Unfinished Tales

by J. R. R. Tolkien

  ‘Fortunately, I did not make any mistake in my use of them. I kept them up my sleeve, as you say in the Shire, until things looked quite hopeless. As soon as Thorin saw them he really made up his mind to follow my plan, as far as a secret expedition went at any rate. Whatever he thought of Bilbo he would have set out himself. The existence of a secret door, only discoverable by Dwarves, made it seem at least possible to find out something of the Dragon’s doings, perhaps even to recover some gold, or some heirloom to ease his heart’s longings.

  ‘But that was not enough for me. I knew in my heart that Bilbo must go with him, or the whole quest would be a failure – or, as I should say now, the far more important events by the way would not come to pass. So I had still to persuade Thorin to take him. There were many difficulties on the road afterwards, but for me this was the most difficult part of the whole affair. Though I argued with him far into the night after Bilbo had retired, it was not finally settled until early the next morning.

  ‘Thorin was contemptuous and suspicious. “He is soft,” he snorted. “Soft as the mud of his Shire, and silly. His mother died too soon. You are playing some crooked game of your own, Master Gandalf. I am sure that you have other purposes than helping me.”

  ‘ “You are quite right,” I said. “If I had no other purposes, I should not be helping you at all. Great as your affairs may seem to you, they are only a small strand in the great web. I am concerned with many strands. But that should make my advice more weighty, not less.” I spoke at last with great heat. “Listen to me, Thorin Oakenshield!” I said. “If this hobbit goes with you, you will succeed. If not, you will fail. A foresight is on me, and I am warning you.”

  ‘ “I know your fame,” Thorin answered. “I hope it is merited. But this foolish business of your hobbit makes me wonder whether it is foresight that is on you, and you are not crazed rather than foreseeing. So many cares may have disordered your wits.”

  ‘ “They have certainly been enough to do so,” I said. “And among them I find most exasperating a proud Dwarf who seeks advice from me (without claim on me that I know of ), and then rewards me with insolence. Go your own ways, Thorin Oakenshield, if you will. But if you flout my advice, you will walk to disaster. And you will get neither counsel nor aid from me again until the Shadow falls on you. And curb your pride and your greed, or you will fall at the end of whatever path you take, though your hands be full of gold.”

  ‘He blenched a little at that; but his eyes smouldered. “Do not threaten me!” he said. “I will use my own judgement in this matter, as in all that concerns me.”

  ‘ “Do so then!” I said. “I can say no more – unless it is this: I do not give my love or trust lightly, Thorin; but I am fond of this hobbit, and wish him well. Treat him well, and you shall have my friendship to the end of your days.”

  ‘I said that without hope of persuading him; but I could have said nothing better. Dwarves understand devotion to friends and gratitude to those who help them. “Very well,” Thorin said at last after a silence. “He shall set out with my company, if he dares (which I doubt). But if you insist on burdening me with him, you must come too and look after your darling.”

  ‘ “Good!” I answered. “I will come, and stay with you as long as I can: at least until you have discovered his worth.” It proved well in the end, but at the time I was troubled, for I had the urgent matter of the White Council on my hands.

  ‘So it was that the Quest of Erebor set out. I do not suppose that when it started Thorin had any real hope of destroying Smaug. There was no hope. Yet it happened. But alas! Thorin did not live to enjoy his triumph or his treasure. Pride and greed overcame him in spite of my warning.” ’

  ‘But surely,’ I said, ‘he might have fallen in battle anyway? There would have been an attack of Orcs, however generous Thorin had been with his treasure.’

  ‘That is true,’ said Gandalf. ‘Poor Thorin! He was a great Dwarf of a great House, whatever his faults; and though he fell at the end of the journey, it was largely due to him that the Kingdom under the Mountain was restored, as I desired. But Dáin Ironfoot was a worthy successor. And now we hear that he fell fighting before Erebor again, even while we fought here. I should call it a heavy loss, if it was not a wonder rather that in his great age 5 he could still wield his axe as mightily as they say he did, standing over the body of King Brand before the Gate of Erebor until the darkness fell.

  ‘It might all have gone very differently indeed. The main attack was diverted southwards, it is true; and yet even so with his far-stretched right hand Sauron could have done terrible harm in the North, while we defended Gondor, if King Brand and King Dáin had not stood in his path. When you think of the great Battle of Pelennor, do not forget the Battle of Dale. Think of what might have been. Dragon-fire and savage swords in Eriador! There might be no Queen in Gondor. We might now only hope to return from the victory here to ruin and ash. But that has been averted – because I met Thorin Oakenshield one evening on the edge of spring not far from Bree. A chance-meeting, as we say in Middle-earth.’

  NOTES

  1 The meeting of Gandalf with Thorin is related also in Appendix A (III) to The Lord of the Rings, and there the date is given: 15 March, 2941. There is the slight difference between the two accounts that in Appendix A the meeting took place in the inn at Bree and not on the road. Gandalf had last visited the Shire twenty years before, thus in 2921, when Bilbo was thirty-one: Gandalf says later that he had not quite come of age [at thirty-three] when he last saw him.

  2 Holman the gardener: Holman Greenhand, to whom Ham-fast Gamgee (Sam’s father, the Gaffer) was apprenticed: The Fellowship of the Ring I 1, and Appendix C.

  3 The Elvish solar year (loa) began with the day called yestarë, which was the day before the first day of tuilë (Spring); and in the Calendar of Imladris yestarë ‘corresponded more or less with Shire April 6’. (The Lord of the Rings, AppendixD.)

  4 Thráin the Second: Thráin the First, Thorin’s distant ancestor, escaped from Moria in the year 1981 and became the first King under the Mountain. (The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A (III).)

  5 Dáin II Ironfoot was born in the year 2767; at the Battle of Azanulbizar (Nanduhirion) in 2799 he slew before the East-gate of Moria the great Orc Azog, and so avenged Thrór, Thorin’s grandfather. He died in the Battle of Dale in 3019. (The Lord of the Rings, Appendices A (III) and B.) Frodo learnt from Glóin at Rivendell that ‘Dáin was still King under the Mountain, and was now old (having passed his two hundred and fiftieth year), venerable, and fabulously rich’. (The Fellowship of the Ring II 1.)

  APPENDIX

  Note on the texts of ‘The Quest of Erebor’

  The textual situation in this piece is complex and hard to unravel. The earliest version is a complete but rough and much-emended manuscript, which I will here call A; it bears the title ‘The History of Gandalf’s Dealings with Thráin and Thorin Oakenshield’. From this a typescript, B, was made, with a great deal of further alteration, though mostly of a very minor kind. This is entitled ‘The Quest of Erebor’, and also ‘Gandalf’s Account of how he came to arrange the Expedition to Erebor and send Bilbo with the Dwarves’. Some extensive extracts from the typescript text are given below.

  In addition to A and B (‘the earlier version’), there is another manuscript, C, untitled, which tells the story in a more economical and tightly-constructed form, omitting a good deal from the first version and introducing some new elements, but also (particularly in the latter part) largely retaining the original writing. It seems to me to be quite certain that C is later than B, and C is the version that has been given above, although some writing has apparently been lost from the beginning, setting the scene in Minas Tirith for Gandalf’s recollections.

  The opening paragraphs of B (given below) are almost identical with a passage in Appendix A (III, Durin’s Folk) to The Lord of the Rings, and obviously depend on the narrative concerning Thrór and Thráin that precedes them in Appendix A; while th
e ending of ‘The Quest of Erebor’ is also found in almost exactly the same words in Appendix A (III), here again in the mouth of Gandalf, speaking to Frodo and Gimli in Minas Tirith. In view of the letter cited in the Introduction (pp. 15 –16) it is clear that my father wrote ‘The Quest of Erebor’ to stand as part of the narrative of Durin’s Folk in Appendix A.

  Extracts from the earlier version

  The typescript B of the earlier version begins thus:

  So Thorin Oakenshield became the Heir of Durin, but an heir without hope. At the sack of Erebor he had been too young to bear arms, but at Azanulbizar he had fought in the van of the assault; and when Thráin was lost he was ninety-five, a great Dwarf of proud bearing. He had no Ring, and (for that reason maybe) he seemed content to remain in Eriador. There he laboured long, and gained such wealth as he could; and his people were increased by many of the wandering Folk of Durin that heard of his dwelling and came to him. Now they had fair halls in the mountains, and store of goods, and their days did not seem so hard, though in their songs they spoke ever of the Lonely Mountain far away, and the treasure and the bliss of the Great Hall in the light of the Arkenstone. The years lengthened. The embers in the heart of Thorin grew hot again, as he brooded on the wrongs of his House and of the vengeance upon the Dragon that was bequeathed to him. He thought of weapons and armies and alliances, as his great hammer rang in the forge; but the armies were dispersed and the alliances broken and the axes of his people were few; and a great anger without hope burned him, as he smote the red iron on the anvil.

  Gandalf had not yet played any part in the fortunes of Durin’s House. He had not had many dealings with the Dwarves; though he was a friend to those of good will, and liked well the exiles of Durin’s Folk who lived in the West. But on a time it chanced that he was passing through Eriador (going to the Shire, which he had not seen for some years) when he fell in with Thorin Oakenshield, and they talked together on the road, and rested for the night at Bree.

  In the morning Thorin said to Gandalf: ‘I have much on my mind, and they say you are wise and know more than most of what goes on in the world. Will you come home with me and hear me, and give me your counsel?’

  To this Gandalf agreed, and when they came to Thorin’s hall he sat long with him and heard all the tale of his wrongs.

  From this meeting there followed many deeds and events of great moment: indeed the finding of the One Ring, and its coming to the Shire, and the choosing of the Ring-bearer. Many therefore have supposed that Gandalf fore-saw all these things, and chose his time for the meeting with Thorin. Yet we believe that it was not so. For in his tale of the War of the Ring Frodo the Ringbearer left a record of Gandalf’s words on this very point. This is what he wrote:

  In place of the words ‘This is what he wrote’ A, the earliest manuscript, has: ‘That passage was omitted from the tale, since it seemed long; but most of it we now set out here.’

  After the crowning we stayed in a fair house in Minas Tirith with Gandalf, and he was very merry, and though we asked him questions about all that came into our minds his patience seemed as endless as his knowledge. I cannot now recall most of the things that he told us; often we did not understand them. But I remember this conversation very clearly. Gimli was there with us, and he said to Peregrin:

  ‘There is a thing I must do one of these days: I must visit that Shire of yours. * Not to see more Hobbits! I doubt if I could learn anything about them that I do not know already. But no Dwarf of the House of Durin could fail to look with wonder on that land. Did not the recovery of the Kingship under the Mountain, and the fall of Smaug, begin there? Not to mention the end of Barad-dûr, though both were strangely woven together. Strangely, very strangely,’ he said, and paused.

  Then looking hard at Gandalf he went on: ‘But who wove the web? I do not think I have ever considered that before. Did you plan all this then, Gandalf ? If not, why did you lead Thorin Oakenshield to such an unlikely door? To find the Ring and bring it far away into the West for hiding, and then to choose the Ringbearer – and to restore the Mountain Kingdom as a mere deed by the way: was not that your design?’

  Gandalf did not answer at once. He stood up, and looked out of the window, west, seawards; and the sun was then setting, and a glow was in his face. He stood so a long while silent. But at last he turned to Gimli and said: ‘I do not know the answer. For I have changed since those days, and I am no longer trammelled by the burden of Middle-earth as I was then. In those days I should have answered you with words like those I used to Frodo, only last year in the spring. Only last year! But such measures are meaningless. In that far distant time I said to a small and frightened hobbit: Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker, and you therefore were meant to bear it. And I might have added: and I was meant to guide you both to those points.

  ‘To do that I used in my waking mind only such means as were allowed to me, doing what lay to my hand according to such reasons as I had. But what I knew in my heart, or knew before I stepped on these grey shores: that is another matter. Olórin I was in the West that is forgotten, and only to those who are there shall I speak more openly.’

  A has here: ‘and only to those who are there (or who may, perhaps, return thither with me) shall I speak more openly.’

  Then I said: ‘I understand you a little better now, Gandalf, than I did before. Though I suppose that, whether meant or not, Bilbo might have refused to leave home, and so might I. You could not compel us. You were not even allowed to try. But I am still curious to know why you did what you did, as you were then, an old grey man as you seemed.’

  Gandalf then explained to them his doubts at that time concerning Sauron’s first move, and his fears for Lórien and Rivendell (cf. p. 416). In this version, after saying that a direct stroke against Sauron was even more urgent than the question of Smaug, he went on:

  ‘That is why, to jump forward, I went off as soon as the expedition against Smaug was well started, and persuaded the Council to attack Dol Guldur first, before he attacked Lórien. We did, and Sauron fled. But he was always ahead of us in his plans. I must confess that I thought he really had retreated again, and that we might have another spell of watchful peace. But it did not last long. Sauron decided to take the next step. He returned at once to Mordor, and in ten years he declared himself.

  ‘Then everything grew dark. And yet that was not his original plan; and it was in the end a mistake. Resistance still had somewhere where it could take counsel free from the Shadow. How could the Ringbearer have escaped, if there had been no Lórien or Rivendell? And those places might have fallen, I think, if Sauron had thrown all his power against them first, and not spent more than half of it in the assault on Gondor.

  ‘Well, there you have it. That was my chief reason. But it is one thing to see what needs doing, and quite another to find the means. I was beginning to be seriously troubled about the situation in the North when I met Thorin Oakenshield one day: in the middle of March 2941, I think. I heard all his tale, and I thought: “Well, here is an enemy of Smaug at any rate! And one worthy of help. I must do what I can. I should have thought of Dwarves before.”

  ‘And then there was the Shire-folk. I began to have a warm place in my heart for them in the Long Winter, which none of you can remember. * They were very hard put to it then: one of the worst pinches they have been in, dying of cold, and starving in the dreadful dearth that followed. But that was the time to see their courage, and their pity one for another. It was by their pity as much as by their tough uncomplaining courage that they survived. I wanted them still to survive. But I saw that the Westlands were in for another very bad time again, sooner or later, though of quite a different sort: pitiless war. To come through that I thought they would need something more than they now had. It is not easy to say what. Well, they would want to know a bit more, understand a bit clearer what it was all about, and where they stood.

  ‘They had begun to forget: forget their own beginnings and legends, f
orget what little they had known about the greatness of the world. It was not yet gone, but it was getting buried: the memory of the high and the perilous. But you cannot teach that sort of thing to a whole people quickly. There was not time. And anyway you must begin at some point, with some one person. I dare say he was “chosen” and I was only chosen to choose him; but I picked out Bilbo.’

  ‘Now that is just what I want to know,’ said Peregrin. ‘Why did you do that?’

  ‘How would you select any one Hobbit for such a purpose?’ said Gandalf. ‘I had not time to sort them all out; but I knew the Shire very well by that time, although when I met Thorin I had been away for more than twenty years on less pleasant business. So naturally thinking over the Hobbits that I knew, I said to myself: “I want a dash of the Took” (but not too much, Master Peregrin) “and I want a good foundation of the stolider sort, a Baggins perhaps.” That pointed at once to Bilbo. And I had known him once very well, almost up to his coming of age, better than he knew me. I liked him then. And now I found that he was “unattached” – to jump on again, for of course I did not know all this until I went back to the Shire. I learned that he had never married. I thought that odd, though I guessed why it was; and the reason that I guessed was not the one that most of the Hobbits gave me: that he had early been left very well off and his own master. No, I guessed that he wanted to remain “unattached” for some reason deep down which he did not understand himself – or would not acknowledge, for it alarmed him. He wanted, all the same, to be free to go when the chance came, or he had made up his courage. I remembered how he used to pester me with questions when he was a youngster about the Hobbits that had occasionally “gone off ”, as they said in the Shire. There were at least two of his uncles on the Took side that had done so.’