The History of Middle Earth: Volume 7 - The Treason of Isengard

by J. R. R. Tolkien; Christopher Tolkien

  The Third Version.

  More is told of this story of 'Tarkil's sires' and Ond in a manuscript written on the same paper, which I give next, and which despite its being so rough and incomplete I will call 'the Third Version'. This text develops Gloin's story, and is followed by the account given by Galdor . of Mirkwood of Gollum's escape, which here first enters.(11) In these parts of the text there is a great advance towards FR (pp. 253 - 5, 268 - 9), where however the ordering of the speeches made at the Council is quite different. Finally we reach the story of the Numeno- rean kingdoms in Middle-earth, still in an extremely primitive form, and written in a fearsome scrawl; most unhappily a portion of this is lost.

  There are a fair number of alterations in pencil, but I think that these belong to much the same time as the writing of the manuscript (which ends in pencil). I take these up silently where they are of slight significance, but in many cases I show them as such in the text.

  Much was said of events in the world outside, especially in the South, and in the wide lands east of the Mountains. Of these things Frodo had already heard many rumours. But the tales of Gloin and of Boromir were new to him, and he listened attentively. It appeared that the hearts of the Dwarves of the Mountain were troubled.

  'It is now many years ago,' said Gloin, 'that a shadow of disquiet fell upon our folk. Whence it came we did not at first know. Whispered words began to be spoken: it was said that we were hemmed in a narrow place, and that greater wealth and splendour were to be found in the wider world. Some spoke of Moria - the mighty works of our fathers of old, that we called in our ancient tongue Khazaddum - and they said that we now had the power and numbers to return and there re-establish our halls in glory and command the lands both West and East of the Mountains. At the last, some score of years ago, Balin departed, though Dain did not give leave willingly, and he took with him Oin and Ori and many of our folk, and they went away south. For a while we heard news, and it seemed good: messages reported that Moria had been re-entered, and great work begun there. Then all fell silent. There was peace under the Mountain again for a space, until rumour of the rings began to be heard.

  'Messages came a year ago from Mordor far away; and they offered us rings of power such as the lord of Mordor could make - on condition of our friendship and aid. And they asked urgently concerning one Bilbo, whom it seemed they had learned was once our friend. They commanded us to obtain from him if we could, willing or unwilling, a certain ring that he had possessed. In exchange for this we were offered three such rings as our fathers had of old. Even for news of where he might be found we were promised lasting friendship and great reward.

  'We knew well that the friendship of such messages was feigned and concealed a threat, for by that time many rumours of evil also reached us concerning Mordor. We have returned yet no answer; and I have come first from Dain, to warn Bilbo that he is sought by the Dark Lord, and to learn (if may be) why this is so. Also we crave the counsel of Elrond, for the shadow grows. We perceive that messages have also been sent to King Brand in Dale, and that he is afraid to resist. Already there is war gathering on his southern borders. If we make no answer the Dark Lord will move other men to assail him and us.' 'You have done well to come,' said Elrond. 'You will hear today all that is necessary for the understanding of the Enemy's purposes, and why he seeks Bilbo. There is nought you can do other than to resist, whether with hope or without it. But as you will hear, your trouble is only part of ours [> the troubles of others]; and your hope will rise and fall with the fortunes of the Ring. Let us now hear the words of Galdor of Mirkwood, for they are yet known to few.'

  Galdor spoke. 'I do not come,' he said, 'to add to all the accounts of gathering war and unrest, though Mirkwood is not spared, and the dark things that fled from it for a while are returning in such number that my people are hard put to it. But I am sent to bear tidings: they are not good, I fear; but how ill, others must judge. Smeagol that is now called Gollum has escaped.'

  'What!' cried Trotter in surprise. 'I judge that to be ill news, and you may mark my words: we shall regret this. How came the Wood-elves to fail in their trust?'

  'Not through lack of vigilance,' said Galdor; 'but perhaps through overmuch kindness, and certainly through aid from elsewhither. He was guarded day and night; but hoping for his cure we had not the heart to keep him ever in dungeons beneath the ground.'

  'You were less tender to me,' said Gloin with a flash of his eye, as ancient memories of his prison in the halls of the Elven-king were aroused.

  'Now, now!' said Gandalf. 'Don't interrupt! That was a regrettable misunderstanding.'

  'In days of fair weather we led him through the woods,' Galdor went on; 'and there was a high tree, standing alone far from others, which he liked to climb. Often we let him climb in it till he felt the free wind; but we set a guard at the foot. One day he would not descend, and the guards having no mind to climb after him (he could cling to branches with his feet as well as with his hands) sat by the tree into the twilight. It was on that very evening in summer under a clear moon that the Orcs came down upon us. We drove them off after some time; but when the battle was over, we found Gollum was gone, and the guards had vanished also. It seems clear that the attack was arranged for the rescue of Gollum, and that he knew of it beforehand; but in what way we cannot guess. We failed to recapture him. We came on his trail and that of some Orcs, and it seemed to plunge deep into Mirkwood going south and west; but ere long it escaped even our skill, nor dare we continue the hunt, for we were drawing near the Mountains of Mirkwood in the midst of the forest, and they are become evil, and we do not go that way.* 'Well, well!' said Gandalf. 'He has got away, and we have no time or chance now to go after him again. Evidently the Enemy wants him. What for, we may discover in good time, or in bad time.(12) I still had some hopes of curing him,. but evidently he did not wish to be cured.'

  'But now our tale goes far away and long ago,' said Elrond [> Gandalf]. [Direction here for insertion of a rider which is not extant; but see p. 126.] 'In the days that followed the Elder Days after the fall of Numenor the men of Westernesse came to the shores of the Great Lands, as is recorded still in history and legend [> in lore]. Of their kings Elendil was the chief, and his ships sailed up the great river which flows out of Wilderland [in margin, struck out in pencil: This river they name Sirvinya, New Sirion.] and finds the Western Sea in the Bay of [Ramathor Ramathir >] Belfalas. In the land about they made a realm [> In the land about its lower course he established a realm]; and the [> his) chief city was Osgiliath the Fort of Stars, through which the river flowed. But other strong places were set upon hills upon either side: Minas Ithil the Tower of the Moon in the West, and Minas Anor the Tower of the Sun in the East [> Minas Ithil the Tower of the Rising Moon in the East, and Minas Anor the Tower of the Setting Sun in the West].

  'And these cities were governed by the sons of Elendil: llmandur [struck out in pencil], Isildur, and Anarion. But the sons of Elendil did not return from the war with Sauron, and only in Minas Ithil [> Anor] was the lordship of the West maintained. There ruled the son of Isildur [> Anarion] and his sons after him. But as the world worsened and decayed Osgiliath fell into ruin, and the servants of Sauron took Minas Anor [not changed to Ithil], and it became a place of dread, and was called Minas Morgol, the

  The whole of the last paragraph was struck through in pencil. The last words stand at the foot of a page, and the following page is lost. This is a misfortune, since a part of the earliest form of the history is lost with it. The text when it takes up again is complex, and it is clearest to number it in sections from (i) to (iii). We are now in the middle of a speech by Boromir.

  (i)

  '... But of these words none of us could understand anything, until we learnt after seeking far and wide that Imlad-ril (> Imlad-rist] was the name of a far northern dale, called by men [> men in the North] Rivendell, where Elrond the Half-elven dwelt.'

  'But the rest shall now be made clear to you,' said Trotter,
standing up. He drew forth his sword, and cast it upon a table before Boromir: in two pieces. 'Here is the Sword that was Broken, and I am the bearer.'

  'But who are you, and what have you or it to do with Minas Tirith?' asked Boromir.

  'He is Aragorn son of Celegorn, descended in right line [added: through many fathers] from Isildur of Minas Ithil, son of Elendil,' said Elrond. 'He is tarkil and one of the few now left of that people.'

  (At this point there is a mark of insertion for another passage, here identified as (iii), which is to replace what now follows, the continua- tion of passage (i).)

  (ii)

  'And the Men of Minas Tirith drove out my fathers,' said Aragorn. 'Is not that remembered, Boromir? The men of that town have never ceased to wage war on Sauron, but they have listened not seldom to counsels that came from him. In the days of Valandur they murmured against the Men of the West, and rose against them, and when they came back from battle with Sauron they refused them entry into the city.(13) Then Valandur broke his sword before the city gates and went away north; and for long the heirs of Elendil dwelt at Osforod the Northburg in slowly waning glory and darkening days. But all the Northland has now long been waste; and all that are left of Elendil's folk few.

  'What do the men of Minas Tirith want with me - to return to aid [them] in the war and then reject me at the gates again?'

  This passage (ii) was struck through in pencil. Hurled onto the page, this narrative is only one stage advanced from the highly provisional outlines which my father made at various points as the work proceeded. I think that this obscure story, with its notable suggestion of a subject population that was not Numenorean (although the cities were founded by Elendil), was rejected almost as soon as written; it may be that it was the earliest form of the history of the Numenorean realms in exile that my father conceived.

  The passage to replace (ii) was scribbled very rapidly and in pencil; it was not struck out.

  (iii)

  'Then it belongs to you as much as me, or more!' cried Frodo, looking at Trotter in amazement.

  'It does not belong to either of us,' said Trotter, 'but it is ordained that you should keep it for a while.(14) Yes, I am the heir of Elendil,' said he, turning again to Boromir; [all the following struck out at the time of writing: 'for I have heard it said that long ago you drove out the Men of the West from Minas Anor. You have ever fought against Sauron, but not seldom you have hearkened to counsels that came from him. Do you wish that I should return to Minas Morgol or to Minas Tirith? For Valandil son of Elendil was taken [? as child] For the Men of Minas Ithil] 'For Valandil son of Isildur remained among the Elves, and was saved, and he went at last with such of his father's men as remained, and dwelt in the North in Osforod, the Northburg, which is now waste, so that its very foundations can scarce be seen beneath the turf. And our days have ever waned and darkened through the years. But ever we have wandered far and wide, yes, even to the borders of Mordor, making secret war upon the Enemy. But the sword has never been reforged. For it was Elendil's and broke under him as he fell, and was brought away by his esquire and treasured. And Elendil said: "This sword shall not be brandished again for many years; but when a cry is heard in Minas Anor, and the power of Sauron grows great in the Middle-earth, then let it be whetted." '

  Finally, (ii) continues in pencil from the point reached ('... and then reject me at the gates again?'), and this was not struck out:

  'They did not bid me to make any request,' said Boromir, 'and asked only for the meaning of the words. Yet we are sorely pressed, and if Minas Tirith falls and the land of Ond, a great, region will fall under the Shadow.'

  'I will come,' said Trotter. 'For the half-high have indeed set forth, and the spoken days are near.' Boromir looked at Frodo and nodded with sudden understanding.

  The text ends here. In these earliest workings it is interesting to see that the Sword that was Broken existed before the story that it was broken beneath Elendil as he fell: indeed it is not clear that at first it was indeed Elendil's sword, nor how Valandur (whose sword it was) was related to him (though it seems plain that he was a direct descendant of Elendil: very possibly he was to be Isildur's son). In the passage (iii) the final story of the Broken Sword is seen at the moment of its emergence. Valandil appears as the son of Isildur, and there is a glimpse of the later story that Valandil, the youngest son, remained on account of his youth in Imladris at the time of the War of the Last Alliance, that he received the sword of Elendil, and that he dwelt in Elendil's city of Annuminas.

  As my father first wrote the present text he evidently meant (p. 119) that Ilmandur (probably the eldest son of Elendil) ruled Osgiliath, the name of his city being appropriate to his own name (Ilmen, region of the stars), as were the cities which they ruled to his brothers' names; but Ilmandur was removed and Osgiliath became Elendil's city - for in this text Elendil sailed up the Great River (which receives ephemerally the name Sirvinya 'New Sirion', displacing Beleghir 'Great River', VI.410) and established a realm in the land about its lower course. This is entirely at variance with the story found much earlier in Elrond's conversation with Bingo (see p. 110; VI.215 - 16), where Elrond told that Elendil was 'a king in Beleriand', that 'he made an alliance with the Elf-king of those lands, whose name is Gilgalad', and that their joined armies 'marched eastward, and crossed the Misty Mountains, and passed into the inner lands far from the memory of the Sea.'

  That text was very closely related to the end of the second version of The Fall of Numenor (V.28 - 9), and used many of the same phrases. Subsequently a new ending to The Fall of Numenor was substituted; this has been given in V.33, but I cite it again here.

  But there remains a legend of Beleriand. Now that land had been broken in the Great Battle with Morgoth; and at the fall of Numenor and the change of the fashion of the world it perished; for the sea covered all that was left save some of the mountains that remained as islands, even up to the feet of Eredlindon. But that land where Luthien had dwelt remained, and was called Lindon. A gulf of the sea came through it, and a gap was made in the Mountains through which the River Lhun flowed out. But in the land that was left north and south of the gulf the Elves remained, and Gil-galad son of Felagund son of Finrod was their king. And they made Havens in the Gulf of Lhun whence any of their people, or any other of the Elves that fled from the darkness and sorrow of Middle-earth, could sail into the True West and return no more. In Lindon Sauron had as yet no dominion. And it is said that the brethren Elendil and Valandil escaping from the fall of Numenor came at last to the mouths of the rivers that flowed into the Western Sea. And Elendil (that is Elf-friend), who had aforetime loved the folk of Eressea, came to Lindon and dwelt there a while, and passed into Middle- earth and established a realm in the North. But Valandil sailed up the Great River Anduin and established another realm far to the South. But Sauron dwelt in Mordor the Black Country, and that was not very distant from Ondor the realm of Valandil; and Sauron made war against all Elves and all Men of Westernesse or others that aided them, and Valandil was hard pressed. Therefore Elendil and Gil-galad seeing that unless some stand were made Sauron would become lord of [?all] Middle-earth they took counsel together, and they made a great league. And Gil-galad and Elendil marched into the Middle-earth [?and gathered force of Men and Elves, and they assembled at Imladrist].

  These three accounts can only be placed in this sequence:

  (I) Elrond's account to Bingo (together with the original ending of the second version of The Fall of Numenor): Elendil in Beleriand.

  (II) The present text (the 'third version' of 'The Council of Elrond'): Elendil comes up the Great River and founds a realm in the South.

  (III) The revised ending of The Fall of Numenor, cited above: Elendil comes to Lindon; Valandil his brother comes up the Great River and founds the realm of Ondor in the South.

  That (I) is the earliest is shown of course by the name Bingo; that (III) followed (II) is shown by the names Anduin and Ondor. But this is hard to und
erstand: for the story seen emerging in (II), pp. 119 - 21 above - Isildur and Anarion the rulers of Minas Ithil and Minas Anor, and Valandil Isildur's son surviving and dwelling in the North - is the story that endured into The Lord of the Rings.

  A single sheet of manuscript found in isolation bears on this question without aiding its solution; it is also of great interest in other respects.

  After the 'breaking of the North' in the Great Battle, the shape of the North-west of Middle-earth was changed. Nearly all Beleriand was drowned in the Sea. Taur na Fuin became an Island. The mountains of Eredwethion &c. became small isles (so also Himling). Eredlindon was now near the Sea (at widest 200 miles away). A great gulf of the Sea came in through Ossiriand and a gap made in the Mountains through which ' [the Branduinen flowed (later corrupted to Brandywine) >] the Lhun flowed. In what was left between the Mountains and the Sea the Elves of Beleriand remained in North and South Lindon; and Havens of Escape were made in the Gulf. The lord was Gilgalad (son of [struck out: Fin...] Inglor?). Many of his people were Gnomes; some Doriath-Danians.

  Between Eredlindon and Eredhithui [written above: Hith- dilias) (Misty Mountains) many Elves dwelt, and especially at Imladrist (Rivendell) and Eregion (Hollin). In Hollin there was a colony of Gnomes, who would not depart. Down in Harfalas (or Falas) ...(15) the Black Mountains [Ered Myrn )] Eredvyrn (Mornvenniath) dwelt a powerful assembly of Ilkorins. Elendil and Valandil kings of Numenore sailed to the Middle- earth and came into the mouths of the Anduin (Great River) and the Branduinen and the Lhun (Blue River).