Part 9 (2/2)

'I don't know what you mean,' said Bingo (annoyed and alarmed).

'O yes you do,' said Trotter. 'But we had better wait till the uproar has died down. Then, if you don't mind, Mr Bolger- Baggins, I should like a quiet word with you.'

'What about?' said Bingo, pretending not to notice the sudden use of his proper name. 'O, wizards, and that sort of thing,' said Trotter with a grin. 'You'll hear something to your advantage.' 'Very well,' said Bingo. 'I'll see you later.'

In the meantime argument in a chorus of voices had been going on by the fireplace. Mr b.u.t.terbur had come trotting in, and was trying to listen to many conflicting accounts at the same time.

The next part of the text, as far as the end of Chapter 9 in FR, is almost word for word the same as in the final version, with only such differences as are to be expected: 'Mr Underhill' of FR is 'Mr Hill', 'There's Mr Took, now: he's not vanished' is 'There's Mr Green and Mr Brown, now: they've not vanished', and there is no mention of the Men of Bree, of the Dwarves, or of the strange Men - it is simply 'the company' that went off in a huff. But at the end, when Bingo said to the landlord: 'Will you see that our ponies are ready?', the old narrative differs: 'There now!' said the landlord, snapping his fingers. 'Half a moment. It's come back to me, as I said it would. Bless me! Four hobbits and five ponies! '

As already explained, though I end this chapter here the earliest version goes on into what was afterwards Chapter 10 'Strider' without a break; see the table on p. 133.

NOTES.

1. Bits of the underlying text can in fact be made out: enough to show that the conception of Bree as a village of Men, though with 'hobbits about', was present.

2. Crick (p. 132) has disappeared for good (but cf. 'Crickhollow'); Staddle also, but only temporarily.

3. Barnabas b.u.t.terbur is written in ink over the original name in pencil: Timothy t.i.tus. Timothy t.i.tus was the name of the innkeeper in the underlying pencilled text throughout the chapter. This was a name that survived from an old story of my father's, of which only a couple of pages exist (no doubt all that was ever written down); but that Timothy t.i.tus bore no resemblance whatsoever to Mr b.u.t.terbur.

4. n.o.b was at first called Lob; this survived into the inked ma.n.u.script stage and was then changed.

5. The original pencilled text went on from here: Come right inside. Pleased to meet you. Mr Took, did you say? Lor now, I remember that name. Time was when Tooks would think nothing of riding out here just to have a crack with my old dad or me. Mr Odo Took, Mr Frodo Took, Mr Merry Brandybuck, Mr Bingo Baggins. Lemme see, what does that remind me of? Never mind, it will come back. One thing drives out another. Bit busy tonight. Lots of folk dropped in. Hi, n.o.b! Take these bags (etc.) My father struck this out, noting 'hobbits must hide their names', and wrote these two pa.s.sages on an added slip in pencil: Mr Frodo Walker, Mr Odo Walker - can't say I have met that name before. (Bingo had made it up on the spur of the moment, suddenly realizing that it would not be wise to publish their real names in a hobbit-inn on the high road).

What name did you say - all Walkers, Mr Ben Walker and three nephews. Can't say I have met that name before, but I'm pleased to meet you.

These also were struck out, and the pa.s.sage that follows in the text ('Come right inside, sirs, all of you...'), in pencil overwritten in ink, was adopted.

6. In the underlying pencilled text of this pa.s.sage my father wrote Ferny but at once changed it to Hill; and in the text in ink he wrote Fellowes but changed it to Green. Later on, in rejected pencilled drafting, Mr b.u.t.terbur says: 'You don't say, Mr Mugwort. Well, as long as Mr Rivers and the two Mr Fellowes don't vanish too (without paying the bill) he is welcome' (i.e. to vanish into thin air, as Mugwort has a.s.serted that he did: FR p. 173).

7. Cf. Bingo's words to Gildor, p. 62: 'I had come to the end of my treasure.' The present pa.s.sage was rejected and does not appear in FR: but cf. p. 172 note 3.

8. Appledore. 'apple-tree' (Old English apuldor). -In FR (p. 167) these 'botanical' names are primarily names of families of Men in Bree.

9. The underlying pencilled text still had here: 'I am very pleased to meet Mr Bingo Baggins', and Trotter's next words began. ”Well, Mr Bingo...' See note 5.

10. Here follows: 'It went to a well-known tune, and the company joined in the chorus', referring to the song which was originally given to Bingo here (see note 11), where there is a chorus; the sentence was struck out when 'The Cat and the Fiddle' was chosen instead.

11. My father first wrote here 'Troll Song', and a rough and unfinished version of it is found in the ma.n.u.script at this point. He apparently decided almost at once to subst.i.tute 'The Cat and the Fiddle', and there are also two texts of that song included in the ma.n.u.script, each preceded by the words (as in FR p. 170): It was about an Inn, and I suppose that is what brought it to Bingo's mind. Here it is in full, though only a few words of it are now generally remembered.

For the history and early forms of these songs see the Note on the Songs at the Prancing Pony that follows. - That there was to be a song at Bree is already foreseen in the primitive outline given on p. 126: 'They sleep at the inn and hear news of Gandalf. Jolly landlord. Drinking song.'

12. In the original text, where the song was to be the Troll Song, the comments of the audience on the cat and the fiddle are of course absent. Instead, after 'the company was not over particular', there followed: They made him have a drink and then sing it all over again. Much encouraged Bingo capered about on the table, and when he came a second time to 'his boot to bear where needed' he kicked in the air. Much too realistically: he overbalanced and fell...

The line His boot to bear where needed is found in the version of the Troll Song written for this episode.

13. As the people of Bree were conceived at this stage, the ill-favoured pair would presumably be hobbits; and indeed in the next chapter Bill Ferny is explicitly so (p. 165). His companion here is the origin of the 'squint-eyed Southerner' who had come up the Greenway (FR p. 168); but there is no suggestion as yet of that element in what was still a very limited canvas.

Note on the Songs at the Prancing Pony.

(i) The Troll Song.

When my father came to the scene where Bingo sings a song in The Prancing Pony he first used the 'Troll Song' (note 11 above). The original version of this, called The Root of the Boot, goes back to his time at the University of Leeds; it was privately printed in a booklet with the t.i.tle Songs for the Philologists, University College, London, 1936 (for the history of this publication see pp.144-5). My father was extremely fond of this song, which went to the tune of The fox went out on a minter's night, and my delight in the line If bonfire there be, 'tis underneath is among my very early recollections. Two copies of this booklet came into my father's possession later (in 1940-1), and at some time undeterminable he corrected the text, removing some minor errors that had crept in. I give the text here as printed in Songs for the Philologists, with these corrections: A troll sat alone on his seat of stone, And munched and mumbled a bare old bone; And long and long he had sat there lone And seen no man nor mortal - Ortal! Portal!

And long and long he had sat there lone And seen no man nor mortal.

Up came Tom with his big boots on; 'Hallo!'says he, 'pray what is yon?

It looks like the leg o'me nuncle John As should be a-lyin ' in churchyard.

Searchyard, Birchyard! etc.

'Young man,' says the troll, 'that bone I stole; But what be bones, when mayhap the soul In heaven on high hath an aureole As big and as bright as a bonfire?

On fire, yon fire!'

Says Tom: 'Oddsteeth! 'tis my belief, If bonfire there be, 'tis underneath; For old man John was as proper a thief As ever more black on a Sunday - Grundy, Monday!

But still I doan 't see what is that to thee, Wi'me kith and me kin a-makin'free: So get to h.e.l.l and ax leave o'he, Afore thou gnaws me nuncle!

Uncle, Bunck!'

In the proper place upon the base Tom boots him right - but, alas! that race Hath a stonier seat than its stony face; So he rued that net on the rumpo, Lumpo, b.u.mpo!

Now Tom goes lame since home he came, And his bootless foot is grievous game; But troll's old seat is much the same, And the bone he boned * from its owner!

Donor, b.o.n.e.r!

(* bone: steal, make off with.) In addition to correcting errors in the text printed in Songs for the Philologists my father also changed the third line in verse 3 to Hath a halo in heaven upon its poll.

The original pencilled ma.n.u.script of the song is still extant. The t.i.tle was Pero & Podex ('Boot and Bottom'), and verse 6 as first written went: In the proper place upon the base Tom boots him right - but, alas! that race Hath as stony a seat as it is in face, And Pero was punished by Podex.

Odex! Codex!

My father made a new version of the song for Bingo to sing in The Prancing Pony, suitable to the intended context, and as already mentioned this is found in the ma.n.u.script of the present chapter; but it is still in a rough state, and uncertain, and was abandoned when still incomplete. When he decided that he would not after all use it in this place he did not at once reintroduce it into The Lord of the Rings; it will be seen in Chapter XI that while the visit of the hobbits to the scene of Bilbo's encounter with the three Trolls was fully present from the first version, there was no song. It was only introduced here later; but the earlier drafts of Sam's 'Troll Song' proceed in series from the version intended for Bingo at Bree.

Songs for the Philologists.

The origin of the material in this little booklet goes back to Leeds University in the 1920s, when Professor E. V. Gordon (my father's colleague and close friend, who died most untimely in the summer of this same year, 1938) made typescripts for the use of students in the Department of English. 'His sources', in my father's words, 'were MSS of my own verses and his... with many additions of modern and traditional Icelandic songs taken mostly from Icelandic student song- books.'

In 1935 or 1936 Dr. A. H. Smith of London University (formerly a student at Leeds) gave one of these typescripts (uncorrected) to a group of Honours students there for them to set up on the Elizabethan printing- press. The result was a booklet bearing the t.i.tle SONGS FOR THE PHILOLOGISTS.

By J. R. R. Tolkien, E. V. Gordon & Others.

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