Where is G[andalf] asks Odo - said I was old and foolish enough now to take care of myself said B. But I dare say he will turn up, he is apt to.
There follows a note to the effect that while Odo believed no more than a quarter of "B."s stories", Drogo was less sceptical, and Frodo believed them "almost completely". The character of this last nephew was early established, though he was destined to disappear (see p. 70): he is not the forerunner of Frodo in LR. All this seems to have been written at one time. On the face of it, it must belong with the second (unfinished) version of "A Long-expected Party", since it is Bilbo who "goes off" (afterwards my father bracketed the words "Bilbo goes off with 3 Took nephews" and wrote "Bingo" above). The implication is presumably that when Bilbo set out with his nephews Gandalf was no longer present.
Then follows, in pencil: "Make return of ring a motive." This no doubt refers to the statement in the third version that "The ring was his [Bingo"s] father"s parting gift" (p. 32).
After a note suggesting the coming of a dragon to Hobbiton and a more heroic role for hobbits, a suggestion rejected with a pencilled "No", there follows, apparently all written at one time (but with a later pencilled heading "Conversation of Bingo and Bilbo"): "No one," said B., "can escape quite unscathed from dragons. The only thing is to shun them (if you can) like the Hobbitonians, though not nec[essarily] to disbelieve in them (or refuse to remember them) like the H[obbitonians]. Now I have spent all my money which seemed once to me too much and my own has gone after it [sic]. And I don"t like being without after [?having] - in fact I am being lured. Well, well, twice one is not always two, as my father used to say. But at any rate I think I would rather wander as a poor man than sit and shiver. And Hobbiton rather grows on you in 20 years, don"t you think; grows too heavy to bear, I mean. Anyway, we are off - and it"s autumn. I enjoy autumn wandering."
Asks Elrond what he can do to heal his money-wish and unsettlement. Elrond tells him of an island. Britain? Far west where the Elves still reign. Journey to perilous isle.
I want to look again on a live dragon.
This is certainly Bilbo, and the pa.s.sage (though not of course the pencilled heading) precedes the third version, as the reference to "20 years" shows (see pp. 22, 31). - At the foot of the page are these faint pencilled scrawls: Bingo goes to find his father.
You said you.... end your days in contentment - so I hope to.
The illegible word might possibly be "want". - On the reverse of the page is the following coherent pa.s.sage in ink: The Ring: whence its origin. Necromancer? Not very dangerous, when used for good purpose. But it exacts its penalty. You must either lose it, or yourself. Bilbo could not bring himself to lose it. He starts on a holiday [struck out: with his wife] handing over ring to Bingo. But he vanishes. Bingo worried. Resists desire to go and find him - though he does travel round a lot looking for news. Won"t lose ring as he feels it will ultimately bring him to his father.
At last he meets Gandalf. Gandalf"s advice. You must stage a disappearance, and the ring may then be cheated into letting you follow a similar path. But you have got to really disappear and give up the past. Hence the "party".
Bingo confides in his friends. Odo, Frodo, and Vigo (?) insist on coming too. Gandalf rather dubious. You will share the same fate as Bingo, he said, if you dare the ring. Look what happened to Primula.
A couple of pencilled changes were made to this: above "Vigo(?)" my father wrote "Marmaduke"; and he bracketed the last sentence. - Since Bingo is here Bilbo"s son this note belongs with the third version. But the watery death of Primula Brandybuck (no longer Bilbo"s wife, but still Bingo"s mother) is first recorded in the fourth version (p. 37), and the Ring could not possibly be a.s.sociated with that event; so that the reference to "Primula" here must refer to something else of which there is no other trace.
Particularly noteworthy is the suggestion that the idea of the Party arose from Gandalf"s advice to Bingo concerning the Ring. It is indeed remarkable that already at this stage, when my father was still working on the opening chapter, so much of the Ring"s nature was already present in embryo. - The final two notes are in pencil. The first reads: Bilbo goes to Elrond to cure dragon-longing, and settles down in Rivendell. Hence Bingo"s frequent absences from home. The dragon-longing comes on Bingo. Also ring-lure.
With Bingo"s "frequent absences from home" cf. "he was often away from home" in the third version (p. 29), and "Resists desire to go and find him - though he does travel round a lot looking for news" in the note on the Ring given above. And the last: Make dubious regions - Old Forest on way to Rivendell. South of River. They turn aside to call up Frodo Br[andybuck] [written above: Marmaduke], get lost and caught by Willowman and by Barrow- wights. T. Bombadil comes in.
"South" was changed from "North", and "East" is written in the margin.
On a separate page (in fact on the back of my father"s earliest surviving map of the Shire) is a brief "scheme" that is closely a.s.sociated with these last notes; at the head of it my father afterwards wrote Genesis of "Lord of the Rings".
B.B. sets out with 2 nephews. They turn S[outh] ward to collect Frodo Brandybuck. Get lost in Old Forest. Adventure with Willowman and Barrow-wights. T. Bombadil.
Reach Rivendell and find Bilbo. Bilbo had had a sudden desire to visit the Wild again. But meets Gandalf at Rivendell. Learns about [sic; here presumably the narrative idea changes] Gandalf had turned up at Bag-end. Bilbo tells him of desire for Wild and gold. Dragon curse working. He goes to Rivendell between the worlds and settles down.
Ring must eventually go back to Maker, or draw you towards it. Rather a dirty trick handing it on?
It is interesting to see the idea already present that Bingo and his companions would turn aside to "collect" or "call up" another hobbit, at first named Frodo Brandybuck, but changed to Marmaduke (Brandybuck). Frodo Brandybuck also appears in initial drafting for the second chapter (p. 45) as one of Bingo"s three companions on his departure from Hobbiton. There are various ways of combining all these references to the three (or two) nephews, so as to present a series of successive formulations, but names and roles were still entirely fluid and ephemeral and no certainty is possible. Only in the first full text of the second chapter does the story become clear (for a time): Bingo set out with two companions, Odo Took and Frodo Took.
It is to be noted that Tom Bombadil, the Willow-man, and the Barrow-wights were already in existence years before my father began The t.u.r.d of the Rings; see p. 115.
On 11 February 1938 Stanley Unwin reported to my father that his son Rayner had read the first chapter and was delighted with it. On 17 February my father wrote to Charles Furth at Allen and Unwin: They say it is the first step that costs the effort. I do not find it so. I am sure I could write unlimited "first chapters". I have indeed written many. The Hobbit sequel is still where it was, and I have only the vaguest notions of how to proceed. Not ever intending any sequel, I fear I squandered all my favourite "motifs" and characters on the original "Hobbit".
And on the following day he replied to Stanley Unwin: I am most grateful to your son Rayner: and am encouraged. At the same time I find it only too easy to write opening chapters - and for the moment the story is not unfolding. I have unfortunately very little time, made shorter by a rather disastrous Christmas vacation. I squandered so much on the original "Hobbit" (which was not meant to have a sequel) that it is difficult to find anything new in that world.
But on 4 March 1938, in the course of a long letter to Stanley Unwin on another subject, he said: The sequel to The Hobbit has now progressed as far as the end of the third chapter. But stories tend to get out of hand, and this has taken an unpremeditated turn. Mr Lewis and my youngest boy are reading it in bits as a serial. I hesitate to bother your son, though I should value his criticism. At any rate if he would like to read it in serial form he can.
The "unpremeditated turn", beyond any doubt, was the appearance of the Black Riders.
II. FROM HOBBITON TO THE WOODY END.
The original ma.n.u.script drafts for the second chapter of The Lord of the Rings do not const.i.tute a completed narrative, however rough, but rather, disconnected parts of the narrative, in places in more than one version, as the story expanded and changed in the writing. The fact that my father had typed out the first chapter by r February 1938 (p. 40), but on 17 February wrote (p. 43) that while first chapters came easily to him "the Hobbit sequel is still where it was," suggests strongly that the original drafting of this second chapter followed the typing of the fourth version of "A Long-expected Party".
There followed a typescript text, with a t.i.tle "Three"s Company and Four"s More"; this will be given in full, but before doing so earlier stages of the story (one of them of the utmost interest) must be looked at.
The first rough ma.n.u.script begins with Odo and Frodo Took (but Frodo at once changed to Drogo) sitting on a gate at night and talking about the events at Bag End that afternoon, while "Frodo Brandybuck was sitting on a pile of haversacks and packs and looking at the stars." Frodo Brandybuck, it seems, was brought in here from the role prepared for him in the notes given on pp. 42-3, in one of which he was replaced by Marmaduke (Brandybuck). Bingo, coming up behind silently and invisibly, pushed Odo and Drogo off the gate; and after the ensuing raillery the draft continues: "Have you three any idea where we are going to?" said Bingo.
"None whatever," said Frodo, " - if you mean, where we are going to land finally. With such a captain it would be quite impossible to guess that. But we all know where we are making for first."
"What we don"t know," put in Drogo, "is how long it is going to take us on foot. Do you? You have usually taken a pony."
"That is not much faster, though it is less tiring. Let me see - I have never done the journey in a hurry before, and have usually taken five and a half weeks (with plenty of rests). Actually I have always had some adventure, milder or less so, every time I have taken the road to Rivendell."
"Very well," said Frodo, "let"s put a bit of the way behind us tonight. It is jolly under the stars, and cool."
"Better turn in soon and make an early start,"said Odo (who was fond of bed). "We shall do more tomorrow if we begin fresh."
"I back councillor Frodo," said Bingo. So they started, shouldering packs, and gripping long sticks. They went very quietly over fields and along hedgerows and the fringes of small coppices until night fell, and in their dark [?green) cloaks they were quite invisible without any rings. And of course being Hobbits they could not be heard - not even by Hobbits. At last Hobbiton was far behind, and the lights in the windows of the last farmhouse were twinkling on a hilltop a long way away. Bingo turned and waved a hand in farewell.
At the bottom of a slight hill they struck the main road East - rolling away pale grey into the darkness, between high hedges and dark wind-stirred trees. Now they marched along two by two; talking a little., occasionally humming, often tramping in time for a mile or so without saying anything. The stars swung overhead, and the night got late.
Odo gave a big yawn and slowed down. "I am so sleepy," he said, "that I shall fall down on the road. What about a place for the night?"
Here the original opening draft ends. Notably, the hobbits are setting out expressly for Rivendell, and Bingo has been there several times before; cf. the note given on p. 42: "Bilbo... settles down in Rivendell. Hence Bingo"s frequent absences from home." But there is no indication, nor has there been any, why they should be in any particular hurry.
It is clear that when the hobbits struck the East Road they took to it and walked eastward along it. At this stage there is no suggestion of a side road to Buckland, nor indeed that Buckland played any part in their plans.
A revised beginning followed. Drogo Took was dropped, leaving Odo and Frodo as Bingo"s companions (Frodo now in all probability a Took). The pa.s.sage concerning Rivendell has gone, and instead the plan to go first "to pick up Marmaduke" appears. The description of the walk from Hobbiton is now much fuller, and largely reaches the form in the typescript text (p. 50); it is interesting to observe here the point of emergence of the road to Buckland: After a rest on a bank under some thinly clad birches they went on again, until they struck a narrow road. It went rolling away, pale grey in the dark, up and down - but all the time gently climbing southward. It was the road to Buckland, climbing away from the main East Road in the Water Valley, and winding away past the skirts of the Green Hills towards the south-east corner of the Shire, the Wood-end as the Hobbits called it. They marched along it, until it plunged between high hedges and dark trees rustling their dry leaves gently in the night airs.
Comparison of this with the description of the East Road in the first draft ("rolling away pale grey into the darkness, between high hedges and dark wind-stirred trees") shows that the one was derived from the other. Perhaps as a result, the crossing of the East Road is omitted; it is merely said that the Buckland road diverged from it (contrast FR p. 80). After Odo"s words (typescript text p. 50) "Or are you fellows going to sleep on your legs?" there follows: The Road goes ever on and on down from the Door where it began: before us far the Road has gone, and we come after it, who can; pursuing it with weary feet, until it joins some larger way, where many paths and errands meet, and whither then? - we cannot say.
There is no indication, in the ma.n.u.script as written, who spoke the verse (for which there is also a good deal of rough working); in the typescript text (pp. 52 - 3) it is given to Frodo and displaced to a later point in the story. The second draft then jumps to the following day, and takes up in the middle of a sentence: .. on the flat among tall trees growing in scattered fashion in the gra.s.slands, when Frodo said: "I can hear a horse coming along the road behind! "
They looked back, but the windings of the road hid the traveller.
"I think we had better get out of sight," said Bingo; "or you fellows at any rate. Of course it doesn"t matter very much, but I would rather not be met by anyone we know."
They [written above at the same time: Odo & F.] ran quickly to the left down into a little hollow beside the road, and lay flat. Bingo slipped on his ring and sat down a few yards from the track. The sound of hoofs drew nearer. Round a turn came a white horse, and on it sat a bundle - or that is what it looked like: a small man wrapped entirely in a great cloak and hood so that only his eyes peered out, and his boots in the stirrups below.
The horse stopped when it came level with Bingo. The figure uncovered its nose and sniffed; and then sat silent as if listening. Suddenly a laugh came from inside the hood.
"Bingo my boy!" said Gandalf, throwing aside his wrappings.
"You and your lads are somewhere about. Come along now and show up, I want a word with you! " He turned his horse and rode straight to the hollow where Odo and Frodo lay. "Hullo! hullo! " he said. "Tired already? Aren"t you going any further today?"
At that moment Bingo reappeared again. "Well I"m blest," said he. "What are you doing along this way, Gandalf? I thought you had gone back with the elves and dwarves. And how did you know where we were?"
"Easy," said Gandalf. "No magic. I saw you from the top of the hill, and knew how far ahead you were. As soon as I turned the corner and saw the straight piece in front was empty I knew you had turned aside somewhere about here. And you have made a track in the long gra.s.s that I can see, at any rate when I am looking for it."
Here this draft stops, at the foot of a page, and if my father continued beyond this point the ma.n.u.script is lost; but I think it far more likely that he abandoned it because he abandoned the idea that the rider was Gandalf as soon as written. It is most curious to see how directly the description of Gandalf led into that of the Black Rider - and that the original sniff was Gandalf"s! In fact the conversion of the one to the other was first carried out by pencilled changes on the draft text, thus: Round a turn came a white [> black] horse, and on it sat a bundle - or that is what it looked like: a small [> short] man wrapped entirely in a great [added: black) cloak and hood so that only his eyes peered out [> so that his face was entirely shadowed]...
If the description of Gandalf in the draft is compared with that of the Black Rider in the typescript text (p. 54) it will be seen that with further refinement the one still remains very closely based on the other. The new turn in the story was indeed "unpremeditated" (p.44).
Further rough drafting begins again with the workings for the song Upon the hearth the fire is red and continues through the second appearance of the Black Rider and the coming of the Elves to the end of the chapter. This material was followed very closely indeed in the typescript text and need not be further considered (one or two minor points of interest in the development of the narrative are mentioned in the Notes). There is however a separate section in ma.n.u.script which was not taken up into the typescript, and this very interesting pa.s.sage will be given separately (see p. 73).
I give here the typescript text - which became an extremely complex and now very battered doc.u.ment. It is clear that as soon as, or before, he had finished it my father began revising it, in some cases retyping pages (the rejected pages being retained), and also writing in many other changes here and there, most of these being very minor alterations of wording.(1) In the text that follows I take up all these revisions silently, but some earlier readings of interest are detailed in the Notes at the end of it (pp. 65 ff.).
II.
Three"s Company and Four"s More.(2) Odo Took was sitting on a gate whistling softly. His cousin Frodo was lying on the ground beside a pile of packs and haversacks, looking up at the stars, and sniffing the cool air of the autumn twilight.
"I hope Bingo has not got locked up in the cupboard, or something," said Odo. "He"s late: it"s after six."
"There"s no need to worry," said Frodo. "He"ll turn up when he thinks fit. He may have thought of some last irresistible joke, or something: he"s very Brandybucksome. But he"ll come all right; quite reliable in the long run is Uncle Bingo."
There was a chuckle behind him. "I"m glad to hear it," said Bingo suddenly becoming visible; "for this is going to be a very Long Run. Well, you fellows, are you quite ready to depart?"
"It"s not fair sneaking up with that ring on," said Odo. "One day you will hear what I think of you, and you won"t be so glad."
"I know already," said Bingo laughing, "and yet I remain quite cheerful. Where"s my pack and stick? "
"Here you are! " said Frodo jumping up. "This is your little lot: pack, bag, cloak, stick."
"I"m sure you have given me all the heaviest stuff," puffed Bingo, struggling into the straps. He was a bit on the stout side.
"Now then!" said Odo. "Don"t start being Bolger-like. There"s nothing there, except what you told us to pack. You"ll feel the weight less, when you have walked off a bit of your own."
"Be kind to a poor ruined hobbit! " laughed Bingo. "I shall be thin as a willow-wand, I"m sure, before a week is out. But now what about it? Let"s have a council! What shall we do first?"
"I thought that was settled," said Odo. "Surely we have got to pick up Marmaduke first of all?"
"O yes! I didn"t mean that," said Bingo. "I meant: what about this evening? Shall we walk a little or a lot? All night or not at all?"
"We"d better find some snug corner in a haystack, or somewhere, and turn in soon," said Odo, "We shall do more tomorrow, if we start fresh."
"Let"s put a bit of the road behind us to-night," said Frodo. "I want to get away from Hobbiton. Beside it"s jolly under the stars, and cool."
"I vote for Frodo," said Bingo. And so they started, shouldering their packs, and swinging their stout sticks. They went very quietly over fields and along hedgerows and the borders of coppices, until night fell. In their dark grey cloaks they were invisible without the help of any magic rings, and since they were all hobbits, they made no noise that even hobbits could hear (or indeed even wild creatures in the woods and fields).
After some time they crossed The Water, west of Hobbiton, where it was no more than a winding ribbon of black, lined with leaning alders. They were now in Tookland; and they began to climb into the Green Hill Country south of Hobbiton.(3) They could see the village twinkling away down in the gentle valley of The Water. Soon it disappeared in the folds of the darkened land, and was followed by Bywater beside its grey pool. When the light of the last farmhouse was far behind, peeping out of the trees, Bingo turned and waved a hand in farewell.
"Now we"re really off," he said. "I wonder if we shall ever look down into that valley again."
After they had walked for about two hours they rested. The night was clear, cool, and starry, but smoky wisps of mist were creeping up the hills from the streams and deep meadows. Thin- clad birches swaying in a cold breeze above their heads made a black net against the pale sky. They ate a very frugal supper (for hobbits), and then went on again. Odo was reluctant, but the rest of the council pointed out that this bare hillside was no place for pa.s.sing the night. Soon they struck a narrow road. It went rolling up and down until it faded grey into the gathering dark. It was" the road to Buckland, climbing away from the main East Road in the Water-valley, and winding over the skirts of the Green Hills towards the south-eastern corner of the Shire, the Woody End as the hobbits called it. Not many of them lived in that part.
Along this road they marched. Soon it plunged into a deeply cloven track between tall trees that rustled their dry leaves in the night. It was very dark. At first they talked, or hummed a tune softly together: then they marched on in silence, and Odo began to lag behind. At last he stopped, and gave a big yawn.
"I am so sleepy," he said, "that soon I shall fall down on the road. What about a place for the night? Or are you fellows going to sleep on your legs?"(4) "When does Marmaduke expect us?" asked Frodo. "Tomorrow night?"
"No," said Bingo. "We should not get there by tomorrow night, even with a forced march, unless we went on many more miles now. And I must say I don"t feel like it. It is getting on for midnight already. But it is all right. I told Marmaduke to expect us the night after tomorrow; so there is no hurry."
"The wind"s in the West," said Odo. "If we go down the other side of this hill we are climbing, we ought to find a spot fairly dry and sheltered."
At the top of the hill over which the road ran they came upon a patch of fir-wood, dry and resin-scented. Leaving the road they went into the deep darkness of the wood, and gathered dead sticks and cones to make a fire. Soon they had a merry crackle of flame at the foot of a great fir, and sat round it for a while, until they began to nod with sleep. Then each in an angle of the great tree"s roots they curled up in their cloaks and blankets, and were soon fast asleep.
There was no danger: for they were still in the Shire. A few creatures came and looked at them, when the fire had died away. A fox pa.s.sing through the wood on business of his own stopped several minutes and sniffed. "Hobbits!" he thought. "Well, what next? I have heard a good many tales of queer goings on in this Shire; but I have never heard of a hobbit sleeping out of doors under a tree! Three of them! There"s something mighty queer behind this." He was quite right, but he never found out any more about it.
The morning came rather pale and clammy. Bingo woke up first, and found that a tree-root had made a hole in his back and that his neck was stiff. It did not seem such a lark as it had the day before. "Why on earth did I give that beautiful feather-bed to that old pudding Fosco?"(5) he thought. "The tree-roots would have been much better for him."Wake up, hobbits! " he cried. "It"s a beautiful morning! "
"What"s beautiful about it?" said Odo, peering over the edge of his blanket with one eye. "Have you got the bath-water hot? Get breakfast ready for half past nine."
Bingo stripped the blanket off him, and rolled him over on top of Frodo; and then he left them scuffling and walked to the edge of the wood. Away eastward the sun was rising red out of the mists that lay thick on the world. Touched with gold and red the autumn trees in the distance seemed to be sailing rootless in a shadowy sea. A little below him to the left the road plunged down into a hollow between two slopes and vanished.
When he got back the other two had got a good fire going.
"Water! " they shouted. "Where"s the water? "
"I don"t keep water in my pockets," said Bingo.
"I thought you had gone to find some," said Odo. "You had better go now."
"Why?" asked Bingo. "We had enough left for breakfast last night; or I thought we had."
"Well, you thought wrong," said Frodo. "Odo drank the last drop, I saw him."
"Then he can go and find some more, and not put it on Uncle Bingo. There"s a stream at the foot of the slope; the road crosses it just below where we turned aside last night."
In the end, of course, they all went with their water-bottles and the small kettle they had brought with them. They filled them in the stream where it fell a foot or two over a small outcrop of grey stone in its path. The water was icy cold; and Odo spluttered as he bathed his face and hands. Luckily hobbits grow no beards (and would not shave if they did).
By the time their breakfast was over, and their packs all trussed up again, it was ten o"clock at least, and beginning to turn into a day even finer and hotter than the day of Bingo"s birthday, that already seemed quite a long while past. They went down the slope, across the stream, and up the next slope, and by that time their cloaks, blankets, water, food, spare clothes and other gear already seemed a heavy load. The day"s march was going to be something quite different from a country walk.
After a time the road ceased to roll up and down: it climbed to the top of a steep bank in a tired zigzagging sort of way, and then prepared to go down for the last time. In front of them they saw the lower lands dotted with small clumps of trees that melted away in the distance to a hazy woodland brown. They were looking across the Woody End towards the Brandywine River. The road wound away before them like a piece of string.
"The road goes on for ever," said Odo, "but I can"t without a rest. It is high time for lunch."
Frodo sat down on the bank at the side of the road and looked away east into the haze, beyond which lay the River and the end of the Shire in which he had spent all his life. Suddenly he spoke, as if half to himself: The Road goes ever on and on Down from the door where it began.