Unfinished Tales - J. R. R. Tolkien [202]
Gandalf had not yet played any part in the fortunes of Durin’s House. He had not had many dealings with the Dwarves; though he was a friend to those of good will, and liked well the exiles of Durin’s Folk who lived in the West. But on a time it chanced that he was passing through Eriador (going to the Shire, which he had not seen for some years) when he fell in with Thorin Oakenshield, and they talked together on the road, and rested for the night at Bree.
In the morning Thorin said to Gandalf: ‘I have much on my mind, and they say you are wise and know more than most of what goes on in the world. Will you come home with me and hear me, and give me your counsel?’
To this Gandalf agreed, and when they came to Thorin’s hall he sat long with him and heard all the tale of his wrongs.
From this meeting there followed many deeds and events of great moment: indeed the finding of the One Ring, and its coming to the Shire, and the choosing of the Ring-bearer. Many therefore have supposed that Gandalf fore-saw all these things, and chose his time for the meeting with Thorin. Yet we believe that it was not so. For in his tale of the War of the Ring Frodo the Ringbearer left a record of Gandalf’s words on this very point. This is what he wrote:
In place of the words ‘This is what he wrote’ A, the earliest manuscript, has: ‘That passage was omitted from the tale, since it seemed long; but most of it we now set out here.’
After the crowning we stayed in a fair house in Minas Tirith with Gandalf, and he was very merry, and though we asked him questions about all that came into our minds his patience seemed as endless as his knowledge. I cannot now recall most of the things that he told us; often we did not understand them. But I remember this conversation very clearly. Gimli was there with us, and he said to Peregrin:
‘There is a thing I must do one of these days: I must visit that Shire of yours. * Not to see more Hobbits! I doubt if I could learn anything about them that I do not know already. But no Dwarf of the House of Durin could fail to look with wonder on that land. Did not the recovery of the Kingship under the Mountain, and the fall of Smaug, begin there? Not to mention the end of Barad-dûr, though both were strangely woven together. Strangely, very strangely,’ he said, and paused.
Then looking hard at Gandalf he went on: ‘But who wove the web? I do not think I have ever considered that before. Did you plan all this then, Gandalf ? If not, why did you lead Thorin Oakenshield to such an unlikely door? To find the Ring and bring it far away into the West for hiding, and then to choose the Ringbearer – and to restore the Mountain Kingdom as a mere deed by the way: was not that your design?’
Gandalf did not answer at once. He stood up, and looked out of the window, west, seawards; and the sun was then setting, and a glow was in his face. He stood so a long while silent. But at last he turned to Gimli and said: ‘I do not know the answer. For I have changed since those days, and I am no longer trammelled by the burden of Middle-earth as I was then. In those days I should have answered you with words like those I used to Frodo, only last year in the spring. Only last year! But such measures are meaningless. In that far distant time I said to a small and frightened hobbit: Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker, and you therefore were meant to bear it. And I might have added: and I was meant to guide you both to those points.
‘To do that I used in my waking mind only such means as were allowed to me, doing what lay to my hand according to such reasons as I had. But what I knew in my heart, or knew before I stepped on these grey shores: that is another matter. Olórin I was in the West that is forgotten, and only to those who are there shall I speak more openly.’
A has here: ‘and only to those who are there (or who may, perhaps, return thither with me) shall I speak more openly.’
Then I said: ‘I understand you a little better now, Gandalf, than I did before. Though