Sauron Defeated by J. R. R. Tolkien Read Free Book Online Page B

In the fair copy manuscript of 'The Choices of Master Samwise'
    Sam asked himself: 'How many are there? Thirty, forty, or more?' The change to 'Thirty of forty from the tower at least, and a lot more than that from down below, I guess' (TT p. 344) was made on the first typescript of the chapter. - In outline IV (p. 9) the orcs of the Tower are the more numerous.
    7. Cf. the original conception of the Sentinels guarding the entrance to Minas Morgul in 'The Story Foreseen from Lorien' written years before (VII.340 - 1): 'It was as if some will denying the passage was drawn like invisible ropes across his path. He felt the pressure of unseen eyes.... The Sentinels sat there: dark and still. They did not move their clawlike hands laid on their knees, they did not move their shrouded heads in which no faces could be seen ...' See also the diagrammatic sketch of the Sentinels in VII.348.
    8. The illegible word might possibly be jewel (i.e. the brooch of his elven-cloak).
    9. The sword is gone: this is Sam's sword from the Barrow-downs; cf. 'The Choices of Master Samwise' (TT p. 340): ' "If I'm to go on," he said, "then I must take your sword, by your leave, Mr.
    Frodo, but I'll put this one to lie by you, as it lay by the old king in the barrow..." ' See pp. 26 - 7.
    10. This passage concerning their provision of food and water is marked to stand earlier - no doubt after the words 'They make their plans'. The illegible words in the sentence following 'Food.
    Drink.' could conceivably be read as stick thrust, i.e. 'They had found Frodo's sack and stick thrust in corner, rummaged.'
    11. A few other differences of detail are worth recording. Where in RK (p. 176) the text reads: 'not even the black shadows, lying deep where the red glow could not reach, would shield him long from the night-eyed orcs' D continues: 'that were moving to and fro.'. This was taken up from the draft B, and remained into the second manuscript of the chapter (E), where it was removed. -
    Sam's rejection of the temptation to claim the Ring as his own was expressed thus: 'The one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm; his own hands to command, not the hands of others. Service given with love was his nature, not to command service, whether by fear or in proud benevolence.' - After the words 'He was not really in any doubt'
    (RK p. 177) there follows in D: 'but he was lonely and he was not used to it, or to acting on his own.' To this my father subsequently added, before striking it all out, 'Since no one else was there he had to talk to himself.'
    12. Some passages are absent from the draft C, but not I think because pages are lost: rather D becomes here the initial narrative composition. Thus the passage in RK p. 181 from 'Up, up he went' to ' "Curse you, Snaga, you little maggot" ' is missing; and here the D text becomes notably rougher and full of corrections in the act of writing. The very rough draft C stops near the beginning of Sam's conversation with Frodo in the topmost chamber (RK p. 187), and from that point there are only isolated passages of drafting extant; but the latter part of D was much corrected in the act of writing, and was probably now to a large extent the primary composition.
    13. Cf. LR Appendix F (RK p. 409): in Orkish Westron 'tark, "man of Gondor", was a debased form of tarkil, a Quenya word used in Westron for one of Numenorean descent'.
    14. For my father's original ideas for the song that Sam sang in this predicament see VII.333.
    15. When Frodo and Sam passed out through the gate of the Tower Frodo cried: Alla elenion ancalima! Alla was not changed to Aiya until the book was in type (cf. VIII.223, note 29).
    III.

    THE LAND OF SHADOW.

    It seems plain that 'The Land of Shadow' was achieved swiftly and in a single burst of writing; the draft material (here compendiously called
    'A') consists largely of very roughly written passages immediately transferred to and developed in the