Unfinished Tales - J. R. R. Tolkien [201]
3 The Elvish solar year (loa) began with the day called yestarë, which was the day before the first day of tuilë (Spring); and in the Calendar of Imladris yestarë ‘corresponded more or less with Shire April 6’. (The Lord of the Rings, AppendixD.)
4 Thráin the Second: Thráin the First, Thorin’s distant ancestor, escaped from Moria in the year 1981 and became the first King under the Mountain. (The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A (III).)
5 Dáin II Ironfoot was born in the year 2767; at the Battle of Azanulbizar (Nanduhirion) in 2799 he slew before the East-gate of Moria the great Orc Azog, and so avenged Thrór, Thorin’s grandfather. He died in the Battle of Dale in 3019. (The Lord of the Rings, Appendices A (III) and B.) Frodo learnt from Glóin at Rivendell that ‘Dáin was still King under the Mountain, and was now old (having passed his two hundred and fiftieth year), venerable, and fabulously rich’. (The Fellowship of the Ring II 1.)
APPENDIX
Note on the texts of ‘The Quest of Erebor’
The textual situation in this piece is complex and hard to unravel. The earliest version is a complete but rough and much-emended manuscript, which I will here call A; it bears the title ‘The History of Gandalf’s Dealings with Thráin and Thorin Oakenshield’. From this a typescript, B, was made, with a great deal of further alteration, though mostly of a very minor kind. This is entitled ‘The Quest of Erebor’, and also ‘Gandalf’s Account of how he came to arrange the Expedition to Erebor and send Bilbo with the Dwarves’. Some extensive extracts from the typescript text are given below.
In addition to A and B (‘the earlier version’), there is another manuscript, C, untitled, which tells the story in a more economical and tightly-constructed form, omitting a good deal from the first version and introducing some new elements, but also (particularly in the latter part) largely retaining the original writing. It seems to me to be quite certain that C is later than B, and C is the version that has been given above, although some writing has apparently been lost from the beginning, setting the scene in Minas Tirith for Gandalf’s recollections.
The opening paragraphs of B (given below) are almost identical with a passage in Appendix A (III, Durin’s Folk) to The Lord of the Rings, and obviously depend on the narrative concerning Thrór and Thráin that precedes them in Appendix A; while the ending of ‘The Quest of Erebor’ is also found in almost exactly the same words in Appendix A (III), here again in the mouth of Gandalf, speaking to Frodo and Gimli in Minas Tirith. In view of the letter cited in the Introduction (pp. 15 –16) it is clear that my father wrote ‘The Quest of Erebor’ to stand as part of the narrative of Durin’s Folk in Appendix A.
Extracts from the earlier version
The typescript B of the earlier version begins thus:
So Thorin Oakenshield became the Heir of Durin, but an heir without hope. At the sack of Erebor he had been too young to bear arms, but at Azanulbizar he had fought in the van of the assault; and when Thráin was lost he was ninety-five, a great Dwarf of proud bearing. He had no Ring, and (for that reason maybe) he seemed content to remain in Eriador. There he laboured long, and gained such wealth as he could; and his people were increased by many of the wandering Folk of Durin that heard of his dwelling and came to him. Now they had fair halls in the mountains, and store of goods, and their days did not seem so hard, though in their songs they spoke ever of the Lonely Mountain far away, and the treasure and the bliss of the Great Hall in the light of the Arkenstone. The years lengthened. The embers in the heart of Thorin grew hot again, as he brooded on the wrongs of his House and of the vengeance upon the Dragon that was bequeathed to him. He thought of weapons and armies and alliances, as his great hammer rang in the forge; but the armies were dispersed and the alliances broken and the axes of his people were few; and a great anger without hope burned him, as he smote