Part 25 (2/2)

A pencilled marginal note asks whether 'Bingo' (with 'Frodo' written beside) should be captured by the Dark Lord and questioned, but be saved 'by Sam?'.

Subsequently my father emended these notes in ink. In the first line, against 'Or have to go at once', he wrote 'at once', he directed that 'Mines of Moria...' should precede 'Adventure with Giant Tree Beard in Forest' and come between 'Snowstorm in the Red Pa.s.s' and 'Journey down the R. Redway', and after 'These again deserted - except for Goblins' he added 'Loss of Gandalf'.

Some features of this outline have occurred already; the feigned reform of Gollum, his attack on Frodo, and the eruption of the Fiery Mountain, in $7; the acquisition of a ring by Gollum in Mordor in $1. But we meet here for the first time other major ingredients in the later work. The Ring crosses the Misty Mountains by 'the Red Pa.s.s', which will survive in the Redhorn Pa.s.s, or Redhorn Gate. The Mines of Moria now first reappear from The Hobbit - at any rate under that name: the mention in Queries and Alterations note 11 (p. 226) of the colony founded by the Dwarves Balin, Ori, and Oin from the Lonely Mountain in 'rich hills in the South' does not show that the identification had been made. The actual link lay no doubt in Elrond's words in The Hobbit (Chapter III, 'A Short Rest'): 'I have heard that there are still forgotten treasures to be found in the deserted caverns of the mines of Moria, since the dwarf and goblin war', and the words here 'These again deserted - except for Goblins', taken with those in Queries and Alterations (ibid.) 'But after a time no word was heard of them', clearly imply the story in The Lard of the Rings. The land of the Stone-Men (see $6) is the 'Land of Ond', and the 'City of Stone' ($7) will be besieged. Here also there is the first hint of the story of the capture of Frodo and his rescue by Sam Gamgee from the tower of Cirith Ungol; and most notable of all, perhaps, the first mention of the Searching Eye in the Dark Tower.

These are references to narrative 'moments' which my father foresaw: they do not const.i.tute an articulated narrative scheme. They may very well not be in the succession that he even then perceived. Thus in this outline Gollum's treachery is brought in long before Frodo reaches the Fiery Mountain, which in view of what is said in $7 can hardly have been his meaning; and the Mines of Moria are named after the pa.s.sage of the Misty Mountains. This was corrected later in ink, but it may not have been his conception when he wrote these notes: for in none of the (six) mentions of the Mines of Moria in The Hobbit is there any suggestion of where they were (cf. his letter to W. H. Auden in 1955: 'The Mines of Moria had been a mere name', Letters no. 163).

(10) Something must be said here of 'Giant Treebeard', for he emerged into a sc.r.a.p of actual narrative at this time (and had been mentioned by Gandalf to Frodo in Rivendell. p. 363: I was caught in Fangorn and spent many weary days as a prisoner of the Giant Treebeard'). There exists a single sheet of ma.n.u.script, which began as a letter dated 'July 27 - 29th 1939, but which my father covered on both sides with fine ornamental script (one side of the sheet is reproduced opposite). Among the writings on the page are the words 'July Summer Diversions' and lines from Chaucer's Reeve 's Tale - for these 'Diversions' were a series of public entertainments held at Oxford in the course of which my father, attired as Chaucer, recited that Tale. But the page is chiefly taken up with a text on which he afterwards pencilled Tree Beard.

When Frodo heard the voice he looked up, but he could see nothing through the thick entangled branches. Suddenly he felt a quiver in the gnarled tree-trunk against which he was leaning, and before he could spring away he was pushed, or kicked, forward onto his knees. Picking himself up he looked at the tree, and even as he looked, it took a stride towards him. He scrambled out of the way, and a deep rumbling chuckle came down out of the tree-top.

'Where are you, little beetle?' said the voice. 'If you don't let me know where you are, you can't blame me for treading on you. And please, don't tickle my leg! '

The emergence of Treebeard. 'I can't see any leg,' said Frodo. 'And where are you?''You must be blind,' said the voice. 'I am here.' 'Who are you?' 'I am Treebeard,' the voice answered. 'If you haven't heard of me before, you ought to have done; and anyway you are in my garden.'

'I can't see any garden,' said Frodo. 'Do you know what a garden looks like?' 'I have one of my own: there are flowers and plants in it, and a fence round it; but there is nothing of the kind here.' 'O yes! there is. Only you have walked through the fence without noticing it; and you can't see the plants, because you are down underneath them by their roots.'

It was only then when Frodo looked closer that he saw that what he had taken for smooth tree-stems were the stalks of gigantic flowers - and what he had thought was the stem of a monstrous oaktree was really a thick gnarled leg with a rootlike foot and many branching toes.

This is the first image of Treebeard: seeming in its air to come rather from the old Hobbit than the new. Six lines in Elvish tengwar are also written here, which transliterated read: Fragment from The Lord of the Rings, sequel to The Hobbit.

Frodo meets Giant Treebeard in the Forest of Neldoreth while seeking for his lost companions: he is deceived by the giant who pretends to be friendly, but is really in league with the Enemy.

The forest of Neldoreth, forming the northern part of Doriath, had appeared in the later Annals of Beleriand (V. 126, 148); the name from the old legends (like that of Glorfindel, see p. 214) was to be re-used. Six months earlier, in a letter of 2 February 1939, my father had said that 'though there is no dragon (so far) there is going to be a Giant' (Letters no. 35, footnote to the text). If my suggested a.n.a.lysis of the chronology is correct (see p. 309) 'Giant Treebeard' had already appeared, as Gandalf's captor, at the end of the third phase (p. 363).

(11) There remains one further text (extant in two versions) to be given in this chapter; this is the story of Peregrin Boffin (see under $$2, 3 above). One form of it is found as part of a rather roughly written two- page ma.n.u.script that begins as a new text of 'A Long-expected Party': very closely related to the sixth or third phase version of that chapter, but certainly following it. I take it up from the point 'At ninety he seemed much the same as ever' (FR p. 29).

At ninety-nine they began to call him well-preserved, though unchanged would have been nearer the mark. Some were heard to say that it was too much of a good thing, this combination of apparently perpetual youth with seemingly inexhaustible wealth.

'It will have to be paid for,' they said. 'It isn't natural, and trouble will come of it! '

But trouble had not yet come, and Mr Baggins was extremely generous with his money, so most people (and especially the poorer and less important hobbits) pardoned his oddities. In a way the inhabitants of Hobbiton were (secretly) rather proud of him: the wealth that he had brought back from his travels became a local legend, and it was widely believed, whatever the old folk might say, that most of the Hill was full of tunnels stuffed with treasure.

'He may be peculiar, but he does no harm,' said the younger folk. But not all of his more important relatives agreed. They were suspicious of his influence on their children, and especially of their sons meeting Gandalf at his house. Their suspicions were much increased by the unfortunate affair of Peregrin Boffin.

Peregrin was the grandson of Bilbo's mother's second sister Donnamira Took. He was a mere babe, five years old, when Bilbo came back from his journey; but he grew up a dark-haired and (for a hobbit) lanky lad, very much more of a Took than a Boffin. He was always trotting round to Hobbiton, for his father, Paladin Boffin, lived at Northope, only a mile or two behind the Hill. When Peregrin began to talk about mountains and dwarves, and forests and wolves, Paladin became alarmed, and finally forbade his son to go near Bag-end, and shut his door on Bilbo.

Bilbo took this to heart, for he was extremely fond of Peregrin, but he did nothing to encourage him to visit Bag-end secretly. Peregrin then ran away from home and was found wandering about half-starved up on the moors of the Northfarthing. Finally, the day after he came of age (in the spring of Bilbo's eightieth year)(9) he disappeared, and was never found in spite of a search all over the s.h.i.+re.

In former times Gandalf had always been held responsible for the occasional regrettable accidents of this kind; but now Bilbo got a large share of the blame, and after Peregrin's disappearance most of his younger relations were kept away from him. Though in fact Bilbo was probably more troubled by the loss of Peregrin than all the Boffins put together.

He had, however, other young friends, who for one reason or another were not kept away from him. His favourite soon became Frodo Baggins, grandson of Mirabella the third of the Old Took's remarkable daughters, and son of Drogo (one of Bilbo's second cousins). Just about the time of Peregrin's disappearance Frodo was left an orphan, when only a child of twelve, and so he had no anxious parents to keep him out of bad company. He lived with his uncle Rory Brandybuck, and his mother's hundred and one relatives in the Great Hole of Bucklebury: Brandy Hall.

Here this new opening ends. A slightly shorter version is found as a rider to the ma.n.u.script of the third phase version itself: there are some differences of wording but none of substance. Bilbo is here said to have taken the delinquent back to Northope and apologised to Paladin Boffin, when Peregrin 'sneaked round to him secretly', and Bilbo 'stoutly denied having anything to do with the events.'

The village of Northope later became Overhill, and was so corrected on the second of these texts.(10) - Paladin is already fixed as the name of the father of Peregrin: these Boffins are - as names - the origin of Paladin and Peregrin Took in LR. Donnamira Took, second of the Old Took's daughters, appears in the family tree of the Tooks given on p. 317, where she is the wife of Hugo Boffin (as in LR, but there without recorded issue): their son was Jago Boffin, and his son was Fosco, Bilbo's first cousin (once removed), who was 54 at the time of the Party. In the third phase version of 'Ancient History' (p. 319) Jo b.u.t.ton, who saw the 'Tree- men' beyond the North Moors, is said to have worked for Fos...o...b..ffin of Northope, and this is presumably the same person as the Fos...o...b..ffin of the family tree, grandson of Donnamira. In this case Peregrin Boffin (Trotter) - who was 64 at the time of the Party (see note g), though of course he had then long since disappeared from the s.h.i.+re - has stepped into Fosco's genealogical place, and his father Paladin into that of Jago. But only into the genealogical place: the Boffin of Northope for whom Jo b.u.t.ton was working has obviously nothing to do with the renegade Peregrin.

It will be seen that in this account Frodo and Trotter were second cousins, and both were first cousins once removed of Bilbo.(11) NOTES.

1. With 'unexpected party' for 'long-expected party' cf. p. 245, note 1.

2. Actually, the third and fourth drafts of the first phase: by 'original draft of the Tale' my father meant the form of 'A Long-expected Party' as it stood when submitted to Allen and Unwin (see p. 40).

3. I do not understand the force of this sentence.

4. The reference to The Hobbit is to Chapter I 'An Unexpected Party', a pa.s.sage already cited (p. 224).

5. the Rivers: the plural form is clear.

6. That Bilbo wore his 'elf-armour' under his cloak when he went is said in $2; see pp. 371 - 2.

7. This is the wording of the sixth (third phase) version, little changed from that of the fifth (p. 239).

8. Radagast had occurred in The Hobbit: in Chapter VII 'Queer Lodgings' Gandalf spoke to Beorn of 'my good cousin Radagast who lives near the Southern borders of Mirkwood.'

9. Peregrin Boffin was five years old when Bilbo returned from his great adventure. The calculation is: 51 to 79 ('the spring of his eightieth year') = 28, plus 5 = 33 ('coming of age'). According to this story Peregrin/Trotter was Sr years old when Frodo and his companions met him at Bree (Bilbo finally departed when he was x r x; Peregrin/Trotter was then 64, and Frodo left the s.h.i.+re 17 years later). As he said at Bree, 'I'm older now than I look' (pp. 153, 342); Aragorn was 87 when he said the same thing (FR p. 177).

10. Northope > Overhill also on p. 319. - The name Northope appears here on my father's original map of the s.h.i.+re (p. 107, item I), but it was struck out and replaced, not by Overhill, but by The Yale. This is a convenient place to notice the history of this name. Long after, my father wrote in The Yale on the s.h.i.+re map in a copy of the First Edition of FR, placing it south of Whitfurrows in the Eastfarthing, in such a way as to show that he intended a region, like 'The Marish', not a particular place of settlement (the road to Stock runs through it); and at the same time, on the same copy, he expanded the text in FR p. 86, introducing the name: 'the lowlands of the Yale' (for the reason for this change of text, which was published in the Second Edition, see p. 66, note 10). The s.h.i.+re map in the Second Edition has The Yale added here, but in relation to a small black square, as if it were the name of a farm or small hamlet; this must have been a misunderstanding. I cannot explain the meaning of The Yale. Northope contains a place-name element hope that usually means 'a small enclosed valley'.

11. My father's earlier suggestion concerning Trotter (p. 223) also made him Bilbo's first cousin (Fosco Took).

THE STORY CONTINUED.

XXIII. IN THE HOUSE OF ELROND.

In the next stage of the work it is difficult to deduce the chronology of composition, or to relate it to important further revisions made to the 'third phase' of the story as far as Rivendell. Determination of the chronology depends on the form taken by certain key elements, and if these happen to be absent certainty becomes impossible.

At any rate, after 'Bingo' had become 'Frodo' my father continued Frodo's interrupted conversation with Gloin at the feast in the house of Elrond (see p. 369). This continuation is in two forms, the second closely following the first, and already in the first form the latter part of 'Many Meetings' in FR is quite closely approached; but there are certain major differences. I give here the second form (in part).(1) 'And what has become of Balin and Ori and Oin?' asked Frodo.

A shadow pa.s.sed over Gloin's face. 'Balin took to travelling again,' he answered. 'You may have heard that he visited Bilbo in Hobbiton many years ago(2): well, not very long after that he went away for two or three years. Then he returned to the Mountain with a great number of dwarves that he discovered wandering masterless in the South and East. He wanted Dain to go back to Moria - or at least to allow him to found a colony there and reopen the great mines. As you probably know, Moria was the ancestral home of the dwarves of the race of Durin, and the forefathers of Thorin and Dain dwelt there, until they were driven by the goblin invasions far into the North. Now Balin reported that Moria was again wholly deserted, since the great defeat of the goblins, but the mines were still rich, especially in silver. Dain was not willing to leave the Mountain and the tomb of Thorin, but he allowed Balin to go, and he took with him many of the folk of the Mountain as well as his own following; and Ori and Oin went with him. For many years things went well, and the colony throve; there was traffic once more between Moria and the Mountain, and many gifts of silver were sent to Dain. Then fortune changed. Our messengers were attacked and robbed by cruel Men, well-armed. No messengers came from Moria; but rumour reached us that the mines and dwarf-city were again deserted. For long we could not learn what had become of Balin and his people - but now we have news, and it is evil. It is to tell these tidings and to ask for the counsel of - of those that dwell in Rivendell that I have come. But to-night let us speak of merrier things! '

At the head of the page my father wrote the words that stand in this place in FR (p. 241): '”We do not know,” he answered. ”It is largely on his account that I have come to ask for the counsel of - of those that dwell in Rivendell. But for to-night let us speak of merrier things.”' In FR the story of Balin was taken up into 'The Council of Elrond' and greatly enlarged.

Gloin's account of the works of the Dwarves in Dale and under the Lonely Mountain (FR pp. 241 - 2) is present in the old version.(3) At the end, when Gloin said: 'You were very fond of Bilbo, weren't you?' Frodo replied simply 'Yes', and then 'they went on to talk about the old adventures of Bilbo with the dwarves, in Mirkwood, and among the Wood-elves, and in the caverns of the Mountain.'

The entrance into the Hall of Fire, and the discovery and recognition of Bilbo, are already very close to FR (for early references to Bilbo at Rivendell see pp. 126, 225). The Hall of Fire is said in both texts to be nearly as large as the 'Hall of Feasting' or 'Great Hall', in the second this hall 'appeared to have no windows'; and in both there were many fires burning: Bilbo sat beside the furthest, with his cup and bread on a low table beside him (in FR there were no tables).

Bilbo says 'I shall have to get that fellow Peregrin to help me' (cf. p. 369) and Elrond replies that he will have Ethelion (4) found (in Chapter XI of the 'third phase' Glorfindel calls Trotter Dufinnion, p. 361). 'Messengers were sent to find Bilbo's friend. It was said that he had been in the kitchens, for his help was as much esteemed by the cooks as by the poets.' It had been said in the earlier part of the chapter (p. 365) that Frodo could not see Trotter at the feast, and his absence survived into FR (p. 243), but with a very different reason for it.

Whatever Bilbo may have had to say of himself is not reported in the original story. The entire pa.s.sage (FR pp. 243 - 4) in which Bilbo tells of his journey to Dale, of his life in Rivendell, and his interest in the Ring - and the distressing incident when he asks to see it - is absent.

<script>