The Peoples of Middle-earth (43 page)

At the end of the year the Company of the Ring ('The Nine Walkers') leave Rivendell.

3019. The War of the Ring begins, between Sauron and his creatures, and their allies in the East and South (among all Men that hate the name of Gondor), and the peoples of the Westlands. Saruman plays a treacherous part and attacks Rohan. Theodred son of Theoden is slain in war with Saruman. Boromir son of Denethor is slain by Orcs near the Falls of Rauros. Minas Tirith is besieged by great forces led by the Black Captain, and is partly burnt. Denethor slays himself in despair. The Rohirrim by a great ride break the siege, but Theoden is slain by the Witch-king. The Battle of the Pelennor Fields followed, of which the full tale is told elsewhere. The greatest deed of that day was the deed of Eowyn Eomund's daughter. She for love of the King rode in disguise with the Rohirrim and was with him when he fell.

By her hand the Black Captain, the Lord of the Ringwraiths, the Witch-king of Angmar, was destroyed.

Even so the battle would have been lost but for the coming of Aragorn. In the hour of need he sailed up Anduin from the south, in the fleet which he captured from the Corsairs of Umbar, bringing new strength; and he unfurled the banner of the kings.

After taking counsel the Host of the West marches to the Black Gate of Mordor. There it is trapped and surrounded by the forces of Sauron. But in that hour Frodo the Halfling with his faithful servant reached Mount Doom through perils beyond hope and cast the Ring into the Fire. Then Sauron was unmade and his power passed away like a cloud and the Dark Tower fell in utter ruin. This is that Frodo who was long remembered in the songs of Men as Frodo of the Nine Fingers, and renowned as one of the greatest heroes of Gondor; but though often later this was forgotten he was not a Man of Gondor but a Halfling of the Shire.

The Host of the West enters Mordor and destroys all the Orc-holds. All Men that had allied themselves with Sauron were slain or subjugated.

In the early summer Aragorn was crowned King of Gondor in Minas Tirith taking the name of Elessar (the Elfstone). He became thus King both of Arnor and Gondor, and overlord of the ancient allies of Mordor to whom he now granted mercy and peace. He found a seedling of the White Tree and planted it.

At midsummer Arwen came with Elrond and Galadriel and her brethren, and she was wedded with Aragorn Elessar, and made the choice of Luthien.

In Gondor a new era and a new calendar was made, to begin with the day of the fall of Barad-dur, March 25, 3019. But the Third Age is not held to have ended on that day, but with the going of the Three Rings. For after the destruction of the Ruling Ring the Three Rings of the Eldar lost their virtue. Then Elrond prepared at last to depart from Middle-earth and follow Celebrian.

3021. In the autumn of this year Elrond, Galadriel, and Mithrandir, the guardians of the Three Rings, rode westward through the Shire to the Grey Havens. With them went, it is said, the Halflings Bilbo and Frodo, the Ringbearers. Cirdan had made ready a ship for them, and they set sail at evening and passed into the uttermost West. With their passing ended the Third Age, the twilight between the Elder Days and the Afterworld which then began.

Here ends the main matter of the Red Book. But more is to be learned both from notes and additions in later hands in the Red Book (less trustworthy than the earlier parts which are said to have been derived from the Halflings that were actual witnesses of the deeds); and from the Annals of the House of Elessar, of which parts of a Halfling translation (made it is said by the Tooks) are preserved.

So much may here be noted. The reign of King Aragorn was long and glorious. In his time Minas Tirith was rebuilt and made stronger and fairer than before; for the king had the assistance of the stone-wrights of Erebor. Gimli Gloin's son of Erebor had been his companion and had fought in all the battles of the War of the Ring, and when peace was made he brought part of the dwarf-folk and they dwelt in the White Mountains and wrought great and wonderful works in Gondor. And the Dwarves also forged anew great gates of mithril and steel to replace those broken in the siege. Legolas Thranduil's son had also been one of the king's companions and he brought Elves out of Greenwood (to which name Mirkwood now returned) and they dwelt in Ithilien, and it became the fairest region in all the Westlands. But after King Elessar died Legolas followed at last the yearning of his heart and sailed over Sea. It is said in the Red Book that he took Gimli Gloin's son with him because of their great friendship, such as had never else been seen between Elf and Dwarf. But this is scarcely to be believed: that a dwarf should be willing to leave Middle-earth for any love, or that the Elves should admit him to Avallon if he would go, or that the Lords of the West should permit it. In the Red Book it is said that he went also out of desire to see again the Lady Galadriel whose beauty he revered; and that she being mighty among the Eldar obtained this grace for him. More cannot be said of this strange matter.

It is said also that in 3020 Eowyn Eomund's daughter wedded Faramir, last Steward of Gondor and first Prince of Ithilien, in the king's house of Rohan. Eomer her brother received the kingship upon the field of battle from Theoden ere he died. In 3022

(or Fourth Age 1) he wedded Lothiriel daughter of Imrahil of Dol Amroth, and his reign over Rohan was long and blessed, and he was known as Eomer Eadig.

King Elessar and Queen Arwen reigned long and in great blessedness; but at the last the weariness came upon the King, and then, while still in vigour of mind and body, he laid himself down after the manner of the ancient kings of Numenor, and died, in the hundred and second year of his reign and the hundred and ninetieth year of his life.

Then Arwen departed and dwelt alone and widowed in the fading woods of Loth-lorien; and it came to pass for her as Elrond foretold that she would not leave the world until she had lost all for which she made her choice. But at last she laid herself to rest on the hill of Cerin Amroth, and there was her green grave until the shape of the world was changed.

Of Eldarion son of Elessar it was foretold that he should rule a great realm, and that it should endure for a hundred generations of Men after him, that is until a new age brought in again new things; and from him should come the kings of many realms in long days after. But if this foretelling spoke truly, none now can say, for Gondor and Arnor are no more; and even the chronicles of the House of Elessar and all their deeds and glory are lost.

The account of the history of the Realms in Exile in The Heirs of Elendil, where it is set out in the framework of the succession of the kings and rulers, necessarily overlaps with that in the Tale of Years, where it forms part of a general chronology of the Westlands. It would therefore be interesting to know whether my father wrote the latter before or after the final (unrevised) manuscript C of The Heirs of Elendil; but the evidence on this question is strangely conflicting. On the one hand, the entry in T 4 for the year 1960 seems to establish that it preceded C, where the interregnum after the death of King Ondohir was only of one year and Earnil II came to the throne in 1945, and the correction to the text (see note 23) was plainly made after the manuscript was completed. There are other pointers to the same conclusion; thus the passage under 2050 concerning the Stewards was taken straight from the B text of The Heirs of Elendil (see p. 217). On the other hand, there are a number of features in T 4 that seem to show that my father had C in front of him: as for example the statement under 1409 that the palantir of Amon Sul was destroyed, where C

(before correction) had 'the palantir is broken', but B (in an addition) had 'no one knows what became of the Stone' (pp. 194, 209); or again the two challenges made by the Lord of the Ringwraiths to Earnur, in 2043 and 2050, which very clearly first entered The Heirs of Elendil in C (pp. 201, 217). Close similarities of wording are found between entries in T 4 and both B and C.

One might suppose that the writing of T 4 and the writing of C proceeded together; but the two manuscripts are at once very distinct in style, and very homogeneous throughout their length. Each gives the impression that it was written from start to finish connectedly. On the other hand, there can be little doubt that T 3 and T 4 belong to very much the same time as The Heirs of Elendil.

My father may not have precisely intended such near-repetition between the two works as occurs, but it is possible to regard it as the necessary consequence of his design at that time. This long Tale of Years, ample in expression, seems to me to show that he wished, having at long last brought the story to its end, to provide for the reader a clear and accessible (still in the manner of the story) 'con-spectus' of all the diverse threads and histories that came together in the War of the Ring: of the Hobbits, the Wizards, the Dunedain of the North, the rulers of Gondor, the Rohirrim, the Ringwraiths, the Dark Lord; the High-elves of Rivendell and Lindon also, the Dwarves of Erebor and Moria, and further back the lost world of Numenor. This account (a chronology, but with a narrative view and tone) was to be read at the end of the book, a Tale of Years in which the story of the Fellowship and the quest of the Ringbearer could be seen, when all was over, as the culmination of a great and many-rooted historical process - for which chronology was a prime necessity. And so also, at the end of this Tale of Years, he moved 'outside the frame' of the story, and looked further on to the later lives of Gimli and Legolas, of Faramir and Eowyn and Eomer, the reign and the deaths of Elessar and Arwen, and the realm of their son Eldarion in 'the Afterworld'.

I have mentioned when discussing the Tale of Years of the Second Age (p. 177) that an amanuensis typescript in two copies (T 5) - very intelligently and professionally done - was made from the manuscript T 4; and that one of them was emended in a most radical fashion by my father, chiefly if by no means exclusively in order to abbreviate the text by the omission of phrases that could be regarded as not strictly necessary. This cutting out of phrases ceases altogether towards the end, at the beginning of the entry for 3019.

There is no certain evidence to show when the typescript was made, but I think that it was a long while after the writing of the manuscript.

The question is in any case not of much importance, for what is certain is that the typescript was sent to the publishers in 1954; in a letter of 22 October in that year Rayner Unwin said:

The Tale of Years which I am returning herewith was interesting, but as you, I think, agree, probably too long for the appendices as it stands. I suggest that considerable reduction be made in the accounts of events already told in The Lord of the Rings, and a somewhat more staccato style be adopted (make less of a narrative of the events of the Third Age).

It was of course the typescript in its unrevised form that he had sent: the revision (in so far as it entailed abbreviation) was obviously undertaken in response to Rayner Unwin's criticism.

If my interpretation of my father's intention for the Tale of Years is at all near the truth, it may be supposed that he carried out this work of shortening with reluctance; certainly, in the result, the amount lost from the original text was not proportionately very great, the long concluding passage was not touched, and the rounded, 'narrative'

manner was little diminished. But after this time there is no external evidence that I know of to indicate whether there was further discussion of the matter - whether, for instance, my father was given a more express limitation with regard to length. There is indeed nothing actually to show that the subsequent far more drastic compression was not his own idea. But there is also nothing to bridge the gap before the next text, a typescript (from which the entries before 1900 are missing, and which breaks off in the middle of that for 2941) already in full 'staccato' mode, and approaching (after a good deal of correction) closely the text in Appendix B. After this the only further extant text is the typescript from which Appendix B was printed.

NOTES.

1. On the name Dol Dugul for later Dol Guldur see VIII.122. In the manuscripts of The Lord of the Rings it is always spelt Dol Dughul (replacing original Dol Dugol).

2. On the date of Deagol's finding the One Ring see pp. 166-7.

3. 'They become Hobbits': cf. the passage in The Shadow of the Past, later revised, cited on p. 66, $20.

4. From this point all the dates are given also in the years of the Shire Reckoning, but I do not include these in the text. Here 1600

is made S.R.1, but in all the following annals the final figure of the year corresponds in both reckonings, as '2940 (S.R.1340)', as if S.R.1 = 1601. The correction to 1601 was not made until the third text, T 4.

5. On Northworthy see p. 5 and note 3.

6. King Earnur is named in the text of The Lord of the Rings, in the chapter The Window on the West (TT p. 278), where it was a late change from Elessar (VIII.153).