breaking of the siege of Minas Tirith.

On the other hand, for Aragorn and Boromir my father had at this time a plan almost wholly different from what would soon emerge.

Departing together to Minas Tirith, the original Company will be still further fragmented, for Legolas and Gimli (escaping the fate of capture by Saruman momentarily projected for them, p. 210) set off north together. It is indeed Legolas and Gimli who fall in with Gandalf returned, now clad in white and possessed of new powers, and with him they turn back and hasten south; but there is no indication of where they met him (save that it was south of Lothlorien), and in fact no indication of geography for any of these events. Rohan plays no part in the story at all (beyond the several mentions of the Horsemen riding against Mordor), and the Siege of Minas Tirith is (mysteriously) to be 'broken by Gandalf with Legolas and Gimli and by Treebeard.'

Boromir would play a shameful part, treacherously fleeing to Saruman (a faint adumbration of Wormtongue?) in his hatred for Aragorn, chosen to be successor to the slain lord of Minas Tirith. Isengard remains inviolate, and the Ents do not appear (10) - yet the visit of Gandalf to Saruman in his fortress, and his humiliation, is present, placed here on the homeward journey.

Much of the narrative 'material', it may be said, was now assembled. But the structure of that narrative in the lands west of Anduin as my father now foresaw it would be wholly changed, and changed above all by the emergence of the Kingdom of Rohan into the full light of the story, and of its relations with Gondor and with Isengard.(11) NOTES.

1. 'Reach Lothlorien Dec. 15': this date does not agree with the chronology, which is surprising. The time-scheme referred to on p. 169, which clearly accompanied this state of the narrative, continues on from 'December 9 Snow on Caradras' (a date that actually appears in the text) thus:

Dec. 10 Retreat. Wolves at night.

11. Start for Moria. Reach Doors at sundown.

Travel in Mines till midnight (15 miles).

12. Well-chamber. All day in Moria (20 miles). Night in 21st Hall.

13. Mazarbul. Battle of Bridge. Escape to Lothlorien.

This scheme was made when the 'Lothlorien' story was at any rate in progress, but the earliest sketch of the march of the Company from Dimrill Dale (p. 218) demands the date 13 December.

2. The name Anduin, thus written and not the result of subsequent correction, occurs in the fifth version of 'The Council of Elrond'

(p. 157 note 5). The name Blackroot shows that this outline was written after the new version of 'The Ring Goes South' (see p. 166).

3. This sentence was put in as an afterthought at a different point in the manuscript, but it seems appropriate to insert it here.

4. Sam said this to Frodo after the night spent with the Elves in the Woody End (FR p. 96).

5. This part of the text was written in pencil, but these few lines were overwritten in ink later (apparently simply for clarity's sake), and the form as overwritten is actually Morgul; elsewhere in the outline, however, the form is Morgol.

6. The 'ring from Mazarbul' evidently refers back to what is said earlier: 'They take [Frodo's] ring and find it is no good.'

7. A scrap of torn paper found in isolation bears the following pencilled notes dashed down in haste:

Could Sam steal the Ring to save Frodo from danger?

The Black Riders capture Frodo and he is taken to Mordor -

but he has no Ring and is put in prison.

Sam flees - but is pursued by Gollum.

It is Sam and Gollum that wrestle on the Mountain.

Frodo is saved by the fall of the Tower.

It seems very probable that these notes belong to the same time as the present outline. On the same scrap are notes referring to the Shire at the end of the story, when Frodo and Sam returning find that 'Cosimo [Sackville-Baggins] has industrialised it. Factories and smoke. The Sandymans have a biscuit factory. Iron is found.'

The last words are: 'They go west and set sail to Greenland.'

Greenland is clear, however improbable it may seem; but cf. the last words of the present outline (p. 212): 'Sam and Frodo go into a green land by the Sea'.

8. Fangorn is called 'the Topless Forest' in a rejected sentence in the new version of 'The Ring Goes South', p. 167.

9. In the outline given in VI.411 the King of Ond was Boromir's father.

10. Since in the sketch-plot given in VI.410 the 'tree-giants' assailed the besiegers of Ond, it may be that their presence was understood in this outline also; but this is not in any way suggested.

11. Looked at in terms of the movements of the principal persons, it seems that a crucial idea, though at once rejected, would turn out to have been the capture of Legolas and Gimli by Saruman (p. 210). My father remained convinced, perhaps, that Saruman did nonetheless play a part in the fragmentation of the Company of the Ring; and the aimless wanderings of Merry and Pippin along the Entwash that brought them to Treebeard's domain were transformed into the forced march of captives to Isengard -

for Isengard was close to the Forest of Fangorn. Thus entered also the death of Boromir, and the withdrawal of Aragorn from immediate departure to Minas Tirith.

XII.

LOTHLORIEN.

In the first fully-written narrative, the two chapters 6 and 7 in Book II of FR ('Lothlorien' and 'The Mirror of Galadriel') are one, though here treated separately. This text is extremely complex in that, while it constitutes a nearly complete narrative, the form in which it exists is not the result of writing in a simple sequence; parts of it are later, with later names, and were written over a partly or wholly erased earlier form. Other parts were not rewritten and earlier names appear, sometimes corrected, sometimes not; and the original text was much emended throughout.

In fact, it seems to me certain that the whole text, including some scraps of initial drafting and outlining on isolated pages, belongs to the same time and the same impulse. The 'August 1940' examination script was once again used for the entire complex of papers. The manuscript varies greatly in difficulty, some sections being fairly clear and legible, others very much the reverse. In places words are so reduced and letter-shapes so transformed that one might well hit upon the right word but not know it, if there are insufficient clues from the context or from the later text. Word-endings are miswritten or omitted, successive forms of a sentence are left standing side by side, and punctuation is constantly lacking. This is a case where the actual appearance of the manuscript is exceedingly different from the printed interpretation of it.

No satisfactory presentation of such a text as this is really possible.

If the earliest form of the story is given, and the later alterations ignored, then difficulties such as the following are encountered. In the passage where Legolas reports to the others his conversation with the Elves in the mallorn-tree (FR p. 357) the original narrative (in ink) had:

Now they bid us to climb up, three in each of these trees that stand here near together. I will go first.

This was corrected (in pencil) to a form close to that of FR: Now they bid me to climb up with Frodo, of whom they seem to have heard. The rest they ask to wait a little, and to keep watch at the foot of the tree.

But the primary narrative then continues (in pencil) on the next sheet with this revised story, in which Legolas and Frodo are the first to ascend (with Sam behind). On the other hand, if all later alteration (which is in any case far from achieving an overall consistency) is admitted, the FR form is closely approached and the earlier stages ignored. I have adopted therefore the former method, and attempt to clarify complexities as they arise. The notes to this chapter form a commentary on the text and are integral to its presentation.