The Treason of Isengard (42 page)

Suddenly they turned away and a shadowy figure slipped round the trunk and vanished on the further side. Shortly afterwards Hathaldir climbed up.

'There was something in this tree that I have never seen before,' he said. 'Not an orch [sic]. But I did [not] shoot because I was not sure, and we dare not risk battle. It fled as soon as I touched the tree-stem. There was a strong company of orcs.

They crossed the Nimrodel (curse them for defiling our water) and went on - though they seemed to pick up some scent, and halted for a while searching on both sides of the path where you sat last evening. We dare not risk a battle, three against a hundred, and we did not shoot, but Orfin has gone back by secret ways to our folk, and we shall not let them return out of Lorien if we can help it. There will be many elves hidden

[?beside] Nimrodel ere another night is gone. But now we too must take the road as soon as it is light.'

Dawn came pale from the East. As the light grew it filtered through the golden leaves of the mallorn, and chill though the dawn-wind blew it seemed to be sunshine of an early summer morning. The pale blue sky peeped between the moving leaves.

Climbing a slender branch up from the flet Frodo looked out and saw all the valley southward, eastward of the dark shadow of the mountains, lying like a sea of fallow gold tossing gently in the breeze.

[When they had eaten the sweet food of the elves, sparing their own dwindling store,] The morning was still young and cold when / the Company set out again, guided by Hathaldir.

Rhimbron remained on guard on the flet. Frodo looked back and caught a gleam of white among the grey tree-stems.

'Farewell Nimrodel! ' said Legolas. 'Farewell,' said Frodo. It seemed to him that he had never heard a running water so musical: ever changing its note and yet playing ever the same endless music.

They went some way along the path on the east [read west](32) of the Blackroot, but soon Hathaldir turned aside into the trees and halted on the bank under their shadow. 'There is one of my people over there on the other side,' he said, 'though you may not see him. But I see the gleam of his hair in the shadow.' He gave a call like the low whistle of a bird, and from the tree-stems an elf stepped out, clad in grey, but with his hood thrown back.

Skilfully Hathaldir flung over the stream to him a coil of stout grey rope. He caught it and fastened it to a tree-stem near the bank.

'The river has already a strong stream here,' said Hathaldir.

'It is not wide; but it is too deep to wade. And it is very cold. We do not set foot in Morthond unless we are compelled. This is how we cross! Follow me!' Securing his end of the rope to another tree, he stepped onto it and ran lightly across, as if he was on a firm path.

'I can walk this path,' said Legolas, 'but only with care, for we have not this skill in Mirkwood; but the rest cannot. Must they swim?'

'No,' said Hathaldir. 'We will cast two more ropes. Fasten them to the tree man-high and half-high, and then with care they can cross.' The Elves drew the strong grey ropes taut across the stream. Then first Aragorn crossed slowly, holding the upper rope. When it came to the hobbits' turn Pippin went first.

He was light of foot and went across with fair speed, holding only with one hand on the lower rope. Merry trying to rival him slipped for a moment and hung over the water. Sam shuffled across slowly and cautiously behind Frodo, looking down at the dark eddying water below his feet as if it was a chasm of many fathoms deep. Gimli and Boromir came last.

When they had all crossed Rhimbron (33) untied the ends of the ropes and cast two back. Then coiling up the other he returned to Nimrodel to keep watch in his post.

'Now,' said Hathaldir, 'you have entered the Gore, Nelen (34) we call it, which lies in the angle between Blackroot and Anduin the Great River. We do not allow strangers to walk here if we can prevent it, nor to go deep into the angle where [our dwellings are o] we live. As was agreed I shall here blindfold the eyes of Gimli the dwarf; the others shall walk free for a while until we get nearer to our hidden dwellings.'

This was not at all to Gimli's liking. 'The agreement was made without my consent,' he said. 'I will not walk blindfold like a prisoner or traitor. My folk have ever resisted the Enemy, nor had dealings with orcs or any of his servants. Neither have we done harm to the Elves. I am no more likely to betray your secrets than Legolas or any others of the Company.'

'You speak truly, I do not doubt,' said Hathaldir. 'Yet such is our law. I am not master of the law, and cannot set it aside at my own judgement. I have done all that I dared in letting you set foot in [Nelen >] the Gore.'

But Gimli was obstinate. He set his feet firmly apart and laid his hand upon the haft of his axe. 'I will go forward free, or I will go back north alone, though it be to perish in the wilderness,' he said.

'You cannot depart,' said Hathaldir grimly. 'You cannot cross Morthond, and behind you north are hidden defences and guards across the open arms of the Angle between the rivers.

You will be slain before you get nigh them.' The other elf fitted an arrow to his bow as Gimli drew his axe from his belt.

'A plague on dwarves and their stiff necks!' muttered Legolas.

'Come!' said Aragorn. 'If I am to lead the Company you must all do as I bid. We will all be blindfold, even Legolas. That will be best, though it will make the journey slow and dull.'

Gimli laughed suddenly. 'A merry troop of fools we shall look!' he said. 'But I will be content, if only Legolas shares my blindness.'

This was little to Legolas' liking.

'Come!' said Aragorn. 'Let us not cry "plague on your stiff neck" also. But you shall not be our hostage. We will all share the necessity alike.'

'I shall claim full amends for every fall and stubbed toe, if you do not lead us well,' said Gimli as they bound a cloth about his eyes.

'You will not have need,' said Halthadir. 'We shall lead you well, and our paths are smooth and green.'

'Alas! for the folly of these days,' said Legolas in his turn.

'Here all are enemies of the one Enemy, and yet I must walk blind, while the sun is shining in the woodland under leaves of gold!'

'Folly it may seem,' said Hathaldir. 'And in truth in nothing is the evil of the Enemy seen more clear than in the estrangements that divide us all. Yet so little faith and trust is left that we dare not endanger our dwellings. We live now in ever-growing peril, and our hands are more often set to bowstring than to harp. The rivers have long defended us, [but] they are no longer a sure guard. For the Shadow has crept northward all about our land.

Some speak [?already] of departing, yet for that maybe it is already too late. The mountains to the west have an evil name for us. To the east the land is waste. It is rumoured that we cannot with safety go south of the mountains through Rohan, and that even if we did pass into the western lands the shores of the sea are no longer secure. It is still said that there are havens in the north beyond the land of the half-high,(35) but where that lies we do not know.'

'You might at least guess now,' said Pippin. 'The havens lie west of my land, the Shire.'

The elf looked at him with interest. 'Happy folk are hobbits,'

he said, 'to dwell near Havens of Escape. Tell me about them, and what the sea is like, of which we sing, but scarce remember.'

'I do not know,' said Pippin. 'I have never seen it. I have never been out of my land before. And had I known what the world was like outside, I do not think I should have had the heart to leave it.'

'Yes, the word is full of peril, and dark places,' said Hathaldir. 'But still there is much that is very fair, and though love is now mingled with grief it is not the less deep. And some there are among us who sing that the Shadow will draw back again and peace shall be. Yet I do not believe that the world will be again as of old, or the light of the sun as it was before. For the Elves I fear it will mean only a peace in which they may pass to the Sea unhindered and leave the middle-earth for ever. Alas!

for Lothlorien. It would be a life far from the mellyrn. But if there are mallorn-trees beyond the Sea none have reported it.'

As they spoke thus the Company went slowly along paths in the wood. Hathaldir led them and the other elf walked behind.

Even as Hathaldir had said they found the ground beneath their feet smooth and soft, and they walked slowly but without fear of hurt or fall.(36) Before long they met many grey-clad elves going northward to the outposts.(37) They brought news, some of which Legolas interpreted. The orcs had been waylaid, and many destroyed; the remainder had fled westward towards the mountains, and were being pursued as far as the sources of Nimrodel. The elves were hastening now to guard the north borders against any new attack.

I interrupt the text here to introduce a page of fearsomely rough notes which show my father thinking about the further course of the story from approximately this point. They begin with references to Cerin Amroth and to 'a green snowdrop', with the Elvish words nifred and nifredil. It may well be that this is where the name nifredil arose (both nifred 'pallor' and nifredil 'snowdrop' are given under the stem NIK-W in the Etymologies, V.378). Then follows:

News. H[athaldir] says he has spoken much of Elves. What of Men? The message spoke of 9. Gandalf. Consternation at news.

With this cf. p. 227 and note 29. My father was thinking of postponing the revelation of Gandalf's fall to the halt at Cerin Amroth, before he finally decided that it should not be spoken of until they came to Caras Galadon.

There is then a sentence, placed within brackets, which is unhappily

- since it is probably the first reference my father ever made to Galadriel - only in part decipherable: '[?Lord] of Galadrim [?and?a]

Lady and...... [? went] to White Council.' The remaining notes are as follows:

They climb Cerin Amroth. Frodo says [read sees] Anduin far away a glimpse of Dol Dugol.(38) H[athaldir] says it is reoccupied and a cloud lowers there.

They journey to Nelennas.(39)

Lord and Lady clad in white, with u hite hair. Piercing eyes like a lance in starlight.(40) Lord says he knows their quest but won't speak of it.

They speak [of] Gandalf. Song of Elves.

Of the [?harbour] to Legolas and aid to Gimli. Beornings.(41) Leave Lothlorien. Parting of ways at Stonehills.

I return now to the draft text.

'Also,' said Hathaldir, 'they bring me a message from the Lord of the Galadrim. You may all walk free. He has received messages from Elrond, who begs for help and friendship to you each and all.' He removed the bandage from Gimli's eyes. 'Your pardon,' he said bowing. 'But now look on us nonetheless with friendly eyes. Look and be glad, for you are the first dwarf to behold the sun upon the trees of Nelen-Lorien since Durin's day!'

As the bandage dropped from his eyes Frodo looked up. They were standing in an open space. To the left stood a great mound covered with a sward of grass, as green as if it were springtime.

Upon it as a double crown grew two circles of trees: the outer had a bark of snowy white and were leafless but beautiful in their slender and shapely nakedness; the inner were mallorn-trees of great height, still arrayed in gold. High amid their branches was a white flet. At their feet and all about the sides of the hill the grass was studded with small golden starshaped flowers, and among them nodding on slender stalks flowers of a green so pale (42) that it gleamed white against the rich green of the grass. Over all the sky was blue and the sun of afternoon slanted among the tree-stems.

'You are come to Coron [written above: Kerin] Amroth.(43) For this is the mound of Amroth, and here in happier days his house was built. Here bloom the winter flowers in the unfading grass: the yellow elanor (44) and the pale nifredil. Here we will rest a while, and come to the houses of the Galadrim (45) at dusk.

They cast themselves on the soft grass at the mound's foot;(46) but after a while Hathaldir took Frodo and they went to the hill top, and climbed up to the high flet. Frodo looked out East and saw not far away the gleam of the Great River which was the border of Lorien. Beyond the land seemed flat and empty, until in the distance it rose again dark and drear. The sun that lay upon all the lands between seemed not to lie upon it.

'There lies the fastness of Southern Mirkwood,' said Hathaldir. 'For the most part it is a forest of dark pine and close fir -

but amidst it stands the black hill Dol-Dugol, where for long the Necromancer had his [? fort]. We fear it is now rehabited and threatens, for his power is now sevenfold. A dark cloud lies often above it. [?? Fear of the time is] war upon our eastern borders.'

The draft text continues ('The sun had sunk behind the mountains') without a break, whereas in FR a new chapter, 'The Mirror of Galadriel', now begins; and I also pause in the narrative here (it was not long before my father introduced this division). It will be noticed that towards the end of the earliest 'Lothlorien' material given thus far the narrative is less advanced towards the final form, and notably absent is Frodo's sight southward from Cerin Amroth of 'a hill of many mighty trees, or a city of green towers', Caras Galad(h)on (FR p.