The Treason of Isengard (44 page)

For a previous reference to the 'Common Speech' see p. 223; now it is further said that the Common Speech was the tongue of

'the western elves'.

27. The words by the Dimrill Stair still refer to the pass (later the Redhorn Pass or Redhorn Gate): see p. 164. FR has here (p. 357) up the Dimrill Stair.

28. In a rejected draft for this passage, in content otherwise very much the same as that given, none of the three Elves of Lorien speak any language but their own, and Legolas has to translate.

The three Elves are here called Rhimbron, [Rhimlath >] Rhimdir, and Haldir: when this last name replaced Hathaldir it was thus a reversion. - Hathaldir the Young was the name of one of Barahir's companions on Dorthonion (V.282).

29. This passage was enclosed in square brackets in the manuscript, and subsequently struck out. It is explicit later (p. 247) that the loss of Gandalf was not spoken of at this time.

30. The name Nimrodel now appears in the text as written; see notes 17 and 19.

31. These two sentences are not marked off in any way in the manuscript, but were nonetheless obviously rejected at once. In the narrative that follows Hathaldir did not climb up to the flet until Gollum had disappeared (as in FR, p. 360); Frodo's peering over the edge is repeated; and 'Nonetheless the sense of immediate danger did not leave him' must follow on the fading of Sting at the end of the previous paragraph.

32. 'They went back to the old path on the west side of the Silverlode', FR p. 360 (second edition: 'to the path that still went on along the west side of the Silverlode'). Since the Nimrodel flowed in from the right, and they had to cross it, the road or path from Moria was on the right (or west) of the Blackroot (Silverlode), which was on their left, as is expressly stated (see note 17); the word east here, though perfectly clear, is therefore a mere slip (cf. notes 5 and 9).

33. Earlier (p. 230) Rhimbron has remained at the flet, and the Company is guided by Hathaldir alone; now Rhimbron, like Rumil in FR (pp. 360 - 1), comes with Hathaldir as far as the crossing of the river and then returns. It is seen from the manuscript that my father perceived here the need for Rhimbron's presence at the crossing.

34. A rejected form here was Nelennas; cf. Bennas 'Angle' in note 16, and stem N E L 'three' in the Etymologies, V.376. On Nelennas see note 39.

35. Contrast Hathaldir's words earlier (p. 227): 'We had not heard of hobbits before' (i.e. before they received tidings of the Company from the messengers of Elrond). At the corresponding point in FR

(p. 357) Haldir said: 'We had not heard of - hobbits, of halflings, for many a long year, and did not know that any yet dwelt in Middle-earth.'

36. An isolated passage, dashed down on a sheet of the same paper as that used throughout and clearly belonging to the same time, shows the first beginning of the passage in FR p. 364, 'As soon as he set foot upon the far bank of Silverlode a strange feeling had come upon him...':

As soon as they pass Silverlode into Angle Frodo has a curious sense of walking in an older world- unshadowed. Even though

'wolves howled on the wood's border' they had not entered.

Evil had been heard of, Orcs had even set foot in the woods, but it had not yet stained or dimmed the air. There was some secret power of cleanness and beauty in Lorien. It was winter, but nothing was dead, only in a phase of beauty. He saw never a broken twig or disease or fungus. The fallen leaves faded to silver and there was no smell of decay.

A part of this appears a little later in FR, p. 365, where however the 'undecaying' nature of Lothlorien is expressed in terms less immediate: 'In winter here no heart could mourn for summer or for spring. No blemish or sickness or deformity could be seen in anything that grew upon the earth.' Cf. note 46.

Silverlode has here replaced Blackroot: see p. 235. On the same page as this passage are the following notes:

Transpose names Blackroot and Silverlode. Silverlode dwarfish Kibilnala elvish Celeb(rind)rath.

The meaning of this is seen from Boromir's words in the new version of 'Moria (i)', p. 177: 'Or we could go on far into the South and come at length round the Black Mountains, and crossing the rivers Isen and Silverlode enter Ond from the regions nigh the sea.' The two river-names being transposed, Silverlode in this speech of Boromir's in the earlier chapter was changed at this time to Blackroot (p. 187 note 1); and in the new version of 'The Ring Goes South' the Dwarvish name of the northern river was changed from Buzundush to Kibil-nala (p. 167 and note 22).

In the original text of 'The Ring Goes South' occurs by later substitution the form Celebrin (VI.434 note 15). For rath in Celeb(rind)rath (and also rant in the later name Celebrant) see the Etymologies, V.383, stem R A T.

37. The following passage was rewritten several times. In the original form this dialogue occurs:

'What is this?' said one of the Elves, looking in wonder at Legolas. 'By his raiment of green and brown [?he is an] Elf of the North. Since when have we taken our kindred prisoner, Hathaldir? '

'I am not a prisoner,' said Legolas. 'I am only showing the dwarf how to walk straight without the help of eyes.'

Later, a passage was inserted making the blindfold march longer: All that day they marched on by gentle stages. Frodo could hear the wind rustling in the leaves and the river away to the right murmuring at times. He had felt the sun on his face when they passed across a glade, as he guessed. After a rest and food at noon, they went on again, turning it seemed away from the river. After a little while they heard voices about them. A great company of elves had come up silently, and were now speaking to Hathaldir.

In the corresponding passage in FR (p. 364) they had passed a day and a night blindfold, and it was at noon on the second day that they met the Elves coming from the south and were released from their blindfolds.

38. Dol Dugol occurs in 'Moria (i)', p. 178.

39. 'They journey to Nelennas': at an earlier occurrence of Nelennas (see p. 231 and note 34) it was changed to Nelen, 'the Gore'.

Since they are now deep in 'the Gore', Nelennas perhaps refers here to the city (Caras Galadon); see p. 261 note 1.

40. It is notable that the Lady of Lothlorien at first had white hair; this was still the case in the first actual narratives of the sojourn of the Company in Caras Galadon (pp. 246, 256).

41. For explanation of these references see p. 248 and note 15.

42. The actual text here is extremely confused, and I set it out as a characteristic, if extreme, example of my father's way of writing .

when actually composing new narrative (nothing is struck out except as indicated):

... the grass was studded with small golden [struck out: flowers] starshaped and slanting [?leaved] and starshaped and among them on slender nodding on slender stalks flowers of a green so pale...

43. In the Etymologies, V.365, stem KOR, both coron and cerin appear as Noldorin words, the latter being the equivalent of Quenya korin 'circular enclosure' (cf. the korin of elms in which Meril-i-Turinqi dwelt in The Book of Lost Tales, where the word is defined (1.16) as 'a great circular hedge, be it of stone or of thorn or even of trees, that encloses a green sward'). But the meaning of cerin in Cerin Amroth is certainly 'mound', and indeed long afterwards my father translated the word as 'circular mound or artificial hill'. - Amroth has now replaced Ammalas in the text as written; see note 21.

44. This is the first appearance of the name elanor, which replaced at the time of writing another name, yri (see note 45).

45. After 'the houses of the Galadrim' my father wrote Bair am Yru (see note 44), but struck it out.

46. A page inserted into the manuscript (but obviously closely associated in time with the surrounding text) gives the primitive drafting for the passage in FR p. 365 beginning 'The others cast themselves down upon the fragrant grass' and continuing to Sam's words about the 'elvishness' of Lorien. The latter part of this is of an extreme roughness, but I give the rider in full as a further exemplification of the actual nature of much preliminary drafting:

The others cast themselves down on the fragrant grass, but Frodo stood for a while lost in wonder. Again it seemed to him as if he had stepped through a high window that looked on a vanished world. It was a winter that did not mourn for summer or for spring, but reigned in its own season beautiful and eternal and perennial. He saw no sign of blemish or disease, sickness or deformity, in anything that grew upon the earth, nor did he see any such thing in [Nelen o] the heart of Lorien.

Sam too stood by him with a puzzled expression rubbing his eyes as if he was not sure that he was awake. 'It's sunlight and bright day,' he muttered. 'I thought Elves were all for moon and stars, but this is more Elvish than anything in any tale.'

and caught his breath for the sight was fair in itself but it had a quality different to any that he felt before [variant: had beside a beauty that the common speech could not name]. The shapes of all that he saw All that he saw was shapely but its shapes seemed at once clearcut and as if it had been but newly conceived and drawn with swift skill swift and [?living] and ancient as if [it] had endured for ever. The hues were green, gold and blue white but fresh as if he but that moment perceived them and gave them names.

47. Thus the entire passage (FR pp. 352 - 3) in which Boromir demurs at entering the Golden Wood and is rebuked by Aragorn is absent, as also is the conclusion of the chapter in FR, from 'At the hill's foot Frodo found Aragorn, standing still and silent...' (pp.

366-7).

This is a convenient point to mention a small textual corrup-tion in the published form of this chapter (FR p. 359). In the fair copy manuscript Pippin says: 'I hope, if I do get to sleep in this bird-loft, that I shan't roll off'; but in the typescript that followed, not made by my father, bird-loft became bed-loft, and so remains.

48. A few other details worth recording are collected here: wood-elves (p. 222) remains, where FR (p. 353) has Silvan Elves.

the common speech (p. 223) remains, where FR (p. 353) has the Westron Speech.

in ordinary speech (p. 227) becomes in ordinary language, changed later to in the Common Tongue (in the Common Language FR p. 357).

Hathaldir's words about hobbits (p. 227) are scarcely changed: We had not heard of - hobbits before, and never until now have we seen one; see note 35.

and that even if u e did pass into the western lands the shores of the sea are no longer secure in the original draft (p. 232) becomes and the mouths of the Great River are held by the Enemy (are watched by the Enemy, FR p. 363).

there are still havens to be found, far north and west, beyond the land of the half-high (cf. p. 232 and note 35), where FR

(p. 363) has havens of the High Elves... beyond the land of the Halfings.

near Havens of Escape (p. 232) was at first retained, but changed at once to near the shores of the Sea, as in FR.

49. 'Narthas or the Gore as you would say, for it is the land that lies like a spear-head': the word for (preserved in FR p. 361) is used because gore, Old English gara (in modern use meaning a wedge-shaped piece of cloth, but in Old English an angular point of land) was related to gar 'spear', the connection lying in the shape of the spear-head.

50. Later, Narthas and Nelen-Lorien were changed to the Naith (of Lorien), though in 'the Angle, Nelen, where we dwell' Nelen was left to stand. - Dol Dugol, retained from the original draft, with the reference to the Necromancer (p. 234), was later changed to Dol Dughul.

51. This is to be connnected with the interruption in the writing of the fair copy manuscript (note 14).

52. In fact, there is a good deal of variation, since when making these name-changes my father worked through the manuscripts rapidly and missed occurrences. Thus in this manuscript, in addition to Aragorn > Ingold > Elfstone and Elfstone > Ingold > Elfstone, there is found also: Aragorn > Elfstone; Elfstone > Ingold; Elfstone > Ingold > Aragorn; Elfstone > Aragorn. This apparently patternless confusion can be explained: see pp.

277 - 8. The name Ingold for Aragorn has been met before, in later emendation to the text of Gandalf s letter at Bree (p. 80 and note 17).

XIII.

GALAD RIEL.

I have divided the draft manuscript of the 'Lothlorien' story into two parts, although at this stage my father continued without break to the end of FR Book II Chapter 7, 'The Mirror of Galadriel'; and I return now to the point where I left it on p. 234. From the coming of the Company to Cerin Amroth the draft is in thick, soft pencil, and very difficult.

The sun had sunk behind the mountains, and the shadows were falling in the wood, when they went on again. Now their paths went deep into dense wood where already a grey dusk had gathered. It was nearly night under the trees when they came out suddenly under a pale evening sky pierced by a few early stars. There was a wide treeless space running in a vast circle before them. Beyond that was a deep grass-clad dike, and a high green wall beyond. [? Rising] ground inside the circle was