If Gollum and Bilbo had parted in a civil manner...

[davem]

Riddles in the Dark (1937 version)

(From: ‘Both wrong,’ cried Bilbo very much relieved; & he jumped at once to his feet, put his back to the nearest wall, & held out his little sword.’The 1937 text continues: )

But funnily enough he need not have been alarmed. for one thing Gollum had learned long long ago was never, never, to cheat at the riddle-game, which is a sacred one & of immense antiquity. Also there was the sword. He simply sat & whispered. ‘What about the present?’ asked Bilbo, not that he cared very much, still he felt that he had won it, pretty fairly, & in very difficult circumstances too.
‘Must we give it the thing, preciouss? Yess, we must!. we must fetch it, preciouss, & give it the present we promised.’ So Gollum paddled back to his boat, & Bilbo thought he had heard the last of him. but he had not. The hobbit was just thinking of going back up the passage - having had quite enough of Gollum & the dark water’s edge - when he heard him wailing & squeaking away in the gloom. He was on his island (of which, of course, Bilbo knew nothing), scrabbling here & there, searching & seeking in vain, & turning out his pockets.‘
Where iss it? Where iss it?’ Bilbo heard him squeaking. ‘Lost, lost, my preciouss, lost, lost! Bless us & splash us! We haven’t the present we promised, & we haven’t even got it for ourselveses.
’Bilbo turned round & waited, wondering what it could be that the creature was making such a fuss about. This proved very fortunate afterwards. For Gollum came back & made a tremendous spluttering & whispering & croaking; & in the end Bilbo gathered that Gollum had had a ring, a ring that he had been given for a birthday present, ages & ages before in old days when such rings were less uncommon. Sometimes he had it in his pocket; usually he kept it in a little hole in the rock on his island; sometimes he wore it - when he was very, very hungry, & tired of fish, & crept along dark passages looking for stray goblins. Then he might venture even into places where the torches were lit & made his eyes blink & smart; but he would be safe. O yes! very nearly safe; for if you slipped that ring on your finger, you were invisible; only in the sunlight could you be seen, & then only by your shadow, & that was a faint & shaky sort of shadow.
I don’t know how many times Gollum begged Bilbo’s pardoned. He kept on saying: ‘We are ssorry; we didn’t mean to cheat, we meant to give it our only only present, if it won the competition.’ He even offered to catchBilbo some nice juicy fish to eat as a consolation.
Bilbo shuddered at the thought of it. ‘No thank you!’ he said as politely as he could.
He was thinking hard, & the idea came to him that Gollum must have dropped that ring sometime & that he must have found it, & that he had that very ring in his pocket. But he had the wits not to tell Gollum.
‘Finding’s keeping!’ he said to himself; & being in a very tight place, I daresay, he was right. Anyway the ring belonged to him now.
‘Never mind!’ he said, ‘The ring would have been mine now, if you had found it; so you would have lost it anyway. And I will let you off on one condition.’‘Yes, what iss it? What does it wish us to do, my preciouss?’ Help me to get out of these places,’ said Bilbo.Now Gollum had to agree to this, if he was not to cheat. He still very much wanted just to try what the stranger tasted like; but now he had to give up all idea of it. Still there was the little sword; & the stranger was wide awake & on the look out, not unsuspecting as Gollum liked to have the things which he attacked. So perhaps it was best after all. That is how Bilbo got to know that the tunnel ended at the water & went no further on the other side where the mountain wall was dark & solid. He also learned that he ought to have turned down one of the side passages to the right before he came to the bottom; but he could not follow Gollum’s directions for finding it again on the way up, & he made the wretched creature come & show him the way.As they went along up the tunnel together, Gollum flip-flapping at this side, Bilbo going very softly, he thought he would try the ring. He slipped it on his finger.‘Where iss it? Where iss it gone to?’ said Gollum at once, peering about with his long eyes.‘Here I am, following behind!’ said Bilbo slipping the ring off again, & feeling very pleased to have it & to find that it really did what Gollum said. Now they went on again, while Gollum counted the passages to left & right: ‘One left, one right, two right, three right, two left,’ & so on. He began to get very shaky & afraid as they left the water further & further behind; but at last he stopped by a low opening on their left (going up) - ‘six right, four left.’‘Here’s the passage, ‘ he whispered. ‘It musst squeeze in & sneak down. We durstn’t go with it, my precious, no we durstn’t, gollum!’ So Bilbo slipped under the arch, & said good-bye to the nasty miserable creature; & very glad he was. He did not feel comfortable until he felt quite sure it was gone, & he kept his head out in the main tunnel listening until the flip-flap of Gollum going back to his boat died away in the darkness. Then he went down the new passage.It was a long narrow one roughly made. It was alright for the hobbit, except when he stubbed his toes in the dark on nasty jags in the floor; but it must have been a bit low for goblins. Perhaps it was not knowing that goblins are used to this sort of thing, & go along quite fast stooping low with their hands almost on the floor, that made Bilbo forget the danger of meeting them & hurry forward recklessly. Soon the passage began to go up again, & after a while it climbed steeply. That slowed him down. But at last after some time the slope stopped, the passage turned a corner & dipped down again, & at the bottom of a short incline he saw filtering round another corner - a glimmer of light. Not red light as of fire or lantern, but pale ordinary out-of-doors sort of light. Then he began to run. Scuttling along as fast as his little legs would carry him he turned the corner & came suddenly right into an open place where the light, after all that time in the dark, seemed dazzlingly bright. Really it was only a leak of sunshine in through a doorway, where a great door, a stone door, was left a little open.Bilbo blinked, & then he suddenly saw the goblins; goblins in full armour with drawn swords sitting just inside the door, & watching it with wide eyes, & the passage that led to it! They saw him sooner than he saw them, & with yells of delight they rushed upon him. Whether it was accident or presence of mind, I don’t know. Accident, I. think, because the hobbit was not used yet to his new treasure. Anyway he slipped the ring on his left hand - & the goblins stopped short. They could not see a sign of him. Then they yelled twice as loud as before, but not so delightedly.
(Then back to the second edition at : ‘Where is it?’ they cried.‘Go back up the passage!’ some shouted.)

[bilbo_baggins]

I really thought that your signature was appropriate there, davem, because obviously, somehow, Tolkien had to change some things in his extensive writings.

A question that this topic brought to my mind is whether or not The Hobbit precedes his writing and scrawlings on the History of Middle Earth? I can't look it up, but I think in the prologue of the Silm. Christopher Tolkien says how his fathers writings were found in high school composition notebooks. How early did JRR begin to formulate the history of the elves? Then we have TH, which is practically a bedtime story. Was it meant to cast a softened light upon a dark and troubled beginning of Arda that he had already come up with? Or was it meant to be something almost entirely different? It seems obvious that he changed personally very drastically between the 30's and 40's, between TH and LOTR.

Or did he mean to leave such a messily welded storyline as is? How we can go from a peaceful Hobbit-story, with nearly civil partings between Gollum and Bilbo, to Frodo's harrowing journey across Mordor?

Does anyone know when Tolkien first came up with, or began to write down his Silmarillion story? Does it precede the TH writings?

food for thought...

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Tolkien's Legendarium, which later became the Silmarillion, was definitely conceived of long before he wrote The Hobbit. When he started writing the latter, it wasn't intended to belong to Middle-earth, but Middle-earth gradually made its way into parts of the story. Only when he wrote what was supposed to be a sequel to The Hobbit, LotR, did he have to make an effort to integrate the two stories.

[davem]

I certainly think that the original version of RitD is much more in keeping with the style of the rest of TH up to that point, & that the later, darker, version we're all used to is out of place.

You have to ask whether the change was necessary - the account given in the Prologue of LotR, of the original version of the encounter with Gollum being a lie by Bilbo would have meant he could have preserved the style & charm of TH by keeping it unchanged & allowed LotR to work in its own right.

Certainly the new version was only written by Tolkien & sent to the publishers as an example of the kind of change that would have to be made if TH was to be made to fit with the Gollum of LotR & he was surprised when he found they used it to replace the original, but he let it stand - even though it makes the whole 'lie' scenario in LotR unnecessary.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by davem

I certainly think that the original version of RitD is much more in keeping with the style of the rest of TH up to that point, & that the later, darker, version we're all used to is out of place.

Speaking as someone who had never read or really paid much heed to the original version of the chapter until the other one was entirely solidified in my mind, I never found it out of place.

Rather, I found it to be the turning point of the story, where we first see Bilbo "grow up" a little, and take a little control of his own destiny (also there in the original chapter). Naturally it marks a change in the story, and seems different from the previous chapters.

But, at the same time, it also felt to me to be quite in keeping with the later chapters. In particular, any "heavy" air about it seems reminiscent of the last chapters of the books, such as the Battle of the Five Armies.

And yes, yes I know that that part of the book was written after the early chapters by quite a span of time. All the same, it was a part of the original edition as well, and it also predated the Lord of the Rings.

In summary, my opinion has always been that the "true" version of the chapter has always fit well with the rest of the book.

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by davem

Certainly the new version was only written by Tolkien & sent to the publishers as an example of the kind of change that would have to be made if TH was to be made to fit with the Gollum of LotR & he was surprised when he found they used it to replace the original, but he let it stand - even though it makes the whole 'lie' scenario in LotR unnecessary.

I wouldn't say unnecessary; it is one thing again that tells about the Ring's great luring power and its power to make it bearers alter the truth.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

I wouldn't say unnecessary; it is one thing again that tells about the Ring's great luring power and its power to make it bearers alter the truth.

What I meant was the idea of Bilbo's account being a 'lie' was only required if the original version of Riddles in the Dark was left to stand. In the original version Bilbo claimed Gollum had freely given him the Ring - hence he was lying. When the new version was substituted in later editions of TH we have Bilbo telling the truth in his book so there wasn't any 'lie' being told about how he obtained the Ring.

In fact, the original version of how he obtained the Ring fits better with LotR than the revised version.

Originally Posted by Formendacil

But, at the same time, it also felt to me to be quite in keeping with the later chapters. In particular, any "heavy" air about it seems reminiscent of the last chapters of the books, such as the Battle of the Five Armies.

The problem is that after the encounter with Gollum the story reverts to the 'older', 'childish' style, so we don't get the slow maturing of Bilbo (& the story) but a kind of 'jerk' forward to the later style, followed by a 'jerk' back.