Sauron Defeated (10 page)

Probably at once, this was emended throughout to make Merry also present (see note 8), and the last part of it (Gandalf's parting words) was in turn rejected. In very rough further drafting the final text was approached, though not achieved, in the manuscript A. Gimli's speech (RK p. 234) at this time ended thus:

'... And when I heaved that great carcase off you, then I made sure you were dead. I could have torn out my beard. And that was but a week ago. To bed now you go. And so shall I.'

From this it is seen that it was 'the seventh day of the New Year': see p. 46.(12) The draft continues to its end thus:

'And I,' said Legolas, 'shall walk in the woods of this fair land, which is rest enough. And in days to come, if my Elven lord will allow it, some of our folk shall remove hither, for it is more lovely than any lands they have yet dwelt in;(13) and then it will be blessed for a while. But Anduin is near and Anduin leads down to the sea. To the sea, to the sea, and the white gulls crying, to the sea and the sea and the white foam flying,' and so singing he went away down the hill.

And then the others departed and Frodo and Sam went to their beds and slept; and in the morning the host prepared to return to Minas Tirith. The ships had come and they were lying under Cair Andros, and soon all would be set across the Great River, and so in peace and ease fare over the green swards of Anorien and to the Pelennor and the towers under tall Mindolluin, the city of the men of Gondor, last memory of Westernesse.

Thus the name Kormallen did not enter in the original text of the chapter, and it is not said that the Field was near to Henneth Annun; but scribbled drafting put in later on the last page of the manuscript shows the final text emerging:

And in the morning they rose again and spent many days in Ithilien, for the Field of Kormallen where the host was encamped was near to Henneth Annun, and they wandered here and there visiting the scenes of their adventures, but Sam lingered ever in some shadow of the woods to find maybe some sight of the Oliphaunt. And when he heard that in the seige of Gondor there had been fifty of them at the least, but all were dead, he thought it a great loss. And in the meanwhile the host rested, for they had laboured much and had fought long and hard against the remnant of the Easterlings and Southrons; and they waited also for those that were to return.

In the fair copy B the final text of the First Edition was present in all but a few points, most of which have been mentioned in the foregoing account and in the notes;(14) but an important change in the description of the dressing of Frodo and Sam before the feast (RK p. 233) was made in the Second Edition. As the text stood in the First Edition (going back unchanged to the fair copy manuscript B) it ran:

... For Sam he brought a coat of gilded mail, and his elven-cloak all healed of the soils and hurts that it had suffered; and when the Hobbits were made ready, and circlets of silver were set upon their heads, they went to the King's feast, and they sat at his table with Gandalf ...

In the Second Edition the passage was added in which Gandalf brought Sting and Sam's sword, and Frodo had to be persuaded to wear a sword and to accept back Sting. At this time also the reference was added to 'the Standing Silence' before the feast began.

NOTES.

1. There had been a suggestion (VIII.397) that the tale of the passage of the Paths of the Dead should be told at the 'feast of victory in Minas Tirith', but that idea had of course been overtaken.

2. It may be that the first draft of 'The Field of Kormallen' was written before the fair copy manuscript of 'Mount Doom'. A pointer to this is the fact that where in RK (p. 228) 'a great smoke and steam belched from the Sammath Naur' A has 'a great fire belched from the cave': see p. 41 note 5.

3. The first draft A has the spelling Lhandroval at all occurrences, but the fair copy B has Landroval, as in RK.

4. Both in A and B it is Frodo who asks 'What king, and who is he?'

On the first typescript Sam's question 'What shall we wear?' was transferred to Frodo, but in the final typescript given back to Sam.

5. Perhaps to be compared is the sentence in 'The Steward and the King', RK pp. 241-2: 'Merry was summoned [from Minas Tirith]

and rode away with the wains that took store of goods to Osgiliath and thence by ship to Cair Andros.'

6. Frodo was naked when Sam found him in the Tower of Kirith Ungol; he had to dress in 'long hairy breeches of some unclean beast-fell, and a tunic of dirty leather' (RK p. 189).

7. laurea' esselinen was changed at the time of writing to an-kalim' esselinen.

8. At this stage, when only a little time had passed since the fall of Sauron, Merry would still have been in Minas Tirith; cf. note 5.

9. My father named the penultimate finger (the 'fourth finger' or

'ring-finger') the 'third finger'; so Frodo's 'third finger was missing' (RK p. 229).

10. The rings of mithril set on Frodo's fingers were retained in the fair copy B, where the passage was struck out.

11. The 'crescent moon' remained in B and in the first typescript, where it was changed to 'the round moon'.

12. It is strange that in B Gimli said here, not as in RK 'And it is only a day yet since you were first up and abroad again', but 'a few days' (this being corrected on the manuscript).

13. This sentence was retained in B and the first typescript, where it was struck out.

14. To these may be added the retention of the name Narch in 'And they passed over the Narch and Gorgoroth' (RK p. 228), subsequently emended to Udun. At the end of the chapter it was said at first in B that 'when the month of May was passed seven days the Captains of the West set out again', but this was changed to 'when the month of May was drawing near', and at the same time the last sentence of the chapter was changed from 'for the King would enter his gates with the rising of the Sun' by the addition of the words 'it was the Eve of May, and (the King would enter...)'.

THE STORY FORESEEN FROM KORMALLEN.

This page (see p. 47) was scribbled down in pencil in my father's most impossible handwriting. I have not marked with queries a number of words that I think are probable but not altogether certain, and I have expanded several names given only as initials. The first sentence was written separately from the rest of the outline, whether before or after.

Gimli explains how Pippin was saved.

Next scene - The Host sets out from Cair Andros and [read in] the ships and passes into Gondor.

Scene shifts to Merry and to Faramir and Eowyn.

Return of King Elessar. His crowning. His judgements ..... of Berithil.

The hobbits wait. For there is to be a wedding. Elrond and Galadriel and Celeborn come and bring Finduilas.

The wedding of Aragorn and Finduilas.

Also Faramir and Eowyn.

The end of the Third Age is presaged. What the Rings had done.

Their power waned. Galadriel and Elrond prepare to depart.

The hobbits return with Eomer to the funeral of Theoden and then on through the Gap of Rohan [? with..... and the Dunedain].

They come on Saruman and he is [?pardoned].

They come to Rivendell and see Bilbo. Bilbo gives him Sting and the coat. But he is getting old.

They come back to the Shire [added in margin: via Bree, pick up pony] and drive out Cosimo Sackville-Baggins. Lobelia is dead -

she had a fit in [?quarrel]. Sam replants the trees. Frodo goes back to Bag End. All is quiet for a year or two. And then one day Frodo takes Sam for a walking [? tour] to the Woody End. And [?behold there go many] Elves. Frodo rides to the Havens and says farewell to Bilbo. End of the Third Age.

Sam's Book.

It is plain that my father wrote this outline while he was working on

'The Field of Kormallen', and indeed the precise stage in that work can probably be deduced: for Gimli's words at the end of the evening, in which he spoke of finding Pippin under the heap of slain, had not entered ('Gimli explains how Pippin was saved'). The precise placing of these notes in the history of the composition of Book VI gives them a particular interest. Several features of the end of the story now appear for the first time: as the marriage of Faramir and Eowyn; Bilbo's giving of the mithril-coat and Sting to Frodo ('forgetting that he had already done so', RK p. 265); the time of peace and quiet after the return of the hobbits to the Shire (but that 'Sam's casket restores Trees' had been known for a long time, VII.286); and Frodo's walk with Sam to the Woody End. But the death, before the return of the hobbits, of Lobelia Sackville-Baggins in a fit (of fury? - the word I have given as quarrel is scarcely more than a guess) was not permanent: she would be resurrected, survive her imprisonment during the troubles of the Shire, and end her days in a much more enlightened fashion.

This outline is as elliptical as were so many of my father's sketches of the further course of the story, concentrating on particular elements and ignoring or only hinting at others; and it is hard to know what narrative idea underlay the words 'Frodo rides to the Havens and says farewell to Bilbo'. Many years before (VI.380) he had written that when 'Bingo' returned to the Shire he would make peace, and would then 'settle down in a little hut on the high green ridge - until one day he goes with the Elves west beyond the towers' (cf. also another note of that time, VI.379: 'Island in sea. Take Frodo there in end'). In the outline 'The Story Foreseen from Moria' (VII.212) he had concluded his synopsis thus:

XXVIII What happens to Shire?

Last scene. Sailing away of Elves [added: Bilbo with them]...

XXIX Sam and Frodo go into a green land by the Sea?

In another note of that period (VII.287) he said: 'When old, Sam and Frodo set sail to island of West... Bilbo finishes the story.' Probably about the time of the writing of 'The King of the Golden Hall' he had written (VII.451) that in old age Frodo with Sam had seen Galadriel and Bilbo. On the other hand, in his letter to me of 29 November 1944

(see VIII.219) he was entirely clear - and accurate - in his prevision: But the final scene will be the passage of Bilbo and Elrond and Galadriel through the woods of the Shire on their way to the Grey Havens. Frodo will join them and pass over the Sea (linking with the vision he had of a far green country in the house of Tom Bombadil).

Since this is of course the story in the last chapter of The Lord of the Rings it is strange indeed to find in the present text that he had departed from it - for 'Frodo rides to the Havens and says farewell to Bilbo' can obviously be interpreted in no other way. I suspect therefore that there is in fact no mystery: that in notes written at great speed my father merely miswrote 'Bilbo' for 'Sam'.

Remarkable also is the reference to the encounter with Saruman -

the word pardoned here is not certain, but can hardly be read otherwise. That they would meet Saruman again on the homeward journey was an old idea (see 'The Story Foreseen from Moria', VII.212), but then it had taken place at Isengard, and the matter of that scene had of course been removed to a much earlier place in the narrative (VII.436). A later note (VII.287) says that 'Saruman becomes a wandering conjuror and trickster', but nothing further has been told of him since he was left a prisoner in Orthanc guarded by the Ents until now.

VI.

THE STEWARD AND THE KING.

My remarks about 'The Field of Kormallen' (p. 44) can be repeated of

'The Steward and the King': the preliminary draft ('A') of this chapter, though written roughly and rapidly, was changed very little afterwards. There are nonetheless a number of differences in detail.(1) A had no title, but 'Faramir and Eowyn' was pencilled in subsequently. A fair copy manuscript 'B' followed, with the chapter-number 'LVI' but no title; to this text the title 'The Watchers on the Walls' was added in pencil, and this was changed to 'The Steward and the King'. In B the page-numbers run only as far as 'And she abode there until King Eomer came' (RK p. 243); at 'All things were now made ready in the City', at the top of a new page, a new numbering from '1' begins.

Of this chapter my father made a third, very fine manuscript 'C', numbering it 'LIV'. Beneath the title 'The Steward and the King' he pencilled '(i) The Steward'; but although there is a large space in the text after 'And she remained there until King Eomer came', where the new page-numbering begins in B, there is no second sub-title.

At the beginning of the chapter in A the Warden of the Houses of Healing, after the words 'He sighed and shook his head' (RK p. 237), '

continues:

'It may come thus to us all yet,' he said, 'choosing or not choosing. But in the meantime we must endure with patience the hours of waiting. It is not always the easier part. But for you, Lady, you will be the better prepared to face evil that may come in your own manner, if you do as the healers bid, while there is still time.'

This was rejected before the chapter had proceeded much further, for similar words were given to Faramir subsequently in the initial text (RK p. 238). And when the Warden looked out from his window and saw Faramir and Eowyn, finding in the sight a lightening of his care, it is said: 'For it had been reported to him that the Lord Aragorn had said "If she wakes to despair then she will die, unless other healing comes which I cannot give."'