Why did the Nazgûl drop Merry in Bree?

[Alcuin]

Prodded by a post in the thread “Emblem of Minas Morgul”, I want to frame and pose a question that has long troubled me.

It certainly appears that at least one, if not both, of the men trying to kidnap Merry in the east end of Bree was a Ringwraith. The scene first appears, as far as I know, in Return of the Shadow, and begins with Merry bursting into the sitting-room at the Prancing Pony with Trotter (later Strider) and Bingo (later Frodo) discussing Barnabas Butterbur (later Barliman, and at this point a hobbit) and Gandalf’s letter to Bingo (Frodo), which Butterbur has just delivered. Merry enters and declares that he has seen a Black Rider in Bree. He followed the Rider and his horse to the east end of the village, “heard him speaking, or whispering, to someone on the other side” of a dark hedge. Then Merry “came over all queer and trembling suddenly, and bolted back.” (All from the chapter, “Trotter and the Journey to Weathertop”) Merry has not fainted. There is no Nob, there is not yet a gatekeeper or a West Gate. It seems that the Ringwraith was speaking to Bill Ferny, but perhaps there was another Rider on the other side of the hedge.

Later in the chapter “To Weathertop and Rivendell” (still in Return of the Shadow), CJR Tolkien notes that

Merry’s story of the Black Rider whom he saw outside the inn and followed differ in … that whereas in the original version … the Rider went though the village from west to east and stopped at Bill Ferny’s house (hole), here

and CJR Tolkien begins to cite the draft narrative,

‘He was coming from the east,’ Merry went on. ‘I followed him down the Road almost to the gate. He stopped at the keeper’s house, and I thought heard him talking to someone. I tried to creep near… I am afraid I suddenly began to shiver and shake, and bolted back here.’

In this case, the Rider may be speaking to Harry the Gatekeeper, who has now appeared in the story as a character suborned by the Nazgûl.

In Reader’s Companion, “A Knife in the Dark”, notes for p 177 (I:189), Hammond and Scull cite Tolkien’s notes on the event for the finalized form of the book:

…three Black Riders who had been sent to Weathertop and told to ride back along the Road

(All the elisions and editorial parentheticals in this citation are as cited from Hammond and Scull in Reader’s Companion. There is more to their citation after that, but nothing elided by me in this passage. By the way, “Marquette MSS 4/2/36” does not indicate that the papers were composed in 1936, before the publication of the The Hobbit. The numbers have something to do with how Marquette University numbered the boxes and documents they purchased from Tolkien. “MSS” is an abbreviation for “manuscripts”. This manuscript is part of Tolkien’s nearly finished work on the time scheme for the movements of the Black Riders.)

Now, in the text as it stands, in Fellowship of the Ring, near the end of the chapter “Strider”, Merry bursts into the room “followed by Nob.” He was standing “just outside the light of the lamp”, presumably the lamp in front of the Inn, when he saw the Ringwraith across the road in the shadows. “There was no horse.” Merry followed to the east end of town to the last house on the road, Bill Ferny’s. He continued on. Then

”I seemed to be drawn… I heard voices by the hedge. One was muttering, and the other was whispering, or hissing… I began to tremble all over. … I was just going to bolt home, when something came behind me, and I . . . I fell over.”

“I found him, sir,” put in Nob. “… Just nigh Bill Ferny’s house, I thought I could see something in the Road. … it looked to me as if two men was stooping over something, lifting it. I gave a shout, but when I got to the spot there was no sign of them, only Mr. Brandybuck lying by the roadside.”

Why in the world did the two Nazgûl leave Merry by the roadside and not shanghai him off to the Witch-king, or at least to the woods outside town to wring all he knew out of him? It might not have been the same as catching Frodo, but it would have been a tremendous coup to get one of his companions. Then they attack the Inn without success. (Who are these two Ringwraiths, Frick and Frack?)

And kudos to the Dúnedain who waylaid the messenger sent to the Witch-king. They could not stand all Nine at Sarn Ford, but they seemed to have redeemed themselves in preventing the messenger from arriving in a timely fashion, which might have proven fatal.

I apologize for the length of this starter. But I want to establish two things:

1. It was definitely Black Riders who were trying to kidnap Merry, but dropped him.
2. It was definitely Black Riders – moreover, the same two – who attacked the Inn and ruined Mr. Butterbur’s good bolsters.

Why did they drop Merry? That really bothers me. They couldn’t possibly have been scared of Nob, and it’s not as if he’d have been able to stop them. They were near the edge of the village: did they expect the whole town to come out after them? And even if they had, couldn’t two Nazgûl scare the willies out of a bunch of Breefolk in the dark and sent them scampering back into town while they made off with their catch?

-|-

Added (much) later. No other changes to this post except this addition.

Since starting this thread, I have discovered that “Marquette MSS 4/2/36” stands for “Marquette manuscripts series 4, box 2, folder 36”.

[Valandil]

From what I recall, Ringwraiths don't see very well.

Is it possible that they thought Merry was just some ole Bree-hobbit?

[Olmer]

Theirs agenda was to keep them going in the designated direction, otherwise they wouldn't play "hide-and-seek" in the woods with unarmed hobbits.
So, as it have been done before, they just scared them not to get too cozy in Bree and hit the road sooner.

[CAB]

Originally Posted by Valandil

Is it possible that they thought Merry was just some ole Bree-hobbit?

My question also.

[Gordis]

Merry got caught by the east gate of Bree, far-far from the Prancing Pony. He was not the only hobbit in Bree, not even one of the four hobbits in Bree - there were lots and lots of them, hundreds or more, all alike. Merry was caught far from the Inn, he had no Ring - why would the nazgul deem keeping and questioning him important? There was nothing to link Merry to the Ringbearer.

Moreover, at the moment, the nazgul were trying very hard not to cause any commotion, because at the very same time, Bill and the Southerner were telling them something very important: the story about a hobbit disappearing into thin air in the common room of the Pony.

taken from here

[Attalus]

Originally Posted by Gordis

Merry got caught by the east gate of Bree, far-far from the Prancing Pony. He was not the only hobbit in Bree, not even one of the four hobbits in Bree - there were lots and lots of them, hundreds or more, all alike. Merry was caught far from the Inn, he had no Ring - why would the nazgul deem keeping and questioning him important? There was nothing to link Merry to the Ringbearer.

I agree with Gordis, here. It would be like waylaying a random Hobbit in the Southfarthing, and an unconscious one at that. People who have seen service all testify to what a bother prisoners were, and how little non-specialists can get from them, My feeling is that The Ringwraith was telling Ferny or Harry to drag Merry off the path to avoid raising the alarm, which of course is what happened.
BTW, many Tolkien scholars and readers doubt that the Ringwraiths were the ones who messed up the bolsters. It is my feeling that Ferny et al. were responsible.

[Alcuin]

Originally Posted by Attalus

I agree with Gordis, here. It would be like waylaying a random Hobbit in the Southfarthing, and an unconscious one at that. People who have seen service all testify to what a bother prisoners were, and how little non-specialists can get from them,

I may be forced to accept this if no better explanation can emerge. (In which case I will still continue to hunt for something … more satisfying, at least to me.) I don’t like this explanation.

Originally Posted by Attalus

My feeling is that The Ringwraith was telling Ferny or Harry to drag Merry off the path to avoid raising the alarm, which of course is what happened.
BTW, many Tolkien scholars and readers doubt that the Ringwraiths were the ones who messed up the bolsters. It is my feeling that Ferny et al. were responsible.

Tolkien explicitly says, in both cases, that these are the two Nazgûl that entered Bree after their companion rode south along the Greenway to tell the Witch-king they had found the Ringbearer. That’s what’s in Tolkien’s working notes, and one of the reasons I cited them and the previous versions of this part of the story is that I wanted to clearly establish that Merry was dealing with a Ringwraith in Bree from the earliest version to the last and published version. IMO, for those “many Tolkien scholars and readers” to show that was not the two Ringwraiths in Bree “who messed up the bolsters,” they must explain away the working notes. I think that is a heavy burden.

Besides, if Sauron wouldn’t send any of his other servants to hunt for the One Ring, why would the Nazgûl trust Bill Ferny, who according to Aragorn “would sell anything to anybody”? Or were they naïve?

[Coffeehouse]

As Alcuin writes it's not at all a satisfying explanation.

Originally Posted by Attalus

It would be like waylaying a random Hobbit in the Southfarthing, and an unconscious one at that.

That would be absolutely true if it weren't for the fact that Merry spotted what was almost certainly a Nazgûl just outside of the Inn. Merry tells the rest later that "Suddenly I shivered and felt that something horrible was creeping near: there was a sort of deeper shade among the shadows across the road, just beyond the edge of the lamplight. It slid away at once into the dark without a sound." (FOTR 1968 - 189).

Whether Merry had chosen to follow the Nazgûl for a few yards or across to the end of the town matters not: if one of the Nazgûl worked out that Merry had seen him from across the road by the Inn he must also have worked out that there was a fair chance that Merry was one of the four hobbits. Instead of pursuing that possible lead the Nazgûl instead most likely knock him unconscious. Yet again the Nazgûl seem to prove that they shy away from acting in a calculated and inquisitive manner whenever they get the chance.

[The Dread Pirate Roberts]

I agree with Gordis. And I disagree that both premises in the OP are certain:

1. It was definitely Black Riders who were trying to kidnap Merry, but dropped him.
2. It was definitely Black Riders – moreover, the same two – who attacked the Inn and ruined Mr. Butterbur’s good bolsters.

As for 1, I think it is unlikely a kidnapping was in progress, at least not in the traditional sense. They may have been wanting to carry him off until he woke up, just to find out from him how much he heard while spying on them.

And for 2, the quote you produce from Tolkien's notes is compelling. I had long thought the Inn was attacked by Nazgul until reading a discussion on another board that seemed to prove otherwise. I don't remember the reasoning or evidence but I remember being convinced that the Nazgul planned and sponsored the attack but were more likely waiting outside when the bolsters were ruined by men in their service. Now I'm just confused. I guess if you change the "definitely" to "probably" then I'm right there with you.

[Alcuin]

Just to be clear, the Marquette manuscripts are important because they are the documents Tolkien was using to track the Nazgûl and their movements as he was completing The Lord of the Rings. I have read the referenced post, and while it is a point that anyone can debate as long as they like, I think that the evidence is clear: the characters who trashed the hobbits’ room at the Prancing Pony were the two Nazgûl. That is explicitly what is in Tolkien’s notes (the source for the essay “Hunt for the Ring”), and there is no evidence to the contrary. “The Inn attacked by two Riders in early hours before dawn.” They went to the Inn to get the Ring, they searched the room when they didn’t find anybody there, and then they trashed it out of frustration.

“[The other two] foiled in their attempt to capture Merry” is just as explicit. The two men lifting Merry are Nazgûl.

Look, these are the notes on the Ringwraiths’ movements that Tolkien used to write the final text. That’s why they’re important. That’s why they’re cited extensively in Reader’s Companion.

So, why did the Nazgûl drop Merry? To flush the hobbits out of town? Maybe, but that doesn’t seem a very good method: they might decide that with ruffians – or Ringwraiths – about, it’s safer in town than on the Road, so that doesn’t seem like a very good plan. Because there are lots of hobbits in Bree, and this one might just be one of the hundreds that lived there? Come on, the Ringwraith saw him walk out of the Inn, knows he followed him down the street, and then Merry says he “seemed to be drawn” – he was “lured” to continue to investigate, in some way felt compelled to approach the Nazgûl at the hedge. (Was the mumbling a spell of some sort?) They meant to grab him. Why did they let him go?

[Gordis]

Originally Posted by Alcuin

“[The other two] foiled in their attempt to capture Merry” is just as explicit. The two men lifting Merry are Nazgûl.

Of course they are, at least one of them: it is clear from the LOTR text itself where Merry's reaction is described.

Originally Posted by Alcuin

So, why did the Nazgûl drop Merry?

They have just heard that the Ring certainly was in the Pony half an hour ago and got the description of the Ringbearer. It was not the right moment to kidnap other hobbits who might prove to be totally unrelated to the matter.

Originally Posted by Alcuin

Because there are lots of hobbits in Bree, and this one might just be one of the hundreds that lived there? Come on, the Ringwraith saw him walk out of the Inn, knows he followed him down the street,

The Ringwraith couldn't see Merry walk out of the Inn, because he didn't walk out of it. Instead he came towards the inn:

I stayed indoors for an hour. Then as you did not come back, I went out for a stroll. I had come back again and was standing just outside the light of the lamp looking at the stars. Suddenly I shivered and felt that something horrible was creeping near:

and then Merry says he “seemed to be drawn” – he was “lured” to continue to investigate, in some way felt compelled to approach the Nazgûl at the hedge. (Was the mumbling a spell of some sort?) They meant to grab him. Why did they let him go?

I don't think the nazgul lured Merry to follow him. Maybe he did, but maybe Merry was just being inquisitive. It reminds me how Frodo walked in a daze towards Minas Morgul...
All things nazgul are most attractive.

[Alcuin]

Originally Posted by Gordis

They have just heard that the Ring certainly was in the Pony half an hour ago and got the description of the Ringbearer. It was not the right moment to kidnap other hobbits who might prove to be totally unrelated to the matter.
...
The Ringwraith couldn't see Merry walk out of the Inn, because he didn't walk out of it. Instead he came towards the inn:

I cannot disagree. It’s just a very weak excuse, and worse, it’s an excuse, not a good reason, at least for the Nazgûl. After all, these are Nazgûl, and not likely to be too particular about who they torture or maim or kill, so torturing, maiming, or killing some local hobbit “by accident” wouldn’t phase them at all, I don’t expect. And it probably wouldn’t come to that for most people they’d encountered over their long careers as bogeys: most people would just spill the beans out of sheer terror, like the Isengard spy, the sallow-faced, squint-eyed southerner that the Witch-king “recruited”.

Dropping Merry because they didn’t know who he was, or had some doubt that he might be one of the four hobbits they were hunting, is just very unsatisfying. It’s weak.

I must also point out that, in the earlier versions of the story, Merry was not picked up by the Nazgûl: he bolted back before they got him. Maybe this part of the story is a little rough. (It is a story, after all, and there are a few rough edges.)

Originally Posted by Gordis

I don't think the nazgul lured Merry to follow him. Maybe he did, but maybe Merry was just being inquisitive. It reminds me how Frodo walked in a daze towards Minas Morgul...
All things nazgul are most attractive.

Aw, you’re just sayin’ that ’cause you’re a N… ah… uh… um… Well, you know…


-|-

I still don’t understand why the Nazgûl dropped Merry. And I don’t like the reasoning that he just might have been a local, and uninvolved. (Of course, Prof. Tolkien failed to consult me concerning my likes and dislikes when he was writing…)

[The Dread Pirate Roberts]

How about this? They're in the process of picking Merry up to carry him off, after already determining he didn't have The Ring. Then they sense/see/hear Nob coming along. I think the perfectly natural reaction for anyone, Nazgul or not, would be, "Oh crap. Another one! Forget it. Just leave him. Neither of these little guys have The Ring anyway." Then back to their actual mission.

[Coffeehouse]

I can agree that once Nob came running the Nazgûl had but no choice and leave Merry without further action.

Yet as some here have suggested, that the Nazgûl did not need to do anything with Merry because they already knew what they wanted and were in fact waiting to strike at night. But that logic falls short. After one of the Nazgûl has heard the news from the whereabouts of the ring-bearer they had every right to believe that they were only hours away from getting hold of the ring. All they had to do was wait until the middle of night and then strike.
But it did not turn out that way because Merry alerted the rest. That changed everything.
The Nazgûl were poor in judgement then to believe that they could just leave Merry lying there. By doing so they forfit whatever prior knowledge and plans they had because in all likelihood the ring-bearer won't be where they've been told he is.
If the Nazgûl had been clever they would have knocked Merry unconscious (as they did) and immediately grab him with them. They need not even interrogate him, they need not even kill him. All that was then required would be to make sure Merry did not make it to the Inn before their attack. The Nazgûl should have immediately changed their plan and made the attack right away or at least within a reasonable timespan of before Frodo & co start looking for Merry.

When letting Merry go, indeed, they knew that the ring was not present on him. But they should also had calculated that it was more than likely that Merry would alert the ring-bearer before that time. Because they did not do this their plan fell apart. Which to me concludes that they took a risk and got it wrong, yet again.

[The Dread Pirate Roberts]

Why should the Nazgul suspect that one random hobbit out of hundreds that lived in and around the town would specifically go and warn the Ringbearer upon waking up from some mysterious blackout? Sure, Merry did warn them, but how and why would the Nazgul know or even suspect that he would?

[Coffeehouse]

I agree, it would be a high hill to climb to ask the Nazgûl to kidnap and/or interrogate just any hobbit wandering about Bree and who sees the Nazgûl conspirate with a local.

But that is not the case with Merry. He specifically stated that he was standing just outside the Inn, beneath a light, and saw, across the street a form blacker than shadow itself, which immediately fled when he looked towards it (thus we can infer that that form, the Nazgûl, spotted him).

He then proceeded to follow the Nazgûl all the way until he was eventually knocked unconscious. It appears obvious that the at least one of the Nazgûl then knew that a hobbit had from the entrance of the Inn followed themm, and thus Merry becomes an automatic suspect.

He isn't then just another local from anywhere in Bree, he's a hobbit first seen outside of the Inn, the very same place the Baggins with the Ring is.

Now there is obviously the possibility that Merry was just another local hobbit that had taken a pint at the Inn. But is that a chance the Nazgûl want to take? Seems so.

Perhaps one can think of it two ways:
a) The Nazgûl panicked when seeing Merry spying on them and knocked him unconscious to get rid of his prying eyes.
b) or the Nazgûl gambled: "Alright the hobbit came (most likely) from the Inn (since he was standing outside), but let's take a chance. We know where the Baggins is and if we're lucky he won't know the other hobbit we just knocked over.." *Shrill, cold laughter*

[Alcuin]

They were at Ferny’s house. Harry the Gatekeeper had seen all four hobbits, even though Ferny had not, and he had no doubt given the conspirators in the spy-ring a description of all four. In addition, Ferny and Harry had to recognize all the local inhabitants, and Merry was plainly not a Bree hobbit; indeed, Harry remarked that the Shire-hobbits and Bree-hobbits spoke with different accents. (Frodo noticed that Aragorn began speaking to him with a Bree accent, but as he relaxed his accent changed, probably to that of Rivendell or his Dúnedain kinsmen.)

Upon reflection, I think we have to agree that Merry was not mistaken for “just any old Bree hobbit.” And since hobbits are famously stay-at-home bodies, a strange hobbit at the last house – Ferny’s house –can only mean that one of the visitors of interest has wandered into the bad part of town.

Gordis suggested that the Ringwraiths might have dropped him because keeping him would interfere with their “quiet visit” to the Inn. I think it is probably because Nob was too far away for them to silence before he raised an alarm. Keeping Merry risked creating confusion enough for the Ringbearer to escape. It isn’t as if Merry or Frodo were going to tell the local authorities they were being chased by scary guys dressed in black all the way from the Shire: they were trying to be secretive, too. That meant that all the Nazgûl had to do was be certain that they knew when the Ringbearer left and where he went: just keep him in sight until

1. he left town and could be nabbed in the wild, or
2. the other seven could join them and they could arrange a proper attack in numbers sufficient to keep their quarry from escaping.

-|-

Separate question:

Bill Ferny’s house is the last in the east end of Bree along the Road. It is clearly the “bad part of town.” Is this a reference, perhaps even an unconscious one, to the East End of London? (No offence intended to any real East-enders here, please!)

-|-

Added in an edit: this post cross-posted with Gordis's last post and is not intended as a response to that. Carry on, and I'll respond as I am able to obtain time to prepare an answer.

[The Dread Pirate Roberts]

Originally Posted by Gordis:
the three nazgul came to Bree much later than the hobbits and Merry spotted the nazgul during his first reconnaissance of Bree.

Could you explain how the quote you provide shows that the Nazgul beat the hobbits to Bree? I'm not following.

[Gordis]

Originally Posted by The Dread Pirate Roberts

Could you explain how the quote you provide shows that the Nazgul beat the hobbits to Bree? I'm not following.

My question also. Alcuin, the nazgul came from Weathertop, not to the West gate by to the South Gate - likely found it closed and climbed over. That's why "there was no horse", as Merry noticed.

[The Dread Pirate Roberts]

My login timed out, and I ended up deleting a detailed post about the possible time of the attack on the Inn. I'll try to summarize it again.

When I first tried to think of when the Inn might have been attacked I thought midnight sounded literary and appropriate. Then I recalled some information I recently learned about the sleep patterns of pre-industrial people.

Before the advent of the electric light, people would routinely go to sleep not very long after dark (called "first sleep" across many languages and cultures), sleep for several hours, then awaken and use the outhouse, grab a snack, make a booty call, and perform other mundane tasks for an hour or two, then return to sleep until dawn. (Roger Ekirch's history book "At Day's Close" as well as modern sleep research supports this.)

That tells me that a midnight attack wouldn't be wise, since the attacker would be likely to find at least some people awake and about.

So when would the populace most likely be deepest in slumber? The same time the Nazgul choose to attack the house in Crickhollow. The hour that is also coldest and darkest, just before dawn. Sunrise at that time of year is probably shortly after 6am, so we're looking at probably some time around 5am.

It fits the normal sleep pattern of individuals in such a society as Bree and it fits the established pattern of the Nazgul (if two events can make a pattern).