The Return Of The Shadow Part 18

15. The text as first written here was 'and now that he knows or guesses where it is he desires so greatly.'

16. My father wrote here: 'In ancient days the Necromancer [servant of ???] the Dark Lord Sauron.' The brackets and queries were put in at the time of writing or very soon after. I can only explain this on the a.s.sumption that he was momentarily thinking of Morgoth as the Dark Lord, before he wrote the name Sauron; but it is odd that he did not simply strike out the words 'servant of'.

17. Against this pa.s.sage my father wrote in the margin: 'Ring-wraiths later' (see p. 260). In the original text (p. 78, and cf. the draft on which that was based, p. 75) the Wraiths are mentioned at this point.

18. My father wrote 'Nine, Seven, Three, and One', reversing 'Nine' and 'Three' in pencil. - Here appears explicitly for the first time the distinction between the lesser Rings and the Rings of Power.

19. The text as written, but probably changed immediately, was: 'but could see both the world under the sun and the phantom world [> the world of shadow] in which the invisible creatures of the Lord moved.'

20. With this account of the relation of the power of the Rings to the innate qualities of those who bore them, and of the potency of the One Ring in the hand of its maker, compare Queries and Alterations, note 12 (p. 227), where the idea of the Ruling Ring first explicitly appears.

21. Cf. p. 212, and Queries and Alterations, note 10 (p. 225).

22. Here the Three Rings of the Elves appear in the text as first written (and the Nine Rings of Men in the next paragraph): see note 14. In the draft of the Ring-verse given at the end of note 14 the Three Rings are 'of earth, sea, and sky', whereas here they are 'of earth, air, and sky.'

23. wizards: cf. p. 211, where Gandalf at Rivendell likewise includes 'wizards' among the servants of the Dark Lord.

24. the middle-earth was changed from the middle-world, which is used earlier in this pa.s.sage and again subsequently.

25. The meaning appears to be that after the loss of the Ruling Ring to the Necromancer, the Ring-wraiths could no longer function as his servants; they were not definitively destroyed, but they had no effective existence. Gandalf was soon to be proved wrong in this opinion, of course; and it may be that my father introduced it here to explain Gandalf's failure to take them into account. In FR he is less confident: 'It is many a year since the Nine walked abroad. Yet who knows? As the Shadow grows once more, they too may walk again.'

26. The name of the King of Men was first written Valandil; above this my father wrote Eand Orendil. The next part of Gandalf's story was constantly changed in the act of composition, and at subsequent occurrences the name of the King varies between Valandil > Orendil/Elendil, Elendil > Orendil, and then Orendil unchanged; I read Orendil throughout. For previous hesitation over the name see p. 174 note 25 and p. 197 note 3.

27. Here my father first wrote. "but ere he fell Gilgalad cut the One Ring from the hand finger of Sauron, and gave it to Ithildor that stood by, but Ithildor took it for his own.' This was changed at the time of writing to the text given. hand finger was left thus; I read finger because that is the word used in the next text of this chapter. - Ithildor was changed to Isildor at each occurrence until the last in this pa.s.sage, where Isildor was the form first written. See note 29.

28. The original reading here was: 'but the Ring [or >] and his fate betrayed him'.

29. The story of the One Ring now moves further. In the original text (p. 78) it was simply that the Ring 'fell from the hand of an elf as he swam across a river; and it betrayed him, for he was Hying from pursuit in the old wars, and he became visible to his enemies, and the goblins slew him.' In Queries and Alterations note 12 (p. 226) a new element was proposed: that the Ring was 'taken from the Lord himself when Gilgalad wrestled with him, and taken by a flying Elf'; the implication clearly being that Gilgalad took it (as said at first in the present text, see note 27). Now the Elf becomes Isildor son of Orendil (Flendil: note 26).

30. This pa.s.sage, from 'And there has also always been a queer fate', was enclosed in brackets with a query; and the last sentence, 'But the evil they work...', additionally enclosed in double brackets with a double query. The sentences immediately following (Gandalf's 'And that too may be a comforting thought, or not', and the first part of Bingo's reply) are a pencilled addition. But it is not clear to me why Bingo should be discouraged by the suggestion that the evil wrought by the Rings could turn to good and against the design of their maker.

31. Bingo's version has slight deviations from the text in The Hobbit. - It is not very evident what Gandalf had deduced from Gollum's first riddle.

32. In place of this pa.s.sage, from 'He had found out eventually', the text as first written had (much as in the original version, p. So): 'I think it is certain that Gollum knew after a time that Bilbo had in some way got "his" Ring. One can imagine...'

With the pencilled extension Gandalf's explanation of how Gollum knew that the hobbit had got the Ring is extended to cover the fact that Gollum also found out what his name was. But this is odd, since in the original story in The Hobbit as in the revised version Bilbo told Gollum his name: '"What iss he, my precious?" whisperered Gollum. "I am Mr Bilbo Baggins..."' See further note 34 (and cf. FR p. 66).

33. This phrase of Gandalf's, 'I think indeed that Gollum is the beginning of our present troubles', is repeated from the original text (p. 81), and here as there seems to refer to the fact that the Dark Lord was known to Gandalf to be seeking the Ring in the direction of the s.h.i.+re. But it is still not really explained what kind of searching could lead Gandalf to describe it as 'our present trouble', since he knew nothing of the Black Riders (see Queries and Alterations, p. 224). He can hardly be referring to those things mentioned earlier in the chapter (p. 253): Men moving North and West, goblins multiplying, new kinds of trolls; for these were surely large manifestations of the growing power of the Dark Lord, rather than of the search for the Ring.

34. Here follows: '(for his ears are keen and his spies legion)', marked in pencil for deletion. This change perhaps goes with the puzzling addition referred to in note 32, where Gandalf suggests that Gollum had eventually found out Bilbo's name; for in that case, if Gollum had indeed been to Mordor, he himself could have told the Necromancer that 'Baggins' had taken the Ring.

35. From this point the text is written in faint pencil.

36. Above 'nineteen' is pencilled '20'. This is the first occurrence of the term 'Rings of Power'.

37. From this point the text is again in ink, a good clear ma.n.u.script to the end of the chapter.

38 The meaning must surely be that Gandalf had 'discovered the letters of fire' on the Ring before Bilbo left Hobbiton; which is curious, since Gandalf also says that he did not tell Bilbo, and it is hard to imagine him conducting the test without Bilbo knowing of it. In FR (p. 65), when Frodo asked him when he discovered the fire-writing, he replied: 'Just now in this room, of course. But I expected to find it. I have come back from dark journeys and long search to make that final test.' Gandalf's words on p. 256 could be taken to mean that he did not know for certain until now: 'I do not yet know quite all. Give me the Ring a minute.' But they cannot mean this; and he refers (p. 262) to the fire-writing on the Ring as if it had been one of the main pieces of evidence in his deduction of the story which he now told to Bingo.

My father later pencilled an 'X' in the margin of the text here, and scribbled 'did not know until recently'.

39. See p. 252.

40. The original drafting for the episode is extant, scribbled faintly at the end of the ma.n.u.script of the original version of the chapter, and is naturally less finished; but already in this draft the final text is fully present except in details of expression.

XVI. DELAYS ARE DANGEROUS.

From 'Ancient History' my father proceeded to the revision of the original second chapter, which had been given the t.i.tle 'Three's Company and Four's More' (p. 49); this new version becomes Chapter III, but was given no t.i.tle. Later, he scribbled in at the head of the text 'Delays are Dangerous' (which is the t.i.tle ab initio of the following version of the chapter), and it is convenient to adopt this here.

Some exceedingly rough and fluid notes - the continuation of those mentioned at the beginning of the last chapter, p. 250 - are all that exist by way of preparatory writing for this revision. I have already noticed (p. 250) that the story of Bingo's dinner-party for Merry, Frodo Took, and Odo Bolger on the eve of departure was devised here, and that against this my father wrote 'Sam Gamgee to replace Odo' (these notes preceded the writing of 'Ancient History', where Sam Gamgee first emerged). But Odo could not be got rid of so easily. The notes continue: Gandalf was supposed to come to party but did not turn up. Bingo waits till Friday [September 23] but foolishly did not wait any longer, as Sackville-Bagginses threaten to turn him out: but sets off on Friday night. Gives out he is going to stay with Merry and return to his Brandybuck relations.

A rejected suggestion that Odo remained at Hobbiton 'to give news to Gandalf' shows my father already pondering this question, which after a long history of change would ultimately lead to Fredegar Bolger remaining at Crickhollow (FR p. 118). In these notes a Brandybuck with the Arthurian name of Lanorac (changed from Bercilak), a cousin of Merry's, 'has been ordered to have all ready' in Buckland; and there is a suggestion for the story after they leave Buckland and enter the Old Forest: 'Frodo wants to come but is told no: to give news to Gandalf. Merry says nothing - but does come: locks door and throws key over hedge.' With this cf. Queries and Alterations, note 2 (p. 221): Frodo says goodbye at Bucklebury. Only Merry and Bingo ride on into exile - because Merry insists. Bingo originally intended to go alone' (this was written before Sam Gamgee entered).

The text of the new version of this chapter is the most complicated doc.u.ment yet encountered. It begins as ma.n.u.script, in which part of the narrative is in two variant forms, and then turns back to the original typescript (given in full on pp. 49 - 65), which was heavily corrected in two forms (with different inks to cover different versions): some of the more extensive changes are on inserted slips. At the end my father abandoned the old typescript and concluded the chapter in a new ma.n.u.script - the first part of it in three versions. To present the whole complex in this book is obviously impossible, and is in any case in no way necessary for the understanding of the development of the narrative.

The initial portion in ma.n.u.script extends as far as the beginning of the hobbits' walk on the first night ('They went very quietly over fields and along hedgerows and the borders of coppices, until night fell', p. 50), and the opening of the chapter presents an entirely new narrative. Leaving aside for the moment the pa.s.sage existing in variant forms, the new text while very rough reaches in all essentials the final form in FR, pp. 74 - 80. There are many differences still in wording, and the chapter begins with the local gossip about the sale of Bag End and then proceeds to Bingo's discussion with Gandalf about his departure, rather than the other way about,(1) but differences of substance are few and mostly slight. More emphasis is placed on the fact that the 22nd of September was in that year again a Thursday (as it was in FR, p. 77): that seemed to [Bingo s] fancy to mark the date as the proper one for setting out to follow Bilbo.' Gandalf's tone to Bingo is a bit grimmer, and has more asperity; and he does not refer to the possibility that it may, or may not, be Bingo's task to find the Cracks of Doom. His parting words to him are significantly different from what he says in FR; and Bingo's state of mind on the eve of his own departure is given a different emphasis. I give here a portion of the text, taking it up from the point where Gandalf says that the direction which Bingo takes when he leaves Hobbiton should not be known (FR p. 74, at bottom).

'Well now,' said Bingo, 'do you know I have mostly thought just about going, and have never decided on the direction! For where shall I go, and by what shall I steer, and what is to be my quest? This will indeed be the opposite of Bilbo's adventure: setting out without any known destination, and to get rid of a treasure, not to find one.'

'And to go there but not come back again, likely enough,' added Gandalf grimly.

'That I know,' said Bingo, pretending not to be impressed. 'But seriously, in what direction shall I start?'

'Towards danger, but not too rashly, nor too straight towards it,' answered Gandalf. 'Make first for Rivendell, if you will at least take that much advice. After that we shall see - if you ever get there: the Road is not as easy as it was.'

'Rivendell!' said Bingo. 'Very good. That will please Sam.' He did not add that it pleased him too; and that though he had not decided, he had often thought of making for the house of Elrond; if only because he thought that perhaps Bilbo, after he had become free again, had chosen that way too.

The decision to go Eastwards directed Bingo's later plans. It was for this reason that he gave out that he was removing to Buckland, and actually did ask his Brandybuck cousins, Merry and Lanorac and the rest, to look out for a little place for him to live in.(2) In the meantime he went on much as usual, and the summer pa.s.sed. Gandalf had gone off again. But he was invited to the farewell party, and had promised to arrive on the day before, or at latest on the 22nd itself. 'Don't go till you see me, Bingo,' he said, as he took his leave one wet dark evening in May. 'I may have news, and useful information about the Road. And I may want to come with you.'(3) The autumn came on. No news came from Gandalf. There began to be signs of activity at Bag-End. Two covered carts went off laden. They were understood to be conveying such furniture as Mr Baggins had not sold to the Sackville-Bagginses to his new house in Buckland by way of the Brandywine Bridge. Odo Bolger, Merry Brandybuck, and Frodo Took were staying there with Bingo. The four of them seemed to be busy packing and the hole was all upside-down. On Wednesday September 21 Bingo began to look out anxiously for Gandalf, but there was no sign of him. His birthday morning September 22 dawned, as fair and clear as it had for Bilbo's party long ago (as it now seemed to Bingo). But still Gandalf did not appear. In the evening Bingo gave his farewell party. The absence of Gandalf rather worried Bingo and a little damped his spirits, which had been steadily rising - as every cool and misty autumn morning brought him closer to the day of his going. The only wrench now was parting from his young friends. The danger did not seem so threatening. He wanted to be off - at once. Everyone had been told that he was leaving for Bucklebury as soon as possible after his birthday. The Sackville-Bagginses got possession after midnight on the 23rd. All the same, he wanted to see Gandalf first. But his three friends were in high spirits...

From the end of Bingo's birthday dinner to the beginning of the hobbits' night walk the new text is almost the same as that in FR (pp. 77-80), apart from the different hobbits present (and still leaving aside the part existing in variant forms). The third cart, bearing 'the remaining and more valuable things', went off as in FR on the morning of the 23rd; at first Odo Bolger was said to be in charge of this, but he was changed, apparently at once, to Merry Brandybuck. (In FR Merry was accompanied by Fredegar Bolger, and my father queried in the margin here: 'Merry and Odo?'). Now enters the story of Bingo's overhearing Gaffer Gamgee talking (in almost the same words as in FR) to a stranger at the end of Bagshot Row: the first germ of this has been seen in Queries and Alterations, note 3 (p. 222). The only real difference is that the old discussion among the hobbits (p. 49) whether to walk far or not is still present, Odo disagreeing with Frodo and Bingo; but there are now four of them, and Bingo asks Sam for his opinion: 'Well, sir,' he answered, taking off his hat and looking up at the sky, 'I do guess that it may be pretty warm tomorrow. And walking in the sun, even at this time o' year, with a load on your back, can be wearisome, like. I votes with Mr Frodo, if you ask me.'

The variant section was written continuously with the preceding narrative - that is to say, it is the story as my father first intended to tell it, and the other version was written subsequently, at first as an alternative. The divergence begins after Merry's departure for Buckland on Friday September 23, Bingo's last day at' Bag End.

After lunch people began to arrive - some by invitation, others brought by rumour and curiosity. They found the door open, and Bingo on the mat in the hall waiting to greet them. Inside the hall was piled an a.s.sortment of packages, bric-a-brac and small articles of furniture. On every package and item there was a label tied....

On the ma.n.u.script my father wrote later that 'this variant depending on shortening in Chapter I and the transference of parting gifts etc. to I I I' was now rejected. The shortening of Chapter I proposed is in fact the short variant of the story of the aftermath of Bilbo's party which has been described on pp. 241 - 2: as I noted there, 'the entire "business" of the presents, and the invasion of Bag End, was in this variant removed', for it was now to be transferred to Bingo's departure - or at least, was under the option of being so transferred. Thus a further twist is given to the serpentine history of this element in ?he Lard of the Rings: for what is involved is not of course a simple reversion to the story as it was at the end of the 'first phase' of 'A Long-expected Party', where also the gifts were Bingo's, not Bilbo's. The new idea was that the gifts,(4) the invasion of Bag End, the ejection of the hobbits excavating in the pantry, and the fight with Sancho Proudfoot (his adversary here being Cosimo Sackville- Baggins,(5) supported by his mother, who broke her umbrella on Sancho's head) - that all this took place not after the great Birthday Party (which was now Bilbo's), but after Bingo's own discreet birthday party before his departure.

It is possible and even probable that my father's intention in this was to reduce the element of Hobbiton comedy that confronts the reader at the outset, and introduce sooner, in 'Ancient History', the very much weightier matters that had come into being since 'A Long-expected Party' was first written.

In this version the story of Bingo's walking a little way from Bag End, and so hearing Gaffer Gamgee talking to the Black Rider, was not yet present; and when he has sent Sam off with the key to his father, he leaves by himself. There is no mention of Odo Bolger and Frodo Toot before the variant text ends, with Bingo going down the garden path, jumping the fence at the bottom, and pa.s.sing into the twilight. I cannot say for certain whether this is significant or not. It seems unlikely to be a mere casual oversight; but if it is not, it means presumably that my father was contemplating a wholly new course for the story: Bingo and Sam journeying through the s.h.i.+re alone. He had certainly contemplated something of the sort earlier. However this may be, nothing came of it; and he pa.s.sed on at once to the second version of this part of the narrative (the form in FR), where Bingo after listening to Gaffer Gamgee talking to the stranger returns to Bag End and finds Odo and Frodo (Pippin in FR) sitting on their packs in the porch.

Effectively, then, the third chapter of FR, as far as the departure of Bingo (Frodo) from Bag End, was now achieved. My father here, as I have said, turned back to the original typescript, and used it as the physical basis for his new text until near the end of the chapter. He emended it in different inks, and added this note on the typescript: Corrections in black are for any version. Those in red are for the revised version (with Bilbo as party-giver and including Sam).(6) In the new material, corrections and additions, he distinguished very carefully between the two types of change: in one case he wrote 'red emendation' against the first part of a new pa.s.sage, and 'black emendation' against the next part, continuous with the first (the pa.s.sage is given in note 11, and the reason for the distinction is very clear). It is hard to see why he should have gone to all this trouble, unless at this stage he was still (remarkably enough) uncertain about the new story, with 'Bilbo as party-giver and including Sam', and saw the possibility of returning to the old.

As I have said, the presentation of the results of this procedure here is impossible,(7) and unnecessary even if possible. The effect of all the emendations is to bring the original version very close indeed to the form in FR (pp. 80 ff.). In places the new version is a halfway house between the two, and in the latter part the corrections are less thoroughgoing, but only here and there is there anything of narrative importance to note; and in what follows it can be a.s.sumed unless the contrary is said that the FR text was already present in all particulars other than the choice of phrasing. But the hobbits are now four: Bingo, Frodo Toot, Odo Bolger, and Sam Gamgee, so that there is in this respect also an intervening stage here between the original story (where there are three, Bingo, Frodo Took, and Odo Took) and FR (where there are again only three, but a different three, Frodo Baggins, Peregrin Took, and Sam Gamgee), and some variation between the versions in the attribution of remarks to different characters (on this matter see p. 70). But things said by Sam in FR are said by him in this text also.(8) At the beginning of this part of the chapter, where the old text (p. 50) had: 'They were now in Tookland; and they began to climb into the Green Hill Country south of Hobbiton', the new reads: 'They were now in Tookland and going southwards; but a mile or two further on they crossed the main road from Much Hemlock (in the Hornblower country) to Bywater and Brandywine Bridge. Then they struck eastward and began to climb...' (9) Beside this my father wrote: '? Michel Delving (the chief town of the s.h.i.+re back west on the White Downs).' This is the first appearance of Michel Delving, and of the White Downs (see p. 295). 'Much Hemlock' echoes the name Much Wenlock in Shrops.h.i.+re (Much 'Great', as Michel).

The Woody End is not called 'a wild corner of the Eastfarthing' - the 'Farthings' had not yet been devised - but it is added that 'Not many of them [hobbits] lived in that part.'

The verse The Road goes ever on and on, now ascribed to Bingo and not to Frodo Took, is still as in the original version (p. 53).(10) A slight difference from FR is present at the first appearance of the Black Rider on the road (old version p. 54): Odo and Frodo ran quickly to the left, and down into a little hollow not far from the road. There they lay flat. Bingo hesitated for a second: curiosity or some other impulse was struggling with his desire to hide. Sam waited for his master to move. The sound of hoofs drew nearer. 'Get down, Sam!' said Bingo, just in time. They threw themselves flat in a patch of long gra.s.s behind a tree that overshadowed the road.(11) In the discussion that followed the departure of the first Black Rider my father retained at this time the old version (p. 54), in which Frodo Took told of his encounter with a Black Rider in the north of the s.h.i.+re: ... I haven't seen one of that Kind in our s.h.i.+re for years.'

'There are Men about, all the same,' said Bingo; 'and I haveheard many reports of strange folk on our borders, and within them, of late. Down in the south s.h.i.+re they have had some trouble with Big People, I am told. But I have heard of nothing like this rider.'

'I have though,' said Frodo, who had listened intently to Bingo's description of the Black Rider. 'I remember now something I had quite forgotten. I was walking away up in the North Moor - you know, right up on the northern borders of the s.h.i.+re - this very summer, when a tall black-cloaked rider met me. He was riding south, and he stopped and spoke, though he did not seem able to speak our language very well; he asked me if I knew whether there were any folk called Baggins in those parts. I thought it very queer at the time; and I had a queer uncomfortable feeling, too. I could not see any face under his hood. I said no, not liking the look of him. As far as I heard, he never found his way to Hobbiton and the Baggins country.'

'Begging your pardon,' put in Sam suddenly, 'but he found his way to Hobbiton all right, him or another like him. Anyway it's from Hobbiton as this here Black Rider comes - and I know where he's going to.'

'What do you mean?' said Bingo, turning sharply. 'Why didn't you speak up before?'

Sam's report of the Gaffer's account to him of the Rider who came to Hobbiton is exactly as in FR, p. 85. Then follows: 'Your father can't be blamed anyway,' said Bingo. 'But I should have taken more care on the road, if you had told me this before. I wish I had waited for Gandalf,' he muttered; 'but perhaps that would have only made matters worse.'

'Then you know or guess something about the rider?' said Frodo, who had caught the muttered words. 'What is he?'

'I don't know, and I would rather not guess,' said Bingo. 'But I don't believe either this rider (or yours, or Sam's - if they are all different) was really one of the Big People, not an ordinary Man, I mean. I wish Gandalf was here; but now the most we can hope is that he will come quick to Bucklebury. Whoever would have expected a quiet walk from Hobbiton to Buckland to turn out so queer. I had no idea that I was letting you folk in for anything dangerous.'

'Dangerous?' said Frodo. 'So you think it is dangerous, do you? You are rather close, aren't you, Uncle Bingo? Never mind - we shall get your secret out of you some time. But if it is dangerous, then I am glad we are with you.'

'Hear, hear!' said Odo. 'But what is the next thing to do? Shall we go on at once, or stay here and have some food?...

My father still retained the development (see pp. 55 - 6 and note 11) that a Black Rider came past, and briefly stopped beside, the great hollow tree in which the hobbits sat, and only changed this story at its end: ... We are probably making a fuss about nothing [said Odo]. This second rider, at any rate, was very likely only a wandering stranger who has got lost; and if he met us, he would just ask us the way to Buckland or Brandywine Bridge, and ride on.'

'What if he stops us and asks if we know where Mr Baggins of Bag-end is?' said Frodo.

'Give him a true answer,' said Bingo. 'Either say: Back in Hobbiton, where there are hundreds; or say Nowhere. For Mr Bingo Baggins has left Bag-end, and not yet found any other home. Indeed I think he has vanished; here and now I become Mr Hill of Faraway.'

An alternative version is provided: 'What if he stops us and asks if we know where Mr Baggins of Bag-end is? ' said Frodo.

'Tell him that he has vanished! ' said Odo. 'After all one Baggins of Bag-end has vanished, and how should we know that it is not old Bilbo that he wants to pay a belated call on? Bilbo made some queer friends in his travels, by his own account.'

Bingo looked quickly at Odo. 'That is an idea,' he said. 'But I hope we shall not be asked that question; and if we are, I have a feeling that silence will be the best answer. Now let us get on. I am glad the road is winding.'

This entire element was removed in FR (p. 86).

When the singing of the Elves is heard (old version p. 58) Bingo still attributes to Bilbo his knowledge that there were sometimes Elves in the Woody End (cf. the pa.s.sage in 'Ancient History', p. 253), and he says that they wander into the s.h.i.+re in spring and autumn 'out of their own lands far beyond the river', in FR (p. 88) Frodo knows independently of Bilbo that Elves may be met with in the Woody End, and says that they come 'out of their own lands away beyond the Tower Hills.' The conception of Elvish lands west of the s.h.i.+re was of course fully present at this time: cf. Sam's words about Elves 'going to the harbours, out away West, away beyond the Towers' (p. 254). The hymn to Elbereth has the last emendation needed to bring it to the final form (see p. 59): cold to bright in the second line of the second verse. It is still said to be sung 'in the secret elf-tongue'. At its end, Bingo speaks of the High Elves as Frodo does in FR (p. 89), though without saying 'They spoke the name of Elbereth! ' - thus it is not explained how he knows they are High Elves.(12) Odo's unfortunate remark ('I suppose we shall get a really good bed and supper?') is retained, and Bingo's greeting that Bilbo had taught him, 'The stars s.h.i.+ne on the hour of our meeting', remains only in translation. Gildor in his reply refers to Bingo's being 'a scholar in the elf- tongue', changed from 'the elf-latin' (p. 60), where FR has 'the Ancient Tongue'. It is still the Moon, and not the autumn stars, that is seen in the sky; and the different recollections by the hobbits of the meal eaten with the Elves are retained from the old text, with the addition of the pa.s.sage about Sam (FR p. 90).

From this point my father abandoned the old typescript, and though returning to it just at the end continued the text in ma.n.u.script. The beginning of Bingo's conversation with Gildor is extant in three forms. All three begin as in FR, p. 92 ('They spoke of many things, old and new'), but in the first Gildor goes on from 'The secret will not reach the Enemy from us' with 'But why did you not go before?' - the first thing that he says to Bingo in the original version ('Why did you choose this moment to set out?', p. 62). Bingo replies with a very brief reference to his divided mind about leaving the s.h.i.+re, and then Gildor explains him to himself: 'That I can understand,' said Gildor. 'Half your heart wished to go, but the other half held you back; for its home was in the s.h.i.+re, and its delight in bed and board and the voices of friends, and in the changing of the gentle seasons among the fields and trees. But since you are a hobbit that half is the stronger, as it was even in Bilbo. What has made it surrender?'

'Yes, I am an ordinary hobbit, and so I always shall be, I imagine,' said Bingo. 'But a most un-hobbitlike fate has been laid upon me.'

'Then you are not an ordinary hobbit,' said Gildor, 'for otherwise that could not be so. But the half that is plain hobbit will suffer much I fear from being forced to follow the other half which is worthy of the strange fate, until it too becomes worthy (and yet remains hobbit). For that must be the purpose of your fate, or the purpose of that part of your fate which concerns you yourself. The hobbit half that loves the s.h.i.+re is not to be despised but it has to be trained, and to rediscover the changing seasons and voices of friends when they have been lost.'

Here the text ends. The second of these abandoned versions is nearer to FR, but has Gildor speak severely about Bingo's lateness on the road: 'Has Gandalf told you nothing?'

'Nothing about such creatures.'

'Is it not by his advice, then, that you have left your home? Did he not even urge you to make haste? '

'Yes. He wished me to go sooner in the year. He said that delay might prove dangerous; and I begin to fear that it has.'

'Why did you not go before?'

Bingo then speaks about his two 'halves', though without comment, moves into an explanation of why he lingered till autumn, and speaks of his dismay at the danger that is already threatening.

The third text is very close to and quite largely word for word the same as the final form until near the end of the conversation, where the matter though essentially the same is somewhat differently arranged. Gildor's advice about taking companions is more explicit than in FR ('Take such friends as are trusty and willing', p. 94): here he says 'If there are any whom you can wholly trust, and who are willing to share your peril, take them with you.' He is referring to Bingo's present companions; for he goes on (much as in the old version, p. 64): 'They will protect you. I think it likely that your three companions have already helped you to escape: the Riders did not know that they were with you, and their presence has for the time being confused the scent.' But at the very end there occurs this pa.s.sage: ... In this meeting there may be more than chance; but the purpose is not clear to me, and I fear to say too much. But' - and he paused and looked intently at Bingo - 'have you perhaps Bilbo's ring with you?'

'Yes, I have,' said Bingo, taken aback.

'Then I will add this last word. If a Rider approaches or pursues you hard - do not use the ring to escape from his search. I guess that the ring will help him more than you.'

'More mysteries!' said Bingo. 'How can a ring that makes me invisible help a Black Rider to find me?'

'I will answer only this,' said Gildor: 'the ring came in the beginning from the Enemy, and was not made to delude his servants.'

'But Bilbo used his ring to escape from goblins, and evil creatures,' said Bingo.

'Black Riders are not goblins,' said the Elf. 'Ask no more of me. But my heart forebodes that ere all is ended you Bingo son of Drogo will know more of these fell things than Gildor Inglorion. May Elbereth protect you! '

'You are far worse than Gandalf,' cried Bingo; 'and I am now more completely terrified than I have ever been in my life. But I am deeply grateful to you.'

The end of the chapter is virtually the same in the old version, the present text, and FR; but now Gildor adds the salutation: 'and may the stars s.h.i.+ne upon the end of your road.'

NOTES.

1. The different arrangement of the opening of the chapter introduces Bingo's intention to go and live in Buckland before it actually arose as a result of his conversation with Gandalf. It may be that my father afterwards reversed the order of these narrative elements in order to avoid this.

2. This pa.s.sage, from 'and actually did ask his Brandybuck cousins', was struck out in pencil and replaced by the following: With the help of his Brandybuck cousin Merry he chose and bought a little house [added subsequently: at Crickhollow] in the country behind Bucklebury, and began to make preparations for a removal.

3. Gandalf's words were changed in pencil thus: 'I shall want to see you before you set out, Bingo,' he said, as he took his leave one wet dark evening in May. 'I may have news, and useful information about the Road.' Bingo was not clear whether Gandalf intended to go with him to Rivendell or not.

4. There is no new list of presents in this variant: my father contented himself with a reference to the latest version of 'A Long-expected party', which was to be 'suitably emended' (p. 247, note 21).

5. The Sackville-Bagginses' son now first appears. It is said in both variants that Lobelia 'and her pimply son Cosimo (and his overshadowed wife Miranda) lived at Bag-end for a long while afterwards / for many a year after.' Lobelia was in both versions 92 years old at this time, and had had to wait seventy-seven years (as in FR) for Bag-end, which makes her a grasping fifteen year old when Bilbo came back at the end of The Hobbit to find her measuring his rooms; in FR she was a hundred years old, and in the second of these variant versions '92' is changed to '102'. In FR her son is 'sandy-haired Lotho', and no wife is named.

6. The corrections are in fact in blue, black, and red inks. I have said earlier (p. 48 and note 1) that those in black ink belong to a very early stage of revision. Those in blue and red were made at the present stage; but in his note on the subject my father no doubt meant by 'corrections in black' to include all those that were not in red.

7. I give an example, however, to show the nature of the procedure (original version p. 51): 'The wind's in the West,' said Odo. 'If we go down the other side of this hill we are climbing, we ought to find a spot fairly dry and sheltered.'

The red ink corrections are given here in italics; other changes from the original text are in black (actually blue, see note 6) ink.

'The wind's in the West,' said Sam. 'If we go down the other side of this hill we are climbing, we shall find a spot that is sheltered and snug enough, sir. There is a dry fir-wood just ahead, if I remember rightly.' Sam knew the land well within about twenty miles of Hobbiton, but that was the limit of his geography.

See also note 11.