Part 21 (1/2)

When Gandalf pauses after saying 'he made his slow sneaking way bit by bit, years ago, down to the Land of Mordor' the heavy silence mentioned in FR p. 68 falls, and 'there was now no sound of Sam's shears.' The phrase 'I think indeed that Gollum is the beginning of our present troubles' is retained: see p. 271, note 33.

From '”Well anyway,” said Frodo, ”if Gollum could not be killed”' my father at first followed the earlier text (p.265) very closely, but then rewrote it in a changed form.

'Well anyway,' said Frodo, 'if Gollum could not be killed, I wish Bilbo had not kept the Ring. Why did he?'

'Is not that clear from what you have now heard? ' answered Gandalf. 'I remember you saying, when it first came to you, that it had its advantages, and that you wondered why Bilbo went off without it [see p. 242]. He had possessed it a long while before we knew that it was specially important. After that it was too late: there was the Ring itself to reckon with. It has a power and purpose of its own that clouds wise counsel. Even Bilbo could not altogether escape its influence. He developed a sentiment. Even when he knew that it came ultimately from the Necromancer he wished to keep it as a memento...'

Lastly, the pa.s.sage beginning 'I really do wish to destroy it!' (p. 266) was changed and amplified: 'I really do wish to destroy it! ' cried Frodo. 'But I wish more that the Ring need never have come to me. Why was I chosen?'

'Bilbo pa.s.sed it on to you to save himself from destruction; and because he could find no one else. He did so reluctantly, but believing that, when you knew more, you would accept the burden for a while out of love for him. He thought you were safe: safe not to misuse it or to let it get into evil hands; safe from its power for a time; and safe in the quiet s.h.i.+re of the hobbits from the knowledge of its maker. And I promised him to help you. He relied on that. Indeed for your sake and for his I have taken many perilous journeys.

'Also I may say that I did not discover the letters of fire or their meaning or know for certain that this was the Ruling Ring until he had already decided to go. I did not tell him, for then he would not have burdened you. I let him go. He had had the Ring for sixty years, and it was telling on him, Frodo. It would have worn him down in the end, and I dare not guess what might then have happened.

'But now, alas! I know more. I have seen Gollum. I have journeyed even to the Land of Mordor. I fear that the Enemy is searching. You are in a far graver peril than ever Bilbo dreamed of. So do not blame him.'

'But I am not strong enough! ' said Frodo. 'You are wise and powerful. Will you not take the Ring?'

'No!' said Gandalf springing to his feet. 'With that Ring I should have power too great and terrible. And over me it would gain a power still greater and more deadly.' His eyes flashed and his face was lit as by a fire within. 'Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself. Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good. Do not tempt me! '

He went to the window and drew aside the curtain and shutters. Sunlight streamed back again into the room. Sam pa.s.sed along the path outside, whistling. 'In any case,' said the wizard, turning back to Frodo, 'it is now too late. You would hate me and call me a thief; and our friends.h.i.+p would cease. Such is the power of the Ring. But together we will shoulder the burden that is laid on us.' He came and laid his hand on Frodo's shoulder. 'But we must do something soon,' he said. 'The Enemy is moving.'

The same curious idea is still present here that Gandalf discovered the letters of fire on Bilbo's ring, and knew that it was the Ruling Ring, before Bilbo left but without telling him (i.e. without Bilbo's knowledge that this test had been made): see p. 266 and note 38. - Gandalf's remark (p. 321) 'I think indeed that Gollum is the beginning of our present troubles', retained from the second version, now perhaps becomes less obscure (see p. 271, note 33): 'I have been to the Land of Mordor. I fear that the Enemy is searching.'

Chapter III: 'Delays are Dangerous'.

The new text of the third chapter, now given this t.i.tle (which had been scribbled in on the second version), was another fine clear ma.n.u.script, replacing its appallingly difficult predecessor (pp. 273 ff.).

The chapter still begins with the gossip in The Ivy Bush and The Creen Dragon (p. 274 and note 1) before turning to the conversation between Gandalf and Frodo. In that conversation Gandalf does now refer, as in FR, to the possibility that it may be Frodo's task to find the Cracks of Doom - indeed he goes further: 'And to go there but not come back again,' added Gandalf grimly. 'For in the end I think you must come to the Fiery Mountain, though you are not yet ready to make that your goal.'

That with Merry's help (6) Frodo had chosen a little house at Crick- hollow (see p. 299) is now taken up from the pencilled change to the previous version (p. 283, note 2). Gandalf still leaves Hobbiton 'one wet dark evening in May'.

But a major change enters the story with the departure of Odo Bolger (not Took-Bolger, as in the family tree, p. 317) with Merry Brandybuck in the third cart from Hobbiton. My father had proposed this earlier (p. 299): 'From here onwards [i.e. after the arrival in Buckland] Odo is presumed to have gone with Merry ahead. The preliminary journey was Frodo [Took], Bingo and Sam only. Frodo has a character a little more like Odo once had. Odo is now rather silent (and greedy).' But the text that followed this direction was obscure and contradictory, apparently on account of my opposition to the proposal (see p. 299). Now the deed was done properly.

In the earlier versions of the chapter the young hobbits Frodo and Odo had distinct characters (see p. 70). The removal of Odo from the expedition does not mean, however, that Odo's character was removed; because my father always worked on the basis of preceding drafts, and a great deal of the original material of this chapter survived. Though Frodo Took, now renamed Folco Took (since Bingo had become Frodo), was the one who remained in the new narrative, he had to become the speaker of the things that the absent Odo had said - unless my father was to rewrite what he had written in a far more drastic way than he wished to. Despite the early note 'Sam Gamgee to replace Odo' (p. 250), Sam was too particularly conceived from the outset to be at all suitable to take up Odo's nonchalance. Moreover, in this version of the chapter the original contribution of Folco (Frodo) Took was in any case further reduced. The verse The Road goes ever on and on had already been given to Bingo in the second version (p. 278); now his account of meeting a Black Rider up on the North Moors was dropped, and his exclamation of delight when the singing of the Elves was heard ('Elves! How wonderful! I have always wished to hear elves singing under stars') was cut out apparently in the act of writing and replaced by Sam's hoa.r.s.e whisper: 'Elves! ' So Folco Took, with a diminished part of 'his own', and acquiring much of 'Odo's', becomes 'Odo' more completely than my father apparently foresaw when he said 'Frodo [Took] has a character a little more like Odo once had.'(7) Yet Folco's genealogical place remains; for Odo himself (once surnamed Took but now a Bolger with a Took mother) has gone on ahead to Buckland, where a separate and distinct adventure (already glimpsed in advance, pp. 302,304) will overtake him, while into Folco's place in the family tree of the Tooks, as first cousin of Merry Brandybuck (pp. 267, 3 I 7), will later step Peregrin Took (Pippin).

Cosimo Sackville-Baggins' 'overshadowed wife Miranda' disappears again, together with the remark that he and his mother Lobelia lived at Bag End 'for many a year after' (p. 283, note 5). - The Road goes ever on and on now attains the final form (p. 284, note 10). - At the first appearance of the Black Rider on the road, in the pa.s.sage cited on p. 278, 'Odo and Frodo' become 'Folco and Sam', and the text of FR (p. 84) is reached.

As already noticed, Frodo Took's account of his meeting with a Black Rider on the North Moors of the s.h.i.+re (p. 278) is now dropped, and the conversation between Bingo and Frodo Took on the subject of the Black Riders (p. 279) that follows Sam's revelation moves on to precisely the form in FR (p. 85), with of course Folco for Pippin. The brief halt of the Rider by the decayed tree in which the hobbits ate their supper is however retained in this version, and in the ensuing conversation Frodo still says, as did Bingo, that he will take the name of Mr Hill of Faraway. When the singing of the Elves is heard Frodo says, as in FR p. 88: 'One can meet them sometimes in the Woody End', but he still says as in the preceding version (p. 280) that they come in spring and autumn 'out of their own lands far beyond the River'. As in FR, the hymn to Elbereth is now said to be sung 'in the fair Elven-tongue', and at the end of it Frodo says: 'These are High-elves! They speak the name of Elbereth! '

Odo's indiscreet remark about their good luck in landing unexpectedly good food and lodging disappears and is not handed on to Folco. Frodo's 'The stars s.h.i.+ne on the hour of our meeting' was at first given as before (p. 280) only in translation, but my father changed this, clearly in the act of writing the ma.n.u.script, by the introduction of the Elvish words as well, Eleni silir lumesse omentiemman, and then again to Elen sile..., 'A star s.h.i.+nes...' At this Gildor says, as in FR, 'Here is a scholar in the Ancient Tongue.'

It is still the Moon that rouses the Elves to song; but the old wording ('The yellow moon rose; springing swiftly out of the shadow, and then climbing round and slow into the sky') surviving from the original version of the chapter (p. 61), was changed, apparently at or very near the time of writing, to: 'Above the mists away in the East the thin silver rind of the New Moon appeared, and rising swift and clear out of the shadow it swung gleaming in the sky.' My father no doubt made this change on account of what he had said elsewhere about the Moon; for there was a waxing moon as the hobbits approached Weathertop, and it was 'nearly half-full' on the night of the attack (pp. 168, 184): the attack was on 5 October (p. 175), and there could not be a full or nearly full Moon on 24 September, the night pa.s.sed with the Elves in the Woody End (see p. 160). On that night it must have been almost New Moon. The dates of the phases of the Moon in the autumn and early winter of that year cited on p. 434, note 19, in fact give New Moon on 25 September, the First Quarter (half-full) on 2 October, and Full Moon on 10 October. But it is an odd and uncharacteristic aberration that my father envisaged a New Moon rising late at night in the East.(8) In FR, of course, there is no mention of the Moon in this pa.s.sage: it was 'the Swordsman of the Sky, Menelvagor with his s.h.i.+ning belt' that caused the Elves to burst into song.

In the pa.s.sage describing the memories of the meal eaten with the Elves the text of FR is reached, with Folco retaining those of Frodo Took together with Odo's recollection of the bread.

Gildor's advice to Bingo (Frodo) that he should take trusty companions, and his opinion that his present companions have already confused the Riders, is retained (see p. 282); but at the end there is now no mention of the Ring, and their talk ends as in FR (p. 94).

Chapter IV: 'A Short Cut to Mushrooms'.

In this new version of the chapter there is only to notice the curious result of the exclusion of Odo Bolger: with Folco Took adding Odo's part to that which he retained from Frodo Took's in the former narrative. In the previous version Odo argued against taking a short cut to the Ferry, because, while he did not know the country, he did know The Golden Perch at Stock, and Frodo Took argued for it - because he did know the country.(9) Now, the Frodo-element in Folco, retaining a knowledge of the country, uses it to support the desire of the Odo-element in him for the beer at Stock, and his opponent in the argument is Frodo (Baggins); thus Folco is here, and throughout the chapter, Pippin in all but name (see pp. 286 - 7).

Deephallow now disappears from the text (see p. 286).

Chapter V: 'A Conspiracy Unmasked'.

This chapter had already reached in the second version (pp. 298 ff.) a form very close to that in FR, but there remained the confusion over whether Odo had been on the walk from Hobbiton or whether he had gone on ahead to Buckland with Merry (see pp. 299, 323). Following the new version of Chapter III, this is now resolved, of course: Odo is at Crickhollow, opens the door when they arrive, and cooks the supper with Merry - in fact, until the end of the chapter, he has become Fredegar (Fatty) Bolger. The text now reaches, until the end of the chapter, the form in FR, down to the smallest particulars of expression, with these differences only: the pa.s.sage about Gorhendad Oldbuck is still not present (p. 298); the Hedge is still forty miles from end to end (ibid.); and the 'dwarf-song' Farewell. farewell, now hearth and hall! still retains the form in the previous version (pp. 300 - 1).(10) The end of the chapter still differs altogether from that in FR, however. The form in the second version was preserved, with the pencilled additions incorporated (p. 302). Odo says 'But me shan't have any luck in the Old Forest' (whereas in FR Fredegar says 'But you won't have any luck'), because he is still potentially a member of the further expedition, even though my father had in fact decided that he would stay at Crickhollow till Gandalf came. I give the text from 'Do you follow Captain Frodo, or do you stay at home?'

'We follow Captain Frodo,' said Merry and Folco (and of course Sam). Odo was silent. 'Look here!' he said after a pause. 'I don't mind admitting that I am more terrified of the Forest than of anything I know about. I dislike woods of any kind, but the stories about the Old Forest are a nightmare. But I also think that you ought to try and keep in touch with Gandalf, who I guess knows more about the Black Riders than you do. I will stay behind here and keep off inquisitive folk. When Gandalf comes, as I think he is sure to, I will tell him what you have done, and I will come on after you with him, if he will bring me.'

The others agreed that this seemed on the whole an excellent plan; and Frodo at once wrote a brief letter to Gandalf, and gave it to Odo.

'Well, that's settled,' said Merry.

The rest of the chapter is as in the previous version.

A curious trace of this stage survives in the published text. Since Odo's staying behind had not formed part of the 'conspiracy', Merry had prepared six ponies, five for the five hobbits and one for the baggage. When the story changed, and Fredegar Bolger's task 'according to the original plans of the conspirators' (FR p. 118) was expressly to stay behind, this detail was overlooked, and the six ponies remained at this point (FR p. 117).

Chapter VI: 'The Old Forest'.

The chapter now at last receives its t.i.tle. Odo now said farewell to the others at the entrance to the tunnel under the Hedge in these words: 'I wish you were not going into the Forest. I don't believe you will get safely through; and I think it is very necessary that someone should warn Gandalf that you have gone in. I'm sure you will need rescuing before to-day is out. Still I wish you luck and I hope, perhaps, I shall catch you up again one day.'

The hill rising out of the forest was still crowned with a knot of trees (p. 113), but this was changed to the 'bald head' of FR in the act of writing this ma.n.u.script. The gully which the hobbits were forced to follow downwards because they could not climb out of it still ends as before (ibid.): Suddenly the woodland trees came to an end, and the gully became deep and sheer-sided; its bottom was almost wholly filled by the noisy hurrying water. It ran down finally to a narrow shelf at the top of a rocky bank, over which the stream dived and fell in a series of small waterfalls. Looking down they saw that below them was a wide s.p.a.ce of gra.s.s and reeds...

The old story of the descent down the thirty-foot bank is thus still present, with Folco falling the last fifteen feet.

In the original form of the story of the encounter with Old Man Willow (p. 113) Bingo and Odo were trapped in the tree, and Merry (then called Marmaduke) was the one who rounded up the ponies and rescued Frodo Took from the river. In the next stage (p. 302) this was changed to the extent that Sam took over Merry's part, and Merry simply 'lay like a log'. Now, with Frodo Took and Odo 'reduced' to Folco Took, it is still Frodo Baggins and Folco who are imprisoned in the tree, but Merry steps into Frodo Took's role as the one pushed into the river.

In the oldest version the path beside the Withywindle puzzlingly turned sharply to the left below Tom Bombadil's house and went over a little bridge; and in later revision this was retained, with, later again, the word 'left' changed to 'right', implying that Bombadil's house was on the south side of the Withywindle (see p. 114). The present text read at first here: [The path] turned sharply to the right, and took them over a chattering down.