Read Online The Treason of Isengard by J. R. R. Tolkien - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: J. R. R. Tolkien
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This arrangement was apparently made soon after the new text was completed, and it is convenient to follow it here.
The new version, to the point where the hobbits returned from the common room of the inn after Frodo's 'accident', now reaches, except in a few features, the final form, and variation even from the precise wording of FR is infrequent. The most notable respect in which it differs is that at this stage my father preserved the account of the black horsemen who spoke to Harry Goatleaf the gatekeeper on the evening of the 28th of September:
The fog that enveloped the Downs on Wednesday afternoon lay deep about Bree-hill. The four hobbits were just waking from their sleep beside the Standing Stone, when out of the mist four horsemen rode from the West and passed through the gates at dusk....
The episode closely follows that in the 'red version' of the 'third phase'
(VI.347 - 8), but of course Harry Goatleaf no longer refers to 'a hobbit riding behind an old man on a white horse, last night', and his conversation with the Rider takes this form:
'We want news!' hissed a cold voice through the key-hole.
'What of?' he answered, shaking in his boots.
'News of hobbits, riding on ponies out of the Shire. Have they passed?'
Harry wished they had, for it might have satisfied these riders if he could have said yes. There was a threat in the cold voice; but he dared not risk a yes that was not true. 'No sir!' he said in a quavering voice. 'There's been no Shire-hobbits on ponies through Bree, and there isn't likely to be any.'
A hiss came through the key-hole, and Harry started back, feeling as if something icy cold had touched him. 'Yes, it is likely!' said the voice fiercely. 'Three, perhaps four. You will watch. We want Baggins. He is with them. You will watch. You will tell us and not lie! We shall come back.'(1)
This episode was struck from the text, but I cannot say when this was done.
The conversation between Frodo and Merry and the gatekeeper is as in FR. The gatekeeper still however calls out to 'Ned' (his brother, presumptively) to watch the gate a while, since he has 'business up at The Pony' (as in VI.349); then follows: 'He had been gone only a moment, and Ned had not yet come out, when a dark figure climbed in quickly over the gate and vanished in the dark in the direction of the inn.' The reference to Harry Goatleaf's visit to the inn was afterwards struck out, and does not appear in FR (see below).
There is now, as is to be expected, no reference to Tom Bombadil when the hobbits arrive at The Prancing Pony, and Frodo's pseudonym is 'Mr Green' (see p. 37); the reference in FR (p. 167) to the Underhills of Staddle is of course absent. Folco is still Folco, corrected to Pippin, which shows that this text was written before the revised ending of Chapter V (pp. 30, 35).(2) Frodo still noticed the gatekeeper among the company in the common room of the inn, wondering whether it was his night off duty, but this was struck out, and does not appear in FR. Folco/Pippin now tells the story of the collapse of the 'Town Burrow' in Michel Delving, though the fat Mayor is unnamed. Trotter is of course a Man, but the description of him is that of the old versions (VI.137, 334): he is still, as he was when he was a hobbit, 'queer-looking, brown-faced', with a short-stemmed pipe under his long nose, and nothing is said of his boots (FR p. 168).
When Bill Ferney and the Southerner left the common room, 'Harry the gatekeeper went out just behind them.' This, like the other references to the gatekeeper's presence at the inn noted above, was struck out. An isolated note of this time proposes: 'Cut out Harry - he is unnecessary': clearly referring to his visit to the inn after the arrival of the hobbits and his vaguely sinister association with Bill Ferney, not to his function as gatekeeper, which is certainly necessary. It is curious therefore that in the typescript that followed the present manuscript this last
The new version, to the point where the hobbits returned from the common room of the inn after Frodo's 'accident', now reaches, except in a few features, the final form, and variation even from the precise wording of FR is infrequent. The most notable respect in which it differs is that at this stage my father preserved the account of the black horsemen who spoke to Harry Goatleaf the gatekeeper on the evening of the 28th of September:
The fog that enveloped the Downs on Wednesday afternoon lay deep about Bree-hill. The four hobbits were just waking from their sleep beside the Standing Stone, when out of the mist four horsemen rode from the West and passed through the gates at dusk....
The episode closely follows that in the 'red version' of the 'third phase'
(VI.347 - 8), but of course Harry Goatleaf no longer refers to 'a hobbit riding behind an old man on a white horse, last night', and his conversation with the Rider takes this form:
'We want news!' hissed a cold voice through the key-hole.
'What of?' he answered, shaking in his boots.
'News of hobbits, riding on ponies out of the Shire. Have they passed?'
Harry wished they had, for it might have satisfied these riders if he could have said yes. There was a threat in the cold voice; but he dared not risk a yes that was not true. 'No sir!' he said in a quavering voice. 'There's been no Shire-hobbits on ponies through Bree, and there isn't likely to be any.'
A hiss came through the key-hole, and Harry started back, feeling as if something icy cold had touched him. 'Yes, it is likely!' said the voice fiercely. 'Three, perhaps four. You will watch. We want Baggins. He is with them. You will watch. You will tell us and not lie! We shall come back.'(1)
This episode was struck from the text, but I cannot say when this was done.
The conversation between Frodo and Merry and the gatekeeper is as in FR. The gatekeeper still however calls out to 'Ned' (his brother, presumptively) to watch the gate a while, since he has 'business up at The Pony' (as in VI.349); then follows: 'He had been gone only a moment, and Ned had not yet come out, when a dark figure climbed in quickly over the gate and vanished in the dark in the direction of the inn.' The reference to Harry Goatleaf's visit to the inn was afterwards struck out, and does not appear in FR (see below).
There is now, as is to be expected, no reference to Tom Bombadil when the hobbits arrive at The Prancing Pony, and Frodo's pseudonym is 'Mr Green' (see p. 37); the reference in FR (p. 167) to the Underhills of Staddle is of course absent. Folco is still Folco, corrected to Pippin, which shows that this text was written before the revised ending of Chapter V (pp. 30, 35).(2) Frodo still noticed the gatekeeper among the company in the common room of the inn, wondering whether it was his night off duty, but this was struck out, and does not appear in FR. Folco/Pippin now tells the story of the collapse of the 'Town Burrow' in Michel Delving, though the fat Mayor is unnamed. Trotter is of course a Man, but the description of him is that of the old versions (VI.137, 334): he is still, as he was when he was a hobbit, 'queer-looking, brown-faced', with a short-stemmed pipe under his long nose, and nothing is said of his boots (FR p. 168).
When Bill Ferney and the Southerner left the common room, 'Harry the gatekeeper went out just behind them.' This, like the other references to the gatekeeper's presence at the inn noted above, was struck out. An isolated note of this time proposes: 'Cut out Harry - he is unnecessary': clearly referring to his visit to the inn after the arrival of the hobbits and his vaguely sinister association with Bill Ferney, not to his function as gatekeeper, which is certainly necessary. It is curious therefore that in the typescript that followed the present manuscript this last
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