The War of the Ring (24 page)

Sam had been giving some earnest thought to food as they marched. Now that the despair of the impassable Gate was behind him, he did not feel so inclined as his master to take no thought for their livelihood beyond the end of their errand; and anyway it seemed wiser to him to save the elvish bread for worse times ahead. Two days or more had gone since he reckoned that they had a bare supply for three weeks.(9) 'If we reach the Fire in that time we'll be lucky at this rate,' he thought. 'And we may be wanting to come back. We may.'

Besides at the end of [?their] long night march he felt more hungry than usual.

With all this in his mind he turned to look for Gollum.

Gollum was crawling away through the bracken. 'Hi! ' said Sam.

'Where are you going? Hunting? Now look here, my friend, you don't like our food, but if you could find something fit for a hobbit to eat I'd be grateful.'

Yes, yess.

Gollum brings back 2 rabbits. Angry at fire (a) fear (b) rage at nice juicy rabbits being spoiled. Pacified by Frodo (promise of fish?).

Night of full moon and vision of Anduin.

Third night. They do not reach the cross ways. [?Trying] to hasten they journey by day through wood. They come to cross ways and peer at it out of thicket.

The headless king with a mocking head made by orcs and scrawls on it.

That night they turn left. Vision of Minas Morghul in the moon high up in re-entrant.(10)

Here this text ends, and was followed by another draft, beginning precisely as does that just given, in which the story of Sam's cooking was developed almost to the final form. On one of the pages of this text my father pencilled a note: 'Describe baytrees and spicy herbs as they march.' It was thus the cooking of the rabbits that led to the account of the shrubs and herbs of Ithilien (TT p. 258) - 'which is proving a lovely land', as he said in his letter of 30 April 1944 {Letters no. 64).

He now returned again to the fair copy manuscript, and without changing, then or later, the opening of the chapter he wrote the story almost as it stands in TT, pp. 258 ff. (from 'So they passed into the northern marches of that land that Men once called Ithilien'). At this stage, therefore, the chronology of the journey was thus: Feb. 5 Left the Morannon at dusk, and came into a less barren country of heathland. Took to the southward road about midnight (p. 132).

Feb. 6 Halted at dawn. Description of Ithilien and its herbs and flowers. Sam's cooking, and the coming of the men of Gondor.

With the introduction of a long rider to the following typescript text an extra day and night were inserted into the journey between the Morannon and the place of Sam's cooking (see the Note on Chronology at the end of this chapter). At dawn of this added day they found themselves in a less barren country of heathland, and they passed the day hidden in deep heather (TT p. 257); at dusk they set out again, and only now took to the southward road.

At the end of the episode of 'Stewed Rabbit' there is a brief sketch in the manuscript of the story to come, written in pencil so rapid that I cannot make all of it out; but it can be seen that Sam finds that Gollum is not there; he puts out the fire and runs down to wash the pans; he hears voices, and suddenly sees a couple of men chasing Gollum.

Gollum eludes their grasp and vanishes into a tangled thicket. They go on up the hill, and Sam hears them laugh. 'Not an orc,' says one. Sam creeps back to Frodo, who has also heard voices and hidden himself, and they see many men creeping up towards the road.

Another page found separately seems quite likely to be the continuation of this outline, and is equally hard to read. There is to be a description of men like Boromir, dressed in lighter and darker green, armed with knives; the hobbits wonder who they are - they are certainly not scouts of Sauron. The fight on the road between the men of Harad and the men of Minas Tirith is mentioned; then follows: A slain Tirith-man falls over bank and crashes down on them.

Frodo goes to him and he cries orch and tries to ... but falls dead crying 'Gondor!' The Harad-men drive the Gondorians

[?down] hill. The hobbits creep away through thickets. At last they climb tree. See Gondorians fight and win finally. At dusk Gollum climbs up to them. He curses Sam for [?bringing enemies]. They dare not go back to road, but wander on through the wild glades of Ithilien that night. See Full Moon.

Meet no more folk.

Strike the road to Osgiliath far down, and have to go back long [?detour] East. Deep Ilex woods. Gollum goes [?on] by day. Evening of third day they reach Cross ways. See broken statue.(11)

The story of the ambush (12) of the Southron men thus seems at this stage to have had no sequel. But from the point where this outline begins (when Sam calls to Gollum that there is some rabbit left if he wants to change his mind, but finds that he has disappeared, 11

p. 264) the final form of the story, partly extant in rough drafting, was achieved without hesitation - with, however, one major difference: the leader of the Gondorians was not Faramir, brother of Boromir. At this time he was Falborn son of Anborn (and remained so in the manuscript). Mablung and Damrod, the two men who were left to guard Frodo and Sam,(13) told them that Falborn was a kinsman of Boromir, and that 'he and they were Rangers of Ithilien, for they were descended from folk who lived in Ithilien at one time, before it was overrun' (cf. TT p. 267).

For the rest, Falborn's conversation with Frodo and Sam proceeds almost exactly as does that with Faramir in TT.(14) Mablung and Damrod used 'sometimes the Common Speech, but after the manner of older days, sometimes some other language of their own', but the description of this other tongue (TT p. 267) was added to the typescript that followed the manuscript at some later time. Their account of the Southrons scarcely differs from the final form, but where Mablung in TT (p. 268) speaks of 'These cursed Southrons', in the manuscript he says 'These cursed Barangils, for so we name them'

(subsequently changed to the later reading). The name Barangils is written on the First Map beside Swertings (see Map III, VII.309).

The account of the Oliphaunt was never changed, save only in the name by which the great beasts were known in Gondor (Mumak in TT). In the original draft Mablung (15) cried Andabund!, and this was the form first written in the manuscript also. This was changed to Andrabonn,(16) then to Mumund. These were immediate changes, for a few lines later appears 'the Mumund of Harad was indeed a beast of vast bulk', where drafting for the passage has Mumar. Soon after, the form Mamuk was introduced in both passages: this was the form my father used in his letter to me of 6 May 1944 (Letters no. 66).

Lastly, in the manuscript Damrod cries 'May the gods turn him aside', where in TT he names the Valar; gods was preceded by a rejected word that I cannot interpret.

On 30 April 1944 (Letters no. 64) my father described to me the course of the story that I had not read:

['The Ring'] is growing and sprouting again ... and opening out in unexpected ways. So far in the new chapters Frodo and Sam have traversed Sarn Gebir,(17) climbed down the cliff, encountered and temporarily tamed Gollum. They have with his guidance crossed the Dead Marshes and the slag-heaps of Mordor, lain in hiding outside the main gates and found them impassable, and set out for a more secret entrance near Minas Morghul (formerly M. Ithil). It will turn out to be the deadly Kirith Ungol and Gollum will play false. But at the moment they are in Ithilien (which is proving a lovely land); there has been a lot of bother about stewed rabbit; and they have been captured by Gondorians, and witnessed them ambushing a Swerting army (dark men of the South) marching to Mordor's aid.

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 ... In the chapter next to be done they will get to Kirith Ungol and Frodo will be caught.... On the whole Sam is behaving well, and living up to repute. He treats Gollum rather like Ariel to Caliban.

Since it was not until a week later that he referred to the sudden and totally unexpected appearance of Faramir on the scene, it seems to me that when he wrote this letter he had not progressed much if at all beyond the end of the Oliphaunt episode; for in the manuscript of the chapter that became 'Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit' the leader of the Gondorians is Falborn, not Faramir, and there is as yet no indication that he will play any further part (cf. the outline on p. 135).(18) This chapter (including what became 'The Black Gate is Closed') was read to C. S. Lewis on the first of May 1944 (Letters no. 65).

This is a convenient place to set down the notes on names added later to the page transcribed on p. 132:

Change Black Mountains to the White Mountains. Hebel

[Orolos>] Uilos Nor[?ais]

Alter the Morannon to Kirith Naglath Cleft of the Teeth Gorgor

The two King Stones Sern Ubed (denial)

Sern Aranath

Rohar?

To these pencilled notes my father added in ink: Not Hebel but Ephel. Et-pele > Eppele. Ephel-duath. Ephel

[Nimras >] Nimrais. Ered Nimrath.

With Kirith Naglath cf. Naglath Morn, p. 122; and on the reference to Sern Ubed and Sern Aranath see p. 132. On the change of the Black Mountains to the White see VII.433.

NOTES.

1. In the manuscript as in the draft, 'The moon was not due until late that night'; in TT 'the moon was now three nights from the full, but it did not climb over the mountains till nearly midnight.'

2. That the illegible word is re-entrant seems assured by the recurrence of this word in perfectly clear form and in the same context in the text given on p. 134. In the present text at this point there is drawn a wavy line; this clearly indicates the line of the mountains pierced by a very wide valley running up into a point.

3. The illegible word is certainly not pointing. It begins with an f or a g and probably ends in ing, but does not suggest either facing or gazing.

4. The word Ubed, occurring twice here and again in the further notes on names on this page (where it is translated 'denial'), is written at all occurrences in precisely the same way, and I do not feel at all certain of the third letter.

5. Before the words 'The red eye' were written my father drew an Old English S-rune (cf. VII.382), but struck it out.

6. The remainder of this page carries disjointed passages: as elsewhere my father probably had it beside him and used it for jotting down narrative 'moments' as they came into his mind. The first reads:

that great mountain's side was built Minas Tirith, the Tower of Guard, where Gandalf walked now deep in thought.

On this see note 8. Then follows:

For a third night they went on. They had good water in plenty, and Gollum was better fed. Already he was less famished to look at. At early morning when they lay hidden for rest, and at evening when they set out again, he would slip away and return licking his lips. Sometimes in the long night he would take out something ..... and would crunch it as he walked.

..... and lay under a deep bank in tall bracken under the shadow of pine trees. Water flowed not far away, cold, good to drink. Gollum slipped away, and returned shortly, licking his lips; but he brought with him also a present for the hobbits.

Two rabbits he had caught.

With Sam's having no objection to rabbit but a distaste for what Gollum brought, and a reference to his prudent wish, in contrast to Frodo's indifference, to save the elvish waybread for worse times ahead, these exceedingly difficult 'extracts' come to an end.

It was clearly here that the episode of the stewed rabbit entered; but it seems scarcely possible to define how my father related it to the whole sequence of the journey from the Black Gate.

7. On the continued hesitation between Elostirion and Osgiliath at this time see p. 122 and note 7.

8. The last sentence is in fact, and rather oddly, completed by the first passage given in note 6, thus:

There glimmered through the night the snows on Mount Mindolluin; but though Frodo's eyes stared out into the west wondering where in the vastness of the land his old companions might now be, he did not know that under / that great mountain's side was built Minas Tirith, the Tower of Guard, where Gandalf walked now deep in thought.

See the Note on Chronology below.

9. This sentence replaced a form of it in which Sam's reckoning had been that they had 'a bare ten days' supply of waybread: that left eight.' In the manuscript of 'The Passage of the Marshes', corresponding to that in TT p. 231, Sam said 'I reckon we've got enough to last, say, 10 days now'. This was changed to 'three weeks or so', no doubt at the same time as the sentence in the present text was rewritten.

In TT (p. 260) it is said at this point that 'Six days or more had passed' since Sam made his reckoning of the remaining lembas, whereas here it is 'Two days or more'. Three days had in fact passed, the 3rd, 4th and 5th of February (p. 118). In TT the length of the journey had been increased, both by the two extra days during which they crossed the Noman-lands {pp. 112, 120), and by an extra day added to the journey from the Morannon to the place of the stewed rabbit episode (p. 135).