PART ONE.
THE FALL OF
SARUMAN.
I.
THE DESTRUCTION OF ISENGARD.
(Chronology)
The writing of the story from 'The King of the Golden Hall' to the end
of the first book of The Two Towers was an extremely complex
process. The 'Isengard story' was not conceived and set down as a
series of clearly marked 'chapters', each one brought to a developed
state before the next was embarked on, but evolved as a whole, and
disturbances of the structure that entered as it evolved led to disloca-
tions all through the narrative. With my father's method of composi-
tion at this time - passages of very rough and piecemeal drafting being
built into a completed manuscript that was in turn heavily overhauled,
the whole complex advancing and changing at the same time - the
textual confusion in this part of The Lord of the Rings is only
penetrable with great difficulty, and to set it out as a clear sequence
impossible.
The essential cause of this situation was the question of chronology;
and I think that the best way to approach the writing of this part of the
narrative is to try to set out first the problems that my father was
contending with, and to refer back to this discussion when citing the
actual texts.
The story had certain fixed narrative 'moments' and relations.
Pippin and Merry had encountered Treebeard in the forest of Fangorn
and been taken to his 'Ent-house' of Wellinghall for the night. On that
same day Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas had encountered Eomer and his
company returning from battle with the Orcs, and they themselves
passed the night beside the battlefield. For these purposes this may be
called 'Day 1', since earlier events have here no relevance; the actual
date according to the chronology of this period in the writing of The
Lord of the Rings was Sunday January 29 (see VII.368, 406).
On Day 2, January 30, the Entmoot took place; and on that day
Aragorn and his companions met Gandalf returned, and together they
set out on their great ride to Eodoras. As they rode south in the
evening Legolas saw far off towards the Gap of Rohan a great smoke
rising, and he asked Gandalf what it might be: to which Gandalf
replied 'Battle and war! ' (at the end of the chapter 'The White Rider').
They rode all night, and reached Eodoras in the early morning of
Day 3, January 31. While they spoke with Theoden and Wormtongue
in the Golden Hall at Eodoras the Entmoot was still rumbling on far
away in Fangorn. In the afternoon of Day 3 Theoden with Gandalf
and his companions and a host of the Rohirrim set out west from
Eodoras across the plains of Rohan towards the Fords of Isen; and on
that same afternoon the Entmoot ended,(1) and the Ents began their
march on Isengard, which they reached after nightfall.
It is here that the chronological problems appear. There were - or
would be, as the story evolved - the following elements (some of them
foreseen in some form in the outline that I called 'The Story Foreseen
from Fangorn', VII.435 - 6) to be brought into a coherent time-pattern.
The Ents would attack Isengard, and drown it by diverting the course
of the river Isen. A great force would leave Isengard; the Riders at the
Fords of Isen would be driven back over the river. The Rohirrim
coming from Eodoras would see a great darkness in the direction of
the Wizard's Vale, and they would meet a lone horseman returning
from the battle at the Fords; Gandalf would fleet away westwards on
Shadowfax. Theoden and his host, with Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas,
would take refuge in a deep gorge in the southern mountains, and a
great battle there would turn to victory after certain defeat with the
coming of the 'moving trees', and the return of Gandalf and the lord
of the Rohirrim whose stronghold it was. Finally, Gandalf, with
Theoden, Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas and a company of the Riders would
leave the refuge and ride to Isengard, now drowned and in ruins, and
meet Merry and Pippin sitting on a pile of rubble at the gates.
I.
In the original opening of 'Helm's Deep', as will be seen at the
beginning of the next chapter, the cavalcade from Eodoras saw 'a
great fume and vapour' rising over Nan Gurunir, the Wizard's Vale,(2)
and met the lone horseman returning from the Fords of Isen, on the
same day (Day 3, January 31) as they left the Golden Hall. The
horseman (Ceorl) told them that the Riders had been driven back over
the Isen with great loss on the previous day (Day 2, January 30); and it
must have been 'the smoke of battle' that Legolas saw in the evening
rising from the Gap of Rohan as they rode south from Fangorn - it
cannot of course have been the steam rising from the drowning of
Isengard by the Ents (see above). In this original story Theoden and his
men, with Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas, took refuge in Helm's Deep
(not yet so named) that same night (Day 3).
A chronological dislocation seems to have been already present in
this: for the events of Days 1-3 as set out above were fixed in relation
to each other, and the Ents must arrive at Isengard after nightfall of
Day 3 (January 31); yet according to the original opening of 'Helm's
Deep' the host from Eodoras sees the 'great fume and vapour' rising
over Nan Gurunir (unquestionably caused by the drowning of Isen-
gard) in the evening of that same day.
II.
This time-scheme was duly changed: Theoden and his host camped
in the plain on the first night out from Eodoras (Day 3, January 31),
and it was in the morning of the second day of the ride (Day 4,
February 1) that they saw the great cloud over Nan Gurunir:
As they rode they saw a great spire of smoke and vapour, rising up
out of the deep shadow of Nan Gurunir; as it mounted it caught the
light of the sun and spread in glowing banks that drifted on the
wind over the plains towards them.
'What do you think of that, Gandalf?' said Theoden. 'One would
say that all the Wizard's Vale was burning.'
'There is ever a fume above that valley in these days,' said Hama;
'but I never saw anything like that before.'
It is now in the evening of this second day of their ride that they met
the horseman Ceorl coming from the Fords, and on the night of this
day that the battle of the Hornburg took place. The chronology was
now therefore:
(Day 3) January 31 Gandalf, Theoden and the Rohirrim depart
from Eodoras and camp for the night in the plains. Ents reach
Isengard after nightfall and after the departure of the Orc-host
begin the drowning of the Circle of Isengard.
(Day 4) February 1 The host from Eodoras sees in the morning the
steams rising from the drowning of Isengard; in the evening they
meet Ceorl and learn of the defeat at the Fords of Isen on the
previous day; and reach Helm's Deep after nightfall. Battle of the
Hornburg.
It seems impossible to avoid the conclusion that the end of the
chapter 'The White Rider' (Legolas' sight of the smoke in the Gap of
Rohan on Day 2, January 30) escaped revision when the date of the
(Second) Battle of the Fords of Isen was changed to January 31.
III.
In the original form of what became the opening of 'The Road to
Isengard' Gandalf and Theoden, with Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas and
a party of Riders, set out from Helm's Deep shortly after the end of the
battle of the Hornburg, without any rest; this was on Day 5, February 2,
and they reached Isengard not long after noon on the same day. As
they approached Nan Gurunir
they saw rising up out of deep shadows a vast spire of smoke and
vapour; as it mounted it caught the light of the sun, and spread in
glowing billows in the sky, and the wind bore them over the plain.
'What do you think of that, Gandalf?' said Theoden. 'One would
say that all the Wizard's Vale was burning.'
'There is ever a fume above that valley in these days,' said Eomer;
'but I have never seen anything like this before. These are steams,
rather than smokes. Some devilry Saruman is brewing to greet us.'
This dialogue was lifted straight from its earlier place at the beginning
of the 'Helm's Deep' story (see II above) - with substitution of Eomer
for Hama, slain at the Hornburg, and in 'Helm's Deep' a different
passage was inserted, as found in TT pp. 131 - 2, in which what is seen
in the North-west is 'a shadow that crept down slowly from the
Wizard's Vale', and there is no mention of fume or steam.
The reason for these changes was again chronological: the host on
its way from Eodoras is not to see great steams rising from Isengard on
Day 4, but the 'veiling shadow' of the Huorns as they came down into
the Wizard's Vale. Thus:
(Day 4) February 1 The host from Eodoras sees in the morning the
shade of the moving trees far off in the North-west; the drowning
of Isengard was not begun till night. At night Battle of the
Hornburg.
(Day 5) February 2 In the morning Theoden and Gandalf and
their company ride to Isengard, and find it drowned.
IV.
The chronology was then changed to that of 'The Road to Isengard'
in TT, whereby Theoden and Gandalf and their company do not leave
Helm's Deep until much later on Day 5, pass the night camped below
Nan Gurunir, and do not reach Isengard until midday on Day 6
(February 3). This chronology is set out in a time-scheme (additions of
mine in brackets):
[Day 3] January 31 Ents arrive at Isengard, night. Break in.
[Day 4] February 1 Dawn, they go away north to make dams. All
that day Merry and Pippin alone until dusk. Gandalf arrives at
Isengard at nightfall, and meets Treebeard. Drowning of Isengard
begins late at night. [Battle of the Hornburg.]
[Day 5] February 2 Isengard steams all day and column of smoke
arises in evening. [Gandalf, Theoden, &c. see this from their
camp below Nan Gurunir.] Huorns return in night to Isengard.
[Day 6] February 3 Morning, Treebeard returns to Gates. Sets
Merry and Pippin to watch. Wormtongue comes. [Gandalf,
Theoden, &c. arrive shortly after noon.]
This is the chronology of LR, as set out in The Tale of Years, though
the actual dates are of course different (in LR March 2 = January 31
in this scheme).
*
This, I believe, is how the chronology evolved; but as will be seen in
the following chapters, earlier time-schemes appear in the drafts for
passages far on in the actual narrative, because as I have said all this
part of LR was written as a whole. Thus for example in the first draft
of Merry's story of the destruction and drowning of Isengard (in TT
in the chapter 'Flotsam and Jetsam') the chronology belongs with
the scheme described in II above, and against it my father noted:
'Drowning must not begin until night of Hornburg battle.'
Despite the way in which this part of the story was written, I think
that it will in fact be clearest to break my account into chapters
corresponding to those in The Two Towers; this inevitably entails a
certain amount of advance and retreat in terms of the actual sequence
of composition, but I hope that this preliminary account will clarify
the shifting chronological basis in the different texts.
NOTES.
1. The extra day of the Entmoot (TT pp. 87-8) was not added until
much later: VII.407, 419.
2. Nan Gurunir, the Valley of Saruman, was added in to a blank
space left for the name in the manuscript of 'Treebeard' (VII.420
note 9).
II.
HELM'S DEEP.
A first draft of this story, abandoned after it had proceeded for some
distance, differs so essentially from its form in The Two Towers that I
give it here in full. This text bears the chapter number XXVIII,
without title. For the chronology see p. 4, $I.
There was a much-ridden way, northwestward along the
foothills of the Black Mountains. Up and down over the rolling
green country it ran, crossing small swift streams by many
fords. Far ahead and to the right the shadow of the Misty
Mountains drew nearer. Beneath the distant peak of Methedras
in dark shadow lay the deep vale of Nan Gurunir; a great fume
and vapour rose there and drifted towards them over the plain.(1)
Halting seldom they rode on into the evening. The sun went
down before them. Darkness grew behind.
Their spears were tipped with fiery red as the last shafts of
light stained the clouds above Tindtorras;(2) the three peaks
stood black against the sunset upon the northmost arm of the
Black Mountains. In that last red light men in the van saw a
horseman riding back towards them. As he drew near, the host
halted, "waiting him.
He came, a weary man with dinted helm, and cloven shield.
Slowly he climbed from his horse, and stood there a while,
panting. At length he spoke. 'Is Eomer here?' he asked. 'You
come at last, but too late and too few. Things have gone evilly,
since Theodred fell.(3) We were driven back over the bend of the
Isen with great loss yesterday; many perished at the crossing.
Then at night fresh forces came over the river against our camp.
All Isengard must be emptied; and the Wizard has armed the
wild hill-men and the scattered folk of Westfold,(4) and these also
he loosed upon us. We were overmastered. The shieldwall was
broken. Trumbold [> Herulf > Heorulf](5) the Westmarcher has
drawn off those he could gather towards his fastness under
Tindtorras. Others are scattered. Where is Eomer? Tell him
there is no hope ahead: he should return to Eodoras, before the
wolves of Saruman come there!'
Theoden rode up. 'Come, stand before me, Ceorl!' he said. 'I
am here. The last host of the Eorlingas has ridden forth. It will
not return unfought.'
The man's face lightened with wonder and joy. He drew
himself up. Then he knelt offering his notched sword to the
King. 'Command me, lord,' he cried, 'and pardon me! I did not
know, I thought - '
'You though". I remained in Eodoras, bent like an old tree
under winter snow. So it was when you went. But a wind has
shaken off somewhat the cold burden,' said Theoden. 'Give this
man a fresh horse. Let us ride to the aid of Trumbold [>
Heorulf]! '
Forward they rode again, urging on their horses. Suddenly
Gandalf spoke to Shadowfax, and like an arrow from the bow
the great horse sprang away. Even as they looked, he was gone:
a Hash of silver in the sunset, a wind in the grass, a shadow that
fled and faded from sight. For a while Snowmane and the horses
of the King's guard strained in pursuit, but if they had walked
they would have had as much chance of overtaking him.
'What does that mean?' said Hama to a comrade. 'Ever he
comes and goes unlooked-for.'
'Wormtongue, were he here, would not find it hard to
explain,' said the other.
'True,' said Hama, 'but for myself I will wait till we see him
again.'
'If ever we do,' said the other.
It was night and the host was still riding swiftly, when cries
and hornblasts were heard from the scouts that rode ahead.
Arrows whistled overhead. They were crossing a wide vale, a
bay in the mountains. On the further side the Tind-
torras were hidden in darkness. Some miles ahead still lay the
opening of the great cleft in the hills which men of that land
called Heorulf's Clough:(6) steep and narrow it wound inward
under the Tindtorras, and where it issued in the vale, upon an
outjutting heel of rock, was built the fastness of Heorulf's
Hold.(7)
The scouts rode back and reported that wolfriders were
abroad in the vale, and that a host of orcs and wild men, very
great indeed, was hastening southward over the plain to gain
the gates of the Nerwet.(8)
'We have found some of our men slain as they fled,' said one
of the scouts; 'and scattered companies we have met, going this
way and that, leaderless; but many are making for Herulf's
Hold, and say that Herulf is already there.'
'We had best not give battle in the dark, nor await the day
here in the open, not knowing the number of the coming host,'
said Eomer, who had ridden up to the King's side. 'What is your
counsel, Aragorn?'
'To drive through such enemies as are before us, and encamp
before the Nerwet Gate to defend if may be, while the men who
have fought rest behind our shield.'
'Let it be so!' said Theoden. 'We will go thither in many
[separate comp]anies: let a man who is nightsighted and knows
[well the land] go at the head of each.'(9)
At this point my father stopped, and returned to 'It was night and
the host was still riding swiftly...' In the passage just given is the first
appearance of Helm's Deep ('Heorulf's Clough') and the Hornburg
('Heorulf's Hold') on its 'outjutting heel of rock'; Heorulf being the
precursor of Erkenbrand of Westfold.
Night had fallen, and still the host was riding swiftly on. They
had turned northward, and were bearing towards the fords of
the Isen, when cries and hornblasts were heard from their scouts
that went in front. Arrows whistled over them. At this time they
were at the outer end of a wide vale, a bay in the mountains of
the south. On its further western side the Tindtorras were
hidden in darkness; beneath their feet [> the peaks], some miles
away, lay the opening of the great cleft in the hills which men of
that land called Heorulf's Clough [> lay the green coomb out of
which opened a great cleft in the hills. Men of that land called it
Helm's Deep],(10) after some hero of ancient wars who had made
his refuge there. Ever steeper and narrower it wound inward
under the Tindtorras, till the crowhaunted cliffs on either side
towered far above and shut out the light. Where it issued in the
vale, upon [added: the Stanrock,) an outjutting heel of land,
was built the fastness of Heorulf's Hoe (11) (Hold?). Stanrock. [>
was built the fastness of Helmsgate. There Heorulf the Marcher
had his hold.]
A scout now rode back and reported that wolfriders were
abroad in the valley, and that a host of orcs and wild men, very
great indeed, was hurrying southward over the plain towards
Heorulf's Hold.
'We have found many of our own folk lying slain as they fled
thither,' said the scout. 'And we have met scattered companies,
going this way and that, leaderless. Some are making for the
Clough [> Helmsgate], but it seems that Nothelm [> Heorulf]
is not there. His plan was changed, and men do not know
whither he has gone. Some say that Wormtongue was seen
today [> Some say that Wormtongue was seen in the evening
going north, and in the dusk an old man on a great horse rode
the same way].'
'Well, if Nothelm be in the Hold or not, [> 'It will go ill with
Wormtongue, if Gandalf overtakes him,' said Theoden.
'Nonetheless I miss now both counsellors, old and new. Yet it
seems to me that whether Heorulf be in his Hold or no,] in this
need we have no better choice than to go thither ourselves,'
said Theoden. 'What is your counsel?' he said, turning to Eomer
who had now ridden up to the King's side.
'We should be ill advised to give battle in the dark,' said
Eomer, 'or to await the day here in the open, not knowing the
number of the oncoming host. Let us drive through such foes as
are between us and Herulf's Clough [> the fastness], and
encamp before the Hold [> its gate]. Then if we cannot break
out, we may retreat to the Hold. There are caves in the gorge [>
Helm's Deep] behind where hundreds may hide, and secret
ways lead up thence, I am told, onto the hills.'
'Trust not to them!' said Aragorn. 'Saruman has long spied
out this land. Still, in such a place our defence might last long.'
'Let us go then,' said Theoden. 'We will ride thither in many
separate companies. A man who is nightsighted and knows well
the land shall go at the head of each.'
I interrupt the text here to discuss some aspects of this story. The
names present an apparently impenetrable confusion, but I think that
the development was more or less as follows. My father was uncertain
whether 'Heorulf' ('Herulf') was the present lord of the 'Hold' or the
hero after whom the 'Clough' was named. When he wrote, in the
passage just given, 'which men of that land called Heorulf's Clough,
after some hero of ancient wars who had made his refuge there' he had
decided on the latter, and therefore the name of the present 'West-
marcher' (precursor of Erkenbrand) was changed, becoming Nothelm.
Then, changing again, Nothelm reverted to Heorulf, while the gorge
was named after Helm: Helmshaugh (note 10), then Helm's Deep.
The fastness (Heorulf's Hoe or Hold) standing on the Stanrock is now
called Helmsgate, which in LR refers to the entrance to Helm's Deep
across which the Deeping Wall was built.
The image of the great gorge and the fortress built on the jutting
heel or 'hoe' arose, I believe, as my father wrote this first draft of the
new chapter. In the outline 'The Story Foreseen from Fangorn'
(VII.435) Gandalf's sudden galloping off on Shadowfax is present,
and 'by his help and Aragorn the Isengarders are driven back'; there is
no suggestion of any gorge or hold in the hills to the south. So again in
the present narrative he says nothing before he rides off; whereas in
TT he tells Theoden not to go the Fords of Isen but to ride to Helm's
Deep. Thus in the original story it was not until 'cries and hornblasts
were heard from their scouts that went in front' and 'arrows whistled
over them' that the leaders of the host decided to make for the Hold;
in TT (where the actual wording of the passage is scarcely changed)
the host was 'in the low valley before the mouth of the Coomb' when
these things happened.
The present text agrees well with the First Map (redrawn section
IV(E), VII.319). At this time the host was 'at the outer end of a wide
vale, a bay in the mountains of the south'; and 'Heorulf's Clough' lay
somewhere near the western end of this 'bay'. The First Map is in fact
less clear at this point than my redrawing makes it, but the map that I
made in 1943, which was closely based on the First Map (see VII.299),
shows Helm's Deep very clearly as running in towards the Tindtorras
(Thrihyrne) from a point well to the north and west of the 'bay in the
mountains' - the Westfold Vale, in the present text not yet named (see
note 4).(12)
On the page of the completed manuscript in which the final form of
this passage (TT p. 133) was reached the text reads thus: 'Still some
mile away, on the far side of the Westfold Vale, a great bay in the
mountains, lay a green coomb out of which a gorge opened in the
hills.' There is no question that this is correct, and that this was what
my father intended: the great bay in the mountains was of course the
Westfold Vale. In the typescript based on this, however, the sentence
became, for some obscure reason (there is no ambiguity in the
manuscript): 'Still some miles away, on the far side of the Westfold
Vale, lay a green coomb, a great bay in the mountains, out of which a
gorge opened in the hills.' This error is perpetuated in The Two
Towers.
In this original narrative it was on the night of the day of departure
from Eodoras that the host came to the hold in the hills; subse-
quently (13) it was on the night of the second day (for the chronology see
pp. 4-5, $$ I-II). In the later story it is said (TT p. 131) that 'Forty
leagues and more it was, as a bird flies, from Edoras to the fords of the
Isen', and this agrees very well with the First Map, where the distance
is almost 2.5 an., or 125 miles (= just over 40 leagues). It may have
been a doser look at the map that led to the extension of the ride
across the plain by a further day. On the other hand, there was also an
evident difficulty with the chronology as it now stood: see p. 4, $ I.
The original draft continues:
Aragorn and Legolas rode with Eomer's eored. That com-
pany needed no guide more keen of sight than Legolas, or a man
who knew the land, far and wide about, better than Eomer
himself. Slowly, and as silently as they might, they went through
the night, turning back from the plain, and climbing westward
into the dim folds about the mountains' feet. They came upon
few of the enemy, except here and there a roving band of orcs
who fled ere the riders could slay many; but ever the rumour of
war grew behind them. Soon they could hear harsh singing, and
if they turned and looked back they could see, winding up from
the low country, red torches, countless points of fiery light. A
very wood of trees must have been felled to furnish them. Every
now and then a brighter blaze leaped up.
'It is a great host,' said Aragorn, 'and follows us close.'
'They bring fire,' said Eomer, 'and are burning as they come
all that they can kindle: rick and cot and tree. We shall have a
great debt to pay them.'
'The reckoning is not far off,' said Aragorn. 'Shall we soon
find ground where we can turn and stand?'
'Yes,' said Eomer. 'Across the wide mouth of the coomb, at
some distance from Helmsgate there is a fall in the ground, so
sharp and sheer that to those approaching it seems as if they
came upon a wall. This we call [Stanshelf Stanscylf >](14) Helm's
dike. In places it is twenty feet high, and on the top it has been
crowned with a rampart of great stones, piled in ancient days.
There we will stand. Thither the other companies will also
come. There are three ways that lead up through breaches in the
cliff." these we must hold strongly.'
It was dark, starless and moonless, when they came to [the
Stanshelf >] Helm's dike. Eomer led them up by a broad
sloping path that climbed through a deep notch in the cliff and
came out upon the new level some way behind the rampart.
They were unchallenged. No one was there before them, friend
or foe.(16) At once Eomer set guards upon the [breaches >] Inlets.
Ere long other companies arrived, creeping up the valley from
various directions. There were wide grass-slopes between the
rampart and the Stanrock. There they set their horses under
such guards as could be spared from the manning of the wall.
Gimli stood leaning against a great stone at a high point of
the [Stanshelf >] dike not far from the inlet by which they had
entered. Legolas was on the stone above fingering his bow and
peering into the blackness.
'This is more to my liking,' said the dwarf, stamping his feet
on the ground. 'Ever my heart lightens as we draw near the
mountains. There is good rock here. This country has hard
bones. I feel it under my feet. Give me a year and a hundred of
my kin and we could make this a place that armies would break
against like water.'
'I doubt it not,' said Legolas. 'But you're a dwarf, and
dwarves are strange folk. I like it not, and shall like it no more
by the light of day. But you comfort me, Gimli, and I am glad to
have you stand by me with your stout legs and hard axe.'
Shapes loomed up beside them. It was Eomer and Aragorn
walking together along the line of the rampart. 'I am anxious,'
said Eomer. 'Most have now arrived; but one company is still
lacking, and also the King and his guard.'
'If you will give me some hardy men, I will take Gimli and
Legolas here, and go a little down the valley and look for
tidings,' said Aragorn.
'And find more than you are looking for,' said Gimli.
'That is likely,' said Eomer. 'We will wait a while.'
A slow time passed, when suddenly at no great distance down
the valley a clamour broke out. Horns sounded. 'There are
some of our folk come into an ambush, or taken in the rear,'
cried Eomer. 'Theoden will be there. Wait here, I will hold the
men back to the wall, and choose some to go forth. I will be
back swiftly.'
Horns sounded again, and in the still darkness they could
hear the clash of weapons. In brief while Eomer returned with
twenty men-.
'This errand I will take,' said Aragorn. 'You are needed on the
wall. Come, Legolas! Your eyes will serve us.' He sped down
the slope.
'Where Legolas goes, I go,' said Gimli, and ran after them.
The watchers on the wall saw nothing for a while, then
suddenly there were louder cries, and wilder yells. A clear
voice rang, echoing in the hills. Elendil! It seemed that far below
in the shadows a white flame flashed.
'Branding goes to war at last,' said Eomer.
A horseman appeared before the main breach, and was
admitted. 'Where is Theoden King?' asked Eomer.
'Among his guard,' said.the man. 'But many are unhorsed.
We rode into an ambush, and orcs sprang out of the ground
among us, hamstringing many of our steeds. Snowmane and the
King escaped; for that horse is nightsighted, and sprang over the
heads of the orcs. But Theoden dismounted and fought among
his guard. Herugrim sang a song that has long been silent.
Aragorn is with them, and he sends word that a great host of
orcs is on his heels. Man the wall! He will come in by the main
breach if he can.'
The noise of battle drew nearer. Those on the rampart could
do nothing to aid. They had not many archers among them, and
these could not shoot in the darkness while their friends were
still in front. One by one men of the missing company came in,
till all but five were mustered. Last came the King's guard on
foot, with the King in their midst, leading Snowmane.
'Hasten, Lord!' cried Eomer.
At that moment there was a wild cry. Orcs were attacking the
[breaches >] inlets on either hand, and before the King had
been brought in to safety out of the darkness there sprang a host
of dark shapes driving towards the great breach. A white fire
shone. There in their path could be seen for a moment Aragorn
son of Arathorn: on his one side was Gimli, on the other
Legolas.
'Back now, my comrades!' cried Aragorn. 'I will follow.'
Even as Gimli and Legolas ran back towards the rampart, he
leaped forward. Before the flame of Branding the orcs fled. Then
slowly Aragorn retreated walking backward. Even as he did so
step by step one great orc came forward, while others stalked
behind him. As Aragorn turned at last to run up the inlet, the
orc sprang after him: but an arrow whined and he fell sprawling
and lay still. For some time no others dared to draw near. 'Sure
is the shaft of the elven bow, and keen are the eyes of Legolas!'
said Aragorn as he joined the elf and they ran together to the
rampart.
Thus at last the King's host was brought within the fastness,
and turned to bay before the mouth of Helm's Deep. The night
was not yet old, and many hours of darkness and peril yet
remained. Theoden was unhurt; but he grieved for the loss of
so many of the horses of his guard, and he looked upon
Snowmane bleeding at the shoulder: a glancing arrow had
struck him. 'Fair is the riding forth, friend,' he said; 'but often
the road is bitter.'
'Grieve not for Snowmane, lord,' said Aragorn. 'The hurt is
light. I will tend it, with such skill as I have, while the enemy still
holds off. They have suffered losses more grievous than ours,
and will suffer more if they dare to assail this place.'
Here the original draft ends as formed narrative, but continues as an
outline, verging on narrative. This was written over a faint pencilled
text that seems to have been much the same.
There is an attack. Endless numbers. Grappling hooks, lad-
ders, piled slain. Riders block breaches with stones from high
places, and with bodies. Orcs keep on getting in. Riders lose few
men, most at breaches. Orcs once got near the horses. Late in
the night the (waning?) moon shone fitfully, and the defenders
see a boiling throng beneath the wall. Slowly the dead were
piling up.
Wild men in steel mesh forced the north breach, and turning
south began to drive men from the rampart. Orcs clamber over.
Dawn sees the Men of Rohan giving way all along. The horses
are taken away to Helm's Deep, with the King. They make a
shieldwall and retreat slowly up towards the Stanrock.
The sun comes out, and then all stare: defenders and attackers.
A mile or so below the Dike, from North to South in a great
crescent, they beheld a marvel. Men rubbed their eyes thinking
that they dreamed or were dizzy with wounds and weariness.
Where all had been upland and grass-clad slopes, there stood
now a wood of great trees. Like beeches they were, robed in
withered leaves, and like ancient oaks with tangled boughs, and
gnarled pines stood dark among them. The orcs gave back. The
Wild Men wavered crying in terrified voices, for they came from
the woods under the west sides of the Misty Mountains.
At that moment from the Stanrock a trumpet sounded. Forth
rode Theoden with his guard, and a company (of Heorulf's
men?). They charged down crashing into the Wild Men and
driving them back in ruin over the cliff.
'Wizardry is abroad!' said [?men]. 'What can this betoken?'
'Wizardry maybe,' said Eomer. 'But it seems not to be any
device of our enemies. See how dismayed they are.'
A few lines of very rapid and partly illegible notes follow:
Their horses were often nightsighted; but the men were not so
nightsighted as the orcs. Rohan at a disadvantage in dark. As soon
as it grows light they are able to fight. The orcs are no match for the
horsemen on the slopes before the Stanrock. Sorties from Helm's
Deep and Stanrock. Orcs dive back over wall. It is then that the
Wood is seen.
Orcs trapped. Trees grab them. And the wood is full of Herulf's
folk. Gandalf has collected the wanderers, [?About] 500. Hardly
any of the attackers escape. So hopelessness turns to victory.
Meanwhile Herulf told by Gandalf to hold the .... rode .......
another force sent.... Eodoras. This is now caught between Herulf
and the victorious forces of the King. In a battle on the plain
......... terror struck by Aragorn and Gandalf. The host not
wishing to rest rides down the fleeing remnant [?back towards]
Isengard.
The sentence beginning 'Meanwhile Herulf told by Gandalf to hold
the' might possibly, but very doubtfully indeed, be completed: 'eastern
rode [for road] has resisted another force sent towards Eodoras.'
This then was the original story of Helm's Deep, to become far more
complex in its development with the emergence of a much more
elaborate system of fortification across the mouth of the Deep (the
description and narrative in The Two Towers can be followed,
incidentally, very precisely in my father's drawing, 'Helm's Deep and
the Hornburg', in Pictures by J. R. R. Tolkien, no. 26). In this earliest
account the 'fastness' consisted only of the sudden natural fall in the
land across the mouth of the coomb, fortified with a parapet of great
stones; in this there were three 'breaches', a word that my father
changed to 'inlets', perhaps to suggest that they had been deliberately
made. The nature of the 'hold' of Heorulf on the Stanrock is not
indicated; and all the battle of Helm's Deep took place along the line
of Helm's Dike.
An isolated scrap of drafting that was not finally used evidently
belongs with the original story and may be included here:
Aragorn was away behind the defences tending the wound in
Snowmane's shoulder, and speaking gentle words to the horse.
As the fragrance of athelas rose in the air, his mind went back to
the defence on Weathertop, and to the escape from Moria. 'It is
a long journey,' he said to himself. 'From one hopeless corner
we escape but to find another more desperate. Yet alas, Frodo, I
would be happier in heart if you were with us in this grim place.
Where now do you wander?'
Written on this same page is an outline in which the radical
alteration of the story of the assault first enters.
When Eomer and Aragorn reach Dike they are challenged.
Heorulf has left watchers on Dike. They report that the fort of
Helm's Gate is manned - mainly older men, and most of the
folk of the Westmarch have taken refuge in the Deep. Great
store of food and fodder is in the caves.
Then follows story as told above until rescue of King.(17)
Eomer and Aragorn decide that they cannot hold Dike in
dark (without archers). The Dike is over a mile - 2 miles? -
long. The main host and King go to Stanrock. The horses are led
to the Deep. Aragorn and Eomer with a few men (their horses
ready in rear) hold the inlets as long as they dare. These they
block with stones rolled from the rampart.
The assault on the inlets. Soon drives in as the Orcs clamber
up rampart in between. Ladders? Wild men drive in from North
Inlet. The defenders flee. Tremendous assault upon the mouth
of the Beep where a high stone wall was built. [Added here but
at the same time: breastwork crowned with stones. Here G[imli]
speaks his words. Reduce description of Helm's Dike - it is not
fortified.] Orcs boil round foot of the Stanrock. Then describe
the assault as above.(18) Orcs piling up over the wall. Wild men
dimb on the goblins' dead bodies. Moon... men fighting on the
wall top.(19) Disadvantage of the Riders. The wall taken and
Rohan driven back into the gorge. Dawn. Eomer and Aragorn
go to the Stanrock to stand by the King in the Tower.
They see in the sunlight the wonder of the Wood.
Charge of Theoden (Eomer left, Aragorn right). [? With day
fortunes change.] Men issue on horses. But the host is vast, only
it is disconcerted by the Wood. Almost [? the watchers could]
believe it had moved up the valley as the battle raged.
Trees should come right up to Dike. In the midst out rides
Gandalf from the wood. And rides through the orcs as if they
were rats and crows.
My father began a new text of the chapter before important
elements in the story and in the physical setting had been darified, and
as a result this (the first completed manuscript) is an extremely
complicated document. It was only after he had begun it that he
extended the ride from Eodoras by a further day, and described the
great storm coming up out of the East (TT pp. 131-2); and when he
began it he had not yet realised that Helm's Dike was not the scene of
the great assault: 'what really happened' was that the men manning
the Dike were driven in, and the defence of the redoubt was at the line
of a great wall further up at the mouth of the gorge - the 'Deeping
Wall' - and the Hornburg. At this point in the manuscript the story
can be seen changing as my father wrote: in Eomer's reply to
Aragorn's question 'Shall we soon find ground where we can turn and
stand?' (p. 13) he begins as before with an account of the fortification
of the Dike ('crowned with a rampart of great stones, piled in ancient
days'), but by the end of his reply he is saying that the Dike cannot be
held:
'... But we cannot long defend it, for we have not enough
strength. It is near two miles from end to end, and is pierced by
two wide breaches. We shall not be able to stand at bay till we
get to the Stanrock, and come behind the wall that guards the
entrance to the Deep. That is high and strong, for Heorulf had it
repaired and raised not long ago.'
Immediately after this the Deeping Stream entered, and the two
breaches in the Dike were reduced to one: there 'a stream flows down
out of the Deep, and beside it the road runs from Helm's Gate to the
valley.'(20) At this stage, however, the final story was still not reached,
but follows the outline just given (p. 18):
The King and the main part of his host now rode on to man the
Stanrock and Heorulf's wall. But the Westmarchers would not
yet abandon the dike while any hope remained of Heorulf's
return. Eomer and Aragorn and a few picked men stayed with
them guarding the breach; for it seemed to Eomer that they
might do great harm to the advance-guard of the enemy and
then escape swiftly ere the main strength of the orcs and wild
men forced the passage.
The story from this point was built up in a textually extremely
complex series of short drafts leading to more finished forms, while
earlier portions of the chapter were changed to accommodate the
evolving conception of the redoubt as the scene of the battle. To
follow this evolution in all its detail would require a very great deal of
space, and I record only certain rejected narrative ideas and other
particular points of interest.
Before the story (TT pp. 138-40) of the sortie of Eomer and
Aragorn from the postern gate emerged, the repulse of the attack on
the great gates of the Hornburg was differently conceived:
Now with a great cry a company of the wild men moved
forward, among them they bore the trunk of a great tree. The
orcs crowded about them. The tree was swung by many strong
hands, and smote the timbers with a boom. At that moment
there was a sudden call. Among the boulders upon the flat and
narrow rim beneath the fastness and the brink a few brave men
had lain hidden. Aragorn was their leader. 'Up now, up now,'
he shouted. 'Out Branding, out!' A blade flashed like white fire.
'Elendil, Elendil!' he shouted, and his voice echoed in the cliffs.
'See, see!' said Eomer. 'Branding has gone to war at last. Why
am I not there? We were to have drawn blades together.'
None could withstand the onset of Aragorn, or the terror of
his sword. The orcs fled, the hill-men were hewn down, or fled
leaving their ram upon the ground. The rock was cleared. Then
Aragorn and his men turned to run back within the gates while
there was yet time. His men had passed within, when again the
lightning flashed. Thunder crashed. From among the fallen at
the top of the causeway three huge orcs sprang up - the white
hand could be seen on their shields. Men shouted warning from
the gates, and Aragorn for an instant turned. At that moment
the foremost of the orcs hurled a stone: it struck him on the
helm and he stumbled, falling to his knee. The thunder rolled.
Before he could get up and back the three orcs were upon him.
Here this story was overtaken by that of the sortie from the postern.
In the final manuscript form of this, Aragorn, looking at the gates,
added after the words (TT p. 139) 'Their great hinges and iron bars
were wrenched and bent; many of their timbers were cracked': 'The
doors will not withstand another such battering.' These words were
left out of the typescript that followed, but there is nothing in the
manuscript to suggest that they should be, and it seems clear that their
omission was an error (especially since they give point to Eomer's
reply: 'Yet we cannot stay here beyond the walls to defend them').
Gimli's cry as he sprang on the Orcs who had fallen on Eomer:
Baruk Khazad! Khazad ai-menu! appears in this form from the first
writing of the scene. Years later, after the publication of LR, my father
began on an analysis of all fragments of other languages (Quenya,
Sindarin, Khuzdul, the Black Speech) found in the book, but unhappily
before he had reached the end of FR the notes, at the outset full and
elaborate, had diminished to largely uninterpretable jottings. Baruk
he here translated as 'axes', without further comment; ai-menu is
analysed as aya, menu, but the meanings are not clearly legible: most
probably aya 'upon', menu 'acc. pl. you'.
A curious point arises in Gimli's remark after his rescue of Eomer
during the sortie from the postern gate (TT p. 140): 'Till now I have
hewn naught but wood since I left Moria.' This is clearly inconsistent
with Legolas' words in 'The Departure of Boromir', when he and
Gimli came upon Aragorn beside Boromir's body near Parth Galen:
'We have hunted and slain many Orcs in the woods'; compare also the
draft of a later passage (VII.386) where, when Aragorn, Legolas and
Gimli set out in pursuit of the Orcs, Gimli says: '... those that
attacked Boromir were not the only ones. Legolas and I met some
away southwards on the west slopes of Amon Hen. We slew many,
creeping on them among the trees ...' I do not think that any
'explanation' of this will serve: it is simply an inconsistency never
observed.(21)
The 'wild hill-men' at the assault on Helm's Deep came from
'Westfold', valleys on the western side of the Misty Mountains (see
p. 8 and note 4), and this application of 'Westfold' survived until a late
stage of revision of the manuscript: it was still present in drafting for
what became 'The Road to Isengard'.(22) Until the change in application
was made, the Westfold Vale was called 'the Westmarch Vale'.
In this connection there are two notable passages. The dialogue
between Aragorn and Eomer and Gamling the Westmarcher on the
Deeping Wall, hearing the cries of the wild men below (TT p. 142),
takes this form in a rejected draft:
'I hear them,' said Eomer; 'but they are only as the scream of
birds and the bellowing of beasts to my ears.'
'Yet among them are many that cry in the tongue of Westfold
[later > in the Dunland tongue],' said Aragorn; 'and that is a
speech of men, and once was accounted good to hear.'
'True words you speak,' said Gamling, who had climbed now
on the wall. 'I know that tongue. It is ancient, and once was
spoken in many valleys of the Mark. But now it is used in deadly
hate. They shout rejoicing in our doom. "The king, the king!"
they cry. "We will take their king! Death to the Forgoil! Death
to the Strawheads! Death to the robbers of the North." Such
names they have for us. Not in half a thousand years have they
forgot their grievance, that the lords of Gondor gave the Mark
to Eorl the Young as a reward for his service to Elendil and
Isildur, while they held back. It is this old hatred that Saruman
has inflamed. ...'
With this compare the passage in drafting of 'The King of the Golden
Hall' (VII.444) where Aragorn, seeing on one of the hangings in the
Golden Hall the figure of the young man on a white horse, said:
'Behold Eorl the Young! Thus he rode out of the North to the Battle of
the Field of Gorgoroth' - the battle in which Sauron was overthrown
by Gil-galad and Elendil.(23) On the enormously much briefer time-span
that my father conceived at this time see VII.450 note 11.
An extremely rapid initial sketch for the parley between Aragorn,
standing above the gates of the Hornburg, and the enemy below shows
an entirely different conception from that in TT (p. 145):
Aragorn and the Captain of Westfold.
Westfolder says if the King is yielded all may go alive. Where to?
To Isengard. Then the Westmarch is to be given back to us, and all
the .... land.
Who says so? Saruman. That is indeed a good warrant.
Aragorn rebukes Westfolder for [??aiding] Orcs. Westfolder is
humbled.
Orc captain jeers. Needs must accept the terms when no others
will serve. We are the Uruk-hai, we slay!
Orcs shoot an arrow at Aragorn as they retreat. But the Westfold
Captain hews down the archer.
On the back of the page in which the new story of the assault
entered (p. 17) my father wrote the following names: Rohirwaith
Rochirchoth Rohirhoth Rochann Rohann Rohirrim; and also
Eomeark Eomearc. I do not know whether Rochann, Rohann is to
be associated with the use of Rohan on pp. 16, 18 apparently as a term
for the Riders.(24)
In a draft for the passage describing the charge from the Hornburg
the King rode with Aragorn at his right hand and Hama at his left. For
Hama's death before the gates of the Hornburg see p. 41 note 8.
Lastly, at the end of the chapter, Legolas, seeing the strange Wood
beyond Helm's Dike, said: 'This is wizardry indeed! "Greenleaf,
Greenleaf, when thy last shaft is shot, under strange trees shalt thou
go." Come! I would look on this forest, ere the spell changes.' The
words he cited were from the riddling verse addressed to him by
Galadriel and borne by Gandalf ('The White Rider', VII.431):
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!
His words were not corrected on the manuscript, and survived into the
typescript that followed (see p. 420).
NOTES.
1. For the subsequent history of this passage see pp. 4-6.
2. Tindtorras: earlier name for the Thrihyrne; see VII.320.
3. In the first version of 'The King of the Golden Hall' the Second
Master of the Mark was Eofored, and when Theodred appears he
is not Theoden's son (see VII.446 - 7 and note 17). The 'First
Battle of the Fords of Isen', in which Theodred fell, was now
present (VII.444 and note 12), and in a contemporary time-
scheme is dated January 25, the day before the death of Boromir
and the Breaking of the Fellowship (in LR February 25 and 26).
4. On the First Map (redrawn section IV, VII.319) Westfold was
written against a vale on the western side of the Misty Moun-
tains, south of Dunland (though afterwards struck out. in this
position and reinserted along the northern foothills of the Black
Mountains west of Eodoras). It cannot be said whether Dunland
and Westfold originally stood together on the map as names of
distinct regions, or whether Dunland was only entered when
Westfold was removed.
5. The change from Trumbold to Herulf, Heorulf (afterwards
Erkenbrand) was made while this initial drafting was in progress.
6. My father first wrote Dimgraef, but changed it as he wrote to
Heorulf's Clough; above this he wrote the Dimhale (hale repre-
senting Old English halh, healh, 'corner, nook of land'), and after
it Herelaf's Clough, this being struck out. In the margin he wrote
Nerwet (Old English, 'narrow place'); and at the head of the page
Neolnearu and Neolnerwet (Old English neowol, neol 'deep,
profound'), also the Clough, the Long Clough, and Theostercloh
(Old English peostor 'dark'). Clough is from Old English cloh
'steep-sided valley or ravine'.
7. Following this my father wrote, but struck out, 'Dimhale's Door,
by some called Herulf's Hold (Burg)'; and in the margin he wrote
Dimgraf's gate, and Dimmhealh (see note 6).
8. Nerwet: see note 6.
9. The words enclosed in square brackets are lost (but are obtained
from the following draft) through a square having been cut out
of the page: possibly there was a small sketch-map here of
'Heorulf's Clough' and the 'Hold'.
10. Before Helm's Deep my father first wrote Helmshaugh, haugh
being the Northern English and Scottish development of Old
English halh (note 6).
11. Heorulf's Hoe: Hoe is from Old English hoh 'heel' (used in
place-names in various senses, such as 'the end of a ridge where
the ground begins to fall steeply').
12. The map redrawn on p. 269 is anomalous in this respect as in
many others.
13. The extension of the ride across the plain by a day, and the shift
in the date of the (second) battle of the Fords of Isen to January
31, entered in revision to the completed manuscript of 'Helm's
Deep': see p. 18.
14. Stanscylf, beside Stanshelf, has the Old English form scylf (sc =
sh).
15. the cliff: i.e. the Stanshelf, the great natural fall in the ground,
constituting a rampart.
16. Cf. the two versions of the scout's report: 'many are making for
Herulf's Hold, and say that Herulf is already there' (p. 10); 'some
are making for the Clough, but it seems that Nothelm [>
Heorulf] is not there' (p. 11).
17. In the first draft the fastness was deserted when the host from
Eodoras arrived (p. 13). 'Then follows story as told above until
rescue of King' refers to the story in the first draft given on
pp. 13-16.
18. This presumably refers to the outline given on p. 16, where the
assault was at the line of Helm's Dike, unless some other early
account of the assault has been lost.
19. A scrap of drafting has the phrase 'Fitful late moon saw men
fighting on the top of the wall'; but the illegible word here is not
saw, though that may have been intended,
20. It is subsequently said (but rejected) of the Deeping Stream in this
manuscript that 'far to the north it joined the Isen River and
made the western border of the Mark.'
21. The second of these passages (VII.386) was lost in TT (p. 22).
In the fair copy manuscript of 'The Departure of Boromir' as
originally written Legolas in the first passage (TT p. 16) said
only: 'Alas! We came when we heard the horn, but we are too
late. Are you much hurt?'; the fuller form of his opening words
on seeing Aragorn, in which he mentions the hunting and slaying
of Orcs with Gimli in the woods, was added later (both to the
manuscript and the following typescript). It is therefore possible
that my father had now rejected the idea that appears in the
second passage ('We slew many'), and did not reinstate it again
until after the writing of 'Helm's Deep'. But this seems unlikely,
and in any case does not alter the fact of the inconsistency in the
published work. This inconsistency may have been observed
before, but it was pointed out to me by Mr. Ralph L. McKnight, Jr.
22. Another notable instance of the overlapping in this part of the
story is found in the name Erkenbrand. This appears in late
stages of the revision of the completed manuscript of 'Helm's
Deep', but it was a replacement of Erkenwald (itself replacing
Heorulf); and Erkenwald is still the name of the Lord of Westfold
in drafting for what became the chapter 'Flotsam and Jetsam'. See
p. 40 note 2.
23. In TT (p. 142) Gamling says: 'Not in half a thousand years have
they forgotten their grievance that the lords of Gondor gave the
Mark to Eorl the Young and made alliance with him.'
24. In addition, the form Rohir is found in this chapter; this has
occurred in the manuscript of 'The White Rider' (VII.433 note 8).
Rohirrim is found in the completed manuscript of 'Helm's Deep',
but it was not yet established, for Rohir appears in the final fair
copy manuscript of 'The Road to Isengard' (p. 40), and much
later, in 'Faramir' ('The Window on the West'), both Rohir and
Rohiroth are used (pp. 155-6).
III.
THE ROAD TO ISENGARD.
This chapter was at first continuous with 'Helm's Deep', and when the
division was made it received the title 'To Isengard' (Chapter XXIX).
The preparatory drafting was here much more voluminous than that
of 'Helm's Deep', because the first form of the story had reached a
developed form and a clear manuscript before it was rejected. The
interpretation of the very confused papers for this chapter is particu-
larly difficult, since it is necessary to distinguish between drafts (often
closely similar) for passages in the first version and drafts for passages
in the second.
The essential differences in the original version from the form in The
Two Towers are these: Gandalf and Theoden and their companions
left Helm's Deep shortly after the end of the battle (see p. 5, $ III); they
did not see the Ents as they left the mysterious wood, and they did not
go down to the Fords of Isen; but they encountered, and spoke with,
Bregalad the Ent, bearing a message from Treebeard, in the course of
their ride to Isengard, which they reached on the same day. In this
chapter I shall give those parts of the original version that are
significantly different from the later form, citing them from the
completed manuscript of that version but with certain passages from
the initial drafts given in the notes.(1)
First, however, there is an outline that my father evidently set down
before he began work on the chapter. This was written in the rapid
and often barely legible soft pencil that was usual for these preliminary
sketches, but in this case a good deal of the outline was inked over.
Meeting of the chieftains. Eomer and Gimli return from
Deep. (Both wounded and are tended by Aragorn?) Gandalf
explains that he had ridden ranged about gathering scattered
men. The coming of the King had diverted Isengard from
Eodoras. But he [Gandalf] had sent some men back to defend it
against marauders. Erkenbrand (2) had been [? ambushed] and the
few horses remaining after the disaster at Isenford had been lost.
He had [?perforce retreated] into hills.
They ask Gandalf about the Trees. The answer lies in
Isengard, he said. We go now thither speedily - such as will.
Aragorn, Eomer, Gimli, Legolas, King Theoden and his
company and [?a force] .... to Isengard. Erkenbrand. Gamling.
Repair of Hornburg.
They pass down a great.... aisle among the trees that [?seems
now to have opened]. No orcs to be seen. Strange murmurs and
noises and half-voices among the trees. [Added: Gandalf dis-
cusses his tactics. Gimli describes the caves. Here the over-
writing in ink begins:]
The sun shines in the plain. They see a tall giant figure striding
towards them. The Riders draw swords, and are astonished.
The figure greets Gandalf.
I am Bregalad the Quickbeam, he said. I come from
Treebeard.
What does he wish? said Gandalf.
He wishes you to hasten. He wants to know what he is to do
with Saruman!
Hm! said Gandalf. That is a problem. Tell him I am coming!
What was that, said Theoden. And who is Treebeard?
He was an Ent, said Gandalf. And so is Treebeard.
They hasten and enter Nan Gurunir. There they find a heap of
ruins. The great walls of Isengard were burst and flung down in
confusion. Only the tower of Orthanc stood alone in the midst
of desolation, from which a great smoke went up. The
great arch still stands, but a pile of rubble stands before it.
On the top of the pile sat - Merry and Pippin, having lunch.(3)
They jumped up, and as Pippin had his mouth full, Merry
spoke.
'Welcome, lords, to Isengard!' he said. 'We are the door-
wardens: Meriadoc son of Caradoc of Buckland is my name;
and my companion is Peregrin son of Paladin of Tuckborough.(4)
Far in the North is our home. The lord Saruman is within, but
[alas, he is indisposed and unable to receive guests. o] at the
moment he is closeted with one Wormtongue discussing urgent
business.'
'It is possible that we could help in the debate,' laughed
Gandalf. 'But where is Treebeard? I have no time to jest with
young hobbits.'
'So we find you at last,' said Aragorn. 'You have given us a
long journey.'
'How long have you been at Isengard?' said Gimli.
'Less than a day,' said Pippin.(5)
I turn now to the first version of the story, that is the first completed
and coherent manuscript. In this, Theoden's words with Gandalf
about riding to Isengard (TT p. 149) have a different outcome:
'Nonetheless to Isengard I go,' said Gandalf. 'Let those who
are weary rest. For soon there will be other work to do. I shall
not stay long. My way lies eastward. Look for me in Eodoras,
ere the moon is full!'
'Nay,' said Theoden. 'In the dark hour before dawn I
doubted. But we will not part now. I will ride with you, if that is
your counsel. And now I will send out messengers with tidings
of victory through all the vales of the Mark; and they shall
summon all men, old and young, to meet me at Eodoras, ere the
moon wanes.'
'Good!' said Gandalf. 'Then in one hour we ride again....'(6)
After a brief hour of rest and the breaking of their fast, those
who were to ride to Isengard made ready to depart.(7)
The account of the treatment of the men of Dunland and the burials
(TT p. 150) reaches the final form,(8) but the description of the
departure of the trees in the night and of the valley after they had gone,
told in almost the same words as in TT,(9) first entered at this point,
whereas in TT it is postponed till much later in the chapter (p. 158).
The passage of the wood, and Gimli's description to Legolas of the
Caves of Helm's Deep, reach in the completed manuscript of the first
version almost exactly the form in TT (pp; 152 - 3), but with a slight
structural difference, in that here the company had already left the
trees and come to the road-parting when this conversation took place:
They passed through the wood and found that they had come
to the bottom of the coomb, where the road from Helm's Deep
branched, going one way to Eodoras and the other to the fords
of the Isen. Legolas looked back with regret.
'Those are the strangest trees that ever I saw,' he said...
Thus at the end of their talk together the old version again differs:
'You have my promise,' said Legolas. 'But now we must leave
all that behind. How far is it to Isengard, Gandalf?'
'It is about twelve [later > fourteen o eleven] leagues from
the bottom of Deeping Coomb to the outer wall of Isengard,'(10)
said the wizard, turning round.
'And what shall we see there?' asked Gimli. 'You may know,
but 1 cannot guess.'
'I do not know myself for certain,' answered Gandalf. 'Things
may have changed again, since I was there last night. But we
shall all know before long. If we are eager for the answer to
riddles, let us quicken the pace!'
[Added: 'Lead us!' said Theoden. 'But do not let Shadowfax
set a pace we cannot keep!'
The company rode forward now with all the speed they
could, over the wide grasses of the Westemnet.]
Thus the Caves of Helm's Deep do not receive from Gandalf here the
name 'the Glittering Caves of Aglarond', which was only added to the
typescript text at a later stage (see p. 77).
The first version of the story now becomes decisively different from
that in The Two Towers (pp. 154 ff.).
The sun shone upon the vale about them. After the storm the
morning was fresh, and a breeze was now flowing from the west
between the mountains. The swelling grass-lands rose and fell,
with long ridges and shallow dales like a wide green sea. Upon
their left long slopes ran swiftly down to the Isen River, a grey
ribbon that bent westward, winding away out of sight through
the great Gap of Rohan to the distant shores of Belfalas.(11)
Below them now lay the fords of Isen, where the river spread in
stony shoals between long grassy terraces. They did not go that
way. Gandalf led them due north, and they passed by, riding
along the high ground on the east of the river; yet as they rode
other eyes were turned towards the stony fords and the
battlefield where so many good men of the Mark had fallen.(12)
They saw crows wheeling and crying in the air, and borne upon
the wind they heard the howling of wolves. The carrion-birds
were gathered at the fords, and even the bright day had not
driven them from their business.
'Alas!' cried Theoden. 'Shall we leave the steeds and riders of
the Mark to be picked and torn by fowl and wolf? Let us turn
aside! '
'There is no need, lord,' said Gandalf. 'The task would take
us long, were it still left to do; but it is not. No horse or rider of
your folk lies there unburied. Their graves are deep and their
mounds are high; and long may they watch the fords! My
friends have laboured there.(13) It is with the orcs, their masters,
that the wolves and carrion-birds hold their feast: such is the
friendship of their kind.'
'You accomplished much in an evening and a night, Gandalf
my friend,' said Theoden.
'With the help of Shadowfax - and others,' answered Gan-
dalf. 'And this I can report for your comfort: the losses in the
battles of the ford were less grievous than we thought at first.
Many men were scattered but not slain. Some I guided to join
Erkenwald, and some I gathered again and sent back to
Eodoras. I found that all the strength of Saruman was hurrying
to Helm's Deep; for the great force that had been ordered to go
straight to Eodoras was turned aside and joined to those that
had pursued Erkenwald. When it was known that you, Theoden
King, were in the field, and Eomer beside you, a mad eagerness
came upon them. To take you and slay Eomer was what
Saruman most desired. Nonetheless I feared that wolf-riders
and cruel plunderers might be sent swiftly to Eodoras and do
great harm there, since it was unmanned. But now I think you
need not fear; you will find the Golden Hall to welcome your
return.'
They had been riding for about an hour since they left the
Coomb, and already the dark mountainous arms of Nan
Gurunir were opening wide before them. It seemed filled with
smoke. Out of it the river flowed, now near upon their left.
Suddenly they were aware of a strange figure striding south
along the stream towards them.
This last paragraph was replaced by the following:
They had been riding for almost an hour [> It was close on
noon. They had been riding for two hours](14) since they left the
Coomb, and now the mountainous arms of Nan Gurunir
began to stretch towards them. There seemed to be a mist about
the hills, and they saw rising up out of deep shadows a vast spire
of smoke and vapour; as it mounted it caught the light of the
sun, and spread in glowing billows in the sky, and the wind bore
them over the plain.
'What do you think of that, Gandalf?' said Theoden. 'One
would say that all the Wizard's Vale was burning.'
'There is ever a fume above that valley in these days,' said
Eomer; 'but I have never seen anything like this before. These
are steams, rather than smokes. Some devilry Saruman is
brewing to greet us.'
'Maybe,' said Gandalf. 'If so, we shall soon learn what it is.'(15)
Out of the steaming vale the river Isen flowed, now close
upon their left hand. As they were gazing north, they were
suddenly aware of a strange figure striding south along the east
bank of the stream. It went at great speed, walking stilted like a
wading heron, and yet the long paces were as quick, rather, as
the beat of wings; and as it approached they saw that it was very
tall, a troll in height, or a young tree.
Many of the horsemen cried aloud in wonder, and some drew
their swords. But Gandalf raised his hand.
'Let us wait,' he said. 'Here is a messenger for me.'
'A strange one to my eyes,' said Theoden. 'What kind of
creature may it be?'
'It is long since you listened to tales by the fireside,' answered
Gandalf; 'and in that rather than in white hairs you show your
age, without increase in wisdom.'(16) There are children in your
land that out of the twisted threads of many stories could have
picked the answer to your question at a glance. Here comes an
Ent, an Ent out of Fangorn, that your tongue calls the Entwood
- did you think the name was given only in idle fancy?(17) Nay,
Theoden, it is otherwise: to them you are but the passing tale:
all the years from Eorl the Young to Theoden the Old are of
little count to them.'
Theoden was silent, and all the company halted, watching the
strange figure with wondering eyes as it came quickly on to meet
them. Man or troll, he was ten or twelve feet high, strong but
slim, clad in glistening close-fitting grey and dappled brown, or
else his smooth skin was like the rind of a fair rowan-tree. He
had no weapon, and as he came his long shapely arms and
many-fingered hands were raised in sign of peace. Now he stood
before them, a few paces off, and his clear eyes, deep grey with
glints of green, looked solemnly from face to face of the men
that were gathered round him.(18) Then he spoke slowly, and his
voice was resonant and musical.
'Is this the company of Theoden, master of the green fields of
Men?' he said. 'Is Gandalf here? I seek Gandalf, the white rider.'
'I am here,' said Gandalf. 'What do you wish?'
'I am Bregalad Quickbeam,' answered the Ent. 'I come from
Treebeard. He is eager for news of the battle, and he is anxious
concerning the Huorns.(19) Also he is troubled in his mind about
Saruman, and hopes that Gandalf will come soon to deal with
him. [Added: There is no sign or sound from the tower.]'
Gandalf was silent for a moment, stroking his beard thought-
fully. 'Deal with him,' he said. 'That may have many meanings
[> That may have more meanings than one].(20) But how it will
go, I cannot tell till I come. Tell Treebeard that I am on the way,
and will hasten. And in the meanwhile, Bregalad, tell him not to
be troubled about the Huorns. They have done their task, and
taken no hurt. They will return.'
'That is good news,' said the Ent. 'May we soon meet again!'
He raised his hand, and turned, and strode off back up the river,
so swiftly that before the king's company had recovered from
their wonder he was already far away.
The riders now went at greater speed. At last they rode up
into the long valley of Nan Gurunir. The land rose steeply, and
the long arms of the Misty Mountains, reaching towards the
plains, rose upon either side: steep, stony ridges, bare of trees.
The valley was sheltered, open only to the sunlit South, and
watered by the young river winding in its midst. Fed by many
springs and lesser streams among the rain-washed hills, it
flowed and bubbled in its bed, already a swift strong water
before it found the plain; and all about it once had lain a
pleasant fertile land.(21)
The description of Nan Gurunir as it was now is almost as in TT
(p. 159), but after the words 'many doubted in their hearts, wonder-
ing to what dismal end their journey led' there follows:
Soon they came upon a wide stone-bridge that with a single
arch spanned the river, and crossing it they found a road that
with a wide northward sweep brought them to the great
highway to the fords: stone-paved it was, well-made and
well-tended, and no blade of grass was seen in any joint or
crack. Not far before them now they knew that the gates of
Isengard must stand; and their hearts were heavy, but their eyes
could not pierce the mists.
Thus the black pillar surmounted by the White Hand is absent.
Being on the east side of Isen they cross the river by a bridge, and come
to 'the great highway to the fords'. In TT they followed that road on
the west side of Isen up from the fords, and it was at this point that the
road became 'a wide street, paved with great flat stones'.(22)
Already in preliminary drafting the description of the Circle of
Isengard reached almost its form in TT (pp. 159-60),(23) but that of the
tower of Orthanc underwent many changes, which can be related to a
series of contemporary illustrations. These descriptions, for clarity in
my account, I label A, B, C, D.
The description in the preliminary draft is as follows:
(A) And in the centre from which all the chained paths ran was a
tower, a pinnacle of stone. The base of it, and that two hundred
feet in height, was a great cone of rock left by the ancient
builders and smoothers of the plain, but now upon it rose a
tower of masonry, tier on tier, course on course, each drum
smaller than the last. It ended short and flat, so that at the top
there was a wide space fifty feet across, reached by a stair that
came up the middle.
This description fits the picture captioned 'Orthanc (1)' that was
reproduced as frontispiece to Vol. VII, The Treason of Isengard,(24)
except in one respect: in the text there was 'a wide space fifty feet
across' at the top, whereas in the picture the tower is surmounted by
three pinnacles or horns (see under 'C' below).
In the completed manuscript of the first version the description
begins in the same way,(25) but after 'left by the ancient builders and
smoothers of the plain' it continues:
(B) ... a tower of masonry marvellously tall and slender, like a
stone horn, that at the tip branched into three tines; and between
the tines there was a narrow space where a man could stand a
thousand feet above the vale.
This accompanies the drawing labelled 'Orthanc (2)', reproduced on
p. 33, where the basal cone is black, and steeper than in 'Orthanc (1)',
and the tower much more slender. Against this second description of
the tower my father subsequently wrote:
(C) Or - if first picture [i.e. 'Orthanc (1)'] is adopted (but with
cone-like rock as in second picture) [i.e. 'Orthanc (2)']:
[a tower of masonry] marvellously tall and strong. Seven
round tiers it had, dwindling in girth and height, and at the top
were three black horns of stone upon a narrow space where a
man could stand a thousand feet above the plain.
This precisely fits 'Orthanc (1)'. It seems likely then that that picture
was made after the first description 'A' was written, since it differs
from 'A' in that the tower possess three horns at the summit.
The accounts 'B' and 'C' were rejected together and replaced in the
manuscript by the following (all this work obviously belonging to the
same period):
(D) And in the centre, from which all the chained paths ran, there
stood an island in a pool, a great cone of rock, two hundred feet
in height, left by the ancient builders and smoothers [> levellers]
of the plain, black and smooth and exceeding hard. A yawning
chasm clove it from tip to middle into two great fangs and over
the chasm was a mighty arch of masonry, and upon the arch a
tower was founded, marvellously tall and strong. Seven round
tiers it had, dwindling in girth and height, and at the top were
three black horns of stone upon a narrow space, where a man
could stand a thousand feet above the plain.
This conception is illustrated in the drawings 'Orthanc (3)' and '(4)'
on the same page as 'Orthanc (2)' and reproduced below (the distinc-
tion between the two enters into successive descriptions of the tower
in 'The Voice of Saruman', pp. 61-2). On the back of the page
bearing 'Orthanc (1)' my father wrote: 'This is wrong. The rock
should be steeper and cloven, and the tower should be founded over
an arch (with greater "horns" at top), as is shown in small sketch (3).'
He also wrote here: 'Omit the water-course', but struck this out. A
stream or 'moat' surrounding the basal cone is seen in 'Orthanc (1)'. In
description 'D' the tower stands on 'an island in a pool' ('in the lake',
see note 25).
Finally, a rider was inserted into the first manuscript bearing the
definitive description as found in TT (p. 160): 'A peak and isle of rock
it was, black, and gleaming hard; four mighty piers of many-sided
stone were welded into one, but near the summit they opened into
(Orthanc '2', '3' and '4'.)
(Orthanc '5'.)
gaping horns, their pinnacles sharp as the points of spears, keen-edged
as knives'. The only difference here from the final text is that my father
first wrote that the top of Orthanc was three hundred feet above the
plain; but this was changed, perhaps at once, to five hundred as in TT.
On this rider he wrote: 'to fit Picture (5)', which is reproduced on
p. 34. Here the conception is radically changed, and the 'horns', now
four, are no longer a device surmounting the tower of diminishing
cylindrical tiers but are integral to the marvellous structure of
Orthanc.(26)
The successive versions of the description of the tower differ in the
statements made about the name Orthanc (the earliest statement on
the subject appears in a rejected note to the manuscript of 'Treebeard',
VII.419: 'It is not perhaps mere chance that Orthanc which in Elvish
means "a spike of rock" is in the tongue of Rohan "a machine".'). The
preliminary draft, following description 'A', has:
This was Orthanc, the citadel of Saruman, the name of which had
double meaning (by design or chance); for in the tongue of the Mark
Orthanc signified cunning craft, invention, (machine such as those
have who fashion machines), but in the elvish speech it means the
stony heart, [? tormented] hill.
The original text of the first completed manuscript, following descrip-
tion 'B', has:
... for in the language of the Mark orthanc signified 'cunning
craft', but in the elvish speech it means 'Stone Fang'.
To this 'Cloven-hill' was added subsequently - when the conception of
the great cleft in the basal cone arose. Following the description ('D')
of that conception the statement about the meaning of the name is the
final form: 'for in the elvish speech orthanc signifies Mount Fang, but
in the language of the Mark of old the Cunning Mind.' It may be
therefore that the translation 'Mount Fang' actually arose in associa-
tion with the description of the cone as cloven 'into two great fangs'.
From here on the text of TT was reached at almost all points in the
manuscript of this version to the end of the chapter (27) but there are
some interesting points in the preliminary drafting.
Gandalf's reply to the opening address of Merry (who declares
himself 'Meriadoc, Caradoc's son of Buckland'), ending 'or doubtless
he would hasten hither to welcome such honourable guests', originally
took this form:
'Doubtless he would,' laughed Gandalf. 'But what he would say
to find two young hobbits mocking him before his gates I do not
know. Doubtless it was he that ordered you to guard his doors and
watch for their arrival.'
Pippin's first observation and its effect on the Riders went thus:
'... Here we are sitting on the field of victory amid the plundered
ruins of an arsenal and you wonder where we came by this and
that.'
All those of the Riders that were near laughed, and none more
loudly than Theoden.
Theoden's loud laughter remained into the completed manuscript, but
then his gravity (at least of bearing) was restored and it was removed.
The dialogue concerning hobbits went like this in the draft:
'... This day is fated to be filled with marvels: for here I see alive yet
others of the folk of story: the half-high.'
'Hobbits, if you please, lord,' said Pippin.
'Hobbits,' said Theoden. 'Hoppettan?(28) I will try to remember.
No tale that I have heard does them justice.'
In the completed manuscript Theoden said: 'Hobbits? It is a strange
name, but I will not forget it.' In the preliminary draft he said
subsequently: 'all that is told among us is that away in the North over
many hills and rivers (over the sea say some) dwell the half-high folk,
[holbylta(n)>] holbytlan that dwell in holes in sand-dunes...' This is
where the word Holbytla arose.(29) The manuscript follows this, and
Theoden does not say, as he does in TT, 'Your tongue is strangely
changed.'
A wholly different and much longer lecture on the subject of
tobacco was delivered by Merry in the first of several drafts of this
passage:
'For one thing,' said Theoden, 'it was not told that they
spouted smoke from their lips.'
'Maybe not. We only learned the pleasure of it a few
generations back. It is said that Elias Tobiasson of Mugworth (30)
brought the weed back to Manorhall in the South Farthing. He
was a much travelled hobbit. He planted it in his garden and
dried the leaves after a fashion he had learned in some far
country. We never knew where, for he was no good at
geography and never could remember names; but from the tale
of leagues that he reckoned on his fingers people calculated that
it was far South, 1200 miles or more from Manor Hall. [Here is
written Longbottom.]'
'In the far South it is said that men drink smoke, and wizards
I have heard do so. But always I had thought it was part of their
incantations or a process aiding in the weaving of their deep
thoughts.'(31)
'My lord,' said Merry, 'it is rest and pleasure and the crown
of the feast. And glad I am that wizards know it. Among the
wreckage floating on the water that drowned Isengard we found
two kegs, and opening them what should we discover but some
of the finest leaf that ever I fingered or set nose to. Good enough
is the Manorhall leaf - but this is...(32) It smells like the stuff
Gandalf would smoke at times when he returned from journeys.
Though often he was glad enough to come down to Manorhall.'
At this time, and still in the same context (conversation at the Gate
of Isengard), my father developed Merry's disquisition through three
further drafts to a form approaching $2 Concerning Pipe-weed in the
Prologue to LR. In the next stage, his account to Theoden of the
history of tobacco in the Shire (33) proceeds thus:
'It is said that the art was learned of travelling dwarves, and
that for some time folk used to smoke various herbs, some fairer
and some fouler. But it was Tobias Smygrave (34) of Longbottom
in the Southfarthing that first grew the true pipe-weed in his
garden in the year 902, and the best Home-grown comes still
from that part. How old Tobias came by the plant is not known
for certain, for he never told, and the Smygraves own all
[> most (of)] the crops to this day.'
'In the far East uncouth men drink smoke, or so I have heard,'
said Theoden. 'And it is said that wizards do so also. But I
supposed that this was but part of their secret lore, and a device
to aid the weaving of their thoughts.'
'Maybe it does, lord,' said Merry, 'but even wizards use it for
no better reason than common folk. It is rest and pleasure and
the crown of the feast....'
The remainder of this draft is as the first, except that Merry here
says 'Good enough is Longbottom leaf, but this far surpasses it' (see
note 32), and he says that Gandalf 'did not disdain Longbottom if he
stayed until his own store was short. Before Saruman took to making
worse things with greater labour, he must once have had some
wisdom.'
In the next version the context has probably changed to the
conversation between the hobbits and Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas
after Gandalf and Theoden had gone (see p. 49 and note 8). Here
Tobias (not Tobold) Hornblower appears,(35) the date of his first
growing of the plant in his gardens becomes 953 ('according to our
reckoning'), and Merry says that 'some think that he got it in Bree': to
which Aragorn replies:
'True enough, I guess. Bree-folk smoked long before Shire-
folk, and the reason is not far to seek. Rangers come there, as
you may remember, unless you have already forgotten Trotter
the ranger. And it was Rangers, as they call them in Bree, and
neither wizard nor dwarf who brought the art to the North, and
found plants that would thrive in sheltered places. For the plant
does not belong there. It is said that far away in the East and
South it grows wild, and is larger and richer in leaf; but some
hold that it was brought over the sea. I expect Saruman got his
leaf by trade; for he had little knowledge or care for growing
things. Though in old days the warm valley of Nan Gurunir
could have been made to grow a good crop.'
Finally, and still in the same context, the passage was developed to a
form that my father evidently felt had outgrown its place, for he
marked it 'Put into Foreword'.(36) Here the date of the first growing of
pipe-weed at Longbottom by 'Old Toby' (still standing for Tobias)
becomes 'about the year 1050', 'in the time of Isengrim Took the
First';(37) and Merry now says of Old Toby:
'... He knew a great deal about herbs, but he was no traveller.
It is said he went often to Bree, but he certainly never went
further from the Shire than that. Some think he got the plant in
Bree; and I have heard it said that Bree-folk claim to have found
its uses long before Shire-folk. Certainly it grows well now on
the south side of Bree-hill. And it was probably from Bree that
the art spread in the last couple of hundred years, among
dwarves and such folk as ever come westward nowadays.'
'Meaning Rangers,' said Aragorn smiling. 'They go to Bree as
you may remember. And if you really want to know the truth I
will tell it you. It was the folk that Bree-folk call Rangers who
brought the plant from the South. For it does not belong
natively to Bree and the Shire, and only flourishes so far north in
warm and sheltered places. Green [Fuilas > Marlas > Romloth
>] Galenas we called that kind. But it had long run wild and
unheeded. This credit is certainly due to hobbits: they first put it
into pipes. Not even the wizards thought of that before them,
though one at least that I know took up the notion, and is now
as skilful in that art as in all other things he puts his mind to.'
'More than one,' said Merry. 'Saruman likely enough got the
idea from Gandalf: his greatest skill seems to have been in
picking other people's brains. But I am glad of it, in this case.
Among the wreckage floating on the water...'
This version concludes with Merry's saying 'Longbottom Leaf is
good enough, but this is better. I wonder where it came from. Do you
think Saruman grew it?' And Aragorn replies: 'I expect so. Before he
took to making worse things with greater labour, he must have had
some wisdom. And this warm valley would grow a good crop, if
properly tended.'
The decision to remove most of this to the Foreword had already
been taken when the first completed manuscript was written, for here
Merry says no more than the few words that Gandalf allows him in
TT (p. 163) - with Tobias for Tobold and the date 1050.
Lastly, the conversation near the end of the chapter in the manu-
script (there is no initial drafting for this) brings in the meeting with
Bregalad on the journey to Isengard, and runs thus:
'It is past noon,' said Gandalf, 'and we at least have not yet
eaten. Yet I wish to see Treebeard as soon as may be. If Bregalad
took my message, Treebeard has forgotten it in his labours.
Unless, as does not seem to be beyond belief, he left us some
word with these door-wardens, which their noon-meal has
driven from their minds.'
'Bless me! yes, of course,' said Pippin, tapping his forehead.
'"One thing drives out another," as Butterbur would say. Of
course. He said: Greet the Lord of Rohan, fittingly. Tell him
that Saruman is locked in Orthanc, and say that I am busy near
the north gate.(38) If he and Gandalf will forgive me, and will ride
there to find me, I will welcome them.'
'Then why did you not say so before?' said Gandalf.
'Because Gimli interrupted my fitting words,' answered
Merry. 'And after that it appeared that hobbits had become the
chief wonder and matter of debate.'
The chapter did not at this time end with Pippin's 'A fine old fellow.
Very polite', but went on with 'Gandalf and the King's company rode
away, turning east to make the circuit of the ruined Ring of Isengard',
which in TT is the opening of 'Flotsam and Jetsam'.
Further abundant drafting, again discontinuous and closely related
to the finished text, exists for the second stage in the development of
the chapter. Here can be seen the new or altered elements in the
narrative as they arose - the postponed departure from Helm's Deep,
the Ents at the edge of the Huorn wood (39) that displaced the meeting
with Bregalad, the passage of the Fords, the dry river, the burial
mound, the Isen suddenly running again in the night. At first, though
the time of departure had been changed to the evening, the encounter
with Bregalad was still present - but ends differently: for despite
Gandalf's message to Treebeard, 'to the surprise of all he [Bregalad]
raised his hand and strode off, not back northward but towards the
Coomb, where the wood now stood as dark as a great fold of night.'
The scene at the Fords likewise evolved in stages: at first there was no
mention of the burial mound, then there were two, one on either bank
of the Isen, and finally the island or eyot in the middle of the river
appeared.(40) The passage describing the departure-of the Huorns
from the Deeping Coomb and the Death Down (see p. 27) was first
moved to stand (apparently) after Gandalf's reply to Legolas' question
concerning the Orcs: That, I think, no one will ever know (TT
p. 151), for an isolated draft of it begins: 'And that proved true. For in
the deep of the night, after the departure of the king, men heard a great
noise of wind in the valley ...' '
The second main manuscript of the chapter was a fair copy that
remained so, being only lightly emended after its first writing. A few
details still survived from the first stage: Merry's father Caradoc;
Tobias Hornblower and the year 1050; Eodoras; and the form Rohir,
not Rohirrim (the two latter being changed later on the manuscript).
The assembly at Eodoras is still to be, as in the first version (p. 27),
'before the waning of the moon' (changed later to 'at the last quarter
of the moon').
Lastly, in the account of the burials after the Battle of the Hornburg,
there were not only the two mounds raised over the fallen Riders:
following the words 'and those of Westfold upon the other' (TT p. 150)
there stands in the manuscript 'But the men of Dunland were set
apart in a mound below the Dike' (a statement that goes back through
the first complete manuscript to the original draft of the passage, see
note 8). This sentence was inadvertently omitted in the following
typescript (not made by my father), and the error was never observed.
NOTES.
1. A short section of initial drafting was written on the back of a
letter to my father bearing the date 31 July 1942.
2. One would expect Erkenwald: see p. 24, note 22. In the first
occurrence here my father in fact wrote Erkenw before changing
it to Erkenbrand. It may be that he was for a time undecided
between the two names, and that there was not a simple
succession Erkenwald > Erkenbrand.
3. Cf. the outline 'The Story Foreseen from Fangorn', VII.436: 'The
victorious forces under Eomer and Gandalf ride to the gates of
Isengard. They find it a pile of rubble, blocked with a huge wall of
stone. On the top of the pile sit Merry and Pippin!'
4. Caradoc Brandybuck: see VI.251 and note 4. This is the first
appearance of Pippin's father Paladin Took: see VI.386.
5. Less than a day: this must imply the shortest possible time-
scheme (see Chapter I):
Day 3 (January 31) Ents break into Isengard at night and divert
the Isen; Theoden to Helm's Deep, Battle of the Hornburg.
Day 4 (February 1) Theoden, Gandalf, &c. to Isengard.
6. This conversation is found in no less than seven separate forms
for the first version of the story alone. In one of these Theoden
says to Gandalf: 'But would you assault the stronghold of
Saruman with a handful of tired men?', and Gandalf replies: 'No.
You do not fully understand the victory we have won, Lord of the
Mark. The hosts of Isengard are no more. The West is saved. I do
not go to an assault. I have business to settle, ere we turn back -
to graver matters, and maybe to harder fortune.' - In different
versions Gandalf advises Theoden to order an assembly at
Eodoras 'on the second day from now' and 'at the full moon four
days from now.'
7. In TT the company did not leave for Isengard until the late
afternoon, and on the way they camped for the night below Nan
Gurunir; see pp. 5-6, $$ III-IV.
8. In preliminary drafting for this passage the bodies of the Orcs
were burned; the men of Dunland were still the men of Westfold;
it was Gamling who addressed them, not Erkenbrand ('Help now
to repair the evil in which you have joined ...'); the dead of this
people were buried in a separate mound below the Dike (a
statement that was retained in both the finished manuscripts of
the chapter, though lost in TT: see p. 40); the slain Riders were
buried in a single mound (not two); and Hama, whose death
before the Gates of the Hornburg here first appears (see p. 22),
was buried among them, yet he gave his name to the mound: 'the
[Hamanlow >] Hamelow it was called in after years' (i.e. Old
Engish Haman hlaw, the Mound of Hama). In TT (p. 150) Hama
was laid in a grave alone under the shadow of the Hornburg.
9. The Death Down, where the bodies of the Orcs were buried, was
first called the Barren Hill ('for no grass would grow there').
10. See note 14.
11. See the First Map (redrawn map III, VII.309), where the Isen
flows into the Great Sea in the region then named Belfalas.
12. In the draft for this passage the battlefield 'was but a mile or two
away'. - In TT the company crossed the Fords of Isen (by
moonlight) in order to follow the 'ancient highway that ran down
from Isengard to the crossings'.
13. That the slain Riders had been buried by Ents is stated subse-
quently: see pp. 47, 49, 54. Contrast TT (p. 157): 'More [Riders]
were scattered than were slain; I gathered together all that I could
find.... Some I set to make this burial.'
14. In this version the company was riding fast, but even so my father
seems to have been working on the basis of a much shorter
distance from Helm's Deep to Isengard: contrast TT (p. 156):
'They had ridden for some four hours from the branching of the
roads when they drew near to the Fords.' In a chronology written
at this time, when the story was that Gandalf and Theoden and
their company left Helm's Deep very soon after the end of the
Battle of the Hornburg (see p. 5, $ III), he said that they left about
9 a.m. Changing this to the story that they stopped for the night
on the way (p. 6, $ IV), he said that they left at 3.30 p.m., and
noted: 'It is forty miles and they arrive about 12.30 p.m. on next
day, Feb. 3.' This is followed by notes of distances that are in
close agreement with the First Map (see p. 78 note 2), but
'Isengard Gates to mouth of Deeping Coomb' is given as 33 > 41
> 45 miles (cf. p. 27, where Gandalf's estimate was changed
from 12 to 14 to 11 leagues).
As well as I have been able to interpret the First Map here I
make the distance 1 cm. or 50 miles, and my map made in 1943
agrees. Section IV(E) of the First Map (VII.319) is stuck onto a
portion of IV that is totally hidden, and it is possible that at this
stage the Gap of Rohan was less wide. In any case, considerations
of distance as well as of chronology evidently dictated the change
whereby Gandalf and Theoden did not reach Isengard till the
following day.
15. On the removal of this dialogue from the (revised) opening of
'Helm's Deep' and the chronological considerations that led my
father to do so see pp. 5 - 6, $$ II - III.
16. This extremely squashing (and revealing) remark of Gandalf's to
the King of Rohan was subsequently very firmly struck through
on the manuscript.
17. Cf. Aragorn's words (at once rejected) in a draft for 'The White
Rider', VII.429: 'The Ents! Then there is truth in the ancient
legends, and the names that they use in Rohan have a meaning!'
18. In the original draft for this passage 'the strange figure came
quickly on to meet them until it was about fifty [written above: a
hundred] yards away. Then it stopped and lifting its grey arms
and long hands to its mouth it called in a loud voice like a
[?ringing] trumpet. "Is Gandalf with this company?" The words
were clear for all to hear.'
19. The page of the manuscript that includes this passage was
replaced by another, which introduced little significant change;
but in the rejected page Bregalad and Gandalf speak of 'the trees',
and only in the replacement do they call them 'the Huorns'.
Several other terms in fact preceded Huorns: see pp. 47, 50, 52.
20. In the rejected page referred to in note 19 Bregalad said that
Treebeard 'wishes to know what to do with Saruman', at which
Gandalf 'laughed softly, and then was silent, stroking his beard
thoughtfully. "Hm," he mused, "hm - yes, that will be a
problem." ' Cf. the outline for the chapter (p. 26).
21. The original drafting for the description of Nan Gurunir reads
thus:
On either side the last long arms of the Misty Mountains
reached out down into the plain, bare and broken ridges
half-hidden now in smoke. And now they came upon a strange
thing. It seemed to them that ruinous rocks lay ahead, out of
which in a new-riven channel came the river, flowing where
they stood back into its old course; yet higher up the valley the
former bed was dry.
'Yes, I knew it,' said Gandalf. 'Therefore I drew you this
way. We may cross with no difficulty to the Gates of Isengard.
As some of you who have journeyed here may know, of old the
Isen flowed down, fed by many mountain-springs and streams,
until it was already a swift and powerful water ere it left Nan
Gurunir - it swept past the walls of Isengard upon the East.
That river you claimed as your boundary, but Saruman did not
agree. But things have changed. Come and see!'
This was not used at all in the completed text of the first version
of the story. It was not the first appearance of the diversion of the
Isen: cf. 'The Story Foreseen from Fangorn', VII.436: 'At North
end [of Isengard] they let in the River Isen but blocked its
outflow. Soon all the floor of the circle was flooded to many feet
deep.'
In the passage just cited the meaning must be that the Isen had
not been sent back into its former course after the drowning of
the Circle of Isengard, but continued to flow in its new channel.
Gandalf's words 'I knew it. Therefore I drew you this way. We
may cross with no difficulty to the Gates of Isengard' must mean
that that is why he had led the company along the east bank of
the Isen from the Fords (p. 28), for thus they would only have to
cross the dry former bed of the river, to the east of its new course.
22. Later, in 'Flotsam and Jetsam', Merry told (TT p. 171) that when
the great host left Isengard 'some went off down the highway to
the Fords, and some turned away and went eastward. A bridge
has been built down there, about a mile away, where the river
runs in a very deep channel.' See p. 56.
23. Differences from the final form were that a part of the Circle of
Isengard on the western side was formed of the mountain-wall
itself (this was taken up from the draft but rejected from the
completed manuscript in the act of writing); there were two
entrances, there being in addition to the great southern arch 'a
small gate at the north, near the mountains' feet'; the circle was
'almost two miles from rim to rim' ('a mile', TT); 'through it by
many carven channels water flowed, entering as a stream from
the mountains beneath the northern gate, and watering all the
hidden land'; and the windows in the walls of the circle are
described (in the preliminary drafting only) as 'countless dark
windows and deep, square-cut, menacing'.
24. This picture was drawn on the back of a page of the examination
script of the poet John Heath-Stubbs, who took the final
examinations in English at Oxford in 1942.
25. The opening of the description is confused. Apparently my father
at first followed the draft 'A' very closely, writing: 'And in the
centre ... was a tower, a pinnacle of stone. The base of it, and
that two hundred feet in height, was a great cone of rock ...', but
altered this at once to 'was an isle of stone, two hundred feet in
height, a great cone of rock ...' Subsequently he changed 'was an
isle of stone' to 'there stood an island in the lake.' See the
description 'D' in the text.
26. On the back of this drawing my father wrote: 'This picture
should be combined with old one': i.e. for a final version, which
was never made, features of 'Orthanc (1)' should be incor-
porated. - 'Picture 5' went to Marquette with the second
completed manuscript of the chapter, whereas the others re-
mained in England. - The conception of 'Orthanc (5)' is seen
also in Pictures by J. R. R. Tolkien, no. 27, viewed from the side
in which were the stairway and the door.
27. In a draft of the paragraph beginning 'A strong place and
wonderful was Isengard' (TT p. 160) these words were followed
by 'or Ang(ren)ost in elvish speech'. Angrenost has appeared
before (VII.420); the variant Angost occurs subsequently (p. 72).
28. Perhaps Hoppettan was Theoden's turning of Hobbits into the
sounds and grammatical inflexion of the language of the Mark -
or else he was merely struck by the resemblance to the (Old
English) verb hoppettan 'to hop, leap, jump for joy'.
29. Holbytla 'Hole-builder' has the consonants lt (Holbylta) re-
versed, as in the closely related Old English botl, bodl beside bold
'building' (see my note on Nobottle in the Shire, VII.424).
30. This name can be read either as Mugworth or as Mugwort, but
the latter (a plant-name, and one of the family names in Bree)
seems very unlikely as the name of a place. Mugworth is not
recorded as a village name in England.
31. This passage about tobacco was dashed down in a single spurt
without any corrections, and there is no indication that these
sentences were spoken by Theoden; but that they were so is seen
from the following draft.
32. The illegible word might possibly be 'grand'.
33. A pencilled note suggests that this should be 'a conversation at
[the] feast'. See pp. 72-3.
34. Smygrave: with the first element cf. Smial (Old English smygel).
The second element is probably Old English graef.
35. With the later change of Tobias to Tobold Hornblower cf.
Barliman for earlier Barnabas Butterbur.
36. Cf. my father's letter to me of 6 May 1944 (Letters no. 66),
referring to Faramir, then newly arrived on the scene: 'if he goes
on much more a lot of him will have to be removed to the
appendices - where already some fascinating material on the
hobbit Tobacco industry and the Languages of the West have
gone.'
37. Isengrim Took the First and the date 1050: in the Prologue to LR
in the days of Isengrim Took the Second and the date 1070. See
the original genealogical table of the Tooks in VI.316 - 17,
according to which Isengrim the First would have been 400 years
old at the time of Bilbo's Farewell Party. Since the Shire
Reckoning date 1418 (as in LR) has already appeared for the year
of Frodo's departure from Bag End (VII.9), Isengrim the First
(afterwards Isengrim II) was born in S.R. 1001. According to the
genealogical tree of the Tooks in LR Appendix C the dates of this
Isengrim were S.R. 1020 - 1122. - The varieties of pipe-weed
from the Southfarthing are here given as Longbottom-leaf, Old
Toby, and Hornpipe Shag.
38. On the north gate of Isengard see note 23.
39. In the draft of this scene the three Ents who came out from the
trees were not wholly indifferent to the company: 'Silently they
stood, some twenty paces off, regarding the riders with solemn
eyes.' But this was changed immediately.
In a draft for the passage that follows (TT p. 155), in which
Theoden reflects on the Ents and the narrow horizons of the
people of Rohan, it is Gandalf who speaks the thought that the
war will bring about the disappearance of much that was
beautiful in Middle-earth:
'You should be glad, Theoden King,' said Gandalf. 'For not
only your little life of men is now endangered, but the life of
those things also which you have deemed the matter of song
and legend. Some we may save by our efforts, but however the
fortune of war goes, it may soon come to pass that much that is
fair and wonderful shall pass for ever out of Middle Earth. The
evil that Sauron works and has worked (and has had much
help of men in it) may be stayed or ended, but it cannot be
wholly cured, nor made as if it had not been.'
40. The Fords of Isen in the plural appears earlier, however (pp. 10,
27 - 8,31).
41. For another proposed placing of the description of the passing of
the Huorns see p. 70.
IV.
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM.
The first completed manuscript of 'The Road to Isengard' was
originally continuous with Chapter XXVIII 'The Battle of Helm's
Deep' (the original title), but I think that the division was introduced
at a fairly early stage, with a new chapter numbered XXIX beginning
with the meeting of Gandalf and Theoden beside the Deeping Stream
after the Battle of the Hornburg. The first completed manuscript of
XXIX, of which the original title was 'To Isengard', ran on without
break through the later 'Flotsam and Jetsam' and 'The Voice of
Saruman', but a division between XXIX and XXX ('Flotsam and
Jetsam') was made before it was completed: XXX then included the
later 'Voice of Saruman' as well. A very rough and difficult outline for
this part of the story in fact begins at the end of 'The Road to
Isengard', and the chapter was then expressly to end with the return to
Eodoras.
Gandalf asks where Treebeard is?
(Guarding Orthanc, says Merry. Some Ents still demolishing.)
He takes Theoden off.
Aragorn takes the hobbits aside and they sit and eat and chat
on the stone heaps. Aragorn smokes. Talk about wizards and
tobacco.
Aragorn and Gimli are told about Orc-raid and Treebeard.
Merry gives up hope of describing them; says you will see them
soon. How shall I describe them to Bilbo? (This was when he
first tried to collect his ideas.)
Describes destruction of Isengard. Saruman not strong or
brave. Merry tells all he knows about the battles of Ford. How
trees dogged orcs.
Treebeard knocks on gates of Isengard. Arrows no good.(1)
Saruman flies to Orthanc and sends up fires from floor of plain.
Scorched Ents go mad. But Treebeard stops them. They let in
Isen River by North Gate (2) and flood the bowl. Terrific fume and
steam. Terrible noises, drowned wolves and slaves and smiths.
The Ents pull the wall to pieces. They send Galbedirs (Talking
Trees) to help Gandalf. They bury dead at Fords.
Gandalf's speech with Saruman. He rides over flooded cause-
way. Saruman looks out of window above door. Asks how he
dares to come without permission. Gandalf says he thought that
as far as Saruman was concerned he was still a lodger in
Orthanc.(3)
'Guests that leave from the roof have not always a claim to
come in by the door.' Saruman refuses to repent or submit.
Gandalf gives Treebeard task of [?caring] for him. 'I do not
doubt there are delved ways under Orthanc. But every time
water subsides let it in again, till all these underground places
are submerged. Then make a low bank and plant trees round it.
Guard Orthanc with Ents.'
Theoden thinks a Nazgul may carry him off. 'Let him!' says
Gandalf. 'If Saruman thinks of that last treachery ... cannot
pity him for the terrible fate that awaits him. Mordor can have
no love [for] him. Indeed what he will do
Say that this must be clear to Saruman himself. Would it not
be more dramatic to [?make] Saruman offer help: Gandalf says
no - he knows that if Mordor wins he is done for now. Even the
evidence that he had made war on us won't help him. Sauron
knows that he did so only for [his] own ends. But if we win -
with his belated help he hopes to re-establish himself and escape
punishment. Gandalf demands his staff of office. He refuses;
then Gandalf orders him to be shut up, as above.(4)
They rest the night in the ruins and ride back to Eodoras.
Feast on evening of their return and coming of the messenger
- that ominous dark-visaged man (5) should end this chapter.
Another outline (in ink over pencil, but the underlying text though
briefer was not greatly different) reads as follows:
Treebeard (and Merry and Pippin) relate events - their arrival
at Isengard. They saw Saruman send out all his forces to
overwhelm the Riders at Isenford. As soon as Isengard was
well-nigh empty, the Ents attacked. Merry and Pippin tell of the
terrifying anger and strength of the Ents. Saruman really had
little power beyond cunning, persuasive words - when he had
no slaves at hand to do his will and work his machines or light
his fires he could do little himself. All his studies had been given
to trying to discover how rings were made. He let his wolves out
- but they were useless. A few of the Ents were scorched with
fire - then they went mad. They drowned Isengard, by letting in
River and blocking the outlet.
All the day they were destroying and making havoc of the
outer walls and all within. Only Orthanc resisted them. Then
just ere nightfall Gandalf came riding up like the wind.(6) He told
them of King Theoden's danger. A considerable force of
walking trees had already stalked after the orcs the night before.
The Ents now sent a much great[er] force and commanded them
all to gather at the mouth of the Coomb and let no orc come out
alive. A few Ents had gone to Isenford, and buried the dead men
of the Mark.
In the margin against the last sentences of this outline is written:
'Shall there be more real Ents?' Notably, a sentence in the underlying
pencilled text reads: 'The Ents sent a force of walking trees (with split
trunks). They crept on in darkness following the victorious orcs.'
There is not a great deal to notice in the scanty initial drafting or in
the first completed manuscript as far as the beginning of Merry's story
of the attack on Isengard (TT p. 170). The meal provided by the
hobbits was not eaten in the guard-house by the gates: Merry and
Pippin went off to get the food and returned with it, Pippin explaining
that 'There is a door not far inside the old tunnel that leads down into
some well-stocked stores' (cf. the outline, p. 47: they sit and eat 'on the
stone heaps'). Of Ents, where in TT (p. 167) Pippin says: 'Oh, well,
you have seen some at a distance, already', here he says 'Oh well, you
have seen Quickbeam' - this being of course a reference to the earlier
version of 'The Road to Isengard', where Gandalf and Theoden and
their company met Bregalad on their ride from Helm's Deep.(7) And he
says also, as in the outline on p. 47: 'But I wish Bilbo could have seen
Treebeard: how we shall manage to describe him to the old hobbit, if
ever we get back, I can't think.'
In a draft for the discussion of pipes (TT pp. 167-8) Aragorn leapt
down from the stone heap and went to the saddle-bags that lay
nearby. 'From them he drew out an old cloak, and a worn purse of soft
hide. Coming back he wrapped himself in the cloak, and opened the
purse, and drew out a blackened pipe of clay.' Before Pippin produced
his spare pipe, Merry said: 'There are none to be found. Orcs don't
smoke, and Saruman did not give his leaf to his slaves.' And when
Pippin said 'Look! Trotter the Ranger has come back!' Aragorn
replied: 'He has never been away. I am Trotter and Aragorn, and
belong both to Gondor and the North.'(8)
A few other details in the opening of the chapter may be noted.
There is no mention of Aragorn's returning of the hobbits' knives,(9) or
of Pippin's brooch (TT p. 169). After Merry's story of Grishnakh (10)
Aragorn spoke at greater length about Sauron and Saruman:
'All this about the orcs of Lugburz (Mordor, I suppose, from
the Red Eye) makes me uneasy,' said Aragorn. 'The Dark Lord
already knew too much, and Grishnakh clearly got some
message across the River after the quarrel. [But still there are
some hopeful points. Saruman is in a cleft stick of his own
cutting. Gandalf ought not to have much difficulty in convinc-
ing him that a victory for Mordor would not be pleasant for
him, now. Indeed' (and here Aragorn lowered his voice) 'I do
not see what can save him, except the Ring itself. It is well that
he has no idea where it is. And we should do best never to
mention it aloud: I do not know what powers Saruman in his
tower may have, nor what means of communication with the
East there may be.) From your tale it is plain that he thought
one of you was possibly the Ringbearer; and Sauron must
therefore have the same doubt. If so, it will hasten his attack
westward: Isengard has fallen none too soon. But there are
some hopeful points. All this doubt may help poor Frodo and
Sam. But at any rate Saruman is in a cleft stick of his own
cutting.
The part of this text (rather more confused in the manuscript than I
have represented it) enclosed in square brackets, was rejected im-
mediately and replaced by what follows ('From your tale it is
plain ...'); this was rejected later, leaving only the last sentence. -
Lastly, Pippin chants, in addition to Though Isengard be strong and
barred [sic], the Entish Ta-ruta, dum-da, dum-da dum! ta-rara dumda
dumda-bum! (see VII.420).
In the original draft Merry's story (TT pp. 170 ff.) was at first very
different from what it became, and I give this text (written in ink over
very faint pencil) in part. Of the opening of his story my father noted
on the manuscript that he should know less: 'His account of the war is
too detailed.'
'... We came down over the last ridge into Nan Gurunir after
night had fallen. It was then that I first got an inkling that the
forest was moving behind - or a lot of it was: all the Galbedirs
[> Lamorni > Ornomar] were coming, as the Ents call them in
their short language (which seems to be an oldfashioned Elvish):
Talking Trees, that is, that they have trained and made half-
entish.(11) All this must have been happening while you were
riding south.(12) As far as I can make out, from Treebeard and
Gandalf, the war seems to have gone like this: Saruman opened
the game some weeks ago, and sent raiders into the west of
Rohan. The Rohan-men sent out strong forces, and they
retreated over the fords of Isen, and the Riders rather rashly
pursued them right up to the bottom of Nan Gurunir. There
they were ambushed by a host of Saruman's folk and one of the
chieftains of Rohan seems to have been killed. That must be a
good many days ago.(13) Then more Rohan-men arrived coming
from Westfold (14) away south, and the Riders still remained on
both sides of the River keeping the Isengarders from breaking
out of the valley. Up to then Saruman was only fencing; then he
struck. Men came up from the land away west, old enemies of
Rohan, and the Riders were driven over the Fords. The next
stage we were just in time to see.
'As we crept down into Nan-Gurunir - and there was no sign
or challenge. [sic] Those Ents and their flocks can creep if they
wish. You stand still, looking at the weather and listening to the
rustling of the leaves, maybe, and then suddenly you find you
are in the middle of a wood, with trees all round you. "Creepy"
is the word for it! It was very dark, a cloudy night. The moon
got up late - and long before it rose there was a deep and
sombre forest all round the upper half of Isengard Ring without
a sign of challenge. There was a light gleaming from one of the
windows in the tower, that was all. Treebeard and some of the
elder Ents crept on, right round to within sight of the gates. We
were with him. I was sitting on Treebeard's shoulder and could
feel a trembling tenseness in him, but even when roused the Ents
can be very cautious and patient: they stood still as statues,
listening and breathing. Then all at once there was a great stir.
Trumpets blared, and all the Ring echoed. We thought that we
had been spotted, and battle was going to begin. But nothing of
the kind. It seems that news had come in that the Riders had
been defeated and driven over the Fords, but were still trying to
hold out on the east bank. Saruman sent out his whole forces:
he pretty well emptied Isengard. Gandalf says that he was
probably in a great taking, thinking that the Ring might have
gone to Eodoras, and meant to blot out Theoden and all his
folk, before they had time to do anything about it. But there
were one or two bits of essential information he lacked: the
return of Gandalf, and the rising of the Ents. He thought the one
was finished for good, and the others no good, old slow-witted
back-numbers. Two very bad mistakes. Anyway that is what he
did. I saw them go - endless lines of Orcs, and squadrons/
troops of them mounted on great wolves (a Saruman notion?),
and whole regiments of men, too. Many of them carried
torches, and by the flame I could see their faces. Some were just
Men, rather tall, dark-haired, not particularly evil-looking.'
'Those would be Dunlanders,' said Aragorn. 'An upland folk
from the west of the Misty Mountains, remnants of the old
peoples that once dwelt in Rohan and all about the Black
Mountains, south and north.'
The following dialogue, concerning the 'goblin-men' reminiscent of
the squint-eyed Southerner at Bree, and Merry's estimate of the forces
that left Isengard that night, is much the same as in TT (p. 171), except
that Aragorn says that they had had many of the goblin-men to deal
with at the Hornburg 'last night' (see note 7), and that there is here no
mention of the bridge over the Isen over which a part of the host had
passed. Then follows:
'... I thought it looked black for the Riddermark. But it
seems in the end the only way in which Saruman could have
been overcome. One wonders how much Gandalf knew,
guessed, or planned. But Treebeard anyway let them go. He
said that his concern was Isengard. "Stone - that we can fight,"
he said.
'But he sent off a whole wood of the Ornomi (15) down the
valley after the army, as soon as the gates of Isengard were shut
again. I don't know, of course, much of what happened away
south down there; but you will tell us later.'
'I can tell you now briefly,' said Aragorn. 'The Saruman army
came down on both sides of the Isen and overwhelmed the men
of Rohan, and most of the survivors scattered. A strong force
under Erkenwald of Westfold (16) fled south towards the Black
Mountains. We met a survivor of the battles of the fords
yesterday evening, and were just in time to take refuge in Helm's
Deep, a gorge in the hills, before the whole pack came on us.'
'I don't know how you survived,' said Merry. 'But you helped
us. As soon as all the army had gone, the fun began here.
Treebeard went up and began hammering on the gates....'
Merry's account of the Ents' destruction of the gates of Isengard
was already in this preliminary draft very close to that in TT (p. 172),
but his estimate of Saruman was expressed more largely and with a
degree of scornful and rather jaunty assurance that his experience of
the master of Orthanc scarcely justified; and Aragorn does not here
interrupt him with a more cautious view of Saruman's innate power
(indeed the hypnotic potency of the wizard's voice only emerged, or
was at any rate only fully realised, when the meeting with him came to
be written).
'I don't know what Saruman thought was happening. But all
that I have seen since leads me to think that either he was never
really a first-class wizard (not up to his reputation, which was
partly due to Isengard, and that was not his making to begin
with), or he had been deteriorating - relying on wheels and
what not, and not on wisdom. And he does not seem to have
much heart in any sense: certainly he had been going back in
plain courage. The old fool had really become dependent on all
his organized slaves. He had a daunting way with him: power of
dominating minds and bewildering or persuading them was his
chief asset all along, I fancy. But without his armies to do as he
commanded, he was just a cunning old man, very slippery, but
with no grit. And the old fool had sent all his armies off! ...'
Merry's account (given to Pippin in TT) of Saruman's flight into
Orthanc chased by Bregalad, the spouting of fires and gases from vents
in the plain of Isengard ('as soon as Saruman got back into his
control-room he got some of his machinery working'), the scorching
of some of the Ents and the quelling of their fury by Treebeard, is
present in the draft in all essentials, though more briefly told (and the
horrible fate of the Ent Beechbone does not yet appear). The time-
scheme was still at the stage described in $ II on p. 5, with the
drowning of Isengard beginning later in the same night (31 January) as
the Ents came there,(17) and so the story is much condensed in the draft
text by comparison with that in TT. Gandalf came to Isengard
'yesterday at 'nightfall' (i.e. 1 February, the night of the Battle of the
Hornburg); and where in TT (p. 175) Pippin says that he was
surprised at the meeting of Gandalf and Treebeard 'because neither of
them seemed surprised at all', here Merry says:
'... I do not know who was most surprised at their meeting,
Gandalf or Treebeard. Gandalf, I think, for once. For from a
look he gave us when we first met I have a fancy Treebeard had
spotted Gandalf in Fangorn; but would not say anything even to
comfort us. He has very much to heart the elvish saw of
Gildor's: Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards; for they are
subtle and quick to wrath.'(18)
'But Gandalf knew Treebeard was on the move,' said Gimli.
'He knew there was going to be an explosion.'
'But not even Gandalf could guess what that was going to be
like,' said [Merry >] Pippin. 'It has never happened before. And
even wizards know little about Ents. But talking about surprise
- we were the surprised ones: coming on top of the astonishing
rage of the Ents, Gandalf's arrival was like a thunderclap. We
had very little to do, except try and trot round after Treebeard
(when he was too busy to carry us) and see the fun. We had a
high time for a moment, when we got left alone, and came in
front of a rush of some terrified wolves, and we had a brush
with two or three stray orcs. [But when Gandalf arrived, I just
stood staring with my mouth open, and then I sat down and
laughed. >] But when Gandalf's horse came striding up the
road, like a flash of silver in the dusk, well, I just gasped, and
then I sat down and laughed, and then I wept. And did he say
pleased to see you again? No, indeed. He said "Get up, you
tom-fool of a Took. Where in the name of wonder in all this
mess is Treebeard? Hurry, hurry, hurry, my lad! Don't let your
toes grow whiskers." But later he was a bit gentler, after he had
seen the old Ent: he seemed very pleased and relieved. He gave
us a few minutes of concentrated news, a pat on the head, a sort
of hasty blessing, and vanished away south again. We got some
more news out of Treebeard after he had gone. But there must
be much more to tell. We should have been far more worried
and anxious about you, I expect, only it was difficult what with
Treebeard and Gandalf to really believe you would come to
grief.'
'Yet we nearly did,' said Aragorn. 'Gandalf's plans are risky,
and they lead often to a knife-edge. There is great wisdom,
forethought and courage in them - but no certainty. You have
to do your part as it comes to you; or they would not work.'
'After that, said Merry, 'the Ents just went on and carefully
and neatly finished the drowning of Isengard. I don't know
what else, do you?'
'Yes,' said Aragorn, 'some went to the Fords to bury the men
of Rohan who had fallen there; and to gather all the - what did
you say they were called - the Ornomi, the moving woods, to
the Deeping Coomb. Aye, that was a wonder and a victory as
great as the one here. No orc is left. It was a long night, but the
dawn was fair.'
'Well, let us hope that it is the beginning of better things,' said
Gimli. 'Gandalf said the tide was turning.'
'Yes,' said Aragorn, 'but he also said that the great storm was
coming.'
'Oh,' said Merry, 'I forgot. Not long before Gandalf, about
sunset, a tired horse came up the valley with a pack of
wolf-riders round it.(19) The Ents soon settled them, though one
of Quickbeam's folk, a rowan-ent, got a bad axe-stroke, and
that enraged the Ents mightily. On the horse there was a queer
twisted sort of man: I disliked him at sight. It says a great deal
about Treebeard and Ents generally, if you think about it - in
spite of their rage, and the battle, and the wounding of
Bregalad's friend Carandrian, that the fellow was not killed out
of hand. He was miserable in his fear and amazement. He said
he was a man called Frana, and was sent with urgent messages
from Theoden and Gandalf to Saruman, and had been captured
by orcs on the way (I caught him squinting at Treebeard to see
how it went, especially the mention of Gandalf). Treebeard
looked at him in his long slow way for many minutes. Then he
said: "Hoom, ha, well, you can go to Saruman! I guess
somehow that you know pretty well how to find him, though
things have changed a little here. But false or true, you will do
little harm now."
'We told Gandalf about it. He laughed, and said: "Well, I
fancy of all the surprised people he had the worst shock. Poor
Wormtongue! He chose badly. Just for a little I feel hardhearted
enough to let those two stay and live together. They will be
small comfort to each other. And if Wormtongue comes out of
Orthanc alive, it will be more than he deserves." '
Against this passage my father wrote: 'No, Wormtongue must come
after Gandalf'; and at the foot of the page: 'Shall Wormtongue
actually murder Saruman?'
'Well,' he continued. 'Our job was to get rooms ready and
prepare stuff for your entertainment. All yesterday and most of
last night we worked. Indeed, say what you like, we did not
knock off till close on noon this morning. And I don't know if
we should even then, only Pippin found two tubs floating on the
Water'
Here this draft breaks off. The first completed manuscript, from the
point where Merry's story begins, was based fairly closely on the draft
text (pp. 50-5) in its narrative, but moved far towards the text of TT
in expression. The passage about the 'Talking Trees' (p. 50) was
developed thus:
'... The Ornomi were coming. That is what the Ents call them
in their "short language", which seems to be an old-fashioned
Elvish: trees with voices it means, and there is a great host of
them deep in Fangorn, trees that the Ents have trained so long
that they have become half entish, though far wilder, of course,
and crueller.'
This was rejected, probably at once, and a passage for the most part
very close to that in TT (p. 170) substituted. Ornomi was here
replaced by Huorns in the act of writing and is the point where that
name arose. Merry is now uncertain about their nature: 'I cannot
make out whether they are trees that have become Entish, or Ents that
have become tree-like, or both.'
At first Merry was still going to give a summary and commentary on
the course of the war:
'... It seems that news had come in that the [Rohir >] Horse-
men had been defeated and driven back across the Isen, but
some were still trying to hold out on the eastern bank. We got
this out of some of Saruman's men that the Ents captured and
questioned. Saruman thought that no more was left of the
King's forces, except what he would keep by him to guard his
town and hall. He decided to finish off the Rohir with a decisive
blow.'
But it must have been at this point that my father noted on the draft
(p. 50) that Merry should be much less well-informed on these
matters, and the passage just given was rejected and the text of TT
(p. 171) substituted: 'I don't know much about this war ...'
Merry now tells (as he does not in the draft, p. 51) that when the
great host left Isengard 'some went off down the main road to the
fords, but still more turned off towards the bridge and the east side of
the river'. This was changed in a hasty pencilled emendation to 'turned
off towards where I believe Saruman has recently made a bridge'. See
p. 31 and note 22.
Aragorn's brief account of what had happened southwards was still
retained from the draft (p. 52), and here he adds the surmise (in the
draft Gandalf's, reported by Merry, p. 51) about Saruman's purposes:
'... the whole pack came howling after us. They had learned that the
King was in the field, so none of them went to Eodoras. Saruman
wanted the King and Eomer, his heir, dead or alive. He was afraid that
the Ring might get into their hands after the battle from which you
escaped.' He also gives the information that the force that fled south
from the Fords to the Black Mountains numbered about a thousand
men. With this passage cf. Gandalf's remarks to Theoden as they rode
to Isengard (p. 29).
Merry's rather overconfident assessment of Saruman was reduced,
in stages, virtually to its compass in TT, and Aragorn's intervention
now appears, very much as in TT (p. 172), with his emphasis on the
peril of private conversation with the master of Orthanc.
In this version a new time-scheme had entered, as is seen from the
story of the drowning of Isengard:
'... They calmly settled down to carry out a plan that
Treebeard had made in his old head all along: they drowned
Isengard. Day was dawning by that time. They set a watch on
the tower, and the rest just faded away in the grey light. Merry
and I were left alone most of that day, wandering and prying
about. The Ents went north up the valley. They dug great
trenches under the shadow of the Huorns, and made great pools
and dams, and when all was ready, last night, about midnight,
they poured in all the Isen, and every other stream they could
tap, through a gap by the north-gate, down into the ring....'
'Yes, we saw the great vapour from the south this morning as
we rode from Helm's Deep,' said Aragorn....
'By morning there was a fog about a mile thick,' said Merry.
'... Treebeard stopped the inflow some hours ago, and sent the
stream back into its old course. Look, the water is sinking again
already. There must be some outlets from the caverns under-
neath. But Gandalf came before the drowning began. He may
have guessed or been told by Treebeard what was afoot, but he
did not see it happen. When he arrived the digging and
damming was not quite finished, but old Treebeard had re-
turned, and was resting. He was only about fifty yards away,
soothing his arrow-smarts by pulling down a bit more of the
southern wall in a leisurely fashion....'
This is still not quite the final time-scheme for the story of the
destruction of Isengard (see pp. 5 - 6, $$ III-IV), because the party
from Helm's Deep still reached Isengard in a single day (2 February);
so here Pippin tells that it was 'last night' (1 February) that the
drowning began, and Aragorn says that they had seen the great cloud
of steam as they rode up from Helm's Deep 'this morning'.
All the last part of what would become the chapter 'Flotsam and
Jetsam' was discarded from this manuscript and replaced by new
pages, in which the text of TT (pp. 174 - 7, describing the day spent by
Merry and Pippin alone while the Ents prepared the diversion of the
Isen, Gandalf's coming, and the filling of the Ring of Isengard by
moonlight) was reached save for the choice of a different word here
and there. But the time-scheme of the rejected pages was still present,
with the extra day still not inserted and the time during which the
waters of Isen flowed into the Ring correspondingly shorter.(20) On this
account the last part of the hobbits' story still differs from that in TT,
and Merry ends thus:
'... By morning there was a fog about a mile high, but it was
beginning to rise and sail away out of the valley. And the lake
was overflowing, too, and pouring out through the ruined gate,
bringing masses of wreckage and jamming it near the outlet of
the old tunnel. Then the Ents stopped the inflow, and sent the
Isen back into its old course. Since then the water has been
sinking again. There must be outlets somewhere from the caves
underneath, or else they are not all filled up yet. There is not
much more to tell. Our part, Pippin's and mine, was chiefly that
of onlookers: rather frightened at times. We were all alone
while the drowning was going on, and we had one or two bad
moments. Some terrified wolves were driven from their dens by
the flood, and came howling out. We fled, but they passed by.
And every now and then some stray orc would bolt out of the
shadows and run shrieking off, slashing and gnashing as he
went. The Huorns were waiting. There were many of them still
in the valley until the day came. I don't know where they have
all gone. It seems very quiet now after such a night. I could
sleep.'
But the coming of Wormtongue is now placed according to the
direction on the draft text ('Wormtongue must come after Gandalf',
p. 55): he came 'early this morning', and the story of his arrival is now
much as in TT, though briefer. Aragorn's curiosity about tobacco
from the Southfarthing turning up in Isengard appears (see note 8),
and Pippin reports the same date on the barrels as in TT: 'the 1417
crop'.
After 'it is not a very cheerful sight', with which the later chapter
'Flotsam and Jetsam' ends, this text goes straight on to 'They passed
through the ruined tunnel', with which 'The Voice of Saruman' begins.
NOTES.
1. Arrows no good: i.e., against Ents.
2. On the North Gate of Isengard see p. 43 note 23.
3. He was still a lodger in Orthanc: i.e., Gandalf had never
'officially' left after his enforced residence in the tower.
4. This paragraph was enclosed in square brackets and marked with
a query.
5. That ominous dark-visaged man: cf. 'The Story Foreseen from
Fangorn' (VII.437): 'Return to Eodoras.... News comes at the
feast or next morning of the siege of Minas Tirith by the
Haradwaith, brought by a dark Gondorian like Boromir.'
6. The time-scheme here is that described on p. 5, $ II.
7. In that version Theoden and Gandalf and their company left
Helm's Deep in the morning and reached Isengard on the same
day, and so here in answer to Pippin's question (TT p. 168)
'What is today?' Aragorn replies 'The second of February in the
Shire-reckoning' (see p. 5, $ III). Pippin then calculates on his
fingers that it was 'only a week ago' that he 'woke up in the dark
and found himself all strung-up in an orc-camp' (i.e. from the
night of Thursday 26 January to Thursday 2 February). And
again, when Pippin asks when it was that Aragorn, Gimli and
Legolas 'caught a glimpse of the old villain, or so Gandalf hints'
(as Gimli said) at the edge of Fangorn (TT p. 169), Aragorn
replies: 'Four nights ago, the twenty-ninth.'
These dates were changed on the manuscript to 'The third of
February', 'only eight days ago', and 'Five nights ago': see p. 6,
$ IV.
8. In an earlier version of this Aragorn's reply (here assembled from
scarcely differing variants) was different:
'For a spell,' said Aragorn, with a glint of a smile. 'This is
good leaf. I wonder if it grew in this valley. If so, Saruman must
have had some wisdom before he took to making worse things
with greater labour. He had little knowledge of herbs, and no
love for growing things, but he had plenty of skilled servants.
Nan Gurunir is warm and sheltered and would grow a good
crop, if it were properly tended.'
With this cf. the passages given on pp. 37 - 9. - The decision, or
perception, that the tobacco had not in fact been grown in Nan
Gurunir, but that Saruman had obtained it from the Shire,
appears in a rider pinned to the first complete manuscript, in
which Merry tells Gimli that it is Longbottom-leaf, with the
Hornblower brandmarks on the barrels (TT p. 167).
9. The finding of the hobbits' leaf-bladed knives and their sheaths at
the site of the battle beneath Amon Hen (TT p. 17) is absent from
the draft and the fair copy manuscript of 'The Departure of
Boromir' (VII.381).
10. Grishnakh was changed on the manuscript at each occurrence to
Grishnak, a reversion to the original form (VII.409 - 10). - On
the back of this page is a reference that shows it was written
during or more probably after June 1942.
11. This is the reverse of what Merry says in TT (p. 170): 'I think
they are Ents that have become almost like trees, at least to look
at.'
12. Merry was a day out: the march of the Ents on Isengard was in
the evening of 31 January, and Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas had
reached Eodoras early that morning (see pp. 3 - 4).
13. The death of Theodred in the First Battle of the Fords of Isen on
25 January (see p. 22 note 3).
14. Westfold: see p. 21.
15. Ornomi: in the underlying pencilled text the name Galbedirs can
be read. At the earlier occurrence in this draft (p. 50) Galbedirs
was changed first to Lamorni and then to Ornomar - all these
names having the same meaning.
16. Erkenwald of Westfold: see p. 24 note 22.
17. us Merry says that 'by morning there was a fog a mile thick',
Aragorn says 'we could see the great vapour from the south as we
rode towards the Fords' (i.e. as the host rode from Eodoras on
1 February), and my father wrote in the margin of the text:
'Drowning must not begin until night of Hornburg battle'.
18. In the first complete manuscript this becomes: ' "Don't be hasty"
is his motto, and also that saying Sam says he picked up from the
Elves: he was fond of whispering it to me when Gandalf was
peppery: "Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards ..." ' For its
original appearance see 'Three is Company', FR p. 93. In TT
(p. 196) Merry quotes it to Pippin a propos Pippin's interest in
the palantir.
19. Cf. 'Helm's Deep' in TT (p. 134): 'Some say also that Worm-
tongue was seen earlier, going northward with a company of
Orcs.' But in the present passage in TT (p. 178) Wormtongue
arrived alone.
20. In the time-scheme followed here it lasted from midnight on
1 February till the morning of 2 February; in the final story it
lasted till the night of 2 February (TT p. 177: 'The Ents stopped
the inflow in the night'), = 4 March.
V.
THE VOICE OF SARUMAN.
Book III Chapter 10 'The Voice of Saruman' in The Two Towers is in
; the first completed manuscript simply the further extension of Chapter
XXX (see p. 47). The opening of this part of the narrative is here
almost as in the final form (see note 8), but the conversation with
Gandalf is much briefer; after Merry's 'Still, we feel less ill-disposed
towards Saruman than we did' it continues:
'Indeed!' said Gandalf. 'Well, I am going to pay him a
farewell visit. Perhaps you would like to come?'
'I should,' said Gimli. 'I should like to see him, and learn if he
really looks like you.'
'You may not see him close enough for that,' laughed
Gandalf. '[He has long been a shy bird, and late events may not
have >] He may be shy of showing himself. But I have had all
the Ents removed from sight, so perhaps we shall persuade him.'
They came now to the foot of Orthanc.
,. In TT Gandalf's last remarks were developed to: 'And how will you
learn that, Master Dwarf? Saruman could look like me in your eyes, if
it suited his purpose with you. And are you yet wise enough to detect
, all his counterfeits? Well, we shall see, perhaps. He may be. shy of
showing himself before many different eyes together....'
The description of Orthanc in this text at first ran like this:
". A few scorings, and small sharp splinters near the base,
were all the marks it showed of the fury of the Ents. In the
middle from two sides, north and south, long flights of broad
stairs, built of some other stone, dark red in hue, climbed up to
the great chasm in the crown of the rock. There they met, and
there was a narrow platform beneath the centre of the great
arch that spanned the cleft; from it stairs branched again,
ranning up west and east to dark doors on either side, opening
in the shadow of the arch's feet.
This is the general conception described in version 'D' of the passage
'The Road to Isengard' (p. 32), and precisely illustrated in the
drawing 'Orthanc (3)' reproduced on p. 33. But the text just given was,
replaced at the time of writing by the following:
... the fury of the Ents. On two sides, west and east, long flights
of broad stairs, cut in the black stone by some unknown art,
climbed up to the feet of the vast arch that spanned the chasm in
the hill. At the head of each stair was a great door, and above it
a window opening upon a balcony with parapet of stone.
This is the rather simpler conception illustrated in the drawing
'Orthanc (4)' reproduced on p. 33. At a later stage this was rejected
and replaced on a slip inserted into the manuscript by the description
in TT, where of course the conception of Orthanc had been totally
changed (pp. 33 - 5, and the drawing reproduced on p. 34).
The description of Orthanc was followed immediately by 'Gandalf
led the way up the western stair. With him went Theoden and Eomer,
and the five companions.' There is thus no discussion here of who shall
go up, or how close they shall stand.
From this point initial drafting (inked over very faint pencil, which
is effectively illegible) exists for the interview with Saruman, and this
was pretty closely followed in the first completed manuscript. Saru-
man's voice was at this stage differently described, and this was at first
repeated in the manuscript: The window closed. They waited.
Suddenly another voice spoke, low, melodious, and yet it seemed
unpleasant [> unpleasing: its tone was scornful).'(1) This was changed,
probably at once, to: 'low, melodious, and persuasive; yet now its tone
was of one who, in spite of a gentle nature, is aggrieved.' All else that is
said of that voice in TT (p. 183) is here absent; and the description of
Saruman is briefer: 'His face was long with a high forehead; he had
deep darkling eyes; his hair and beard were white, smudged with
darker strands. "Like and unlike", muttered Gimli.'
With the opening of the conversation at this stage (cited here from
the completed manuscript rather than from the draft text) cf. the
original outline on pp. 47 - 8.
'Well?' said Saruman. 'You have a voice of brass, Gandalf.
You disturb my repose. You have come to my private door
without leave. What is your excuse?'
'Without leave?' said Gandalf. 'I had the leave of such
gatekeepers as I found. But am I not a lodger in this inn? My
host at least has never shown me the door, since he first
admitted me!'
'Guests that leave by the roof have no claim to re-enter by the
door at their will,' said Saruman.
'Guests that are penned on the house-top against their will
have a right to knock and ask for an apology,' answered
Gandalf.(2) 'What have you to say, now?'
'Nothing. Certainly not in your present company. In any case
I have little to add to my words at our last meeting.'
'Have you nothing to withdraw?'
Saruman paused. 'Withdraw?' he said slowly. 'If in my
eagerness and disappointment I said anything unfriendly to
yourself, consider it withdrawn. I should probably have put
matters right long ago. You were not friendly yourself, and
persisted in misunderstanding me and my intentions, or pre-
tending to do so. But I repeat: I bore you no ill-will personally;
and even now, when your - your associates have done me so
much injury, I should be ready to forgive you, if you would
. dissociate yourself from such people. I have for the moment less
power to help you than I had; but I still think you would find
my friendship more profitable in the end than theirs. We are
after all both members of an ancient and noble profession: we
should understand one another. If you really wish to consult
me, I am willing to receive you. Will you come up?'
This passage, whose original germ is seen in the outlines given in
VII.212, 436, was developed into that in TT pp. 186-7. The draft
text (3) goes on at once to 'Gandalf laughed. "Understand one another?
..."', and there is nothing said about the effect of Saruman's words on
the bystanders; but in the manuscript his speech was changed,
apparently at once, to a form somewhat nearer to that in TT (with 'a
high and ancient order' for 'an ancient and noble profession'), and this
was followed by the passage (TT p. 187) in which the voice of
Saruman 'seemed like the gentle remonstrance of a kindly king with an
errant but beloved minister'. But here the words 'So great was the
power that Saruman exerted in this last effort that none that stood
within hearing were unmoved' are absent; for of all that precedes this
in TT', his long opening trial of Theoden's mind and will, with the
interventions of Gimli and Eomer, there is no hint or suggestion in
either draft or finished text. The interview is conducted exclusively
between the two wizards.
For the remainder of the dialogue between them I give here the
original draft: (4)
Gandalf laughed. 'Understand one another? I don't know.
But I understand you at any rate, Saruman - well enough. No! I
do not think I will come up. You have an excellent adviser with
you, adequate for your understanding. Wormtongue has cun-
ning enough for two. But it had occurred to me that since
Isengard is rather a ramshackle place, rather old-fashioned and
in need of renovation and alteration, you might like to leave - to
take a holiday, say. If so, will you not come down?'
A quick cunning look passed over Saruman's face; before he
could conceal it, they had a glimpse of mingled fear and
relief/hope. cunning. They saw through the mask the face of a
trapped man, that feared both to stay and to leave his refuge. He
hesitated. 'To be torn by the savage wood-demons?' he said.
'No, no.'
'0 do not fear for your skin,' said Gandalf. 'I do not wish to
kill you - as you would know, if you really understood me. And
no one will hurt you, if I say no. I am giving you a last chance.
You can leave Orthanc - free, if you choose.'
'Hm,' said Saruman. 'That sounds well. More like the old
Gandalf. But why should I wish to leave Orthanc? And what
precisely is "free"?'
'The reasons for leaving lie all around,' said Gandalf. 'And
free means not a prisoner. But you will surrender to me the key
of Orthanc - and your staff: pledges for your conduct. To be
returned, if I think fit, later.'
Saruman's face was for a moment clouded with anger. Then
he laughed. 'Later!' he said. 'Yes - when you also have the keys
of Baraddur, I suppose; and the crowns of seven kings, and the
staffs of the five wizards,(5) and have purchased yourself a pair of
boots many sizes larger than those you have now. A modest
plan. But I must beg leave to be excused from assisting. Let us
end this chatter. If you wish to deal with me, deal with me!
Speak sense - and do not come here with a horde of savages,
and these boorish men, and foolish children that dangle at your
tail.'
He left the balcony. He had hardly turned away, when a
heavy thing came hurtling down from above. It glanced off the
parapet, narrowly missed Gandalf, and splintered [struck out:
into fragments] on the rock beside the stair. It seemed to have
been a large ball of dark shining crystal.
'The treacherous rogue,' cried Eomer, but Gandalf was
unmoved. 'Not Saruman this time,' he said. 'It came from a
window above. That was a parting shot from Master Worm-
tongue, I fancy. I caught the flash of a hand. And ill-aimed.
Which do you think it was meant for, me or Saruman?' 'I think
maybe the aim was ill because he could not make up his mind
which he hated most' (? said Gimli). 'I think so too,' said
Gandalf. 'There will be pleasant words in the Tower when we
are gone.'
'And we had better go quickly out of stone's throw at least,'
said Eomer.
'It is plain to me that Saruman has not yet given up hope
[added: in his own devices],' said Gandalf. 'Well, he must nurse
his hope in Orthanc.'
Here this draft stops, the ending being very ragged. It is notable that
in this text there is no mention of Gandalf's summons to Saruman to
return to the balcony when he turned away, and so the breaking of his
staff does not appear (in the original sketches of the scene in the
outlines referred to above, where Saruman was not in his tower,
Gandalf took his staff from him and broke it with his hands).
Since there is no evidence at all that the conception of the palantir
had arisen at any earlier stage or in any earlier writing, this must be
presumed to be its first appearance, but the draft does not make it
dear whether my father perceived its nature at the moment of its
introduction as Wormtongue's missile - Gandalf does not say what he
thought of it, nor hint that it might be a device of importance to
Saruman. In his letter to W. H. Auden of 7 June 1955 my father
said (immediately following the passage from that letter cited at
the beginning of The Return of the Shadow): 'I knew nothing of the
Palantiri, though the moment the Orthanc-stone was cast from the
window, I recognized it, and knew the meaning of the 'rhyme of lore'
that had been running in my mind: seven stars and seven stones and
one tuhite tree.'(7) On the other hand, in this initial version of the scene
he saw the ball of crystal as shattered by the impact, and still in the
finished manuscript immediately following this draft he wrote that
the ball 'splintered on the rock beside the stair. It seemed from the
fragments', before breaking off at this point and writing that it smote
the stair, and that it was the stair that cracked and splintered while the
globe was unharmed. What further significance for the story could it
have had if it were immediately destroyed?
The completed text develops the dialogue of Gandalf and Saruman
a good way towards the form in TT, though much still remains from
the original draft. But there now enters, almost in the final form,
Gandalf's summons to Saruman to come back, his final admonition to
him, and the breaking of his staff. The crystal ball now rolled down
the steps, and it was 'dark but shining with a heart of fire'. In reply to
Aragorn's suggestion that Wormtongue could not make up his mind
whom he hated most Gandalf says: 'Yes, that may be so. There will be
some debate in the Tower, when we are gone! We will take the ball. I
fancy that it is not a thing that Saruman would have chosen to cast
away.'
Pippin's running down the stair to pick up the globe, and Gandalf's
hasty taking of it and wrapping it in the folds of his cloak, were later
additions (see p. 79 note 12). Yet that the globe was to be important is
now plain. The scene ends thus in this version:
'Yet there may be other things to cast,' said Gimli. 'If that is
the end of the debate, let us go out of stone's throw, at least.'
'It is the end,' said Gandalf. 'I must find Treebeard and tell
him how things have gone.'
'He will have guessed, surely?' said Merry. 'Were they likely
to end any other way?'
'Not likely,' answered Gandalf, 'But I had reasons for trying.
I do not wish for mastery. Saruman has been given a last choice,
and a fair one. He has chosen to withhold Orthanc at least from
us, for that is his last asset. He knows that we have no power to
destroy it from without, or to enter it against his will; yet it
might have been useful to us. But things have not gone badly.
Set a thief to hinder a thief! [Struck out: And malice blinds the
wits.] I fancy that, if we could have come in, we should have
found few treasures in Orthanc more precious than the thing
which the fool Wormtongue tossed down to us!'
A shrill shriek, suddenly cut off, came from an open window
high above. 'I thought so,' said Gandalf. 'Now let us go! '
The end of the chapter in TT, the meeting of Legolas and Gimli with
Treebeard, his parting from Merry and Pippin, and the verse in which
the Hobbits are entered into 'the Long Lists', is present in this first
completed text all but word for word, save only at the very end, where
his last words are brief:
'Leave it to Ents,' said Treebeard. 'Until seven times the years
in which he tormented us have passed, we shall not tire of
watching over him.'(8)
NOTES.
1. The draft has: 'low, rather melodious, and yet unpleasant: it spoke
contemptuously.'
2. Though this exchange was subsequently lost, the reference to
Gandalf's manner of departure from Orthanc on the previous
occasion was brought in at a later point (TT p. 187): 'When last I
visited you, you were the jailor of Mordor, and there I was to be
sent. Nay, the guest who has escaped from the roof will think twice
before he comes back in by the door.'
3. The draft of Saruman's speech is very close to that cited from the
completed manuscript, but after 'We should understand one
another' Saruman says 'Building not breaking is our work.'
4. Not strictly the original draft, since as already noted it is inked
over a faint and illegible pencilled text.
5. The first reference to the Five Wizards.
6. In drafting for the end of the chapter Gandalf's reply to
Treebeard's 'So Saruman would not leave? I did not think he
would' (TT p. 192) runs thus: 'No, he is still nursing what hope he
has. He is of course pretending that he loves me and would help me
(if I were reasonable - which means if I would serve him, and help
him to power without [?bounds]). But he is determined to wait -
sitting among the ruins of his old plans to see what comes. In that
mood, and with the Key of Orthanc and his staff he must not be
allowed to escape.'
7. The need that the palantir would come to fulfil had already been
felt, as is seen from Aragorn's (rejected) remarks on p. 50: 'And we
should do best never to mention it [the Ring] aloud: I do not know
what powers Saruman in his tower may have, nor what means of
communication with the East there may be.'
8. The meeting of Treebeard with Legolas and Gimli and his parting
from Merry and Pippin was very largely achieved in preliminary
drafting, but was placed at a different point, since it begins: 'The
afternoon was half gone and the sun going behind the western arm
of the valley when Gandalf and the King returned. With them
came Treebeard. Gimli and Legolas gazed at him in wonder. "Here
are my companions that I have spoken of to you," said Gandalf.
The old Ent looked at them long and searchingly', &c. This was
how the part of the narrative afterwards constituting 'The Voice of
Saruman' originally began.
VI.
THE PALANTIR.
Drafts and outlines for the opening of this chapter show my father
very uncertain of the immediate course of events when the company
left Isengard. These pages are extremely difficult to interpret and to
place in sequence, but I take the one that I give now to be that first
written, since it treats as the actual event what would become merely
the abandoned plan ('When we came, we meant to go straight from
Isengard back to the king's house at Edoras over the plains', TT
p. 194).
The sun was sinking behind the long western arm of the
mountains when Gandalf and his companions, and the King
with his riders, set out from Isengard.
Ents in a solemn row stood like statues at the gate, with their
long arms uplifted; but they made no sound. Merry and Pippin
looked back as they passed down hill and turned into the road
that led to the bridge.(1) Sunlight was shining in the sky, but long
shadows reached out over Isengard. Treebeard stood there still,
like a dark tree in the shade; the other Ents were gone, back to
the sources of the stream.
By Gandalf's advice the company crossed the bridge and then
struck away from the river, southward and east, making
straight across the rolling plains of Rohan back to Eodoras: a
journey of some forty-eight leagues.(2) They were to ride more
with secrecy than speed, by dusk and night, hoping to reach the
king's house by nightfall of the second day. By that time many
of the king's men who had fought at the Fords and at Helm's
Deep would be gathering at Eodoras.
'We have gained the first victory,' said Gandalf, 'yet that has
some danger. There was a bond between Isengard and Mordor.
Of what sort and how they exchanged their news I have not
discovered. But the eyes of the Dark Tower will look now in this
direction, I think.
'There is no one of this company, I think, whose name (and
deeds) is not noted now in the dark mind of Sauron. We should
walk in shadow, if we walk abroad at all - until we are ready.
Therefore, though it may add to the miles, I counsel you go now
by night, and go south so that day does not find us in the open
plain. After that we may ride with many men, or ride maybe
[??back to the] Deeping Coomb that would be better by
ways among the foothills of your own mountains Theoden, and
come thus down to Eodoras... long ravines about Dunharrow.
The last few lines are a ragged scrawl, across which my father wrote
(at the same time) 'They meet Huorns returning'. Since against the
statement that 'they passed down hill and turned into the road that led
to the bridge' he noted in the margin 'No they rode south to the
Fords', and against 'the company crossed the bridge and then struck
away from the river' he wrote 'No, they go south', it seems clear that it
was as he was writing this first draft of the opening that he realised
that the company did not in fact make straight for Eodoras but went
first to Helm's Deep - and therefore abandoned this text.(3)
In a rejected speech of Aragorn's (p. 67 note 7) there was a
suggestion that he had given some thought to the matter, but there is
here the first clear expression of the idea that there must have been
some means by which news was rapidly exchanged between Orthanc
and Barad-dur. Why Gandalf was so certain of this is not made plain,(4)
and one might wonder whether the idea did not arise from the palantir
rather than the other way about.
On the reverse of this page is an outline that one would naturally
suppose to have been written continuously with the text on the other
side. That it followed the abandoned narrative draft is obvious from
the fact that here the company did not head straight for Eodoras
but rode down from Isengard to the Fords. The writing is here
exceptionally difficult, not only extremely rapid but with letters
idiosyncratically formed.
This was the Orthan[c] Stone [written above: Orthancstone
Orthankstone Orpancstan] which kept watch on movements
in neighbourhood but its range was limited to some 100
leagues?(5) It will help to keep watch on Orthanc from afar.
Night comes swiftly. They come to the Fords and note the
river is failing and running dry again.(6) The starry night. They
cross and pass the mounds.
They halt under stars and see the great black shadow passing
between [?them] and stars. Nazgul.
Gandalf takes out dark globe and looks at it. Good, he said. It
shows little by night. That is a comfort. All they could see
[?was] stars and [?far away] small batlike shapes wheeling. At
the edge was a river in the moon. The moon is already visible in
Osgiliath said Gandalf. That seems the edge of sight.(7)
As they draw near Helm's Deep a shadow comes up like a
mist. Suddenly they hear a rustling whisper and on both sides
of them so that they are in a lane .... Shadows pass away
northward. Huorns. Insert now page 3 of Ch.XXIX.
Next day they ride with many men in the Westfold Vale and
.... by [?paths winding] among the mountains. They strike the
Dunharrow ravine on the second day. And find folk streaming
back to Eodoras. Aragorn rides with Eowyn.(8)
Gandalf looks at the Dark Crystal on the terrace before
King's House. They see quite clearly Orthanc - Ents [?moving]
..... water all very [?small] and clear. Horsemen riding over
plain from west and north. Strange [? figures of various kind].
And from Minas Tirith. It only shows lights and men [?no
country].
The reference to 'page 3 of Chapter XXIX' is to the first completed
version of 'The Road to Isengard', where the description of the
departure of the Huorn wood from the Deeping Coomb was placed
before Theoden and Gandalf and their company left for Isengard, and
so before they passed through the wood (p. 27). It is clear from the
passage of the Huorns at this point in the story that the final time-
scheme had not yet been reached (see pp. 5 - 6, $$ III-IV): Theoden
and Gandalf and their company still reached Isengard on the day
(2 February) following the Battle of the Hornburg and did not spend
the night of 2 February encamped below Nan Gurunir (where
in TT, p. 158, they heard the Huorns passing, and after which the
passage about the departure of the wood from the Deeping Coomb,
and the Death Down, finally found its place).
In this outline there is nothing to suggest that the 'dark globe' was
the means of communication between Orthanc and Barad-dur -
indeed, rather the reverse, since when Gandalf looks into it somewhere
near the Fords of Isen the range of its sight does not extend beyond
Osgiliath (although his words 'It shows little by night. That is a
comfort' suggest that he had feared that it might make them visible to
a hostile eye). On the other hand, in the preceding narrative draft
Gandalf is seen to be much concerned with that question of com-
munication: 'There was a bond between Isengard and Mordor. Of
what sort... I have not discovered.' It seems hard to believe that even
though Gandalf had not yet put two and two together my father had
failed to do so. A possible explanation is that when he wrote this
outline he did indeed already know the significance of the Dark
Crystal, but that Gandalf had not yet fathomed the full extent of its
range and powers, or did not yet know how to make use of them. Or it
may be truer to say simply that in these notes we see the formative
moment in which the significance of the Seeing Stone was at the point
of emergence: the fateful 'device' - devised long before - which in the
final story would prove to have been of vast though hidden import-
ance in the War of the Ring.(9)
A little scribbled note in isolation may be cited here:
The black-red ball shows movements. They see the lines of war
advancing. [? Ships are seen] and Theoden's men in Helm's Deep
and assembling in Rohan.
The context of this is altogether obscure: for who is seeing these
things?
Another text - a brief and tantalising set of notes scrawled down
very rapidly in faint soft pencil, vestiges of fugitive thoughts - shows
further debate on the meaning of the Orthanc-stone. I cannot see any
clear indication of where it would be placed in the narrative, or even of
where it stands in the sequence of these preliminary papers;(10) but from
various points it seems to have preceded the text that follows it here.
I said that Isengard was overthrown, and the Stone was going
on a journey, said Gandalf. And that I would [look o] speak to
it again later when I could, but [?at the] moment I was in a
hurry.
auctor (No I think the dark globe to be in contact with
Mordor is too like the rings)
Gandalf discovers that the Orthanc-stone is a far-seer. But he
could not make out [how] to use it. It seemed capricious. It
seems still to be looking in the directions in which it was last
used, he said.
Hence, vision of the [added: 7] Nazgul above the battlements.
He was looking towards Mordor.
Can one see back. Possibly said Gandalf. It is perilous but I
have a mind to use it.
He stands back. He has been seen [? bending over it].?
No, he said, this is an ancient stone set in an upper chamber
of the tower long long ago before the Dark Tower was strong. It
was used by the [?wardens] of Gondor. One also must have
been in the Hornburg, and in Minas Tirith, and in Minas
Morghul, and in Osgiliath. (Five).
They saw the Hornburg. They saw Minas Tirith. They saw
Nazgul above the battlements of Osgiliath. So Saruman learned
some of his news he said.
The bracketing of the words 'No I think the dark globe to be in
contact with Mordor is too like the rings' and the marginal auctor
(meaning that this was my father's thought, not Gandalf's) were
added in ink. The implication of these words must be that Gandalf,
in the opening sentences of this text, was speaking to a person in
Mordor: and if that person was none other than Sauron himself, there
is a delightful glimpse of Gandalf telling the Dark Lord that he was
busy. - That here only five of the Seeing Stones are named (given a
habitation) does not mean of course that at this stage there were only
five, but that these were the five Stones of the southern kingdom
(Gondor). In subsequent enumerations there were five Stones in
Gondor, where in LR there were four.
Lastly, there is a brief outline, ending in a ragged scrawl, that seems
to have preceded the first continuous drafting of the chapter in formed
narrative.
Conversation with Saruman begins about 3.15 and ends
about 4.30 (that is about sunset). Dark comes about 5.30.
Gandalf leads them south in the dark - because now they must
be more secret than ever. (Wonders what the connexion was
between Saruman and Sauron.)
They pass out of Nan Gurunir at about 9 p.m. Camp under
shadow of the last western hill. Dolbaran. They will ride fast on
morrow. Two men are sent ahead to warn men that king is
returning to Helm's Deep and that a strong force should be
ready to ride with him. No men more than two or three are to
ride openly on the plain. The king will go by mountain paths
to Dunharrow.
Then episode of Pippin and Stone.
Gandalf says this is how Saruman fell; He studied such
matters. The old far-seers of the Men of Numenor who made
Amon Hen and Amon Lhaw One in Hornburg, Osgiliath,
Minas Tirith, Minas Morghul, Isengard [Angrenost >]
Angost.(11) That is how Saruman got news - though Hornburg
and Minas Tirith were 'dark', their balls lost or destroyed. But
he tried to peep at Barad-dur and got caught.
Nazgul.
Feb. 4 They ride to Fords mid-morning (11 a.m.), rest an hour,
and reach Deeping Coomb road-fork at 3 p.m. Helm's Deep at
about 4. They rest, gather men, and ride by hill-paths lost to
sight. Hobbits are given ponies - and Gimli!
Feb. 5, 6 Journey.
Feb. 7 Dunharrow. Joy of people. Eowyn comes forth. The
King rides down the mountain valley with Eowyn and Eomund
[read Eomer] on either side, Gandalf, Legolas, Aragorn beside
them. The hobbits and Gimli ...
[?Regency.) Feast. Tobacco. Messenger.
In the previous text (p. 71) it is not actually stated that the
Seeing Stones of Gondor 'answered' or corresponded one to another,
but the idea was at the moment of emergence, as is seen from my
father's passing doubt whether 'the dark globe to be in contact with
Mordor is too like the rings', while 'Can one see back' seems clearly to
refer to reciprocal vision between one Stone and another rather than
to vision of past time. In the present outline this conception is fully
present and accepted, and with it the central idea that it was through
his knowledge of these matters that Saruman was corrupted, being
snared by his use of the Stone of Orthanc to look towards Barad-dur.
The 'episode of Pippin and the Stone' has arisen (though so far as
the evidence goes it had not yet been committed to paper in any form);
and the various elements were now coming to interlock in a beautifully
articulated conception. The original idea (p. 69) that when Gandalf
looked into the dark globe he saw 'small batlike shapes wheeling' will
be retained but become Pippin's vision, and the explanation of why it
should be that vision and no other (cf. 'It seems still to be looking in
the directions in which it was last used', p. 71) will be found in the
constant intercourse of Saruman and Sauron by means of the Seeing
Stones (itself answering the question of the method of communication
between Isengard and the Dark Tower), so that 'the Orthanc-stone
[became] so bent towards Barad-dur that, if any save a will of
adamant now looks into it, it will bear his mind and sight swiftly
thither' (TT p. 204).
The final time-scheme had now entered (see p. 6, $ IV): Theoden
and Gandalf and their company came to Isengard on 3 February and
left that evening, two nights after the Battle of the Hornburg. It is
remarkable that even when the plot had advanced to this stage, with
the 'episode of Pippin and the Stone', and the first appearance of a
Nazgul west of Anduin, blacking out the stars (already present in the
outline on p. 69), Gandalf was not impelled to ride on ahead in haste
to Minas Tirith, but is present at the feast in Eodoras - that feast,
often foreseen, which would never in the event take place. For the
significance of the reference to tobacco here see p. 37 and note 33. But
pencilled notes added to this outline later show the story of Gandalf's
sudden departure: 'Feb. 4 Gandalf and Pippin reach Deeping Coomb
before dawn', and 'Feb. 4 - 5 Gandalf rides all night and all day
Feb. 5 reaching Minas Tirith at sunset on Feb. 5'.
There are no other writings extant before we come to a first draft of
the chapter - which extends however only so far as the conclusion of
Gandalf's words with Pippin after his vision in the Seeing Stone (TT
p. 199).(12) This was written very fast and apparently set down without
any preliminary workings, but the final text of the chapter to this point
was achieved at once in all essentials - there are of course countless
differences in the expression and a few in very small points of
narrative detail, and many of these differences survived into the first
completed manuscript of the chapter.(13) The chief difference from the
final text comes as Gandalf knelt by Pippin's body (TT p. 198): 'He
removed the ball and wrapped it in a cloth again. "Take this and
guard it, Aragorn," he said. "And do not uncover it or handle it
yourself, I beg." Then he took Pippin's hand and bent over his
face ...' Thus Gandalf hands the globe to Aragorn simply as a bearer
whom he can trust, in contrast to the story in TT (pp. 199 - 200),
where the charging of Aragorn with the Orthanc-stone takes place at a
different point and is given much greater significance through Ara-
gorn's claiming it by right. But Pippin's account of what happened to
him when he looked into the globe and 'he came' was achieved at once
in this draft.
From this point there is very little further preliminary drafting, and
for almost all the rest of the chapter the earliest available text is that of
the first completed manuscript, much of which is written over erased
pencil. This manuscript was later given the chapter-number XXXI,
and the title 'The Orthanc-stone The Palantir', this being written
over an erased title of which only 'The' can be read.
As this manuscript was first written Gandalf in his concluding,
words to Pippin said a good deal more than he does in TT (p. 199).
Some of this was moved to his conversation with Theoden and
Aragorn after he had carried Pippin back to his bed: that Pippin had
saved him from the dangerous blunder of using the Stone himself, and
of Sauron's delusion that the Stone, and the hobbit, were in Orthanc.
But here Gandalf goes on:
'Very odd, very odd how things work out! But I begin now to
wonder a little.' He stroked his beard. 'Was this ball really
thrown to slay me after all? Or to slay me if it might, and do
something else if it missed? Was it thrown without Saruman's
knowledge? Hm! Things may have been meant to go much as
they have gone - except that you looked in, not me! Hm! Well.
They have gone so, and not otherwise; and it is so that we have
to deal with.
'But come! This must change our plans. We are being careless
and leisurely.
Against the paragraph beginning 'Very odd, very odd how things
work out!' my father wrote in the margin: 'No! because if Saruman
had wished to warn Mordor of the ruin of Isengard and the presence
of Gandalf and hobbits he had only to use Glass in normal fashion and
inform Sauron direct.? But he may have wished (a) to kill Gandalf, (b)
to get rid of the link. Sauron may have been pressing him to come to
the stone?' He evidently decided that these were unprofitable specu-
lations, and abandoning the direction Gandalf's words had taken
returned to an earlier point in his final address to Pippin.
The text in this first manuscript then (with rewriting of some
passages, obviously belonging to the same time) all but reaches that of
TT (pp. 199 - 203) as far as Gandalf's opening remarks to Pippin
about the Seeing Stones as they rode towards the Deeping Coomb.
Only two matters need be noted. When Gandalf gives the Stone to
Aragorn (cf. p. 74) he says here: 'It is a dangerous charge, but I can
trust you even against yourself', and Aragorn replies only: 'I know the
danger. I will not uncover it, or handle it.' Secondly, there is a curious
series of shifts in the precise wording of Gandalf's remarks about his
failure to understand immediately the nature of the ball thrown down
from Orthanc. At first he said: 'I said nothing, because I knew nothing.
I guessed only. I know now.' In the first rewriting of this passage he
said: 'I ought to have been quicker, but my mind was bent on
Saruman. And I did not guess the full nature of the stone - not until
now. But now I know the link between Isengard and Mordor, which
has long puzzled me.' This was again rewritten at this stage to read:
'And I did not guess the nature of the stone, till I saw it in his [Pippin's]
hands. Not until now was I sure.' In further revision of the passage
carried out much later it became: 'I did not guess the nature of the
stone, until it was too late. Only now am I sure of it.' In the final form
(TT p. 200) this was changed once more: 'I did not at once guess the
nature of the stone. Then I was weary, and as I lay pondering it, sleep
overcame me. Now I know!' There is, to be sure, among all these
formulations no great difference in the actual meaning, but it was
evidently a detail that concerned my father: just how much did
Gandalf surmise about the palantir before Pippin's experience brought
certainty, and how soon?
An element of ambiguity does in fact remain in LR. Already in the
first manuscript of 'The Voice of Saruman' Gandalf had said: 'I fancy
that, if we could have come in, we should have found few treasures in
Orthanc more precious than the thing which the fool Wormtongue
tossed down to us!' The nature of Wormtongue's missile cannot have
been fully apparent to my father himself at that stage: it was in that
manuscript, only a few lines above, that he changed, as he wrote, the
initial story of the globe's having smashed into fragments on the rock
(p. 65). But even when he had fully established the nature of the
palantir he retained those words of Gandalf (TT p. 190) at the
moment when it bursts upon the story - although, as Gandalf said at
Dol Baran, 'I did not at once guess the nature of the Stone'. But then
why was he so emphatic, as he stood beneath the tower, that 'we could
have found few treasures in Orthanc more precious' - even before
Wormtongue's shriek gave reinforcement to his opinion? Perhaps we
should suppose simply that this much at least was immediately clear to
him, that a great ball of dark crystal in Orthanc was most unlikely to
have been nothing but an elegant adornment of Saruman's study.
At the words 'Hobbits, I suppose, have forgotten them' (the Rhymes
of Lore), following Gandalf's recital of the words of the Rhyme Tall
ships and tall kings/Three times three (TT p. 202), a brief passage of
original drafting, written out separately in ink and so not lost in
erasure of pencil as elsewhere, takes up: the first framing of Gandalf's
declaration of the history of the Seeing Stones, here called Palantirs, a
word that so far as record goes now first appears.
They [the Rhymes of Lore] are all treasured in Rivendell.
Treebeard remembers most/some of them: Long [Rolls >] Lists
and that sort of thing. But hobbits I suppose have forgotten
nearly all, even those that they ever knew.
And what is that one about: the seven stones and seven stars?
About the Palantirs of the Men of Old, said Gandalf. I was
thinking of them.
Why, what are they?
The Orthanc stone was one, said Gandalf.
Then it was not made, Pippin hesitated, by the Enemy, he
asked [? at a rush].
No, said Gandalf. Nor by Saruman; it is beyond his art, and
beyond Sauron's too maybe. No, there was no evil in it. It has
been corrupted, as have so many of the things that remain. Alas
poor Saruman, it was his downfall, so I now perceive. Danger-
ous to us all are devices made by a knowledge and art deeper
than we possess ourselves. I did not know that any Palantir had
survived the decay of Gondor and the Elendilions until now.
Seven they set up. At Minas Anor that is now Minas Tirith
there was one, and one at Minas Ithil, and others at Aglarond
the Caves of Splendour which men call Helm's Deep, and at
Orthanc. Others were far away, I know not where, maybe at
Fornost, and at Mithlond [struck out: where Cirdan harboured
the ... ships ...] (in) the Gulf of Lune where the grey ships
lie. But the chief and master .... [?of (the) stones] was at
Osgiliath before it was ruined.
In this passage are the first occurrences of Aglarond (see p. 28) and
of Fornost, which on the First Map was named Fornobel, and still so
on my map made in 1943, VII.304. Here also is the first appearance of
Cirdan in the manuscripts of The Lord of the Rings.
In the first complete manuscript this was developed towards the
form in TT. Gandalf now tells that 'The palantirs came from beyond
Westernesse, from Eldamar. The Noldor made them: Feanor himself
maybe wrought them, in days so long ago that the time cannot be
measured in years.' He speaks of Saruman as he does in the final text;
but here he ends: No word did he ever speak of it to any of the
Council. It was not known that any of the palantirs had escaped the
ruin of Gondor. Their very existence was preserved only in a Rhyme of
Lore among Aragorn's people.' This was changed to: 'It was not
known to us that any of the palantirs had escaped the ruin of Gondor.
Outside the Council it was not among elves and men even remembered
that such things had ever been, save only in a Rhyme of Lore preserved
among Aragorn's people.'(14)
The remainder of the chapter in the first manuscript reaches the final
form in all but a few respects. There were still five palantirs anciently
in Gondor, one being still that of Aglarond (translated, as in the draft,
'Caves of Splendour', but changed to 'Glittering Caves'),(15) Of the
other two, Gandalf still says that they were far away, 'I do not know
where, for no rhyme says. Maybe they were at Fornost, and with
Kirdan at Mith[l]ond (16) in the Gulf of Lune where the grey ships lie.'
In answer to Pippin's question concerning the coming of the Nazgul
(TT p. 204) Gandalf here says only: 'It could have taken you away to
the Dark Tower', and goes on at once: 'But now Saruman is come to
the last pinch of the vice that he has put his hand in.' He says that 'It
may be that he [Sauron] will learn that I was there and stood upon the
stairs of Orthanc - with hobbits at my tail. That is what I fear.'(17) And
at the end of the chapter he tells Pippin: 'You may see the first glimmer
of dawn upon the golden roof of the house of Eorl. At sunset on the
day after you shall see the shadow of Mount Tor-dilluin fall upon the
white walls of the tower of Denethor.'(18)
*
In his foreword to the Second Edition of The Lord of the Rings my
father said that in 1942 he 'wrote the first drafts of the matter that
now stands as Book III, and the beginnings of Chapters 1 and 3 of
Book V ['Minas Tirith' and 'The Muster of Rohan']; and there as the
beacons flared in Anorien and Theoden came to Harrowdale I
stopped. Foresight had failed and there was no time for thought.'(19)
It seems to have been about the end of 1942 or soon after that he
stopped; for in a letter to Stanley Unwin of 7 December 1942 (Letters
no. 47) he said that the book had reached Chapter XXXI 'and will
require at least six more to finish (these are already sketched).' This
chapter was undoubtedly 'The Palantir' (not 'Flotsam and Jetsam',
Letters p. 437, note to letter 47).
In the foreword to the Second Edition he went on: 'It was during
1944 that ... I forced myself to tackle the journey of Frodo to
Mordor', and this new beginning can be very precisely dated; for on
3 April 1944 he said in a letter to me (Letters no. 58):
I have begun to nibble at Hobbit again. I have started to do some
(painful) work on the chapter which picks up the adventures of
Frodo and Sam again; and to get myself attuned have been copying
and polishing the last written chapter (Orthanc-Stone).
Two days later, on 5 April 1944 (Letters no. 59) he wrote to me:
I have seriously embarked on an effort to finish my book, & have
been sitting up rather late: a lot of re-reading and research required.
And it is a painful sticky business getting into swing again. I have
gone back to Sam and Frodo, and am trying to work out their
adventures. A few pages for a lot of sweat: but at the moment they
are just meeting Gollum on a precipice.
The 'copying and polishing' of 'The Orthanc-Stone' that my father
did at this time is the second, very finely written manuscript of the
chapter. Well over a year had passed since the first manuscript of the
chapter was written, but not unnaturally no changes of significance
were made m the new text: thus Aragorn's reception of the palantir
remains in the simple form it had (p. 75); Gandalf does not refer to the
possibility that Wormtongue might have recognised Aragorn on the
stairs of Orthanc (note 17); Aglarond was still one of the ancient sites
of the palantiri of Gondor, and Gandalf still says that he does not
know where the others had been 'for no rhyme says', but maybe in
Fornost and with Cirdan at the Grey Havens.(20)
NOTES.
1. On 'the road that led to the bridge' see p. 31, where coming in the
other direction the company had crossed the bridge and 'found a
road that with a wide northward sweep brought them to the great
highway to the fords.'
2. In the notes on distances referred to on p. 42 note 14 Eodoras to
Isenford is given as 125 miles, which agrees well with the First
Map (VII.319) and with the statement in TT ('Helm's Deep',
p. 131) that it was forty leagues and more: see p. 12. Eodoras to
Isengard is given in these notes as 140 miles (46-6 leagues), which
again agrees closely with the First Map (about 2-8 cm.). Eodoras
to Helm's Deep or mouth of Coomb is 110 miles; in my -
redrawing this distance is 100 miles (2 cm.), but the map is here
very difficult to interpret and I have probably not placed Helm's
Deep at precisely the point my father intended: on my map made
in 1943 the distance as the crow flies is 110 miles. - The idea that
after the visit to Isengard Theoden and his companions returned
to Eodoras goes back to the outline 'The Story Foreseen from
Fangorn', VII.437.
3. There is a second draft of the opening, which need not be given in
full. Here it is noted how they rode: 'Gandalf took Merry behind
him, and Aragorn took Pippin; Gimli rode as before with Eomer,
and Legolas was upon Arod at his side'; but this was immediately
changed to 'Legolas and Gimli rode together again.' After a
further hesitation, whether the company went down to the Fords
or passed over the bridge below Isengard and went east, this draft
ends:
Gandalf's plan had at first been to ride straight to Eodoras
from Isengard. But he said 'Victory has its dangers', and
Theoden had best ride with secrecy now, and with many men.
They would return to the Deeping Coomb and send on a
messenger, bidding the men who were labouring there to
hasten their work and be prepared to ride on the morrow by
hill-paths. So now the company rode at a gentle [pace]
4. Cf. Unfinished Tales p. 405: 'It needed the demonstration on Dol
Baran of the effects of the Orthanc-stone on Peregrin to reveal
suddenly that the "link" between Isengard and Barad-dur (seen
to exist after it was discovered that forces of Isengard had been
joined with others directed by Sauron in the attack on the
Fellowship at Parth Galen) was in fact the Orthanc-stone - and
one other palantir.'
5. The distance from Orthanc to Barad-dur on the First Map is
12-3 cm., = 615 miles or 205 leagues. - This is a convenient place
to notice that in my redrawing of section IV of the First Map
(VII.319) what I have represented as a small circle on the west-
ern side of the Wizard's Vale seems not to be so, but is rather an
alteration in the line marking the edge of the vale. At the upper
end of the vale is a minute circle that must represent Isengard.
6. The story here was that the Ents (who at the beginning of the
draft on p. 68 are said to have gone back to the sources of the
stream, leaving Treebeard alone at the gate of Isengard) had at
once obeyed Gandalf's parting request to Treebeard (TT p. 192)
that the waters of Isen be again poured into the Ring.
7. From Isenford to Osgiliath on the First Map is 8-6 cm., = 430
miles or 143 leagues.
8. Cf. VII.447: 'If I live, I will come, Lady Eowyn, and then maybe
we will ride together.'
9. Cf. Gandalf s words in The Two Towers, p. 203: Alas for
Saruman! It was his downfall, as I now perceive'; and in The
Return of the King, p. 133: Thus the will of Sauron entered into
Minas Tirith.'
10. It is written in fact on the back of one of the pages of the initial
continuous drafting of the chapter (p. 73), but seems entirely
unconnected with it.
11. Angost was a passing substitution for Angrenost: see p. 44 note
27.
12. One of the pages of this draft carries also drafting of the passage
in 'The Voice of Saruman' in which Gandalf, seeing Pippin
carrying the palantir, cries out 'Here, my lad, I'll take that! I did
not ask you to handle it.' See p. 66.
13. I mention the following as examples of such differences in the
detail of this part of the story. In Gandalf's talk with Merry as
they rode from Isengard (TT p. 194), after saying that he had not
yet fathomed what the link was between Saruman and Sauron
and that 'Rohan will be ever in his thought', he used again the
words found in the soon abandoned draft for the opening of the
chapter (p. 68): 'There is no one of this company, be sure, whose
name and deeds are not noted now in the mind of Sauron ., but
my father bracketed this, with the marginal note: 'No: Gandalf*s
return hidden.' In the night halt beneath Dolbaran (so written, as
also in the outline on p. 72) Merry and Pippin lay not far from
Gandalf; when Pippin got up from his bed 'the two guards sitting
on their horses had their backs to the camp'; Pippin saw a glitter
from Gandalf's eyes as he slept 'Under his long dark lashes' ('long
lashes' 11 ); the palantir lay beside the wizard's left hand.
14. This was preserved in the First Edition of The Two Towers.
15. As in TT, Gandalf guesses that the palantir of Barad-dur was the
Ithil-stone.
16. Mithond must be a mere slip, though it was left uncorrected. It is
curious that in the next manuscript, made in 1944 (pp. 77 - 8), the
form in this passage was Mithrond, corrected to Mithlond.
17. In TT 'That is what I fear' refers to additional sentences inserted
after 'with hobbits at my tail': 'Or that an heir of Elendil lives and
stood beside me. If Wormtongue was not deceived by the armour
of Rohan, he would remember Aragorn and the title that he
claimed.' But this insertion was made long after (on 'the armour
of Rohan' borne by Aragorn see TT p. 127, and in this book
p. 304 and p. 317 with note 9).
18. Tor-dilluin was emended to Mindolluin. The mountain was
added roughly to the First Map and not named, but carefully
shown on the 1943 map (VII.310). - With Gandalf's forecast
that they will come to Minas Tirith at sunset cf. p. 73 (Gandalf
reaches Minas Tirith at sunset on February 5).
19. Cf. my father's letter to Caroline Everett, 24 June 1957 (Letters
no. 199):
I was in fact longest held up - by exterior circumstances as
well as interior - at the point now represented by the last
words of Book iii (reached about 1942 or 3). After that
Chapter 1 of Book v remained very long as a mere opening (as
far as the arrival in Gondor); Chapter 2 [The Passing of the
Grey Company] did not exist; and Chapter 3, Muster of
Rohan, had got no further than the arrival at Harrowdale.
Chapter 1 of Book iv [The Taming of Smeagol] had hardly got
beyond Sam's opening words (Vol. II p. 209). Some parts of the
adventures of Frodo and Sam on the confines of Mordor and in
it had been written (but were eventually abandoned).
The last sentence evidently refers to the text that I called 'The
Story Foreseen from Lorien', in VII.324 ff.
In fact, there is very clear evidence that my father erred in his
recollection that the abandoned beginnings of Chapters 1 and 3
of Book V belonged to the time that we have now reached (i.e. the
end of Book III); see pp. 231 ff., where the question is discussed
in detail.
20. The text has Mithrond here, corrected to Mithlond: see note 16. -
I collect a few further details from this second manuscript.
Palantirs became Palantiri in the course of writing it. - Osgiliath
is named Elostirion (Elostirion being roughly substituted for
Osgiliath in the first manuscript, but very probably at this time).
This change was introduced in a note dated February 9 1942
(VII.423), and appears in the outline 'The Story Foreseen from
Fangorn' (VII.435). Osgiliath in the drafting and first manuscript
of 'The Palantir' was thus a reversion, and Elostirion in 1944
another. Finally Elostirion was afterwards corrected back to
Osgiliath on the 1944 manuscript.
Lastly, there was much hesitation about the phase of the moon
on the night of the camp below Dol Baran. In the original draft
no more was said than that 'The moon was shining' when Pippin
got up from his bed. In the first manuscript 'The moon had risen
far away but could not yet be seen; a pale sheen was in the sky
above the bushes and the eastern rim of the dell'; with this
compare perhaps the early notes given on p. 69, where Gandalf
looks into the Seeing Stone and says 'The moon is already visible
in Osgiliath.' This was changed to 'The moon was shining cold
and white into the dell and the shadows of the bushes were
black'; but on both the first and second manuscripts my father
then shifted back and forth between the two statements, until he
finally decided on the latter, which is the reading of TT (p. 196).
On the first manuscript he noted in the margin the following
times (which show a much more rapid journey from Isengard
than in the outline on p. 72): 'Sunset about 5 p.m. They camped
about 6 p.m. This [i.e. Pippin's looking into the palantir]
happened about 11 p.m. Moon rose 6.34 p.m.' According to the
elaborate time-scheme that was made after the introduction of
changes in October 1944 (VII.368), the New Moon had been on
21 January, the First Quarter on 29 January, and Full Moon was
on 6 February, three nights after the camp beneath Dol Baran.
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