The War of the Ring (64 page)

'Name the terms,' said Gandalf, and tears were in his eyes, and all thought he was defeated and would yield - and of course be cheated.

The terms are that the Hosts of Gondor and Rohan shall withdraw at once beyond Anduin. All land east of Anduin to be Sauron's for ever, solely; and west of Anduin as far as Misty Mountains shall be tributary to Mordor and swear vassalage: Gondor and Rohan: as far as the river Isen. The Ents shall help rebuild Isengard and be subject to its lord - not Saruman, but one more trustworthy!

Gandalf replies, 'Yea, and what surety have we that Sauron will keep his part? Let him yield first the prisoner.' (That is awkward for the ambassador as in fact Sauron has not got him!

But he laughs.) 'Take it or leave it so,' he said.

'We will take it,' said Gandalf, ' - this the mithril-coat in memory. But as for your terms we reject them utterly.' Horror of Pippin and Merry if they are present? 'For in any case you would not keep them. Do as you will. And let fear eat your heart

- for if you so much as set a thorn in the flesh of Frodo you shall rue it.' The ambassador laughs, and gives a dreadful cry.

Flinging off his garments he vanishes; but at that cry the host prepared in ambush sally from the mountains on either side, and from the Teeth, and pour out of the Gate. The host of Gondor taken at unawares wavers, and the leaders are surrounded. [Added in pencil: All the Nine Nazgul remounted (12) swoop down; but the Eagles come to give battle.]

At that moment (25th) the Ring goes into Crack of Doom and the mountain vomits, and Baraddur crashes, and all things done by Sauron are cast down, the Black Gates fall. The Host of Mordor is dismayed, and flees back for refuge into Kirith Gorgor. The victorious host of Gondor and Rohan pours in in pursuit,

[Remainder of the text is in pencil:] Gandalf knows that Ring must have reached fire. Suddenly Sauron is aware of the Ring and its peril. He sees Frodo afar off. In a last desperate attempt he turns his thought from the Battle (so that his men waver again and are pressed back) and tries to stop Frodo. At same time he sends the Wizard King as Nazgul (13) to the Mountain.

The whole plot is clear to him. ? He blasts the Stone so that at that moment the Orthanc-stone explodes: it would have killed Aragorn had he had it in hand?

Gandalf bids Gwaihir fly swiftly to Orodruin.

This account of the Parley before the Black Gate may be compared with that in the outline 'The Story Foreseen from Fangorn', written years before (pp. 229 - 30).

As I have said, this text certainly preceded at any rate the latter part of 'The Siege of Gondor', in view of what is told here of Denethor. On the other hand, it equally clearly followed the initial drafting of 'The Ride of the Rohirrim', since the Ents here crossed the Anduin north of the Emyn Muil after their victory in the Wold of Rohan and came south to the Morannon through the lands east of the River: their apperance in Anorien had already been rejected.(14) While I have necessarily treated these chapters as separate narrative entities, whose development from initial draft to virtually final form proceeded out interruption, I think it is in fact very probable that my father moved back and forth between them.

NOTES.

1. But Wizard King takes to air and becomes Nazgul. These words can only mean that Nazgul refers specifically to the Ring-wraiths as borne upon 'winged steeds'. But my father cannot have intended this. I presume that since in this part of The Lord of the Rings the Ringwraiths were 'winged', and their power and significance for the story lies in their being 'winged', he had nonetheless made this equation, and so slipped into saying that when the Black Captain (Lord of the Nazgul) himself mounted on one of the monstrous birds he 'became a Nazgul'. This occurs again at the end of the outline.

2. On the death of Eowyn see p. 318.

3. At the equivalent point in the first form of the outline there is a note in the margin: Pelennor wall here only 10 miles away and the wall right above stream which bends round the Hills of Haramon.' Haramon, the original name of Emyn Arnen, appears on the Second Map: see pp. 353; 434, 438.

4. The first form of the outline has: 'Sungleam shines on the

[Tree >) Crown and stars of Sun and Moon.'

5. The first four letters of this name are certain, but it can scarcely be Numenor; the likeliest interpretation is Numerion.

6. The first form of the outline has here: 'Enemy is caught between Aragorn and the Dunedain and Eomer and so Eomer and Aragorn meet.' This is the first time that the name Dunedain is met with ab initio in the texts.

7. Of this passage, from 'Aragorn sets up his pavilion and standard outside gate', there is very little in the first form of the outline:

'Denethor comes down to welcome Aragorn; but will not yield the Stewardship, until all is proven and war is lost or won.

Aragorn agrees.' Then follows: 'Aragorn and Gandalf counsel immediate action.'

8. This passage is the first germ of 'The Last Debate'.

9. The first form of the outline has 'They burn the poisoned fields'; and distances are given: Minas Tirith to Osgiliath 26 miles. West edge of Osgiliath to Minas Morghul [50 >] 60 miles?' (with 55

written above 60).

10. This is the first reference to Linhir (see pp. 436 - 7).

11. It is curious and confusing that Sauron's messenger should refer to Frodo as a 'messenger'.

12. Earlier in this outline my father had questioned whether the ambassador was not in fact the Wizard King himself, and he appears again at the end, dispatched by Sauron to Orodruin (his fate on the fields of the Pelennor was therefore not yet finally decided). Since at the end of the parley the ambassador casts off his garments and vanishes, he was certainly a Ringwraith; is this the meaning of 'All the Nine Nazgul remounted'?

13. On the implication of he sends the Wizard King as Nazgul - that Nazgul means specifically the winged Wraiths - see note l. On the other hand, All the Nine Nazgul remounted (note 12) carries the opposite implication.

14. It cannot be actually demonstrated that the story of the coming of Treebeard and the Ents to Anorien did not follow, and supersede, their appearance at the Black Gate; but this seems extremely improbable.

IX.

THE BATTLE OF THE

PELENNOR FIELDS.

I give first a remarkable writing entitled Fall of Theoden in the Battle of Osgiliath. It is clearly written in ink, with only a few changes made at the time of writing; there are also a small number of pencilled corrections, which I show as such.

Then Theoden gave a great shout 'Forth Eorlingas!' and spurred Snowmane rearing into the deeps of the great shadow.

But few followed him; for his men quailed and grew sick in that ghastly shade, and many fell upon the ground. The light of his golden shield grew dim. Still he rode on, and darts flew thick about him. Many fell before his spear, and almost he had reached to the standard of the Haradoth [) Haradhoth], when suddenly he gave a great cry, and fell. A black arrow had pierced his heart. And at the same moment Snowmane stumbled forward and lay still. The great shadow descended. Slowly the huge vulture-form [> Slowly as a settling cloud it] came down, lifted its wings, and with a hoarse croaking cry settled upon the body of the fallen king, digging in its talons and stooping its long [added: naked] neck. Upon its back there sat a shape. Black robed it was, and above the robe there was a steel crown, borne by no visible head save where between crown and cloak there was a pale and deadly gleam as it were of eyes.(1) But Theoden was not alone. One had followed him: Eowyn daughter of Eomund, and all had feared the light of her face, shunning her as night fowl turn from the day. Now she leapt from her horse and stood before the shadow; her sword was in her hand.

'Come not between the Nazgul and his prey,' said a cold voice, 'or he will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness where thy flesh shall be devoured and thy shrivelled mind be left naked.'

She stood still and did not blench. 'I do not fear thee, Shadow,' she said. 'Nor him that devoured thee. Go back to him and report that his shadows and dwimor-lakes (2) are powerless even to frighten women.' The great bird flapped its wings and leapt into the air, leaving the king's body, and falling upon her with beak and claw. Like a shaft of searing light a pale sword cold as ice was raised above her head.

She raised her shield, and with a swift and sudden stroke smote off the bird's head. It fell, its vast wings outspread crumpled and helpless on the earth. About Eowyn the light of day fell bright and clear. With a clamour of dismay the hosts of Harad turned and fled, and over the ground a headless thing crawled away, snarling and snivelling, tearing at the cloak. Soon the black cloak too lay formless and still, and a long thin wail rent the air and vanished in the distance.

Eowyn stepped to the king. Alas, Theoden son of Thengel,'(3) she said. 'But you have turned the tide. See, they fly. The enemy is broken by fear. Never did an old Lord of Men die better. You shall sleep well, and no Shadow nor foul thing assail your bed.'

Then there was a sound of a great ...(4) and the men of Minas Tirith and of the Mark released from the Shadow swept up, the light reborn was strong on their swords and spears. They drove the enemy into the River. Some stayed by their king.

I think that my father wrote this well before the period of composition we have now reached, and I would be inclined to associate it (very tentatively) with the outline sketches for Book V, where the event described here is several times referred to, and especially with Outlines 111 and V. In these, in contrast to what is said in I and II (p. 256), there is no mention of Eowyn's wounding or death: 'Theoden, and Eowyn destroy Nazgul and Theoden falls' (111, p. 260); 'Theoden is slain by Nazgul; but he is unhorsed and the enemy is routed' (V, p. 263). Although in my father's narrative sketches silence is a bad guide, it is possible that these brief statements are nonetheless to be associated with what is certainly a notable feature of the present text, that there is no suggestion that Eowyn was in any way hurt in the encounter with the Lord of the Nazgul or after (while Theoden is'

felled and dies without speaking). A difficulty with this view is that in Outline V the Nazgul King is 'unhorsed', whereas in 'The Fall of Theoden in the Battle of Osgiliath' his descent on a 'huge vulture-form' is at the centre of the story. Since the 'vultures' are referred to as

'winged steeds', it is possible that the word 'unhorsed' was used in this sense, though that does not seem very likely.

It is obvious that no part was foreseen for Merry in the great event; and it seems that (in strong contrast to the final story, RK p. 117) it was the beheading of the great bird that in itself caused the defeat and flight of the Lord of the Nazgul, deprived of his steed.

Whatever its relative dating, the piece certainly gives an impression of having been composed in isolation, a draft for a scene that my father saw vividly before he reached this point in the actual writing of the story. When he did so, he evidently had it before him, as is suggested by the words of the Lord of the Nazgul (cf. RK p. 116).

When my father came to write the story of the Battle of the Pelennor Fields he all but achieved the form in which it stands in The Return of the King in a single manuscript ('A'). He adopted here the method of building up the completed narrative through massive correction and interpolation of his initial text; and the greater part if not all of this work clearly belongs to the same time. Beneath the writing in ink on the first page of this manuscript there is however a pencilled text, and bears further on the subject of Theoden and the Lord of the Nazgul.

This underlying text is largely illegible on account of the ink overwriting, which is closely-packed, but from what can be seen it seems not to have differed greatly (the opening paragraph of the chapter, mostly legible, is very close to the ink version on top of it) - as far as the passage where the golden shield of Theoden is dimmed, horses reared and screamed, and men falling from their horses lay upon the ground. But then follows: 'And through the ranks of the enemy a wide lane opened.' The rest of the pencilled text is almost entirely lost, but isolated words and phrases can be made out: 'There came riding ..... a great ..... [struck out: The Black Captain)

..... stood ..... the Black Captain robed ..... and above the robes was a crown ..... ' This can scarcely mean anything other than that the Lord of the Nazgul did not descend upon the battle borne upon the back of a great vulture.

Various statements have been made on this subject, beginning with that in Outline V, cited above, that the Nazgul was 'unhorsed'. In the rough draft of 'The Siege of Gondor' (p. 331) Gandalf, speaking to Pippin of the Wizard King, says that 'he has not [struck out(?): yet]

taken to winged steeds'; in the outline 'The Story Foreseen from Forannest' (p. 359) 'the Wizard King takes to the air and becomes Nazgul'; and of course there is the evidence of 'The Fall of Theoden in the Battle of Osgiliath'. That my father should at this stage have abandoned, however briefly, the story of the Winged Nazgul descending upon Theoden is certainly surprising; but it seems plain that he did so.