The Treason of Isengard (47 page)

Breaking off here, my father began once more: 'In Ancient Days the Great Enemy and Sauron his servant came'; and at this point, I think, he definitively abandoned the conception.

These extraordinary vestiges show him revolving the mode by which he should withdraw the Three Rings of the Elves from inherent evil and derivation from the Enemy. For a fleeting moment their making was set in the remote ages of Valinor and attributed to Feanor, though inspired by Morgoth: cf. the Quenta Silmarillion, V.228, $49,

'Most fair of all was Morgoth to the Elves, and he aided them in many works, if they would let him.... the Gnomes took delight in the many things of hidden knowledge that he could reveal to them.' And Morgoth stole the Rings of Feanor, as he stole the Silmarils.

The fair copy manuscript of 'Chapter XVIII, Lothlorien' (p. 235) continued on without break, following the primary draft, into the account of the arrival of the Company in Caras Galadon and the story of Galadriel's Mirror. My father's decision to divide the long chapter into two seems however to have been made at the point where Galadriel silently searched the minds of each member of the Company in turn;(29) and it had certainly been taken by an early stage in the writing of 'Farewell to Lorien' (p. 272). The new chapter (XIX) was given the title 'Galadriel', which I have adopted here; and it advances in a single stride almost to the text of FR for most of its length, though there remain some notable passages in which the final form in 'The Mirror of Galadriel' was not achieved.

When the Company came to the city of the Galadrim, Haldir said:

'Welcome to Caras Galadon, the city of Angle' (cf. p. 245 and note 1), which was changed in the act of writing to 'Welcome to Caras Galadon, the city of Lothlorien'; continuing 'where dwell the Lord Arafain and Galadriel the Lady of the Elves'. Since the present text is self-evidently the successor of the text (written over the original draft, see p. 245 and note 3) in which Keleborn and Galadriel first appear, Arafain must have been a fleeting substitution for Keleborn, which was immediately restored, and is the name as written throughout the remainder of the manuscript. The journey round the circuit of the walls of Caras Galadon seems to have been differently conceived from its representation in the earliest version, to judge by the little sketch inserted into the manuscript (see note 2), from which it appears that the Company, coming from the north, would pass down the western side - as they did in FR (p. 368). Here, on the other hand, the city climbed 'like a green cloud upon their right', and the gates of the city

'faced eastward'.

Both Galadriel and Keleborn still have long white hair (pp. 233, 246), though this was early changed to make Galadriel's hair golden.

As in the rewritten portion of the first draft, 'Aragorn' is greeted by Keleborn as 'Ingold, son of Ingrim' (p. 246 and note 6), and Ingold is his name in the text as written at subsequent occurrences in the chapter.(30) Keleborn speaks the same words to him as in the first draft:

'Your name was known to me before, though never yet in all your wanderings have you sought my house'; and no greeting to Legolas is yet reported, as it is in FR, where he is named 'son of Thranduil'.

In Keleborn's opening words to the Company he says here: 'Your number should be nine: so said the messages. Can we have mistaken them? They were faint and hard to read, for Elrond is far away, and darkness gathers between us: even in this year it has grown deeper.'

Galadriel then intervenes: 'Nay, there was no mistake...' (see note 7).

But most notably, it is here that the history and significance of the Balrog of Moria first appears (see pp. 185-6, and p. 247 and note 11).

The passage in the present version is as follows:

Ingold then recounted all that had happened upon the pass of Caradras, and in the days that followed; and he spoke of Balin and his book, and the fight in the Chamber of Mazarbul, and the fire, and the narrow bridge, and the coming of the Balrog.

'At least, that name did Legolas give to it,' said Ingold. 'I do not know what it was, save that it was both dark and fiery, and was terrible and strong.'

'It was a Balrog,' said Legolas: 'of all elf-banes the most deadly, save the One who sits in the Dark Tower.'

'A Balrog!' said Keleborn. 'Your news becomes ever more grievous. Not since the Days of Flight have I heard that one of those fell things was loose. That one slept beneath Caradras we feared. The Dwarves have never told me the tale of those days, yet we believe that it was a Balrog that they aroused long ago when they probed too deep beneath the mountains.'

'Indeed I saw upon the bridge that which haunts our darkest dreams, I saw Durin's Bane,' said Gimli in a low voice, and terror was in his eyes.

'Alas! ' said Keleborn. 'Had I known that the Dwarves had stirred up this evil in Moria again, I would have forbidden you to pass the northern borders, you and all that went with you....'

The remainder of this passage is virtually as in FR (p. 371). -

Galadriel's words following 'But we will not here speak more openly of it' were at first retained exactly from the first draft (pp. 247 - 8), but were changed immediately to read thus:

'... The Lord and Lady of the Galadrim are accounted wise beyond the measure even of the Elves of Middle-earth, and of all who have not passed beyond the Seas. For we have dwelt here since the mountains were reared and the sun was young. Was it not I that summoned the White Council? And if my designs had not gone amiss, it would have been governed by Gandalf the Grey; and then mayhap things would have gone otherwise. But even now there is hope left....'(31)

The account of the thoughts and sensations of the members of the Company as Galadriel looked at each in turn at first followed closely the text of the original draft (p. 248), but this was changed, probably at once, to the form in FR (pp. 372 - 3), with however these differences: whereas in the first version 'none blenched' beneath her gaze, and in FR 'none save Legolas and Aragorn could long endure her glance', here 'none of them could long endure her glance' (changed subsequently to 'none of the hobbits'); and their feelings are thus described: 'It seemed that each of them had had a similar experience, and had felt that he was offered a choice between a shadow full of fear and something he greatly desired, that lay clear before his mind lit with an alluring light.' Boromir's remarks on the subject and Ingold's reply here run:

'To me it seemed exceedingly strange,' said Boromir, 'and I do not feel too sure of this elvish lady. Maybe it was only a test, and she sought to read our thoughts for her amusement; but almost I should have said that she was tempting us, and offering us what she had the power to give. It need not be said that I refused to listen, since the gift was not offered to all alike. The Men of Minas-Tirith at least are true to their friends.' But what he thought the Lady had offered him Boromir did not tell.

'Well, whatever you may think of the Lady,' said Ingold, 'she was a friend of Gandalf, it seems. Though this was one of his secrets that he did not tell me. Tonight I shall sleep without fear for the first time since we left Rivendell...'

Nothing is said yet of Frodo's experience.(32)

A curious detail arises here, in that in the conversation of the Company in their pavilion near the fountain, before they began to discuss the encounter with Galadriel, 'they talked of their night before in the tree-tops'. At this stage in the evolution of the narrative they met the northbound Elves at Cerin Amroth, and had their blindfolds removed, on the same day as they left Nimrodel (see pp. 233, 235); the whole journey to Caras Galadon thus took a single day, and so it was indeed 'the night before' that they passed in the tree-tops. In FR (p.

364) the journey was extended, and they passed the first night after leaving Nimrodel in the woods: 'Then they rested and slept without fear upon the ground; for their guides would not permit them to unbind their eyes, and they could not climb.' In the light of this, the passage in FR (pp. 372 - 3) required revision that it did not receive: the words 'the travellers talked of their night before in the tree-tops'

survive from the present version, as does Aragorn's 'But tonight I shall sleep without fear for the first time since I left Rivendell.'

The remainder of the chapter in this manuscript is very close indeed to FR. The Company 'remained many days in Lothlorien, so far as they could tell or remember', where FR has 'some days'; but the meeting with Galadriel was now on the last evening spent there, not on the evening of the third day (p. 251).(33) At first my father followed the original draft of Galadriel's reply to Frodo's questions 'What shall we look for, and what shall we see?' (ibid.), then changed it to read:

'None can tell, who do not know fully the mind of the beholder. The Mirror will show things that were, and things that are, and things that yet may be. But which it is that he sees, even the wisest cannot always tell. Do you wish to look?' This was further developed to the text of FR in an inserted rider that I think belongs to the time of the writing of the manuscript.

On the back of this inserted page is the following, struck out: In Ancient Days Sauron the Great contrived many things of wonder. For a time his purpose was not turned wholly to evil, or was concealed; and he went much among the Elves of Middle-earth and knew their secret counsels; and they learned many things of him, for his knowledge was very great. In those days the Rings of Power were made by elven-smiths, but Sauron was present at their making: his was the thought and theirs the skill; for these Rings (he said) would give the Elves of Middle-earth power and wisdom like that of the Elves of the West.

[Struck out as soon as written: They made many rings, but One and Three and Seven and Nine were rings of special potency.

The One only did Sauron take as his reward]; but he cheated them. [Struck out as soon as written: For knowing the secret of the rings he] The Elves made many rings at his bidding: Three, Seven and Nine of special potency, and others of lesser virtue.

But knowing the secret of their making, secretly Sauron made One Ring, the Ruling Ring that governed all the rest, and their power was bound up with it, to last only so long as it too should last. And as soon as he had made it and set it upon his hand, the Elves found that he was master of all that they had wrought; and they were filled with fear and anger. Then Sauron sought to seize all the Rings, for he saw that the Elves would not lightly submit to him. But the Elves fled and hid themselves, and the Three Rings they saved; and these Sauron could not find because the Elves concealed them, and never again used them while Sauron's mastery endured. War and enmity has never ceased between Sauron and the Elves since those days.

It seems to have been on this page (in view of the rejected words

'The One only did Sauron take as his reward') that the final conception of the relation of the Rings of Power to Sauron emerged, at least in this essential: the Rings of Power were made by the Elven-smiths under the guidance of Sauron, but he made the One in secret to govern all the rest. (This idea had indeed been approached in one of the passages given on p. 255, but there it had been Feanor himself who made the Rings of Power, and Morgoth who made the Ruling Ring in secret.) It is not said in the passage just cited that Sauron had no part in the making of the Three, which were unsullied by his hand, although this is very clearly implied in the original draft of Galadriel's refusal of Frodo's offer of the One (p. 254).

As with the earlier passages on this subject, I do not think it was written for inclusion in 'Galadriel', but its association with this chapter is again not accidental: for here the questions of the relation of the Three to the One, and the nature of the Three, were at last -

through the showing forth of the Ring of Earth on Galadriel's finger -

brought to the point where they must necessarily be answered.

Ultimately, this passage foreshadows that in Of the Rings of Power in The Silmarillion (pp. 287 - 8); my father at this stage probably intended it for 'The Council of Elrond' (cf. p. 255).

Sam's visions in the Mirror, Galadriel's response to his outburst, and Frodo's visions of the wizard and of Bilbo proceed almost word for word as in FR; but the further scenes that appeared to Frodo follow the draft given in note 21, without the mysterious 'vast figure of a man' leaning on a tree. Gollum is no longer seen (p. 252); and the vision of the Eye reaches the form in FR, as does all that follows, with these differences. The white stone in Galadriel's ring is not mentioned; and as in the original text she still calls it 'the Ring of Earth.' In response to Frodo's offer to her of the One Ring Galadriel laughed

'with a sudden clear laugh of pure merriment': 'pure' was struck out early, and afterwards 'of merriment'. And as my father first wrote her words she said: 'And now at last it comes, the final probe.'(34) A further text of this chapter may be mentioned here. This is an unfinished typescript of the fair copy manuscript just described. Some early emendations made to the manuscript were taken up, but there is no variation whatsoever in the phrasing (always a clear sign that a text was not made by my father). I have noticed (p. 256 and note 30) that in the manuscript Aragorn was 'Ingold' throughout, changed at one occurrence to 'Aragorn' and at another to 'Elfstone', but at the other three left unchanged. The typescript has 'Ingold' at all occurrences except at that where in the manuscript the name was changed to