Читать книгу The Return of the Shadow - Christopher Tolkien - Страница 13
ОглавлениеFROM HOBBITON TO THE WOODY END
The original manuscript drafts for the second chapter of The Lord of the Rings do not constitute 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 1 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 title ‘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 manuscript 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 rôle 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 Bingos 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 passage 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:
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 manuscript 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 grasslands, 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 grass 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 manuscript 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 manuscript which was not taken up into the typescript, and this very interesting passage will be given separately (see p. 73).
I give here the typescript text – which became an extremely complex and now very battered document. 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 passing 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 passing 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.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And we must follow if we can,
Pursuing it with weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? We cannot say.6
‘That sounds like a bit of Old Bilbo’s rhyming,’ said Odo. ‘Or is it one of Bingo’s imitations? It does not sound altogether encouraging.’
‘No, I made it up, or at any rate it came to me,’ said Frodo.
‘I’ve never heard it before, certainly,’ said Bingo. ‘But it reminds me very much of Bilbo in the last years, before he went away. He used often to say that there was only one Road in all the land; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep, and every path was its tributary. “It’s a dangerous business, Bingo, going out of your door,” he used to say. “You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might get swept off to. Do you realize that this is the very path that goes through Mirkwood, and that if you let it, it might take you to even farther and worse places than the Lonely Mountain?” He used to say that on the path outside the front-door at Bag-end, especially after he had been out for a walk.’
‘Well, the Road won’t sweep me anywhere for an hour at least,’ said Odo, unslinging his pack. The others followed his example, putting their packs against the bank and their legs out into the road. After a rest they had lunch (a frugal one) and then more rest.
The sun was beginning to get lower and the light of afternoon was on the land as they went down the hill. So far they had not met a soul on the road. This way was not much used, and the ordinary way to Buckland was along the East Road to the meeting of the Water and the Brandywine River, where there was a bridge, and then south along the River. They had been jogging along again for an hour or more, when Frodo stopped a moment as if listening. They were now on level ground, and the road, after much winding, lay straight ahead through grassland sprinkled with tall trees, outliers of the approaching woods.
‘I can hear a horse or a pony coming along the road behind,’ said Frodo.
They looked back, but the turn of the road prevented them from seeing far.
‘I think we had better get out of sight,’ said Bingo; ‘or you two at any rate. Of course, it does not matter much, but I have a feeling that I would rather not be seen by anyone just now.’
Odo and Frodo ran quickly to the left, down into a little hollow not far from the road, and lay flat. Bingo slipped on his ring and stepped behind a tree. The sound of hoofs drew nearer. Round the turn came a black horse, no hobbit-pony but a full-sized horse; and on it sat a bundle, or that is what it looked like: a broad squat man, completely wrapped in a great black cloak and hood, so that only his boots in the stirrups showed below: his face was shadowed and invisible.
When it came on a level with Bingo, the horse stopped. The riding figure sat quite still, as if listening. From inside the hood came a noise as of someone sniffing to catch an elusive scent; the head turned from side to side of the road. At last the horse moved on again, walking slowly at first, and then taking to a gentle trot.
Bingo slipped to the edge of the road and watched the rider, until he dwindled in the distance. He could not be quite sure, but it seemed to him that suddenly, before they passed out of sight, the horse and rider turned aside and rode into the trees.
‘Well, I call that very queer, and even a little disturbing,’ said Bingo to himself, as he walked back to his companions. They had remained flat in the grass, and had seen nothing; so Bingo described to them the rider and his strange behaviour. ‘I can’t say why, but I felt perfectly certain he was looking or smelling for me: and also I felt very clearly that I did not want him to discover me. I’ve never seen or felt anything quite like it in the Shire before.’ ‘But what has one of the Big People got to do with us?’ said Odo. ‘And what is he doing in this part of the world at all? Except for those Men from Dale the other day7 I haven’t seen one of that Kind in our Shire for years.’8
‘I have though,’ said Frodo, who had listened intently to Bingo’s description of the black rider. ‘It reminds me of something I had almost forgotten. I was walking away up in the North Moor – you know, right up on the northern borders of the Shire – early last spring, when a similar rider met me. He was riding south, and he stopped and spoke, though he did not seem able to speak our language very well; he asked me if I knew where a place called Hobbiton was, and if there were any folk called Baggins there. I thought it very queer at the time; and I had a queer uncomfortable feeling, too. I could not see any face under his hood. I never heard whether he turned up in Hobbiton or not. If I did not tell you, I meant to.’
‘You didn’t tell me, and I wish you had,’ said Bingo. ‘I should have asked Gandalf about it; and probably we should have taken more care on the road.’
‘Then you know or guess something about the rider?’ said Frodo. ‘What is he?’
‘I don’t know, and I don’t want to guess,’ said Bingo. ‘But somehow I don’t believe either of these riders (if there are two) was really one of the Big People, not one of the kind like Dalemen, I mean. I wish Gandalf was here; but now it will be a long time before we find him. In a way I suppose I ought to be pleased; but I am not quite prepared for adventures yet, and I was not expecting any in our own Shire. Do you two wish to go on with the Journey?’
‘Of course!’ said Frodo. ‘I am not going to turn back, not for an army of goblins.’
‘I shall go where Uncle Bingo goes,’ said Odo. ‘But what is the next thing to do? Shall we go on at once, or stay here and have some food?9 I should like a bite and a sip, but somehow I think we had better move on from here. Your talk of sniffing riders with invisible noses has made me feel quite uncomfortable.’
‘I think we will move on now,’ said Bingo; ‘but not on the road, in case that rider comes back, or another one follows him. We ought to do a good step more today; Buckland is still miles away.’
The shadows of the trees were long and thin on the grass, as they started off again. They now kept a stone’s throw to the left of the road, but their going was slow, for the grass was thick and tussocky and the ground uneven. The sun had gone down red behind the hills at their back, and evening was coming on, by the time they had come to the end of the straight stretch. There the road bent southward, and began to wind again as it entered a wood of ancient scattered oak trees.10
Close to the road they came on the huge hulk of an aged tree.11 It was still alive and had leaves on small branches that it had put out round the broken stumps of its long fallen limbs; but it was hollow, and could be entered by a great crack on the far side. The hobbits went in and sat upon the floor of old leaves and decayed wood. There they rested and had a meal, talking quietly and listening in between.
They had just finished and were thinking of setting out again, when they heard quite clearly the sound of hoofs walking slow along the road outside. They did not move. The hoofs stopped, as far as they could judge, on the road beside their tree, but only for a moment. Soon they went on again and faded away – down the road, in the direction of Buckland. When Bingo at last stole out of the tree and peered up and down the road, there was nothing to be seen.
‘Most peculiar!’ he said, coming back to the others. ‘I think we had better wait inside here for a bit.’
It grew almost dark inside the tree-trunk. ‘I really think we shall have to go on now,’ said Bingo. ‘We have done very little to-day and we shan’t get to Buckland tomorrow night at this rate.’
Twilight was about them, when they crept out. There was no living sound, not even a bird-call in the wood. The West wind was sighing in the branches. They stepped into the road and looked up and down again.
‘We had better risk the road,’ said Odo. ‘The ground is much too rough off the track, especially in a fading light. We are probably making a fuss about nothing. It is very likely only a wandering stranger who has got lost; and if he met us, he would just ask us the way to Buckland or Brandywine Bridge, and ride on.’
‘I hope you are right,’ said Bingo. ‘But anyway there is nothing for it but the open road. Luckily it winds a good deal.’
‘What if he stops us and asks if we know where Mr Bolger-Baggins lives?’ said Frodo.
‘Give him the true answer: Nowhere,’ said Bingo. ‘Forward!’
They were now entering the Woody End, and the road began to fall gently but steadily, making south-east towards the lowlands of the Brandywine River. A star came out in the darkening East. They went abreast and in step, and their spirits rose; the uncomfortable feeling vanished, and they no longer listened for the sound of hoofs. After a mile or two they began to hum softly, as hobbits have a way of doing when twilight closes in and the stars come out. With most hobbits it is a bed-song or a supper-song; but these hobbits hummed a walking-song (though not, of course, without any mention of bed and supper). Bilbo Baggins had made the words (the tune was as old as the hills), and taught it to Bingo as they walked in the lanes of the Water-valley and talked about Adventure.
Upon the hearth the fire is red,
Beneath the roof there is a bed;
But not yet weary are our feet,
Still round the corner we may meet
A sudden tree or standing stone
That none have seen, but we alone.
Tree and flower and leaf and grass,
Let them pass! Let them pass!
Hill and water under sky,
Pass them by! Pass them by!
Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate,
And even if we pass them by,
We still shall know which way they lie,
And whether hidden pathways run
Towards the Moon or to the Sun.
Apple, thorn, and nut and sloe,
Let them go! Let them go!
Sand and stone and pool and dell,
Fare you well! Fare you well!
Home is behind, the world ahead,
And there are many paths to tread
Through shadow to the edge of night,
Until the stars are all alight.
Then world behind and home ahead,
We’ll wander back to fire and bed.
Mist and twilight, cloud and shade,
Away shall fade! Away shall fade!
Fire and lamp and meat and bread,
And then to bed! And then to bed! 12
The song ended. ‘And now to bed! And now to bed!’ sang Odo in a loud voice. ‘Hush!’ said Frodo. ‘I think I hear hoofs again.’
They stopped suddenly, and stood as silent as tree-shadows, listening. There was a sound of hoofs on the road some way behind, but coming slow and clear in the stillness of the evening. Quickly and quietly they slipped off the road and ran into the deeper shade under the oak-trees.
‘Don’t let’s go too far!’ said Bingo. ‘I don’t want to be seen, but I want to see what I can this time.’
‘Very well!’ said Odo; ‘but don’t forget the sniffing!’
The hoofs drew nearer. They had no time to find any hiding-place13 better than the general darkness under the trees; so Odo and Frodo lay behind a large tree-trunk, while Bingo slipped on his ring and crept forward a few yards towards the road. It showed grey and pale, a line of fading light through the wood. Above it the stars were now coming out thick in the dim sky, but there was no moon.
The sound of hoofs ceased. As Bingo watched he saw something dark pass across the lighter space between two trees, and then halt. It looked like the black shade of a horse led by a smaller black shadow. The black shadow stood close to the point where they had left the road, and it swayed from side to side. Bingo thought he heard the sound of sniffing. The shadow bent to the ground, and then began to crawl towards him.
At that moment there came a sound like mingled song and laughter. Voices clear and fair rose and fell in the starlit air. The black shadow straightened and retreated.14 It climbed on to the shadowy horse and seemed to vanish across the road into the darkness on the other side. Bingo breathed again.
‘Elves!’ said Frodo in an excited whisper behind him. ‘Elves! How wonderful! I have always wished to hear elves singing under the stars; but I did not know any lived in the Shire.’
‘Oh yes!’ said Bingo. ‘Old Bilbo knew there were some down in the Woody End. They don’t really live here, though; but they often come across the river in spring and autumn. I am very glad they do!’
‘Why?’ said Odo.
‘You didn’t see, of course,’ said Bingo; ‘but that black rider (or another of the same sort) stopped just here and was actually crawling towards us, when the song started. As soon as he heard the voices he slipped away.’
‘Did he sniff?’ asked Odo.
‘He did,’ said Bingo. ‘It is mysterious, uncomfortably mysterious.’
‘Let’s find the Elves, if we can,’ said Frodo.
‘Listen! They are coming this way,’ said Bingo. ‘We have only to wait by the road.’
The singing drew nearer. One clear voice rose above the others. It seemed to be singing in the secret elf-tongue, of which Bingo knew only a little, and the others knew nothing, yet the sound of the words blending with the tune seemed to turn into words in their own listening thought, which they only partly understood. Frodo and Bingo afterwards agreed that the song went something like this:
Snow-white! Snow-white! O Lady clear!
O Queen beyond the Western Seas!
O Light to us that wander here
Amid the world of woven trees!
Gilthoniel! O Elbereth!
Clear are thy eyes and cold thy breath!
Snow-white! Snow-white! We sing to thee
In a far land beyond the Sea.
O Stars that in the Sunless Year
With shining hand by her were sown,
In windy fields now bright and clear
We see your silver blossom blown!
O Elbereth! Gilthoniel!
We still remember, we who dwell
In this far land beneath the trees,
Thy starlight on the Western Seas. 15
The hobbits sat in shadow by the roadside. Before long the Elves came down the road towards the valley. They passed slowly and the hobbits could see the starlight glimmering on their hair and in their eyes.16 They bore no lights, yet as they walked a shimmer, like the light of the moon above the rim of the hills before it rises, seemed to fall about their feet. They had stopped singing, and as the last elf passed he turned and looked towards the hobbits, and laughed.
‘Hail Bingo!’ he said. ‘You are out late-or are you perhaps lost?’ Then he called aloud in the elf-tongue, and all the company stopped and gathered round.
‘Well! Isn’t this wonderful!’ they said. ‘Three hobbits in a wood at night! What is the meaning of this? We haven’t seen anything like it, since dear Bilbo went away.’
‘The meaning of this, my good Elves,’ said Bingo, ‘is simply that we seem to be going the same way as you are. I was brought up by Bilbo, so I like walking, even under the stars. And I can put up with Elves for lack of other company!’
‘But we have no need of other company, and hobbits are so dull,’ they laughed. ‘Come along now, tell us all about it! We see you are simply swelling with secrets we should like to hear. Though some we know, of course, and some we guess. Many Happy Returns of yesterday – we have heard all about that, of course, from the Rivendell people.’17
‘Then who are you, and who is your lord?’ said Bingo.
‘I am Gildor,’ said the Elf who had hailed him. ‘Gildor Inglorion of the house of Finrod. We are exiles, one of the few companies that still remain east of the Sea, for our kindred went back to the West long ago. We are Wise-elves, and the elves of Rivendell are our kinsfolk.’18
‘O Wise People,’ said Frodo, ‘tell us about the Black Rider!’
‘The Black Rider!’ they said in low voices. ‘Why do you ask about the Black Rider?’
‘Because three Black Riders have overtaken us today, or one three times,’19 said Bingo; ‘and only a few moments ago one slipped away as you drew near.’
The Elves did not answer at once, but spoke together softly in the elf-tongue. At last Gildor turned to the hobbits: ‘We will not speak more of this here,’ he said. ‘We think you had better come with us. As you know, it is not our custom; but for Bilbo’s sake we will take you on our road, and you shall lodge with us to-night, if you wish.’
‘I thank you indeed, Gildor Inglorion,’ said Bingo bowing. ‘O Fair Folk! This is a good fortune beyond my best hope,’ said Frodo. Odo also bowed, but said nothing aloud. ‘Rather good luck?’ he whispered to Bingo. ‘I suppose we shall get a really good bed and supper?’
‘You can reckon your luck in the morning,’ said Gildor, as if he had been spoken to. ‘We shall do what we can, though we have heard that hobbits are hard to satisfy.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ stammered Odo. Bingo laughed: ‘You must be careful of Elvish ears, Odo!’ ‘We count our luck already,’ he said to the Elves; ‘and I think that you will find that we are very easy to please (for hobbits).’ He added in the elf-tongue a greeting that Bilbo had taught him: ‘The stars shine on the hour of our meeting.’
‘Be careful, friends!’ cried Gildor laughing. ‘Speak no secrets! Here is a scholar in the elf-latin.20 Bilbo was indeed a good master! Hail! elf-friend,’ he said, bowing to Bingo, ‘come now and join our company!21 You had best walk in the middle, so that you will not stray. You may be weary before we halt.’
‘Why? Where are you going?’ asked Bingo.
‘To the woods near Woodhall down in the valley. It is some miles; but it will shorten your journey to Buckland tomorrow.’
They marched along in silence, and passed like shadows and faint lights; for both Elves and hobbits could walk when they wished without a sound. They sang no more songs. Odo began to feel sleepy, and stumbled once or twice; but each time a tall elf by his side put out his arm and saved him from a fall.
The woods on either side became denser; the trees were younger and more thick, and as the road went lower there were many deep brakes of hazel. At last they turned right from the road: a green ride lay almost unseen through the thicket. This they followed until they came suddenly to a wide space of grass, grey under the night. The wood bordered it on three sides; but on the east the ground fell steeply, and the tops of the dark trees growing in the fold below were level with their feet. Beyond them the low land lay dim and flat under the stars. Nearer at hand there was a twinkle of lights: the village of Woodhall.
The Elves sat on the grass, and seemed to take no further notice of the hobbits. They spoke together in soft voices. The hobbits wrapped themselves in cloak and blankets, and drowsiness crept over them. The night drew on, and the lights in the valley went out. Odo fell asleep, pillowed on a smooth hillock.
Out of the mists away eastward a pale gold light went up. The yellow moon rose; springing swiftly out of the shadow, and then climbing round and slow into the sky. The Elves all burst into song. Suddenly under the trees to one side a fire sprang up with a red light.
‘Come!’ the Elves called to the hobbits. ‘Come! Now is the time for speech and merriment.’
Odo sat up and rubbed his eyes. He shivered. ‘Come, little Odo!’ said an elf. ‘There is a fire in the hall, and some food for hungry guests.’
On the south side of the green-sward the wood drew close. Here there was a space green-floored, but entirely overshadowed by tall trees. Their trunks ran like pillars down each side, and their interlaced branches made a roof above. In the middle there was a wood-fire blazing; upon the sides of the tree-pillars torches with lights of gold and silver were burning steadily without smoke. The Elves sat round the fire upon the grass or upon the sawn rings of old trunks. Some went to and fro bearing cups and pouring drink; others brought food on heaped plates and dishes, and set them on the grass.
‘This is poor fare,’ they said to the hobbits; ‘for we are lodging in the greenwood far from our halls. If ever you are our guests at home, we will treat you better.’
‘It seems to me good enough for a birthday party,’ said Bingo.
Actually it was Odo that ate the least after all. The drink in his cup seemed sweet and fragrant; he drained it, and felt all weariness slip away, and yet sleep came softly down upon him. He was already half wrapped in warm dreams as he ate; and afterwards he could remember nothing more than the taste of bread – yet a bread that was like the best hobbit-bread ever baked (and that was Bread indeed) eaten after a long fast, only this bread was better. Frodo afterwards recalled little of either food or drink, for his mind was filled with the light under the trees, the elf-faces, the sound of voices so various and so beautiful that he felt in a waking dream. But he remembered taking a draught that had the warmth of a golden autumn afternoon and the cool of a clear fountain; and he remembered too the taste of fruits, sweet as wild berries, richer than the tended fruits of hobbit-gardens (and those are fruits indeed).
Bingo sat and ate and drank and talked, and simply remembered having had something of all the foods he liked best; but his mind was chiefly on the talk. He knew something of the elf-tongue, and listened eagerly. Now and again he spoke to those that served him and thanked them in their own language. They smiled on him and said laughing: ‘Here is a jewel among hobbits!’22
After a while Odo and Frodo fell fast asleep, and were lifted up and borne away to bowers under the trees; they were laid there upon soft beds and slept the night away. But Bingo remained talking with Gildor, the leader of the Elves.23
‘Why did you choose this moment to set out?’ asked Gildor.
‘Well, really it chose itself,’ answered Bingo. ‘I had come to the end of my treasure. It had always held me back from the Journey which half of my heart wished for, ever since Bilbo went away; but now it was gone. So I said to my stay-at-home half: “There is nothing to keep you here. The Journey might bring you some more treasure, as it did for old Bilbo; and anyway on the road you will be able to live more easily without any. Of course if you like to stay in Hobbiton and earn your living as a gardener or a carpenter, you can.” The stay-at-home half surrendered; it did not want to make other people’s chairs or grow other people’s potatoes. It was soft and fat. I think the Journey will do it good. But of course the other half is not really looking for treasure, but for Adventure – later rather than sooner. At the moment it also is soft and fat, and finding walking over the Shire quite enough.’
‘Yes!’ laughed Gildor. ‘You still look just like an ordinary hobbit!’
‘I daresay,’ said Bingo. ‘But my birthday the day before yesterday24 seems already a long way behind. Still a hobbit I am, and a hobbit I shall always be.’
‘I only said look,’ replied the Elf. ‘You seem to me a most peculiar hobbit inside, quite as peculiar as Bilbo; and I think strange things will happen to you and your friends. If you go looking for Adventure, you usually find as much of it as you can manage. And it often happens that when you think it is ahead, it comes on you unexpectedly from behind.’
‘So it seems,’ said Bingo. ‘But I did not expect it ahead or behind so soon – not in our own Shire.’
‘But it is not your Shire alone, nor for ever,’ said Gildor. ‘The Wide World is all about it. You can fence yourselves in, but you have no means of fencing it out.’
‘All the same, it is disturbing,’ said Bingo. ‘I want to get to Rivendell, if I can – though I hear the road has not grown easier of late years. Can you tell me anything to guide me or help me?’
‘I do not think you will find the road too hard. But if you are thinking of what you call the Black Rider, that is another matter. Have you told me all your reasons for leaving secretly? Did Gandalf tell you nothing?’
‘Not even a hint, at least none that I understood. I seldom saw him after Bilbo went away, twice a year at most. I saw him last spring, when he turned up unexpectedly one night; and I told him then of the plan I was beginning to make for the Journey. He seemed pleased, and told me not to put it off later than the autumn. He came again to help me with the Party, but we were too busy then to talk much, and he went off with the dwarves and the Rivendell elves as soon as the fireworks were over. He did hint that I might meet him again in Rivendell, and suggested that I should make for that place first.’
‘Not later than the autumn!’ said Gildor. ‘I wonder. He may all the same not have known that they were in the Shire; yet he knows more about them than we do. If he did not tell you any more, I do not feel inclined to do so, for fear of frightening you from the Journey. Because I think it is clear that your Journey started none too soon; by what seems strange good luck you went just in time. You ought to go on, and not turn back, though you have met adventure, and danger, much sooner than you expected. You ought to go quickly; but you must be careful, and look not only ahead, but also behind, and even perhaps to both sides as well.’
‘I wish you would say things plainer,’ said Bingo. ‘But I am glad to be told that I ought to go on; for that is what I want to do. Only I now rather wonder if I ought to take Odo and Frodo. The original plan was just a Journey, a sort of prolonged (and perhaps permanent) holiday from Hobbiton, and I am sure they did not expect any more adventures for a long time than getting wet and hungry. We had no idea we should be pursued.’
‘O come! They must have known that if you intend to go wandering out of the Shire into the Wide World, you must be prepared for anything. I cannot see that it makes so much difference, if something has turned up rather soon. Are they not willing to go on?’
‘Yes, they say so.’
‘Then let them go on!25 They are lucky to be your companions: and you are lucky to have them. They are a great protection to you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I think the Riders do not know that they are with you, and their presence has confused the scent, and puzzled them.’
‘Dear me! It is all very mysterious. It is like solving riddles. But I have always heard that talking to Elves is like that.’
‘It is,’ laughed Gildor. ‘And Elves seldom give advice; but when they do, it is good. I have advised you to go to Rivendell with speed and care. Nothing else that I could tell you would make that advice any better.26 We have our own business and our own sorrows, and those have little to do with the ways of hobbits or of other creatures. Our paths cross those ways seldom, and mostly by accident. In our meeting there is perhaps something more than accident, yet I do not feel sure that I ought to interfere. But I will add a little more advice: if a Rider finds you or speaks to you, do not answer, and do not name yourself. Also do not again use the ring to escape from his search. I do not know,27 but I guess that the use of the ring helps them more than you.’
‘More and more mysterious!’ said Bingo. ‘I can’t imagine what information would be more frightening than your hints; but I suppose you know best.’
‘I do indeed,’ said Gildor, ‘and I will say no more.’
‘Very well!’ said Bingo. ‘I am now all of a twitter; but I am much obliged to you.’
‘Be of good heart!’ said Gildor. ‘Sleep now! In the morning we shall have gone; but we will send our messages through the land. The wandering Companies shall know of you and your Journey. I name you elf-friend, and wish you well. Seldom have we had such delight in strangers; and it is pleasant to hear words of our own tongue from the lips of other wanderers in the World.’
Bingo felt sleep coming upon him, even as Gildor finished speaking. ‘I will sleep now,’ he said. Gildor led him to a bower beside Odo and Frodo, and he threw himself upon a bed, and fell at once into a dreamless slumber.
1 For emendation of the typescript at this stage my father used black ink. This was fortunate, for otherwise the historical unravelling of the text would be scarcely possible: in a later phase of the work he returned to it and covered it with corrections in blue and red inks, blue chalk and pencil. In one case, however, an addition in black ink belongs demonstrably to the later phase. It is possible therefore that some of the emendations which I have adopted into the text are really later; but none seem to me to be so, and in any case all changes of any narrative significance are detailed in the following notes.
2 The meaning of this title is not clear. The phrase ‘Three’s company, but four’s more’ is used however by Marmaduke Brandybuck during the conversation in Buckland, where he asserts that he will certainly be one of the party (p. 103). Conceivably, therefore, my father gave the original second chapter this title because he believed that it would extend as far as the arrival in Buckland. Subsequently he crossed out the words ‘and Four’s More’, but it cannot be said when this was done.
3 In the second draft of the opening of the chapter, which had reached virtually the form of the typescript text in this passage, the crossing of the East Road was omitted, and the omission remains here (see p. 47)
4 In the draft text the verse The Road goes ever on and on is placed here (see p. 47).
5 Fosco Bolger, Bingo’s uncle: see p. 38.
6 In FR (pp. 82–3) the verse has I for we in lines 4 and 8, but is otherwise the same; there, however, it is an echo from Bilbos speaking it in Chapter 1 (FR p. 44). For the earliest form see p. 47; and see further p. 246 note 18.
7 Men from Dale: see pp. 20, 30.
8 The next portion of the narrative, from ‘I have though,’ said Frodo and extending to the end of the song Upon the hearth the fire is red (p. 57), was early re-typed to replace two pages of the original typescript, and a substantial alteration and expansion of the story was introduced (see notes 9 and 11).
9 This first part of the re-typed section (see note 8) was not greatly changed from the earlier form. In the earlier, Frodo described his encounter with a Black Rider ‘up in the North Moors’ in the previous spring in almost exactly the same words; but Bingo’s response was somewhat different:
‘That makes it even queerer,’ said Bingo. ‘I am glad I had the fancy not to be seen on the road. But, somehow, I don’t believe either of these riders was one of the Big People, not of the kind like the Dale-men, I mean. I wonder what they were? I rather wish Gandalf was here. But, of course, he went away immediately after the fireworks with the elves and dwarves, and it will be ages before we see him now.’
‘Shall we go on now, or stay here and have some food?’ asked Odo …
In the later versions of A Long-expected Party there is no reference to Gandalf after the fireworks (see pp. 31, 38; 63).
10 There the road bent southward: on the map of the Shire in FR the road does not bend southward ‘at the end of the straight stretch’; it bends left or northward, while a side road goes on to Woodhall. But at this stage there was only one road, and at the place where the hobbits met the Elves it was falling steadily, ‘making south-east towards the lowlands of the Brandywine River’ (p. 56). Certainly by oversight, the present passage was preserved with little change in the original edition of FR (p. 86):
The sun had gone down red behind the hills at their backs, and evening was coming on before they came to the end of the long level over which the road ran straight. At that point it bent somewhat southward, and began to wind again, as it entered a wood of ancient oak-trees.
It was not until the second edition of 1966 that my father changed the text to agree with the map:
At that point it bent left and went down into the lowlands of the Yale making for Stock; but a lane branched right, winding through a wood of ancient oak-trees on its way to Woodhall. ‘That is the way for us,’ said Frodo.
Not far from the road-meeting they came on the huge hulk of a tree …
This is also the reason for change in the second edition of ‘road’ to ‘lane’ (also ‘path’, ‘way’) at almost all the many subsequent occurrences in FR pp. 86–90: it was the ‘lane’ to Woodhall they were on, not the ‘road’ to Stock.
11 The entire passage from ‘Close to the road they came on the huge hulk of an aged tree’ is an expansion in the replacement typescript (see note 8) of a few sentences in the earlier:
Inside the huge hollow trunk of an aged tree, broken and stumpy but still alive and in leaf, they rested and had a meal. Twilight was about them when they came out and prepared to go on again. ‘I am going to risk the road now,’ said Bingo, who had stubbed his toes several times against hidden roots and stones in the grass. ‘We are probably making a fuss about nothing.’
Though the enlarged description of the hollow tree was preserved in FR (p. 86), the second passage of a Black Rider was not, and the tree has again no importance beyond being the scene of the hobbits’ meal. In the third chapter Bingo, talking to Marmaduke in Buckland, refers to this story of a Rider heard while they sat inside the tree (p. 103); see also note 19 below.
12 The version of the song in the rejected typescript (see note 8) had the second and third verses thus:
Home is behind, the world ahead,
And there are many paths to tread;
And round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate,
And hidden pathways there may run
Towards the Moon or to the Sun.
Apple, thorn, &c.
Down hill, up hill walks the way
From sunrise to the falling day,
Through shadow to the edge of night,
Until the stars are all alight; &c.
13 In the initial drafting for this passage Bingo proposed that they stow their burdens in the hollow of an old broken oak and then climb it, but this was rejected as soon as written. This was no doubt where the ‘hollow tree’ motive first appeared.
14 In the original draft my father first wrote here: ‘Suddenly there was a sound of laughter and a creak of wheels on the road. The shadow straightened up and retreated.’ This was soon replaced, without the creak of wheels being explained; but it suggests that he had some intervention other than Elves in mind.
15 This was another portion that was re-typed. The passage immediately preceding the Elves’ song was different in the earlier form:
It seemed to be singing in the secret elf-tongue, and yet as they listened the sounds, or the sounds and the tune together, seemed to turn into strange words in their own thought, which they only partly understood. Frodo afterwards said that he thought he heard words like these:
The song also had certain differences, including a second verse that was rejected.
O Elbereth! O Elbereth!
O Queen beyond the Western Seas!
O Light to him that wandereth
Amid the world of woven trees!
O Stars that in the Sunless Year
Were kindled by her silver hand,
That under Night the shade of Fear
Should fly like shadow from the land!
O Elbereth! Gilthonieth!
Clear are thy eyes, and cold thy breath! &c.
In the last verse the form is Gilthoniel. Extensive rough workings are also found, in which the first line of the song appears also as O Elberil! O Elberil! (and the third O Light to us that wander still); from these is also seen the meaning of the Sunless Year, since my father first wrote the Flowering Years (with reference to the Two Trees; see the Quenta Silmarillion §19, V.212). – It seems to have been here that the name Elbereth was first applied to Varda, having been previously that of one of the sons of Dior Thingol’s Heir: see V.351.
16 In the original draft it was added here that the Elves ‘were crowned with red and yellow leaves’; rejected, no doubt, because it was dark and they bore no lights.
17 At an earlier point in the chapter (p. 52) the typescript read ‘a day even finer and hotter than the day before (Bingo’s birthday, that already seemed quite a long while past).’ It was of course on the evening of the day following the birthday party that Bingo and his companions set out, and my father realising this simply changed ‘before’ to ‘of’ and removed the brackets, as in the text printed. Here, however, he neglected to change ‘yesterday’ (see also note 24). These slips are odd, but do not seem to have any particular significance.
It is seen subsequently how these Elves could have ‘heard all about that from the Rivendell people’, for Bingo tells Gildor (p. 63) that Gandalf ‘went off with the dwarves and the Rivendell elves as soon as the fireworks were over.’ The meeting between them is in fact mentioned later (p. 101).
18 The typescript runs straight on from we have heard all about that, of course, from the Rivendell people to ‘O Wise People,’ said Frodo, and the passage beginning ‘Then who are you, and who is your lord?’ said Bingo is an addition. In the typescript as typed the leader of the Elves is not named until towards the end, where after they had eaten ‘Bingo remained talking with Gildor, the leader of the Elves’ (p. 62); all references to Gildor before that are corrections in ink
19 As the text was typed, Bingo said: ‘Because we have seen two Black Riders, or one twice over, today.’ The changed text accompanies the story of the Rider who paused momentarily beside the hollow tree (see note 11).
20 For the ‘elf-latin’ (Qenya) see the Lhammas §4, V.172.
21 This passage is an alteration of the text as typed, which read:
… we are very easy to please (for hobbits). For myself I can only say that the delight of meeting you has already made this a day of bright Adventure.’
‘Bilbo was a good master,’ said the Elf bowing. ‘Come now, join our company, and we will go. You had best walk in the middle …’
22 This sentence replaced the following:
‘Be careful, friends,’ said one laughing. ‘Speak no secrets! Here is a scholar in the elf-latin and all the dialects. Bilbo was indeed a good master.’
See note 21 and the altered passage referred to there.
23 This is the first occurrence of the name Gildor in the text as typed; see note 18.
24 For my birthday the day before yesterday the text as typed had yesterday; see note 17.
25 The conversation between Bingo and Gildor to this point, beginning at You can fence yourselves in, but you have no means of fencing it out (p. 63), is the last of the replacement typescript pages. The differences from the earlier form are in fact very slight, except in these points. Bingo did not say that Gandalf had told him not to put off his journey later than the autumn, but simply ‘He helped me, and seemed to think it a good idea’; and Gildor’s reply therefore begins differently: ‘I wonder. He may not have known they were in the Shire; yet he knows more about them than we do.’ And Bingo said that Odo and Frodo ‘only know that I am on a Journey – on a sort of prolonged (and possibly permanent) holiday from Hobbiton; and making for Rivendell to begin with.’
26 Struck from the typescript here: ‘and it might prevent you from taking it.’
27 Struck from the typescript here: ‘(for the matter is outside the concern of such Elves as we are).’
It is characteristic that while the dramatis personae are not the same, and the story possesses as yet none of the dimension, the gravity, and the sense of vast danger, imparted by the second chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring, a good part of ‘Three is Company’ was already in being; for once the journey has started not only the structure of the final narrative but much of the detail is present, though countless modifications in expression were to come, and in several substantial passages the chapter was scarcely changed afterwards.
While ‘Bingo’ is directly equatable with the later ‘Frodo’, the other relations are more complex. It is true that, comparing the text as it was at this stage with the final form in FR, it may be said simply that ‘Odo’ became ‘Pippin’ while Frodo Took disappeared: of the individual speeches in this chapter which remained into FR almost every remark made by Odo was afterwards given to Pippin. But the way in which this came about was in fact strangely tortuous, and was by no means a simple substitution of one name for another (see further pp. 323–4). Frodo Took is seen as a less limited and more aware being than Odo, more susceptible to the beauty and otherness of the Elves; it is he who speaks The Road goes ever on and on, and it is to him that the recollection of the words of the song to Elbereth is first attributed (note 15). Some element of him might be said to be preserved in Sam Gamgee (who of course imparts a new and entirely distinctive air to the developed form of the chapter); it was Frodo Took who with bated breath whispered Elves! when their voices were first heard coming down the road.
Most remarkable is the fact that when the story of the beginning of the Journey, the coming of the Black Riders, and the meeting with Gildor and his company, was written, and written so that its content would not in essentials be changed afterwards, Bingo has no faintest inkling of what the Riders want with him. Gandalf has told him nothing. He has no reason to associate the Riders with his ring, and no reason to regard it as more than a highly convenient magical device – he slips it on each time a Rider passes, naturally.
Of course, the fact that Bingo is wholly ignorant of the nature of the pursuing menace, utterly baffled by the black horsemen, does not imply that my father was also. There are several suggestions that new ideas had arisen in the background, not explicitly conveyed in the narrative, but deliberately reduced to dark hints of danger in the words of Gildor (that this was so will be seen more clearly at the beginning of the next chapter). It may be that it was the ‘unpremeditated’ conversion of the cloaked and muffled horseman who overtook them on the road from Gandalf to a ‘black rider’ (p. 48), combining with the idea already present that Bilbo’s ring was of dark origin and strange properties (pp. 42–3) that was the impulse of the new conceptions.
From the early rewriting of the conversation between Gildor and Bingo (see p. 63 and note 25) it emerges that Gandalf had warned Bingo not to delay his departure beyond the autumn (though without, apparently, giving him any reason for the warning), and in both forms of the text Gildor evidently knows something about the Riders, says that ‘by what seems strange good luck you went just in time’, and associates them with the Ring: warning Bingo against using it again to escape them, and suggesting that the use of it ‘helps them more than you.’ (The Ring had not been mentioned in their conversation, but we can suppose that Bingo had previously told Gildor that he had used it when the Riders came by.)
The idea of the Riders and the Ring was no doubt evolving as my father wrote. I think it very possible that when he first described the halts of the black horsemen beside the hiding hobbits he imagined them as drawn by scent alone (see p. 75); and it is not clear in any case in what way the use of the Ring would ‘help them more than you.’ As I have said, it is deeply characteristic that these scenes emerged at once in the clear and memorable form that was never changed, but that their bearing and significance would afterwards be enormously enlarged. The ‘event’ (one might say) was fixed, but its meaning capable of indefinite extension; and this is seen, over and over again, as a prime mark of my father’s writing. In FR, from the intervening chapter The Shadow of the Past, we have some notion of what that other feeling was which struggled with Frodo’s desire to hide, of why Gandalf had so urgently forbidden him to use the Ring, and of why he was driven irresistibly to put it on; and when we have read further we know what would have happened if he had. The scenes here are empty by comparison, yet they are the same scenes. Even such slight remarks as Bingo’s ‘I don’t know, and I don’t want to guess’ (p. 55) – in the context, a mere expression of doubt and discomfort, if with a suggestion that Gandalf must have said something, or rather, that my father was beginning to think that Gandalf must have said something – survived to take on a much more menacing significance in FR (p. 85), where we have a very good idea of what Frodo chose not to guess about.
Frodo Took’s story of his meeting with a Rider on the moors in the North of the Shire in the previous spring is the forerunner of Sam’s sudden remembering that a Rider had come to Hobbiton and spoken with Gaffer Gamgee on the evening of their departure; but it seems strange that the beginning of the hunt for ‘Baggins’ should be set so long before (see p. 74 and note 4).
The striking out of Gildor’s words ‘for the matter is outside the concern of such Elves as we are’ (note 27) is interesting. At first, I think, my father thought of these Elves as ‘Dark-elves’; but he now decided that they (and also the Elves of Rivendell) were indeed ‘High Elves of the West’, and he added in Gildor’s words to Bingo on p. 60 (see note 18): they were ‘Wise-elves’ (Noldor or Gnomes), ‘one of the few companies that still remain east of the Sea’, and he himself is Gildor Inglorion of the house of Finrod. With these words of Gildor’s cf. the Quenta Silmarillion §28, in V.332:
Yet not all the Eldalië were willing to forsake the Hither Lands where they had long suffered and long dwelt; and some lingered many an age in the West and North … But ever as the ages drew on and the Elf-folk faded upon earth, they would set sail at eve from the western shores of this world, as still they do, until now there linger few anywhere of their lonely companies.
At this time Finrod was the name of the third son of Finwë (first Lord of the Noldor). This was later changed to Finarfin, when Inglor Felagund his son took over the name Finrod (see I.44), but my father did not change ‘of the house of Finrod’ here (FR p. 89) to ‘of the house of Finarfin’ in the second edition of The Lord of the Rings. See further p. 188 (end of note 9).
The geography of the Shire was now taking more substantial shape. In this chapter there emerge the North Moor(s); the Green Hill Country lying to the south of Hobbiton; the Pool of Bywater (described in rough drafting for the passage as a ‘little lake’); the East Road to the Brandywine Bridge, where the Water joined the Brandywine; the road branching off from it southward and leading in a direct line to Buckland; and the hamlet of Woodhall in the Woody End.
