The Treason of Isengard (26 page)

This typescript was very carefully and accurately made, with a remarkably small number of errors, seeing that the typist seems not to have been well acquainted with the story: the name Saruman was typed Samman throughout (ru and m being very similar or identical in my father's handwriting). Where my father missed a needed change (as Galdor > Legolas) the typist dutifully set down the manuscript form.

These characteristics make the typescript a mirror of the state of the manuscript when it was made. This is to be sure of only limited value without knowledge of when that was; but I think that it belongs clearly to this period.

In those parts of the fifth version that are cited here, I indicate only those subsequent emendations to the manuscript (and only if of significance) that appear in the typescript as typed.

Gloin's story was altered in the following way. In the third version, retained in the fourth, he had said: 'At the last, some score of years ago, Balin departed, though Dain did not give leave willingly, and he took with him Oin and Ori and many of our folk, and they went away south' (p. 117). This was now replaced by the following, written on a page of the 'August 1940' examination script.

'... For Moria was of old one of the wonders of the Northern world. It is said that it was begun when the Elder Days were young,(1) and Durin, father of my folk, was king; and with the passing of the years and the labour of countless hands its mighty halls and streets, its shafts and endless galleries, pierced the mountains from east to west and delved immeasurably deep.

But under the foundations of the hills things long buried were waked at last from sleep, as the world darkened, and days of dread and evil came. Long ago the dwarves fled from Moria and forsook there wealth uncounted; and my folk wandered over the earth until far in the North they made new homes. But we have ever remembered Moria with fear and hope; and it is said in our songs that it shall be re-opened and re-named ere the world ends. When again we were driven from the Lonely Mountain, Erebor,(2) in the days of the Dragon, Thror returned thither. But he was slain by an Orc, and though that was revenged by Thorin and Dain, and many goblins were slain in war, none of Thror's folk, neither Thrain, nor Thorin his son, nor Dain his sister-son, dared to pass its gates; until at last Balin listened to the whispers that I have spoken of, and resolved to depart. Though Dain did not give leave willingly, he took with him Oin and Ori and many of our people, and they went away south. That was two score years ago.

This passage, of which only a trace remains in FR (pp. 253 - 4), reveals the development of new conceptions in the history of the Dwarves. In the original text of 'The Ring Goes South' (VI.429) Gandalf said that the Goblins drove the Dwarves from Moria, and most of those that escaped removed into the North. This must have been based on what was told in The Hobbit: in Chapter III Elrond had said 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 in ]

Chapter IV there was a reference to the goblins having 'spread in secret after the sack of the mines of Moria'. Presumably therefore what my father said in the first version of 'The Ring Goes South' was what he actually had in mind when he wrote those passages in The 1

Hobbit: the Goblins drove the Dwarves out of Moria.

If this is so, it was only now that a new story emerged, in which the Dwarves left Moria for an entirely different reason. In the present passage the cause of their flight is indeed only hinted at most obliquely: 'they delved immeasurably deep', and 'under the foundations of the hills things long buried were waked at last from sleep'.

With this compare LR Appendix A (III): j The Dwarves delved deep at that time.... Thus they roused from sleep a thing of terror that, flying from Thangorodrim, had lain of the West: a Balrog of Morgoth. Durin was slain by it, and the year after Nain I, his son; and then the glory of Moria passed, and its people were destroyed or fled far away.

On this question see further pp. 185 - 6.

Concomitantly with this, the 'dwarf and goblin war' took on a new interpretation and history (and this was why the word 'sack' in the sentence quoted from Chapter IV of The Hobbit above was changed in the third edition (1966) to 'battle'). It was the savage murder of Thror, Thorin's grandfather, on his return to Moria, that led to the war of the Dwarves and the Orcs, ending in the fearsome victory of the Dwarves in the battle of Azanulbizar (Dimrill Dale), described in LR Appendix A (III). The passage in the present text, telling that Thror 'was slain by an Orc, and though that was revenged by Thorin and Dain, and many goblins were slain in war, none of Thror's folk, neither Thrain, nor Thorin his son, nor Dain his sister-son, dared to pass [Moria's] gates', suggests that the essentials of the later story were now already present.

In the story told in LR Appendix A (III) Thorin played an important part in the battle, and from his prowess derived his name 'Oakenshield'; and Dain slew Azog, the slayer of Thror, before the East Gate of Moria. This latter event was indeed derived from The Hobbit, where in Chapter XVII Gandalf said of Dain that he slew the father of Bolg (leader of the Goblins in the Battle of Five Armies) in Moria.(3) It is further told in Appendix A (III) that after the death of Azog Dain came down from the Gate 'grey in the face, as one who has felt great fear'; and that he said to Thrain, Thorin's father:

'You are the father of our Folk, and we have bled for you, and will again. But we will not enter Khazad-dum. You will not enter Khazad-dum. Only I have looked through the shadow of the Gate.

Beyond the shadow it waits for you still: Durin's Bane. The world must change and some other power than ours must come before Durin's Folk walk again in Moria.'

It appears from The Hobbit Chapter XV that Dain of the Iron Hills was Thorin Oakenshield's cousin (and from Chapter XVII that his father was called Nain). In the present text Dain is called Thrain's sister-son. In the table given in LR Appendix A (III), however, he is not Thrain's sister-son: his father Nain was Thrain's first cousin, and thus Thorin Oakenshield and Dain Ironfoot were second cousins.

After Elrond's words to Gloin 'You will learn that your trouble is only part of the trouble that we are here met to consider' (cf. p. 118), Galdor of Mirkwood no longer follows (see pp. 129 - 30), and the fifth version reads here:(4)

'For hearken all!' said Elrond in a clear voice. 'I have called you together to listen to the tale of the Ring. Some part of that tale is known to all, but the full tale to few. Other matters may be spoken of, but ere all is ended, it will be seen that all are bound up with the Ring, and all our plans and courses must wait upon our decision in this great matter. For, what shall we do with the Ring? That is the doom that we must deem ere we depart.

'Behold, the tale begins far away and long ago. In the Black Years that followed the Elder Days, after the fall of Numenor the Men of Westernesse returned to the shores of Middle-earth, as is recorded still in lore. Of their kings Elendil the Tall was their chief, and his sons were Isildur and Anarion, mighty lords of ships. They sailed first into the Gulf of Lindon, where the Elf-havens were and still are, and they were befriended by Gilgalad, King of the High-elves of that land. Elendil passed on into Middle-earth and established a realm in the North, about the rivers Lhun and Branduin, and his chief city was called Tarkilmar [> Torfirion] (or Westermanton), that now is long desolate. But Isildur and Anarion sailed on southwards, and brought their ships up the Great River, Anduin,(5) that flows out of Wilderland and finds the Western Sea in the Bay of Belfalas.

In the lands about its lower courses they established a realm where are now the countries of Rohan and Ondor.(6) Their chief city was Osgiliath, the Fortress of Stars, through the midst of which the river flowed. Other strong places they made: Minas Ithil, the Tower of the Rising Moon, to the eastward upon a spur of the Mountains of Shadow; and Minas Anor, the Tower of the Setting Sun, westward at the feet of the Black Mountains.

But Sauron dwelt in Mordor, the Black Country, beyond the Mountains of Shadow, and his great fortress, the Dark Tower, was built above the valley of Gorgoroth; and he made war upon the Elves and the Men of Westernesse; and Minas Ithil was taken. Then Isildur sailed away and sought Elendil in the North; and Elendil and Gilgalad took counsel together, seeing that Sauron would soon become master of them all, if they did not unite. And they made a league, the Last Alliance, and marched into Middle-earth gathering great force of Elves and Men. Very mighty was that host.

It will be found that in this passage are the bones of a part of the narrative of the separate work Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age, which was published in The Silmarillion (see pp. 290 - 3). In the later development of 'The Council of Elrond' the chapter became the vehicle of a far fuller account of the early Numenorean kingdoms in Middle-earth, and much of this is now found not in The Lord of the Rings but in Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age.

Here the later story of Elendil enters (see pp. 122-4), in which Elendil remained in the North, whereas his sons sailed south down the coasts of Middle-earth and brought their ships up the Great River.

Elendil's city in the North emerges, afterwards Annuminas, but here bearing the names Tarkilmar or Westermanton: on. the western portion of the First Map (pp. 304 - 5) the Elvish name is Torfirion, to which Tarkilmar was changed on the present manuscript. In Mordor the valley of Gorgoroth appears, the name deriving from the Ered Orgoroth (Gorgoroth), the Mountains of Terror south of Taur-na-Fuin in the Elder Days; and the Mountains of Shadow are the first mention of the later-named Ephel Duath, the great chain fencing Mordor on the West and South.

From 'Very mighty was that host' my father returned to and retained the pages of the preceding (fourth) version, pp. 126 - 8. The result of this combination of the new passage just given with the text of the fourth version was to repeat the taking of Minas Ithil. In the original account (pp. 119 - 20) Elrond told that after the war with Sauron

'as the world worsened and decayed Osgiliath fell into ruin', and the servants of Sauron took the eastern city, so that 'it became a place of dread, and was called Minas Morgol'. In the fourth version (pp. 126 - 7) this was repeated more fully and plainly; and the structure of Elrond's story here can be summarised thus:

- Isildur went to the War of the Last Alliance.

- Elrond recalls the mustering of the hosts.

- He tells of the war.

- Isildur's death; 'he came never back to Minas Ithil, nor did any of his folk return. Only in Minas Anor was the race of Westernesse maintained for a while'.

- Despite the victory over Sauron, the world worsened; the Numen6reans decayed and were corrupted, 'Osgiliath fell into ruin; and evil men took Minas Ithil, and it became a place of dread, and was called Minas-Morgol'

But in the fifth version the structure of Elrond's story becomes:

- Sauron captured Minas Ithil. Thereupon Isildur departed and went north, and there followed the War of the Last Alliance.

(The story returns to the fourth version).

- Elrond recalls the mustering of the hosts.

(&c. as in the fourth version)

This is the form of the story in the typescript made from the fifth version. It is not clear to me whether my father fully intended this result. As the fifth version stands, Minas Ithil was captured by Sauron before the War of the Last Alliance, and indeed its capture was a prime cause of the making of the league; yet it is still said that Isildur 'came never back to Minas Ithil', and it is still told that long after the war

'evil men took Minas Ithil'. This is of course perfectly explicable: when Sauron was cast down Minas Ithil was retaken from his servants, and only much later did the 'evil men' repossess it. But one might expect this to have been made explicit; and the impression remains of a 'doubled' account arising from the use of the fourth version material at this point.

However this may be, it is curious that the history of Minas Ithil never was made entirely explicit. In Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age nothing is said of its retaking after the war, nor indeed of its history until the time of the great plague that came upon Gondor in the seventeenth century of the Third Age, when 'Minas Ithil was emptied of its people' (The Silmarillion p. 296).

Various changes were made to the manuscript, which is common to both fourth and fifth versions, in this part of the chapter (extending as far as 'it has been ordained that you should have it for a while', p. 128). These changes were apparently made at different times; those that were taken up into the typescript (see p. 141) are given here.