Unfinished Tales - J. R. R. Tolkien [218]
11 These were in fact not very numerous, it would seem; but sufficient to keep any intruders out, if no better armed or prepared than Balin’s company, and not in great numbers. [Author’s note.]
12 According to the Dwarves this needed usually the thrust of two; only a very strong Dwarf could open them singlehanded. Before the desertion of Moria doorwards were kept inside the West-gate, and one at least was always there. In this way a single person (and so any intruder or person trying to escape) could not get out without permission. [Author’s note.]
13 In A Saruman denied knowledge of where the Ring was hid; in B he ‘denied all knowledge of the land that they sought’. But this is probably no more than a difference of wording.
14 Earlier in this version it is said that Sauron had at this time, by means of the palantíri, at last begun to daunt Saruman, and could in any case often read his thought even when he withheld information. Thus Sauron was aware that Saruman had some guess at the place where the Ring was; and Saruman actually revealed that he had got as his prisoner Gandalf, who knew the most.
15 The entry for the 18th of September 3018 in the Tale of Years reads: ‘Gandalf escapes from Orthanc in the early hours. The Black Riders cross the Fords of Isen.’ Laconic as this entry is, giving no hint that the Riders visited Isengard, it seems to be based on the story told in version C.
16 No indication is given in any of these texts of what passed between Sauron and Saruman as a result of the latter’s unmasking.
17 Lobelia Bracegirdle married Otho Sackville-Baggins; their son was Lotho, who seized control of the Shire at the time of the War of the Ring, and was then known as ‘the Chief’ . Farmer Cotton referred in conversation with Frodo to Lotho’s property in leaf-plantations in the Southfarthing (The Return of the King VI 8).
18 The usual way was by the crossing of Tharbad to Dunland (rather than direct to Isengard), whence goods were sent more secretly on to Saruman. [Author’s note.]
19 Cf. The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A (I, iii, The North-kingdom and the Dúnedain): ‘It was at this time [during the Great Plague that reached Gondor in 1636] that an end came of the Dúnedain of Cardolan, and evil spirits out of Angmar and Rhudaur entered into the deserted mounds and dwelt there.’
20 Since the Black Captain knew so much, it is perhaps strange that he had had so little idea of where the Shire, the land of the Halflings, lay; according to the Tale of Years there were already Hobbits settled in Bree at the beginning of the fourteenth century of the Third Age, when the Witch-king came north to Angmar.
21 See The Fellowship of the Ring I 9. When Strider and the Hobbits left Bree (ibid. I 11) Frodo caught a glimpse of the Dunlending (‘a sallow face with sly, slanting eyes’) in Bill Ferny’s house on the outskirts of Bree, and thought: ‘He looks more than half like a goblin.’
22 Cf. Gandalf’s words at the Council of Elrond: ‘Their Captain remained in secret away south of Bree.’
23 As the concluding sentence of this quotation shows, the meaning is: ‘Gandalf had as yet no thought that the Halflings would have in the future any connexion with the Rings.’ The meeting of the White Council in 2851 took place ninety years before Bilbo found the Ring.
V
THE BATTLES OF THE FORDS OF ISEN
The chief obstacles to an easy conquest of Rohan by Saruman were Théodred and Éomer: they were vigorous men, devoted to the King, and high in his affections, as his only son and his sister-son; and they did all that they could to thwart the influence over him that Gríma gained when the King’s health began to fail. This occurred early in the year 3014, when Théoden was sixty-six; his malady may thus have been due to natural causes, though the Rohirrim commonly lived till near or beyond their eightieth year. But it may well have been induced or increased by subtle poisons, administered by Gríma. In any case Théoden’s sense of