The War of the Ring (65 page)

The first manuscript A has no title, and was paginated continuously with 'The Ride of the Rohirrim'; a subsequent fair copy manuscript ('B') was afterwards given the number and title 'XLVIII The Battle of the Pelennor Fields'. The opening passage in A is distinct from the form in RK:

But it was no orc-chief or brigand that led the assault on Gondor. Who knows whether his Master himself had set a date to the darkness, designing the fall of the City for that very hour and needing light for the hunting of those that fled, or fortune had betrayed him and the world turned against him? None can tell. Dismayed he may have been, cheated of victory even as he grasped it. Cheated, not yet robbed. He was still in command, wielding great power, Lord of the Nazgul. He had many weapons. He left the Gates and vanished.

There is no mention of Dernhelm in the passage 'He [Theoden]

slackened his speed a little, seeking new foes, and his knights came behind him. Elfhelm's men were among the siege-engines ...', where RK has 'and his knights came about him, and Dernhelm was with them.' This shows, I think, that Dernhelm was still conceived to have been riding with the king's knights throughout the journey from '

Edoras.(5)

When the Lord of the Nazgul says to Eowyn (6) No living man may hinder me!' she replies, as the text was first written: 'I am no living man. You look upon a woman. Eowyn I am, Eomund's daughter. You stand between me and my kin. Begone! For though I have slain no living thing, yet I will slay the dead [> yet I will slay the Undead].' This rests on the earlier form of the prophecy concerning the Lord of the Nazgul: 'he is not doomed to fall before men of war or wisdom; but in the hour of his victory to be overthrown by one who has slain no living thing' (pp. 334-5). This was changed on the manuscript to: 'Begone, if thou be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will hew thee, if thou touch me.'

In the passage that follows, Eowyn's hair is described as 'shorn upon her neck', and this survived through the fair copy 8 into the first typescript, where it was changed to the reading of RK (p. 116): 'her bright hair, released from its bonds'. And Merry's thought is directly reported: 'I must do something. If only I can get away from those eyes! '

After the great cry of the Lord of the Nazgul as he departed there follows: 'And far up above [?the] Nazgul hearing that cry were filled with great terror, and fled away to Baraddur bearing ill tidings.' This was not taken up into the fair copy (B).(7)

At Theoden's death the text here is briefer, and no reference is made to the taking up of the banner from its dead bearer and the sign made by the king that it be given to Eomer: 'Grief and dismay fell upon Eomer as he leaped from the saddle and stood by the king. Slowly the old man opened his eyes again. "Hail, King of the Mark!" he said....'

In the fair copy B the banner-bearer is named Guthwin (Guthlaf in RK).

Of Merry s sword it was first said in this text, So passed the sword of the Barrow-downs, work of Westernesse. Glad would he have been to know its fate who wrought it slowly long ago, for the sorcerer-king he knew and the dread realm of Angmar in the ancient North, hating all his deeds.' The text of RK (pp. 119 - 20), 'who wrought it slowly long ago in the North-kingdom when the Dunedain were young was substituted, probably at once.(8)

The passage (RK p. 120) recording the burying of the carcase of the great beast and of Snowmane, with the horse's epitaph, is absent; and the great rain that came from the sea ('it seemed that all things wept for Theoden and Eowyn', recalling the grief for Baldr) likewise, being added in only on the first typescript. A page of the manuscript (A) in which the encounter of the Prince of Dol Amroth with the bearers of Theoden and Eowyn is described, and his discovery that Eowyn was still alive, was rejected and at once rewritten; in the rejected form occurs this passage in the words of the Prince (still given no other name) with the bearers:

'Bring him to the City,' he said. 'The gate is wide open, and by his own deed the way thither is made free.' And then he rose and looked on Eowyn and was amazed. 'Here is a woman!' he said.

'Do even the women of Rohan come to war in our aid?' he asked.

'It is the Lady Eowyn sister of King Eomer,' they said. 'And we do not know how she came here, but it seems that she took the place of one of his knights. [Rejected at once: Dernhelm

... a young kinsman of the king.] It is a grief beyond words to us.

This is the only trace of the idea that Eowyn escaped detection by substituting herself for a young Rider among the king's knights actually named Dernhelm. No doubt it arose here and was abandoned here; probably because of the meaning of the name (derne 'hidden, secret'; cf. the earlier name by which Eowyn was to ride, Grimhelm, p. 355 note 6).

In the rewritten version of this passage the text of RK is reached, and here at last appears the name Imrahil of the Prince of Dol Amroth, entering apparently without any hesitation as to its form.

Among the horsemen of Gondor (RK p. 121) appears Hurin the Tall, 'Warden of the City', changed at once to 'Warden of the Keys'. In an immediately rejected version of the passage in which the new hosts streaming in from Osgiliath are described it was said of the Black Captain: 'He was gone, and the Nazgul in fear had fled back to Mordor bearing ill tidings' (see note 7); but this was lost in the rewriting of the passage, where appear Gothmog lieutenant of Morghul,(9) the Variags of Khand (both names written without any precedent forms), and the black 'half-trolls' of Far Harad.(10) The course of Anduin, as seen by the watchmen on the walls when the black fleet approached (RK p. 122), was first described thus: For south away the river went in a knee about the out-thrust of the hills of Emyn Arnen in lower Ithilien,(11) and Anduin bent then in upon the Pelennor so that its outwall was there built upon the brink, and that at the nearest was no more than [five

>] four miles from the Gates; [added: and quays and landings were made there for boats coming upstream from the Outlands;] but thence the river flowed southeast for three leagues and all that reach could be seen in line by farsighted men on high. And they looking forth cried in dismay, for lo! up the reach of Arnen a black fleet could be seen ...

Striking out this passage my father noted against the first part of it:

'This is now told before in XLIV' (i.e. the chapter 'Minas Tirith'). He was referring to a rider introduced into the first typescript of that chapter (see p. 294 note 30) entirely recasting the original description of the Pelennor and the Outlands (pp. 278, 287) to its form in RK

(p. 22), where the bend in Anduin about Emyn Arnen appears. This rider was already in existence, though obviously belonging to this phase of writing, as is seen from the name Lonnath-ernin of the landings, subsequently changed (presumably at this very juncture) to Harlond.

In the present text the passage just cited was removed immediately, and the much briefer passage as found in this place in RK (p. 122) follows in the manuscript, with the name Harlond.(12)

The great banner of Aragorn is described in the same words as in RK (p. 123), except that in the sentence 'for they were wrought of gems by Arwen daughter of Elrond' the italicised words are absent. In the fair copy manuscript (B) 'by Finduilas Elrond's daughter'(13) was added in the margin, changed later to 'Arwen daughter of Elrond'.

Aragorn is named 'Elessar, Isildur's heir'; and when men leapt from the ships to the quays 'There came Legolas and Gimli wielding his axe, and Halbarad with the standard, and Elboron and Elrohir with stars on their brow, and the dourhanded Dunedain, Rangers of the North; and in the hand of Aragorn Branding was like a new fire kindled, Narsil reforged (14) as deadly as of old, and about his helm there was a kingly crown.' Thus Elboron still survived, for Elladan (see pp.

297, 302), the change being made on the fair copy. Branding, for Anduril, Flame of the West, remained until changed on the first typescript; while 'about his helm there was a kingly crown' was not replaced by 'upon his brow was the Star of Elendil' until the book was in proof.

At the end of the chapter as first written Duinhir of Morthond is named among the fallen, whereas in RK it is his sons, 'Duilin and his: brother' (Derufin), who were trampled by the mumakil.(15) Grimbold of Grimslade is not named (though he has appeared in 'The Ride of the Rohirrim'), and instead the sentence in which he is named in RK

reads: 'Neither Hirluin the Fair would return to his green hills, nor Elfhelm to Eastfold [written above: Westfold],(16) nor Halbarad to the Northlands, dourhanded Ranger.'

In the alliterative song 'The Mounds of Mundburg' (not yet so named) there was much variation in the recording of those who died in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. The earliest complete, though still very rough, form of the song reads:

As long after a maker (17) in Rohan said in his song: We heard in the hills the horns ringing,(18)

of swords shining in the South kingdom:

steeds went striding to the Stoningland

a wind in the morning, war at sunrise.

There Theoden fell, Thengling mighty,

life and lordship long had he wielded

hoar king and high, Harding and Crimbold,

Dunhere and [Elfhelm >] Marculf, Deorwin the marshal.

Hirluin the fair to the hills by the sea,

nor Forlong the great to the flowering vales

ever of Arnach in his own country

returned in triumph, nor the tall bowman

doughty Duinhir to the dark waters,

meres of Morthond under mountain-shadows.

Death in the morning and at day's ending

lords took and lowly. Long now they sleep

under grass in Gondor by the Great River.

Red it ran then. Red was the sunset,

the hills under heaven high snowmantled

bloodred burning. Blood dyed the earth

in the Field of Mundberg in the far country.

Another rough text, moving nearer to the final form in some lines but petering out before the conclusion, has in the line corresponding to the 8th in the version just given Dunhere and [Elfhelm >] Guthwin, Deorwin the marshal. Guthwin was the banner-bearer of the king (see p. 368). The first good text reaches the final form (with the name Rammas Echor in the last line) in all but the names of the dead Riders: Harding and Guthwin,

Dunhere and Marculf, Deorwin and Grimbold,

Herufare and Herubrand, Horn and Fastred,

fought and fell there in a far country;

in the mounds of Mundberg under mould they lie with their league-fellows, lords of Gondor.(19) NOTES.

1. Cf. the initial drafting for the end of 'The Siege of Gondor'

(p. 337), ... crown that sat upon no visible head save only for the light of his pale eyes.'

2. dwimorlakes: 'illusions, phantoms'. Old English (ge)dwimor, -er; cf. Wormtongue's name Dwimordene of Lorien in 'The King of the Golden Hall' (TT p. 118), and Dwimorberg. In the present chapter in RK (p. 116) Eowyn calls the Lord of the Nazgul 'foul dwimmer-laik', -laik being the Old Norse ending -leikr corresponding to Old English -lac, here 'modernised' as -lake.

3. Theoden son of Thengel: see p. 355 note 9.

4. The word is most naturally read as 'sound', in which case my father inadvertently repeated it instead of the word he had in mind, e.g. 'riding'.

5. The statement in 'The Ride of the Rohirrim' that 'Dernhelm had left his place and in the darkness was moving steadily forward until at last he was riding just in rear of the king's guard' (p. 353) was added after the writing of the present passage; see also p. 356

note 17.

6. Eowyn calls the Lord of the Nazgul 'foul dwimmerlake', where

-lake was changed subsequently to -lord. See note 2.

7. Cf. 'The Story Foreseen from Forannest', p. 360, in which it is said that Sauron heard from the Nazgul of the defeat on the Pelennor and the corning of Aragorn.

8. For the first appearance of Angmar see p. 334, and of Dunedain p. 363 note 6.

9. The name Gothmog is one of the original names of the tradition, going back to The Book of Lost Tales; Lord of Balrogs, slayer of Feanor and Fingon.

10. Khand, Near Harad, and Far Harad were roughly entered on the Second Map.

11. Emyn Arnen has replaced Haramon (see p. 359 and note 3). On the origin of the great bend in the Anduin around the hills of Emyn Arnen see p. 438.

12. As first written, those who saw the black sails cried out: 'The Corsairs of Umbar! See! The Corsairs are coming. They have overrun Amroth and Belfalas and Lebennin are destroyed!'

13. In the First Age Finduilas was the daughter of Orodreth King of Nargothrond; she plays a major part in the Turinssaga.

14. Narsil reforged: although it has been said that Aragorn gave the name Branding to the Sword of Elendil after its reforging (see VII.274 and note 19), its ancient name has never been told until now.

15. In the account of the men of the Outlands entering Minas Tirith given on p. 287 Duinhir is mentioned, but not his sons.

16. In LR Elfhelm was not slain in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, but survived to command the three thousand Riders of Rohan who were sent to 'waylay the West Road against the enemy that was in Anorien' (RK p. 158; the leader of this force was not named in the First Edition, but Elfhelm is named in both editions as among those who stood before the gates of Minas Tirith when the Captains of the West returned, RK p. 244).