The Peoples of Middle-earth (46 page)

The next section of Appendix A, I (iv), Gondor and the Heirs of Anarion, is a fearful complex of typescript pages. Though it is possible to unravel the textual history up to a point,(7) it defies presentation, which is in any case unnecessary. The whole complex clearly belongs to one time. It was now that new elements entered the history, notably the story of the overthrow of the Witch-king of Angmar (RK pp.

331-2), and the account of the service of Aragorn under the name Thorongil with the Steward Ecthelion II (only referred to in a brief sentence in The Heirs of Elendil, p. 206), and of his relations with Denethor (RK pp. 335-6).

Note on the expansion of the tale of the Kin-strife in the Second Edition.

In the First Edition of The Lord of the Rings the account of the Kin-strife (or more accurately of the events leading to it) was much briefer than that in the Second Edition, and read as follows (RK pp. 325-6 in both editions):(8)

Nonetheless it was not until the days of Romendacil II that the first great evil came upon Gondor: the civil war of the Kin-strife, in which great loss and ruin was caused and never fully repaired.

'The Northmen increased greatly in the peace brought by the power of Gondor. The kings showed them favour, since they were the nearest in kin of lesser Men to the Dunedain (being for the most part descendants of those peoples from whom the Edain of old had come); and they gave them wide lands beyond Anduin south of Greenwood the Great, to be a defence against men of the East. For in the past the attacks of the Easterlings had come mostly over the plain between the Inland Sea and the Ash Mountains.

'In the days of Romendacil II their attacks began again, though at first with little force; but it was learned by the King that the Northmen did not always remain true to Gondor, and some would join forces with the Easterlings, either out of greed for spoil, or in the furtherance of feuds among their princes.

'Romendacil therefore fortified the west shore of Anduin as far as the inflow of the Limlight, and forbade any stranger to pass down the River beyond the Emyn Muil. He it was that built the pillars of the Argonath at the entrance to Nen Hithoel. But since he needed men, and desired to strengthen the bond between Gondor and the Northmen, he took many of them into his service and gave to some high rank in his armies.

'In return he sent his son Valacar to dwell for a while with Vidugavia, who called himself the King of Rhovanion, and was indeed the most powerful of their princes, though his own realm lay between Greenwood and the River Running. There Valacar was wedded to Vidugavia's daughter, and so caused later the evil war of the Kin-strife.

'For the high men of Gondor already looked askance at the Northmen among them ...

From here the text of the Second Edition returns to that of the First, but there was a further alteration in the next paragraph, where the First Edition had: 'To the lineage of his father he added the fearless spirit of the Northmen. When the confederates led by descendants of the kings rose against him ...', inserting the sentence 'He was handsome and valiant, and showed no sign of ageing more swiftly than his father.'

As I have mentioned earlier (p. 190), in 1965, the year before the publication of the Second Edition, my father wrote a new version of this account; this he inserted into the late typescript copy D of The Heirs of Elendil. It is remarkable that though this new text was incorporated, in more concise form, into Appendix A, he actually wrote it as an addition to the text of The Heirs of Elendil, to be placed beneath the nineteenth king Romendakil II, whose entry (see p. 198) he emended, on the typescript D, thus (the dates refer to birth, life-span, and death):

19 Romendakil II 1126 240 1366

(Minalkar) (Lieutenant of the King 1240, King 1304) In the text of the First Edition there was no reference to the name Romendacil as having been taken by Calmacil's son after his victory over the Easterlings in 1248, and indeed there was no mention of the victory. In the Second Edition, in the list of the Kings of Gondor (RK

p. 318), the original text 'Calmacil 1304, Romendacil II 1366, Valacar' was altered to 'Calmacil 1304, Minalcar (regent 1240-1304), crowned as Romendacil II 1304, died 1366, Valacar'.

There is no need to give the whole of the new version, since the substance of it was largely retained in the revised text of Appendix A, but there are some portions of it that may be recorded. As originally composed, it opened:

Narmakil (9) and Kalmakil were like their father Atanatar lovers of ease; but Minalkar elder son of Kalmakil was a man of great force after the manner of his great-grandsire Hyarmendakil, whom he revered. Already at the end of Atanatar's reign his voice was listened to in the councils of the realm; and in 1240 Narmakil, wishing to be relieved of cares of state, gave him the new office and title of Karma-kundo 'Helm-guardian', that is in terms of Gondor Crown-lieutenant or Regent. Thereafter he was virtually king, though he acted in the names of Narmakil and Kalmakil, save in matters of war and defence over which he had complete authority. His reign is thus usually dated from 1240, though he was not crowned in the name of Romendakil until 1304 after the death of his father. The Northmen increased greatly in the peace brought by the power of Gondor....

In the long version there is a footnote to the name Vinitharya: 'This, it is said, bore much the same meaning as Romendakil.' After the birth of Vinitharya this version continues:

Romendakil gave his consent to the marriage. He could not forbid it or refuse to recognize it without earning the enmity of Vidugavia.

Indeed all the Northmen would have been angered, and those in his service would have been no longer to be trusted. He therefore waited in patience until 1260, and then he recalled Valakar, saying that it was now time that he took part in the councils of the realm and the command of its armies. Valakar returned to Gondor with his wife and children; and with them came a household of noble men and women of the North. They were welcomed, and at that time all seemed well. Nonetheless in this marriage lay the seeds of the first great evil that befell Gondor: the civil war of the Kin-strife, which brought loss and ruin upon the realm that was never fully repaired.

Valakar gave to his son the name Eldakar, for public use in Gondor; and his wife bore herself wisely and endeared herself to all those who knew her. She learned well the speech and manners of Gondor, and was willing to be called by the name Galadwen, a rendering of her Northern name into the Sindarin tongue. She was a fair and noble lady of high courage, which she imparted to her children; but though she lived to a great age, as such was reckoned among her people, she died in 1344 [in one copy > 1332]. Then the heart of Romendakil grew heavy, foreboding the troubles that were to come. He had now long been crowned king, and the end of his reign and life were drawing nearer. Already men were looking forward to the accession of Valakar when Eldakar would become heir to the crown. The high men of Gondor had long looked askance at the Northmen among them, who had borne themselves more proudly since the coming of Vidumavi. Already among the Dunedain murmurs were heard that it was a thing unheard of before that the heir to the crown, or any son of the King should wed one of lesser race, and short-lived; it was to be feared that her descendants would prove the same and fall from the majesty of the Kings of Men.

20 Valakar 1194 238 crowned 1366 1432

Valakar was a vigorous king, and his son Eldakar was a man of great stature, handsome and valiant, and showed no sign of ageing more swiftly than his father. Nonetheless the disaffection steadily grew during his reign; and when he grew old there was already open rebellion in the southern provinces. There were gathered many of those who declared that they would never accept as king a man half of foreign race, born in an alien country. 'Vinitharya is his right name,' they said. 'Let him go back to the land where it belongs!'

NOTES.

1. 'thirteen kings' is an error for 'fourteen kings'.

2. This was almost exactly retained as the opening to Appendix A in the First Edition, as far as the reference to the Akallabeth, but The Book of the Kings and Stewards was separated into two works, which were not said to be lost. (The old opening to Appendix A was replaced in the Second Edition by an entirely new text, and the Note on the Shire Records was added at the end of the Prologue.) The published text then continued:

From Gimli no doubt is derived the information concerning the Dwarves of Moria, for he remained much attached to both Peregrin and Meriadoc. But through Meriadoc alone, it seems, were derived the tales of the House of Eorl; for he went back to Rohan many times, and learned the language of the Mark, it is said. For this matter the authority of Holdwine is often cited, but that appears to have been the name which Meriadoc himself was given in Rohan. Some of the notes and tales, however, were plainly added by other hands at later dates, after the passing of King Elessar.

Much of this lore appears as notes to the main narrative, in which case it has usually been included in it; but the additional material is very extensive, even though it is often set out in brief and annalistic form. Only a selection from it is here presented, again greatly reduced, but with the same object as the original compilers appear to have had: to illustrate the story of the War of the Ring and its origins and fill up some of the gaps in the main account.

The absence in the present text of the references to Gimli and Meriadoc as sources possibly suggests that my father had not yet decided to include sections on Rohan and the Dwarves in this Appendix (although brief texts entitled The House of Eorl and Of Durin's Race were in existence).

3. This version lacked the account (RK pp. 327 - 8) of the great white pillar above the haven of Umbar set up in memorial of the landing of Ar-Pharazon in the Second Age. The name of the King of Rhovanion was Vinitharya; this was corrected on the typescript to Vidugavia, and the name Vinitharya made that of Eldakar in his youth.

4. At the top of the page on which this account begins my father wrote, then or later, 'Hobbit-annal of the Kin-strife'.

5. After the words 'Many of the people that still remained in Ithilien deserted it' text III continues 'It was at this time that King Earnil gave Isengard to Saruman.' This agrees with the statement in the text T 4 of the Tale of Years in the entry c.2000: see p. 233 and note 26, and p. 251.

6. In the two earlier versions of text IV the conclusion of the passage was extended, that of the first reading:

Therefore to Elrond all chances of the War of the Ring would bring grief: to fly with his kin from ruin and the conquering Shadow, or to be separated from Arwen for ever. For either Aragorn would perish (and he loved him no less than his sons); or he would wed Arwen his daughter when he had regained his inheritance, according to the condition that Elrond himself had made when first their love was revealed. (See III.252, 256).

7. My father's almost exclusive use of a typewriter at this time greatly increases the difficulty of elucidating the textual history.

His natural method of composition in manuscript was inhibited; and he constantly retyped portions of pages without numbering them.

8. The quotation marks indicated 'actual extracts from the longer annals and tales that are found in the Red Book'.

9. My father reverted to the use of k instead of c in this text.

(II) THE TALE OF ARAGORN AND ARWEN.

Of the texts of Aragorn and Arwen the earliest in succession is also very plainly the first actual setting down of the tale. It was not 'a part of the tale', as it came to be called in Appendix A, and was indeed quite differently conceived. It is a rough, much corrected manuscript, which I will call 'A', and a portion of it is in typescript (not separate, but taking up from manuscript and returning to it on the same pages).

Unless this peculiarity itself suggests that it belongs with the late work on the Appendices, there seems to be no clear and certain evidence of its relative date; but its peculiar subsequent history may indicate that it had been in existence for some time when my father was working on the narrative of the Realms in Exile described in the preceding section.

The manuscript, which bears the title Of Aragorn and Arwen Undomiel, begins thus.

In the latter days of the last age [> Ere the Elder Days were ended],(1) before the War of the Ring, there was a man named Dirhael [> Dirhoel], and his wife was Evorwen [> Ivorwen]

daughter of Gilbarad, and they dwelt in a hidden fastness in the wilds of Eriador; for they were of the ancient people of the Dunedain, that of old were kings of men, but were now fallen on darkened days. Dirhael [> Dirhoel] and his wife were of high lineage, being of the blood of Isildur though not of the right line of the Heirs. They were both foresighted in many things. Their daughter was Gilrain, a fair maid, fearless and strong as were all the women of that kin. She was sought in marriage by Arathorn, the son of Arador who was the Chieftain of the Dunedain of the North.

Arathorn was a stern man of full years; for the Heirs of Isildur, being men of long life (even to eight score years and more) who journeyed much and went often into great perils, were not accustomed to wed until they had laboured long in the world.