Sauron Defeated by J. R. R. Tolkien

to depart.
    The hobbits return with Eomer to the funeral of Theoden and then on through the Gap of Rohan [? with..... and the Dunedain].
    They come on Saruman and he is [?pardoned].
    They come to Rivendell and see Bilbo. Bilbo gives him Sting and the coat. But he is getting old.
    They come back to the Shire [added in margin: via Bree, pick up pony] and drive out Cosimo Sackville-Baggins. Lobelia is dead -
    she had a fit in [?quarrel]. Sam replants the trees. Frodo goes back to Bag End. All is quiet for a year or two. And then one day Frodo takes Sam for a walking [? tour] to the Woody End. And [?behold there go many] Elves. Frodo rides to the Havens and says farewell to Bilbo. End of the Third Age.
    Sam's Book.

    It is plain that my father wrote this outline while he was working on
    'The Field of Kormallen', and indeed the precise stage in that work can probably be deduced: for Gimli's words at the end of the evening, in which he spoke of finding Pippin under the heap of slain, had not entered ('Gimli explains how Pippin was saved'). The precise placing of these notes in the history of the composition of Book VI gives them a particular interest. Several features of the end of the story now appear for the first time: as the marriage of Faramir and Eowyn; Bilbo's giving of the mithril-coat and Sting to Frodo ('forgetting that he had already done so', RK p. 265); the time of peace and quiet after the return of the hobbits to the Shire (but that 'Sam's casket restores Trees' had been known for a long time, VII.286); and Frodo's walk with Sam to the Woody End. But the death, before the return of the hobbits, of Lobelia Sackville-Baggins in a fit (of fury? - the word I have given as quarrel is scarcely more than a guess) was not permanent: she would be resurrected, survive her imprisonment during the troubles of the Shire, and end her days in a much more enlightened fashion.
    This outline is as elliptical as were so many of my father's sketches of the further course of the story, concentrating on particular elements and ignoring or only hinting at others; and it is hard to know what narrative idea underlay the words 'Frodo rides to the Havens and says farewell to Bilbo'. Many years before (VI.380) he had written that when 'Bingo' returned to the Shire he would make peace, and would then 'settle down in a little hut on the high green ridge - until one day he goes with the Elves west beyond the towers' (cf. also another note of that time, VI.379: 'Island in sea. Take Frodo there in end'). In the outline 'The Story Foreseen from Moria' (VII.212) he had concluded his synopsis thus:
    XXVIII What happens to Shire?
    Last scene. Sailing away of Elves [added: Bilbo with them]...
    XXIX Sam and Frodo go into a green land by the Sea?
    In another note of that period (VII.287) he said: 'When old, Sam and Frodo set sail to island of West... Bilbo finishes the story.' Probably about the time of the writing of 'The King of the Golden Hall' he had written (VII.451) that in old age Frodo with Sam had seen Galadriel and Bilbo. On the other hand, in his letter to me of 29 November 1944
    (see VIII.219) he was entirely clear - and accurate - in his prevision: But the final scene will be the passage of Bilbo and Elrond and Galadriel through the woods of the Shire on their way to the Grey Havens. Frodo will join them and pass over the Sea (linking with the vision he had of a far green country in the house of Tom Bombadil).

    Since this is of course the story in the last chapter of The Lord of the Rings it is strange indeed to find in the present text that he had departed from it - for 'Frodo rides to the Havens and says farewell to Bilbo' can obviously be interpreted in no other way. I suspect therefore that there is in fact no mystery: that in notes written at great speed my father merely miswrote 'Bilbo' for 'Sam'.

    Remarkable also is the reference to the encounter with Saruman -
    the word pardoned here is not certain, but can hardly be read otherwise.