Part 12 (1/2)

6. How did the Black Riders know this? See p. 350, note 7.

7. Here my father wrote: 'Now he described your party very exactly, sir, more exactly than Mr Gandalf did: colour of your ponies, look of your faces,' but struck it out as soon as written, probably because it was not consistent with his conception of the Black Riders: he had already said (p. 75) that for Ring-wraiths 'Everything becomes very faint like grey ghost pictures against the black background in which you live; but you can smell better than you can hear or see.' It seems very likely that the idea of the 'wraith-world', into which in some sense the bearer of a Ring entered if he put it on his finger, and in which he then became fully visible to the denizens of that world, had already arisen; a hint of this appears in Gildor's words (p. 64) 'I guess that the use of the ring helps them more than you', and in Gandalf's letter in the present chapter he is urgent that Bingo should never wear the Ring for any purpose - now that he has learned that the Riders are in pursuit.

8. These words are at the bottom of a ma.n.u.script page. At the bottom my father scribbled in pencil: Nov. 19 Motive trailing Gandalf. Gandalf drawing them off. No camp at Weathertop or again Gandalf leads them off.

With this cf. the pencilled addition on p. 153: 'I first saw the Riders last Sat.u.r.day away west of Bree, before I ran across Gandalf. I am not at all sure they were not following his trail too.'

'Nov. 19' presumably refers to the date of the note, i.e. 19 November 1938; by then my father had got well beyond this point in the narrative, judging by what he said in a letter to Stanley Unwin of 13 October 1938: 'I have worked very hard for a month... on a sequel to The Hobbit. It has reached Chapter XI (though in rather an illegible state)...'

9. The first mention of Weathertop Hill; the actual first occurrence of the name must be in the original pencilled draft of Gandalf's letter, which can be partly made out (note 13).

10. The runes are the Old English runes, as in The Hobbit. Gandalf uses the English (Common Germanic) rune X for G in writing his name, but uses also as a sign for himself a rune . In the Angerthas (LR Appendix E pp. 401 - 4) this rune meant (in the usage of the Dwarves of Moria) [ng].

11. Oddly, the ma.n.u.script in ink has here Timothy, not Barnabas; but it can only be a slip, returning momentarily to the landlord's original name (p. 140 note 3).

12. Tuesday, not Thursday: see note 5.

13. The ending of the letter can be read in the pencilled draft: Don't be out after dark or in mist. Push along. Am so anxious that I shall wait [?two] days for you..... Weathertop Hill. If you meet a ranger (wild hobbit) called Trotter, stick to him. I have told him to look out. He will guide you to Weathertop and further if necessary. Push along.

14. The text as first written here (in ink: the pencilled text beneath is illegible) had: 'I felt something moving behind me, and when I turned I saw one going along the Road.' - For 'coming towards' in the revised sentence perhaps read 'coming towards me'.

15. bar the door and window was written in above and take turns to watch, which was not struck out. See note 16.

16. The underlying pencilled text can be read here: They did not talk much but fell asleep one by one. Trotter watched for three hours; he said he could do with very little sleep. Next came Merry. Nothing happened...

A first version in ink reads: He could do with very little (he said): 'give me three hours, and then wake me, and I will watch for the rest of the time.' Bingo took the first watch; the others talked for a while and then fell asleep.

At this point FR Chapter 10 'Strider' ends, and Chapter 11 'A Knife in the Dark' begins - where that chapter takes up the story at Bree again: of the attack by the Black Riders on the house at Crickhollow with which it begins there is as yet no trace.

17. 20 (silver pennies) was later changed to 25.

18. Rob: at previous occurrences (pp. 135, 164) the name of the ostler at ?he Prancing Pony is certainly Bob, as in FR.

19. a yowk: the verb yowk 'howl, bawl, yelp' is given in Joseph Wright, The English Dialect Dictionary.

20. A tiny pencilled sketch in the body of the ma.n.u.script, belonging with the underlying draft, shows the Road, after it has curved down round the south side of Bree-hill, bending up north again and continuing the same line east of Bree as it had to the west of the village.

21. Combe changed in pencil to Archet (as in FR, p. 193).

22. These two sentences, from Trotter also had a notion, were enclosed in square brackets, probably at the time of writing. Cf. the outline (p. 162): 'Trotter takes them to a wild hobbit hole, and gets his friend to run on ahead and send a message to Weathertop by pony?'.

23. The pencilled text beneath the ink can be read sufficiently to show that the pa.s.sage of the marshes (unnamed) was described in a couple of sentences.

24. Since at the end of the next sentence my father wrote 'from the flats to the East', which is an obvious slip and which he later corrected to 'West', it seems likely that the 'south-west' course of the track along the feet of the hills is also a slip for 'south-east'; a little later it is said that 'they came towards the south-eastern end of the line of hills.'

25. For the story of Gil-galad and Elendil and the Last Alliance as it was at this time see the second version of The Fall of Numenor $14 (V. 28-9) and pp. 215 - 16. Though Elendil is present in The Fall of Numenor my father does not seem to have been entirely satisfied with the name: here he wrote Valandil first, and in the original draft of the next chapter he changed Elendil temporarily to Orendil (p. 197 note 3). In The Lost Road Valandil was the name of Elendil's father (V.60, 69), and in a later version of The Fall of Numenor Valandil is Elendil's brother (V.33).

In the latter part of this chapter, from the point where the variant versions join (pp. 159, 161), all the essential structure of the immediate narrative in FR (pp. 185 - 201) is in place, though the larger bearings and the glimpses of ancient history are conspicuously absent. The narrative runs in a narrower dimension in any case, from the fact that there are no Men in the story: b.u.t.terbur is a hobbit, the wild 'rangers', of whom Trotter is one, are hobbits, Bill Ferny is a hobbit (p. 165) - though it is true that the range of hobbit character is greatly extended by these 'Outsiders' who live beyond the s.h.i.+re's borders.

A few specific points of difference may be briefly mentioned. The pony bought in Bree is not in fact said to be Ferny's (p. 164), though it seems to be implied; and the subsequent history of the five ponies from Buckland, recorded in the footnote to the text (p. 164), was afterwards largely changed (FR p. 191). The encounter of Merry with the Black Rider outside the inn at Bree does not end with his being attacked; and it is Trotter who plays the later part of Sam in having a pocketful of apples and discomfiting Bill Ferny with one on the nose.

The journey from Bree to Weathertop has the same structure as that in FR (pp. 194-7), except at the end. The chronology is: But in FR the hobbits made another night camp at the feet of the western slopes of the Weather Hills - and that was 'the night of the fifth of October, and they were six days out from Bree' (p. 197); this camp is not in the original version, and thus they reached Weathertop on Wednesday October 5. Trotter on Weathertop says that they have covered between 80 and go miles 'in the last six days'. he was including that day also, for it was already after noon.

In the old story Gandalf stayed on Weathertop for three days, and he left there a note in a pile of stones, written on paper. This message ('Help will come there [i.e. to the Ford] from Rivendell, as soon as I can manage it') gives the first clear indication in the story of what Gandalf's intentions were; and with this can be taken the words scribbled on the ma.n.u.script that are given in note 8. Gandalf was trying to lure the Riders after him.

Looking back over the whole of the original Chapter VII, the story from the hobbits' arrival in Bree to the sight of the Black Riders on the Road far below the summit of Weathertop, there appears again and in the most striking form the characteristic of my father's writing that elements emerge suddenly and clearly conceived, but with their 'meaning' and context still to undergo huge further development, or even complete transformation, in the later narrative (cf. p. 71). A small example here is the face that Bingo thought 'goblinish' as they walked out of Bree (p. 165) - which is here the face of Bill Ferny (a hobbit): in FR (p. 193) it will be that of 'the squint-eyed southerner' whom Frodo glimpsed through the window of Ferny's house, and thought that he looked 'more than half like a goblin.' In a 'chrysalis' state are the 'Rangers', wanderers in the wilderness, and Trotter is a Ranger, grim and weatherworn, deeply learned in the lore of the wild, and in many other matters; but they are hobbits, and of any further or larger significance that they might have in the history of Middle-earth there is no hint. Trotter is at once so fully realized that his tone in this part of the narrative (indeed not a few of his actual words) was never changed afterwards; yet such little as is glimpsed of his history at this stage bears no relation whatsoever to that of Aragorn son of Arathorn. He is a hobbit, marked out by wearing wooden shoes (whence his name Trotter); there seems to be something in his history that gives him a special knowledge of, and horror of, the Ring-wraiths (p. 153); and Bingo finds something about him that distinguishes him from other 'Rangers', and is in a way familiar (p. 154). These things will be explained later, before they are finally swept away.

X. THE ATTACK ON WEATHERTOP.

This chapter, numbered VIII, and t.i.tleless as usual (though later my father pencilled in 'A Knife in the Dark'), begins on the same ma.n.u.script page as the end of the last; it was obviously continuous work, and the ma.n.u.script proceeds as before, in ink, rapid but always legible, over pencilled drafts of which only words or phrases here and there are visible (see p. 188). The text goes on through FR Chapter 12 'Flight to the Ford' without any sort of break, but as with the original Chapter VII I divide it into two (see the table on p. 133).

There was a hollow dell beneath the north-west shoulder of Weathertop, right under the long ridge that joined it to the hills behind. There Odo and Frodo had been left to wait for them. They had found the signs of a recent camp and fire, and, a great (and most unexpected) boon, behind a large rock was piled a small store of fire-wood. Better still, under the fuel they found a wooden case with some food in it. It was mostly cram-cakes, but there was some bacon, and some dried fruits. There was also some tobacco!

Cram was, as you may remember, a word in the language of the men of Dale and the Long-lake - to describe a special food they made for long journeys. It kept good indefinitely and was very sustaining, but not entertaining, as it took a lot of chewing and had no particular taste. Bilbo Baggins brought back the recipe - he used cram after he got home on some of his long and mysterious walks. Gandalf also took to using it on his perpetual journeys. He said he liked it softened in water (but that is hard to believe). But cram was not to be despised in the wilderness, and the hobbits were extremely grateful for Gandalf's thoughtfulness. They were still more grateful when the three others came down with their alarming news, and they all realized that they had a long journey still ahead, before they could expect to get help. They immediately held a council, and found it hard to decide what to do. It was the presence of the fire-wood (of which they could not have carried much away) that finally decided them to go no further that day, and to camp for that night in the dell.(1) It seemed unsafe, not to say desperate, to go on at once, or until they found out whether their arrival at the hill was known or expected. For, unless they were to make a long detour back north-west along the hills, and abandon the direction of Rivendell altogether for a while, it would not be easy to find any cover or concealment. The Road itself was impossible; but they must at least cross it, if they were to get into the more broken land, full of bushy thickets, immediately to the south of it. To the north of the Road, beyond the hills, the land was bare and flat for many miles.

'Can the - er - enemy see?' asked Merry. 'I mean, they seem usually to have smelt rather than seen, at least in the daytime. But you made us lie down flat.'

'I don't know,' said Trotter, 'how they perceive what they seek; but I fear them. And their horses can see.'(2) It was now already late afternoon. They had had no food since breakfast. In spite of their fear and uncertainty they were very hungry. So down in the dell where all was still and quiet they made a meal - as good a meal as they dared take, after they had examined their stores. But for Gandalf's present they would not have dared to have more than a bite. They had left behind the countries where inns or villages could be found. There were Big People (so Trotter said) away to the South of them. But North and East the neighbouring lands were empty of all save birds and beasts, unfriendly places deserted by all the races of the world: Elves, Men, Dwarves, or Hobbits, and even by goblins. The more adventurous Rangers journeyed occasionally into those regions, but they pa.s.sed and did not stay. Other wanderers were rare, and of no good sort: Trolls might stray at times down out of the further hills and Mountains. Only on the Road would travellers be found, Big People rarely in those days, Elves perhaps sometimes, most often Dwarves hurrying along on business, and with no help and few words to spare for strangers.

So now - since Gandalf had gone - they had to depend on what they carried with them - probably until they found their way at last to Rivendell. For water they were obliged to trust to chance. For food they could perhaps just have managed to go ten or eleven days; and now with Gandalf's additions they could with economy probably hold out for more than a fortnight. It might have been worse. But starving was not their only fear.

It became very cold as evening fell. There was some mist again over the distant marshes; but the sky above cleared again, and the clouds were blown away by a chill east wind. Looking out from the lip of the dale [read dell] they could see nothing but a grey land quickly vanis.h.i.+ng in shadows, under an open sky filling slowly with twinkling stars.

They lit a small fire down at the lowest point in the hollow, and sat round it clothed and wrapped in every garment and blanket they possessed: at least Bingo and his companions did so. Trotter seemed content with a single blanket, and sat some little way from the fire puffing his short pipe. They took it in turns to sit on guard on the edge of the dell, at a point where the steep sides of Weathertop Hill, and the gentler slope down from the ridge, could be seen - as far as anything could be seen in the gathering dusk.

As the evening deepened Trotter began to tell them tales to keep their minds from fear. He knew much lore concerning wild animals, and claimed to speak some of their languages; and he had strange stories to tell of their lives and little known adventures. He knew also many histories and legends of the ancient days, of hobbits when the s.h.i.+re was still wild, and of things beyond the mists of memory out of which the hobbits came. They wondered where he had learned all his lore.

'Tell us of Gil-galad!' said Frodo - 'you spoke that name not long ago,(3) and it is still ringing in my ears. Who was he?'

'Don't you know!' said Trotter. 'Gil-galad was the last of the great Elf-kings: Gil-galad is Starlight in their tongue. He overthrew the Enemy, but he himself perished. But I will not tell that tale now; though you will hear it, I think, in Rivendell, when we get there. Elrond should tell it, for he knows it well. But I will tell you the tale of Tinuviel - in brief, for in full it is a long tale of which the end is not known, and there is no one that remembers it in full as it was told of old, unless it be Elrond. But even in brief it is a fair tale - the fairest that has come out of the oldest days.' He fell silent for a moment, and then he began not to speak, but to chant softly: Put in Light on Linden Tree. [sic] emended. Or the alliterative lines. Follow with brief Tinuviel story.

My father then went straight on in the ma.n.u.script to the beginning of a prose resume of the story of Beren and Luthien. He had not gone far with this, however, when he abandoned it, and returning to Trotter's words about the story changed the end of them to: 'It is a fair tale, though it is sad as are the tales of Middle-earth, and yet it may lift up the hearts of the enemies of the Enemy.' He then wrote: Lo Beren Gamlost the boldhearted (4) but struck this out also. He had suggested just above that 'the alliterative lines' might be used. He was referring to the pa.s.sage of alliterative verse that preceded Light as Leaf on Lindentree as published in The Gryphon (Leeds University) in 1925,(5) a pa.s.sage itself closely related to lines in the second version of the alliterative Lay of the Children of Hurin, 355 ff., where Halog, one of Turin's guides on the journey to Doriath, sang this song 'for hearts' uplifting' as they wandered in the forest. But he now decided against the alliterative lines for this place, and wrote in the ma.n.u.script a new version of Light as Leaf on Lindentree. This text of the poem moves it far towards the final version in FR pp. 204 - 5, but has elements surviving from the old poem that were afterwards lost, and elements common to neither. There are many later emendations to the text, and many alternative readings (mostly taken up into the final version) written at the time of composition; but here I give the primary text without variants or later corrections.

The leaves mere long, the gra.s.s was thin, The fall of many years lay thick, The tree-mots twisted out and in, The rising moon was glimmering.

Her feet ment lilting light and quick To the silver flute oflleerin:(6) Beneath the hemlock-umbels thick Tinuviel was s.h.i.+mmering.

The noiseless moths their wings did fold, The light was lost among the leaves, As Beren there from mountains cold Came wandering and sorrowing.

He peered between the hemlock leaves And saw in wonder flowers of gold Upon her mantle and her sleeves, And her hair like shadow following.

Enchantment took his weary feet, That over stone mere doomed to mam, And forth he hastened, strong and fleet, And grasped at moonbeams glistening.

Through woven woods of Elvenhome They fled on swiftly dancing feet, And left him lonely still to mam, In the silent forest listening.