Sauron Defeated (9 page)

In B, against the words 'There came at last a dreadful evening; and even as the Captains of the West drew near the end of the living lands, the two wanderers came to an hour of blank despair' (cf. RK p. 212), my father wrote 'end of 22'. This was the same date as in RK, and thus there follows in the original text 'Five days had passed since they escaped the orcs' (i.e. March 18 - 22), where RK has 'Four'.

V.

THE FIELD OF KORMALLEN.

In the first draft of this chapter my father again achieved for most of its length an extraordinarily close approach to the final form, and this is the more remarkable when one considers that he had no plan or outline before him. There had been many mentions of a great feast to follow the final victory (VII.212, 345, 448; VIII.275, 397), but nothing had ever been said of it beyond the fact that it was to take place in Minas Tirith.(1) That this text ('A') was indeed the first setting down on paper of the story and that nothing preceded it seems obvious from the nature of the manuscript itself, which has all the marks of primary composition.(2) It was followed by a fair copy manuscript ('B'), bearing the number and title 'LV The Field of Kormallen', which was also pencilled in later on A.

Not until the end of the minstrel's song of Frodo of the Nine Fingers and the Ring of Doom did the first text A diverge in any narrative point, and little even in expression, from the form in RK. There are however several interesting details.

One of these concerns the Eagles. As the passage (RK p. 226) describing their coming above the Morannon was first written it read: There came Gwaihir, the Wind-lord, and Lhandroval his brother, greatest of all the eagles of the north, mightiest of the descendants of [added: Great > old] Thorondor who built his eyries in the immeasurable peaks of Thangorodrim [changed immediately to the Encircling Mountains] when Middle-earth was young.

In the Quenta $15 (IV.137) it is told that after the Battle of Unnumbered Tears 'Thorndor King of Eagles removed his eyries from Thangorodrim to the northward heights of the Encircling Mountains

[about the plain of Gondolin], and there he kept watch, sitting upon the cairn of King Fingolfin.' In the Quenta Silmarillion of 1937 there is no mention of the Eagles dwelling on Thangorodrim, and at the time of the fall of Fingolfin in his duel with Morgoth, before the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, Thorondor came for the rescue of the king's body

'from his eyrie among the peaks of Gochressiel' (i.e. the Encircling Mountains; V.285, $147). On the other hand, in the abandoned story

'Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin' given in Unfinished Tales, a story that I believe to have been written in 1951, Voronwe speaks to Tuor of

'the folk of Thorondor, who dwelt once even on Thangorodrim ere Morgoth grew so mighty, and dwell now in the Mountains of Turgon since the fall of Fingolfin' (p. 43).

Gwaihir the Windlord had of course appeared often before this in The Lord of the Rings (for long Gwaewar, but becoming Gwaihir in the course of the writing of 'The White Rider', VII.430). In the Quenta Silmarillion (see V.301) Gwaewar had been one of the three eagles that came to Angband for the rescue of Beren and Luthien; the earliest form of that passage reads:

Thorondor led them, and the others were Lhandroval (Wide-wing) and Gwaewar his vassal.

The following text (also belonging to 1937) has:

Thorondor was their leader; and with him were his mightiest vassals, wide-winged Lhandroval, and Gwaewar lord of the wind.

In a revision of the passage which can be dated to 1951 Gwaewar was changed to Gwaihir. As I have noticed in V.301, the names of the vassals of Thorondor were suppressed in the published Silmarillion (p. 182) on account of the present passage in RK, but this was certainly mistaken: it is clear that my father deliberately repeated the names. As in so many other cases in The Lord of the Rings, he took the name Gwaewar for the great eagle, friend of Gandalf, from The Silmarillion, and when Gwaihir replaced Gwaewar in The Lord of the Rings he made the same change to the eagle's name in The Silmarillion. Now he took also Lhandroval (3) to be the name of Gwaihir's brother; and added a new name, Meneldor (RK p. 228).

At the fall of the Black Gate Gandalf said only: 'The Realm of Sauron is ended'; but to this my father added, probably immediately:

'So passes the Third Age of the World.' This was placed within brackets, and 'The Ringbearer has fulfilled his Quest' written in the margin.

To Gwaihir Gandalf said: 'You will not find me a burden any greater than when you bore me from Zirakinbar where my old life burned away.' Zirakinbar remained through all the texts of the chapter and was only changed to Zirakzigil on the galley proof. On these names see VII.174 and 431 with note 6.

Another difference in A which survived long (into the final typescript of the chapter) was the absence of Sam's expression of astonishment at seeing Gandalf at his bedside ('Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself....', RK p. 230); The date of the Field of Kormallen (as the name was spelt until the final typescript) was expressed by Gandalf thus in A:

'Noon?' said Sam, puzzling his brains. 'Noon of what day?'

'The third day of the New Year,' said Gandalf, 'or if you like the twenty-eighth day of March in the Shire-reckoning. But in Gondor the New Year will always begin upon the 25th of March when Sauron fell, and when you were brought out of the fire to the King....'(4)

If March 25th was New Year's Day, the 28th was the fourth day of the New Year in Gondor, and my father wrote 'fourth' above 'third', without however striking out 'third'. In pencil he wrote 'seventh'

against this, and 'the last day' above 'the twenty-eighth day', although this would give 31 days to the month. His reason for this is obscurely indicated by a note in the margin: 'More time required for [?gathering]

of goods, say' (i.e., 'say the seventh').(5)

In the fair copy B as written Gandalf said 'The Seventh of the New Year; or if you like, the last day of March in the Shire-reckoning'; this was changed later to 'The Fourteenth of the New Year' and 'the sixth day of April in the Shire-reckoning'. Even allowing 31 days to the month, the sixth of April would be the thirteenth day of the New Year, and 'sixth' was afterwards changed to 'seventh', and finally to 'eighth', as in RK. I do not know precisely what considerations impelled my father so greatly to prolong the time during which Sam and Frodo lay asleep.

Their first conversation with Gandalf ends thus in A:

'What shall we wear?' said Sam, for all he could see were the old and tattered clothes that they had journeyed in, lying folded on the ground beside their beds.

'The clothes that you were found in,' said Gandalf. 'No silks and linen, nor any armour or heraldry, could be more honour-able. But afterwards we shall see.'

This survived through all the texts to the galley, where 'The clothes that you were found in' was changed to 'The clothes that you journeyed in'. It was not until the Second Edition of 1966 that the passage was altered and extended, by changing Gandalf's words to

'The clothes that you wore on your way to Mordor.(6) Even the orc-rags that you bore in the black land, Frodo, shall be preserved', and by his return of the Phial of Galadriel and the box that she gave to Sam (RK

pp. 230 - 1; cf. p. 39 and note 2).

The crying of praise as Frodo and Sam came to the Field of Kormallen underwent many changes. In all the texts of the chapter Old English phrases cried by the Riders of Rohan were mingled. The form of the 'Praise' in A runs thus (with some punctuation added from the B-text, which is closely similar):

Long live the balflings! Praise them with great praise! Cuio i Pheriannath anann, aglar anann! Praise them with great praise!

Hale, hale cumath, wesath hale awa to aldre. Froda and Samwis! Praise them! Kuivie, kuivie! laurea'esselinen!(7) Praise them!

In the fair copy B the Old English words were changed to Wilcuman, wilcuman, Froda and Samwis! and the Quenya words became Laitalle, laitalle, andave laita! In the first typescript the Old English Uton herian holbytlan! was added before Laitalle, laitalle; and in the second (final) typescript the Quenya words became A laituvar, laituvar, andave laita! This was then changed on the typescript to A laita te, laita te! Andave laituvalme! Thus the form as it appears on the galley proof is:

Long live the Halflings! Praise them with great praise! Cuio i Pheriannath anann! Aglar anann! Praise them with great praise!

Wilcuman, wilcuman, Froda and Samwis! Praise them! Uton herian holbytlan! A laita te, laita te! Andave laituvalmet! Praise them! The Ringbearers, praise them with great praise!

The final text of the 'Praise', as it appears in RK, was typed onto the galley proof.

From the end of the minstrel's song (RK p. 232) the original text A runs thus:

And then Aragorn stood up and all the host rose, and they passed to a pavilion made ready, there to eat and drink and make merry.

But as Sam and Frodo stepped down with Aragorn from the throne Sam caught sight of a small man-at-arms as it seemed in the silver and sable of the guards of the king: but he was small and he wondered what such a boy was doing in such an army.

Then suddenly he exclaimed: 'Why, look Mr Frodo. Look here.

Bless me if it's not Pippin, Mr Peregrin Took I should say. Bless me but I can see there's more tales than ours to hear. It'll take weeks before we get it all right.'

'Yes,' said Frodo. 'I can see myself locked up in a room somewhere making notes for days or Bilbo will be bitterly disappointed.'

And so they passed to the feast and at a sign from Aragorn Pippin went with them.(8)

The page carrying this text was rejected; on the back of it is an outline of the story to come (see p. 51, 'The Story Foreseen from Kormallen'). A replacement page was substituted, but again the development turned out to be unsatisfactory:

But first Frodo and Sam were led apart and taken to a tent, and there their old raiment was taken off, but folded and set aside with honour; and clean linen was brought to them. But Gandalf came and with him went an esquire, no more than a small lad he seemed, though clad in the silver and sable of the king's guard, and to the wonder of Frodo and Sam they bore the sword and the elven-cloak and the mithril-coat that had been taken from them; and for Sam they brought a coat of gilded mail, and on Frodo's right hand upon the middle (9) and little fingers they set small rings of mithril set each with a gem like a star. But the wonder of all these things was as little to the wonder on Sam's face as he looked on the face of the esquire and knew him.

And he cried out: 'Why look, Mr. Frodo. Look here! Save me, if it isn't Pippin, Mr. Peregrin Took, I should say. Why bless us all, but I can see there's more tales to tell than ours. It will take weeks of talk before we get it all sized up.'

'It will indeed,' said Pippin. 'But at present it is time for a feast, and you must not keep it waiting. Later on, Frodo must be locked up in a tower in Minas Tirith till he's made notes of all our doings, or Bilbo will be dreadfully disappointed.'

This passage was at once reconstructed to remove Pippin from the scene, and Gandalf comes to the tent alone, as in RK (p. 233). When he has set the rings of mithril on Frodo's fingers the feast follows at once:

... and on Frodo's right hand, upon the middle and little fingers, he set fine rings of mithril, slender as threads of silk but bearing each a small gem shining like a star.(10) And when they were made ready, and circlets of silver were set upon their heads, they went to the feast, and sat with Gandalf, and there was Aragorn and King Eomer of Rohan and all the Captains of the West, and there too were Legolas and Gimli.

[Struck out at once: 'That's six of the Company,' said Sam to Frodo. 'Where are the o(thers)] But when wine was brought there came in an esquire to serve the Kings of Gondor and Rohan, or so he seemed, and he was clad in the silver and sable of the guards of the King; but he was small, and Sam wondered what such a boy was doing in an army of mighty men. [Then follows Sam's recognition of Pippin, as above.]

'It will indeed,' said Pippin, 'and we'll begin as soon as this feast is ended. In the meantime you can try Gandalf. He's not as close as he used to be, though he laughs now more than he talks.'

And so at last the glad day ended; and when the sun was gone and the crescent moon (11) rode slowly above the mist of Anduin and flickered through the fluttering leaves, Frodo and Sam sat amid the night-fragrance of fair Ithilien, and talked deep into the night with Pippin and Gandalf and Legolas and Gimli.

At last Gandalf rose. 'The hands of the King are hands of healing, dear friends,' he said. 'But you went near to the very brink of death, and though you have slept long and blessedly, still it is now time to rest again. Not you only, Frodo and Sam, but you Peregrin also. For when they lifted you from under the slain it is said that even Aragorn despaired of you.'