The Return Of The Shadow Part 7

Bless the water, O Odo!

And praise the name of Marmaduke! (15) Marmaduke knocked on the door. 'All Bucklebury will know you have arrived before long,' he said. 'Also there is such a thing as supper. I cannot live on praise much longer.'

Bingo came out. 'Lawks!' said Marmaduke looking in. The stone floor was all in pools. Frodo was drying in front of the fire; Odo was still wallowing.

'Come on, Bingo!' said Marmaduke. 'Let's begin supper, and leave them! '

They had supper in the kitchen on a table near the open fire. The others soon arrived. Odo was the last, but he quickly made up for lost time. When they had finished Marmaduke pushed back the table, and drew chairs round the fire. 'We'll clear up later,' he said. 'Now tell me all about it!'(16) Bingo stretched his legs and yawned. 'It's easy in here,' he said, 'and somehow our adventure seems rather absurd, and not so important as it did out there. But this is what happened. A Black Rider came up behind us yesterday afternoon (it seems a week ago), and I am sure he was looking for us, or me. After that he kept- on reappearing (always behind). Let me see, yes, we saw him four times altogether, counting the figure on the landing-stage, and once we heard his horse,(17) and once we thought we heard just a sniff.'

'What are you talking about?' said Marmaduke. 'What is a black rider? '

'A black figure on a horse,' said Bingo. 'But I will tell you all about it.' He gave a pretty good account of their journey, with occasional additions and interruptions by Frodo and Odo. Only Odo was still positive that the sniff they thought they heard was really part of the mystery.

'I should think you were making it all up, if I had not seen that queer shape this evening,' said Marmaduke. 'What is it all about, I wonder?'

'So do we!' said Frodo. 'Do you think anything of Farmer Maggot's guess, that it has something to do with Bilbo?'

'Well, it was only a guess anyway,' said Bingo. 'I am sure old Maggot does not know anything. I should have expected the Elves to tell me, if the Riders had anything to do with Bilbo's adventures.'

'Old Maggot is rather a shrewd fellow,' said Marmaduke. 'A good deal goes on behind his round face which does not come out in his talk. He used to go into the Old Forest at one time, and had the reputation of knowing a thing or two outside the Shire. Anyway I can guess no better. What are you going to do about it?' 'There is nothing to do, ' said Bingo, 'except to go home. Which is difficult for me, as I haven't got one now. I shall just have to go on, as the Elves advised. But you need not come, of course.'

'Of course not,' said Marmaduke. 'I joined the party just for fun, and I am certainly not going to leave it now. Besides, you will need me. Three's company, but four's more. And if the hints of the Elves mean what you think, there are at least four Riders, not to mention an invisible sniff, and a black bundle on the landing- stage. My advice is: let us start off even earlier tomorrow than we planned, and see if we can't get a good start. I rather fancy Riders will have to go round by the bridges to get across the River.' 'But we shall have to go much the same way,' said Bingo. 'We shall have to strike the East Road near Brandywine Bridge.'

'That's not my idea,' said Marmaduke. 'I think we should avoid the road at present. It's a waste of time. We should actually be going back westward if we made for the road-meeting near the Bridge. We must make a short cut north-east through the Old Forest. I will guide you.'

'How can you?' asked Odo. 'Have you ever been there?'

'O yes,' said Marmaduke. 'All the Brandybucks go there occasionally, when the fit takes them. I often go - only in daylight, of course, when the woods are fairly quiet and sleepy. Still I know my way about. If we start early and push along we ought to be quite safe and clear of the Forest before tomorrow night. I have got five good ponies waiting - st.u.r.dy little beasts: not speedy of course, but good for a long day's work. They're stabled in a shed out in the fields behind this house.'

'I don't like the idea at all,' said Odo. 'I would rather meet these Riders (if we must meet them) on a road, where there is a chance of meeting ordinary honest travellers as well. I don't like woods, and I have heard queer tales of the Old Forest. I think Black Riders will be very much more at home there than we shall.'

'But we shall probably be out of it again before they get in,' said Marmaduke. 'It seems to me silly, anyway, when you are beginning an adventurous journey to start by going back and jogging along a dull river-side road - in full view of all the numerous hobbits of Buckland.'(18) Perhaps you would like to call and take leave of old Rory at the Hall. It would be polite and proper; and he might lend you a carriage.'

'I knew you would propose something rash,' said Odo. 'But I am not going to argue any more, if the others agree. Let's vote - though I am sure I shall be the odd man out.'

He was - though Bingo and Frodo took some time to make up their minds.

'There you are! ' said Odo. 'What did I say this morning? Three to one! Well, I only hope it comes off all right.'

'Now that's settled,' said Marmaduke, 'we had better get to bed. But first we must clear up, and do all the packing we can. Come on! '

It was some time before the hobbits finished putting things away, tidying up, and packing what they needed in the way of stores for their journey. At last they went to bed - and slept in proper beds (but without sheets) for the last time for many a long day."(19) Bingo could not go to sleep for some time: his legs ached. He was glad he was riding in the morning. At last he fell asleep into a vague dream, in which he seemed to be lying under a window that looked out into a sea of tangled trees: outside there was a snuffling.

NOTES.

1. It is at first sight puzzling that Frodo should say that 'Buckland is almost exactly south-east from Woodhall', and again immediately below that they could strike the road again 'above Buckland', since later in this chapter (p. 100) Buckland is described as 'a thickly inhabited strip between the River and the Old Forest', defended by the Hedge some forty miles long - clearly too large an area to be described as 'almost exactly south-east from Woodhall'. The explanation must be, however, that my father changed the meaning of the name Buckland in the course of the chapter. At first Buckland was a place, a village, rather than a region (at its first occurrence it replaced Bury Underwood, which in turn replaced Wood Eaton, p. 35 note 5), and it still was so here; but further on in the chapter the village of Bucklebury-by-the-River emerged (p. 92), and Buckland then became the name of the Brandybucks' land beyond the River. See note 5, and the note on the Shire Map, p. 107.

2. See the note on the Shire Map, p. 107.

3. A hastily pencilled note on the typescript here reads: 'Sound of hoofs going by not far off.' See p. 287.

4. Maggot was later struck out in pencil and replaced by Puddifoot, but only in this one instance. On the earliest map of the Shire (see p. 107) the farm is marked, in ink, Puddifoot, changed in pencil to Maggot. The Puddifoots of Stock are mentioned in FR, p. 101.

5. Here again Buckland still signifies the village (see note x); but Bucklebury appears shortly after (p. 92), the name being typed over an erasure.

6. The substance of this pa.s.sage about hobbit-holes and hobbit-houses was afterwards placed in the Prologue. See further pp. 294, 312.

7. Towers built on the western coasts of Middle-earth by exiles of Numenor are mentioned in the second version of The Fall of Numenor (V.28, 30). - The substance of this pa.s.sage was also afterwards placed in the Prologue (see note 6), and there also the towers are called 'Elf-towers'. Cf. Of the Rings of Power in The Silmarillion, p. 292: 'It is said that the towers of Emyn Beraid were not built indeed by the exiles of Numenor, but were raised by Gilgalad for Elendil, his friend.'

8. came at last back to the mad: this is of course the road they had been walking on originally, 'the road to Buckland', at this time there was no causeway road running south from the Brandywine Bridge on the west bank of the river (and no village of Stock).

9. In FR (p. 109) the distance is 'well over twenty miles from end to end.' See p. 298.

10. This genealogy was afterwards wholly abandoned, of course, but the mother of Meriadoc (Marmaduke) remained a Took (Esmeralda, who married Saradoc Brandybuck, known as 'Scattergold').

11. Melissa Brandybuck appeared in the fourth version of 'A Long- expected Party', on which occasion she danced on a table with Prospero Took (p. 38).

12. Bingo told Gildor (p. 63) that Gandalf 'went off with the dwarves and the Rivendell elves as soon as the fireworks were over.' This is the first appearance of the story that Marmaduke/Meriadoc had been at Hobbiton but had left early.

13. We met some more Elves on the way: these were the Elves of Gildor's company, who thus already knew about the Party when Bingo, Frodo and Odo encountered them (p. 68, note 17).

14. Cf. the note cited on p. 41: 'Where is G[andalf] asks Odo - said I was old and foolish enough now to take care of myself said B.'

15. This 'chant' was emended on the typescript thus: Bless the water, O my feet and toes!

Praise the bath, O my ten fingers!

Bless the water, O my knees and shoulders!

Praise the bath, O my ribs, and rejoice!

Let Odo praise the house of Brandybuck, And praise the name of Marmaduke for ever.

This new version belongs to the time of the ma.n.u.script portion at the end of the chapter (note 16).

16. Here the typescript ends, and the remainder is in ma.n.u.script; see p. 109.

17. and once we heard his horse: this is a reference to the revised pa.s.sage in the second chapter, where it is told that a Black Rider stopped his horse for a moment on the road beside the tree in which the hobbits were sitting (p. 55 and note 11).

18. This is a reference to the road within Buckland. Cf. p. 53: 'the ordinary way to Buckland was along the East Road to the meeting of the Water and the Brandywine River, where there was a bridge, and then south along the River.'

19. It is clear from this that my father had not yet foreseen the hobbits' visit to the house of Tom Bombadil.

Note on the Shire Map.

There are four extant maps of the Shire made by my father, and two which I made, but only one of them, I think, can contain an element or layer that goes back to the time when these chapters were written (the first months of 1938). This is however a convenient place to give some indications concerning all of them.

I. An extremely rough map (reproduced as the frontispiece), built up in stages, and done in pencil and red, blue, and black inks; extending from Hobbiton in the West to the Barrow-downs in the East. In its inception this was the first, or at least the first that survives. Some features were first marked in pencil and then inked over.

II. A map on a smaller scale in faint pencil and blue and red chalks, extending to the Far Downs in the West, but showing little more than the courses of roads and rivers.

III. A map of roads and rivers on a larger scale than II, extending from Michel Delving in the West to the Hedge of Buckland, but without any names (see on map V below).

IV. A small scale map extending from the Green Hill country to Bree, carefully drawn in ink and coloured chalks, but soon abandoned and marking only a few features.

V. An elaborate map in pencil and coloured chalks which I made in 1943 (see p. 200), for which III (showing only the courses of roads and rivers) was very clearly the basis and which I followed closely. No doubt III was made by my father for this purpose.

VI. The map which was published in The Fellowship of the Ring; this I made not long before its publication (that is to say, some ten years after map V).

In what follows I consider only certain features arising in the course of this chapter.

Buckland is almost exactly south-east from Woodhall (p. 89). Buckland was still here the name of the village (see note 1 above); Bucklebury first appears on p. 92. On map I Bucklebury does indeed lie south-east (or strictly east-south-east) from Woodhall, but on map II the Ferry is due east, and on III it is east-north-east, whence the representation on my maps V and VI. In the original edition of FR (p. 97) the text had here 'The Ferry is south-east from Woodhall', which was corrected to 'east' in the revised edition (second impression 1967) when my father observed the discrepancy with the published map. The shifting had clearly come about unintentionally. (It may be noticed incidentally that all the maps show Woodhall on a side road (the 'lane') going off from that to Buckland; see p. 66, note 10).

The road bean away to the left... and then sweeps mund south when it gets nearer to the River (p. 89). This southward sweep is strongly marked on map I (and repeated on map II), where the Buckland road joins the causeway road above the village of Stock (as Frodo says in FR, p. 97: 'It goes round the north end of the Marish so as to strike the cause- way from the Bridge above Stock'). At the time when this chapter was written there was no causeway road (note 8). This is another case where the text of FR accords with map I, but not with the published map (VI); in this case, however, my father did not correct the text. On map III the Buckland road does not 'sweep round south': but after bearing away to the left or north (before reaching Woodhall) it runs in a straight line due east to meet the road from the Bridge. This I followed on my map V; but the village of Stock was not marked on III, which only shows roads and rivers, and I placed the road-meeting actually in the village, not to the north of it. Although, as I clearly recollect, map V was made in his study and in conversation with him, my father cannot have noticed my error in this point. The published map simply follows V.

One other point may be noticed here. Marmaduke twice (pp. 100, 103) refers to 'bridges' over the Brandywine, but none of the maps shows any other bridge but that which carried the East Road, the Brandywine Bridge.

My father's letter to Stanley Unwin quoted on page 44 shows that he had finished this chapter by 4 March 1938. Three months later, on 4 June 1938, he wrote to Stanley Unwin saying: I meant long ago to have thanked Rayner for bothering to read the tentative chapters, and for his excellent criticism. It agrees strikingly with Mr Lewis', which is therefore confirmed. I must plainly bow to my two chief (and most well-disposed) critics. The trouble is that 'hobbit talk'* amuses me privately (and to a certain degree also my boy Christopher) more than adventures; but I must curb this severely. Although longing to do so, I have not had a chance to touch any story- writing since the Christmas vacation.

And he added that he could not 'see any loophole left for months.' On 24 July he said in a letter to Charles Furth at Allen and Unwin: The sequel to the Hobbit has remained where it stopped. It has lost my favour, and I have no idea what to do with it. For one thing the original Hobbit was never intended to have a sequel - Bilbo 'remained very happy to the end of his days and those were extraordinarily long': a sentence I find an almost insuperable obstacle to a satisfactory link.

For another nearly all the 'motives' that I can use were packed into the original book, so that a sequel will appear either 'thinner' or merely repet.i.tional. For a third: I am personally immensely amused by hobbits as such, and can contemplate them eating and making their rather fatuous jokes indefinitely; but I find that is not the case with even my most devoted 'fans' (such as Mr Lewis, and? Rayner Unwin). Mr Lewis says hobbits are only amusing when in unhobbitlike situations. For a last: my mind on the 'story' side is really preoccupied with the 'pure' fairy stories or mythologies of the Silmarillion, into which even Mr Baggins got dragged against my original will, and I do not think I shall be able to move much outside it - unless it is finished (and perhaps published) - which has a releasing effect.

(* Rayner Unwin had said that the second and third chapters 'have I think a little too much conversation and "hobbit talk" which tends to make it lag a little.') At the beginning of this extract my father was repeating what he had said in his letters of 17 and 18 February quoted on pp. 43 - 4, when he had written no more than 'A Long-expected Party'. But it is very hard to see why he said here that he found the sentence in The Hobbit, that Bilbo 'remained very happy to the end of his days and those were extraordinarily long', 'an almost insuperable obstacle to a satisfactory link", since what he had written at this stage was not about Bilbo but about his 'nephew' Bingo, and in so far as Bilbo was mentioned nothing had been said to show that he did not remain happy till the end of his extraordinarily long days.

This then is where the narrative stopped, and stayed stopped through some six months or more. With abundant 'hobbit-talk' on the way, he had got Bingo, Frodo, and Odo to Buckland on the way to Rivendell, whither Gandalf had preceded them. They had encountered the Black Riders, Gildor and his company of Elves, and Farmer Maggot, where their visit ended in a much less satisfactory way than it would do later, through an outrageous practical joke on Bingo's part (the comic potential of which had by no means been exhausted); they had crossed the Brandywine, and arrived at the little house prepared for them by Marmaduke Brandybuck. In his letter to Charles Furth just cited he said that he had 'no idea what to do with it', but Tom Bombadil, the Willow- man and the Barrow-wights were already envisaged as possibilities (see pp. 42-3).

On 31 August 1938 he wrote again to Charles Furth, and now a great change had taken place: In the last two or three days... I have begun again on the sequel to the 'Hobbit' - The Lord of the Ring. It is now flowing along, and getting quite out of hand. It has reached about Chapter VII and progresses towards quite unforeseen goals.

He said 'about Chapter VII' on account of uncertainty over chapter- divisions (see p. 132).

The pa.s.sage in ma.n.u.script at the end of the present chapter (see note 16 above) was (I feel certain) added to the typescript at this time, and was the beginning of this new burst of narrative energy. My father had now decided that the hobbits' journey would take them into the Old Forest, that 'dubious region' which had appeared in the third version of 'A Long- expected Party' (p. 29), and where he had already suggested in early notes (p. 43) that the hobbits should become lost and caught by the Willow-man. And 'the sequel to The Hobbit' is given - for the first time, it seems - a t.i.tle: The Lord of the Ring (see p. 74 and note 3).

V. THE OLD FOREST AND THE WITHYWINDLE.

In the letter of 31 August 1938 quoted at the end of the last chapter my father said that 'in the last two or three days' he had turned again to the book, that it was 'flowing along, and getting quite out of hand', and that it had reached 'about Chapter VII'. It is clear that in those few days the hobbits had pa.s.sed through the Old Forest by way of the Withywindle valley, stayed in the house of Tom Bombadil, escaped from the Barrow- wight, and reached Bree, There is very little preliminary sketching of the original fourth chapter, and such as there is I give here. There is first a page dashed down in soft pencil and now very difficult to read; I introduce some necessary punctuation and small connective words that were omitted, and expand the initial letters that stand for names.

They got on to the ponies and rode off into the mist. After riding more than an hour they came to the Hedge. It was tall and netted over with silver cobwebs.

'How do we get through this?' said Odo.

'There is a way,' said Marmaduke. Following him along the Hedge they came to a small brick-lined tunnel. It went down a gully and dived right under the Hedge, coming out some twenty yards at the far side, where it was closed by a gate of close iron bars. Marmaduke unlocked this, let them out, and locked it again. As it snapped back they all felt a sudden pang.

'There,' said Marmaduke. 'You have now left the Shire - and are [?outside] and close to the edge of the Old Forest.'

'Are the stories about it true?' said Odo.

'I don't know what stories you mean - if you mean the old bogey stories our nurses used to tell us, about goblins and wolves and things of that sort, no. But it is queer. Everything in the Old Forest is very much more alive, more aware of what is going on, than in the Shire. And they don't like strangers. The trees watch you. But they don't do much in daylight. [?Occasionally] the most malicious ones may drop a branch or stick a root out or grasp at you with long trailers. But at night things can get most disturbing - I am told. I have only once been in the Old Forest, and then only near the edge, after dark. I thought the trees were all whispering to each other although there was no wind, and the branches waved about and groped. They do say the trees actually move and can surround strangers and hem them in. They used long ago to attack the Hedge, come and plant themselves right by it and lean over it. But we burn[t] the ground all along the east side for miles and they gave it up. There are also queer things living deep in the Forest and on the far side. But I have not heard that they are very fierce - at least not in daytime. But something makes paths and keeps them open. There is the beginning of a great and broad one that goes more or less in our direction. That is the one I am making for.'

The ground was rising steadily and as their ponies plodded along the trees became darker and thicker and taller. There was no sound, save an.occasional drip; but they all got an uncomfortable feeling which steadily increased that they were being watched - with disapproval if not dislike. Marmaduke tried to sing, but his voice soon fell to a hum and then died away. A small branch fell from an old tree with a crack on the ground behind them. They stopped, startled, and looked round.

'The trees seem to object to my singing,' said Marmaduke cheerfully. 'All right, we'll wait till we get to a more open point.'

Clearing hillock view sun up mist goes turns hot Trees bar way. They turn [?always...... side]

Willowman. Meeting with Tombombadil.

[Struck out: Barrow-wights]

Camp on the downs Whereas this piece begins as narrative and tails off into notes, another page is expressly a 'sketch' of the story to be written: The path winds on and they get tired. They cannot get any view. At last they see a bare hillock (crowned by a few pines) ahead looking down onto the path. They reach this and find the mist gone, and the sun very hot and nearly above. 11 o'clock. They rest and eat. But they can see only forest all round, and cannot make out either Hedge or line of the road northward, but the bare downland East and South lies green-grey in the distance. Beyond the hillock the path turns southwards. They determine to leave it and strike N.E. by the sun. But trees bar the way. They are going downhill, and brambles and bushes, hazels and whatnot block them. Every..... [?opening] leads them away to their right. Eventually when it is already afternoon they find themselves coming to a willow-bordered river - the Withywindle.(1) Marmaduke knows this flows through the forest from the downs to join the Brandywine at Haysend. There seems some sort of rough path going upstream. But a great sleepiness comes on them. Odo and Bingo cannot go on without a rest. They sit down with their backs to a great willow, while Frodo and Marmaduke attend to the ponies. Willowman traps Bingo and Odo. Suddenly a singing is heard in the distance. (Tom Bombadil not named). The Willow relaxes its hold.

They get through to end of forest as evening comes on, and climb on to the downs. It gets very cold - mist is followed by a chilly drizzle. They shelter under a big barrow. Barrow-wight takes them inside. They wake to find themselves buried alive. They shout. At last Marmaduke and Bingo begin a song. An answering song outside. Tom Bombadil opens the stone door and lets them out. They go to his house for the night - two Barrow- wights come [?galloping] after them, but stop every time Tom Bombadil turns and looks at them.

At this stage, then, their first encounter with Tom Bombadil was to be very brief, and they would not be his guests until after their escape from the barrow up on the downs; but no narrative of this form is found, and doubtless none was written.

It is of course possible that other preliminary drafting has been lost, but the earliest extant text of the original fourth chapter (numbered 'IV' but with no t.i.tle) looks like composition ab initio, with many words and sentences and even whole pages rejected and replaced at the time of writing. For most of its length, however, this is an orderly and legible ma.n.u.script, though rapidly written, and increasingly so as it proceeds (see note 3). It is then remarkable that this text reaches at a stroke the narrative as published in FR (Chapter 6, 'The Old Forest'), with only the most minor differences - other than the different cast of characters (largely a matter of names) and different attribution of 'parts', and often and for substantial stretches with almost exactly the wording of the final form. My father might well say that The lard of the Ring was 'now flowing along'.

There are a few particular points to notice. First, as regards the characters, the 'spoken parts' are variously distributed as between the first form and the final. Fredegar Bolger is of course not present to see them off at the entrance to the tunnel under the Hedge, and his question 'How are you going to get through this?' (FR p. 120) is given to Odo ('How do we get through this?', cf. p. x to). The verse 0! Wanderers in the shadowed land,(2) Frodo's in FR (p. 123), is here Marmaduke's, but changed, probably immediately, to Frodo Took's. Pippin's objection to taking the path by the Withywindle (FR pp. 126 - 7) is Bingo's; and in the scene with Old Man Willow the parts are quite distinct. In the original version it is Bingo and Odo who are totally overcome by sleep and lay themselves against the willow-trunk, and it is Marmaduke who is more resistant and alarmed at the onset of drowsiness. Frodo Took ('more adventurous') goes down to the river-bank (as does Frodo Baggins in FR), and falling asleep at the Willow's feet is tipped into the water and held under by a root, while Marmaduke plays the later part of Sam in rounding up the ponies, rescuing Frodo (Took or Baggins) from the river, and discussing with him how to release the prisoners from the tree. Yet despite the later redistribution of parts in this scene, and the advent of Sam Gamgee, the old text is very close to the final form, as may be seen from this example (cf. FR p. 128).

Marmaduke gripped him [Frodo Took] by the back of his jacket, and dragged him from under the tree-root, and laid him on the bank. Almost at once he woke, and coughed and spluttered.

'Do you know,' he said, 'the beast threw me in! I felt it and saw it: the big root just twizzled round and threw me in.'

'You were dreaming,' said Marmaduke. 'I left you asleep, though I thought it rather a silly place to sit in.'

'What about the other two? ' asked Frodo. 'I wonder what sort of dreams they've had?'

They went round to the landward side. Marmaduke then understood the click. Odo had vanished. The crack he lay in had closed to, so that not a c.h.i.n.k could be seen. Bingo was trapped; for his crack had closed to about his waist...

There are also a few minor points of topography to mention. It is said in the outline (p. 111) that the hillock was crowned with pines, and this was retained: it had 'a knot of pine-trees at the top', under which the hobbits sat. In FR (p. 124) the hill is likened to a bald head, and the trees about it to 'thick hair that ended sharply in a circle round a shaven crown.' - When later they came to the end of the gully and looked out from the trees at the Withywindle, they were at the top of a cliff: Suddenly the woodland trees came to an end, and the gully ended at the top of a bank that was almost a cliff. Over this the stream dived, and fell in a series of small waterfalls. Looking down they saw that below them was a wide s.p.a.ce of gra.s.s and reeds... Marmaduke scrambled down to the river, and disappeared into the long gra.s.s and low bushes. After a while he reappeared and called up to them from a patch of turf some thirty feet below. He reported that there was fairly solid ground between the bank and the river...

In FR (p. 126) it is clear that the hobbits, following the little stream down the gully, had reached the level of the Withywindle valley while still in the deep woodland: Coming to the opening they found that they had made their way down through a cleft in a high steep bank, almost a cliff. At its feet was a wide s.p.a.ce of gra.s.s and reeds...

[Merry] pa.s.sed out into the sunshine and disappeared into the long gra.s.ses. After a while he reappeared, and reported...

Subsequently, in the original version, there is anxiety about the descent of the ponies from the cliff; they got down in fact without difficulty, but Frodo Took 'put too much weight on a gra.s.sy lump that stuck out like a step, and went down with his head over heels for the last fifteen feet or so; but he came to no great harm at the bottom, for the ground was soft.' In FR (p. 127) the hobbits merely 'filed out' from the trees.

The last part of the chapter, in which Tom Bombadil appears, and which ends with the same words as in FR ('a golden light was all about them'), is so close to the final form (3) that only one small matter need be mentioned. It is made just as clear here as in FR that the path which the hobbits followed beside the Withywindle lay on the north side of the river, the side from which they descended out of the forest, and it is therefore strange that the approach to Tom Bombadil's house should be described thus: The gra.s.s under their feet was smooth and short, and seemed to be mown and shaven. The forest edge behind them was as clipped and trim as a hedge. The path was edged with white stones; and turning sharp to the left went over a little bridge. It then wound up onto the top of a round knoll...