The Hunt for the Ring

[gandalf85]

Great catch, Fin! I think it's feasible the Nazgul would search the Anduin Vale twice because the area is rather large, and Sauron himself suspected it was where the Shire was based on information from Gollum. I found a few typos/grammatical issues.

A slight change to HR-SL-05.2 to make it sound smoother:

The news evidently HR-SL-05.2b{did not reach}reached the Nazgûl commander of Dol Guldur

Some typos in this part (Marshed and visted):

}/Sauron/ learned that Gollum (who disappeared into the {D[ead]}/Dead/ Marshed) has been captured and is with Thranduil, and that Gandalf has visted that realm.{ *Say sometime early in April.}

There is also a change of tense from past to present. Fixing these issues:

}/Sauron/ learned that Gollum (who disappeared into the {D[ead]}/Dead/ Marshes) {has}had been captured and {is}was with Thranduil, and that Gandalf has visited that realm.{ *Say sometime early in April.}

In HR-SL-05.3:

possibly HR-SL-05.3 {a month later} <LotR Companion; The Council of Elrond; 257 (I:270). sometimes early in April

I don't have a copy of the LotR Companion, but this should be "sometime".

I think there should be more punctuation to the sentence starting "At first the Nazgul...". I added a semicolon and a comma:

At first the Nazgûl {investigate}investigated Anduin’s Vale,{ ...} but {can}could find no trace of the Ring or ‘Baggins’; {...}/therefore/, some {begin}began to investigate Rohan.{ ...}

"in" is repeated twice in the next sentence. "belived" should be "believed", "extraorninarily" should be "extraordinarily", "Isengad" should be "Isengard", "whishing" should be "wishing", "Tharanduil" should be "Thranduil" and "Tow" should be "two".

Other than that, I have one question:

Though he {dislikes}disliked Gandalf intensely and {is v[ery]}was /very/ jealous of him, he {belives G[andalf]}believed /Gandalf/ {knows}knew something vital about the Ring because the Nazgûl {[?ask]}/knew/ of the Shire which {has}had always been a great concern of Gandalf, and because his agents {have}had discovered that it {is extraord[inarily]}was /extraordinarily/ closely guarded; /and /also that Gandalf {is}was now actually there since {12 }April the twelfth.

Saruman believes Gandalf knew something vital about the Ring because the Nazgul knew about the Shire. How does Saruman know what the Nazgul know? This is before the conversation between Saruman and the Nazgul, right?