The Peoples of Middle-earth (47 page)

But Gilrain was younger than the age at which women of the Dunedain were wont at that time to take husbands; and she did not yet desire to be a wife, and sought the counsel of her parents. Then Dirhael said: 'Arathorn is a mighty man, and he will be Lord of the Dunedain sooner than men look for, yet soon again he will be lord no longer; for I forebode that he will be short-lived.' But Evorwen said: 'That may well be, yet if these two wed, their child shall be great among the great in this age of the world, and he shall bring the Dunedain out of the shadows.'

Therefore Gilrain consented and was wedded to Arathorn; and it came to pass that after one year Arador was taken by trolls and slain in the Coldfells, and Arathorn became Lord of the Dunedain; and again after one year his wife bore a son and he was named Aragorn. And Aragorn being now the son of the Heir of Isildur went with his mother and dwelt in the House of Elrond in Imladris, for such was the custom in that day, and Elrond had in his keeping the heirlooms of the Dunedain, chief of which were the shards of the sword of Elendil who came to Middle-earth out of Numenor at its downfall. In his boyhood Arathorn also had been fostered in that house, and he was a friend of Elladan and Elrohir, the sons of Elrond, and often he went a-hunting with them. Now the sons of Elrond did not hunt wild beasts, but they pursued the Orcs wherever they might find them; and this they did because of Celebrian their mother, daughter of Galadriel.

On a time long ago, as she passed over the Mountains to visit her mother in the Land of Lorien, Orcs waylaid the road, and she was taken captive by them and tormented; and though she was rescued by Elrond and his sons, and brought home and tended, and her hurts of body were healed, she lay under a great cloud of fear and she loved Middle-earth no longer; so that at the last Elrond granted her prayer, and she passed to the Grey Havens and went into the West, never to return.

Thus it befell that when Aragorn was only two years of age Arathorn went riding with the sons of Elrond and fought with Orcs that had made an inroad into Eriador, and he was slain, for an orc-arrow pierced his eye; and so he proved indeed short-lived for one of his race, being no more than sixty winters when he fell.

But the child Aragorn became thus untimely Chieftain of the Dunedain, and he was nurtured in the House of Elrond, and there he was loved by all, and Elrond was a father to him.

Straight and tall he grew with grey eyes both keen and grave, and he was hardy and valiant and strong of wit, and eager to learn all lore of Elves and Men.

And when he was still but a youth, yet strong withal, he went abroad with Elladan and Elrohir and learned much of hunting and of war, and many secrets of the wild. But he knew naught of his own ancestry, for his mother did not speak to him of these things, nor any else in that House; and it was at the bidding of Elrond that these matters were kept secret. For there was at that time a Shadow in the East that crept over many lands, and filled the Wise with foreboding, since they had discovered that this was indeed the shadow of Sauron, the Dark Lord that had returned to Middle-earth again, and that he desired to find the One Ring that Isildur took, and sought to learn if any heir of Isildur yet lived upon earth; and the spies of Sauron were many.

But at length, when Aragorn was twenty years of age, it chanced that he returned to Imladris ...

I leave the original manuscript here, for this is sufficient to show the nature of its relation to the published text: the latter being marked by a general reduction, compression of what was retained and omission of allusive passages, notably the story of Celebrian.(2) But as will be seen, the reason for this was not, or was not primarily, the result of a critical view taken by my father of the telling of the tale, but of the use to which he later thought of putting it.

From this point the final version offers no contradiction to the original text, and in fact remains closer to it than in the part that I have cited,(3) until the plighting of troth by Aragorn and Arwen on the hill of Kerin Amroth (RK p. 341); soon after this, however, it diverges altogether.

And there upon that hill they looked east to the shadow and west to the twilight, and they plighted their troth and were glad.

Yet many years still lay between them.(4)

For when Elrond learned the choice of his daughter he did not forbid it; but he said to Aragorn: 'Not until you are come to your full stature shall you wed with Arwen Undomiel, and she shall not be the bride of any less than a king of both Gondor and Arnor.'

But the days darkened in Middle-earth, as the power of Sauron grew, and in Mordor the Dark Tower of Barad-dur rose ever taller and stronger. And though Aragorn and Arwen at times met briefly again their days were sundered. For the time drew on now to the War of the Ring at the end of that age of the world ...

There follows now a long passage (more than 500 words, with a part of it rejected and replaced by a new version) in which the history of the war is given in summary: telling of Mithrandir and the Halflings, the doubts of the Wise, the Ringwraiths, the Company of the Ring, and the quest of the Ringbearer; and then more expressly of Aragorn, of the Paths of the Dead, the Pelennor Fields, the battle before the Morannon, and his crowning at the gates of Minas Tirith.

At the end of this the tale moves quickly to its conclusion.

And when all this was done Elrond came forth from Imladris and Galadriel from Lorien, and they brought with them Arwen Undomiel Evenstar of her people. And she made the choice of Luthien, to become mortal and abide in Middle-earth, and she was wedded to Aragorn Arathornsson, King of Gondor and Arnor, and she was Queen and Lady of Elves and Men.

Thus ended the Third Age. Yet it is said that bitterest of all the sorrows of that age was the parting of Arwen and Elrond. For they were sundered by the Sea and by a doom beyond the end of the world. For when the Great Ring was unmade the Three Rings of the Elves failed also, and Elrond was weary of Middle-earth at last and departed seeking Celebrian, and returned never again. But Arwen became a mortal woman, and yet even so it was not her lot to die until she had lost all that she gained. For though she lived with Aragorn for five score years after and great was their glory together, yet at the last he said farewell and laid him down and died ere old age unmanned him. But she went from the city and from her children, and passed away to the land of Lothlorien, and dwelt there alone under the fading trees: for Galadriel also was gone and Lorien was withering.

And then at last, it is said, she laid herself to rest upon Kerin Amroth; and there was her green grave, until all the world was changed, and all the days of her life utterly forgotten by men that came after, and elanor and nifredil bloomed no more east of the Sea.(5)

This earliest manuscript was followed by a fair copy of it in typescript ('B'), in which only a few and minor changes were introduced.(6) But the whole of the latter part of it, from the beginning of the account of the War of the Ring and its origins, was struck out, and my father clipped to the typescript new pages, in which he extended that account to nearly twice its original length. Most of this new version was then again rewritten, at even greater length, and attached as a rider to the typescript. It was now much less of a resume than it was at first, and its purpose in the work as a whole is clearly seen. 'It was the part of Aragorn,' my father wrote, 'as Elrond foresaw, to be the chief Captain of the West, and by his wisdom yet more than his valour to redress the past and the folly of his forefather Isildur.' I cite a part of it from this final form.

Thus the War of the Ring began; and the shards of the sword of Elendil were forged anew, and Aragorn Arathorn's son arose and fulfilled his part, and his valour and wisdom were revealed to Men. Songs were made after in Gondor and Arnor concerning his deeds in that time which long were remembered, but are not here full-told. It was not his task to bear the burden of the Ring, but to be a leader in those battles by which the Eye of Sauron was turned far from his own land and from the secret peril which crept upon him in the dark. Indeed, it is said that Sauron believed that the Lord Aragorn, heir of Isildur, had found the Ring and had taken it to himself, even as his forefather had done, and arose now to challenge the tyrant of Mordor and set himself in his place.

But it was not so, and in this most did Aragorn reveal his strength; for though the Ring came indeed within his grasp, he took it not, and refused to wield its evil power, but surrendered it to the judgement of Elrond and to the Bearer whom he appointed. For it was the hard counsel of Elrond that though their need might seem desperate and the time overlate, nonetheless the Ring should even now be taken in secret, if it might be, to the land of their Enemy and there cast into the fire of Mount Doom in Mordor where it was made. Aragorn guided the Ringbearer on the long and perilous journey from Imladris in the North, until he was lost in the wild hills and passed beyond the help of his friends. Then Aragorn turned to war and the defence of the City of Gondor, Minas Tirith upon Anduin, the last bulwark of the westlands against the armies of Sauron.

In all this time, while the world darkened and Aragorn was abroad in labour and danger, Arwen abode in Imladris; and there from afar she watched over him in thought, and in hope under the Shadow she wrought for him a great and royal standard, such as only one might display who claimed the lordship of the Numenoreans and the inheritance of Elendil and Isildur.

And this she sent to him by the hands of his kinsfolk, the last of the Dunedain of the North; and they came upon Aragorn on the plain of Rohan, after the battles in which Saruman the traitor was overcome and Isengard destroyed, and they delivered to Aragorn the standard of Arwen and her message; for she bade him look to the peril from the sea, and to take the Paths of the Dead. Now this was a way beneath the White Mountains of Gondor that no man dared to tread, because of the fell wraiths of the Forgotten Men that guarded it. But Aragorn dared to take that way with the Grey Company of the North, and he passed through, and so came about by the shores of the sea, unlooked-for by foe or by friend. Thus he captured the ships of the Enemy, and came up out of the deep by the waters of Anduin to the succour of Gondor in the hour of its despair; for the city of Minas Tirith was encircled by the armies of Mordor and was perishing in flame. Then was fought and won beyond hope the great battle of the Fields of Pelennor, and the Lord of the Black Riders was destroyed; but Aragorn unfurled the standard of Arwen, and in that day men first hailed Aragorn as king.

At the end of this account of Aragorn's commanding significance in the War of the Ring, the revised ending of the story in the typescript B

concludes with his farewell to Arwen at his death almost exactly as it stands in Appendix A.(7) The original manuscript pages in which my father first set down this inspired passage are preserved. He wrote them so fast that without the later text scarcely a word would be interpretable.

The revised text in B ends with the words 'Here endeth the tale of the Elder Days'. My father altered this in manuscript to 'Here endeth the Tale, and with the passing of the Evenstar all is said of the Elder Days.'

Briefly to recapitulate, the typescript B as originally made had been scarcely more than a clear text of the original rough manuscript A.

The latter part of it was rewritten and expanded (Aragorn's part in the War of the Ring, his dying words with Arwen) and incorporated into the typescript. My father then made a further typescript ('C'), which was a fair copy of the text as it now stood in B, much of it indeed scarcely necessary. At this stage, therefore, none of the compression and small stylistic changes that distinguish the original manuscript from the final form in Appendix A had yet entered. It still began 'Ere the Elder Days were ended', still included the story of Celebrian, and of course the major element of Aragorn's part in the War of the Ring; in relation to the final version all it lacked was Aragorn's parting from his mother Gilrain (RK p. 342).

It is hard to say how my father saw Aragorn and Arwen at that time, when he clearly felt that it was in finished form, or where it should stand. He took great pains with the story of Aragorn which was afterwards lost. He ended it with great finality: 'Here endeth the Tale, and with the passing of the Evenstar all is said of the Elder Days.' Can it have been his intention that it should stand as the final element of The Lord of the Rings?