Unfinished Tales - J. R. R. Tolkien [197]
‘but Tarostar, his son, defeated them and drove them out, and took the name of Rómendacil “East-victor” ’ .
53 It was also Rómendacil I who established the office of Steward (Arandur ‘king’s servant’), but he was chosen by the King as a man of high trust and wisdom, usually advanced in years since he was not permitted to go to war or to leave the realm. He was never a member of the Royal House. [Author’s note.]
54 Mardil was the first of the Ruling Stewards of Gondor. He was the Steward to Ea¨rnur the last King, who disappeared in Minas Morgul in the year 2050. ‘It was believed in Gondor that the faithless enemy had trapped the King, and that he had died in torment in Minas Morgul; but since there were no witnesses of his death, Mardil the Good Steward ruled Gondor in his name for many years’ (The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A (I, iv)).
III
THE QUEST OF EREBOR
This story depends for its full understanding on the narrative given in Appendix A (III, Durin’s Folk) to The Lord of the Rings, of which this is an outline:
The Dwarves Thrór and his son Thráin (together with Thráin’s son Thorin, afterwards called Oakenshield) escaped from the Lonely Mountain (Erebor) by a secret door when the dragon Smaug descended upon it. Thrór returned to Moria, after giving to Thráin the last of the Seven Rings of the Dwarves, and was killed there by the Orc Azog, who branded his name on Thrór’s brow. It was this that led to the War of the Dwarves and the Orcs, which ended in the great Battle of Azanulbizar (Nanduhirion) before the East-gate of Moria in the year 2799. Afterwards Thráin and Thorin Oakenshield dwelt in the Ered Luin, but in the year 2841 Thráin set out from there to return to the Lonely Mountain. While wandering in the lands east of Anduin he was captured and imprisoned in Dol Guldur, where the ring was taken from him. In 2850 Gandalf entered Dol Guldur and discovered that its master was indeed Sauron; and there he came upon Thráin before he died.
There is more than one version of ‘The Quest of Erebor’, as is explained in an Appendix following the text, where also substantial extracts from an earlier version are given.
I have not found any writing preceding the opening words of the present text (‘He would say no more that day’). The ‘He’ of the opening sentence is Gandalf, ‘we’ are Frodo, Peregrin, Meriadoc, and Gimli, and ‘I’ is Frodo, the recorder of the conversation; the scene is a house in Minas Tirith, after the coronation of King Elessar (see p. 425).
He would say no more that day. But later we brought the matter up again, and he told us the whole strange story; how he came to arrange the journey to Erebor, why he thought of Bilbo, and how he persuaded the proud Thorin Oakenshield to take him into his company. I cannot remember all the tale now, but we gathered that to begin with Gandalf was thinking only of the defence of the West against the Shadow.
‘I was very troubled at that time,’ he said, ‘for Saruman was hindering all my plans. I knew that Sauron had arisen again and would soon declare himself, and I knew that he was preparing for a great war. How would he begin? Would he try first to re-occupy Mordor, or would he first attack the chief strongholds of his enemies? I thought then, and I am sure now, that to attack Lórien and Rivendell, as soon as he was strong enough, was his original plan. It would have been a much better plan for him, and much worse for us.
‘You may think that Rivendell was out of his reach, but I did not think so. The state of things in the North was very bad. The Kingdom under the Mountain and the strong Men of Dale were no more. To resist any force that Sauron might send to regain the northern passes in the mountains and the old lands of Angmar there were only the Dwarves of the Iron Hills, and behind them lay a desolation and a Dragon. The Dragon Sauron might use with terrible effect. Often I said to myself: