The Treason of Isengard (40 page)

A few brief notes about the sojourn of the Company in Lothlorien begin the long preparatory synopsis given in the last chapter (p. 207).

There is there no suggestion of Galadriel and Celeborn; and it is 'at Angle', between Blackroot and Anduin, that Boromir accosts Frodo and attempts to take the Ring. The first march from Moria is more fully sketched in the following notes.

They pass into Dimrill Dale. It is a golden afternoon, but dark in the Dale.

Mirrormere. Smooth sward. Deep blue like night sky.

[Notes scribbled in later: Orcs won't come out by day. Frodo's wounds dressed by Trotter, so they discover the mithril-mail.]

No time to stay. Gimli's regret. See the black springs of Morthond;(1) follow it.

Make for Lothlorien. Legolas' description. The wood is in winter but still bears leaves that have turned golden. They do not fall till spring, when the green comes, and great yellow flowers. It was a garden of the Wood-elves long ago - before the dwarves disturbed the evils beneath the mountains, he said (Gimli does not like that).

They lived in houses in trees before the darkening world drove them underground.(2)

In dusk Frodo again hears feet but cannot see anything following.

They march on into the dusk.

They take refuge in trees, and see Orcs march by beneath.

Frodo long after sees a sloping back[ed] figure moving swiftly. It sniffs under the tree, stares up, and then disappears.

The passage of the Orcs beneath, and the coming of Gollum, were first referred to in the outline given on p. 207.

I turn now to the narrative. The chapter is numbered XVIII, and paginated continuously (with one gap), but it has no title. As I have said, I give (so far as possible) the most original form of the text, and do not, as a rule, indicate small subsequent emendations bringing it nearer to FR, though many or all of them may well belong to the same time.

'Alas, I fear we cannot wait here longer!' said Aragorn. He looked towards the mountains, and held up his sword.

'Farewell, Gandalf,' he cried. 'Did I not say to you: if you pass the doors of Moria, beware? I know not what put the words into my mouth, but alas! that I spoke true. No fortune could have been more grievous. What hope have we without you?' He turned to the Company. 'We must do without hope!' he said.

'At least we may yet be avenged. Let us gird ourselves and weep no more. It is better to strike hard than to mourn long! Come!

We have a long road and much to do!'

They rose and looked about them. Northward the Dale ran up into a glen of shadows between two great arms of the mountains, above which three tall white peaks towered.(4) Many torrents fell white over the steep sides into the valley. A mist of foam hung in the air.

To the west [read east](5) the mountains marched to a sudden end, and far lands could be descried beyond them vague and wide. To the south the mountains receded endlessly as far as sight could reach. Less than a mile away, and below them a little (for they stood still on the skirts of the mountains) lay a mere: it was long and oval, shaped like a great spear-head that-thrust up deep into the northern glen. Its southern end was beyond the edge of the shadow, under the sunny sky. But its waters were dark: a deep blue like the night sky seen through a lighted window. Its face was still and unruffled. About it lay a smooth sward shelving on all sides down to its bare unbroken rim.(6)

'There lies Kheledzaram,(7) the Mirror-mere!' said Gimli sadly.

'I hoped to look on it in joy and linger here a while. I remember that he said: "May you have joy of the sight, but whatever you may do I cannot stay." Now it is I that must hasten away, and he that must stay.'

The Company went down the road, fading and broken, but still showing that here a great paved way had once wound up from the lowlands to the gate. It passed hard by the sward of Mirror-mere, and there not far from the road by the brink of the water there stood a single column, now broken at the top.

'That is Durin's Stone,' said Gimli. '[We >] I cannot pass without pausing there a minute, to look upon the wonder of the Dale.'

'Be swift then,' said Trotter, looking back towards the Gate.

'The sun sinks early. Orcs will not come out till it is dusk, but we must be far away ere night comes. The moon will appear for the last time tonight and it will be dark.'

'Come with me, Frodo,' said the dwarf, 'and any else who wish., But only Sam and Legolas followed.(8) He ran down the l

sward and looked at the pillar. The runes upon it were worn away. 'This stone marks the spot where Durin first looked in the Mirror-mere,' said the dwarf. 'Let us look.' They stooped over the water.

For a while they could see nothing. No shadow of themselves fell on the mere. Slowly at the edges they saw the forms of the encircling mountains revealed, mirrored in a profound blue, and amidst it a space of sky. There like jewels in the deep shone glinting stars, though the sunlight was in the sky above. No '

shadow of themselves was seen.

'Fair Kheledzaram,' said Gimli. 'There lies the crown of Durin till he wakes. Farewell.' He bowed and turned away, and hastened back up the sward to the road again.

It wound now quickly down running away southwest [read southeast](9) out from between the arms of the mountains. A little below the Mere they came upon a deep well of dark water almost black; from it a freshet fell over a stone lip and ran gurgling away in a stony channel. 'This is the spring whence the Blackroot rises,' said Gimli. 'Do not drink from it: it is icy cold.'

'Soon,' said Trotter, 'it will become a swift river, fed by many other torrents from [?all the land]. Our road leads beside it. And we must go swifter than it runs. There is our way.' Out on before them they could see the Blackroot winding away in the lower land, until it was lost in a distance that glowed like pale gold on the edge of sight.

'There lie the woods of Lothlorien,' said Trotter. 'Their eaves are yet many miles away (four leagues or more), but we must reach them before night.'

[Now they went on silently](10) for some time, but every step grew more painful for Frodo. In spite of the bright [?winter] sun the air seemed biting after the warm dark of Moria. Sam at [his]

side was also failing. The cut in his arm was paining him.(11) They lagged behind together. Trotter looked back anxiously.

'So much has happened,' he said, 'that I had forgotten you, Frodo, and Sam. I am sorry: you are both hurt, and we have done nothing to ease you or to find out how serious are your hurts. What shall we do? There is nothing we can do in this empty region, with the gate and our foes so near behind.'

'How far is there still to go?' said Frodo.

They have a first meal 2 1/2 hours after noon. Beside a beautiful little fall in the Blackroot, where another torrent coming from west flowed out and they both fell over some green stone. Trotter dresses Sam's wound. 'The cut is looking ill - but luckily is not (as orc-cuts may be) poisoned.' Trotter bathes it in the water and lays a leaf of athelas against it.

Then he turns attention to Frodo. Reluctantly he strips off his jacket and tunic, and suddenly the mithril-corslet shines and flashes in the sun. Trotter strips it from him and holds it up.

Description of its radiance.

'This is a pretty hobbit-skin!' said Trotter. 'If it were known they wore such a hide, all the hunters of the world would be crowding to the Shire.'

'And all the hunters of the world [would] shoot in vain,' said Gimli, staring in amazement. 'Bilbo saved your life - it was a generous and timely gift.'

There was a great dark bruise on Frodo's side and breast, the rings driven through shirt into flesh... His left side also was bruised against the wall.

'Nothing is broken,' said Trotter.

The text now becomes for a space very ragged, the story being in its most primitive form of composition, and soon passes into a rough sketch of the narrative to come.

Kindle fire warm water bathed in athelas. Pads fastened under the mail, which is put on again.

They hurry on again. Sun sinks behind mountains. Shadows creep out down mountain side and over the land. Dusk is about them, but there is a glow on the land to the East.... pale yellow in dusk.(12) They have come 12-14 miles from Gate and are nearly done.

Legolas describes Lothlorien.

Near forest gate another small river comes in from right (west) across the path. The bridge is no longer there. They wade across and halt on other side with water as defence. Climb trees.

Orcs ... at night. But a pleasant [? adventure] with Wood-elves next day. They are escorted to Wood-elves' houses in trees in angle of Blackroot and Anduin by light marches (no orc comes). Several (2-3) pleasant days. 40 miles. Sorrow of whole world for news of fall of Gandalf. They are now nearly 100 leagues (300 miles) south of Rivendell.(13)

An isolated page of very rough drafting takes up with Frodo's reply to Gimli's question (' "What is it?" said the dwarf', FR p. 351):

'I don't know,' said Frodo. 'I thought I heard feet, and I thought I saw light - like eyes. I have done so often since we entered Moria.'

Gimli paused and stooped to the ground. 'I can hear nothing but the night-speech of plant and stone,' he said. 'Come, let us hurry!

The others are out of sight already.'

The night wind blew chill up the valley to meet them. They passed many scattered trees, tall with pale stems. In front a great shadow loomed, and the endless rustle of leaves like poplars in the breeze.

'Lothlorien,' said Legolas. 'Lothlorien. We are come to the

[?gates] of the golden wood. Alas that it is winter.'

Here the formed narrative takes up again. (14)

Under the night the trees stood tall before them, arched over the stream and road that ran suddenly beneath their spreading boughs. In the dim light of the stars their stems were grey, and their quivering leaves a hint of fallow gold.

'Lothlorien!' said Aragorn. 'Glad I am to hear the leaves! We are barely five leagues from the Gates, but we can go no further.

Let us hope that there is some virtue of the Elves that will protect us this night - if Elves indeed dwell here still in the darkening world.'(15)

'It is long since any of my folk returned hither,' said Legolas;

'for we dwell now very far away; yet it is told that though some have gone for ever some abide still in Lothlorien, but they dwell deep in the wood many leagues from here.'(16)

'Then we must fend for ourselves tonight,' said Aragorn. 'Let us go on yet a little way until the wood is all about us, and then will turn aside from the road.'

A mile within the wood they came upon another stream flowing down swiftly from the tree-clad slopes that climbed back towards the Mountains. They heard it splashing over a fall away among the shadows on their right. Its dark hurrying waters ran across the path before them and joined the [Blackroot >] Morthond in a swirl of dim pools among the roots of trees.

'Here is the [Taiglin >] Linglor,' said Legolas. 'Of it the wood-elves made many songs, remembering the rainbow upon its singing falls and the golden flowers that floated in its foam.

All is dark now, and the Bridge of Linglor that the elves made is broken down. But it is not deep. Let us wade across. There is healing in its [cold >] cool waters / But I will bathe my feet in it

- for it is said that its waters are healing. On the further bank we can rest, and the sound of running water may bring us sleep.'(17)

They followed the elf, and one by one climbed down the steep bank and bathed their [feet](18) in the stream. For a moment Frodo stood near the bank and let the cold water flow about his tired feet. It was cold but its very touch was clean, and as it mounted to his knees he felt that the stain of travel and the weariness of his limbs was washed away.

When all the Company had crossed they sat and rested and ate a little food, while Legolas told them tales of Lothlorien before the world was grey.

Here there is a space in the manuscript, with the words insert song.

There are many pages of rough working for Legolas' song of Amroth and Nimrodel, leading to a version that (while certainly belonging to this time) is for much of its length very close to the form in FR (pp.

354 - 5). The name of the maiden is Linglorel (once Inglorel), becoming Nimladel, Nimlorel (see note 17), and in the final version found here Nimlothel (corrected to Nimrodel). Her lover was Ammalas (as he appears in the narrative that follows), and the form Amroth can be seen emerging as my father wrote the first line of the ninth verse:

'When Ammalas beheld the shore', with a rejected name Amaldor momentarily appearing before the line became 'When Amroth saw the fading shore'.

Associated with the texts of the song is a version of the words of Legolas that preceded it (FR p. 353):

'I will sing you a song,' he said. 'It is a fair song in the woodland tongue: but this is how it runs in the common speech, as some in Rivendell have turned it.' In a soft voice hardly to be heard amid the rustle of the leaves above he began.

This is apparently the first appearance of the term Common Speech. -

The final version found here is virtually as that in FR through the first six verses (but with the name Nimlothel); then follows: A wind awoke in Northern lands