Bilbo's original encounter with Gollum

[dreamflower]

Well, most of us are familiar with Bilbo's Gollum encounter as it now appears in The Hobbit. And I think, most of us know that what we have now is a revision of what originally appeared. When JRRT came to write LotR, he "ret-conned" TH, altering the Riddle Game and giving it a more sinister tone than it first had, and changing the character of Gollum in the process...

In LotR, we learn that Bilbo told the Dwarves a "different account" of what happened, that Gollum "offered him a present" if he won.

Here are a few snippets from the earliest version of all,from the unpublished First Manuscript:

(Words between [ ] were added or crossed out. > means it was added; < means it was crossed out.)

"'Does it guess easy? - it must have a competition with us, my precious. If precious asks, and it doesn't answer, we eats it my precious. If it ask us and we doesn't answer, we gives it a present, Gollum.'"

Yes, just exactly what Bilbo told the Dwarves!

The Riddle Game goes on very much like it did in the familiar version; the riddles, at any rate are the same, and there aren't a lot of revisions. Finally it comes along to the end, and Gollum fails to guess what's in Bilbo's pocket.

"'Both wrong! said Bilbo very much relieved - and jumped to his feet and held out his little sword with his back to the wall. But funnily enough, he need not have been frightened. For one thing the Gollum had learned long agowas never to cheat at the riddle-game. Also there was the sword. He simply sat and blubbered [>whimpered].
'What about the present?' said Bilbo, not that he cared very much, still he felt he had won it, and in very difficult circumstances too.
'Must we give it precious; yes we must- we must fetch it precious, and give it to the thing the present we promised.'

Once more it becomes like the familiar version: Gollum paddles back to his island and discovers his loss. We are filled in by the narrator as to what the "present" is: a magic ring that makes the wearer invisible. Gollum comes back to Bilbo upset:

"I don't knwo how many times Gollum begged Bilbo's pardon. And he offered him fish caught fresh to eat instead (Bilbo shuddered at the thought of it;) [but somehow or other he had to>] but he said 'no thank you' quite politely.
He was thinking thinking hard- and the idea came to him that he must have found that ring, 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, and being in a very tight place I think he was right, and anyway the ring belonged to him now.
But to Gollum he said: 'Never mind, the ring would have been mine now if you could have found it, so you haven't lost it. And I will forgive you on one condition.'
'Yes, what is it, what does it wish us to do, my precious.'
'Help me to get out of these places', said Bilbo.
To this Gollum agreed, as he had to if he wasn't to cheat, though he would very much have liked to have just tasted what Bilbo was like. Still he had lost the game [>promised]; and also there was the sword, and also Bilbo was wide awake & on the look out, not unsuspecting as the Gollum liked to have things which he caught.
That is how Bilbo got to know that the tunnel ended at the water, and went on no further on the other side, where the mountain wall was dark and solid. He ought to have turned down one of the side passages before he came to the bottom, but he couldn't follow the directions he was given to find it. So he made Gollum come and show him.
As they went along the tunnel together, Gollum flip-flapping along, Bilbo going very quietly, Bilbo thought he would try that ring. He slipped it on.
'Where are you [>is it], where is it gone to?' said Gollum at once, peering round with his long eyes.
'Here I am following behind' said Bilbo slipping off the ring, and feeling very pleased to have it in his pocket. So on they went while Gollum counted the passages to left and right: 'one left, one right, two right, three right, two left' and so on. He began to get very shaky and afraid as he got further from the water, and at last he stopped by a low opening on the left ('six right, four left')
'Here's the passage [added: he whispered]; it must squeeze in, and sneak down, - we dursn't go with it, my precious, no we dursn't; Gollum!'
So Bilbo slipped under hte arch, and said goodbye to the nasty miserable creature, and very glad he was. He wasn't comfortable till he felt quite sure it was gone; and he kept his head out in the main tunnel listening until the flip flap of Gollum going back to his boat diead away in the darkness."

So, there you are. The way JRRT originally envisioned it. Gollum was still a nasty little cannibal, but honest enough about riddle games at least. And he was not enthralled by his ring. When he said 'my precious' he seemed to be referring to himself-- not to the ring!

Also, the reason Bilbo is noticed by the goblins is not because it slips off his fingers, but because he'd taken it off himself a bit earlier, and had not put it back on-- which he did as soon as he realized.

Fascinating.

Of course, the "ret-conned" version is far more dramatic and full of foreshadowing! Not to mention necessary for LotR to happen!

Comments

[claudia603.livejournal.com]

huh, that's really interesting! I mean, I can see how Tolkien got this idea later to combine the "my precious" with himself and the Ring and it makes it so much more chilling!

[dreamflower]

It is! It just goes to show how only a few words here and there can completely alter a meaning!

[auntiemeesh.livejournal.com]

It's interesting to see how the changes he made were fairly minor but made so much difference.

I loved reading The History of Middle-Earth and seeing the evolution of LotR from conception to completion. I may have to get The History of the Hobbit as well. :)

[dreamflower]

HoMe is really interesting, though it can be hard to read at times. HotH is a bit easier-- for one thing, there appears to have been only a few things to deal with: the first fragment, where Smaug was name Pryftan, two hand-written manuscripts and two typescripts. Whereas HoMe dealt with mountains and reams of scraps of paper in no particular order, and going from shortly after WWI all the way up to JRRT's death in '73.

The editor (who is not Christopher) also seems to have arranged things in a more readable fashion as well.

[shirebound]

Fascinating. Bilbo goes from deliberately putting on the Ring in this version to "it quietly slipped onto his groping finger" in The Hobbit. Ooooh.

[lily-the-hobbit.livejournal.com]

This is fascinating! He had the idea in his head from the beginning but just altered it a little to make it fit to the story as it was necessary for Lord of the Rings. Fascinating, indeed!