the older matter: Elrond, Gondolin, the High-elves, and the orcs, as
well as glimpses that had arisen unbidden of things higher or deeper
or darker than its surface: Durin, Moria, Gandalf, the Necromancer,
the Ring. The discovery of the significance of these glimpses and of
their relation to the ancient histories revealed the Third Age and its
culmination in the War of the Ring.
     Those who had asked for more information about hobbits eventually got
it, but they had to wait a long time; for the composition of The Lord
of the Rings went on at intervals during the years 1936 to 1949, a
period in which I had many duties that I did not neglect, and many
other interests as a learner and teacher that often absorbed me. The
delay was, of course, also increased by the outbreak of war in 1939,
by the end of which year the tale had not yet reached the end of Book
One. In spite of the darkness of the next five years I found that the
story could not now be wholly abandoned, and I plodded on, mostly by
night, till I stood by Balin's tomb in Moria. There I halted for a
long while. It was almost a year later when I went on and so came to
Lothl?rien and the Great River late in 1941. In the next year I wrote
the first drafts of the matter that now stands as Book Three, and the
beginnings of chapters I and III of Book Five; and there as the