first continuous manuscript ('B'), which was given the number 'LIII' (see p. 25) and the title 'Mount Doom', subsequently changed to 'The Land of Shadow'. Only in a few passages did my father go momentarily down an unsuccessful turn in the story.
The first of these concerns the overhearing by Sam and Frodo of the conversation of orcs in the valley beneath the Morgai, which was at first conceived very differently from the story in RK (pp. 202 - 3). The draft text A is here, as throughout, exceedingly difficult to read.
Presently [three >] two orcs came into view. They were in black without tokens and were armed with bows, a small breed, black-skinned with wide snuffling nostrils, evidently trackers of some kind........ they were talking in some hideous unintelligible speech; but as they passed snuffling among the stones scarcely 20 yards from where the hobbits lurked Frodo saw that one was carrying on his arm a black mail-shirt very like the one that he had abandoned. He sniffed it as [he] went as if to recall its scent. All at once lifting his head he let out a cry. It was answered, and from the other direction (from Kirith Ungol now some miles behind) ... large fighting orcs came up with shields
....... [?painted] with the Eye.
A [? babble] of talk in the common tongue now broke out.
'Nar,' said the tracker, 'not a trace further along. Nor o' this smell, but we're not [?easy]. Somebody that has no business here has been about. Different smell, but a bad smell: we've lost that too, it went up into the mountains.'
'A lot of use you little snufflers are,' grunted a bigger orc. 'I reckon eyes are better than your snotty noses. Have you seen anything?'
'What's to look for?' grunted the tracker.
Amid much further orcish dissension in confused drafting the final story emerges, with two orcs only, a soldier and a small tracker: my father had some trouble in deciding which offensive remark belonged to which speaker.
Drafting for the passage in which Sam described to Frodo all that had happened (RK p. 204) runs thus:
When he had finished Frodo said nothing for some time, but took Sam's hand and pressed it. At length he stirred. 'So this is what comes of eavesdropping, Sam,' he said. 'But I wonder if you'll ever get back. Perhaps it would have been safer to have been turned into a toad as Gandalf threatened. Do you remember that day, Sam,' he said, 'and clipping the edges under the window?'
'I do, Mr. Frodo. And I bet things are in [a] nasty mess there now with [?that] Lobelia and her Cosimo,(1) begging your pardon. There'll be trouble if ever we get back.'
'I shouldn't worry about that if I were you,' said Frodo.
'We've got to go on again now. East, East, Sam, not West. I wonder how long it will be before we are caught and all this slinking and toiling will be over?'
It is curious that Sam, speaking darkly of the state of affairs in the Shire, should ascribe it to Lobelia and Cosimo Sackville-Baggins. In the original sketch of the Mirror of Lothlorien, when it was King Galdaran's Mirror, and when it was Frodo who saw the visions of the Shire, he was to see 'Cosimo Sackville-Baggins very rich, buying up land'; but there is no mention of Cosimo in the first narrative of the scene (VII.249, 253).
Frodo's entrusting of Sting and the Phial of Galadriel to Sam entered in the first manuscript (B) in this form:
'You must keep the Lady's gift for me, Sam,' he said, 'I've nowhere to store it now, except in my hand, and I need both in the dark. And you must keep Sting too, since I have lost your sword. I have got an orc-blade, but I do not think it is my part to strike any blows again.'
It was at this time, as it appears, that my father came to a new perception of the lands in the north-western extremity of Mordor, and saw that the vale behind the Morannon was closed also at the southward end by great spurs that thrust out from Ephel Duath and Ered Lithui. As first written in B, Frodo told Sam this concerning his knowledge
The first of these concerns the overhearing by Sam and Frodo of the conversation of orcs in the valley beneath the Morgai, which was at first conceived very differently from the story in RK (pp. 202 - 3). The draft text A is here, as throughout, exceedingly difficult to read.
Presently [three >] two orcs came into view. They were in black without tokens and were armed with bows, a small breed, black-skinned with wide snuffling nostrils, evidently trackers of some kind........ they were talking in some hideous unintelligible speech; but as they passed snuffling among the stones scarcely 20 yards from where the hobbits lurked Frodo saw that one was carrying on his arm a black mail-shirt very like the one that he had abandoned. He sniffed it as [he] went as if to recall its scent. All at once lifting his head he let out a cry. It was answered, and from the other direction (from Kirith Ungol now some miles behind) ... large fighting orcs came up with shields
....... [?painted] with the Eye.
A [? babble] of talk in the common tongue now broke out.
'Nar,' said the tracker, 'not a trace further along. Nor o' this smell, but we're not [?easy]. Somebody that has no business here has been about. Different smell, but a bad smell: we've lost that too, it went up into the mountains.'
'A lot of use you little snufflers are,' grunted a bigger orc. 'I reckon eyes are better than your snotty noses. Have you seen anything?'
'What's to look for?' grunted the tracker.
Amid much further orcish dissension in confused drafting the final story emerges, with two orcs only, a soldier and a small tracker: my father had some trouble in deciding which offensive remark belonged to which speaker.
Drafting for the passage in which Sam described to Frodo all that had happened (RK p. 204) runs thus:
When he had finished Frodo said nothing for some time, but took Sam's hand and pressed it. At length he stirred. 'So this is what comes of eavesdropping, Sam,' he said. 'But I wonder if you'll ever get back. Perhaps it would have been safer to have been turned into a toad as Gandalf threatened. Do you remember that day, Sam,' he said, 'and clipping the edges under the window?'
'I do, Mr. Frodo. And I bet things are in [a] nasty mess there now with [?that] Lobelia and her Cosimo,(1) begging your pardon. There'll be trouble if ever we get back.'
'I shouldn't worry about that if I were you,' said Frodo.
'We've got to go on again now. East, East, Sam, not West. I wonder how long it will be before we are caught and all this slinking and toiling will be over?'
It is curious that Sam, speaking darkly of the state of affairs in the Shire, should ascribe it to Lobelia and Cosimo Sackville-Baggins. In the original sketch of the Mirror of Lothlorien, when it was King Galdaran's Mirror, and when it was Frodo who saw the visions of the Shire, he was to see 'Cosimo Sackville-Baggins very rich, buying up land'; but there is no mention of Cosimo in the first narrative of the scene (VII.249, 253).
Frodo's entrusting of Sting and the Phial of Galadriel to Sam entered in the first manuscript (B) in this form:
'You must keep the Lady's gift for me, Sam,' he said, 'I've nowhere to store it now, except in my hand, and I need both in the dark. And you must keep Sting too, since I have lost your sword. I have got an orc-blade, but I do not think it is my part to strike any blows again.'
It was at this time, as it appears, that my father came to a new perception of the lands in the north-western extremity of Mordor, and saw that the vale behind the Morannon was closed also at the southward end by great spurs that thrust out from Ephel Duath and Ered Lithui. As first written in B, Frodo told Sam this concerning his knowledge
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