Unfinished Tales - J. R. R. Tolkien [217]
In the Tale of Years the entry for 2851 refers to the meeting of the White Council in that year, when Gandalf urged an attack on Dol Guldur but was overruled by Saruman; and a footnote to the entry reads: ‘It afterwards became clear that Saruman had then begun to desire to possess the One Ring himself, and hoped that it might reveal itself, seeking its master, if Sauron were let be for a time.’ The foregoing story shows that Gandalf himself suspected Saruman of this at the time of the Council of 2851; though my father afterwards commented that it appears from Gandalf’s story to the Council of Elrond of his meeting with Radagast that he did not seriously suspect Saruman of treachery (or of desiring the Ring for himself ) until he was imprisoned in Orthanc.
NOTES
1 According to the entry in the Tale of Years for 2951 Sauron sent three, not two, of the Nazgûl to reoccupy Dol Guldur. The two statements can be reconciled on the assumption that one of the Ringwraiths of Dol Guldur returned afterwards to Minas Morgul, but I think it more likely that the formulation of the present text was superseded when the Tale of Years was compiled; and it may be noted that in a rejected version of the present passage there was only one Nazgûl in Dol Guldur (not named as Khamûl, but referred to as ‘the Second Chief (the Black Easterling)’), while one remained with Sauron as his chief messenger. – From notes recounting in detail the movements of the Black Riders in the Shire it emerges that it was Khamûl who came to Hobbiton and spoke to Gaffer Gamgee, who followed the Hobbits along the road to Stock, and who narrowly missed them at the Bucklebury Ferry (see p. 445). The Rider who accompanied him, whom he summoned by cries on the ridge above Woodhall, and with whom he visited Farmer Maggot, was ‘his companion from Dol Guldur’. Of Khamûl it is said here that he was the most ready of all the Nazgûl, after the Black Captain himself, to perceive the presence of the Ring, but also the one whose power was most confused and diminished by daylight.
2 He had indeed in his terror of the Nazgûl dared to hide in Moria. [Author’s note.]
3 At the Ford of Bruinen only the Witch-king and two others, with the lure of the Ring straight before them, had dared to enter the river; the others were driven into it by Glorfindel and Aragorn. [Author’s note.]
4 Gandalf, as he recounted to the Council of Elrond, questioned Gollum while he was imprisoned by the Elves of Thranduil.
5 Gandalf told the Council of Elrond that after he left Minas Tirith ‘messages came to me out of Lórien that Aragorn had passed that way, and that he had found the creature called Gollum’.
6 Gandalf arrived two days later, and left on the 29th of March early in the morning. After the Carrock he had a horse, but he had the High Pass over the Mountains to cross. He got a fresh horse at Rivendell, and making the greatest speed he could he reached Hobbiton late on the 12th of April, after a journey of nearly eight hundred miles. [Author’s note.]
7 Both here and in the Tale of Years the assault on Osgiliath is dated the 20th of June.
8 This statement no doubt relates to Boromir’s account of the battle at Osgiliath which he gave to the Council of Elrond: ‘A power was there that we have not felt before. Some said that it could be seen, like a great black horseman, a dark shadow under the moon.’
9 In a letter written in 1959 my father said: ‘Between 2463 [when Déagol the Stoor found the One Ring, according to the Tale of Years] and the beginning of Gandalf’s special enquiries concerning the Ring (nearly 500 years later) they [the Stoors] appear indeed to have died out altogether (except, of course, for Sméagol); or to have fled from the shadow of Dol Guldur.’
10 According to the author’s note given in Note 2 above, Gollum fled into Moria from terror of the Nazgûl; cf. also the suggestion on p. 438 that one of