02-10-2009, 12:10 AM | #1 | |||||
Salt Miner
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: gone to Far Harad
Posts: 987
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Why did the Nazgûl drop Merry in Bree?
Prodded by a post in the thread “Emblem of Minas Morgul”, I want to frame and pose a question that has long troubled me.
It certainly appears that at least one, if not both, of the men trying to kidnap Merry in the east end of Bree was a Ringwraith. The scene first appears, as far as I know, in Return of the Shadow, and begins with Merry bursting into the sitting-room at the Prancing Pony with Trotter (later Strider) and Bingo (later Frodo) discussing Barnabas Butterbur (later Barliman, and at this point a hobbit) and Gandalf’s letter to Bingo (Frodo), which Butterbur has just delivered. Merry enters and declares that he has seen a Black Rider in Bree. He followed the Rider and his horse to the east end of the village, “heard him speaking, or whispering, to someone on the other side” of a dark hedge. Then Merry “came over all queer and trembling suddenly, and bolted back.” (All from the chapter, “Trotter and the Journey to Weathertop”) Merry has not fainted. There is no Nob, there is not yet a gatekeeper or a West Gate. It seems that the Ringwraith was speaking to Bill Ferny, but perhaps there was another Rider on the other side of the hedge. Later in the chapter “To Weathertop and Rivendell” (still in Return of the Shadow), CJR Tolkien notes that Quote:
Quote:
In Reader’s Companion, “A Knife in the Dark”, notes for p 177 (I:189), Hammond and Scull cite Tolkien’s notes on the event for the finalized form of the book: Quote:
Now, in the text as it stands, in Fellowship of the Ring, near the end of the chapter “Strider”, Merry bursts into the room “followed by Nob.” He was standing “just outside the light of the lamp”, presumably the lamp in front of the Inn, when he saw the Ringwraith across the road in the shadows. “There was no horse.” Merry followed to the east end of town to the last house on the road, Bill Ferny’s. He continued on. Then Quote:
And kudos to the Dúnedain who waylaid the messenger sent to the Witch-king. They could not stand all Nine at Sarn Ford, but they seemed to have redeemed themselves in preventing the messenger from arriving in a timely fashion, which might have proven fatal. I apologize for the length of this starter. But I want to establish two things:
-|-Added (much) later. No other changes to this post except this addition. Since starting this thread, I have discovered that “Marquette MSS 4/2/36” stands for “Marquette manuscripts series 4, box 2, folder 36”. Last edited by Alcuin : 02-10-2009 at 07:10 PM. Reason: explaining the abbreviation “Marquette MSS 4/2/36” |
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