The Return of the Shadow. Christopher Tolkien

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       II

       FROM 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:

The Road goes ever on and on

       down from the Door where it began:

       before us far the Road has gone,

       and we come after it, who can;

       pursuing it with weary feet,

       until it joins some larger way,

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