The Treason of Isengard by J. R. R. Tolkien Read Free Book Online Page A

longer than I should'; and his last words are: 'I think after all you will need my company on the Road.'

    Frodo's friends, who came to stay with him to help in the packing up of Bag End, are now (as also in the contemporary rewriting of
    'Ancient History', p. 21) Hamilcar Bolger, Faramond Took,(16) and his closest friends Peregrin Boffin and Merry Brandybuck. It is now Hamilcar Bolger who goes off to Buckland with Merry in the third cart.(17) In the draft revision A 'Peregrin Boffin went back home to Overhill after lunch', whereas in B 'Faramond Took went home after lunch, but Peregrin and Sam remained behind', and Frodo 'took his own tea with Peregrin and Sam in the kitchen.' At the end of the meal
    'Peregrin and Sam strapped up their three packs and piled them in the porch. Peregrin went out for a last stroll in the garden. Sam disappeared.'
    Throughout these manuscripts 'Pippin' appears as a later correction of 'Folco'; and in the passage referred to above, naming Frodo's four friends who stayed at Bag End, 'Faramond Took' was changed subsequently to 'Folco Boffin', 'Peregrin Boffin' to 'Pippin Took', and
    'Hamilcar Bolger' to 'Fredegar Bolger'. These, with Merry Brandybuck, are the four who are present on this occasion in FR (p. 76). But such corrections as these prove nothing as to date: they could have been entered on the manuscript at any subsequent time.
    Nonetheless, it must have been at this stage, I think, that 'Peregrin Took' or 'Pippin' at last entered. Under Chapter V 'A Conspiracy Unmasked' below, it will be seen that in a rewritten section of the manuscript from this time (as distinct from mere emendation to the existing 'third phase' text) not only does 'Hamilcar' appear, as is to be expected, but 'Pippin' appears for the first time as the text was written.
    This rewritten section of 'A Conspiracy Unmasked' certainly belongs to the same time as the rewritten ('fourth phase') parts of 'Ancient History' and 'Three is Company'. The correction of 'Folco (Took)' to
    'Pippin' in these manuscripts therefore does in fact belong to the same period; though they are carefully written texts, the final stage in the evolution of the 'younger hobbits' was taking place as my father wrote them; and though at the beginning of the B text of 'Three is Company'
    Frodo's friend was Peregrin Boffin, he may have already been Peregrin Took by the time he took his last stroll in the Bag End garden.
    The question is not perhaps worth spending very long on, since it is now very largely one of name simply, but I have followed the tortuous trail too long to leave it without an attempt at analysis at the end.
    What happened, I think, was as follows. Folco Took of the 'third phase' (who had an interesting and complex genesis out of the original
    'young hobbits', Frodo (Took) and Odo, see VI.323-4) was renamed Faramond Took (p. 15, note 1). At this time 'Peregrin Boffin', who had first entered as the 'explanation' of Trotter, became one of Frodo's younger friends. This is the situation in the rewritten or 'fourth phase'
    portions of Chapters II and III (pp. 21, 30). In Chapter III Faramond Took 'went home after lunch', and he is then out of the story.
    'Peregrin' and Sam stayed on at Bag End, and it is clear that they are going to be Frodo's companions on the walk to Buckland.
    'Peregrin' (Boffin) is thus stepping into the narrative place of Folco (briefly renamed Faramond) Took; or rather - since the narrative was now in a finished form - this name takes over the character. Just why Folco/Faramond Took would not do I cannot say for certain. It may have been simply a preference of names. But if Faramond Took is got rid of and Peregrin Boffin made the third member of the party walking to Buckland, there would be no Took at all: my father would have left himself with a Baggins, a Boffin, a Brandybuck, and a Gamgee.
    Perhaps this is why the Boffin was changed into a Took, and the Took into a Boffin: Peregrin Boffin became Peregrin (or Pippin)