Free The War of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien

river, flowing where they stood back into its old course; yet higher up the valley the former bed was dry.

'Yes, I knew it,' said Gandalf. 'Therefore I drew you this way. We may cross with no difficulty to the Gates of Isengard. As some of you who have journeyed here may know, of old the Isen flowed down, fed by many mountain-springs and streams, until it was already a swift and powerful water ere it left Nan Gurunir - it swept past the walls of Isengard upon the East. That river you claimed as your boundary, but Saruman did not agree. But things have changed. Come and see!'
 
    This was not used at all in the completed text of the first version of the story. It was not the first appearance of the diversion of the Isen: cf. 'The Story Foreseen from Fangorn', VII.436: 'At North end [of Isengard] they let in the River Isen but blocked its outflow. Soon all the floor of the circle was flooded to many feet deep.'
    In the passage just cited the meaning must be that the Isen had not been sent back into its former course after the drowning of the Circle of Isengard, but continued to flow in its new channel. Gandalf's words 'I knew it. Therefore I drew you this way. We may cross with no difficulty to the Gates of Isengard' must mean that that is why he had led the company along the east bank of the Isen from the Fords (p. 28), for thus they would only have to cross the dry former bed of the river, to the east of its new course.
     
    22. Later, in 'Flotsam and Jetsam', Merry told (TT p. 171) that when the great host left Isengard 'some went off down the highway to the Fords, and some turned away and went eastward. A bridge has been built down there, about a mile away, where the river runs in a very deep channel.' See p. 56.
     
    23. Differences from the final form were that a part of the Circle of Isengard on the western side was formed of the mountain-wall itself (this was taken up from the draft but rejected from the completed manuscript in the act of writing); there were two entrances, there being in addition to the great southern arch 'a small gate at the north, near the mountains' feet'; the circle was 'almost two miles from rim to rim' ('a mile', TT); 'through it by many carven channels water flowed, entering as a stream from the mountains beneath the northern gate, and watering all the hidden land'; and the windows in the walls of the circle are described (in the preliminary drafting only) as 'countless dark windows and deep, square-cut, menacing'.
     
    24. This picture was drawn on the back of a page of the examination script of the poet John Heath-Stubbs, who took the final examinations in English at Oxford in 1942.
     
    25. The opening of the description is confused. Apparently my father at first followed the draft 'A' very closely, writing: 'And in the centre ... was a tower, a pinnacle of stone. The base of it, and that two hundred feet in height, was a great cone of rock ...', but altered this at once to 'was an isle of stone, two hundred feet in height, a great cone of rock ...' Subsequently he changed 'was an isle of stone' to 'there stood an island in the lake.' See the description 'D' in the text.
     
    26. On the back of this drawing my father wrote: 'This picture should be combined with old one': i.e. for a final version, which was never made, features of 'Orthanc (1)' should be incorporated. - 'Picture 5' went to Marquette with the second completed manuscript of the chapter, whereas the others remained in England. - The conception of 'Orthanc (5)' is seen also in Pictures by J. R. R. Tolkien, no. 27, viewed from the side in which were the stairway and the door.
     
    27. In a draft of the paragraph beginning 'A strong place and wonderful was Isengard' (TT p. 160) these words were followed by 'or Ang(ren)ost in elvish speech'. Angrenost has appeared before (VII.420); the variant Angost occurs subsequently (p. 72).
     
    28. Perhaps Hoppettan was Théoden's turning of Hobbits into the sounds and grammatical inflexion of