The Treason of Isengard (12 page)

That stony seat was too hard for feet,

And boot and toe were broken.

There the troll lies, no more to rise,

With his nose to earth and his seat to the skies;

But under the stone is a bare old bone

That u as stole by a troll from its owner.

Donor! Boner!

Under the stone lies a broken bone.

That was stole by a troll from its owner.(35)

At the end of the recital Frodo says of Sam: 'First he was a conspirator, now he's a jester. He'll end up by becoming a wizard - or a toad!' - The stone that marked the place where the trolls' gold was hidden is still marked with Old English G and B runes in a circle, and the text remains as in the 'third phase' (VI.360).

Glorfindel now hails Trotter, not as in the previous version with Ai, Du-finnion! but with Ai, dennad Torfir! A short preparatory draft for the passage beginning with Glorfindel's greeting to Frodo (VI.361, FR

p. 222) is found, as follows:

'Hail, and well met at last! ' said the elf-lord to Frodo. 'I was sent from Rivendell to look for your coming. Gandalf feared that you might follow the Road to the Ford.'

'Gandalf has reached Rivendell then?' cried Frodo joyfully.

'More than five days ago,' answered Glorfindel. 'He rode out of the Entish Dales over the Hoarwell springs.'

'Out of the Entish Dales!' exclaimed Trotter.

'Yes,' said Glorfindel, 'and we thought you might come that way to avoid the peril of the Road. Some are seeking you in that region. I alone have come this way. I rode as far as the Bridge of Here the text breaks off. That Glorfindel should have set out after Gandalf reached Rivendell is at variance with the time-schemes (p. 14) and this brief draft must have preceded them. Abandoned in mid-sentence, it was replaced by another very close to what Glorfindel says in FR: he had left Rivendell nine days before; Gandalf had not then come; and Elrond had sent out from Rivendell not on account of Gandalf but because he had had news from Gildor's people - 'some of our kindred journeying beyond the Branduin (which you turned into Brandywine)'. This was taken up into the manuscript of the chapter (without the reference to the hobbits' name for the river: the moment was too urgent for such reflections).(36) It may be that this change in the story came about from the consideration that too little time was allowed for Gandalf's great detour northward through the Entish Dales.

In any case, the time-scheme D reflects the revised text: Glorfindel left Rivendell on 9 October and found Trotter and the hobbits nine days later, on the 18th, while Gandalf and Ham Bolger only reached Rivendell on that same day, having taken a full fortnight from Weathertop.

In the new version, Sam's protective fierceness when Frodo was attacked by pain and swayed is more bitterly expressed: ' "My master is sick and wounded, though perhaps Mr Trotter has not told you that,"

said Sam angrily.' Much later, the latter part of this was struck out.

At the end of the chapter the three Riders who came out of the tree-hung cutting become, by correction to the existing manuscript, five, and the six who came from ambush away to the left become four.

This change goes of course with the change of three Riders to five in the attack on Weathertop (see note 31).

NOTES.

1. In the draft A there is also a rejected version of the words between the Rider and the gatekeeper:

'Have you seen Gandalf?' said the voice after a pause.

'No sir, not since midsummer,' said Harry.

'You will watch for him,' said the voice slowly. 'You will watch for hobbits. We want Baggins. He is with them....'

2. In the fair copy B of the end of Chapter V (pp. 34-5); in the draft A (p. 32) the name is still Folco.

3. 'nigh on a score of years back' refers to Bilbo's passage through Bree after his Farewell Party, on his way to Rivendell. Butterbur had therefore seen Bilbo since he 'vanished with a bang while he was speaking', as the landlord goes on to say. See p. 83.

4. This development, showing the Riders to be well informed about the Bagginses of Bag End, was not retained.

5. On Trotter's references to Harry Goatleaf see pp. 41 - 2.

6. This speech of Butterbur's is largely derived from the draft text A (p. 43), where however it stands in a different context: there, it was on account of the questions of the Black Riders at the inn door, whereas here Butterbur has not mentioned the Riders.

7. 'a month' was corrected to 'a fortnight', and at the same time 'in August' was struck out. The date on Gandalf's letter (p. 49) is 12 September, showing that these changes were made while the chapter was in progress.

8. 'September' was corrected to 'this month'; see note 7.

9. The relations between the versions in respect of Gandalf's letter are:

'Third phase' o f the 'Bree' chapter:

Butterbur tells Frodo of Gandalf's visit two days before, and of his message to hurry on after him (VI.338 - 9)

Trotter has the letter from Gandalf (VI.343)

Draft revision A of the 'third phase' version:

Butterbur has nothing to communicate from Gandalf, who has not recently been in Bree (p. 43)

Trotter has the letter from Gandalf (p. 44)

The present text:

Butterbur tells Frodo of Gandalf's visit to Bree (in August >) on 12 September (p. 47 and note 7)

Butterbur has the letter from Gandalf (p. 47)

The Fellowship of the Ring:

Butterbur tells Frodo of Gandalf's visit at the end of June, leaving with the landlord a letter to be taken to the Shire, which was not done (p. 179).

10. 'yesterday and the day before': i.e. Tuesday and Wednesday, 27

and 28 September. Similarly in A the first Rider passed through Bree on the Tuesday (p. 43), not as in the previous versions on the Monday (VI.151, 339). In FR (pp. 176, 180) the first appearance of the Black Riders in Bree was again on Monday the 26th.

11. This is in fact a reversion to the alternative text 'B' of the original

'Bree' chapter (see VI.159), where Butterbur does not encounter the Riders and has nothing to say about them.

12. 'thin long-legged script': 'strong but graceful script' FR. In the earlier versions Gandalf's handwriting is 'trailing' (VI.154, 352).

13. There are two very rough draft versions of the letter. The first reads:

The Prancing Pony Aug. 30. Tuesday. Dear F. I hope you will not need this. If you get this (I hope old Butterbur will not forget) things will be far from well. I hope to get back in time, but things have happened which make it doubtful. This is to say: look out for horsemen in black. Avoid them: they are our worst enemies (save one). Don't use It again, not for any reason whatever. Make for Rivendell as fast as you possibly can; but don't move in the dark. I hope, if you reach Bree, you will meet Trotter the Ranger: a dark rather lean weather-beaten fellow, but my great friend, and enemy of our enemies. He knows all our business. He has been watching the east borders of the Shire since April, but for the moment has disappeared. You can trust him: he will see you through if it can be done. I hope we may meet in Rivendell. If not Elrond will advise you. If I don't come I can only hope that will be sufficient warning for you, and that you (and Sam, too, at least) will leave the Shire as soon as possible.

The other draft is the very close forerunner of the letter in the present manuscript, and scarcely differs from it, but it bears no date. - For previous forms of the letter see VI.154, 158, 352.

14. On the date 12 September (beside 30 August in the draft, note 13) see notes 7 and 8.

15. 'Aragorn son of Celegorn' is certainly later than 'Aragorn son of Aramir' (p. 7). - The original form of the name of the third son of Feanor was Celegorm, but this was changed to Celegorn in the course of the writing of the Quenta Silmarillion (V.226, 289).

Later it became Celegorm again.

16. These words of Frodo and Aragorn were afterwards used in 'The Council of Elrond' (see p. 105, note 3).

17. There is much initial drafting in exceedingly rough form for this part of the chapter. The first form of this passage was: The Enemy has set snares for me before now. Of course I did not really doubt you after seeing you with Tom Bombadil, and certainly not after hearing Frodo's song. Bilbo wrote that, and I don't see how servants of the Enemy could possibly have known it. But I had to teach you caution and convince you that I was personally to be trusted all the same - so that you should have no doubts or regrets later. Also a wanderer, an old ranger, had a desire to be taken as a friend for his own sake for once, and without proofs.

For the origin of this speech of Trotter's see VI.155.

18. With 'In the light they need their horses' cf. Strider's words on Weathertop (FR p. 202): the black horses can see, and the Riders can use men and other creatures as spies'; for earlier forms of this see VI.178, 357, and p. 58 and note 29.

19. I take the significance of this to be that the one Rider who had stood sentinel under the trees went to fetch the other two.

20. These two sentences replaced, soon after the time of writing, 'A curtain in one of the windows moved' (cf. VI.328).

21. 'Far away answering horns were heard': in all the variant forms of the 'Crickhollow episode' the reading is 'Far away' (adverbial).

The reading of FR (p. 189), 'Far-away answering horns' (adjec-tival), which appears already in the first impression of the first edition, is I think an early error.

22. The expression a sheaf of lightning, going back to the earliest form of the episode (VI.304), seems not to be recorded. The Oxford English Dictionary gives a meaning of sheaf 'a cluster of jets of fire or water darting up together', with quotations from the nineteenth century, but I doubt that this is relevant. Conceivably my father had in mind a 'cluster' or 'bundle' of lightnings', like a

'sheaf of arrows'.

23. These sentences (from 'At the same moment...') were a replacement, made as I think at or very soon after the time of composition, of 'Nearby among the trees a horn rang out.'

24. Some corrections made to attain it were put in subsequently, as is seen at once from the fact that in one of them 'Pippin' is the name written, not changed from 'Folco'; but I doubt that they were much later, and the question has here no importance.

25. The original workings of Sam's song of Gil-galad are extant, with the original form of the dialogue that followed his recital: The others turned in amazement, for the voice was Sam's.

'Don't stop! ' said Folco.

'That's all I know, sir,' stammered Sam blushing. 'I learned it out of an old book up at Mr. Bilbo's, when I was a lad. I always was as one for elves: but I never knew what that bit was about, until I heard Gandalf talking. Mr. Frodo'll remember that day.'

'I do,' said Frodo; 'and I know the book. I often wondered where it came from, though I never read it carefully.'

'It came from Rivendell,' said Trotter. 'That is part of Here the text breaks up into a mass of rough variants, including

'It comes from "The Fall of Gilgalad", which is in an old tongue.

Bilbo must have been translating it', and 'I know the book you mean (said Frodo). Bilbo wrote his poems in it. But I never thought of them as true.'

26. 'at least twelve days' journey before us': i.e. 21 less 9 (2 from the Brandywine Bridge to Bree, 7 from Bree to Weathertop).

27. Bruinen occurs in the time-scheme D, p. 14; Loudwater is first met here (but is found also on one of the sketch-maps redrawn in VI.201).

28. In draft fragments there are many versions of the passage concerning the problem of provisions that now beset the travellers, and in these there are still several mentions of 'the additional supplies left by Gandalf.'

29. The passage in the final form 'but our shapes cast shadows in their minds... they smell the blood of living things, desiring and hating it' is lacking. The final text is found in this manuscript, but whether added at this time or later I cannot say.

30. Aragorn's remark in FR about the Riders and fire ('Sauron can put fire to his evil uses...') was added to the manuscript. - In a draft for the earlier passage where he examines the traces in the dell he says:

'The wood is interesting. It is beech. There are no trees of that sort for many miles from this place, so the wood was brought from a distance. It must have been hidden here for a purpose: that is, either the campers meant to stay or to return, or they thought friends were likely to follow.'

31. Two differences from FR that remained in the 'third phase' were corrected on this manuscript: 'three tall figures' to 'five', and Frodo's cry to 0 Elbereth! Gilthoniel! (see VI.358).

32. The Ettenmoors and Ettendales of FR (pp. 212, 215) were written into this manuscript, but certainly at some later time -

replacing Entish Lands and Entish Dales when the word Ent had acquired its special meaning. It may be that Etten- from Old English eoten 'giant, troll' (Grendel in Beowulf was an eoten), Middle English eten, was first devised on this manuscript, in the passage where Trotter says 'If we keep on as we are going we shall get up into the Entish Dales far north of Rivendell' (FR