The History of Middle Earth: Volume 8 - The War of the Ring

by J. R. R. Tolkien

  'Well, let us hope that it is the beginning of better things,' said Gimli. 'Gandalf said the tide was turning.'

  'Yes,' said Aragorn, 'but he also said that the great storm was coming.'

  'Oh,' said Merry, 'I forgot. Not long before Gandalf, about sunset, a tired horse came up the valley with a pack of wolf-riders round it.(19) The Ents soon settled them, though one of Quickbeam's folk, a rowan-ent, got a bad axe-stroke, and that enraged the Ents mightily. On the horse there was a queer twisted sort of man: I disliked him at sight. It says a great deal about Treebeard and Ents generally, if you think about it - in spite of their rage, and the battle, and the wounding of Bregalad's friend Carandrian, that the fellow was not killed out of hand. He was miserable in his fear and amazement. He said he was a man called Frána, and was sent with urgent messages from Théoden and Gandalf to Saruman, and had been captured by orcs on the way (I caught him squinting at Treebeard to see how it went, especially the mention of Gandalf). Treebeard looked at him in his long slow way for many minutes. Then he said: "Hoom, ha, well, you can go to Saruman! I guess somehow that you know pretty well how to find him, though things have changed a little here. But false or true, you will do little harm now."

  'We told Gandalf about it. He laughed, and said: "Well, I fancy of all the surprised people he had the worst shock. Poor Wormtongue! He chose badly. Just for a little I feel hardhearted enough to let those two stay and live together. They will be small comfort to each other. And if Wormtongue comes out of Orthanc alive, it will be more than he deserves." '

  Against this passage my father wrote: 'No, Wormtongue must come after Gandalf'; and at the foot of the page: 'Shall Wormtongue actually murder Saruman?'

  'Well,' he continued. 'Our job was to get rooms ready and prepare stuff for your entertainment. All yesterday and most of last night we worked. Indeed, say what you like, we did not knock off till close on noon this morning. And I don't know if we should even then, only Pippin found two tubs floating on the Water'

  Here this draft breaks off. The first completed manuscript, from the point where Merry's story begins, was based fairly closely on the draft text (pp. 50-5) in its narrative, but moved far towards the text of TT in expression. The passage about the 'Talking Trees' (p. 50) was developed thus:

  '... The Ornómi were coming. That is what the Ents call them in their "short language", which seems to be an old-fashioned Elvish: trees with voices it means, and there is a great host of them deep in Fangorn, trees that the Ents have trained so long that they have become half entish, though far wilder, of course, and crueller.'

  This was rejected, probably at once, and a passage for the most part very close to that in TT (p. 170) substituted. Ornómi was here replaced by Huorns in the act of writing and is the point where that name arose. Merry is now uncertain about their nature: 'I cannot make out whether they are trees that have become Entish, or Ents that have become tree-like, or both.'

  At first Merry was still going to give a summary and commentary on the course of the war:

  '... It seems that news had come in that the [Rohir >] Horse- men had been defeated and driven back across the Isen, but some were still trying to hold out on the eastern bank. We got this out of some of Saruman's men that the Ents captured and questioned. Saruman thought that no more was left of the King's forces, except what he would keep by him to guard his town and hall. He decided to finish off the Rohir with a decisive blow.'

  But it must have been at this point that my father noted on the draft (p. 50) that Merry should be much less well-informed on these matters, and the passage just given was rejected and the text of TT (p. 171) substituted: 'I don't know much about this war ...'

  Merry now tells (as he does not in the draft, p. 51) that when the great host left Isengard 'some went off down the main road to the fords, but still more turned off towards the bridge and the east side of the river'. This was changed in a hasty pencilled emendation to 'turned off towards where I believe Saruman has recently made a bridge'. See p. 31 and note 22.

  Aragorn's brief account of what had happened southwards was still retained from the draft (p. 52), and here he adds the surmise (in the draft Gandalf's, reported by Merry, p. 51) about Saruman's purposes: '... the whole pack came howling after us. They had learned that the King was in the field, so none of them went to Eodoras. Saruman wanted the King and Eomer, his heir, dead or alive. He was afraid that the Ring might get into their hands after the battle from which you escaped.' He also gives the information that the force that fled south from the Fords to the Black Mountains numbered about a thousand men. With this passage cf. Gandalf's remarks to Théoden as they rode to Isengard (p. 29). Merry's rather overconfident assessment of Saruman was reduced, in stages, virtually to its compass in TT, and Aragorn's intervention now appears, very much as in TT (p. 172), with his emphasis on the peril of private conversation with the master of Orthanc.

  In this version a new time-scheme had entered, as is seen from the story of the drowning of Isengard:

  '... They calmly settled down to carry out a plan that Treebeard had made in his old head all along: they drowned Isengard. Day was dawning by that time. They set a watch on the tower, and the rest just faded away in the grey light. Merry and I were left alone most of that day, wandering and prying about. The Ents went north up the valley. They dug great trenches under the shadow of the Huorns, and made great pools and dams, and when all was ready, last night, about midnight, they poured in all the Isen, and every other stream they could tap, through a gap by the north-gate, down into the ring....'

  'Yes, we saw the great vapour from the south this morning as we rode from Helm's Deep,' said Aragorn....

  'By morning there was a fog about a mile thick,' said Merry. '... Treebeard stopped the inflow some hours ago, and sent the stream back into its old course. Look, the water is sinking again already. There must be some outlets from the caverns underneath. But Gandalf came before the drowning began. He may have guessed or been told by Treebeard what was afoot, but he did not see it happen. When he arrived the digging and damming was not quite finished, but old Treebeard had returned, and was resting. He was only about fifty yards away, soothing his arrow-smarts by pulling down a bit more of the southern wall in a leisurely fashion....'

  This is still not quite the final time-scheme for the story of the destruction of Isengard (see pp. 5 - 6, $$ III-IV), because the party from Helm's Deep still reached Isengard in a single day (2 February); so here Pippin tells that it was 'last night' (1 February) that the drowning began, and Aragorn says that they had seen the great cloud of steam as they rode up from Helm's Deep 'this morning'.

  All the last part of what would become the chapter 'Flotsam and Jetsam' was discarded from this manuscript and replaced by new pages, in which the text of TT (pp. 174 - 7, describing the day spent by Merry and Pippin alone while the Ents prepared the diversion of the Isen, Gandalf's coming, and the filling of the Ring of Isengard by moonlight) was reached save for the choice of a different word here and there. But the time-scheme of the rejected pages was still present, with the extra day still not inserted and the time during which the waters of Isen flowed into the Ring correspondingly shorter.(20) On this account the last part of the hobbits' story still differs from that in TT, and Merry ends thus:

  '... By morning there was a fog about a mile high, but it was beginning to rise and sail away out of the valley. And the lake was overflowing, too, and pouring out through the ruined gate, bringing masses of wreckage and jamming it near the outlet of the old tunnel. Then the Ents stopped the inflow, and sent the Isen back into its old course. Since then the water has been sinking again. There must be outlets somewhere from the caves underneath, or else they are not all filled up yet. There is not much more to tell. Our part, Pippin's and mine, was chiefly that of onlookers: rather frightened at times. We were all alone while the drowning was going on, and we had one or two bad moments. Some terrified wolves were driven from their dens by the flood, and came howling out. We fled, b
ut they passed by. And every now and then some stray orc would bolt out of the shadows and run shrieking off, slashing and gnashing as he went. The Huorns were waiting. There were many of them still in the valley until the day came. I don't know where they have all gone. It seems very quiet now after such a night. I could sleep.'

  But the coming of Wormtongue is now placed according to the direction on the draft text ('Wormtongue must come after Gandalf', p. 55): he came 'early this morning', and the story of his arrival is now much as in TT, though briefer. Aragorn's curiosity about tobacco from the Southfarthing turning up in Isengard appears (see note 8), and Pippin reports the same date on the barrels as in TT: 'the 1417 crop'.

  After 'it is not a very cheerful sight', with which the later chapter 'Flotsam and Jetsam' ends, this text goes straight on to 'They passed through the ruined tunnel', with which 'The Voice of Saruman' begins.

  NOTES.

  1. Arrows no good: i.e., against Ents.

  2. On the North Gate of Isengard see p. 43 note 23.

  3. He was still a lodger in Orthanc: i.e., Gandalf had never 'officially' left after his enforced residence in the tower.

  4. This paragraph was enclosed in square brackets and marked with a query.

  5. That ominous dark-visaged man: cf. 'The Story Foreseen from Fangorn' (VII.437): 'Return to Eodoras.... News comes at the feast or next morning of the siege of Minas Tirith by the Haradwaith, brought by a dark Gondorian like Boromir.'

  6. The time-scheme here is that described on p. 5, $ II.

  7. In that version Théoden and Gandalf and their company left Helm's Deep in the morning and reached Isengard on the same day, and so here in answer to Pippin's question (TT p. 168) 'What is today?' Aragorn replies 'The second of February in the Shire-reckoning' (see p. 5, $ III). Pippin then calculates on his fingers that it was 'only a week ago' that he 'woke up in the dark and found himself all strung-up in an orc-camp' (i.e. from the night of Thursday 26 January to Thursday 2 February). And again, when Pippin asks when it was that Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas 'caught a glimpse of the old villain, or so Gandalf hints' (as Gimli said) at the edge of Fangorn (TT p. 169), Aragorn replies: 'Four nights ago, the twenty-ninth.'

  These dates were changed on the manuscript to 'The third of February', 'only eight days ago', and 'Five nights ago': see p. 6, $ IV.

  8. In an earlier version of this Aragorn's reply (here assembled from scarcely differing variants) was different:

  'For a spell,' said Aragorn, with a glint of a smile. 'This is good leaf. I wonder if it grew in this valley. If so, Saruman must have had some wisdom before he took to making worse things with greater labour. He had little knowledge of herbs, and no love for growing things, but he had plenty of skilled servants. Nan Gurunir is warm and sheltered and would grow a good crop, if it were properly tended.'

  With this cf. the passages given on pp. 37 - 9. - The decision, or perception, that the tobacco had not in fact been grown in Nan Gurunir, but that Saruman had obtained it from the Shire, appears in a rider pinned to the first complete manuscript, in which Merry tells Gimli that it is Longbottom-leaf, with the Hornblower brandmarks on the barrels (TT p. 167).

  9. The finding of the hobbits' leaf-bladed knives and their sheaths at the site of the battle beneath Amon Hen (TT p. 17) is absent from the draft and the fair copy manuscript of 'The Departure of Boromir' (VII.381).

  10. Grishnákh was changed on the manuscript at each occurrence to Grishnak, a reversion to the original form (VII.409 - 10). - On the back of this page is a reference that shows it was written during or more probably after June 1942.

  11. This is the reverse of what Merry says in TT (p. 170): 'I think they are Ents that have become almost like trees, at least to look at.'

  12. Merry was a day out: the march of the Ents on Isengard was in the evening of 31 January, and Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas had reached Eodoras early that morning (see pp. 3 - 4).

  13. The death of Théodred in the First Battle of the Fords of Isen on 25 January (see p. 22 note 3).

  14. Westfold: see p. 21.

  15. Ornómi: in the underlying pencilled text the name Galbedirs can be read. At the earlier occurrence in this draft (p. 50) Galbedirs was changed first to Lamorni and then to Ornómar - all these names having the same meaning.

  16. Erkenwald of Westfold: see p. 24 note 22.

  17. us Merry says that 'by morning there was a fog a mile thick', Aragorn says 'we could see the great vapour from the south as we rode towards the Fords' (i.e. as the host rode from Eodoras on 1 February), and my father wrote in the margin of the text: 'Drowning must not begin until night of Hornburg battle'.

  18. In the first complete manuscript this becomes: ' "Don't be hasty" is his motto, and also that saying Sam says he picked up from the Elves: he was fond of whispering it to me when Gandalf was peppery: "Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards ..." ' For its original appearance see 'Three is Company', FR p. 93. In TT (p. 196) Merry quotes it to Pippin a propos Pippin's interest in the Palantír.

  19. Cf. 'Helm's Deep' in TT (p. 134): 'Some say also that Wormtongue was seen earlier, going northward with a company of Orcs.' But in the present passage in TT (p. 178) Wormtongue arrived alone.

  20. In the time-scheme followed here it lasted from midnight on 1 February till the morning of 2 February; in the final story it lasted till the night of 2 February (TT p. 177: 'The Ents stopped the inflow in the night'), = 4 March.

  V. THE VOICE OF SARUMAN.

  Book III Chapter 10 'The Voice of Saruman' in The Two Towers is in ; the first completed manuscript simply the further extension of Chapter XXX (see p. 47). The opening of this part of the narrative is here almost as in the final form (see note 8), but the conversation with Gandalf is much briefer; after Merry's 'Still, we feel less ill-disposed towards Saruman than we did' it continues:

  'Indeed!' said Gandalf. 'Well, I am going to pay him a farewell visit. Perhaps you would like to come?' 'I should,' said Gimli. 'I should like to see him, and learn if he really looks like you.' 'You may not see him close enough for that,' laughed Gandalf. '[He has long been a shy bird, and late events may not have >] He may be shy of showing himself. But I have had all the Ents removed from sight, so perhaps we shall persuade him.' They came now to the foot of Orthanc.

  In TT Gandalf's last remarks were developed to: 'And how will you learn that, Master Dwarf? Saruman could look like me in your eyes, if it suited his purpose with you. And are you yet wise enough to detect , all his counterfeits? Well, we shall see, perhaps. He may be. shy of showing himself before many different eyes together....' The description of Orthanc in this text at first ran like this:

  ... A few scorings, and small sharp splinters near the base, were all the marks it showed of the fury of the Ents. In the middle from two sides, north and south, long flights of broad stairs, built of some other stone, dark red in hue, climbed up to the great chasm in the crown of the rock. There they met, and there was a narrow platform beneath the centre of the great arch that spanned the cleft; from it stairs branched again, ranning up west and east to dark doors on either side, opening in the shadow of the arch's feet.

  This is the general conception described in version 'D' of the passage 'The Road to Isengard' (p. 32), and precisely illustrated in the drawing 'Orthanc (3)' reproduced on p. 33. But the text just given was, replaced at the time of writing by the following:

  ... the fury of the Ents. On two sides, west and east, long flights of broad stairs, cut in the black stone by some unknown art, climbed up to the feet of the vast arch that spanned the chasm in the hill. At the head of each stair was a great door, and above it a window opening upon a balcony with parapet of stone.

  This is the rather simpler conception illustrated in the drawing 'Orthanc (4)' reproduced on p. 33. At a later stage this was rejected and replaced on a slip inserted into the manuscript by the description in TT, where of course the conception of Orthanc had been totally changed (pp. 33 - 5, and the drawing reproduced on p. 34).

  The des
cription of Orthanc was followed immediately by 'Gandalf led the way up the western stair. With him went Théoden and Eomer, and the five companions.' There is thus no discussion here of who shall go up, or how close they shall stand.

  From this point initial drafting (inked over very faint pencil, which is effectively illegible) exists for the interview with Saruman, and this was pretty closely followed in the first completed manuscript. Saruman's voice was at this stage differently described, and this was at first repeated in the manuscript: The window closed. They waited. Suddenly another voice spoke, low, melodious, and yet it seemed unpleasant [> unpleasing: its tone was scornful).'(1) This was changed, probably at once, to: 'low, melodious, and persuasive; yet now its tone was of one who, in spite of a gentle nature, is aggrieved.' All else that is said of that voice in TT (p. 183) is here absent; and the description of Saruman is briefer: 'His face was long with a high forehead; he had deep darkling eyes; his hair and beard were white, smudged with darker strands. "Like and unlike", muttered Gimli.'

  With the opening of the conversation at this stage (cited here from the completed manuscript rather than from the draft text) cf. the original outline on pp. 47 - 8.