The Treason of Isengard (77 page)

The textual development of the last part of this chapter and its relation to the beginning of the next is complex and doubtful, the manuscript material being very hard to interpret, and I shall not go into the question in any detail. But it is clear that at least half of 'The King of the Golden Hall' had been written before the conclusion of

'The White Rider' approached at all the form it has in The Two Towers; for as will be seen (p. 446) Aragorn tells Theoden in Eodoras that Gandalf had not told them 'what befell him in Moria'.

How my father ended 'The White Rider' at this stage is not entirely clear to me, but it seems probable that he stopped at Gandalf's words of the Balrog (TT p. 105): 'Name him not!': 'and for a moment it seemed that a cloud of pain passed over his face, and he sat silent, looking old as death.' He would then have begun a new chapter (XXVII) at 'Gandalf now wrapped himself again in his old tattered cloak. They descended quickly from the high shelf...' (TT p. 107).

I cannot say at what precise point my father decided that Gandalf should in fact tell something at least of what had happened to him after his fall from the Bridge of Khazad-dum, but it must have been in the course of the writing of 'The King of the Golden Hall'. In what is apparently the earliest draft (but written over erased pencil) of Gandalf's story of his escape from Moria (4) the four companions are already riding south from Fangorn when he tells it:

On the way they ask Gandalf how he escaped. He refuses the full tale - but tells how he passed through fire (and water?) and came to the 'bottom of the world', and there finally overthrew the Balrog, who fled. Gandalf followed up a secret way to Durin's Tower on the summit of the mountains (?of Caradras). There they had a battle -

those who beheld it afar thought it was a thunderstorm with lightning. A great rain came down. The Balrog was destroyed, and .

the tower crumbled and stones blocked the door of the secret way.

Gandalf was left on the mountain-top. The eagle Gwaihir rescued him. He went then to Lothlorien. Galadriel arrayed him in white garments before he left. While Gandalf was on mountain top he saw many things - a vision of Mordor etc.

This is the first appearance of the form Gwaihir (here apparently first written Gwaehir) for earlier Gwaewar, which was still the name in the earlier part of this chapter.

A very rough and unfinished draft for the final form and placing of Gandalf's story ('Long I fell, and he fell with me...', TT p. 105) is found. Here Gandalf describes the Balrog, his fire quenched, thus: 'he was a thing of slime, strong as a strangling snake, sleek as ice, pliant as a thong, unbreakable as steel.' Of the 'dark things unguessed' that gnaw the world 'below the deepest delvings of the dwarves' he says:

'Sauron alone may know of them, or one older than he.' And after his words 'I will bring no report to stain the light of day' the text continues:

'...Little had I guessed the abyss that was spanned by Durin's Bridge.'

'Did you not?' said Gimli. 'I could have told you had there been time. No plummet ever found the bottom - indeed none that was ever cast therein was ever recovered.'(5)

The form of Gandalf's story in TT is almost reached in the 'fair copy' manuscript, but there remain some differences. He tells that clutching at the Balrog's heel 'I set my teeth in it like a hunting hound, and tasted venom'; and that Durin's Tower was 'carved in the living rock in the very pinnacle of red Caradras.' This was subsequently changed to 'the living rock [of] Zirakinbar,(6) the pinnacle of the Silverhorn. There upon Kelebras was a lonely window in the snow...'

On these names see pp. 174 - 5, notes 18, 21 - 2.

Gandalf does not say, as in TT (p. 106), 'Naked I was sent back -

for a brief time, until my task is done', but simply 'Naked I returned, and naked I lay upon the mountain-top.'(7) And of his coming thence to Caras Galadon, borne by Gwaihir, he says that he 'found you three days gone', and that he 'tarried there in the long time which in that land counts for but a brief hour of the world' ('in the ageless time of that land', TT): see pp. 368 - 9.

At this time the messages that he bore from Galadriel to Aragorn and Legolas were very different:

Elfstone, Elfstone, bearer of my green stone,

In the south under snow a green stone thou shalt see.

Look well, Elfstone! In the shadow of the dark throne

Then the hour is at hand that long hath awaited thee.

Greenleaf, Greenleaf, bearer of the elven-bow,

Far beyond Mirkwood many trees on earth grow.

Thy last shaft when thou hast shot, under strange trees shalt thou go!

The dialogue that follows, between Gimli, Legolas, and Gandalf, is however precisely the same as in TT, p. 107. On the significance of the verse addressed to Aragorn see p. 448.

With the addition of Gandalf's story to this chapter, what was originally the opening of 'The King of the Golden Hall' (from 'Gandalf now wrapped himself again in his old tattered cloak', see p. 430) was incorporated into 'The White Rider', which now ended at Gandalf's words 'Show no weapon, speak no haughty word, I counsel you all, until we are come before Theoden's seat' (TT p. 111). The final form of the story of the departure from Fangorn, the summoning of the horses, the great ride south across the plains with the sight at sunset of smoke rising far off in the Gap of Rohan, and the distant view of Eodoras at sunrise (TT pp. 107 - 11, where it constitutes the end of the one chapter and the beginning of the next), was achieved almost down to the last detail in the fair copy manuscript.(8) By this time my father had changed the ending of 'The Riders of Rohan' (p. 403) to the form it has in TT, pp. 45 - 6 ('The horses were gone. They had dragged their pickets and disappeared'), and had changed the beginning of 'The White Rider' similarly to its form in TT, p. 91 (' "Did you hear them, Legolas? Did they sound to you like beasts in terror?" "No," said Legolas. "I heard them clearly....I should have guessed that they were beasts wild with some sudden gladness" ').

NOTES.

1. A little slip of paper used to draft the moment of recognition of Mithrandir (TT p. 98) was a page from an engagement calendar

'for the week ending Saturday February 22'. February 22 fell on a Saturday in 1941, not in 1942.

2. The forerunner of this phrase appeared in the outline given on p. 389, as also did 'I was badly burned or well burned'; cf. also the notes given on p. 422. Gandalf's suggestion that he now 'is'

Saruman, in the sense that he is 'Saruman as he should have been', is lacking, but appears in the fair copy as first written.

3. Gandalf's words that follow in TT: 'There was a darkness over the valleys of the Emyn Muil' are absent in the draft, but are found in the fair copy (with Sarn Gebir for the Emyn Muil).

4. For the earliest notes on Gandalf's escape from Moria see VI.462

and p. 211 in this book.

5. It is interesting to look back to my father's original ideas about the chasm in the passages referred to in note 4: 'probably fall is not as deep as it seemed... eventually following the subterranean stream in the gulf he found a way out', and 'The gulf was not deep (only a kind of moat and was full of silent water). He followed the channel and got down into the Deeps.'

6. This form Zirakinbar, preceding Zirakzigil, is found also in an entirely isolated note: 'Barazinbar, Zirakinbar, Udushinbar', together with a reference to 'Silverhorn and the Horn of Cloud'.

7. Cf. Letters no. 156 (4 November 1954), Naked I was sent back

- for a brief time, until my task is done." Sent back by whom, and whence? Not by the "gods" whose business is only with this embodied world and its time; for he passed "out of thought and time". Naked is alas! unclear. It was meant just literally, "un-clothed like a child" (not discarnate), and so ready to receive the white robes of the highest. Galadriel's power is not divine, and his healing in Lorien is meant to be no more than physical healing and refreshment.'

8. Initial drafting is very largely lost through overwriting. - The only points of any significance in which the text of the fair copy differs from that of TT, other than names, are that Theoden is the 'Master of Rohan' and 'lord of the Mark' where in TT he is called 'King'

(see p. 444); that Gandalf says to Shadowfax 'Far let us ride now together, ere we part again!' where in TT he says 'and part not in this world again!'; and that 'the mountains of the South' (the Black Mountains) are 'black-tipped and streaked with white', whereas in TT, where they are the White Mountains, they are 'white-tipped and streaked with black': cf. the earlier description in 'The Riders of Rohan' (TT p. 24), where the original text was retained (p. 395),

'rising into peaks of jet, tipped with glimmering snows'.

Among names, Sarn Gebir (for Emyn Muil), Winseld, Eodoras are still present. At the end of the chapter, in Gandalf's phrase 'the Horse-masters do not sleep' (TT p. 111), the form Rohir (not Rohiroth) was written above.

XXV.

THE STORY FORESEEN FROM

FANGORN.

In this chapter I give two outlines of great interest, for in them my father discussed the structural problems of the story that he foresaw at this time. The first one given here was evidently written when 'The White Rider' had been completed in its earlier form (i.e. without Gandalf's story of the Balrog, see p. 430); the ride across Rohan and the distant sight of Eodoras in the morning may or may not have existed yet, but the question is immaterial.

XXVII

Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli reach Eodoras on the morning of Jan. 31.(1) (That aft[ernoon] Merry and Pippin go with Ents to Isengard.)

They enter Theoden's halls. Theoden greets Gandalf dubiously

- as herald of trouble. Shadowfax had been reported coming from the West through the Gap and fleeing away north.(2) They feared Gandalf would return. Then Eomer had come riding back, with strange news concerning Gandalf's fall. 'That,' said Theoden, 'was too much to hope, it seems; for now Gandalf returns and worse tidings follow.'

Against this paragraph was written in the margin, at the same time as the text, 'A messenger from Minas Tirith is present.'

There is a battle on the borders of the West Emnet. An invasion of Orcs of Saruman had been driven back (not without loss to the Rohiroth) to the banks of the Isen River. But news came that orcs were pouring out of Isengard, and that men of the Middlemarch (3) (whom Saruman had long subjected) were coming up. 'We cannot hope long to hold the river,' said Theoden. 'Eomer has gone thither with what men could still be spared. And now as we are beset in the West, there comes dire news indeed. The whole of Rhun the Great, the endless East, is in motion. Under the command of the Dark Lord of Mordor they move from the far North even to the South. Minas Tirith is beset. The fierce dark men of the South, the Haradwaith (Harwan Silharrows Men of Sunharrowland Men of Harrowland) have come in many ships and fill the Bay of Belfalas, and

[have] taken the isle of Tolfalas. They have passed up the Anduin in many galleys, and out of Mordor others have crossed at Elostirion.(4) A tide of war rolls beneath the very walls of Minas Tirith. They have sent us urgent prayer for help. And we cannot give it. Yet if Minas Tirith falls then the dark tide will sweep over us from the East.

Against this passage concerning Minas Tirith was written in the margin, at the same time as the text, 'Not yet have they heard of Boromir's fall.' Later, the whole passage from 'And now as we are beset in the West' to this point was closed off in pencil with the note

'place after return victorious from Isengard.' Theoden continues: You come at the end of the days of Rohan. Not long now shall the hall (which Brego son of Brytta [changed later in pencil to Eorl son of Eofor] built)(5) stand. Fire shall eat up the high seat.

What can you say?'

Gandalf speaks words of comfort. All that can be done is to do one deed at a time and go forward and not look back. Let us assail Saruman and then if fortune is with us turn and face East.

There is a hope. Something may happen in West (he does not openly name Ents).

Gandalf begs for the gift of Shadowfax.

Theoden says Yes - that will at least ensure Gandalf's escape, when all else fall. Gandalf does not lose temper. He says there will be no escape for anyone. But he wishes for gift, as he will take Shadowfax into great peril: silver against black.

The ceremony of gift. Gandalf casts aside grey robe and becomes White Rider. He bids Theoden arm, old as he is, and follow with all left who can bear arms. The rest shall pack and prepare to flee to the mountains.

They ride off without rest. Meet messengers reporting death of the Second Master and the forces of Rohan hemmed almost in, while the forces of Saruman are continually strengthened.

Gandalf spurs Shadowfax and spurs into the setting sun.

By his help and Aragorn the Isengarders are driven back. The camp of the Rohiroth. But Isengarders are across the river.

In the morning they awake and look out in wonder. A wood stood where none had been, between the Isengarders and the West. There is clamour and confusion. Vast columns of vapour are seen rising from Isengard, and the rumour of strange noises and rumblings. The Isengarders are driven into the river. Those who cross are suddenly assailed by the trees which seem to come to life. Only a few escape fleeing southward to the Black Mountains.