The War of the Ring Read Online Free PDF Page A

fight. The orcs are no match for the horsemen on the slopes before the Stanrock. Sorties from Helm's Deep and Stanrock. Orcs dive back over wall. It is then that the Wood is seen.

    Orcs trapped. Trees grab them. And the wood is full of Herulf's folk. Gandalf has collected the wanderers, [?About] 500. Hardly any of the attackers escape. So hopelessness turns to victory.
    Meanwhile Herulf told by Gandalf to hold the .... rode .......
    another force sent.... Eodoras. This is now caught between Herulf and the victorious forces of the King. In a battle on the plain
    ......... terror struck by Aragorn and Gandalf. The host not wishing to rest rides down the fleeing remnant [?back towards]
    Isengard.

    The sentence beginning 'Meanwhile Herulf told by Gandalf to hold the' might possibly, but very doubtfully indeed, be completed: 'eastern rode [for road] has resisted another force sent towards Eodoras.'
    This then was the original story of Helm's Deep, to become far more complex in its development with the emergence of a much more elaborate system of fortification across the mouth of the Deep (the description and narrative in The Two Towers can be followed, incidentally, very precisely in my father's drawing, 'Helm's Deep and the Hornburg', in Pictures by J. R. R. Tolkien, no. 26). In this earliest account the 'fastness' consisted only of the sudden natural fall in the land across the mouth of the coomb, fortified with a parapet of great stones; in this there were three 'breaches', a word that my father changed to 'inlets', perhaps to suggest that they had been deliberately made. The nature of the 'hold' of Heorulf on the Stanrock is not indicated; and all the battle of Helm's Deep took place along the line of Helm's Dike.
    An isolated scrap of drafting that was not finally used evidently belongs with the original story and may be included here: Aragorn was away behind the defences tending the wound in Snowmane's shoulder, and speaking gentle words to the horse.
    As the fragrance of athelas rose in the air, his mind went back to the defence on Weathertop, and to the escape from Moria. 'It is a long journey,' he said to himself. 'From one hopeless corner we escape but to find another more desperate. Yet alas, Frodo, I would be happier in heart if you were with us in this grim place.
    Where now do you wander?'

    Written on this same page is an outline in which the radical alteration of the story of the assault first enters.

    When Eomer and Aragorn reach Dike they are challenged.
    Heorulf has left watchers on Dike. They report that the fort of Helm's Gate is manned - mainly older men, and most of the folk of the Westmarch have taken refuge in the Deep. Great store of food and fodder is in the caves.
    Then follows story as told above until rescue of King.(17) Eomer and Aragorn decide that they cannot hold Dike in dark (without archers). The Dike is over a mile - 2 miles? -
    long. The main host and King go to Stanrock. The horses are led to the Deep. Aragorn and Eomer with a few men (their horses ready in rear) hold the inlets as long as they dare. These they block with stones rolled from the rampart.
    The assault on the inlets. Soon drives in as the Orcs clamber up rampart in between. Ladders? Wild men drive in from North Inlet. The defenders flee. Tremendous assault upon the mouth of the Beep where a high stone wall was built. [Added here but at the same time: breastwork crowned with stones. Here G[imli]
    speaks his words. Reduce description of Helm's Dike - it is not fortified.] Orcs boil round foot of the Stanrock. Then describe the assault as above.(18) Orcs piling up over the wall. Wild men dimb on the goblins' dead bodies. Moon... men fighting on the wall top.(19) Disadvantage of the Riders. The wall taken and Rohan driven back into the gorge. Dawn. Eomer and Aragorn go to the Stanrock to stand by the King in the Tower.
    They see in the sunlight the wonder of the Wood.
    Charge of Theoden (Eomer left, Aragorn right). [? With day