The Return of the Shadow. Christopher Tolkien

72.

      (v)

       ‘The Tale that is Brewing’

      It was to the fourth version (writing on the typescript shows that it went to Allen and Unwin) that my father referred in a letter to Charles Furth on 1 February 1938, six weeks after he began the new book:

Would you ask Mr Unwin whether his son [Rayner Unwin, then twelve years old], a very reliable critic, would care to read the first chapter of the sequel to The Hobbit? I have typed it. I have no confidence in it, but if he thought it a promising beginning, could add to it the tale that is brewing.

What was ‘the tale that is brewing’? The texts of ‘A Long-expected Party’ provide no clues, except that the end of the third version (p. 34) makes it clear that when Bingo left Bag End he was going to meet, and go off with, some of his younger friends – and this is hinted at already at the end of the first draft (p. 17); in the fourth version this is repeated, and ‘one or two’ of his friends were ‘in the know’ – and ‘they were not at Bag-end’ (p. 39). Of course it is clear, too, that Bilbo is not dead; and (with knowledge of what was in fact to come) we may count the references to Buckland and the Old Forest (pp. 29, 37) as further hints.

      But there are some jottings from this time, written on two sides of a single sheet of paper, that do give some inkling of what was ‘brewing’. The first of these reads:

Bilbo goes off with 3 Took nephews: Odo, Frodo, and Drogo [changed to Odo, Drogo, and Frodo]. He has only a small bag of money. They walk all night – East. Adventures: troll-like: witch-house on way to Rivendell. Elrond again [added: (by advice of Gandalf?)]. A tale in Elrond’s house.

Where is G[andalf] asks Odo – said I was old and foolish enough now to take care of myself said B. But I dare say he will turn up, he is apt to.

There follows a note to the effect that while Odo believed no more than a quarter of ‘B.’s stories’, Drogo was less sceptical, and Frodo believed them ‘almost completely’. The character of this last nephew was early established, though he was destined to disappear (see p. 70): he is not the forerunner of Frodo in LR. All this seems to have been written at one time. On the face of it, it must belong with the second (unfinished) version of ‘A Long-expected Party’, since it is Bilbo who ‘goes off’ (afterwards my father bracketed the words ‘Bilbo goes off with 3 Took nephews’ and wrote ‘Bingo’ above). The implication is presumably that when Bilbo set out with his nephews Gandalf was no longer present.

Then follows, in pencil: ‘Make return of ring a motive.’ This no doubt refers to the statement in the third version that ‘The ring was his [Bingo’s] father’s parting gift’ (p. 32).

      After a note suggesting the coming of a dragon to Hobbiton and a more heroic rôle for hobbits, a suggestion rejected with a pencilled ‘No’, there follows, apparently all written at one time (but with a later pencilled heading ‘Conversation of Bingo and Bilbo’):

      ‘No one,’ said B., ‘can escape quite unscathed from dragons. The only thing is to shun them (if you can) like the Hobbitonians, though not nec[essarily] to disbelieve in them (or refuse to remember them) like the H[obbitonians]. Now I have spent all my money which seemed once to me too much and my own has gone after it [sic]. And I don’t like being without after [?having] – in fact I am being lured. Well, well, twice one is not always two, as my father used to say. But at any rate I think I would rather wander as a poor man than sit and shiver. And Hobbiton rather grows on you in 20 years, don’t you think; grows too heavy to bear, I mean. Anyway, we are off – and it’s autumn. I enjoy autumn wandering.’

      Asks Elrond what he can do to heal his money-wish and unsettlement. Elrond tells him of an island. Britain? Far west where the Elves still reign. Journey to perilous isle.

      I want to look again on a live dragon.

This is certainly Bilbo, and the passage (though not of course the pencilled heading) precedes the third version, as the reference to ‘20 years’ shows (see pp. 22, 31). – At the foot of the page are these faint pencilled scrawls:

      Bingo goes to find his father.

      You said you …. end your days in contentment – so I hope to

The illegible word might possibly be ‘want’. – On the reverse of the page is the following coherent passage in ink:

The Ring: whence its origin. Necromancer? Not very dangerous, when used for good purpose. But it exacts its penalty. You must either lose it, or yourself. Bilbo could not bring himself to lose it. He starts on a holiday [struck out: with his wife] handing over ring to Bingo. But he vanishes. Bingo worried. Resists desire to go and find him – though he does travel round a lot looking for news. Won’t lose ring as he feels it will ultimately bring him to his father.

      At last he meets Gandalf. Gandalf’s advice. You must stage a disappearance, and the ring may then be cheated into letting you follow a similar path. But you have got to really disappear and give up the past. Hence the ‘party’.

Bingo confides in his friends. Odo, Frodo, and Vigo (?) insist on coming too. Gandalf rather dubious. You will share the same fate as Bingo, he said, if you dare the ring. Look what happened to Primula.

A couple of pencilled changes were made to this: above ‘Vigo(?)’ my father wrote ‘Marmaduke’; and he bracketed the last sentence. – Since Bingo is here Bilbo’s son this note belongs with the third version. But the watery death of Primula Brandybuck (no longer Bilbo’s wife, but still Bingo’s mother) is first recorded in the fourth version (p. 37), and the Ring could not possibly be associated with that event; so that the reference to ‘Primula’ here must refer to something else of which there is no other trace.

      Particularly noteworthy is the suggestion that the idea of the Party arose from Gandalf’s advice to Bingo concerning the Ring. It is indeed remarkable that already at this stage, when my father was still working on the opening chapter, so much of the Ring’s nature was already present in embryo. – The final two notes are in pencil. The first reads:

Bilbo goes to Elrond to cure dragon-longing, and settles down in Rivendell. Hence Bingo’s frequent absences from home. The dragon-longing comes on Bingo. Also ring-lure.

With Bingo’s ‘frequent absences from home’ cf. ‘he was often away from home’ in the third version (p. 29), and ‘Resists desire to go and find him-though he does travel round a lot looking for