Unfinished Tales

by J. R. R. Tolkien

  These uncles were Hildifons Took, who ‘went off on a journey and never returned’, and Isengar Took (the youngest of the Old Took’s twelve children), who was ‘said to have “gone to sea” in his youth’ (The Lord of the Rings Appendix C, Family Tree of Took of Great Smials).

  When Gandalf accepted Thorin’s invitation to go with him to his home in the Blue Mountains

  ‘we actually passed through the Shire, though Thorin would not stop long enough for that to be useful. Indeed I think it was annoyance with his haughty disregard of the Hobbits that first put into my head the idea of entangling him with them. As far as he was concerned they were just food-growers who happened to work the fields on either side of the Dwarves’ ancestral road to the Mountains.’

  In this earlier version Gandalf gave a long account of how, after his visit to the Shire, he returned to Thorin and persuaded him ‘to put aside his lofty designs and go secretly – and take Bilbo with him’ – which sentence is all that is said of it in the later version (p. 418).

  ‘At last I made up my mind, and I went back to Thorin. I found him in conclave with some of his kinsfolk. Balin and Glóin were there, and several others.

  ‘ “Well, what have you got to say?” Thorin asked me as soon as I came in.

  ‘ “This first,” I answered. “Your own ideas are those of a king, Thorin Oakenshield; but your kingdom is gone. If it is to be restored, which I doubt, it must be from small beginnings. Far away here, I wonder if you fully realize the strength of a great Dragon. But that is not all: there is a Shadow growing fast in the world far more terrible. They will help one another.” And they certainly would have done so, if I had not attacked Dol Guldur at the same time. “Open war would be quite useless; and anyway it is impossible for you to arrange it. You will have to try something simpler and yet bolder, indeed something desperate.”

  ‘“You are both vague and disquieting,” said Thorin. “Speak more plainly!”

  ‘“Well, for one thing,” I said, “you will have to go on this quest yourself, and you will have to go secretly. No messengers, heralds, or challenges for you, Thorin Oakenshield. At most you can take with you a few kinsmen or faithful followers. But you will need something more, something unexpected.”

  ‘“Name it!” said Thorin.‘

  “One moment!” I said. “You hope to deal with a Dragon; and he is not only very great, but he is now also old and very cunning. From the beginning of your adventure you must allow for this: his memory, and his sense of smell.”

  ‘“Naturally,” said Thorin. “Dwarves have had more dealings with Dragons than most, and you are not instructing the ignorant.”

  ‘“Very good,” I answered; “but your own plans did not seem to me to consider this point. My plan is one of stealth. Stealth. * Smaug does not lie on his costly bed without dreams, Thorin Oakenshield. He dreams of Dwarves! You may be sure that he explores his hall day by day, night by night, until he is sure that no faintest air of a Dwarf is near, before he goes to his sleep: his half-sleep, prick-eared for the sound of – Dwarf-feet.”

  ‘ “You make your stealth sound as difficult and hopeless as any open attack,” said Balin. “Impossibly difficult!”

  ‘ “Yes, it is difficult,” I answered. “But not impossibly difficult, or I would not waste my time here. I would say absurdly difficult. So I am going to suggest an absurd solution to the problem. Take a Hobbit with you! Smaug has probably never heard of Hobbits, and he has certainly never smelt them.”

  ‘ “What!” cried Glóin. “One of those simpletons down in the Shire? What use on earth, or under it, could he possibly be? Let him smell as he may, he would never dare to come within smelling distance of the nakedest dragonet new from the shell!”

  ‘ “Now, now!” I said, “that is quite unfair. You do not know much about the Shire-folk, Glóin. I suppose you think them simple, because they are generous and do not haggle; and think them timid because you never sell them any weapons. You are mistaken. Anyway, there is one that I have my eye on as a companion for you, Thorin. He is neat-handed and clever, though shrewd, and far from rash. And I think he has courage. Great courage, I guess, according to the way of his people. They are, you might say, ‘brave at a pinch’. You have to put these Hobbits in a tight place before you find out what is in them.”

  ‘ “The test cannot be made,” Thorin answered. “As far as I have observed, they do all that they can to avoid tight places.”

  ‘ “Quite true,” I said. “They are a very sensible people. But this Hobbit is rather unusual. I think he could be persuaded to go into a tight place. I believe that in his heart he really desires to – to have, as he would put it, an adventure.”

  ‘ “Not at my expense!” said Thorin, rising and striding about angrily. “This is not advice, it is foolery! I fail to see what any Hobbit, good or bad, could do that would repay me for a day’s keep, even if he could be persuaded to start.”

  ‘ “Fail to see! You would fail to hear it, more likely,” I answered. “Hobbits move without effort more quietly than any Dwarf in the world could manage, though his life depended on it. They are, I suppose, the most soft-footed of all mortal kinds. You do not seem to have observed that, at any rate, Thorin Oakenshield, as you tramped through the Shire, making a noise (I may say) that the inhabitants could hear a mile away. When I said that you would need stealth, I meant it: professional stealth.”

  ‘ “Professional stealth?” cried Balin, taking up my words rather differently than I had meant them. “Do you mean a trained treasure-seeker? Can they still be found?”

  ‘I hesitated. This was a new turn, and I was not sure how to take it. “I think so,” I said at last. “For a reward they will go in where you dare not, or at any rate cannot, and get what you desire.”

  ‘Thorin’s eyes glistened as the memories of lost treasures moved in his mind; but “A paid thief, you mean,” he said scornfully. “That might be considered, if the reward was not too high. But what has all this to do with one of those villagers? They drink out of clay, and they cannot tell a gem from a bead of glass.”

  ‘ “I wish you would not always speak so confidently without knowledge,” I said sharply. “These villagers have lived in the Shire some fourteen hundred years, and they have learned many things in the time. They had dealings with the Elves, and with the Dwarves, a thousand years before Smaug came to Erebor. None of them are wealthy as your forefathers reckoned it, but you will find some of their dwellings have fairer things in them than you can boast here, Thorin. The Hobbit that I have in mind has ornaments of gold, and eats with silver tools, and drinks wine out of shapely crystal.”

  ‘ “Ah! I see your drift at last,” said Balin. “He is a thief, then? That is why you recommend him?”

  ‘At that I fear I lost my temper and my caution. This Dwarvish conceit that no one can have or make anything “of value” save themselves, and that all fine things in other hands must have been got, if not stolen, from the Dwarves at some time, was more than I could stand at that moment. “A thief ?” I said, laughing. “Why yes, a professional thief, of course! How else would a Hobbit come by a silver spoon? I will put the thief’s mark on his door, and then you will find it.” Then being angry I got up, and I said with a warmth that surprised myself: “You must look for that door, Thorin Oakenshield! I am serious. ” And suddenly I felt that I was indeed in hot earnest. This queer notion of mine was not a joke, it was right. It was desperately important that it should be carried out. The Dwarves must bend their stiff necks.

  ‘ “Listen to me, Durin’s Folk!” I cried. “If you persuade this Hobbit to join you, you will succeed. If you do not, you will fail. If you refuse even to try, then I have finished with you. You will get no more advice or help from me until the Shadow falls on you!”

  ‘Thorin turned and looked at me in astonishment, as well he might. “Strong words!” he said. “Very well, I will come. Some foresight is on you, if you are not merely crazed.”

  ‘ “Good!” I sa
id. “But you must come with good will, not merely in the hope of proving me a fool. You must be patient and not easily put off, if neither the courage nor the desire for adventure that I speak of are plain to see at first sight. He will deny them. He will try to back out; but you must not let him.”

  ‘ “Haggling will not help him, if that is what you mean,” said Thorin. “I will offer him a fair reward for anything that he recovers, and no more.”

  ‘It was not what I meant, but it seemed useless to say so. “There is one other thing,” I went on; “you must make all your plans and preparations beforehand. Get everything ready! Once persuaded he must have no time for second thoughts. You must go straight from the Shire, east on your quest.”

  ‘ “He sounds a very strange creature, this thief of yours,” said a young Dwarf called Fili (Thorin’s nephew, as I afterwards learned). “What is his name, or the one that he uses?”

  ‘ “Hobbits use their real names,” I said. “The only one that he has is Bilbo Baggins.”

  ‘ “What a name!” said Fili, and laughed. ‘

  “He thinks it very respectable,” I said. “And it fits well enough; for he is a middle-aged bachelor, and getting a bit flabby and fat. Food is perhaps at present his main interest. He keeps a very good larder, I am told, and maybe more than one. At least you will be well entertained.”

  ‘ “That is enough,” said Thorin. “If I had not given my word, I would not come now. I am in no mood to be made a fool of. For I am serious also. Deadly serious, and my heart is hot within me.”

  ‘I took no notice of this. “Look now, Thorin,” I said, “April is passing and Spring is here. Make everything ready as soon as you can. I have some business to do, but I shall be back in a week. When I return, if all is in order, I will ride on ahead to prepare the ground. Then we will all visit him together on the following day.”

  ‘And with that I took my leave, not wishing to give Thorin more chance of second thoughts than Bilbo was to have. The rest of the story is well known to you – from Bilbo’s point of view. If I had written the account, it would have sounded rather different. He did not know all that went on: the care, for instance, that I took so that the coming of a large party of Dwarves to Bywater, off the main road and their usual beat, should not come to his ears too soon.

  ‘It was on the morning of Tuesday, April the 25th, 2941, that I called to see Bilbo; and though I knew more or less what to expect, I must say that my confidence was shaken. I saw that things would be far more difficult than I had thought. But I persevered. Next day, Wednesday, April the 26th, I brought Thorin and his companions to Bag End; with great difficulty so far as Thorin was concerned – he hung back at the last. And of course Bilbo was completely bewildered and behaved ridiculously. Everything in fact went extremely badly for me from the beginning; and that unfortunate business about the “professional thief ”, which the Dwarves had got firmly into their heads, only made matters worse. I was thankful that I had told Thorin we should all stay the night at Bag End, since we should need time to discuss ways and means. It gave me a last chance. If Thorin had left Bag End before I could see him alone, my plan would have been ruined.’

  It will be seen that some elements of this conversation were in the later version taken up into the argument between Gandalf and Thorin at Bag End.

  From this point the narrative in the later version follows the earlier very closely, which is not therefore further cited here, except for a passage at the end. In the earlier, when Gandalf ceased speaking, Frodo records that Gimli laughed.

  ‘It still sounds absurd,’ he said, ‘even now that all has turned out more than well. I knew Thorin, of course; and I wish I had been there, but I was away at the time of your first visit to us. And I was not allowed to go on the quest: too young, they said, though at sixty-two I thought myself fit for anything. Well, I am glad to have heard the full tale. If it is full. I do not really suppose that even now you are telling us all you know.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Gandalf.

  And after this Meriadoc questioned Gandalf further about Thráin’s map and key; and in the course of his reply (most of which is retained in the later version, at a different point in the narrative) Gandalf said:

  ‘It was nine years after Thráin had left his people that I found him, and he had then been in the pits of Dol Guldur for five years at least. I do not know how he endured so long, nor how he had kept these things hidden through all his torments. I think that the Dark Power had desired nothing from him except the Ring only, and when he had taken that he troubled no further, but just flung the broken prisoner into the pits to rave until he died. A small oversight; but it proved fatal. Small oversights often do.’

  IV

  THE HUNT FOR THE RING

  (i)

  Of the Journey of the Black Riders according to the account that Gandalf gave to Frodo

  Gollum was captured in Mordor in the year 3017 and taken to Barad-dûr, and there questioned and tormented. When he had learned what he could from him, Sauron released him and sent him forth again. He did not trust Gollum, for he divined something indomitable in him, which could not be overcome, even by the Shadow of Fear, except by destroying him. But Sauron perceived the depth of Gollum’s malice towards those that had ‘robbed’ him, and guessing that he would go in search of them to avenge himself, Sauron hoped that his spies would thus be led to the Ring.

  Gollum, however, was before long captured by Aragorn, and taken to Northern Mirkwood; and though he was followed, he could not be rescued before he was in safe keeping. Now Sauron had never paid heed to the ‘halflings’, even if he had heard of them, and he did not yet know where their land lay. From Gollum, even under pain, he could not get any clear account, both because Gollum indeed had no certain knowledge himself, and because what he knew he falsified. Ultimately indomitable he was, except by death, as Sauron guessed, both from his halfling nature, and from a cause which Sauron did not fully comprehend, being himself consumed by lust for the Ring. Then he became filled with a hatred of Sauron even greater than his terror, seeing in him truly his greatest enemy and rival. Thus it was that he dared to pretend that he believed that the land of the Halflings was near to the places where he had once dwelt beside the banks of the Gladden.

  Now Sauron learning of the capture of Gollum by the chiefs of his enemies was in great haste and fear. Yet all his ordinary spies and emissaries could bring him no tidings. And this was due largely both to the vigilance of the Dúnedain and to the treachery of Saruman, whose own servants either waylaid or misled the servants of Sauron. Of this Sauron became aware, but his arm was not yet long enough to reach Saruman in Isengard. Therefore he hid his knowledge of Saruman’s double-dealing and concealed his wrath, biding his time, and preparing for the great war in which he planned to sweep all his enemies into the western sea. At length he resolved that no others would serve him in this case but his mightiest servants, the Ringwraiths, who had no will but his own, being each utterly subservient to the ring that had enslaved him, which Sauron held.

  Now few could withstand even one of these fell creatures, and (as Sauron deemed) none could withstand them when gathered together under their terrible captain, the Lord of Morgul. Yet this weakness they had for Sauron’s present purpose: so great was the terror that went with them (even invisible and unclad) that their coming forth might soon be perceived and their mission be guessed by the Wise.

  So it was that Sauron prepared two strokes – in which many after saw the beginnings of the War of the Ring. They were made together. The Orcs assailed the realm of Thranduil, with orders to recapture Gollum; and the Lord of Morgul was sent forth openly to battle against Gondor. These things were done towards the end of June 3018. Thus Sauron tested the strength and preparedness of Denethor, and found them more than he had hoped. But that troubled him little, since he had used little force in the assault, and his chief purpose was that the coming forth of the Nazgûl should appear only as part of his policy of war against Gon
dor.

  Therefore when Osgiliath was taken and the bridge broken Sauron stayed the assault, and the Nazgûl were ordered to begin the search for the Ring. But Sauron did not under-esteem the powers and vigilance of the Wise, and the Nazgûl were commanded to act as secretly as they could. Now at that time the Chieftain of the Ringwraiths dwelt in Minas Morgul with six companions, while the second to the Chief, Khamûl the Shadow of the East, abode in Dol Guldur as Sauron’s lieutenant, with one other as his messenger. 1

  The Lord of Morgul therefore led his companions over Anduin, unclad and unmounted, and invisible to eyes, and yet a terror to all living things that they passed near. It was, maybe, on the first day of July that they went forth. They passed slowly and in stealth, through Anórien, and over the Entwade, and so into the Wold, and rumour of darkness and a dread of men knew not what went before them. They reached the west-shores of Anduin a little north of Sarn Gebir, as they had trysted; and there received horses and raiment that were secretly ferried over the River. This was (it is thought) about the seventeenth of July. Then they passed northward seeking for the Shire, the land of the Halflings.

  About the twenty-second of July they met their companions, the Nazgûl of Dol Guldur, in the Field of Celebrant. There they learned that Gollum had eluded both the Orcs that recaptured him, and the Elves that pursued them, and had vanished. 2 They were told also by Khamûl that no dwelling of Halflings could be discovered in the Vales of Anduin, and that the villages of the Stoors by the Gladden had long been deserted. But the Lord of Morgul, seeing no better counsel, determined still to seek northward, hoping maybe to come upon Gollum as well as to discover the Shire. That this would prove to be not far from the hated land of Lórien seemed to him not unlikely, if it was not indeed within the fences of Galadriel. But the power of the White Ring he would not defy, nor enter yet into Lórien. Passing therefore between Lórien and the Mountains the Nine rode ever on into the North; and terror went before them and lingered behind them; but they did not find what they sought nor learn any news that availed them.