Part 30 (2/2)

NOTES.

1. To this point the text of this 'Sketch' was struck through, but the remainder was not.

2. See p. 437, note 35; and cf. the corresponding pa.s.sage in FR (p. 338), where Gandalf says: 'There are Orcs, very many of them. And some are large and evil: black Uruks of Mordor.'

3. In FR (p. 313) the Company moved south towards Moria by day, and they 'wandered and scrambled in a barren country of red stones. Nowhere could they see any gleam of water...'

4. My father first wrote here (changing it at once): 'Caradras dilthen the Little Redway'. For Caradras as the name of the river Redway (later Silverlode) on the other side of the Mountains see p. 433, note 15.

5. It was now the night of 5 December, and full moon was on the 7th (see p. 434, note 19).

6. This sentence was enclosed within square brackets, and the concluding words 'from whence they heard the splash of running water' struck out. These changes belong with the writing of the ma.n.u.script.

7. Though the word 'pool' is used, the reference is clearly to the lake and not to the 'pool' which they had just walked through. The 'soft bubbling noise' comes from the 'lake'.

8. The whole pa.s.sage from 'Well, here we are at last' on p.448 to this point is a rider on a slip, replacing the following in the original text: 'Here is the gate,' said Gandalf. 'This is where the road from Hollin ended, and the elves planted these trees in old days; for the west-gates were made chiefly for their use in their traffic with the dwarves.'

The replacement certainly belongs with the first writing of the chapter, for the dispatch of the ponies by Sam and Trotter is subsequently referred to in the text as written.

9. The word 'wholly' is enclosed in square brackets.

10. In FR (p. 318) the hammer and anvil are 'surmounted by a crown with seven stars', and 'more clearly than all else there shone forth in the middle of the door a single star with many rays.' The original draft has no mention of the two trees bearing crescent moons.

11. In FR the inscription on the doors is of ithildin which mirrors only starlight and moonlight (p. 318). In this original draft, of course, the time-scheme is different - the middle of the day, not early night (see note 28).

12. This was first written: 'Narfi made the Doors'.

13. Merry replaced Frodo, who replaced Boromir; it was apparently said of Boromir that he was not much disturbed by Gandalfs bristling brows, and that he secretly wished that the doors might stay shut.

14. I cannot interpret this. In FR (p. 320) Gandalf's invocation means: Elvish gate open now for us; doorway of the Dwarf-folk listen to the word [beth] of my tongue.'

15. The text of this pa.s.sage, from 'Then he sat down in silence', as first written read: Only Trotter seemed troubled. Boromir was smiling broadly behind his back. Sam ventured to whisper in Frodo's ear: 'I've never seen old Gandalf at a loss for words before,' he said. 'It looks as if we were not meant to pa.s.s these gates, somehow.'

'I have a feeling of dread,' said Frodo slowly, 'either of the gates or of something else. But I do not think Gandalf is beaten - he is thinking hard, I fancy.'

Subsequently Sam's whispered speech to Frodo was given to Merry, with the addition: 'He ought not to have sent off the ponies till he got them open.'

16. Written in pencil here: 'Sound of wolves far off at same time as swish in water'. But this would have been added when the time of their entry into the Mines had been altered; cf. FR p. 321 and note 28.

17. These words were struck out in pencil and the form Melin subst.i.tuted. In the Etymologies (V.372), stem MEL, are given Noldorin mellon and meldir 'friend', and also Quenya melin 'dear'.

18. In FR there are two doors; and despite the single door described here, the inscription bears the words 'The Doors of Durin'; Gandalf tells them: 'these doors open outwards, but nothing can open them inwards. They can swing out, or they can be broken...'

19. As first written (and not struck out) this pa.s.sage read: 'They had just time; Trotter who came last was not more than four steps up when the arms of the creature in the water came feeling and fingering the wall.'

20. In the first of these lacunas the text seems to read in it, or possibly with (in which case his wand was omitted; cf. FR p. 322, 'he thrust his staff against the doors'). In the second, the word looks like open (perhaps for opening).

21. The illegible word is just a series of wiggles; certainly not stood, the word here in FR. Just possibly, survived.

22. The actual reading here is ' - not by accident'. The sentence was enclosed in square brackets at the time of writing, but a similar sentence remains in FR.

23. Dunruin replaced, apparently at the time of writing, Carondoom (see p. 433, note 13). Subsequently Dimrilldale was written in in pencil.

24. This sentence was a replacement (to all appearance made at the time of writing., see note 31) of: In the confusion of the attack at the Westgate some of the bundles and packages had been left on the ground; but they had still with them one bundle of torches which they had brought with them in case of need, but never yet used.'

25. The words following Glamdring are enclosed in square brackets. Glamdring has appeared in the 'Sketch' for the chapter; see pp. 442-4.

26. This sentence was changed in the act of writing, the successive stages not being crossed out: 'than any cat that ever walked', 'than is the cat of Benish Armon', 'than the cats of Queen [?Tamar >] Margoliante Beruthiel' - both these names being left to stand.

27. The original pa.s.sage that follows here was enclosed in square brackets and later struck out in pencil: While the others were trying to keep up their spirits with hopeful talk, and were asking whispered questions concerning the lands [struck out: of Dunruin and Fangorn] beyond the mountains, the vale of Redway, the forest of Fangorn, and beyond, he felt the certainty...

This derives from the 'Sketch' for the chapter (see p.442).

28. In the 'Sketch' (p.442) it is said, as here, that 'it was about 10 o'clock in the morning' when they entered the Mines. This does not agree with what is said on p. 447, that when 'the sun reached the south' Gandalf 'stood up and said that it was high time to begin to search for the gates', and the sun was s.h.i.+ning across the face of the cliff when he made the signs appear. This suggests that the door was opened in the early afternoon. The sentence in the text here was altered in pencil to 'five o'clock in the evening', but it is hard to say to what form of the story this refers. In FR it was fully dark - 'the countless stars were kindled' - when they entered the Mines (pp. 320, 326), and though it was early December it was surely after five o'clock. A few lines below in the present text, however, another change in the time-scheme clearly introduces that of FR; see note 29.

29. The words 'the night is already come' were changed in pencil to 'the night is already old', and the following sentence, which had been enclosed in square brackets, was struck out. As written, the text agrees with the story that they went into the Mines at about ten in the morning - it would now be about 8 p.m. (see note 28). As changed, it agrees with FR, p. 326 ('outside the late Moon is riding westward and the middle-night has pa.s.sed').

30. 'Sam' replaced 'Merry' at the time of writing, since at the end of this episode it is Sam, not changed from Merry, who takes the first watch as a punishment for casting the stone into the well.

31. This pa.s.sage was much changed in the course of composition. At first 'Gandalf allowed two torches to be lit to help in exploration. Their light found no roof, but was sufficient to show that they had come (as they had guessed) into a wide s.p.a.ce high and broad like a great hall.' It has however been said, by a change apparently made during the initial composition (see note 24), that they had neither torches nor means of making them.

32. The pa.s.sage in FR p. 329 from 'All about them as they lay hung the darkness...' to 'the actual dread and wonder of Moria' was first drafted in the margin of the ma.n.u.script here, perhaps quite soon after the writing of the main text.

33. 'Gandalf' is an early emendation from 'Trotter', and in the following speech.

34. Ithil is an early, perhaps immediate, change from Erceleb.

35. This pa.s.sage was changed in the act of writing from: - very abundantly in the earlier days, and especially the silver. Moria-silver was (and still is) renowned; and many held it a precious This is where the conception of mithril first emerged, though not yet the name (see note 34). The reference to mithril in The Hobbit (Chapter XIII, 'Not at Home') entered in the third edition of 1966: until then the text read: 'It was of silvered steel, and ornamented with pearls, and with it went a belt of pearls and crystals.' This was changed to: 'It was of silver-steel, which the elves call mithril, and with it went a belt of pearls and crystals.'

36 Against Uruktharbun is pencilled Azanulbizar, which in FR is the Dwarvish name of Dimrill-dale. If Uruktharbun is Moria (and the next revision of this text has 'the dwarflords of Khazad-dum'), Azanulbizar may have been intended to replace it and to have referred at first to Moria; on the other hand, my father may perhaps have wished to name the 'dwarflords' as lords in the Dimrill-dale. It may be mentioned that placed in this ma.n.u.script, though written on different paper and presumably belonging to a later stage when Gimli had become a member of the Company, is a sheet of primary workings for his song in Moria; and in these occur the lines: When Durin came to Azanul and found and named the nameless pool.

In notes written years later (after the publication of The Lord of the Rings) my father observed that 'the interpretation of the Dwarf names (owing to scanty knowledge of Khuzdul) is largely uncertain, except that, since this region [i.e. Moria and Dimrill-dale] was originally a Dwarf-home and primarily named by them, the Sindarin and Westron names are probably in origin of similar senses.' He interpreted (hesitantly) Azanulbizar as containing ZN 'dark, dim', ul 'streams', and bizar a dale or valley, the whole thus meaning 'Vale of Dim Streams'.

The name Khazad-dum had already appeared in the Quenta Silmarillion (V. 274), where it was the name of the Dwarf-city in the Blue Mountains which the Elves called Nogrod.

37. The word up here is odd (and my father later put a query against it), since the statement that the East Gates were on a much lower level than the great hall where they now were is part of the original composition.

38. This pa.s.sage survives in FR (pp. 331 - 2), but there Frodo's thoughts turn to Bilbo and Bag End for a different reason - the mention by Gandalf of Bilbo's corslet of mithril-rings. Moria-silver had only just emerged (note 35), and the connection with Bilbo's mailcoat had not been made.

39. In the previous chapter the name Dimrilldale appears as a correction (p. 433, note 13), together with the first mention of the lake in the dale, there called Cla.s.smere; Mirrormere is named on the map reproduced on p. 439. The Elvish name Helevorn (in the Etymologies, V.365, translated 'black-gla.s.s') given to it here had appeared in the Quenta Silmarillion as the name of the lake in Thargelion beside which dwelt Cranthir, son of Feanor. No other Elvish name for Mirrormere is recorded in published writing, but in the notes referred to in note 36 my father said that the Sindarin name, not given in LR, was in fact Nen Cenedril 'Lake Looking- gla.s.s'. Translating Kheled-zaram as 'probably ”gla.s.s-pool”', he noted: 'kheled was certainly a Dwarf word for ”gla.s.s”, and seems to be the origin of Sindarin beled ”gla.s.s”. Cf. Lake Hele(d)vorn near the Dwarf-regions in the north of Dor Caranthir [Thargelion]: it means ”black gla.s.s”, and is probably also a translation of a Dwarf- name (given by the Dwarves: the same is probably the case in the Moria region) such as Narag-zaram (that NRG was Khuzdul for ”black” is seen in the Dwarf-name for Mordor: Nargun).'

40. As the ma.n.u.script of this chapter was found among my father's papers it ended at the foot of a page, at the words 'a great slab of whitened stone' on p. 460. I had a.s.sumed that this was where my father broke off, until, a few days before the typescript of this book was due to go to the printers, I came most unexpectedly upon a further page, beginning at the words '”It looks like a tomb!” thought Frodo', which had evidently been separated from the rest of the chapter long ago, on account of the inscriptions. It was of course too late to reproduce these in this book, but an account of the runic alphabets as my father conceived them at this time and of the writing on Balin's tomb and in the Book of Mazarbul will, I hope, be published in Volume VII.

It may be noticed here, however, that it was at this point that my father decided to abandon the Old English (or 'Hobbit') runes and to use the real runes of Beleriand, which were already in a developed form. The inscription on the tomb (Balin Son of Burin Lord of Moria) was first written in the former, and then immediately below in 'Angerthas', twice, with the same words but in runes that differ in certain points.

On the back of this newly discovered page, and as I think very probably dating from the same time, is a very roughly pencilled design of a 'Page of Balin's Book', in runes representing English spelt phonetically, which reads thus: And on the right-hand bottom corner of the page, torn off from the rest, is the name Kazaddum.

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