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

by J. R. R. Tolkien

  In the (first) manuscript the text as it stands in TT was achieved in almost all points without much hesitation in the writing; but there was much further shifting in the names that occur in this region. The opening passage concerning the defences of Mordor and their history differed in some respects from the form in TT (p. 244). The words following 'But the strength of Gondor failed, and men slept': and for long years the towers stood empty, are lacking.(1) The paragraph beginning 'Across the mouth of the pass, from cliff to cliff, the Dark Lord had built a rampart of stone. In it there was a single gate of iron, and upon its battlement sentinels paced unceasingly' was first written thus, both in draft and manuscript:

  No rampart, or wall, or bars of stone or iron were laid across the Morannon;(2) for the rock on either side was bored and tunnelled into a hundred caves and maggot-holes. A host of orcs lurked there (&c. as in TT)

  This was changed in the manuscript as soon as written to the text of TT, introducing the rampart of stone and the single gate of iron; and it is thus seen that up to this point the 'Black Gate(s)' was the name of the pass itself.(3) So also at the beginning of the passage, where TT has 'between these arms there was a deep defile. This was Cirith Gorgor, the Haunted Pass, the entrance to the land of the Enemy', both draft and manuscript have 'between these arms there was a long defile. This was the Morannon, the Black Gate, the entrance to the land of the Enemy.' When the rampart and iron gate had been introduced this was changed in the manuscript to 'This was Kirith Gorgor, the Dreadful Pass, the entrance to the land of the Enemy.'(4)

  The Mountains of Shadow were still in the draft named the Dúath, as on the First Map (Map III, VII.309); in the manuscript the name is Hebel Dúath, later changed to Ephel Dúath (see VII.310).(5) The 'Teeth of Mordor' are named in the draft Nelig Morn (cf. Nelig Morn > Nelig Myrn, p. 113);(6) in the manuscript they are Naglath Morn, which was subsequently struck out and not replaced.

  It is convenient to notice here a few other points concerning names in this chapter. The name Elostirion for Osgiliath, used in the fine manuscript of 'The Palantír' made earlier in April (p. 78 and note 20), was retained in the draft (7) and in the following manuscript of 'The Black Gate is Closed', with Osgiliath later substituted in the latter (TT p. 249). The name of Sauron's stronghold in Mirkwood remains Dol Dúghol, the change to Dol Guldur being made at a very late stage.(8)

  A curious vestige is seen in the name Goodchild pencilled above Gamgee in Sam's remark 'It's beyond any Gamgee to guess what he'll do next' (TT p. 247). In his letter to me of 31 May 1944 (Letters no. 72) my father said:

  Sam by the way is an abbreviation not of Samuel but of Samwise (the Old E. for Half-wit), as is his father's name the Gaffer (Ham) for O.E. Hamfast or Stayathome. Hobbits of that class have very Saxon names as a rule - and I am not really satisfied with the surname Gamgee and shd. change it to Goodchild if I thought you would let me.

  I replied that I would never wish to see Gamgee changed to Good- child, and urged (entirely missing the point) that the name Gamgee was for me the essential expression of 'the hobbit peasantry' in their 'slightly comical' aspect, deeply important to the whole work. I mention this to explain my father's subsequent remarks on the subject (28 July 1944, Letters, no. 76):

  As to Sam Gamgee, I quite agree with what you say, and I wouldn't dream of altering his name without your approval; but the object of the alteration was precisely to bring out the comicness, peasantry, and if you will the Englishry of this jewel among the hobbits. Had I thought it out at the beginning, I should have given all the hobbits very English names to match the shire.... I doubt if it's English [i.e. the name Gamgee].... However, I daresay all your imagination of the character is now bound up with the name.

  And so Sam Gamgee remained.

  Turning now to the narrative itself, there are only certain details to mention. The distance from the hollow in which Frodo and his companions lay to the nearer of the Towers of the Teeth was in the initial drafting and in both manuscripts estimated at about a mile as the crow flies (a furlong in TT, p. 245). The description of the three roads leading to the Black Gate (TT p.247) was present in all essentials from the outset (they were in fact marked in by dotted lines on the First Map, though not included on my redrawing),(9) as were Frodo's stern words to Gollum (TT p. 248), and the conversation about the southward road; but Gollum's remembered tales of his youth and his account of Minas Morgul (11 pp. 249 - 50) differed from the final form in these respects. When Frodo said: 'It was Isildur who cut off the finger of the Enemy', Gollum replied: 'The tales did not say that'; then Frodo said: 'No, it had not happened then' (becoming in the second manuscript 'No, it had not happened when your tales were made').(10) Secondly, Gollum's reference to 'the Silent Watchers' in Minas Morgul (TT p. 250) was added to the manuscript, which as written had only: 'Nothing moves on the road that they don't know about. The things inside know.' Thirdly, after Gollum's explanation of why Sauron did not fear attack by way of Minas Morgul (his speech beginning 'No, no, indeed. Hobbits must see, must try to understand'), Sam says:

  'I daresay, but even so we can't walk up along your climbing road and pass the time of day with the folk at the gates and ask if we're all right for the Dark Tower. Stands to reason,' said Sam. 'We might as well do it here, and save ourselves a long tramp.'

  Thus his jibe at Gollum ('Have you been talking to Him lately? Of just hobnobbing with Orcs?'), and Gollum's reply ('Not nice hobbit, not sensible ... ) are lacking. With the expanded text (written into the manuscript later) there enters the second reference to 'the Silent Watchers' (and Sam's sarcasm 'Or are they too silent to answer?').

  The brief text given on p. 113 and reproduced with the accompanying sketch on p. 114, in which Kirith Ungol is 'beneath the shadow of Minas Morgul', and in which Frodo and Sam actually enter Minas Morgul, shows that only a short time before the point we have reached the later story and geography had not emerged. But the conception of the entrances into Mordor was changing very rapidly, and the original draft of 'The Black Gate is Closed' shows a major further shift. The conversation following Sam's remarks about the futility of going on a long tramp south only to find themselves faced with the same impossibility of entering unseen (TT p. 251) ran thus in the draft:

  'Don't joke about it,' said Gollum. 'Be sensible hobbits. It is not sensible to try to ger in to Mordor at all, not sensible. But if master says I will go or I must go then he must try some way. But he must not go to the terrible city. That is where Smeagol helps. He found it, he knows it - if it is still there.'

  'What did you find?' said Frodo.

  'A stair and path leading up into the mountains south of the pass,' said Gollum, 'and then a tunnel, and then more stairs and then a cleft high above the main pass: and it was that way Smeagol got out of Mordor long ago. But it may [?have vanished]...'

  'Isn't it guarded?' said Sam incredulously, and he thought he caught a sudden gleam in Gollum's eye.

  'Yes perhaps,' said he, 'but we must try. No other way,' and he would say no more. The name of this perilous place and high pass he could not or would not tell. Its name was Kirith Ungol, but that the hobbits did not know, nor the meaning of that dreadful name.

  As the following manuscript was first written this was not significantly changed (the path and stair are still 'south of the pass'); the passage in which Frodo intervenes and challenges Gollum's story that he had escaped from Mordor, citing Aragorn's view of the matter, was added in a rider to the manuscript later.(11)

  Thus Kirith Ungol is now not the pass guarded by Minas Morgul, as in the text given on p. 113, but a climbing stair high above it; it is however very difficult to say how my father saw the further course of the story at this time. In the text on p. 113 Frodo and Sam 'creep into Minas Morgul', which suggests that the story of Frodo's capture in 'The Story Foreseen from Lorien' had been temporarily abandoned - though it is not clear why they should be obliged to enter 'the terrible city'. With the new geography, however, it seems that they are going to avoid Mi
nas Morgul, passing through the mountains high above it. Does it follow that the Tower of Kirith Ungol had already been conceived?

  There is nothing in draft or manuscript to show that it had - but that proves little in itself, since in all texts from the original draft Gollum refuses to say clearly whether Kirith Ungol is guarded (cf. 'The Stairs of Cirith Ungol', TT p. 319: 'It was a black tower poised above the outer pass.... "I don't like the look of that!" said Sam. "So this secret way of yours is guarded after all,'* he growled, turning to Gollum'). The gleam in Gollum's eye that Sam caught when he asked him if it were guarded certainly means that Gollum knew that it was, but does not at all imply that it was guarded by a tower. I feel sure that Gollum was thinking of the spiders (at this stage in the evolution of the story). The only other evidence is found!n the outline which ends the original draft of 'The Black Gate is Closed':

  Frodo makes up his mind. He agrees to take the south way.

  As soon as dusk falls they start. Needing speed they use the road though fearful of meeting soldiers on it hurrying to the muster of the Dark Lord. Gollum says it is twenty leagues perhaps to the Cross Roads in the wood. They made all the speed they could. The land climbs a little. They see Anduin below them gleaming in the moon. Good [?water]. At last late on the third [day of their daylight journey >] night of journey from Morannon they reach the crossroads and pass out of the wood.

  See the moon shining on Minas Ithil Minas Morghul.

  Pass up first stair safely. But tunnel is black with webs [of] spiders.... force way and get up second stair. They [??had] reach[ed] Kirith Ungol. Spiders are aroused and hunt them.

  They are exhausted.

  This does not of course imply that the spiders were the only danger they faced in taking the way of Kirith Ungol, but possibly suggests it. However this may be, and leaving open the question of whether at this stage my father had already decided that Kirith Ungol was guarded by its own tower, it would be interesting to know whether that decision had been taken when he introduced into the manuscript Gollum's references to 'the Silent Watchers'. The Watchers, called 'the Sentinels', had already appeared in 'The Story Foreseen from Lorien' (see VII.340 - 3 and note 33); there of course they were the sentinels of Minas Morgul. Here too Gollum is speaking of Minas Morgul (at this point in the chapter he has not even mentioned the existence of Kirith Ungol). It would seem rather odd that my father should bring in these references to the Silent Watchers of Minas Morgul if he had already decided that the actual encounter with Silent Watchers should be at the Tower of Kirith Ungol; and one might suspect therefore that when he wrote them into the text the idea of that tower had not yet arisen. But this is the merest conjecture.(12)

  The passage telling where Gandalf was when Frodo and his companions lay hidden in the hollow before the Black Gate underwent many changes. The original draft reads:

  Aragorn perhaps could have told them, Gandalf could have warned them, but Gandalf was ? flying over the green [?plain] of Rohan upon Shadowfax climbing the road to the guarded gates of Minas Tirith and Aragorn was marching at the head of many men to war.

  This seems to express two distinct answers to the question, where was Gandalf? - In the manuscript this becomes:

  Aragorn could perhaps have told them that name and its significance; Gandalf would have warned them. But they were alone; and Aragorn was far away, a captain of men mustering for a desperate war, and Gandalf stood upon the white walls of Minas Tirith deep in troubled thought. It was of them chiefly that he thought: and over the long leagues his mind sought for them.

  In the second manuscript, taking up a revision made to the first, Gandalf is again riding over the plains:

  ... But they were alone, and Aragorn was far away, a captain of men mustering for a desperate war, and Gandalf was flying upon Shadowfax over the fields of Rohan swifter than the wind to the white walls of Minas Tirith gleaming from afar. Yet as he rode, it was chiefly of them that he thought, of Frodo and Sam, and over the long leagues his mind sought for them.

  This was changed afterwards to the text of TT (p. 252):

  ... and Gandalf stood amid the ruin of Isengard and strove with Saruman, delayed by treason. Yet even as he spoke his last words to Saruman, and the Palantír crashed in fire upon the steps of Orthanc, his thought was ever upon Frodo and Samwise, over the long leagues his mind sought for them in hope and pity.

  On the significance of these variations see the Note on Chronology at the end of this chapter.

  The distant flight of the Nazgûl (TT p. 253) and the arrival of the southern men observed and reported on by Gollum differ already in the draft text in no essential points from the final text (except that it is Gollum who calls them Swertings); but Sam's verse of the Oliphaunt was not present. It is found in abundant rough workings and a [preliminary text before being incorporated in the manuscript; my father also copied it out for me in a letter written on 30 April 1944 (Letters no. 64), when the story had reached the end of what became 'Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit', saying: 'A large elephant of prehistoric size, a war-elephant of the Swertings, is loose, and Sam has gratified a life-long wish to see an Oliphaunt, an animal about which there was a hobbit nursery-rhyme (though it was commonly supposed to be mythical).'(13)

  NOTES.

  1. In a very rough initial sketching of the opening of the chapter, preceding the continuous draft, the reading is: 'They were built by the Men of Gondor long ages after the fall of the first Dark Tower and Sauron's flight, lest he should seek to [? retake] his old realm.' This was repeated in the draft text of the chapter ('after the felling of the first Dark fortress'), but changed immediately to 'after the overthrow of Sauron and his flight'.

  2. The earliest sketch of the opening passage, referred to in note 1, has a name that ends in -y; it could be interpreted as Mornennyn with the final -n omitted, but is written thus at both occurrences. For Mornennyn, replacing Ennyn Dur, see pp. 112 - 13.

  3. The Old English word geat 'gate' is found in a number of English place-names in the sense 'pass, gap in the hills', as Wingate (pass through which the wind drives), Yatesbury.

  4. It seems in fact that my father did not immediately transfer the name Morannon to the actual 'Black Gate' built by Sauron, but retained it for a time as the name of the pass: so later in the manuscript text (TT p. 247) Frodo 'stood gazing out towards the dark cliffs of the Morannon' (changed subsequently to Kirith Gorgor).

  5. Here appear also the plain of Lithlad (see VII.208, 213) and 'the bitter inland sea of Nurnen', shown on the First Map (Map III, VII.309).

  6. In the text given on p. 113 and reproduced on p. 114 Nelig Myrn replaced Nelig Mom at the time of writing; yet it seems obvious that that text was written during the original composition of 'The Passage of the Marshes'.

  7. The draft text has in fact Osgiliath at one occurrence, in the first description of the southward road (TT p. 247): 'It journeyed on into the narrow plain between the Great River and the mountains, and so on to Osgiliath and on again to the coasts, and the far southern lands'. But Elostirion is the name in this same text in the passage corresponding to TT p. 249.

  8. The name Amon Hen was changed at its first occurrence in the manuscript (TT p, 247) to Amon Henn, but not at the second (TT p. 252). On the second manuscript the name was written Amon Henn at both occurrences.

  9. The southward road is shown running a little to the east of Anduin as far as the bottom of square Q 14 on Map III, VII.309. The eastward road runs along the northern edges of Ered Lithui as far as the middle of square O 17 on Map 11, VII.305. The northward road divides at 'he bottom of square O 15 on Map II, the westward arm running to the hills on the left side of O 15, and the northward arm bending north-east along the western edge of the Dead Marshes and then turning west to end on the left side of N 15.

  The passage describing the southward road was several times changed in respect of its distance from the hollow where Frodo, Sam and Gollum hid. In the original draft it was 'not more than a furlong or so'; in the first m
anuscript the distance was changed through 'a couple of furlongs', 'fifty paces', and 'a furlong', the final reading (preserved in the second manuscript) being '[it] passed along the valley at the foot of the hillside where the hobbits lay and not many feet below them.' For one, rather surprising, reason for this hesitation see pp. 172 - 3.

  In the First Edition the description of the topography differed from that in the Second Edition (TT p. 247), and read:

  The hollow in which they had taken refuge was delved in the side of a low hill and lay at some little height above the level of the plain. A long trench-like valley ran between it and the outer buttresses of the mountain-wall. In the morning-light the roads that converged upon the Gate of Mordor could now be clearly seen, pale and dusty; one winding back northwards; another dwindling eastwards into the mists that clung about the feet of Ered Lithui; and another that, bending sharply, ran close under the western watch-tower, and then passed along the valley at the foot of the hillside where the hobbits lay and not many feet below them. Soon it turned, skirting the shoulders of the mountains ...

  This is the text of the second manuscript.

  10. Frodo's meaning must be that these particular tales known to Gollum, concerning the cities of the Númenóreans, originated in the time before the Last Alliance and the overthrow of Sauron.