The War of the Ring (74 page)

The Paths of the Dead Gimli and Legolas go to the Houses of Healing, and Merry and Pippin hear the tale of the journey of the Grey Company from Dunharrow to the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.

Parley at the Gate 'The Last Debate', ending with Aragorn's drawing the sword of Elendil; the journey to the Morannon, and the parley with the Lieutenant of Barad-dur.

It was probably now that my father made a typescript of the two chapters, the text diverging very little from the manuscript material as now reorganised;(42) but he treated them as subdivisions of a single chapter, without an overall title, and with the puzzling number 'XLIX'

(see note 10): (i) 'The Paths of the Dead' and (ii) 'Parley at the Black Gate'.

The subsequent history of the chapter is textually exceedingly complicated, but I shall treat it briefly. The first typescript was very heavily revised, and two large sections of it were written out anew in a separate manuscript. The effect of all this was to bring the narrative closer in very many points to the texts in RK, and indeed much of the earlier part now required little more than grammatical alteration to bring Gimli's story to the direct author's narrative in 'The Passing of the Grey Company.'(43)

In the ride from Erech over Tarlang's Neck into Lamedon the deserted town of Calembel upon Ciril (so spelt, with C) appears,(44) and the blood-red sunset behind Pinnath Gelin (RK p. 63): the final chronology had now entered (see the Note at the end of this chapter).

Angbor of Lamedon is now named, but the new text differs here from that of RK (p. 151):

'Then Aragorn said to Angbor their captain who alone stayed to meet him: "Behold! I am not the King of the Dead, but the Heir of Isildur, and I live yet for a while. Follow me, if you wish to see the end of this darkness and the downfall of Mordor."

'And Angbor answered: "I will gather all men that I may, and follow after you swiftly." His was a stout heart indeed, and I grieve that he fell beside me, as we clove our way from the Harlond.

In RK (p. 153) Angbor of Lamedon came to Pelargir but did not go up Anduin in the black fleet; he is last referred to by Aragorn in the debate in his tent (p. 157) as marching at the head of four thousand men from Pelargir through Lossarnach and expected soon to arrive at Minas Tirith.

To Legolas' words about the Sea (p. 414) he now adds his second reference to the gulls (RK p. 151): 'Alas! for the wailing of the gulls.

Did not the Lady tell me to beware of them. For they cannot be forgotten.' He is thinking of Galadriel's message to him, spoken by Gandalf in Fangorn (TT p. 106):

Legolas Greenleaf long under tree

In joy thou hast lived. Beware of the Sea!

If thou hearest the cry of the gull on the shore, Thy heart shall then rest in the forest no more.

For Galadriel's original message to Legolas, and its application, see p. 22.

There is an interesting passage immediately following in this revised version. In the version given on p. 413 there was fighting on the shores, for 'there were captains sent by Mordor, and orc-chieftains, and they were not so easily dismayed, and they endeavoured to hold their men to a defence. And indeed the Haradrim are a grim folk, and not easily daunted by shade or blade.' This was rejected, following a note that there was in fact no fighting at Pelargir: 'But fear was the only weapon that we needed, for the grey host passed on to every ship

... and all the men that were in them fled, or leaped overboard'

(p. 414). My father now went back on this decision.

'1 soon forgot them [the gulls] for my part,' said Gimli. 'For at last we came to a battle. The Haradrim were driven now to despair, and could fly no longer. There at Pelargir lay the fleets of Umbar, fifty great ships and many smaller vessels beyond count. Some few of our enemies reached their ships and put off, seeking either to escape down the River or to reach the far shores; and some they set fire to. But we came too swiftly upon them for many to slip from us so. We were joined by some of the hardier folk of Lebennin and the Ethir, but we were not many when the corsairs turned to bay; and seeing our weakness their hearts revived and they assailed us in their turn. There was stern work there in the twilight by the grey waters, for the Shadow Host halted and wavered, unwilling at the last, as it seemed, to make war on Sauron. Then Aragorn let blow a horn and cried aloud, saying that if they broke their oath a second time Here my father stopped and rewrote the passage to a form not essentially different from that in RK, where the Shadow Host is still said to have 'hung back at the last', but with no explicit suggestion that they were reluctant to fulfil the oath, and where for the living there was no need for 'stern work in the twilight by the grey waters'.

At this time my father also wrote an experimental version 'with entrance to the Door told at end of Chapter 11 of Book V' - that is, at the end of 'Many Roads Lead Eastward'. This begins: 'But Aragorn and his company rode across the high mountain-field upon which was set the refuge of the Rohirrim; and the paths were laid between rows of standing stones hoar with age uncounted. The light was still grey, for the sun had not yet climbed over the black ridges of the Haunted Mountain ...' It must be presumed that the story of the coming of the Grey Company to Dunharrow, and Aragorn's parting from Eowyn, had now been added to 'Many Roads Lead Eastward' (see note 19).

The text ends thus: '... a groping blindness overcame him, even Gimli Gloin's son the Dwarf, who had walked in many deep places under earth. So the Grey Company dared the forbidden door, and vanished from the land of living men.'

Although this shows that my father was pondering the possibility of removing some part of the story told in the Houses of Healing and rewriting it as direct narrative in its chronological place, the following typescript is a text of the whole 'Tale of Gimli and Legolas' incorporating all revision to that time, and ending with the words 'and none ever dared to move Baldor's bones' (cf. p. 416).

There followed a rough manuscript in which the first part of the

'Tale' was written out as direct narrative, to stand in its chronological place in the earlier chapter, thus greatly shortening the material of the end of Book V. A further typescript has the structure of 'The Last Debate' in RK, with the story of the passage of the Paths of the Dead removed and only mentioned as having been told, though here it was still Gimli who told it:

'Alas! I had heart only for myself,' said Gimli, 'and I do not wish to recall that journey.' He fell silent; but Pippin and Merry were so eager for news that at last he yielded and told them in halting words of the dreadful passage of the mountains that led to the black Stone of Erech. But when he came to the Day without Dawn he ceased. 'I am weary recalling that weariness, and the horror of the Dark,' he said.

'Then I will say on,' said Legolas.(45)

The structure of the narrative in RK had been at last achieved, with the debate in the tent of Aragorn following in the same chapter the end of the story told to Merry and Pippin in the Houses of Healing.(46) I see no way to determine at what stage all this later work was done.

NOTES.

1. On Haramon see p. 359 and note 3. The reading 'the Hills of Haramon' (plural) in the outline 'The Story Foreseen from Forannest' is certain, in contrast to the 'great hill' referred to in the present text.

2. For Bealdor (Baldor) son of Brego see pp. 315-16, and on the spelling of the name p. 321 note 11.

3. A pencilled note in the margin reads: '25 miles. Dunharrow > rech 55.' Presumably '25 miles' refers to the distance from the issue of the Paths of the Dead to the Stone of Erech. On the distance from Dunharrow to Erech see pp. 296 - 7 note 2.

4. By '(say Linhir?)' I suppose that my father meant that since the road to Pelargir crossed the Lameduin (later Gilrain) at Linhir,

'Linhir' would do as well as 'Fords of Lameduin'. Linhir appears also in 'The Story Foreseen from Forannest' (p. 361); it is marked on the Second Map (see p. 437) at some distance above the head of the estuary of Lameduin, the direct distance from here to Erech on this map being 36 mm. or 180 miles.

5. From Linhir to Pelargir direct is 2 cm. or 100 miles on the Second Map.

6. The rejected portion of the outline has here: 'The Haradwaith try to fly. Some take ship back again down Anduin. But Aragorn overtakes them and captures most of the ships. Some are set fire to, but several manned by slaves and captives are captured.'

(Then follows the passage about the Gondorian captives.) 'Aragorn embarks with men of South Gondor; the Shadow Host disperses, pursuing the Haradwaith about the vales.'

7. Cf. 'The Battle of the Pelennor Fields', p. 370: 'south away the river went in a knee about the out-thrust of the hills of Emyn Arnen in lower Ithilien, 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.' In 'The Story Foreseen from Forannest' (p. 363 note 3) the Pelennor Wall is at this point ten miles away from the City.

8. On the Second Map it is 125 miles (the figure given in the text) up river from Pelargir to the angle of the 'knee' in Anduin (see note 7), and thus the straight stretch of ten miles 'just before that point', visible from Minas Tirith, is the 'leg' below the 'knee'. In the further continuation of the passage from 'The Battle of the Pelennor Fields' cited in note 7 (see p. 370) the length of 'the reach of Arnen' is given as 'three leagues'; but on the Second Map, on which both these passages were based, it is substantially longer. In RK (p. 122) 'Anduin, from the bend at the Harlond, so flowed that from the City men could look down it lengthwise for some leagues.'

9. Cf. 'The Story Foreseen from Forannest' (p. 359): 'Then as final despair comes on, and Rohirrim give back, [west >] south wind rolls back cloud, and noon-sun gleams through. Aragorn unfurls his great standard from ship-top. The crown and stars of Sun and Moon shine out.'

10. The opening page of the manuscript bears the chapter-numbers

'XLI', 'L', 'L(b)', and 'XLIX', all of which were struck out except the last. 'XLI' is an obvious slip (for 'LI'?), since the chapter could not possibly bear this number; but it is hard to see how it could be 'XLIX' either (see p. 386 and note 7).

11. This draft for the debate follows immediately on an abandoned sentence of 'The Houses of Healing', thus:

Gandalf and Pippin then came to Merry's room and there saw Aragorn stand

'My lords,' said Gandalf....

The text that follows is written in ink over pencilled drafting for

'The Houses of Healing'.

12. This sentence is bracketed in the original, as also is that a little further on ('a tyrant brooking no freedom ...').

13. Imladrist: cf. p. 139 note 14 and p. 165 note 5.

14. My father struck out 'Gandalf' immediately. He then wrote

'Warden of the Keys' but put dots for the name, writing in

'Hurin' before he had gone much further. It would seem therefore that this was where the name arose, but since 'Hurin' appears in the first manuscript of 'The Battle of the Pelennor Fields' (p. 369) it seems clear that my father had merely forgotten momentarily here what name he had chosen for him.

15. Gandalf cannot have said this. Either not must be removed or cannot > can.

16. In a draft for this passage Imrahil called Dol Amroth Castle Amroth; this was repeated in a following draft, where it was changed to Barad Amroth (and finally Barad > Dol).

17. Merry of course knew that Aragorn did go to Dunharrow (cf. RK

pp. 69 - 70; the final text of 'The Muster of Rohan' was now largely in being, p. 319). See p. 417.

18. This passage contrasts greatly with RK, where it is Gimli who will not speak of the Paths of the Dead, and Legolas who says

'I felt not the horror, and I feared not the shadows of Men, powerless and frail as I deemed them.' See p. 417.

19. I think that the parting of Aragorn and Eowyn would not have been recounted so fully by Legolas and Gimli here if the story of the coming of the Grey Company to Dunharrow already existed in the earlier chapter (RK pp. 56 - 9); see p. 308.

20. our horses that the Rohirrim gave us: 'horses', because Aragorn's horse was still Hasufel (pp. 301, 305 - 6); when Roheryn, his own horse brought from the North by the Rangers, was introduced, it was only Arod, the horse bearing Legolas and Gimli, that was of Rohan, and he alone is mentioned in the equivalent passage in RK ('The Passing of the Grey Company', p. 60).

21. In the early drafts for 'The King of the Golden Hall' the mounds of the kings at Edoras were first described as 'white with nodding flowers like tiny snowdrops', the flowers being subsequently nifredil (VII.442-3). In RK ('The Passing of the Grey Company', p. 61) Aragorn calls the flowers simbelmyne', but cf. 'The King of the Golden Hall' (TT p. 111), where Gandalf says: 'Evermind they are called, simbelmyne' in this land of Men, for they blossom in all the seasons of the year, and grow where dead men rest.'