The Hunt for the Ring

[ArcusCalion]

Oh good catch Fin! I have a few points.

First, I would make this slight change for smoothness of transition:

... It was thus a piece of singular good fortune for Gollum that the Nine Walkers arrived when they did.>
HR-SL-07b <HR text B Meanwhile, In the panic of the first assault on Osgiliath, when the Witch-king was allowed to reveal himself briefly in his full terror, the Nazgûl crossed the bridge at night and dispersed northwards.> Thus Sauron tested ....

Second, in this narrative you've made, the Nazgul search the Vale of Anduin twice. Is this what Tolkien intended? It makes no sense to me that they would search the Vale of Anduin twice, especially since they find nothing both times.

[gandalf85]

Great catch, Fin! I think it's feasible the Nazgul would search the Anduin Vale twice because the area is rather large, and Sauron himself suspected it was where the Shire was based on information from Gollum. I found a few typos/grammatical issues.

A slight change to HR-SL-05.2 to make it sound smoother:

The news evidently HR-SL-05.2b{did not reach}reached the Nazgûl commander of Dol Guldur

Some typos in this part (Marshed and visted):

}/Sauron/ learned that Gollum (who disappeared into the {D[ead]}/Dead/ Marshed) has been captured and is with Thranduil, and that Gandalf has visted that realm.{ *Say sometime early in April.}

There is also a change of tense from past to present. Fixing these issues:

}/Sauron/ learned that Gollum (who disappeared into the {D[ead]}/Dead/ Marshes) {has}had been captured and {is}was with Thranduil, and that Gandalf has visited that realm.{ *Say sometime early in April.}

In HR-SL-05.3:

possibly HR-SL-05.3 {a month later} <LotR Companion; The Council of Elrond; 257 (I:270). sometimes early in April

I don't have a copy of the LotR Companion, but this should be "sometime".

I think there should be more punctuation to the sentence starting "At first the Nazgul...". I added a semicolon and a comma:

At first the Nazgûl {investigate}investigated Anduin’s Vale,{ ...} but {can}could find no trace of the Ring or ‘Baggins’; {...}/therefore/, some {begin}began to investigate Rohan.{ ...}

"in" is repeated twice in the next sentence. "belived" should be "believed", "extraorninarily" should be "extraordinarily", "Isengad" should be "Isengard", "whishing" should be "wishing", "Tharanduil" should be "Thranduil" and "Tow" should be "two".

Other than that, I have one question:

Though he {dislikes}disliked Gandalf intensely and {is v[ery]}was /very/ jealous of him, he {belives G[andalf]}believed /Gandalf/ {knows}knew something vital about the Ring because the Nazgûl {[?ask]}/knew/ of the Shire which {has}had always been a great concern of Gandalf, and because his agents {have}had discovered that it {is extraord[inarily]}was /extraordinarily/ closely guarded; /and /also that Gandalf {is}was now actually there since {12 }April the twelfth.

Saruman believes Gandalf knew something vital about the Ring because the Nazgul knew about the Shire. How does Saruman know what the Nazgul know? This is before the conversation between Saruman and the Nazgul, right?

[Findegil]

Dooble search of the Anduin Vale: Wenn we read the original Hunt for the Ring text the Vale is as well searched twice (but proberbly not by Nazgûl): The Witch-king decisded to search there even so he got the message from Khamûl that no trace of the Shire could be found. And in the new context we here from the Nazgûl proling in Rohan and Dunland that they are ‘rather timid and uneffective’ without their leader. So for me it is reasonable that the Witch-king repeated the search considering that he had no better information.
Now to the other remarks:
HR-SL-02.5b: Agreed.

Mashed and visted, “in”, “belived”, “extraorninarly”, “Isengad”, “whishing”, “Tharanduil” and “Tow”: Thanks for catching. These are real typos of mine for sure. And I also missed to do the time change in that sentence with the Mashed and visted. But must we not as well change ‘has visited’ to ‘had visted’?

HR-SL-05.3: Right, and so it is in the original text, as can be seen at the end of the sentence with Mashed and visted.

Punctuation in “At First the Nazgûl ...”: Agreed.

Saruman belives Gandalf knew something vital about the Ring: In the new version of the story springing from the fact that Radagast must have more time, Saruman is visted much earlier (before the attack on Osgiliath) by some Nazgûl after they did not find any trace of teh Shire in the Anduin Vale. Radagast is concerned about that search and reaches Isengard to the advantage of Saruman shortly after the Nazgûl had been there.
The Second visit is not mentioned in the text from LotR Companion; The Council of Elrond; 257 (I: 270)., but it also not denied. For me it seems clear that two or three Nazgûl visited Saruman and stayed in that area until the Wtich-king himself collected them all for another visit to Isengard. At the fist visit Sauron suspects only the motives of Saruman st the time of the second visit he is sure that Saruman is betraying him. But in both cases the Nazgûl involved did not have the full picture, so that Saruman could decive them.

Respectfully
Findegil

[gandalf85]

Yes, it should be "had visited". I missed that one.

Regarding the Nazgul and Saruman, that makes more sense if there are two visits.