IN THE SHIRE-RECKONING by Diane Finnis-Robb  

In the Shire-reckoning
A Story of the Early Days of the Shire as Relating to

The Fall of Arnor

another tale set in the world of J.R.R.Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings

by
Diane Finnis-Robb

Author’s Note:

   In a 1954 New York Times review of “The Fellowship of the Ring” poet W. H. Auden wrote that “Mr. Tolkien is fortunate in possessing an amazing gift for naming and a wonderfully exact eye for description; by the time one has finished his book one knows the histories of Hobbits, Elves, Dwarves and the landscape they inhabit as well as one knows one’s own childhood.” I can think of no clearer explanation of purpose for the work that you will find here; as a child I was spellbound by Tolkien’s writings and I explore those familiar landscapes now so that the spell may continue. The opportunity to create and play in the lush world of J. R. R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” has captivated artists for generations and I am no different in my love for that world and its stories than millions of other creators. If you are choosing to join me by reading this story then I can only assume you are also one of those many fans of the Professor’s work who live under that same spell.

   The story that you will find here is a fragmentary piece of a larger work set in Middle-earth and entitled “The Fall of Arnor.” Begun in 2019, well before the Covid pandemic came along; “The Fall of Arnor” was initially intended to be a choose-your-own-adventure role-playing game for a select group of friends, all of whom are older and seldom get the time for that kind of interaction any longer. All of those friends were fellow Tolkien fans and creators, so I hoped at that time it might be a chance for us to gather, create, interact and discuss our ideas of Tolkien’s Middle-earth with full fan freedom and none of the restrictions of editors, arguers and copyright attorneys.

   In the year 2020, as the pandemic was at its worst (and upset plans for all of our shared universes- cultural, political, social, physical and fictional) I found myself escaping to Middle-earth every day, building the small story that I had in mind for my friends and players into a long-form tale. There were originally no plans in my mind for presenting that novel to the public; I simply wanted to share it with a handful of people who had seen me develop the idea. But writing in such a rich and full world has a way of taking an author into undiscovered corners and unexpected territories, and the initial story grew very rapidly. There began to be so much more material here than I ever imagined creating and by the end of 2020 I began to revise much of the earliest draft into what looked like it would become a series of novels.

   The greater part of the action of “The Fall of Arnor” is set in the year 1975 of the Third Age of Middle-earth, nearly a thousand years before Bilbo’s finding of the Ring. It is concerned with the last remnants of the North Kingdom, the war those people had with the Witch-king of Angmar, and the decline of the great kingdom of Men in the North.

   But that is another story.

   Here I present you with a kind of interstitial novel of Middle-earth; a piece built from the connective tissue which I discovered in my research/autopsy of Shire history undertaken for Book III of “The Fall of Arnor.” This tale does have some ramifications on the whole of that other work, but may be read as a stand alone story for anyone who may hold a great interest in Hobbits. I hadn’t meant to spend much time as an author delving into the Shire-hobbits and their histories, but research for Book III brought to my mind stories of those quiet and peaceable pioneers who became the land’s founders, of the victories they had won, the challenges they faced and comforts which they made for themselves; comforts that would eventually, by Bilbo’s time, almost entirely define them and seem to diminish their earlier acts of bravery.

   These stories, important to me as I discovered them, don’t really fit into a neat space within the larger body of “The Fall of Arnor”; but they are no less a part of my creative process in imaging the undescribed parts of Tolkien’s world. They are places I could not resist going to and that, hopefully, you as readers will also find interesting to visit. Characters I could not help but imagine and that I hope you will also find interesting. They are definitely distractions from the longer tale that I had set out to write but that I have come to enjoy telling.

   So here is a novel about hobbits. I hope you will like it and find it worth your trouble in reading. It, as with all of my work in Middle-earth, is written entirely within the context of Tolkien’s published works and not as any kind of glib alternative history. I have tried at every step of the writing to stay true to the original source material. Therefore, as always, I welcome any feedback on any of my mistakes. As a writer and artist I am painfully aware of how poor my skills are as a researcher; for artists collect information only to support their own purposes and will also quite readily lose information which is of no aid to their inventions. Writers left on their own, not held by the scrutiny of readers or editors, do likewise.

   Please feel free to contact me with any glaring errors you may find in my version of events.

   During the writing of this book I have made contact with many Tolkien fans who have contributed to its growth. Our conversations have played an enormous part not just in my work but in my understanding of the material and my own mental and creative health over the past few years. I can’t thank you all enough for that. If, as I hope, this book brings you a small opportunity to delight in an extended world based upon Tolkien’s design (as the writing of it has done for me) then you should know that it grew out of those conversations which were so important to me in so dark a time.

-D. F. R. 2023

CONTENTS

Part One: The Time Before

-In Which we Tell of the Discovery and Establishment of the Shire and Meet some of the Founding “Townfathers"; Revealing their Dreams and Exhibiting their Practicality while also Witnessing some of the Differences Which Would Come to Divide Them.

1) "explorers and ambassadors” 11 

2) "the agreement" 21 

3) "the bold buck" 32 

4) “the earliest settlements” 42 

5) “the farthing stone” 46 

6) “astron” 53

7) “distant music” 57

8) “the bristling borders” 73 

9) “the edge of arguments” 79

10) “the elves of the western lands” 88 

11) “ambassador to the west” 96

12) “the better understanding of our future” 100

Interlude: A Brief History of Those Early Years

-In Which some Significant History is Recounted Concerning the Shire’s Development, the Beginnings of Its Government and the Character of Its People whilst Gondolpho Oldbuck was Away

i) “on growth and industry” 107 

ii) “on population and documentation” 108

iii) “on centers of trade and administration” 109

iv) “on notable families and great advancements” 112 

v) “on the ingenuity of Childebrand Swiftalk” 116 

vi) “on the childebank” 121

vii) “on the Crisis of Year Fifteen” 124 

viii) “on the First Battle of the Shire” 130 

ix) “on debt and threat and argument” 133 

x) “on government, death and settlement” 137

xi) “on the ordering of the Shire and the new wave of expansion” 143

9.  
10.  

11. Part Two: The Time After

-In Which the First Generation Born in the Shire Begins to Envision a Future of Their Own Making and the Return of the Old Buck Alters that Vision.

1) “the young buck” 152 

2) “the plans” 157 

3) "the walk to waymeet" 166 

4) 'the record of his return" 177 

5) "the game of negotiations" 183 

6) "the southron" 194 

7) "missed connections" 199 

8) "a chance meeting" 215 

9) "the bargain" 242 

10) “what comes next” 264 

11) “from Eumaeus” 274

12) “greenholm” 279

13) “from Ermenberga” 289 

14) “the far downs” 293

Part Three: The Time of Conclusions

-In Which many Accounts are Settled and, for Good and for Bad, the Future of the Shire is Shaped.

1) “after-lithe” 314

2) “diaries and dispatches” 344

3) “waymeet” 383

4) “things to say to one another” 398

Postlude: A Brief History of those Years After

-In Which some Minor History is Recounted Concerning the Shire’s Reunification, the Marriages and Deaths of many of Its Pioneers and Their ties to Future Generations of Famous Hobbits

i) “of the third marriage of Alaura Fairheart” 408 

ii) “of the Oldbuck in retirement” 409

iii) “of Theudebald Swiftalk” 409

iv) “of the Swiftooks” 410

v) “of the Bunces” 412

vi) “of the Tooks” 414

vii) “of the Youngbuck” 416

viii) “of the Southern Sickness” 417 

ix) “of the times after” 423

x) “three letters” 427

Acknowledgements

foreword

   Of the great events in the year 1975 of the Third Age, much has been revealed in The Fall of Arnor which had previously remained mysterious or unrecounted. It was at that time when the Witch-king in Angmar was finally overthrown, yet all hope for the future of the Northlands did also seem lost. Many scribes of that time speak of the great hosts of armies which marched in that war; of the last vestige of the Númenórean Men, tall sons of Sea-kings, who fought alongside the remaining Elf-lords of Mithlond, Imladris and the Golden Realm and how they strove against the terrible hosts of Orcs, Trolls, dark Men and beasts which had poured forth from Angmar to destroy or subjugate the Free Peoples of the north at the will of their sorcerous master. The great deeds of these battles are known and many names of those brave folk are elsewhere recorded. Those stories tell also of how the Witch-king himself was routed and the Northlands were cleansed for a time, but also of how the kingship of the line of Elendil there were left without a home and his remaining people became a scattered folk. Success for the North people seemed a dubious victory when measured against such great loss.

   In all those tales of war and woe there are but few mentions of hobbits and, to be precise in our study of the history, there are only scant few occasions when they should be mentioned. All of what we know today regarding the Fall of Arnor, and of the role of hobbits within that struggle, comes from an unusual and most unexpected source very recently discovered.¹ These new texts suggest that the hobbits of the Shire, while overlooked for centuries, played a great role in the concerns of the Wise from the beginnings of their nation through to the War of the Ring.

   To explain more regarding the history of hobbits in the North Kingdom I submit here a story drawn from numerous newly found sources and, most particularly, from a newly translated text which had been collected, recorded and signed by “Glorfinniel Tarwandur", believed to be the intriguing pen name for Goldilocks Gardener,² third daughter of Samwise the Ringbearer. It is accompanied by many other letters, maps and documents supporting its relationship to the history of the Shire’s earliest days. “Glorfinniel’s” text itself, in its original prose style, is dated as 1463 of the Shire-reckoning (Year 42 of the Fourth Age) and seems to have been a gift which she gave to Faramir Took, son of Thain Peregrin the First, on the occasion of their wedding. While the Elvish languages which are sometimes recorded in the text show the author’s deep understanding of the Red Book or other writings, this book is not intended as a translation of that text nor an academic study of its origins. This particular story goes beyond the things which I have learned in such studies of Glorfinniel’s original text.

   Little is known of the children of Master Samwise; for that family was always more dedicated to the preservation of the Baggins’ legacy than the recording of their own. We know that Goldilocks was born in 1431 of the Shire-reckoning, that she was the sixth of Sam and Rose’s thirteen children, and that she was so named because her fair-coloured hair was rare among the Shire-hobbits (though not so rare among Sam's children). In 1442 Elanor, oldest of Samwise’s children, was made handmaiden to the Queen and went south to Gondor for a year where she learned much of Númenórean and Elvish culture. If Elanor taught some of these things to her younger sister, or if Goldilocks accompanied Elanor upon this journey we do not know, for only a slim record of the lives of these very important hobbits has ever been recovered or mentioned in other texts.

   But in the excavation of the Great Smials (1961 0f our present age)³ we find the wedding certificate for Goldilocks Gardener and Faramir Took recovered inside a small handmade book of 250 pages alongside a box of carefully preserved maps, letters, affidavits and certificates. The cover is of simple, untooled brown leather and bears no title. But the first page, written in a careful and deliberate hand, reads:

   For my beloved Faramir, named for the wise; that he might find wisdom and humour in his own family history, that he might find happiness in knowing the truth of that history over far-fetched gossip, and that he will respect, understand and delight in a story of love and therefore always cherish the value of a fair heart

-Glorfinniel Tarwandur, baingûr⁴

   That book holds the “Tale of the Tooks and Bucks” to which many other texts found at the Great Smials have referred. It is told by its author in the manner of an often amusing and sometimes tragic “love story,” a theme important to the occasion. It speaks of the three principal founders of the Shire: Gondolpho Bucklestrap, Theudebald Swiftalk and Alaura Fairheart, of their trials, their marriages, their children and their arguments. We can see from examining the supporting material that it is a detailed and scholarly work of Shire history, though at the same time it never loses sight of its goal as a love story; to illustrate how love, the honest and fair feelings between people, can be the very kernel of community.

   As I have said above, the telling of this story which you are about to read is not a direct translation of that work. Translation is the work of scholars in preserving the voices of our past. I am indebted to the work of many informed and careful philologists who have kept the Westron language alive, but I believe that a pure translation would limit our perception of the story solely to the frame of its author and not to the larger part it plays in the history of Middle-earth. Many elements of that broader history, and of the development of the Shire itself, have been added for the enjoyment of more general readers. Glorfinniel’s story, told in three parts, is divided in her work and therefore allows me to insert an “interlude” which focuses on the political and social growth of the Shire which I feel is important to our understanding of Hobbit history. The four parts in this novel are then followed by a “postlude” which will aid readers in their understanding of the first and second generations of pioneering hobbits and how they developed culturally up to the time of the War of the Ring.

   Nor is this telling intended as a pure history. A great many accompanying texts were found alongside Goldilocks’ book which give scholars greater insights into her own research. If this were a work of pure history those works would all be cited and the numerous annotations and genealogical reference found in the original would no doubt stupefy and bore the minds of modern readers. I am likewise indebted to the archeologists and historians of Hobbitlore for their work and the aid it serves me here, but I do not share their purposes (or methods) in the telling of this tale.

   Instead this writing is an attempt to render the findings at the Great Smials into an entertaining historical narrative set against the greater developments in Middle-earth. I have set out to do this at a time when the newly discovered books of “The Fall of Arnor” play an important part of our understanding of the role of hobbits in the world prior to the War of the Ring. In some ways this story is presented as a divergence from that fuller tale, but, one hopes, it also informs us of the relationship of hobbits within that tale and the larger history of the northwestern part of Middle-earth.

   I trust that readers will see it as a story of the founding of a nation and I hope those same readers will never forget that every true history of a people begins with a love story.

   So while a shorter tale of the North may draw us sooner to the glories and dramas of the battlefield, some time must now be spent in understanding the peaceful people of the Shire; of their hopes and their loves and their losses. For it is their involvement in matters outside of war and assault that would have an important impact on the future of the North, the defeat of the Witch-king and, some many hundreds of years later, the destruction of Sauron the Enemy and the Return of the King.

Chapter End Notes

Notes

1)  This is the first hyper-textual allusion to indicate where my stories for The Fall of Arnor may be coming from. I think that it is important to remember that Tolkien wrote his tales very much as if they were handed down from outside sources and I am doing my best to mimic that approach here and with other writings of Middle-earth.

2)  This name mashes up the Sindarin with the Quenya languages; “Glorfinniel” is the Sindarin name given to Goldilocks in the King’s Letter found in HoME where the names of Sam’s children are recorded. Sindarin has no existing word for “gardener” so I have borrowed the Quenya word “Tarwandur” for the family name. It presents interesting wrinkles in the linguistic knowledge of the Hobbits which I might exploit later.

3)  “Our present age” is a fun way of sorting the history of textual reference by our own calendar. I was born in the year 1961 of “our present age” so the idea that these apocryphal texts awoke with me seems amusing. Well, it does to me at least.

4)  “baingûr” is the closest I can come to “fair heart” in Sindarin

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“Sic hobbitur ad astra. [thus, by walking like hobbits, one reaches the stars.]”
 

-Tolkien, Letter 17, referring to a postcard he received from Stanley Unwin on the successful publication of “The Hobbit”

part I
The Time Before

chapter one 

“explorers and ambassadors”

   It is commonly known among most Shirefolk that it was Gondolpho Bucklestrap who dug the very first hobbithole in the new land. While much else was said of Bucklestrap in the long years which followed, he was always respectfully accounted for as the very first resident and first great pioneer of the Shire. It should also be said that the King’s Agreement, perhaps the greatest accomplishment of young Bucklestrap and his friend Theudebald Swiftalk (two hobbits who are of principal concern in this tale) would never have happened without the involvement of two other extremely important figures in the land’s early history; the twin brothers Marcho and Blanco Tinyfoot. We know that those two intrepid explorers had never met a king or visited with Elves, never traveled into any town or settlement larger than those surrounding the hill of Bree and had never gone further west than the Farthing Stone, but they are still accredited by all Hobbits as the Founders of the Shire and the Discoverers of that new land.

   Now that is a very rare thing to say as Hobbits were (until much later in the histories of the Third Age) very seldom credited as an adventurous people. But the names of these two brothers are written large in the Hobbit histories and the story of their great deed of discovery was very popular among the Shirefolk young and old for many generations. If the other extremely important acts of diplomacy and exploration accomplished by Gondolpho Bucklestrap and Thueudebald Swiftalk (Gondo and Twoody to their friends) may have fallen in the memory of hobbits (no doubt supplanted by the gossip surrounding their much later and long-standing feud) then certainly the brave missions of Marcho and Blanco have grown and taken their place in popular stories of the Shire’s earliest pioneers.

   For it is recorded that in 1592 of the Third Age, Marcho and Blanco, then two unemployed and dispossessed wanders, struck out west from the Bree-land, crossed the Stonebows bridge and, quite by accident, discovered (for hobbits at least) the peaceful and unpopulated countryside beyond. There are no accounts of this from either of the brothers of course, for we are told that they never learned to write as many of their friends and siblings did. There are many stories (some with conflicting details) to be found of the twin brothers after that first momentous journey which afford them great praise. That they came first is undisputed and lauded by all the later Shirefolk, but what, if anything, they may have done afterward in the development of the Shire itself has been wholly forgotten.¹

   There are some accounts which claim that the twins had light-colored hair, blonde even, and that they wore long mustaches (which would certainly mark them as peculiar among all the other hobbits of their time).² Other stories claim that they were tall and fierce enough to ride wolves and that they carried swords into the wilderness like conquerors. But most of these testimonies are recorded quite late in the Shire histories and, like many tales told in their time, they have a delight in entertainment which surpasses any quite unwanted urge towards historical integrity.

   The histories of hobbits can often be difficult to discern from their gossip and tall tales. Hobbit-lore, particularly before the end of the Third Age, was an obscure and arcane branch of study despite the numerous written letters and documents by hobbits themselves. It should be noted here that the majority of hobbits who had first settled in the Bree-land, beginning in 1100 of the Third Age, could neither read nor write. From what we can discover Hobbits had been, for very many long and unrecorded generations, a nomadic people who traveled in small groups of clans and whose histories were generally oral (in those rare occasions in which they were not forgotten entirely). But by 1500 of that Age there were some hobbit-folk gathered in the Bree-land who had come from two very large clans, the Harfoots and the Stoors, and some of those folk had brought a knowledge of writing with them. It was not widespread at first, and just where they learned the skill remains unknown. But it is believed that it was indeed these hobbits who brought writing to this region when the Breelanders themselves had been ignorant of the art. This is supported by the fact that there are no written accounts of those people of the Bree-land before the arrival of Hobbits and that hobbit shopkeepers there developed an early form of pictographic accounting that the Bree-folk went on using for many hundreds of years after the hobbits had all but disappeared from that part of the world.

   While much is clouded in our study of the early development of Hobbits we do know that Marcho and Blanco, as well as their benefactor and chief investor Hincmar Swiftalk (then called “Swiftwalk”), could neither read nor write. But Hincmar’s son Theudebald could and so too could Theudebald’s childhood friend Gondolpho. Despite the later disagreements of Twoody and Gondo we draw much of our information about the early years of the Shire from their own accounts.

*****

   It seems that the discovery of the Shire might have its beginnings with the legendarily stern and uncompromising Isengrim Tinyfoot, father of Marcho and Blanco, who had sent his sons west to seek fortunes of their own. Isengrim and his fathers before him were of the Harfoot clan³ and had long-distant memories of their friendship with the Dwarves from the time they lived among them in the Iron Hills far away to the northeast in Middle-earth. He had never seen those distant lands himself of course, but he believed all the old stories of the wealth of Dwarves in the mountains.

   ‘Go west, younglings,’ Isengrim told his sons, ‘and find Durin’s Folk who are said to live there. For it is a meager living you might find in the Bree-land. Here our people are farmers and herders and grocers. Living among the Big Folk as they do, their heads and their hands have gone soft and they forget how to dig and discover the riches of the earth. Go west, boys! Find a land in which our kin will live and thrive, unpolluted by Big Folk and cheese-sellers, a land where there is good trade, riverbeds of jewels and untilled hillsides which hobbits may call their own!’

   (It should be noted that Isengrim Tinyfoot was generally avoided by his neighbors and many other of his contemporaries throughout his long and irritable life. He was, as recorded in many journals and letters, a rather rude and bigoted hobbit, but his skills as a blacksmith made him useful to all the settlers in the Bree-land and, for a time, the Shire alike. He did not care for the Big Folk nor did he care much for hobbits of clans or families other than his own. He was rather contemptuous by nature and the disdain he felt for others showed very openly at a time when many hobbits, for better and worse, were trying to integrate themselves into the community of the Breelanders. Many of those hobbit-folk found Isengrim’s vitriol destructive and shallow and this is what may have earned him and his family the very disparaging second-name of “Tinyfoot.” But the fact that his words still come down to us through the centuries should speak to the fact of just how important he and his sons remain within the Shire’s history. His speech, in many modified forms, became a rallying cry years later for the early settlers of that land.)

   Marcho and Blanco (and indeed most of the other Tinyfoot children) did not think or feel about their neighbors as their father did and it is said that the auspicious twins very much enjoyed their young lives in the Bree-land. The very fact that they were twins (as much of a rarity among hobbits as it is among the Big Folk) made them quite popular as children. They had many good friends who encouraged them much more than their own father did and they spent much of their young lives among other large families of hobbits. But, as they grew older and, as Isengrim taught them nothing of smithing, they had no trade or position which they might follow. So, wealthy friends or no, Marcho and Blanco were coming of age with little hope for a vocation of their own.

   Legends tell us that on their twenty-fourth birthday,⁴ and as his house was still filling up with children, Isengrim Tinyfoot brought his sons to the edge of the Bree-lands, beyond the old Clock-tower, through the Hedge-gate and out to where the Crossing Stone of the two Roads lay. There he gave the boys two finely-carved walking sticks with metal heads and heels which he himself had wrought. He handed them two wool cloaks (which their mother had made) and, with some finality, spoke his now-famous advise that they should go into the West. He did not embrace them or allow them any questions. It is said that when he finished his speech he turned his back on them both and went back to his home on the Hill above the town. If the two sons ever saw their father again (and many stories suggest that they did not) no verifiable account is given.

   What is known is that very next morning (April the 6th, as it is noted later in the Shire Calendar),⁵ the two brothers came to stay at the house of Hincmar Swiftwalk, a wealthy innkeeper in the Bree-land. If this meeting had been pre-arranged (as some claim), or if the twins simply had no idea of how to begin (as some less-friendly rumours will report) remains unclear; but many very reliable accounts attest to the friendship the boys had with the old innkeeper through his son Theudebald and also Theudebald’s friend, Gondolpho “Bucklestrap”.

*****

   Names are a very slippery area of study within Hobbit histories and readers should be warned from the start that family names are often changed (whether the family is willingly or not) during the course of a single generation. New names then called for new genealogies to be drafted until it can all be quite confusing from a historian’s point of view. But it does seem to be a favorite game of the hobbits in their earlier days; adopting new names to fit new occupations, changes in living situations, recent personal developments and even popular jokes about a particular family member.

   The Swiftwalks, as we are told, had been the largest family group to ever enter into the Bree-land and were, in the late sixteenth century of the Third Age, relative late-comers from the east. Some Bree-landers, Big and Little Folk alike, saw the arrival of that family as a tipping point within their society; for after their arrival there were more Hobbits in the Bree-land than there were Big Folk. The Swiftwalks were part of a large collection of families and tribes who had crossed the High Pass of the Misty Mountains sometime around 1100 of the Third Age. What happened there is lost to our records and theirs; it is believed that many of them may have been subjugated or killed by the growing power of Angmar at that time. But what is known is that in 1525 of the Third Age, whatever troubles had come before, Old Priamus, sword in hand, had led 1200 members of his extended family past the shattered ruins of Weathertop and along the Great Road west into the Bree-land and thereby earned his family name. The Swiftwalks were accepted from the first, (for the Breelanders were always friendly to outcasts) and the area around Bree-hill became a largely hobbitish settlement.

   Theudebald Swiftwalk, born and named in 1576 of the Third Age, was the grandson and very direct descendant of Old Priamus; possibly the most famous descendant for many long years. His family name would be changed three times within his own life and this is a quality which, for good or bad, makes him all the more illustrious among Shirefolk. The name “Swiftwalk”, given to Old Priamus for accomplishing the long march of his kinsmen out of bondage is as well-earned an honorific as one might wish for (as most hobbit names generally are). But hobbits also have a fondness for puns and joke names among their peers which manage to stick, sometimes unfortunately, to their family members and descendants; for at this point in Hobbit culture, the second name your family received was still very much decided by the community and often, as in the case of Isengrim Tinyfoot, the community could be cruel.

   In 1601, when Theudebald returned to the Bree-land, alone and holding the King’s Agreement in his hand, the other hobbits were rightly amazed and, as he had rightly expected, they threw him a party of much magnificence. It was at this affair (though no recording tells us who may have said it first), that his name and that of his whole family had been jokingly changed from “Swiftwalk” to “Swiftalk”. That change shows up on every transaction or affidavit for years after; for as the fortunes of the family change in Shire-culture so do their names.

   But of Gondolpho Bucklestrap we have less information. The name “Bucklestrap” remains an oddity and there is no record of any direct relatives in the Bree-land while he held that name. If Gondo’s ancestors came into the Bree-land in great numbers as Twoody’s did, we do not know. We have no mention of Gondo’s parentage (which seems very uncommon among the genealogy-obsessed hobbits of his day) and only a small entry from Twoody about Gondo’s early involvement in the founding of the Shire suggests a possible origin to the name. This comes from a letter Twoody wrote which seems to come from the year 1592:

   ‘Father is funding Marcho and Blanco to go west and seek trade with the Dwarves. A ridiculous idea! But father reminds me to “always look for new opportunities when they appear inexpensively upon your doorstep.” Neither Blanco or Marcho can write their own account of this journey, so I’ve convinced him to demand that Gondo join them as recorder. O, Gondo is just so restless to journey anywhere that I hope this ill-planned adventure will cure him of that incautious tendency. But he will be our eyes and ears in western exploration for a while, and I know that this will make him happy. He will need to strap and buckle himself to some purpose soon I think, and, shocking though it seems to me, it may be that exploration will suit him best.’

What is also notable here, and has remained an argument amongst hobbits for many long generations after, is the date of this journal entry. If the date is indeed correct does that mean that Marcho and Blanco did not discover the Shire on their own? Is it possible that Gondolpho Bucklestrap set forth with them on that first journey rather than on the second scouting mission of 1596? We do not know. What is known is that on an April morning of 1592 when the twins set out into the west to seek the Dwarves, they did so with provisions and ponies provided to them by Twoody’s own father, Hincmar Swiftwalk, a wealthy innkeeper among the Little People of the Bree-land.

*****

   ‘You are being very inconsiderate and more than a little bull-headed,’ Twoody had told his friend. They had been walking for only about two hours when Gondo had made the wild suggestion that instead of returning home, the two of them should go immediately west together and make the very first hobbitholes in the new land for themselves. Twoody had not cared for this idea at all.

   ‘Why must you be the first at everything?’ Twoody had asked. They were three days already on their way home. Together they had just finished a very pleasant roadside breakfast after a comfortable night’s sleep in the shade of an old yew tree. Walking at their casual pace Twoody could see the Greenway⁶ before them in a great straight ribbon of grass-covered stones and knew that his own cozy bed and hearth in the Bree-land were not far away. Every time the land rose on their left he imagined he would be able to see the crown of Bree-hill through the trees. After six months of adventures at the King’s court, after all that the two friends had accomplished, the comforts of home were uppermost in Twoody’s mind as he walked south along the road. But for his friend Gondo this did not seem to be enough.

   ‘We have secured the king’s grant, Gondo! Think of what that means. All of our folk and families back in the Bree-land will be delighted to hear of it. Why, they will likely throw a party for us both!’ Twoody said. But he could see that Gondo was unmoved by this argument.

   ‘Here is a better plan then,’ Twoody continued, using humour in hope of swaying his friend’s opinion. ‘At this party you may use your new-found position as “Ambassador to the King” to assemble a group of able-bodied and well-supplied workmen to help tame the new land; pioneers to go on with you and build the most spacious holes one might imagine. Think of that! Father will certainly fund the venture and I suspect every hobbit bachelor in all of the Bree-land will form a line under your guidance to settle a place for themselves. Why, they might very well want you to become the Mayor!’

   Gondo remained silent and unmoved, so Twoody tried next to employ logic in his argument.

   ‘But these things, the settlement of new cities and towns, why, they must be organized, Gondo. Deeds and surveying and all of that, so that we might make things fair and ensure that all of our families may find a proper future for themselves. Now we certainly can’t do all of that by ourselves. And not before we’ve gone back to our people in the Bree-land and told them our news and allowed ourselves to be guests at a celebration or two. Why would you leave such happy times and wise planning aside to go grubbing alone in dangerous dirt completely unprotected?’

   ‘Parties are a fine enough thing,’ Gondo had replied calmly, ‘though I dare say we won’t see any in the Bree-land to equal the feasting halls of the King up in Norbury. But, Twoody, for all of your talk, I don’t think that you quite grasp what it is we’ve done. Don’t you see it? Hobbits will now have a land of their own! And for ours to be the first pairs of feet which tromp through our own lands as rightful owners, why, that would be a wonderful thing. To settle into our own hillsides, find our own place with no help from another, can’t you see how wonderful that would be?’

   ‘I should say not,’ Twoody had replied. ‘Do not mistake me; I have enjoyed these travels, and, O, I have seen sights which I had never imagined, most certainly. The great walls of Norbury, sunset and starlight in the King’s own garden, great falls of water over the hillsides and tall horsemen with bright swords and glittering armour. The city of the King is a marvel that I will always be happy to have witnessed and will, I do not doubt, long remember to others.

   ‘But, Gondo, to be honest, I don’t know that I would have any wish to return there any more than I do to become a pioneer. I’m not like you in this way; I’m but a simple hobbit built neither for lavishness nor meagerness. I like a good well-built hole with a comfortable bed and a little bit of garden dug into a nice hillside near a town. A quiet town at that, with a decent inn, a respectable brewer and a capable cook. I have as little patience for pageantry as I do for sleeping out of doors. Why, I’m no knight nor pilgrim nor farmer nor builder-’

   ‘More of a banker,’ Gondo interrupted with his wide gentle smile.

   ‘Well, yes, that is probably so,’ Twoody replied, a bit red-faced but unbowed by his friend’s jibe, ‘though a venture like this will need a fair share of banking wisdom, one would think.’

   There was a long silence between them then, and neither of the friends felt comfortable in breaking it. They had been friends for so very long, as long as their childhood memories could recall, but their time in the King’s court had taught them each how their hopes as grown hobbits had become divergent. Gondo was a seeker, Twoody knew. And Gondo knew that Twoody was not.

   ‘Very well, Twoody,’ Gondo had said at last. ‘If you won’t come with me, then I suppose I shall have to go on by myself.’

   This debate between the two friends had come on the morning of March 24th7 in what would later be called Year One of the Shire-reckoning. Together (and escorted by trustworthy Nob, their pony) they were walking down and homeward along the old North-South road which some six months before had taken these two fortune-seekers to the court of Argleb II, King of the Northern realm. There, through a good deal of honest talking, some ribald singing and even more faithful promise-making, they had won the King’s favor and secured a land in the North which Hobbits might settle and call their own. This was an exceptional feat in all the history of Hobbit-folk and one for which the two should be long remembered. Gondo and Twoody, together and quite on their own, had accomplished an amazing act of diplomacy which many Shirefolk, and even most of their own descendants, would soon forget in light of their later arguments.

   And this little discussion on the Road had indeed been the first real argument of the two friends' long relationship. They were both still young at the time (Twoody’s twenty-fifth birthday was still months away) but in all their years together they had always found differences of opinion to be nothing more than kindling for their better discussions. They had like-minds in many ways; for they both were more inquisitive, more adventurous and a good deal more mischievous than all of their peers in the Bree-land. Each had a keener love of tall stories and practical jokes than other hobbits of their young age, so that when they had set out for the King’s court six months before most of their neighbors had considered their proposal to see the King as nothing more than another jest with an as yet unpredictable punchline. Old Liudolf Truetunnels, a retired builder and one of the oldest hobbits in the Bree-land, had put it best;

   ‘Sure and I see that they mean to be ambassadors for all of us, these two young scoundrels. No ambassador which I ever selected of course, and laughingstocks they’ll more likely make us. But if a great king should come to know hobbits only through their sense of humour, why, I’d say that these two are the better ambassadors than most.’

   As they walked down the Greenway from the king’s court to the Bree-land on March 24th their meeting with the Elves on the western edge of the Shire was still more than three years into their future. On that occasion they would part as friends yet never truly be friends again. But on this morning three years before they argued as all true friends should; with a great desire to explain one’s own mind while never wanting to overrule the other’s opinion.

   ‘Come back with me, Gondo! We could well be home by suppertime tomorrow. Why would you set out alone again?’

   ‘Because, Twoody,’ Gondo had replied, ‘the Bree-land is not our home! Don’t you see that yet?’

   ‘No, I do not. And you will not talk me into sharing your own feelings of restlessness by saying otherwise. I was born under Bree-hill just as all my siblings were. I and my family have made quite a nice little home for ourselves there. It might be a bit small for so many perhaps,’ Twoody had said, looking a bit wistful as he did, ‘but our business at the inn has done well and this new venture will bring great trade through the Bree-la-’

   ‘Trade?’ Gondo had said, stopping them in their walk forward and bringing another long and uncomfortable silence to their discussion. The pony had gone a few paces further before but now, sensing an uncomfortable moment, he stopped as well. If Nob had understood their discussion or somehow perceived the tension between the two friends at this time there was no one present who might listen to his comments on such a thing.

   ‘Twoody,’ Gondo had told him finally, ‘you are right in saying that we have done a very good thing for all Hobbits and not just for ourselves; we have opened new opportunities.

   ‘But, my dear friend, I think you and I view our opportunities very differently,’ he had said.

   And that seemed to be the end of the argument.

*****

   The two friends parted (for a time) the very next morning. There was no further discussion about the reason behind it, but there was much cautious planning about the practicality. Gondo would have liked to take Nob with him, but the animal was loaded down with gifts from the King to the hobbits of Bree-land and Twoody would not be able to manage carrying these parcels home on his own.

   From this fact, employing whatever logic had possessed him in pursuing what Twoody believed was yet another ‘mad escapade’, Gondo had decided that this was some kind of omen for his journey. Twoody’s own journal tells us that his friend took very little as he went west.

   “A canteen, a tinderbox, a walking stick, a quiver and bow, a haversack, a bag of salt for curing, a knife, a small handaxe and a bedroll and, lastly, a small shovel. He made it a point, and a point that I took as some new arrogance, to go forth as spare and uncomfortably provisioned as possible. At first I saw this as a kind of rebuke of my own arguments for comfort, but that came largely out of my anger over his leaving. Alaura has often said that one only had to look into Gondo’s eyes to read his heart’s intention, and this was certainly true on that morning. Gondo wouldn’t be bothered with such pettiness as proving me wrong in some silly argument; his eyes were now completely focused on his road ahead.”

   Twoody had begged him to utilize more of their provisions, for the king had given them bounty enough for travel beyond the new delicacies for sharing with the Breefolk. But Gondo would take none of them.

   ‘I will walk into our open lands like a pilgrim,’ Gondo told Twoody with a smile. ‘And, as a pilgrim, I will live on the belief that the land will provide.’

   ‘It might very well provide you with rain, for which I suggest a small tent should be useful,’ Twoody said crossly. ‘And rain might provide you with a head cold, for which I think that a few pocket handkerchiefs might also be in need. Stars above, Gondo, you don’t even have a hat for your head nor a brush for your feet!’

   ‘I will manage, Twoody,’ his friend said with a laugh and a smile. ‘You mustn’t worry so.’

   ‘Yes, but I do worry and so I shall until I see you again,’ Twoody told him, grasping his friend's arm now that all seemed prepared. ‘Might I convince you to take pen and paper, Gondo?’ he had said. ‘I would dearly love to read all of your discoveries there and more of your maps would certainly prove useful.’

   ‘And I will tell you all of my discoveries on my return,’ Gondo said smiling, grasping Twoody’s shoulder in return, ‘and rather than maps I think I will enjoy myself more by committing my discoveries to vivid memories. Still,’ he paused, weighing an idea in his mind, ‘you bring up an excellent point, Twoody, and a favour I would like to ask of you. Will you please copy for me the document that the king has signed? I should very much like to carry that with me as I go west. Proof that I walk in a land freely given to all hobbits.’

   And Twoody did so, of course.

   The information on the King’s Agreement would change the lives of hobbits throughout the north for the remainder of the Third Age but, for Gondolpho Bucklestrap, shovel and bow in hand, this copied document was a license for freedom and opportunity the likes of which he had never before known.

   One last thing should be said of this hasty and hand-drafted copy which Twoody made; and in all of our Shire records there remains no hard evidence to support this story, for the actual gravesite of Gondolpho Bucklestrap remains unknown and, we should hope, undisturbed. But it is a rather common legend of the Shirefolk that this copy of the King’s Agreement, the one made in his friend’s own hand on the day he set out into the West, remained in Gondo’s pocket well past the end of his days.

*****

   The early settlement of the Shire is to be the principal interest here, but some discussion of other events in the world (which hobbits seldom pay attention to and less seldom play part in) may be necessary to put these histories into their proper context.

   In Year One of the Shire-reckoning, 1601 of the Third Age the Northern realm, formerly called Arnor, had suffered much from war and internal strife, but a cautious peace prevailed. The king whom Twoody and Gondo had met was Argeleb II and he ruled but a fragment of the old northern kingdom of Arnor that was founded by Elendil the Tall in the Second Age of Middle-earth. For many long centuries Arnor was the greatest kingdom of Men and the seat of their power lay in its capital city of Annúminas on the shore of the still waters of Lake Evendim. But seven hundred and fifty years before the rule of Argeleb II his grandsire, the mad king Eärendur, had split Arnor among his three sons, diminishing the strength of that ancient kingdom and bringing terrible loss to their people. Three nations arose then; Arthedain, Rhudaur and Cardolan, and while the lands of the north were seldom free of the squabbles and petty jealousies of these three powers, no open war came of it for many hundreds of years and the other inhabitants of the north were left in relative peace. The Dúnedain these knights and lords and rulers were called, heirs of the Númenórean lines who came with Elendil out of the Sea in the West. Their numbers had dwindled in the north even before Eärendur’s time, yet many of these great knights were assembled in many great castles which were built by the three lesser kingdoms. And, if unsatisfied in their own allegiance, they still set guards and new borders to protect their lands from invaders. For it was said of this time that dark folk, orcs and trolls, bats and wolves, had gone quiet and were drawing north into barren lands under a new and unknown leader. Yet for many a generation within the shattered kingdoms of Arnor no single king arose with the power and foresight to take the measure of this rumour.

   In 1349 of that age such a ruler arose in the kingdom of Arthedain; he was called Argeleb I, great-grandfather to the king who Twoody and Gondo had met, and he was both wise and powerful. The Line of the King had failed in the kingdoms of Rhudaur and Cardolan and so Argeleb I, believing himself to be the last heir to the ancient line of Elendil, tried to reunite the three nations. Rhudaur, to the east, did not answer Argeleb’s call. They had sundered contact with their brother nations some years before and some folk said dark ceremonies were practiced there as had not been seen since the fall of Númenor. For a time all ties were cut between the three nations by Argeleb’s bold claim and soon after border skirmishes began. Rhudaur and Arthedain were in open war along the Weathered Hills and Cardolan, eventually recognizing Rhudaur to be the greater threat and accepting Argeleb’s authority, joined this warfare as well. Great battles were fought from the North Downs to the Weathered Hills not fifty miles from Bree-hill, but neither side had the resources to advance any further. Then, in 1356, Argeleb I fell in battle and his son was named and seated as Arveleg I, eighth king of Arthedain and heir to Elendil.

   This was two hundred and fifty years before Gondo and Twoody had gone to Fornost Erain (Norbury as hobbits called it) to petition the king.

   Arveleg, grandfather of the king who Gondo and Twoody met, was a mighty king and held the borders of the lands while wisely cementing ties between himself and his allies. He wed Tinnien, daughter of a great house in Cardolan and he sent their son, Araphor, to live amongst the Elves of Lindon in the west and to be raised in the house of Círdan the Shipwright. With the full support of Cardolan and the aid of the Elves, Arveleg managed to drive the enemies out of the Weathered Hills and kept a guarded border there and on the East Road and the lower part of the river Hoarwell. This watch lasted over a dozen years and then, in 1409 of the Third Age, a dark, cold winter came to the northlands.

   For it was then that the Witch-king of Angmar declared himself openly and his first great host poured forth from his red castle of Carn Dûm. Goblins and Dark Men, Bats and Wolves, Drakes and Trolls followed his black banner and Rhudaur, if ever truly free of his grasp, fell in a day. West the Witch-king came in force and the fortresses in the Weather hills were taken and even the great watchtower of Amon Sûl was destroyed. This was a great loss to all the North as the tower had stood since Elendil’s day and it held the palantír of Amon Sûl, one of the Seeing Stones of the Númenóreans. But while the tower was completely destroyed the Stone itself was recovered, and that story is told elsewhere.⁸

   South the armies of the Witch-king went next, to take the petty kingdom of Cardolan. Arveleg I was slain defending against this onslaught and all of his forces were routed. Cardolan was overrun and lost, all their cities burned and destroyed. Some people escaped into the forests of the southwest and some others managed to hold the sacred barrows of Tyrn Gorthad and to escape from that place by other secret means.⁹

   To the north only the great fortress of Fornost Erain held against the onslaught. They lay besieged for many months until Mid-summer of that dark year, when the armies of the Elves came forth.

   Only eighteen years of age, Araphor, the son of Arveleg I, was now the king of Arthedain and recognized by the Elves as High King of all the Dúnedain. He rode with a great host of the Elves of Lindon to break the siege of Fornost Erain and gather the remaining armies of the North People under his banner. Meanwhile and unexpectedly, two much larger Elven armies came from the west by the Ford of Bruinen and from the south over the bridge at Tharabad. These were led by the great lords Elrond of Rivendell and Amroth of the Golden Realm. Against such forces no Orcish army would stand and, by the end of 1410 the Witch-king had fallen back to Carn Dûm, his dark fortress in the barren north. But even the great Elf-lords considered that fortress to be unassailable and so began the long watchful peace in the Northlands. Many Elves returned to their homes after a time and, with Rhudaur and Cardolan utterly destroyed and many old lines of the Dúnedain ended, Arthedain became the last of the northern kingdom to maintain the watch.

   Araphor, being of the true line of Elendil, lived one-hundred and ninety-eight years and his heir, Argeleb II, took rule of the North Kingdom in 1589 of the Third Age. What he knew (or cared) of Hobbits before Gondo and Twoody had walked boldly through his front gate is unknown. What is certain is that Argeleb had the wisdom and foresight of his sires and he knew that one day the Witch-king would rise again in the northeast and that all his attention and his might must be focused there. The lands to the south which Gondo and Berty had come to discuss had been unpeopled and untended for some time. But the old Dwarf Road there was still very necessary for bringing allies like the Elves of Lindon. Like his father before him, the king knew that great strength and hope still lay in the West and would not let the Road go undefended.

   Some say Argeleb II perceived a greatness in these Little Folk that no one else would notice for over a thousand years. Others say that he was so desperate in the watching of his borders that he gave away rich and fertile lands on a whim. But there is no one who doubts that the foresight of Argeleb II was a major development in the long battle against Sauron the Enemy and helped to bring about the concluding moment of the Third Age in which hobbits of the Shire would play such a great part in that battle.

end of chapter one

Chapter End Notes

Notes

1)  Careful readers may see that from the start I have deviated somewhat from the text in regard to Marcho and Blanco within my own story. In the interest of creating unique characters for this tale I have pushed the role of the two brothers to something more mythic; they are credited here with the discovery of the land but never given the spotlight that their later reputation would suggest. Certainly by Bilbo and Frodo’s time they are given greater credit than I afford them. This is because a theme within this work is the effect of rumour and gossip upon history and myth. In LoTR (“Concerning Hobbits”) Tolkien writes, “for it was in the one thousand six hundred and first year of the Third Age that the Fallohide brothers, Marcho and Blanco, set out from Bree; and having obtained permission from the high king at Fornost, they crossed the brown river Baranduin with a great following of Hobbits.” But Tolkien says little of the two brothers beyond this and I’ve chosen to explore, and sometimes lampoon, these characters within my own telling of the history.

2)  The description here is meant as a parallel of Hengest and Horsa, the legendary founders of Britain. There are earlier attempts in Tolkien’s writing to equate the map of Middle-earth with our own world and, while he abandoned this idea eventually, the myth of the two brothers who founded the Shire is definitely born from that kind of thinking.

3)  So this is another bend meant to divert the reader from what we know. I have found no direct support in the letters that Marcho and Blanco were indeed Fallohides but instead “of the Fallohide stock." In fact Tolkien mentions that most of the first Shire-hobbits were Harfoots. I wanted, within this story, to make a greater distinction between the Fallohides and other hobbits and so treat Marcho and Blanco’s mysterious origins a bit differently. You’ll need to bear with me to find out why.

4)  Fans will, of course, know that Shire-hobbits by the end of the Third Age become adults at 33. I suggest that at this time, living among the Big Folk and faced with greater hardships, Bree-hobbits came of age much earlier.

5)  This date is selected because it is the same as when Bilbo, in 2941, would set out after the dwarves, 1349 years later.

6)  Gondo and Twoody are at this time traveling south from their meeting with the king in Fornost Erain along the “Great North-South Road” which once joined the kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor. But by this time it had long fallen to scarce use and been renamed “the Greenway”.

7)  My intention in selecting this date was to imply that the signing of the King’s Agreement may have happened on the fifteenth of March, the same date as the battle of Pelennor and so that the announcement of the Agreement would come out on March 25th, “Tolkien Reading Day.”

8)  That story is not told elsewhere, but I would like to think it may be. This is another one of the little pockets of interest I often discover for myself in writing fan fiction; I wonder how the Tower fell but the Stone was saved and that interest seems enough to me that I might wish to develop it into a story someday. After all, I never meant to be writing about the Shire when I started this whole thing. Now look where it's gone. “Be careful going out your door, Frodo...”

9)  Part of this is told in my longer tale, The Fall of Arnor.

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   For factual accounts regarding the first hobbits to settle the Shire, most of what we know can be found in the historical records and letters, the broadsheets, affidavits and the work journals of Alaura Fairheart which were left behind at the Great Smials. Alaura was a legend in her own right and another subject of much argument for generations of gossipaceous hobbits long after her death. Biographies and songs recounting Alaura’s marriages and her ten children (and the choices she would make for each of these in the years to come) would lend a luster of scandal to her reputation that is scarcely found in the surviving documents written in her own hand. In examining history one must never mistake the documentation of gossip for the truth. But we must admit that any clearer picture of this great personage comes through what was said about her by others; for there is very little personal information in any of the documents which she herself left behind.

   We know that Alaura was the ninth child of Isengrim Tinyfoot, that she was born in the Bree-land in 1580 of the Third Age and, despite the illiteracy of her parents and many of her elder siblings, she was a prolific and gifted writer from the age of twelve. How she came to learn this skill is not known but, as we shall see, it put her in much demand during the founding of the Shire. Many hours of her adult life in the settlements along the frontier of that new land were dedicated to keeping records of new buildings, the opening of new businesses, the arrival of new families and, of course, the births of new hobbit children. In fact it was Alaura who drew many of the earliest family histories which other Shirefolk have kept such a tidy accounting of through the long centuries after her death. She held more than a few official titles in her lifetime (and a few unsavory nicknames after her death) but she unquestionably played a key role in the establishment of postal routes, the formation of schools, and the dissemination of Shire-news. There are, in fact, very few surviving official accounts of Shire culture from its founding to her death in 1637 (S.R. 36) that did not originate in the fine and delicate hand of Alaura Fairheart.

   During her own time (and for many generations after) it was believed that Alaura wrote many, many other documents, undiscovered and reputedly destroyed, which revealed her own thoughts on her neighbors, her lovers, her hopes for the future, and her despair about the government of the new nation which she saw growing around her. She was quite outspoken on such topics in her lifetime and there are few of her contemporaries who believe that she reserved her opinions to her few published books, copied broadsheets or friendly letters. But if another more personal set of diaries or letters by Alaura did outlive her (as many hobbits have claimed) they are not yet found. Therefore her own private thoughts about the conflicts which surrounded the latter part of her life must, sadly, remain lacking from any honest recounting of this history. We are instead left with only the idle gossip of such things as found in the folklore written by others.

   In the work which Alaura has left us her voice as a documentarian is clear and concise, often lyrical in her descriptive passages, but always frank and uncompromising:

   “For comfortable rooms made in frontier places are like a masterpiece,” she once wrote in a letter commending the services of a carpenter, “and masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of people thinking in common, of a thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass conception of comfort is to be found behind the single voice of the craftsman.¹

  “How then should we think of a cozy bathhouse, a shade-covered town well, the orderly fences of a livery or the clean paving stones surrounding a market? Are these not also the made-to-order masterpieces of our community? Praise should be given to the craftsperson, the worker and the custodian who make our comforts from their own designs and their innate understanding of our needs, rather than our demands.”

   Despite the important role she played as the main recorder of the early development of the Shire, Alaura is better known to later generations through the literature and tales of her three marriages, her ten children and her own untimely death. Her life was the subject of numerous later biographical novels which the hobbits were so fond of and, for a time, her notoriety outstripped that of even her famous brothers Marcho and Blanco. That she, like them, was born with their father’s name of “Tinyfoot” is certainly found in records of the hobbits who lived in the Bree-land. There are some who believe she may have taken her famous brothers’ name of “Pudifoot” upon her own entrance to the Shire in the early months of 1602 or, perhaps, the name of her first husband. But this is unsupported by any documentation. Whether or not she ever took the name of either of her husbands remains unknown, but the name “Fairheart” that she, yet none of her children, bore seems to have been given to her on the occasion of the eventful summer of 1630 (Year Twenty-nine of the Shire-reckoning).

   It was Alaura herself who first gave new names to the Shire-calendar and, moreover, established the name “Shire” itself. Her brothers, whom history credits with discovering the land, and even Gondo and Twoody, who had petitioned the king, had no name for it prior to 1601. In speaking with the king, Twoody had used the Westron word “Sûza-t,"² but of course this meant only “the land” and had no specialized meaning nor held any special attraction for the early settlers.

   How did a young doe from an impoverished family, only twenty-one at the time, come to such a position within the early development of the Shire as to name it and become its chief recorder? It seems that much of the early history of the Shirefolk and the feud which later existed between its two greatest families can be centered around this question.

   For it is well documented that on March 26th of 1601, after his friend Gondolpho Bucklestrap had run off to dig the first hobbithole of the Shire, Theudebald Swifwalk came to the house of Isengrim Tinyfoot with the King’s Agreement in hand and that it was Alaura, of all people, who was the first in the Bree-land to read it.

*****

   In defense of his bravery it should be noted that Twoody knew exactly the tongue-lashing he might be in for on that day of his return. He was showing up at Alaura’s father’s doorstep alone and without his friend Gondo, quite unexpected and with no advance warning, a full six months after they had departed on their mission north and with no advance letter of his return or his intentions. Twoody thus found himself unannounced, unescorted, unexpected and quite unlooked-for; four qualities of a visitor that are generally considered unwelcome in good hobbit society. But he took some comfort in the fact that he was not “under-stocked” and therefore making a fifth (and likely final) insult toward his host. Nob’s saddlebags still held many fine delicacies and unique items which might ease the tension between Twoody and the famously gruff patriarch of the Tinyfoot family. Assuming old Isengrim would let him in.

   If Alaura’s father was surprised to see Twoody and Nob coming up the hill at this late hour, Twoody himself did not see it on the older hobbit’s face- nor did he expect to. Isengrim Tinyfoot, known for his squinting watchful eyes as much as his bristling ear hairs and stern manners, had already come to the gate as Twoody and the pony approached from down the lane and, with his usual polite gruffness, the old hobbit stated his position on this unexpected arrival:

   ‘So. You are back at least, as anyone can plainly see, though you’ve missed our dinner time, as you should have expected. Unannounced is unprepared-for, as you well know, and I’ve nothing finer than a few crusts and an ale to offer you, little master Swiftwalk, on your auspicious return. For we don’t set aside preserves for unexpected guests here, as you’ll remember.’

   ‘I do, sir,’ Twoody said, looking into the unblinking face that met him with such stern appraisal. ‘And I would never wish to put you or your preserves out of sorts with my own thoughtless tardiness. I’ve brought ample delicacies with me on my return,’ Twoody offered, touching the packs hanging on Nob’s saddle, ‘should foreign fare prove of any interest to you.’ This met with no discernible response from the old sour-face, which Twoody took as both positive and hopeful a sign. He wisely let the silence hang there for a moment and then, smiling against the other hobbit’s steady glare, he went on: ‘Though I would be glad for the familiar taste of good Bree-land ale if it is to be had.’

   ‘It is, just as I’ve offered,’ Alaura’s dark-faced father answered, keeping up his usual manner of hostile cordiality, ‘and I suspect you’d like to speak with my daughter as well. Is that right?’

   There was then another moment, all too familiar and normally all too frightening for Twoody, which passed between these two. Since their youth Twoody and Gondo had been friends with the Tinyfoots, going years back to when Alaura was still a baby and Isengrim was very much considered the meanest old hobbit in town. All other hobbit children feared Isengrim and many townspeople, including the Big Folk, avoided the disdainful old blacksmith as best they could. But Twoody and Gondo were reckless children and they had made fast friends from a young age with Marcho and Blanco, Isengrim’s twin sons. Twoody and Gondo had been to the Tinyfoot hole on Bree-hill many times over the years to visit the brothers and, eventually, to spend their evenings with Alaura who, as she grew in age, had become their greatest friend. As Marcho and Blanco became interested in other things the three fellows, Twoody and Gondo and Alaura, had talked and played and planned for their futures; building wild ideas and bolstering one another’s dreams there on the western side of Bree-hill. All of that had happened as far as they might manage from under the watchful eyes of Alaura’s feary father Isengrim Tinyfoot.

   But things had changed in these past six months. Now the friendship which Twoody and Gondo shared with the old hobbit’s elder (and summarily disinherited) sons was about to bring an almost impossible fortune from which all of their families in the Bree-land might benefit. Twoody could see great prospects ahead for himself and his friends and all of the hobbits of their community. So as much as he might have quailed at the sharp and distrustful eye of Isengrim Tinyfoot in the past, Twoody knew that in this moment he alone carried a very great future for all hobbits, everyone of them, on a fragile piece of paper under his left arm in his travel-stained haversack; and that he, Theudebald Swifwalk, was now a hobbit of some accomplishment.

   If he was prouder now than he had ever been before and if, in that pride, he may have felt troubled to be looked at by the old hobbit so suspiciously, Twoody did not show it. He was also smarter now than when he last met Alaura’s formidable father and much more sure of himself. After all, Twoody had met with the king and many great knights and lords and so did not quaver as easily as once he may have.

   If he was some other hobbit, one made too proud from his accomplishments, perhaps Twoody would have dismissed this suspicious look from his friends’ father as disrespectful of the new station which he believed was the due of his success. But he was not so vain as that, nor so misunderstanding. Nor was he so insensitive and short-sighted. He could see somehow that on that day the measure of Isengrim’s gaze went deeper than it had in the past. In asking “I suspect you’d like to speak to my daughter?” there was something less appraising and yet more agreeable and decisive to be heard in the old hobbit’s tone.

   And (being quite honest to himself as he came alone and without Gondo beside him) Twoody could think of no one he wanted to share the news of his success with other than Alaura Tinyfoot.

   He stared up into the unrelenting eyes of Isengrim, her father, as if he was somehow making new and unspoken intentions clear.

   ‘I do, sir,’ Twoody told the sharp-eyed old man, surprised at himself for saying it without embarrassment or shyness. ‘Alaura will, I think, be very happy with much of the news I bring.’

*****

   Isengrim Tinyfoot had built his hobbithole and blacksmith shop just far enough uphill, it was said, to make his clients struggle to visit him and easy enough for him to bring his wares down for sale. Twoody believed that there had indeed been just this kind of motive in Isengrim’s choosing of his home and both he and Gondo had often (secretly, of course) praised the old hobbit for his cleverness. Successful as he was as a blacksmith, Isengrim wanted very little to do with most of the townsfolk and had a good many detractors who felt similarly about him. Few people of the Bree-land ever came to the home of Isengrim Tinyfoot. But Twoody and Gondo, as a frequent visitors since their youth, knew something which was not said often enough about the spacious home of the Tinyfoots’ high on Bree-hill; for few people talked about how lovely the garden was and, on this early evening in late March, how beautiful the view was to be as Twoody and Alaura would sit there and look west to the setting of the Sun.

   After his gruff but complacent greeting Isengrim had sent Twoody to wait for his daughter in the gardenhouse. This arrangement was not new to either of them, as most of the meetings between Twoody, Gondo, Alaura and even Marcho and Blanco had always happened there. Twoody thanked the old hobbit for his kindness, tied the pony Nob to the gatepost and took a small saddlebag with him down the familiar pathway towards the west.

   Before Alaura had come out (bearing two very large mugs of Bree-land ale with her when she did) Twoody had time to sit calmly at the familiar wrought iron garden table. For the first time in months, he felt quite content. He could not remember if he had ever been properly invited inside the Tinyfoots’ home but he had many wonderful memories of nights spent here in the gardenhouse; warm summer evenings with the lights of the windows of the Bree-land coming up below them while the last setting of the sun still shone here, high on the west side of Bree-hill, bathing the garden in the last fiery gleam of the day.

   The structure of the gardenhouse consisted of a large round wooden platform set beside the steeper edge of the hillside. The floor of this platform was keenly placed and precisely level, standing on great brick columns and near to a window which looked out of the Tinyfoots’ hobbithole and toward the garden planted below. From the brick columns a collection of five iron posts, braided, rounded and floral in their design while clearly solid in their support, held aloft the canopy of the gardenhouse. There the posts drew thin near the top, and their individual braidlines splayed out and shot back and forth from one pillar to the other forming a delicate domed lattice of complex lines, open to the sky but granting strength and support to the garden which it had become a part of.

   Here is where Alaura’s mother, Celedine Tinyfoot, had shown her skills. In the stories of the Bree-hobbits who knew her Celedine was, by all accounts, quite an accomplished gardener and, though few of her neighbors had made it past Isengrim’s front-gate grumblings to see her work, legend has it that those Breelanders who did considered it a very rare treat indeed. Over the elaborate iron gazebo structure which her husband had built, Celedine had done some of her best work; ivies climbed the rounded pillars giving way to flowering plants, climbers too, that twined amid the supported ironwork of the ceilings allowing shade at noon-time that was broken by dappled light. Great fragrances came there with the winds in the morning and golden light and colour followed at the end of day. Mosses were planted near the floor’s edge and creeped down the brick columns to the main path and the lane, which remained carefully maintained (though it occurred to Twoody as he waited that he had never seen Alaura’s mother do any gardening in all of the days he had known her).

   He remembered winter mornings when the friends would meet here, stomping their feet to keep away the chill and then, with bright dawn on the hill, go running down into the settlement of the Bree-land, and seek wild activities in the warmer waking places below. Golden evenings and misty mornings Twoody had spent in the peace of Celedine’s garden. Great flowering bushes and short hedges here rimmed a world of textural delight which flooded Twoody’s mind with soft warm memory. He waited there calmly for a short time before Alaura appeared and, in those moments, Twoody felt more at home than he could ever remember.

   Just a week before, Twoody and Gondo had been treated to a small banquet in the King’s own gardens in Norbury. The grounds were vast and impressive and held plants and flowers which he had never seen before; and the garden sat high above the castle walls, much much higher than Twoody stood now in the Tinyfoots’ garden, so that the light from the west had filled the great lawns and trees and trestle-flowers there with colors Twoody had never imagined; and at the time he thought it must be the most beautiful place he had seen in all the world.

   But sitting here in Celedine Tinyfoot’s humble hillside garden with rows of the Bree-land’s most beautiful flowers around and below, waiting for the moment when Celedine’s daughter Alaura would join him, Twoody thought this place to be more beautiful still.

   He heard her before she arrived of course, for Alaura Tinyfoot was by no means as quiet or as light-footed as most hobbits are renowned to be. A tempest seemed to surround and announce her whenever she came. Always she blustered around her family; ‘Ooch, don’t be telling me where he is, Da! As if you’ve ever let a friend inside the door of this great dark hole of yours!’ She was forever rustling with too many things at hand; ‘I can hardly bring these great huge mugs that you’ve offered, my own notebooks, a pen, a washing bin, a few towels and a decent enough snack all on my own now can I?’ And then, of course, there was the usual tripping and unwatchful walking of Alaura’s own clumsy and long-striding step; ‘Ooof! Now who put that new paving stone in at such an incredulous angle?’

   Twoody smiled calmly and at peace in the garden as he awaited the familiar gust of energy that was his friend Alaura. But he was quite unprepared for her when she arrived.

   The Sun was setting into Her fiery gold display and Alaura was dressed to match. She had come from the side door below the gardenhouse, a large serving tray wobbling in her hands, like a black silhouette moving awkwardly along the path in front of the great ball of fire behind her. All around her movements the flowers glowed red and golden in the light: snap-dragons and sunflowers, and nasturians trailing all over the turf walls and peeping in at the fence gates.³ As she moved forward and away from the Sun, the mystery of her silhouette revealed in the day’s last light, Twoody saw her in both memory and as if for the first time.

   Alaura’s hair had always been darker than any hobbit’s in the Bree-land. Many Stoors who had started coming here up from the south had very dark hair of course, but Alaura’s was jet black and, Twoody noted now, as lustrous as a river stone. Her skin had always been pale, for Alaura was not much for long hikes or unimportant travels, but with the bright gold of the Sun behind her bared arms, her neck and collarbone, she now seemed, at end of day, morning fresh to Twoody’s eyes; creamy and inviting; warm yellow and pinks in highlights yet, in shadows, soft and cool in color and Twoody suspected that if he could touch the skin around her eyes and along the side of her slightly upturned nose it might feel like the comfort of shade one feels on the cool side of a tree on a too-hot afternoon.

   Female hobbits, “does” as they are called, of the Bree-land had only recently adopted the custom of wearing dresses. In their earlier travels in the wild, short pants and kilts had been more practical for both of the sexes of these formerly nomadic people. But the Big Folk of the Bree-land were more gender-defined by clothing and the hobbits, doing their best to fit in, had tried to keep up.

   Alaura was not, or hadn’t been before this time, one of these complacent trend-followers. For all the years of their lives Twoody had seen Alaura only in pants, uncollared shirts and, occasionally, vests like her brothers wore. She had often said that, “dresses are for townspeople and I will need a good sturdy pair of britches when finally I walk my way out of this stifling place.” Twoody thought that was brilliant. He had no such dream of ever leaving the Bree-land himself of course (well, not before thinking of it just in that moment), but, from a very young age, Alaura had found, in dress, her own way of telling everyone around her that she was dissatisfied and ready to move on. To him, her choice of pants was just one more bold statement of her indomitability.

   As she walked out of the Sun and around to meet him, Twoody could see that Alaura, for the first time he could remember, was wearing a cream-coloured gown with golden lace at cuff and collar and a narrow belt of tooled leather decorated in gold: and the Sun shone upon it like an accomplice; bright glimmers of gold thread shimmered before his eyes as they rested in the cream-coloured shadows of her figure. he watched the dress sway, warm and golden tones meeting cool and comforting shadows like the fading sunlight at the end of day.

   It is also to his credit that while he saw his friend Alaura then in a new way Twoody would try not to think nor ever openly speak of this moment for many years to come.

   Three years later he would be saying good-bye to Gondo on the western edge of the land they had settled together.

   Seven years after that it would be his job to declare Gondo legally dead and take on his friend’s responsibilities.

   He would, in all those long years to come of his life in the Shire, do only what he thought was best; being both honest and loyal to his family and his friends.

   But he would never forget that moment of watching Alaura Fairheart as she came to him on Bree-hill at sunset in her dress of cream and gold and the cool contours of its shadows around her body.

   What Alaura herself may have said or thought about her friend Twoody in these early years of the Shire’s development has, sadly, been lost to us. But in an edition of “THE SHIRE-RECKONING” dated Springtime, Year Thirty-six (and coming many years after her last official writings in that or any other journal of record), Alaura Fairheart said this of Twoody before his upcoming election to the new office of Shire-president;

   IF one believes that a ‘PERSON OF AUTHORITY’ is truly needed within the boundaries of THE SHIRE then there could be NO PERSON BETTER SUITED to any such position as THEUDEBALD SWIFTALK. AS many readers are ALL TOO AWARE, I am by NO MEANS IMPARTIAL in saying this. While he is EVER A FRIEND to many of you, there is ONLY ONE PERSON in all THE SHIRE who may know him BETTER THAN I. We were CONSTANT COMPANIONS since the days of my youth and I HAVE KNOWN AND LOVED this GENTLE HOBBIT through ALL THE LONG YEARS OF OUR LIVES. He is HONEST AND TRUE and possesses a KEEN INTELLIGENCE which places FAIRNESS ABOVE ALL ELSE. Those qualities alone should COMMEND HIM to the MANY ROLES OF PUBLIC OFFICE he has played in the SHIRE’S YET-YOUNG HISTORY.

   SO IF one does believe that ELECTING a responsible ‘PERSON OF AUTHORITY’ is truly the NEXT STEP IN THE HISTORY OF OUR LAND and the current EMERGENCY then it would be hard to understand the choice of ANY OTHER hobbit; for even the BRIEFEST EXAMINATION of OUR HISTORY reveals that THEUDEBALD SWIFTALK, SIGNER OF THE KING’S AGREEMENT, has been a PUBLIC SERVANT, sometimes unwillingly, LONGER THAN ANYONE.

   ‘ORGANIZED PEOPLE NEED FAITHFUL LEADERS, Alaura,’ he said to me DECADES AGO in one of our SPIRITED POLITICAL DEBATES and I am quite CERTAIN that I DID NOT AGREE with him then BUT GROW LESS CERTAIN ABOUT THAT DISAGREEMENT now. THE SHIRE HAS CHANGED MUCH within my lifetime and, though I am still unsettled by saying this, PROTECTING OUR DREAMS OF THE SHIRE FOR MY CHILDREN will likely require LAWS AND LEADERSHIP to UPHOLD THE VALUE of AGREEMENTS AND OLD-FASHIONED NEIGHBOURLY KINDNESS.

   IF THERE is indeed going to be a ‘PERSON OF AUTHORITY’ to LEAD US THROUGH THESE CURRENT DARK TIMES and into THE FUTURE OF THE SHIRE than there is NO BETTER CHOICE FOR THIS ROLE than THEUDEBALD SWIFTALK; for there is no hobbit MORE KIND, MORE FAIR and, above all, MORE FAITHFUL.

*****

   ‘Whatever do you mean “he’s gone on ahead”?’ Alaura asked. ‘What could that possibly mean, Twoody? Ahead to where I might guess at, but ahead to what is the thing that I’d like to know more of. And, ooh, angry and impatient as I am seeing that look of bafflement on your face, I certainly wonder at why you would ever let him do such a thing.’

   ‘“Let him do such a thing?”’ Twoody replied, ‘Alaura, when has anyone ever, any where or at any time, allowed or disallowed Gondo from doing whatever he pleases?’

   Their first words together were of Gondo, of course. Where was he? And how could Twoody have let him go off alone? Coming back after six months away was certainly a surprise enough, but no one had expected that Twoody might, after so much time venturing into the unknown, come back alone.

   ‘He wanted to be the first, Alaura,’ Twoody continued, ‘and so he went forth with little more than a shovel in his hand so that he might prove his point. This is how he is, of course. You know this just as you know there’s not much point in trying to reason with him when he sets his mind on such a thing.’

   Alaura had been looking at Twoody earnestly, hoping for some better answer, but now she looked away angrily, as if he would not offer her the boon she had asked for. She sat next to him there at the wrought iron table, her body facing south as his own position faced him east. She looked into her lap, her face in shadow, and he saw the luster of her dark hair as it was lit by the distant Sun. Then her head rose impatiently and turned looking west. Maybe she looked into the land where Gondo now traveled, for that too was west of where they sat together. Maybe she looked towards something further and still unknown. Twoody saw the light gather there on her face and, for a strange moment, found himself distracted by the luster which the failing Sun gave to her searching eyes.

   And then she took a slow drink from her own mug, waiting, still looking west. Twoody’s breath caught and escaped in a way he had never before been so aware of. The failing sunlight danced upon the garden as the silence hovered between them both. Two loud and hesitant breaths from Twoody. Three.

   ‘He is not one for instruction, that is to be sure,’ Alaura said finally, still looking away from Twoody’s face.

   There remained then a long quiet pause between them before things moved forward. It was, unsurprisingly, Alaura who started them talking again.

   ‘Now tell me about this king you have met, Twoody,’ she said excitedly, turning back to engage him once again. ‘A king! How very grand and glorious for you! To have met a king! Was he taller than the usual Big Folk? Oh, I do hope that you will tell me this is so, or you will simply crush all of my faith in the quantifiable traditions of patriarchy and nobility. If fathers, hobbit or no, should be tall to lead families then most certainly kings should be even taller to lead nations. With only the silly old Bree-land mayor Glam Appledore as my local example of lordly stature, I should think that a king of the Northlands must be a veritable giant to merit all of his reported regalness.’

   ‘All of the lords and knights of Norbury were very tall indeed,’ Twoody replied, smiling and laughing to hear her humour return. ‘They are people from out-of-the-Sea, it is said, taller and wiser than any Appledore or Bristleberry you’d meet here in the Bree-land. And they wore great longswords all the time, even at the dinnertable!’

   ‘Such showmanship!’ Alaura laughed. ‘And do they then feed one another with these long sharpened poinards? Some symbolic act of their leal service to place a venison steak in their king’s mouth from sword point, perhaps? Oh, I should love to have seen such noble silliness!’

   ‘Well, I should not make such a sport of their customs, for they are at war, Alaura,’ Twoody said, taking on a more serious tone. ‘They are still besieged in the east, they say.’

   ‘Did they say that?’ She returned with an equal seriousness which Twoody thought might still be a further jest. ‘Their old Witch-king, two hundred or more years in his office, must also be very tall indeed to have been such a worrisome threat for so long. We don’t hear many tales up here on Bree-hill as your father might while minding his inn, Twoody, but do your friends say that the eastern hills are still a danger? A very good thing for us to be going west, I should think.’

   ‘Alaura,’ Twoody said smiling, ‘must you make a joke of everything?’

   ‘Hmmn,’ she replied. ‘You may be right, Twoody. I suppose that sort of attitude just won’t do for proper pioneers like us. I shall have to amend it. Now let me see this wonderful document that you’ve been carrying!’

*****

   There was indeed a great celebration held in the Bree-land three days later honoring Twoody and Gondo (although the latter hobbit was, of course, still absent). It was held at Twoody’s father’s own place of business, the Inn of the Four Greenfields, beside the old Clock-tower and, so it is recorded, hobbits came from miles around to attend. But it did not happen immediately or without some small planning, for many of the hobbits in the region had no idea of the fortune which had been laid upon them by the king. It took the pen of Alaura Tinyfoot to explain it to them all.

   Alaura had not only been the first reader of the King’s Agreement but had also translated it into the plainer speech of the Breefolk on a very large sheet of paper in bold letters for all to see. This “big copy” was posted in the commonroom of the Four Greenfields the very next morning, the 27th of March in our calendar, after her meeting with Twoody and very soon all of the town was talking of it. In large red letters from her own graceful hand Alaura had written the important and provocative headline; “THE KING HAS GIVEN THE LAND OF THE SHIRE TO ALL HOBBIT-FOLK.” This did cause a tremendous amount of questions amongst the Breelanders, by now a community of two different Peoples, as to just why this gift was made exclusively to the Little Folk, an issue which would take some months (and for others, many generations) to resolve.

   Within her translation of the King’s Agreement was the first proper naming of “The Shire,” and that seemed to stick with all of the Breelanders in their debates and to carry down for many, many generations. Big Folk or hobbit, no one ever suggested another name for that land to suit it better.

   After the “big copy” was posted Twoody and Alaura spent that whole second day of his return answering questions in the commonroom of the Four Greenfields and it is from this extended session that the very first newspaper of the Northern Realm was created.

   Alaura and Twoody had worked long into the night to produce the “big copy” of the King’s Agreement and were therefore all the more frustrated by so many questions before breakfast on the following day; it seems that Breelanders for miles around had heard the rumour of Twoody’s return, of a great change which his journey brought and so many hobbit-folk had, inquisitive as always, gathered in the town to hear more. Twoody was called upon to describe his journeys and the halls of the King and many other details, and he did this as cheerfully as possible, repeating himself many times over the course of the long day. But Alaura, eyes to the future as always, felt that the real job was not to tell first-hand accounts to idle locals but to inform as many hobbits as possible about the new opportunities open to them. Shrewd as ever in discovering chances, she collected every visitor who knew their letters and sorted the useful ones among them into two important groups; readers and writers. To the readers she gave a simple one page document which she had written that recounted the facts of the King’s Agreement and what hobbits might do to seize the opportunity. After she completed the “big copy” the night before Alaura had worked for a few more hours writing these shorter, smaller copies of her translation of the document. Now she could send all the readers she could find forth as quickly as possible to spread the word (once each potential reader’s many questions had been answered and they had put a stable breakfast under their belt for a long day’s walking). Alaura was young and, at this point in her life, not very familiar with many of the townsfolk. But she very judiciously had chosen from the hobbits she met that morning all those who were most gregarious and who might take the information furthest and speak about it with the greatest clarity.

   As her own handwritten copies of the Agreement quickly dwindled in this way, Alaura chose those other hobbits with the greatest skill in penmanship to aid her further. From the crowd assembled at the Four Greenfields who had the skill of writing (a much smaller set of her neighbors, to be sure) Alaura set a greater task. With the support of Twoody’s father she sat them in a back room of the inn with ink and paper with the job of making as many copies of the text as they may in short notice. In this way other readers could spread the word to hobbits in every settlement east and south of the Bree-land.

   How many copies of this first reportage were made is unknown, but it is said they circulated among the hobbits of the Northlands for many years, eventually finding their way pressed into family diaries of the Shire’s earliest settlers. When more news came regarding the settlement of the Shire and as more questions were asked new reports were made which circulated in the same way.

   Most historians (or people interested in such historical topics) agree that the beginning of the Shire as a community was built through this written outreach, an early sort of newspaper which Shire-hobbits, under Alaura Fairheart’s sole direction, would build upon later.

   In bold red letters across the top of these hand-written documents were the words; “THE SHIRE-RECKONING.”

   No records exist to inform us of the number of hobbits living in the Bree-land in 1601 of the Third Age. But the land grants, titles, deeds, the recording of early schoolhouse and postoffice allocations, the notes regarding the development of settlements and the laying of roadways, the genealogical trees and the taxation records, most of which are written in Alaura’s own hand or in Twoody’s, suggest that as many as 4,000 hobbits entered into the Shire during its first five years to lay a claim to the land which the King’s Agreement had promised them. They came from the Bree-land and many other places; for a home had been made for hobbits in the North Kingdom and the word of that had been spread quickly. Hobbits came in droves to seize the opportunity and many of them held that paper with its bold headline “THE SHIRE-RECKONING”, written by Alaura Fairheart or her accomplices, in their pockets as they came.

   Whatever legends of conquest and discovery surrounded her brothers Marcho and Blanco there is little doubt that the Shire was eventually taken and settled through the bold and hopeful writing of Alaura Fairheart.

   And many historians are sorry to report that, through her later entanglements, she receives so little credit for her many great accomplishments.

end of chapter two

Chapter End Notes

Notes

1)  The first portion of this little Easter egg is a quote (slightly mangled) from Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own.” In imagining Alaura’s character and personality as a writer, Woolf came immediately to my mind. For Alaura needs to be a fiercely independent voice in the Shire’s early days, even when we are only treated to her documentary writing. I chose this passage from Woolf because it also seems to paint her with a kind of Ayn Rand politic that might become interesting to exploit as her character grows further in my mind. Looking back on it now, I’m glad to see how much Alaura’s personality has grown beyond her earliest constructs.

2)  The background of the word “Shire” is given here with great thanks to my usual research site, tolkiengateway.com. “Scír” is the Old English version of shire and so most appropriate. Within this fiction I suggest that the King’s Agreement was drafted with two languages. This is because of the Númenórean tradition to write important documents in Sindarin. Tolkien also had an earlier Westron name for the land; “Sûza,” while the definite form ("The Shire") was “Sûza-t.” This is closer to Old English forms and, I believe, more appropriate for the Common Speech. “Scír” may have been a rendering found in the King’s Agreement which was more refined and that Alaura may have adopted for her later writings.

3)  This is another Easter egg from The Fellowship of the Ring as Bilbo and Gandalf sit considering the garden. I cannot seem to write about trees and flowers without having my immediate impulse be in quoting Tolkien on trees and flowers. I think that is because I learned a great appreciation for the natural world through reading these books as a teenager and feel I owe the debt. Some note needs to be made about the spelling; Tolkien used the older word “nasturians” in his text instead of the more modern and common word nasturium. “Nasturians”, in Latin, literally means “nose twisters” and he clearly thought that was an important description of this fragrant flower.

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   Gondo Bucklestrap came back east along the Great Road and crossed the Greenway, returning to the Bree-land from his new home in the Shire. He did not know the day nor the month, for he had quite lost count of such things out in the wilderness, but he believed it might be close to Mid-summer. As the stars were bright and the moon full in the east he could glimpse the silhouette of the old Clock-tower ahead just above the trees. Never, at any time which he could remember, had he been so happy to see it and the Bree-land so close before him.

   He had worked hard in the new land and lived there in the most spare way that he, or any other Bree-land hobbit, might imagine. Fortunately Gondo had some small skills as a hunter, so there was never any fear of starvation in such a plentiful countryside, but he also had lived many, many days without shelter or other provisions. It had been early springtime when he arrived in the new land and the nights were still very cool. The rivers and streams were full of clear running waters and he made his first camp in the fields and woods north of the Stonebows bridge, hunting in the early mornings, gathering wood for his fire in the afternoons and smoking or curing meats in the evening to store and carry on his long road ahead. Gondo had visited this land before of course, and from that earlier expedition a destination and an ambition was set firmly in his young mind; he would go south and west of the Far-Stone to the green hill country that he and his fellow explorers Marcho and Blanco had discovered on their last journey. There, about twenty-five leagues or more from where he was first camped, Gondo hoped to begin the excavation of his home, the first hole for hobbits in their new land.

   By the third week since leaving Twoody behind he came once more into the hills and valleys that he sought. He had lost his way at first, turning too far west after leaving the Road at the Far-Stone and walking into a low wooded area which gave him little view of the land all around. He wandered there for many lost hours but, eventually, he came to a clear spot and could see the green hills rolling away to the south. In this misguided way he had come upon that area from the northwest and been present to watch the way the setting sun fell upon the land and cast cool shadows in the little valleys. Coming to it unexpectedly as he did, Gondo found for himself a perfect spot; a tall knob of a hill that was the first in a chain with six smaller neighbours, its steepest side facing west like a mother bear shielding its young from the setting of the Sun. The hill was wide and sparsely wooded and Gondo knew that there would be cool breezes there in the mornings and warm light at the end of the day. There on the northern side of that tallest hill he dug the beginnings of his great home Sarehole¹ believing he would one day make a family large enough to claim all the little hills around it.

   But he soon discovered that it was hard work building a home by yourself in an empty land. Gondo had only a small knowledge of how such work should be done and quickly became aware that it was quite impossible for one lonely little hobbit to accomplish much without proper tools and the help of workers more skilled than himself. Within the first week of digging he knew that he must return to the Bree-land and ask for help. But he had made the start, chosen his own destiny, and that was an important thing in the mind of young Gondo Bucklestrap.

   But he did not return right away, of course, for Gondo’s mind, as ever, was turned to exploration. He remained for many more weeks carefully charting the land around him. He found what he believed to be a system of small streams and followed them to a spot in a nearby valley perfect for the digging of a well. Spreading out from there he found pathways to nearby clearings and places which he thought might be useful for farming. More than once Gondo regretted not taking Twoody’s advice about bringing a pen and some paper for proper map-making but, lacking it, he did his best to gain all the knowledge he could of the surrounding area and commit it to his memory. But in the quiet nights spent in his cozy new (still uncovered and quite shallow) hole Gondo wondered how many hobbits would find any of his information useful or interesting.

   When he had crossed the Greenway on his return and took notice of the Clock-tower, and the border of the Bree-land which it represents, he was no more than eight hundred paces away from the Hedge.²

   ‘This will be the last time I come to my old home,’ Gondo had thought to himself, making yet another great decision for his life by following the very loud immediacy of his own heart. ‘I will never again come east of the Greenway.’

   It was not quite Mid-summer yet on that evening and Gondo had been somewhat exaggerated in his estimate of the time he spent in the new land. He was close in his estimation, for it was indeed the month which we now call June and, though he had quite forgotten it amongst his other concerns, he had also missed his own twenty-fifth birthday while working in the new lands (it had happened some two months earlier). Indeed, much had escaped Gondo’s notice while he was away. Twoody had been home now for many, many weeks of course and, with the help of their friend Alaura, the word of the King’s Agreement had spread to hobbits throughout the Northlands. Gondo knew none of this while he was away of course and so, standing there before the Hedge, he was therefore prepared for none of what he would discover; he simply wanted to come home for one last time to see Twoody and Alaura and, reunited, lay their plans for the future. He had decided that his head, if not all of his heart, was already thoroughly settled into the new lands. He would purchase whatever tools or supplies he could afford and return to his new home in the green hills. If he could convince others to join him then all the better. But he would certainly, and without argument, leave again as soon as he was able.

   Gondo was tired from his long two days spent walking and, after a small mishap in the digging of the new well, he was also a bit lame on his left leg. The pain of each day’s walk did not trouble him nearly as much as did his misjudgment of the time it had taken him to travel; for he had set out from the bridge before dawn the morning before hoping to make it home by supper, but it was now coming on to middle of the next night.³ ‘They say that “going home is always the slower trip,”’ Gondo thought to himself. ‘“Whether because you can’t wait to get there or because you’ve no desire to go at all.”’

   As Gondo drew closer to the town he could now see the Hedge-gate standing between himself and the Clock-tower. It was high summer, so the Hedge itself was lush, tall and thick, but it was also a time of peace and so no guard stood near to its gate. He entered without anyone’s notice, yet saw tremendous changes as he did.

   There was a good-sized stable just up the Road from the Clock-tower and next to Twoody’s father’s inn. Gondo had worked there in his younger years, but it was now owned by Twoody’s brother Childy and seemed to have been given great importance in Gondo’s absence and some additional building had been done there. It was now large enough to hold stalls for twenty ponies or even full-sized horses, and that is certainly a very good-sized stable for any small town like the Bree-land. He could see it from a distance, though he did not go there to investigate the building further. From the Clock-tower to those stables, the whole Road was now the home of hobbled ponies, carts, wains, barrows, carriages, trolleys and sledges. There were barrels and backpacks and crates and rolls of tarp and all matter of goods which seemed ready to be loaded; as if some great caravan had chosen to stop here in the Bree-land at the sign of the inn. Nearby he could see some small tents with cookfires. Some younger hobbits moved among the groups huddled there, keeping watch and calming the ponies, but each of them seemed much too busy to notice Gondo or remark, if any recognized him, on his triumphant return. From up the Road toward the stable he could hear the loud noises of animals; the bleating of sheep and the clucking of chickens, the snorting and snuffling of pigs accompanied by the caw-caw-cuckling of roosters. He had never seen such a bustle in the Bree-land before; this western area just inside the Hedge-gate had become a restless mass of packages, people, carts and livestock all on the ready to go. Gondo avoided the eyes of the young hobbits along the street as he moved forward and went directly into Twoody’s father’s place of business, the much loved home of his youth, the Inn of the Four Greenfields.

   But when he came through the door he found no one there to meet him. He could hear a great noise from the commonroom and, tired as he was, Gondo knew that he must go there and see to the commotion before finding a bed.

   Although he had grown up working for Twoody’s father here at the inn and the stables, Gondo had never, in all his younger days, seen such a crowd as he did on that June night. All the seats at all of the tables were filled and, with so many other folk standing about, he could hardly edge his way into the room. The very first thing which he noticed was how many hobbits were present. Now hobbits do like their time in a publichouse and that in itself should come as no surprise. In former days this old inn had catered more to the Big Folk of course and so, even after Twoody’s own hobbit father bought the place, Big Folk were generally found here in the greater number. But there were none of the Big Folk present that night from what Gondo could see. The room was instead filled with excited and energetic hobbits of many various ages and social stations, most of which Gondo did not know nor recognize. They clustered in groups; some small as two and some large as a dozen. They spoke in conspiratorial whispers and, more often, in friendly shouts. They drank from tankards so large as to require two hands; as if their boisterous manner might be matched by the size of their mugware. And the one thing that Gondo could hear in all of their conversations (while trying very hard to not be perceived as listening) was the word “Shire.”

   It is of course worth noting that Gondolpho Bucklestrap, later called “townfather of the Shire”, had never heard this word before. This was Alaura’s word and, following her lead, Twoody’s word for the hobbits’ future home which would come to spread far and wide amongst the hobbits of the North. It had been established while Gondo was away and, at first and upon hearing it from these other and somewhat foreign hobbits, Gondo did not quite know what it meant. But “Scyr” or “Shire” was the word on every hobbits’ lips; it had gone forward to the areas around the Bree-land through Alaura’s writing and became the only word for the new land familiar to all. But at first, on the night of his return, Gondo could not quite understand just what they were all talking about.

   Finding a corner for himself, he caught the eye of some new and very young serving hobbit and ordered for himself a mug of Breeland ale. Unrecognized, Gondo sat in the back of the room trying to understand who all of these new and formerly unknown hobbits were and just what was going on.

   ‘Are we off tomorrow, then? I cannot abide this waiting.’

   ‘Might be we could, but to where after, I wonder? The Road leads to the Bridge, we know, but I’d like to know where I’m to set my best stakes beyond that.’

   ‘There’s fields for farming just beyond the Bridge, they say, and I’d like to find my place there before it crowds up. But, by the stars, I’d go now if there was anyone going alongside me who knew the way.’

   ‘Oh, we’re all for a-going, each and everyone here. But who’s to lead us, I wonder?’

   ‘Them brothers Marcho and Blanco might, but I don’t know any that’s been able to coax them out of their little house north of the Hill. They’re bold enough when there’s talk and ale to be had, but less than interested now that we, any of us, decide to move.’

   ‘Oh, those two are more happy to be lauded than they are proven to be useful, if you ask any who know them. We need a true guide to move us forward. What about that Fastalk fellow we’ve heard of?’

   ‘Swiftalk it is, but I hear some tell he’s not been to the land himself.’

   ‘Well, that’s no help, is it? And better maps, I might ask for. I’d like a spot near that little lake, for it sounds lovely and comfortable. But “how far and where to go?” I can’t say, for it seems that there is no map to tell me.’

   Gondo sat for a time listening to their needs with increasing hope that no one would recognize him. He was dirty from the Road and a good deal slimmer from his labours and also quite shabbily dressed from his rough time in the wilderness. These characteristics certainly caught the eye of some of the other hobbits present but, thankfully, they did not recognize him any more than he recognized any of them. Indeed, there were very few hobbits present who might know him; for the Inn of the Four Greenfields on this night was full of the first hopeful pioneers who were waiting to go to the Shire. They had come from all over the Bree-land and some from as far away as Midgewater to the east and the far-off Grey Flood river to the south. They had seen Alaura’s pamphlet and assembled here waiting for someone to lead them into the west. But no single leader had yet arisen to take them forward into the unknown lands.

   Gondo sipped at his mug slowly and after a time convinced himself that the dirt on his face and the state of his clothing had placed him well and comfortably beyond detection. Finishing his ale, he started to look for an easy and immediate exit. He would go around the back and up the hill to the house of Twoody’s father and there, after that welcome greeting with old friends, take a long needed rest. He would see Alaura tomorrow, or perhaps the next day, and therefore be able to avoid all of these needy and unknown hobbits. He might even escape town without Twoody throwing some wretched party in his honor and, hopefully, get back to the serious business of building his new home.

   ‘Well! How dare you, you wooly-headed, road-dusted, and disgraceful truant!’ a loud voice called standing next to Gondo. ‘You, of all hobbits in all of the North, come again into my establishment and dare to order my ale with not so much as a simple “hello, fellow,” a kindly “well met,” an embarrassed “it's been awhile,” or even a gracious “by your leave, sir!”’

   The hand of the older, shorter yet somehow very frightening hobbit came quickly down and grabbed Gondo’s ear harshly. ‘You will come with me, you grub-headed, dirty-footed slowcoach!’ the old hobbit said, drawing Gondo from his chair. ‘My commonroom is a place for people with better manners than you have ever learned, you shiftless and wayward rover. I might need to teach you some of those niceties with a stick before this night is over, you mud-soaked, rook-toed, sand-digging delinquent!’

   And with that level of showmanship Twoody’s father Hincmar Swiftwalk pulled Gondo out of the commonroom of his inn and to a more comfortable meeting place just down the hall.

*****

   Hincmar Swiftwalk, great enterpriser of the family line, bought the Inn of the Four Greenfields in 1554 of the Third Age and had done a good steady business there right from the start. His foresightedness in turning it into a publichouse which catered to both the Big Folk (the Men of Bree) and the Little Folk (as Hobbits were sometimes called) had created an environment of tolerance and friendliness among the two Peoples that was unlike any other found in all of Middle-earth. This practice of acceptance for a more diverse clientele, whatever their origins, set the inn and the Bree-land apart from any other settlement in all of Middle-earth and carried over into the future of the town and the land which surrounds it even today. Hincmar himself was, from a very young age, considered by most of his neighbors to be the shrewdest businessman in town but also, and rather paradoxically, he was thought of as one of the most well-liked hobbits under the Hill. For Hincmar had a bright smile and an infectious laugh, he knew the names and families of an almost inexhaustible list of his neighbours and clients, and he was famously quick with a story and had a strong voice for singing. There was not a more well-liked hobbit in all the Bree-land, loans or creditslips notwithstanding, than old Hincmar Swiftwalk. But he was also, as tales tell us, hard as nails at a bargain, had a sharp eye for a new opportunity and was a keen (but kind) judge of character. It was said that Hincmar could “tell the money in a strange hobbit’s purse by the look of their toenails” and, as Gondo, Twoody and Alaura all knew from experience, that old adage was not wrong.

   At the time of Gondo’s return, being well into his seventies, old Hincmar was not as regular a fixture in the commonroom of the Four Greenfields as he had once been. Even before Gondo and Twoody left for Norbury most of the inn’s daily operations had been taken over by Hincmar’s elder two sons, Hartnid and Childebrand. Gondo had not seen Hincmar enter or approach his quiet sitting place in the back of the commonroom and was then taken quite by surprise by the friendly old hobbit and his rough speech. Now he found himself being dragged down the hall to the north wing⁴ of the inn before he could manage to blurt out a word.

   ‘Master Hincmar, please-’ before he could finish a sentence Gondo felt the old hobbit’s still quite strong hands release his ear and his arms engulf him in a hug.

   ‘So you’ve returned to us,’ the old hobbit said quietly in the outer hall, with a broad smile and a carefully contained laugh. ‘Dusty from the Road, lean for want of proper eating and tangle-haired from lack of care! But, ho! You’ve returned just as Twoody said you would!

   ‘Come, my boy,’ Hincmar continued, ‘let’s get you into a safe corner away from all these strangers and their ridiculous questions.’

   The north wing of the inn had been built for hobbit travelers and had ten very pleasant rooms, five to either side of the long hallway, with nice round windows built low to the ground as hobbits like. There was a little parlor midway down the hall, built full-sized and therefore quite roomy, in which hobbits might entertain any of the Big Folk or hold private meetings of their own. Thankfully that room was empty when Twoody’s father ushered Gondo through the tall door. A lantern was already lit there and a half-filled mug of ale was left beside an empty serving tray. There was also an inkwell and a few sheets of paper sitting nearby on a small desk; the room had very recently been in use.

   ‘This wing is full, of course,’ Hincmar told him as they came into the room. ‘As is the whole of the inn. Filled entirely with hobbits! A most unexpected condition! Why, there is such a demand that some of them are even sleeping in the upstairs bedrooms! I’ve seen some of them Midgewater Marsh-hobbits warily climb the stairs at night as if each step brought them into greater and more desperate peril! Ha!

   ‘Here, let me just...’ the old hobbit said, looking in a nearby pantry with grave concern on his face. ‘Ahah! “Old habits become good guidelines,”’ he stated with assuredness, pulling a mug from the pantry and holding it aloft for Gondo to see. ‘I always used to keep some spare mugs about in the sitting rooms for unexpected guests. It seems that my boys, running the inn as they will, have been keeping up on the practice. Good, good!’

    He inspected the clay mug with a sharp eye, wiped it thoroughly with the edge of his waistcoat, and then went to the sideboard and poured some ale into the mug from a small cask which stood in waiting. Once filled to the brim he offered the mug to Gondo. ‘Sit, sit!’ Hincmar said, talking up the half-filled mug on the writing desk and dropping into the chair behind it. ‘Sit and talk with me and then we’ll see to getting you a bath and some proper supper. We have some hours left before middle-night and time enough to talk freely. You were right to not reveal yourself in the commonroom, Gondo, my boy, and, if you ask me, it was fortunate that I found you before anyone else did. Ho! What those folk would do to hear from a true explorer, a daring rover of the Shire!’

   ‘It is wonderful to see you again, sir,’ Gondo replied, smiling broadly and gratefully lifting his mug of ale. ‘But just who are all these hobbits? The inn is filled with them just as you say, but I don’t recognize a one of any. From as far off as the Marshes, did you say?’

   ‘Oh, yes, my boy,’ Hincmar said, ‘and further still. There’s folks out there who come up from as far as the Greyflood hoping to get more first-hand news of the Shire. And as it stands right now there’s only those two laze-abouts Marcho and Blanco, and yourself of course, who might give it to them. Yes, it's good that no one but myself recognized you, Gondo. Otherwise and you would be drowned in silly questions and offers of employment as pathfinder by now.’

   Gondo was quick enough to understand then that the word “Shire” must be some strange turning of the name which the King had used and that somehow hobbits from all over the northlands had heard of the King’s Agreement and come to claim it for their own. Just how this had happened so quickly however, he could not imagine, for he had not heard of Alaura’s proclamation and its distribution throughout the north. Still, as he reflected on the sound of the word, “Shire”, it felt like a very appropriate and very gracious name for the new land.

   For the past months Gondo had been alone in that open land. He knew that he had not yet seen but a small portion of what the king had granted to them and often, in his solitude, he despaired that there might never be enough hobbits to build a community in such a vast and wide country as the King’s Agreement had allowed. Hobbits are very productive workers when put to it of course, but in these past weeks Gondo, alone and without the support of friends, had gained some practical idea of just how much work needed to be done to dig a well and build a home. If the truth was to be asked of him as he walked the lonely Road east back to the Bree-land that day, Gondo would admit to doubting his earlier ambitiousness; but all these new and unfamiliar hobbits changed matters.

   ‘You mean to say that all these hobbit-folk are here to settle in the new land, sir? To go and settle it in their own way?’ Gondo asked, a new energy coming to him suddenly.

   ‘To be sure,’ Hincmar said with another smile. Any who knew him well, and Gondo no less so than others, knew also that gentle light of entrepreneurial insight which came often into the old hobbit’s eyes. And, no less observant a hobbit himself, old Hincmar could see that the mind of the youngster he had raised was also now churning with possibilities. ‘Gondo, my boy, there might be as many as five hundred hobbits between here and Staddle ready to take on the job which you, Alaura and my Twoody have put to them. They want to go west to establish this Shire of yours. But they are simply lacking in a person with the abilities to show them how. Why, Childy, Twoody’s older brother has already left behind his responsibilities at the inn to begin the business of provisioning these settlers. Ah! Would that I was young enough to join you all in this venture!’

   Tired as he was, Gondolpho Bucklestrap would come to lead a party of over two hundred hobbits out of the Bree-land late the next morning. This party, quite unexpected in his return to the Bree-land, happened largely through the involvement of Twoody’s good-natured and far-seeing father.

*****

   After they had an hour’s consultation together Hincmar presented Gondo to the press of hobbits who were still gathered in the commonroom with an old showman’s delight. He introduced the young hobbit as “one of the king’s own favourites and the single-most experienced explorer of the Shire-land” also calling him “chief discoverer, skilled map-maker, bold trail-blazer and attentive surveyor. The daring rover, the dauntless buck, the bold buck, and the most tireless pioneer of that new land.”

   ‘He has toiled there alone these past ten weeks,’ Hincmar told them (with obvious pride on his round face as he turned to pat the dust out of Gondo’s clothing), ‘and comes to us tonight still dirty with the earth of the Shire in his toes and his hair! He is faster, sharper and wiser than you all, for he, alone and unaided, has been busy digging the first hobbithole in the new land!’

   There was great applause and much cheering at this introduction and it was only Hincmar’s old skills as a salesman and his respected position as host which kept any order among the crowd after such an announcement. Hincmar had wisely positioned Gondo near the largest fireplace in the room for this introduction and all of the guests now left their seats to gather around him and hear tales of the new land. Drink and food was offered (and graciously accepted) as Gondo answered question after question about the Shire and all that he had seen there.

   Twoody was called for by his father and the two friends were happily reunited in front of all the prospective pioneers. For three more hours they answered questions together about how the land should be fairly settled and the kind of cooperation which would be needed from each of them to do so. It was readily agreed that hobbits would need to count on one another’s most courteous nature and work together to build cities and roads and all the things which they dreamed of in the empty lands. All the while and despite the late hour, old Hincmar sat watching the two youngsters with a prideful smile on his face; he (if anyone) had noticed then (if not before) the obvious abilities of Twoody and Gondo which would make them such natural leaders in the years to come. Some say that after this last night at the Four Greenfields old Hincmar seldom returned to the inn again, that he left it and all of his businesses in the management of his sons and retired peacefully to his hole on the western side of Bree-hill, living out his days playing with his grandchildren and hearing tales from far away lands.

   ‘But when shall we go?’ someone asked.

   ‘Yes, all this talk of deeds and titles, records and fairness, or roads and wells and fences and such is certainly important. But when shall we see where to put them?’ someone else asked.

   ‘I’ve got pigs and chickens and children all ready and waiting here beneath the Hill for a new home,’ asked another. ‘I’d like to see where that might be before the noisiness of my own charges drives me mad from waiting. Will you go scouting again soon, Master Boldbuck?’

   'No, I will not,’ Gondo said with a great firmness which surprised all those assembled. ‘It has grown late in the evening and I have walked two full days before coming to the Hedge-gate. I was sorely tired then and wanted nothing more than to see my old friends, drink good Bree-land ale and fall asleep in a fine bed. But earlier tonight, as I came to the Crossing Stone at the Greenway, I vowed that this would be my last trip to the Bree-land. I have found my new home in the Shire and I must return there to build it; not as a scout but as a citizen.

   ‘But I had never expected to find this great assembly of hobbits who are also ready to make such a home and a future. Your ambitiousness has given me fresh energy and assured me that my choice was the right one.’

   All the hobbits in the room were quiet as Gondo spoke. Only Twoody, knowing his friend’s mercurial nature, showed any sign of concern.

   ‘No,’ Gondo said firmly, ‘no new scouting mission for me; instead I will leave in the morning, never to return to the Bree-land, and I will take as many of you with me who are ready and able for the trip.’

   There was great cheering among the hobbits as they heard this, but Gondo, still having the crowd under his control, quieted them with a gentle movement of his hands.

   ‘Dear master,’ he said to Hincmar who was seated beside them at the fireplace, ‘I thank you for all of your many years of kindness and the home that you have given me here. Bless you, sir, and should you ever join us in the new land I will be most happy to welcome you to my home as you have done for me.’

   He then turned back to the crowd and said, ‘I will not sleep here tonight but will leave in the morning with all who are ready. Leave your pigs and your wives and your chickens and your children here to wait a little longer, friends! We will need more lightly burdened walkers than heavily loaded ponies, more shovels and hammers than blankets and foodstores and more able-bodied, enterprising and fair-spirited hobbits than we will families; for whoever goes with me tomorrow will be the first in the land to establish homes and farms and even the placement of our first small towns. It will be hard work at first and we’ll miss many comforts. But we will go and we will set the way together so that others may follow. I promise you, those who come with me tomorrow will be the fathers of the Shire and I will remain there with you, as committed as a fellow father, for as long as I may.’

   Gondo looked again at Twoody and Hincmar, smiling in a way which seemed grateful but mysterious. ‘I will not return to the Bree-land, happy though I am for the time I have spent here.’ He then looked back to the mass of hobbits who seemed to await his next words. ‘The Shire is now my home. Who will build their own home there with me?’

   There was greater applause at that time than when Hincmar had first introduced him and Gondo knew, as tired as he was, that the work of building the new land was about to begin.

*****

   There are many accounts of the first migration of hobbits who left the Bree-land for the Shire on the next day. Those records tell us that there were two hundred and thirty-seven of the “pioneers”, lightly packed as Gondo had suggested, assembled and waiting under the Clock-tower just after dawn. Alaura was not present that morning, but Twoody met with each of the intrepid hobbits briefly and saw that their names were registered in a small leather bound book which she would eventually compile as “THE FIRST FAMILIES OF THE SHIRE.” To be strictly accurate this title was insufficient for the occasion itself as, also in accordance with Gondo’s instructions the night before, only the younger adult male hobbits of these families went forward to explore the new land; no wives nor sisters, oldfathers, mothers nor young children registered or went forth on that day.⁵

   The name and signature of Gondolpho Bucklestrap was not entered into this book for he was not present most of the morning. But a heading, written in Twoody’s own hand, declares that the expedition of the pioneers was to be led by “the Bold Buck, First Citizen for the Shire.” It seems that here is the first time in which Gondo was referred to simply as “The Buck,” a name he would continue to carry.

   Though they had not been at the Four Greenfields when Gondo gave his speech many friends of his age were present who lived in the Bree-land and, hearing the news, showed up that morning ready to go forth. Gondo and Twoody knew and liked many of them, but were skeptical about their seriousness. Perhaps they simply wished to build for themselves a life of moderate adventure which promised to offer great reward. Twoody looked at them in their casual walking clothes, their picnic-style haversacks and their silly sunhats and worried about their usefulness; it seemed to him that they were dressed more for a holiday than for hard work. But many many more there were who came from the areas east and south of the Bree-land; they were also young and hopeful, but their eyes held the desperate look of resolute people who had escaped from difficult times into an unknown and unguessable future.

Twoody did not join Gondo on the Pioneer’s Quest (as the date was later named and recorded). Some accounts say that the two friends talked long into the dawn hour together and if some attempts were made to either convince Twoody to go or Gondo to stay no one can be certain. Either way each one well knew the other’s feelings on the matter and accepted this second parting.

   ‘They will need deeds and titles and equipment in this project, Gondo,’ Twoody said. ‘My brother Childy has already set up a shop with much store of equipment and the organizing of those other things can best be managed from here rather than some shack by the Road-side.’

   ‘More the banker than the pioneer, once again,’ Gondo said, and both the friends smiled at the memory. ‘But, Twoody,’ he continued, ‘you must know that I do not intend to return to the Bree-land and wish to take my friends with me. Will you ever be convinced?’

   ‘Build me a proper little town,’ Twoody said laughing. ‘With a cozy little publichouse and a good brewery beside it. A spot for a shop would be nice, for your friends there will be needing all sorts of goods in the Shire as the next dozen years come. Yes, Gondo, that would do nicely and make even a boring old banker like myself rethink his future.’

   After being recorded and assembled, the company did not depart until nearly noon on June the 5th. Gondo had seemingly disappeared that morning and none of the new pioneers knew him well enough to guess at where he might have gone or why. If they asked Twoody or any of the other Breefolk they received no answer other than to wait and the assurance that Gondo would join them shortly.

   For Gondo Bucklestrap, “The Bold Buck,” had indeed decided that he would never return to the Bree-land.

   So, tired as he was from two days full of walking and a night full of talking, just after dawn Gondo bathed and put on fresh clothes and went up Bree-hill to settle his affairs.

end of chapter three

Chapter End Notes

Notes

1) Sarehole was the name of the small rural village four miles from the center of Birmingham where Tolkien, his mother and his brother came to live in 1895. He considered his young life there to have a great impact on his feelings about nature and, more specifically, the Shire. I wanted to use it in some capacity here, but I particularly like the idea of using it as wordplay; Sarehole becoming slang for “it’s our hole.”

2)  Most of the description of Bree (at this time called “The Bree-land”), comes from my own writing in the first book of The Fall of Arnor entitled Out of the Bree-land. The Clock-tower and the Hedge are described in greater detail there and this book is, after all, just an adjunct to that larger work.

3)  Some 225,000 words into this novel’s first draft I became alerted to miscalculations in the distances in the Shire map and, in particular, the distance from Bree to the Brandywine (or Stonebows) bridge. It seems that Tolkien had made this miscalculation himself and I had not come across the topic of it in all my other research. I would take a hobbit two days at least to travel between Bree and the Brandywine, not one as the Professor suggests at the end of LotR. Gondo makes this same mistake for me. But at this point, with the book nearly finished, I had to recalibrate all of the math and timetables of the later chapters causing a major reworking of dates and some events.

4)  In my own writings about the Bree-land the Inn of the Four Greenfields is a predecessor for the Inn of the Prancing Pony, possibly on the same location and given a lot of the same design. In FotR it is described that rooms built to accommodate hobbits were built in the north wing of the Prancing Pony and it is there that Frodo and his friends stayed. There is also a small sitting room on that end where Frodo and Strider speak at length. I imagine that this meeting of Gondo and Hincmar takes place in that same room, or one much like it, nearly 1500 years earlier.

5)  This may seem like a small point to make, but I make it to reflect upon the male-dominate world of Tolkien’s fiction; perhaps not wholly inappropriate for its time, though certainly potentially disappointing for modern readers. The world that the Professor grew up in, the experiences he had and even the tales in which he was interested all had an impact on this idea that it is men who go on dangerous adventures and women do not. This led to the silly idea that LotR is “a boy’s book” for my own generation of readers. I hope to dispel that idea here and also to create engaging characters who might interest young readers of any gender identity. But I want to indicate that it is Gondo and Twoody who very much believe in “man’s work” as appropriately in line with Tolkien’s generation; it will come back to haunt them later.

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   In those first few days after Gondo had departed a very steady stream of would-be pioneers kept flowing out of the Bree-land and across the Stonebows bridge hoping to lay their own claims in the new land. A kind of makeshift bureaucracy was therefore established; newcomers would be met at the Bridge to be asked a series of questions regarding the size of their family and their former occupations and any useful skills which they might have in a wide variety of areas. No hobbit was turned down, for they all knew that there was much work to be done, but all were expected to work for two weeks within the main encampments before being able to register for a deed to any land or be granted a license for any business. In this way, or so Gondo hoped, strangers might soon become neighbours and all of the hobbits might get a sense of the hard tasks ahead. It seemed to be a good plan in its own way, but Alaura, who was not present for argument at the plan’s making, would later point out that it meant that the male hobbits, who Gondo had called upon first, would be the first holders of deeds and titles. Of course no one other than her had considered that at the time and, as with all political change, to notice such unfairness too late might also be too late for its correction.

  At the end of these two long weeks of learning and labour an initiate would then return to the Bree-land to register whatever deeds or licenses they might need with Twoody and have their names set down by Alaura among “THE FIRST FAMILIES OF THE SHIRE.” In the months we now call June and July (simply called “the Summerdays” in the oldest calendars of the Bree-land) caravans of carts and goods and people were traveling back and forth between the Bridge and Bree-hill daily. To make this more efficient a way-station, or “waymeet”, was set up for the two day journey. Some of the first hobbit pioneers set aside their dreams of building homes or farms in the Shire and chose to become entrepreneurs; they took up jobs in the waymeet as shippers and carters, putting their ponies and carts to good use while the settlements and towns were still being built in the new land. In mid-July Twoody sent Nob the pony by courier into the Shire carrying letters and a few light provisions. They had raised the pony together, Gondo and Twoody, but now he was a gift so that Gondo might ride him from settlements to farms and to wells and other important areas of construction. The two friends shared daily missives on their great undertaking and much of the speedy success in the early development of the Shire could be seen as a result of this very fine arrangement.

   Back in the Bree-land, Alaura and her team of (mostly female) hobbit writers had made a steady practice of sending out their weekly announcement of the work being done. Much like the earlier editions these were entitled THE SHIRE-RECKONING and these documents spread throughout the villages surrounding Bree-hill and as far as anyone was willing to carry them. News, letters and rumour were all traveling back and forth steadily between the Shire and the Bree-land. It is perhaps from these early weekly journals that the expression “news out of Bree” first became popular in the north. If so, then it was undoubtedly taken as happy news to hobbits everywhere at that time rather than the ominous connotation it would have in the days of Frodo and Bilbo Baggins.

   It was agreed that families would not move into the Shire until the following springtime, for work had not begun until the Pioneers’ Quest in June (Year One of the Shire-reckoning) and, while winters were not expected to be particularly harsh in the new land, few hobbitholes would be ready and it was far too late in the year for planting. The earliest pioneers instead put much of their attention into the building of roads and small towns during that first summer and fall as well as communal places where a store of goods might make their expansion much easier. In the deeds and licenses issued during this period many hobbits exhibited their usual proclivity for renaming themselves and some work was needed to keep track of what wives and children belonged to what husbands and fathers. Alaura began the first GENEALOGICAL REGISTRY OF THE SHIRE in that winter and some proud Shirefolk say that in it she invented the very first diagram of trees as a means of explaining a family’s lineage. This may be true for that motif does not appear in the genealogical records of the Edain before the Fourth Age and the Elves, from what we can tell, cared very little for diagrams of this sort.

   Almost from the start Shire-settlers began their rapid development of the land along two paths; north and south along the Baranduin river and westward following the Great Road in accordance with the maps Gondo was now drawing for them. Upon his return Gondo had been very fortunate to discover three other young hobbits who, like himself, had an interest in map-making and so these early explorations went much easier. One of them was his friend and Alaura’s youngest brother, Clothair Pudifoot, who would go on to great acclaim in the Shire’s western expansion. Copies of maps were being sent back to the Bree-land so often that Alaura and Twoody could hardly keep up with all of the new discoveries.

   Just beyond the Stonebows bridge they found a series of low hills and large fields which stretched on for many miles west along the Road to the Far-stone. This rich and fertile land had taken on the name of Bridgefields by some of the first pioneers who chose to be farmers set their claims there. It was bordered to the north and to the south by two as yet unnamed rivers and there, in the Shire’s first year, is where the earliest encampments arose. In December of Year One and on the eastern edge of Bridgefields Twoody’s older brother, Childebrand Swiftalk, moved his trading post from the Bree-land stables, to a place on the Road about three miles from the Stonebows bridge. Childy, the second son of Hincmar Swiftalk but no less of an entrepreneur, had in a very short time seen the opportunity of the new land and seized it quickly. That settlement’s original name remains unknown, but later writings refer to it as Childesbank and it became a site of major importance in the Shire’s early history.

   To the north and south of the Bridgefields and alongside each of the two unnamed rivers two other towns also grew quickly. Just two leagues south of the bridge, where a small but deep river met the Branduin, a community of hobbits from the far-off Greyflood river built a fishing village which would continue to do great trade throughout the Shire’s history. So plentiful were the fish where this river met the Baranduin that the town became called Stock and the river the Stockbrook; for it was said that any hobbit with a hook and a string could "make stock for himself" there in a few short hours.

   Across the Stockbrook and further south along the Baranduin was a yet unexplored area that Gondo had labeled “the Marish”; a lowland of fens nearby the river. Not many hobbits ventured there in the first ten years of Shire-reckoning for it seemed boggy and difficult to traverse with its ditches and briars. But those lowlands would yield to better ground away from the river turning into a land of wide fields and bright-flowering meadows. Years later many other hobbits from the south would come there and learn to grow the pipeweed for which all of the Shire would one day become famous.

   Ten miles to the north of the Bridgefields and along another unnamed river was the settlement of Budge. To that location old Heindewin Bolger, breaking with the agreement of the other settlers, took his large and still-growing family in the second month of the Shire’s development. Old Heindewin had ten sons and seven daughters, many of them were older and with families of their own, and so earliest reports tell us that as many as seventy-five Bolgers went north of the Stonebows in Year One to settle in a place of their own. The Bolgers were a hearty, thoughtful, bright-spirited, charismatic, handsome (if sometimes chubby) folk who were very popular and skilled in many different professions. Gondo or Twoody or any of their neighbours could not quite stop them from coming to make ‘a town unto themselves’ and the other young pioneers, lonely as they may have been, were not jealous to see all of the Bolger family together; for in all of the Shire’s long history no one was ever known to dislike any of the Bolgers. In fact there were many younger pioneers who followed them (perhaps in pursuit of old Heindewin’s daughters and granddaughters) so that the lands between Budge and the Great Road filled up rapidly with farms making the northeastern end of the Shire quite popular in its earliest years. It was from the Great Road to the settlement of Budge that the first road in the Shire was developed and the first inn, the Budge’n Bridge, was established at that corner on the First Day of Year Two.¹ The town of Budge itself was built at a ford of the yet unnamed northern river and within a few years the town grew to a size that it encompassed both shores. It was called Budgeford in the time of Frodo Baggins, and the Bolgers were still its major inhabitants even in those far distant days.

   As farms grew along the smaller river near Budge many hobbits decided to follow it upstream. It ran west-by-northwest in a gentle winding turn and, not far along, two other features from Gondo’s early maps were discovered. The first was a low wet marsh surrounded by hills perhaps midway between the Stonebows and the Far-stone and about five miles north of the Great Road. The marsh was fed by natural springs from the hills making it an ideal place for hobbitholes. It is said that Isengrim Tinyfoot came to this part of the land late in his years and after the death of his wife, but no reliable record may be found to support this. By Year Three of the Shire-reckoning only a few settlers had come there, but it had already acquired its long lasting name as Frogmorton.

   As more families began moving west along this river to set their communities it had, for a time, been given a name; the Norbourn.² Further upstream above Frogmorton, perhaps twenty miles as the river meandered, was a placid lovely pool bordered on all sides by low hills with small stands of fruit trees; just the perfect spot for digging small homes with round doors and simple gardens which the residential hobbits in the Bree-land had come to enjoy. This pool was fed by another river coming down from the north which they at first called the Shire-water so that the waters here were clean and bright and cool even in the summer. When word of it came back to the other settlers many hobbits abandoned their earlier stakes in Bridgefields, Stock or Budge to build anew and fulfill their private dreams of becoming country gentlefolk. The settlement there was most immediately named Hobbiton-by-the-Water for the success and great comfort it offered to all.

   But Gondo Bucklestrap, now the Boldbuck, had established himself elsewhere. He and a few of the more ambitious pioneers whom he gathered together in the first year, went quite a bit further, fifty miles and more from the Stonebows bridge, west and south to the green hill land that Gondo had found there in his earlier journeys. In the months before, alone and with just a small shovel to aid him, Gondo had begun excavation of the first hobbithole on a tall hilltop which looked out into the west. Sarehole he had called his home then, but it would have a different name before the end of his lifetime.

   In this isolated area Gondo had also discovered and dug the first large well within the Shire, anticipating how a great settlement might one day grow in this part of the land. It was only the bravest, the youngest, the most rebellious and, some might say, the most economically desperate of pioneers who followed him there, drawn by Gondo’s charisma and daring as well as their own hope of some different future. They named this area the Buckland³ in Gondo’s honor for, in the characteristic repurposing of names which seems to delight all hobbits, they referred to him now as “the Bold Buck”. From the central positioning of his earliest well they built a small town and surrounding homes which grew for nearly two decades in its quiet and relative isolation from other communities. It is unfortunate that this name “Buckland” was eventually changed and its history has been forgotten by most of its later inhabitants. But a very great town grew there and that became the home for a unique community of hobbits who for many generations maintained the spirit, if not the original name, of their adventurous founder.

   Gondo’s own property of Sarehole, and much of the other properties in the Buckland, were not registered in the earliest records of the Shire. These pioneers did not travel back to the Bree-land to stake their claims; they waited for the politics and bureaucracy of the Shire to come to them. If this was a practice which Gondo himself had fostered we do not know. But for many years the Buckland was a well established but entirely undocumented settlement of the Shire.

   Gondo’s early maps had shown the location of many other landmarks; the Green hill Country, the Woody End, two other rivers to the south and a large forested area which he named the Bindlewood to the far north. But in the first three years of hobbit migration there are no records of hobbits ever settling so far. We can see from the registered deeds that most of the new families set up their farms and businesses along the Great Road between the Bridgefields and the Far-stone. The town of Buckland remained the only settlement in an area that would eventually be called the West-farthing. It grew quite rapidly as well, for more and more young and bold bachelor hobbits came there, ambitiously building large homes in the green hillsides and hopeful of raising big families in a land which they could call their own. Gondo’s example had meant something to these young folk and, with the second year of Shire-reckoning, they came to Buckland in increasing numbers.

   While he had not yet fully committed to moving to the Shire, Twoody still lived back in the Bree-land during the first two years. With aid from Alaura, he had taken on most of the administrative duties of the expansion. He saw to the proper enrollment of deeds and the surveying of lands. The establishment of small towns also became part of his duties and he carefully advised new businessmen on where the best opportunities might be and where builders and excavators might be hired. This was quite a lot of work in those early days and he seldom had much time to think about his own desires for a future.

   Gondo was likewise busy. The building of his home had been going well and he certainly had no shortage of friends among the young Bucklanders to aid him in that task. But there were disputes to be settled among many of the new settlers in other towns and, not very much to his liking and quite unintentional within his new found position, he had proven to be good at calming such arguments. He found that many of his days were spent riding their pony Nob to numerous places in the Shire to advise the new settlers. Gondo had also proved himself to be quite good at organizing the hobbits and it was with his guidance that much of the early work of roads and fences, barns and mills, townwells and supply lines were accomplished. Throughout the first long summer and autumn of Shire-pioneering he was drawn into disputes and declarations, quasi-formal meetings and informal altercations; quite against his intentions he became a settler of arguments more than a settler of lands. He rode to wherever he was asked, suggested what he could, advised on the matters he knew, counseled for patience on matters which he did not and exercised an uncomfortable authority when it was required. But during all of this time Gondo thought mostly of the spring, when his life in the Shire might truly begin.

end of chapter four

Chapter End Notes

Notes

1)  This is another creation of my own, but it suggests that the Bridge Inn popular in Frodo’s day had, under another name, been the first inn of the Shire.

2)  “Norbourn is only mentioned in the detailed index J.R.R. Tolkien was preparing for The Lord of the Rings, but which was eventually left unfinished. In the map ‘A Part of the Shire’ an unnamed river flows from the north to the Bywater Pool. It might be Norbourn, though it is also possible that Norbourn flowed straight to Brandywine more in the north.” (Tolkien Gateway) But there is also mention that “the water” as Bilbo calls it in The Hobbit is another river coming down from the North Farthings; “The Shire-water” it was called originally but just “the Water” in Bilbo’s day. This is where the Old Mill was built that we see in Tolkien’s earliest drawings of the Shire.

3)  Some readers will be surprised to see the mention of Buckland here in the earliest days of the Shire. The Buckland which most of us may be thinking of, on the eastern side of the Brandywine river would, indeed, not be established for another 740 years or so. This earlier settlement, a creation of my own, will have ramifications within our story.

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   ‘It’s too much, Gondo,’ Twoody had said. ‘Honestly tell me, how could hobbits, even if every hobbit in the Bree-land came forth to make a new home for themselves- which I very much doubt that they will of course- then how, tell me, few as we are, might we ever hold, develop and establish ourselves in this great a land?’

   ‘Well, because there are, I believe, many more of us than we know of, Twoody,’ Gondo had replied casually. ‘And the only thing that travels faster among hobbits than good news is bad news, I’d say. Bad news in foreign lands is what brought so many of us to the Bree-land in the first place, as you remember.

   ‘Now,’ Gondo continued, speaking with that casual and perfect frankness which other hobbits, including Twoody, found so hard to argue against, ‘what we have here is very, very good news and I believe that every hobbit in the north, facing bad news of their own, will come to hear of it much sooner than you might expect. Look how well those folks who’ve come up from the Greyflood have done over in Stock. And they’ve many more cousins and kinfolk coming up behind them from what I can hear.’

   This conversation between the two friends happened in the early winter of 1601 of the Third Age. This was in the month we now call December and recently designated as the end of Year One in the new Shire calendar. It was Twoody’s first foray into the new lands where Gondo had been a resident for some months, meeting and working alongside the other pioneers. Twoody had never thought of himself as anything like a pioneer but had agreed to accompany Gondo on an extended survey of the lands. They had stopped at some of the earliest settlements together, but most of the past eight weeks had seen the two friends tromping about the open lands, sleeping outdoors beside campfires and even hunting their own food. Twoody had very little experience “roughing it” in this way, but he could see that they stood in the middle of a land that was undeniably beautiful and filled with promise. The Great Road stretched out far before and behind them and, from their walks further west, Twoody had been able to see the peaks of tall white-capped mountains rising in the west. It was not noon yet when Gondo had brought him to the Far-stone which stood on a little hill near the Road-side below a grove of birch trees. If the Sun was glimmering on those distant peaks illuminating a mystery of white and purple sheets high above at the very edge of the world they could not see it from here. But together they had seen it not five days earlier. Twoody had never beheld a mountain before and had only his grandfather’s tales to describe them. It stirred his heart somehow, as if the very sight of it found within his chest some unrecognized and previously distant ache to wander. Gentle grasses had rolled over the hills before the two friends then. The Road, even-cut though not well-tended, rolled on and over those hills with an ease that seemed to invite Twoody toward travel.¹ But Twoody’s cautious mind, very much in control of his incautious feet, told him to go no further. He was not, at this or any other stage of his life, as fond of travel as his friend Gondo was. But he could not deny that he felt its deep and unsettling urgings. And so, on his request, they had turned back from their view of the West to come here and discuss what should be done next.

   Gondo had made this survey trip of theirs very easy and enjoyable. Nob the pony, now a veteran in these new lands, walked along beside them carrying their packs and necessities. Gondo had also outfitted himself and his friend with two very fine walking sticks which he himself had carved.

   ‘I do not know what the wood is called,’ Gondo had told him, ‘but it grows in the older forested areas here in the south and west of the Shire. It is a fair tree in life, and some virtue seems to be in its limbs for finding and returning. I lost my way in this new land many times before I had cut my first crude staff of this wood and now it seems to guide me in my uncertain roving.’²

   As the two friends talked together then in the closing days of 1601 the possibilities of the Shire lay lustrous before them in a way that few other hobbits could grasp. Only Gondo himself had seen enough of the Shire to understand its size and knew that there was yet much to be seen and mapped out. But Twoody and Alaura had already registered deeds for more than six hundred settlers who had cautiously crossed the Brown river (as hobbits and Bree-folk had begun to call it then) to set up small encampments and stake their claims to farms and homes. Those Shirefolk were expanding very rapidly and all three of the friends knew that by the springtime, when the families came, there would be more hobbits here in this new land than anywhere else in the known world. It was agreed that some organization of these lands, along with more detailed maps, was becoming necessary, and Twoody, seeing it now for the first time, was discovering not just the beauty of the Shire but the true scale of the King’s Agreement which he and Gondo had negotiated. It was such a great gift that he had never really had the opportunity to consider the size of it. The hobbitfolk of the North had been given safe and open lands by the king and told that here they would have his protection; all that they needed to do in return was maintain the Road and make the land bountiful once more.

   Twoody remembered well the words of king Argeleb the Second as he and Gondo stood with him that last night in his garden under the stars. That place was built atop the walls of Norbury, the summit of a cliff face sculpted to stand like a long finger pointing west, its walls high above the surrounding countryside. Then, as a memory within memory, Twoody also recalled the first time he described those gardens to Alaura on the day they sat alone high on Bree-hill outside her father’s house.

   ‘The king’s garden, Alaura. “Arnorsant” he had called it in a language which some of his people speak at times.³

   ‘Oh, it is a high and mighty place, walled for war as all their works seem to be, but chiefly protected, as if all their hope lay in holding the defense of this place open to light and beauty no matter what else might come. Norbury- “Fornost” they call it- is more vast than you can imagine, a great walled fortress as some stories speak of but which most folks like us never see. This was the high garden of a high king, Alaura, grand and, while peaceful somehow, well, it was also sad and foreboding, I might say.

   ‘If Gondo and I were to walk it from one end to the other it might take more than an hour.⁴ Its width was not much more than four hundred paces and, tall as the King and his knights were, I imagined they could always see the edge of this precarious wonderland from anywhere they stood. At those edges were low walls and battlements, not so tall as to hide the view of the garden from the rest of the world. Below there were sheer cliffs a hundred feet high which no army could scale. Only the warming light of the westerning sun could reach that high and defensible place of beauty.

   ‘Oh, but it was a wonder. Great trees there were, for all of the garden’s narrowness and its height. It was the king himself who told us of the trees as we walked there, and he did so with the care a gardener might take in his own works. That seemed very strange and very comforting to me at the same time; the idea that a great Sea-king of such highness knew something of the history of even the common things which grew around him.

   ‘The trees and flowers had such beautiful names, Alaura, dream-sounding the words were and I wrote many of those names down so that I might tell them to you. I don’t know that I’ll say them just as the king did, for the language that the names come from is not our own, and I know for certain that I’ll never describe them rightly, but I will try if you won’t laugh at my ignorance.

   ‘“Nessamelda,⁵” is what the king called the great big conifers, and they lined the walkway and narrowed our view so that all entering the garden must first look directly west. They were tall and lean, rising to the height of ten or twelve hobbits, dark dense pines which smelled like rosemary grown to an impossible height. They cast great shadows along the lane and, as we were there at sunset, they filled the whole place with the light and smell of homefires. I could not say if they had a power in them for such things, but the smell of Nessamelda made me lonesome and aching for home.

   '“Laurinquë”⁶ and “Lairelossë”⁷ the king showed us as well, and I’m sure I’ve butchered their names horribly and lack any decent skill to describe them, Alaura, but I shall try. The first was a short tree with low-hanging pale yellow flowers, growing in big clusters, like exploding puffballs of delicate petals and shoots. All about the path came the second, “Lairelossë”, a yellow-flowered gorse bush they were, which, even in the day’s end shadows, seemed more brilliant than any flower I know of. I looked to the edges of the wall and there I saw what they called Seregon,⁸ a ground cover which spilled over the wall’s edge as if they dripped with the color of blood or sunset. Finally, beside each bench and meeting place in the king’s garden, there was planted the tree which the king called “Yavannamírë”⁹; “Jewel of Yavanna” that means, and it sounds more beautiful coming from the lips of those who know how to speak it. But more beautiful still is the tree itself. It grows all year long and bears a scarlet fruit like the most luscious apples any gardener might wish for.¹⁰

   ‘Alaura,’ Twoody had said then, shyly, ‘it is not my favorite garden in all the world, but I do wish you could have been there to see it with us.’

   ‘You will be left in peace,’ the king had told Gondo and Twoody on that evening as the sun set in his high garden at Fornost Erain, and Twoody remembered it now, memory within memory, as he stood with his friend in this wide new land. ‘And for as long as I and my line may grant it, you will be given our protection. We are a diminishing people of old Númenor and you, if I perceive it rightly, have some great future in these lands. If hope may indeed still be found in Middle-earth then, I believe, it should come from a better understanding of our future than dwelling upon our former glories and lost past.’

   Twoody looked out on the rolling hills of the new land and towards the distant mountains. He and Gondo had traveled for weeks making careful maps and copious notes for Alaura, still back in the Bree-land, that she might copy and explain to the other potential settlers. The trip would last another ten days and the two friends would have a wonderful time together; romping alone through the hillside and confiding in one another as they had done throughout their childhood. Apart from missing his own featherbed and a fireside mug of good ale, Twoody could not deny that he felt comfortable and at peace in the Shire in a way he had never expected.

   But the land was so vast. If the calculations that Twoody, Gondo and Alaura had made were correct it might be as much as 20,000 square miles.¹¹ It would take many such trips to map so much territory. But how would hobbits ever manage to settle it all?

*****

   The true story regarding the discovery of this land is vague and seldom recounted even by the more scholarly hobbits of the Fourth Age. Twoody knew, just as Gondo and Alaura did, that Marcho and Blanco were unreliable reporters when at their best and, at their worst, quite apt to embellish their own deeds. The twins had taken their first foray into the new land, nine years before the signing of the King’s Agreement, and at that time only a very small portion of the land had been explored. It is true that the brothers had, rather bravely it should be said, crossed the great Stonebows bridge before any other hobbit. But it is also true that from the first they believed that they had come into the land of the Dwarves of which their father had spoken.

   Tales differ on the diplomatic methods and boldness those two heroic explorers displayed in their first journey. Some will say that they waited weeks before crossing the river, like patient and hesitant houseguests, hoping that the Dwarves would appear at the gates and politely welcome them. These same recorders of history will also say that the brothers hunted in the woods on the eastern side of the river during this time so that they might bring offerings for the people of its farther shore. They also say that each night for many weeks the brothers lit fires alongside the Road near to the Bridge’s foot hoping to draw the attention of the silent protectors of this new land; calling for entry from the unmanned garrison which they saw on the river’s other side. If these stories are true we cannot say, but those unfriendly histories certainly conflict with the later Shirefolk’s opinion of the courageous discoverers.

   Other historians and hobbit-gossipers would tell us of the haste and courage which the twins employed moving forward into the new land. How they saw the Bridge from afar and laughed at its defenses. Of how riding forth (whether on pony or wolf as some tell it) they crossed into the open and undefended lands, found it to be empty of challengers, and boldly claimed it for their own. With no flags to plant, it is said that the brothers blew long blasts on great horns and planted spears of warning to mark the conquered bridge as their own. There are many to this day who believe that only through such bold challenges was the new country seized for all courageous hobbits.¹²

   Whatever version of history one chooses to follow it is clear that Marcho and Blanco did eventually cross the Stonebows bridge without permission of any kind. And it is also known that they made their first camp in the old guard tower of the bridge, that same one which would be called the Bow’s Barrel some 375 years later when Tawarengil and his friends came there and were treated to an unexpected feast.¹³

   But no one ever came to the brothers in all the time they waited there and the land remained silent.

   After long days, and much deliberation, we know that Marcho and Blanco decided to go further. They followed the Road; for stories long before the memories of hobbits had called it “the Old Dwarf Road” and so, of course, it should only stand to reason that they might expect to find Dwarfish communities lying just beside it. That any hobbits of this time, including their own father Isengrim Tinyfoot, had any accurate image of a Dwarfish community seems quite unlikely, but the brothers looked to every rocky outcropping for some clue or secret door as old legends describe. They went further along the Road, expecting danger at every turn and finding nothing but green and fertile lands to either side and a seemingly endless path before them. From all they could see the land seemed silent, lush and unpeopled; a land of great potential.

   Whether the brothers themselves realized this potential is unknown to us through any later writings. Marcho and Blanco were the sons of a blacksmith and not a farmer after all, and they had become unlikely explorers who had previously lacked any notice for skills or traits other than their boisterousness and tomfoolery.

   While we lack any documentation of their deeds or their reasoning, it seems that after ten leagues of exploration, after encountering no one and finding no sign of anything other than emptiness, the brothers’ sense of adventure had quite finally been tapped. So there on a small hill above the Road, perhaps fearing the way forward or perhaps wanting to go back and to brag about their new discovery, they decided to set their mark.

   ‘The Far Stone,’ as the brothers called it, was laid as a border of their first exploration; the biggest, heaviest single stone that these two small hobbits and their ponies could move and place beside the great Road as evidence of just how far they had come. Thirty-six miles from the Stonebows bridge, it was a fairly unassuming single column-like boulder which stood three-quarters the height and twice the breadth of an average hobbit, placed there in the summer months of 1592 of the Third Age. While the stone grew to be of great importance to all Shire-hobbits in later years it was never very complex nor particularly lovely in its shape or color; just a tallish and unadorned marker on a long and lonely road.

   We know that six years later on a second expedition into these open lands Marcho and Blanco were accompanied and encouraged by the enterprising young Gondolpho Bucklestrap, and together they went further into the surrounding countryside. Gondo was many years younger than the twins at this time, but he knew how to read and write, had a keen hand for drawing and map-making, and a rare desire to see more of the world. Some folks say that the three traveled another seven leagues down the Great Road at this time, for the sight of the distant mountains had called to Gondo even in his youth. Others say they went less far west and instead explored those fertile regions to the south and north, their minds and conversations now filled with hope for profit rather than blind adventure. But it is well known, and later recounted by Alaura in her earliest editions of THE SHIRE-RECKONING, that the three of them traveled in those lands for more than a year and found no significant dangers and no folk, whether goblin, elf, dwarf, man or hobbit, tending the land and calling it their own.

   It should also be said that Twoody and Alaura knew the heart of their friend Gondo to be that of an explorer and so together the three had established the true purpose for this second expedition; to create a hobbit settlement of their own. How this notion first came into the minds of the three friends remains unknown; certainly Gondo’s restless need for discovery played a great part. It has also been suggested that Twoody’s older brother Childebrand, sensing a rare business opportunity, encouraged Gondo and the brothers to take this trip and even to later seek the King’s Agreement. Many others believe that the idea of forming a new nation of hobbits began solely in the mind of Alaura Fairheart who, even at such a young age, had always been a champion of personal liberties. In that first year of the Shire-reckoning hobbits had come to refer to Gondo and Twoody as the “townfathers” and even Alaura, who they all knew to play an equally important role, was referred to (albeit very loosely) in this same manner.

   In the earliest maps drawn in Gondo's quick and deliberate hand we see new and attractive features which guided the future settlers. He and the brothers had turned from the Road at the White Downs, choosing to search the rich farmlands to the north and south and thinking the Downs to be a very reasonable and natural border. In those early maps Gondo had recorded the location of the “Stonebows” and “the Marish”, “the Water” and the “North Moors”, the “White Downs” and the “Green Hill Country” all from their relative position to the Far-stone, making it seem the center of the land. And it was a version of this map, later refined with Alaura’s help, that Gondo and Twoody had taken north to show the king.

  What might have been discussed in the court of the king at Norbury is only known to the two hobbit ambassadors Thuedebald Swiftalk and Gondolpho Bucklestrap (for the brothers Marcho and Blanco, never fond of ‘the Big Folk’, were not present on this trip and it is said that their involvement with the establishment of the Shire became more ‘legendary’ and less ‘practical’ by this time). If there were any records of the conversations made by the king’s own scribes they did not survive the fall of Fornost Erain three-hundred and seventy-four years later. But the King’s Agreement surely allowed hobbits to freely settle into this part of the North and to order it as they saw fit under the king’s name. More surprising, the size of this land in that document was much greater than the hobbits had ever anticipated. The king had used the Far-stone as a center just as Gondo had proclaiming that the borders should stretch for twelve leagues in each direction from which it had been laid, making the land of the hobbits much greater than anyone had yet to imagine or thought explore.

   Though later histories make no mention of it, at the time of the Witch-king’s downfall (the Three Hundred and Seventy-fourth Year of Shire-reckoning) one could still clearly see the map and legend that was carved on this stone. For here it was that the townfathers Gondo and Twoody had first ordered the lands into what became known as ‘the Four Farthings’; all of which (at one time) held this stone as a boundary. The East-farthing, West-farthing, North-farthing and South-farthing¹⁴ were shown in their original design, believed to be carved in the hand of Gondolpho Boldbuck (as he was then called). And it is also recounted that below this map were the words; ‘By The Gift of Argeleb II, T.A. 1601, To His Friends. Shire Year 1.’¹⁵ It is generally agreed upon that this was written in the flowing script of Theudebald Swiftalk, later called Took after his death, and patriarch of the largest and most powerful family in the Shire. It was here that the two famous friends discussed all of their hopes and made their best plans for the future. But in two years time they would be parted and all of these hopeful dreams would be in doubt.

end of chapter five

Chapter End Notes

Notes

1)  This part came in with the revisions of early 2026. My whole restructuring of the Shire in accordance with better geographical references suggest that the Blue mountains could not be visible from the Farthing-stone and it would be better that way. So this version suggests that Twoody and Gondo had gone as far as the Chalk Hills in this expedition; not far enough to see the Elf Towers, but far enough to see the distant mountains.

2)  This is, of course, an echo of Faramir giving the walking sticks to Frodo and Sam in The Two Towers; difficult to try and quote while remaining oblique. The wood that Gondo does not know the name of is ‘lebethron’ on which there is “ a virtue of finding and returning”. This is my first use of the wood, but it will apply to the hobbit bowmen in later chapters of The Fall of Arnor.

3)  “Arnorsant” is a construction of my own; “Arnor” meaning “king’s land” and “sant” meaning “garden, enclosure” in Sindarin.

4)  As I write this on May 20th, 2023 my wife and I are in an apartment in New York City having just walked Central Park from one end to the other, a trip which takes, at my age, just over an hour.

5)  “Nessamelda” this plant may have been called in Agreleb’s day. An evergreen and fragrant tree which grew in the province of Nísimaldar in Númenor, where it was brought from Tol Eressëa by the Elves. The name apparently means 'beloved of Nessa' in Quenya.

6)  “Laurinquë”, a tree with “long-hanging clusters of yellow flowers” which grew in the province Hyarrostar in Númenor, where it was brought from Tol Eressëa by the Elves. The name is derived from Quenya “laurë” or golden.

7)  A yellow-flowered gorse bushes, “Lairelossë” also comes from Númenor.

8)  “Seregon” is a plant with deep red flowers that grew upon the summit of the hill of Amon Rûdh in Beleriand, with the result that the hill looked as if dripped with blood. The name can be translated from Sindarin as 'blood of stone'. Christopher Tolkien also stated that it resembled the real-world plant stonecrop.

9)  “Yavannamírë”; an evergreen and fragrant tree with globed and scarlet fruits that grew in the province of Nísimaldar in Númenor, where it was brought from Tol Eressëa by the Elves. The name can be translated from Quenya as 'jewel of Yavanna'.

10)  So very many of these descriptions of plants and trees come very directly from Tolkien Gateway. I cannot believe anyone who has been reading this so far has not encountered that fabulous resource and it seems ridiculous to keep citing it. Go there. If you’re bothering to read Tolkien fanfic that goes this deep you will find it to be the most amazing and abundant resource you might hope for.

11)  This is, of course, a correct calculation for the land first granted to the hobbits was roughly 20,000 square miles; fifty from east to west and roughly forty from north to south. Thanks, once again, to Tolkien Gateway for making this information so accessible.

12)  Hmmn. I find as I write about the “Founders”Marcho and Blanco I am increasingly interested in the manufacturing of nationalist myths; and certainly, writing from my own perspective as an American living in the early twenty-first century, that position is different from Tolkien’s own, an Englishman in the early and mid- twentieth. But our purposes are, I think, quite the same, for Tolkien despised nationalism as I do and often used hobbits as an example of the narrow-mindedness of his own countrymen. But I am, as an American, more interested in their “pioneer spirit” and the justification we make around this idea of “Manifest Destiny” which is, after all, our own American rebranding of European Colonialism. I write this now while I’m “in the text”, still feeling my way into the story. It will be interesting to see how it develops.

13)  If you are looking for the name “Tawarengil” on Tolkien Gateway you will not find it.This is a reference to one of the characters found in my own work, “The Fall of Arnor”, and places this story where I first began writing it; between Books II and III of that series.

14)  Maps of the four Farthings see quite a bit of creative energy in things like fanfic and gaming, so they are not always clear in Tolkien’s legendarium. The one I am using, flawed though it may be, is the one I’ve decided to go with for locating the various settlements. But it seems logical to me that some earlier version existed in which the Farthing-stone was the convenient corner of all four Farthings and this had somehow changed by the War of the Ring.

15)  Argeleb II was the king of Arthedain in 1601 and made the gift to the hobbits, but it isn’t quite clear to me if he thought of them as subjects nor if the hobbits saw him as their own king rather than the king of the Big Folk. This idea goes a long way into how the Shirefolk think of their responsibilities to his heir with the coming war in 1975 of the Third Age and will, of course, be explored further in these writings.

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   By late January of 1602 of the Third Age, in the month which hobbits had come to call “Solmath” or “mudmonth”,¹ there were over seven hundred registered settlers in the Shire; almost all of them were male and more than half of those had families waiting to join them. Business at the Inn of the Four Greenfields, and throughout all of the Bree-land, benefited greatly from that arrangement, for the wives and children, elderly parents and even the livestock of many of the pioneers had quite flooded the little town and its neighbouring villages. There were a few less-ambitious but still enterprising farmers who began to settle the open areas just west of the Hedge-gate preferring to take advantage of the current crowded situation rather than waiting for towns in the Shire to be made ready. Twoody and Alaura had no good way of estimating the numbers of all of the family members who waited to join their husbands, but they suspected that by planting season, in the month which hobbits had traditionally called “Chithing”,² as many as two thousand hobbits might come to live in the Shire.

   For many long centuries of their largely forgotten history hobbits had been a nomadic people who roamed throughout Middle-earth in extended families. It had only been a fairly short time, perhaps five hundred years or so, since their coming into the Bree-land during which they had adopted some of the behavior of the Big Folk in which their males- or, to hobbits, “bucks”- were considered to be the leaders of their households and the principal owners of their businesses. Many of the farming families coming from south or east of Bree-hill were in fact still matrilineal and women and grandmothers still held most of the authority.³ Whether this had something to do with why the bucks who settled in the Shire were so quick to change their own names remains unknown. It was Gondo himself who had asked that only bucks (and the younger and stronger the better to his mind) should do the early work of preparing homes and settlements. But, quite unintentionally, this had caused the first major change in the society of hobbits in the region; for now it was only the bucks who held deeds to their land and it was their names which were placed in THE FIRST FAMILIES OF THE SHIRE. This unusual and very subtle change would cause some unexpected problems for the early settlers of the Shire and their children but, for the moment, it was seen by most of the community as a clerical problem and not something the families themselves were much concerned with.

   But in late January “the townfathers”- which is to say Gondo, Twoody and Alaura- were (in equal parts) excited, anxious and worried about the coming spring. Families would spread into the Shire in a great wave then, and the pioneers there would very likely leave the public improvements of roads and wells and storehouses to begin work on farms and homes of their own. With no provisional government of any kind, nor indeed any wish for one, it remained uncertain that the new Shire-hobbits would continue to work together.

   Many marriages began almost as soon as the Shire was opened in the previous summer. Hobbit males, young or old, who were listed in THE FIRST FAMILIES OF THE SHIRE were suddenly in great demand by daughters and widows and even (former) spinster aunts. Twoody’s older brother Hartnid, who was now solely in charge of the inn, hosted occasions of wedding breakfasts, wedding brunches, wedding lunches, wedding teas, wedding dinners and even wedding picnics nearly every week from what we now call June through February. There were few new births before the springtime of course, but as these new marriages had to be reconciled against the steady changing of names on deeds, Alaura began her companion piece to FIRST FAMILIES, the GENEALOGICAL REGISTRY OF THE SHIRE, so as to avoid confusion for all the families preparing to move west. This work was immediately very popular with all of the Shire-hobbits and Alaura made quite a tidy profit from it, as well as its later editions, throughout her lifetime. The most famous first edition to survive, written in Alaura’s own hand, was found at the Undertowers and is believed to have once belonged to Bilbo Baggins himself.⁴

   In early March of 1602, called “Rethe” or “the rough month” in the local calendars, the many spare and temporary settlements which spread all around Bree-hill were undergoing great changes. Families were beginning to sell off unneeded items like extra clothing, childrens’ toys, winter blankets, small tents and old tarps so as to purchase tools for building, seeds for planting, extra grain for feed and buckets and barrels for carting. Twoody’s brother Childebrand had wisely cornered the market on most of this trade in the months before. While Gondo and Twoody were away petitioning the king, Childy, as he was called, had purchased and rebuilt the old stables near the inn. There he had set up a great shop which he had named "Swiftwalk Purchasers, Purveyors, Packagers and Porters -Things Provided and Things Took." He managed to keep a steady stream of supplies coming into the Bree-land from the east and the north all winter long. Carts bringing these items were driven by outsiders, Big Folk, who Childy had made contact with in anticipation of the move and all the hobbits praised his business sense (even if they did occasionally balk at his prices). Isengrim Tinyfoot was busier than ever (and grumpy as always) with the manufacturing of plowblades, hammerheads, knife edges and other assorted tools for chopping, sawing and tilling. Cedric Bristleberry, the town cooper, saw his busiest season yet manufacturing containers, carts and wheels of all sorts and sizes. It was clear to all that the spring migration was soon to begin and the Shire, and all the lands around it, would not be the same.

*****

   We know from many journals and diaries that the first marriage ceremony of Alaura Fairheart was, despite the spectacle which surrounded it, quite a small affair. In the early morning of the twenty-third day of what we now call the month of March, the first day of the month of “Chithing” in the Breeland calendars of the time, Alaura and her mother, alongside three of her sisters and two of her brothers, walked in procession through the Hedge-gate along the great Road to the Shire. One of those sisters who witnessed this first marriage was Ermenberga Tinyfoot (later Bophin) and the brothers are presumed to be Marcho and Blanco, the famous twins. Alaura’s father Isengrim Tinyfoot was noticeably not a member of the party. Alaura wore a new cream-colored dress and there were bright white flowers in golden nettles adorning her shining black hair.

   They were met outside the town’s gate by Twoody, five of his own brothers and even his father Hincmar at the Crossing Stone. Hincmar was old for such a trip but, as his later letters would tell us, "would walk twice the distance on bald feet before he’d dare miss such an occasion." There at the Crossing the ladies were escorted into a very commodious long cart, driven by Hincmar himself, which had been painted white and decorated with viburnum, lilac and forsythia from the garden of Alaura’s mother, Celedine Tinyfoot. A team of seven small ponies, with Nob as their leader, pulled the cart as the party proceeded westward towards the Shire. Twoody’s brothers rode in a second and much less decorated cart filled with provisions while Twoody himself, his Shire-made walking stick in hand, led the train. Many of the Breelanders watched them go and cheered them on their way, and small children followed for a mile or so in their wake, as has remained a custom among hobbits for some time since.

   They traveled at an easy pace all day and if any conversations occurred between the two friends or their relatives none of it has survived.

   In the late afternoon, with the Sun still high in the west, they set camp just outside of the waymeet. There was a little stream that flowed near to the Road there for fresh water and the washing of tired feet. Twoody’s brothers put up two great pavilion tents by the roadside, one for the bucks and one for the does, and great stores of food and beverage were also put to their dinner table.

   Twoody and his brothers set watches for the night (for it was still the wilderness beyond the Hedge-gate at this time) while the others slept comfortably in their pavilions beside the campfires.

   With dawn coming out behind them on the next day all was quickly packed for travel. Twoody had changed from his traveling clothes of the previous day to a primrose coloured waistcoat, his finest, and a jacket of light grey with silver buttons on the cuffs.

   Just before sunset this party out of the Bree-land was met at the foot of the Stonebows bridge by Gondo and five of his friends from Buckland. The Bucklanders, Eumaeus Sandyman, Horris Bunce, Porro Noakesburrow, Engilbert Bramblethorne and Alaura’s own younger brother Clothair Pudifoot, were cleaned and groomed to their best for the auspicious event. They brought with them roast venison, stored apples, fresh rhubarb, wild mushrooms and mulled wines; some of their best provenders which had been set aside during the winter months in preparation for this day.⁵ A small bower had been made at the first high span of the bridge and it was decorated by Gondo’s friends, who had traveled far in the past week and dared much for the occasion. There were wild lilies from the shadows of the Green Hill country around Sarehole, cattails and bladderwort from South-farthing and the Marish, hackberry from up near Budge and even winter’s holly from as far off as the Bindbole Wood; and in this way all four of the regions of the Shire were to be represented.

   There on the bridge, facing west into the new land and the setting Sun, Alaura Tinyfoot wed Gondolpho Boldbuck before their friends and family. What words were spoken are likewise not recorded, but it is said that Twoody himself tied the green and blue ribbon of holdfast about their hands. It was also said that Alaura would keep that ribbon for many years before passing it on to her own children.

   No wedding certificate from this event exists. Later writing on the subject informs us that the lack of such a document would cause repercussions throughout the lives of this couple and their children for decades, and even generations to come.

   But there is no hobbit who has ever gone on record denying the event did indeed happen. Gondo and Alaura were wed, surrounded by friends and family, at the very gate of the Shire.

   This was the first wedding within the new land and it is from the tradition of this ceremony that weddings held on the first day of the new planting season have become considered good luck to all the Shirefolk over the centuries.

   And so it was that the month of “Chithing”, which means “germinating” to the Breefolk was changed to “Astron” in the Shire-reckoning, a much more reverent and hopeful name; for that word is one which means “rebirth and renewal” just as we still use it today.⁶

end of chapter six

Chapter End Notes

Notes

1)  This is the second month of what would later become the Shire Calendar. Solmath begins on January 22nd of our modern calendar and, considering the mildness of climate in the Shire, it seems to suggest very rainy weather.

2)  This name is from the Bree Calendar and roughly relates to the Old English word for “germinating”.

3)  The idea of smaller and more ancient communities of hobbits as being matrilineal goes back to the stories of Sméagol’s grandmother as well as some theories about the Celts prior to the Iron Age.

4)  The Undertowers, located in the Tower Hills of Westmarch, is where Sam Gamgee’s daughter Elanor lived and also where the famous Red Book of Westmarch was discovered. Whether or not Sam’s younger daughter Goldilocks, the proposed author of this original text, retired there is unknown. But certainly this is where a good many of Bilbo’s belongings, handed down through Frodo to Sam, would have ended up.

5)  These are all regular dishes popular for Celtic weddings that might also be available at that month of the year. The fact that some of them are stored highlights the importance of the custom.

6)  “Astron” is Tolkien’s word originating from the Old English word for “Easter”. It is meant with a very Christian connotation within his work which I hope will be evident to my own readers. But the origin of the word itself is also said to come from a pagan goddess of rebirth. In this way I hope that the Celtic elements of the ceremony are played up over the more modern Christian practices.

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*Author’s Note:

   A large portion of this story comes from recovered text which is attributed to Goldilocks Took née Gardener and her own supporting research. But because that research, and my own, lacks any personal accounts from Gondolpho Oldbuck and Alaura Fairheart we are left with an incomplete picture of these two very important figures. We know that many letters passed between them over the years and that both were said to keep journals in the early days of the Shire. But without any evidence from these lost personal writings it may be difficult to understand the strength of the bond between them at this earlier part of their story. Many readers may find this difficulty confusing or even disappointing to their enjoyment of the tale. The depiction of their relationship, only sparsely recounted in Goldilocks’ text, may make the difficult choices in each character's life seem much more questionable; why would he go off with the elves? Why would she marry again, and then again?

   It should be remembered that Goldilocks’ text, the best and most complete model which we have for the retelling of this tale, is in itself a document of specific intention and drawn from incomplete sources. It was created as a wedding gift for her husband Faramir Took, heir of that great family and a direct descendant of Alaura’s. As to the resources at Goldilocks’ disposal, they would have been meager regarding the details of the romance between these two hobbits; for the final resting place of Gondolpho Oldbuck has never been found and the journals and letters of those two famous lovers are therefore lost to history. The many public writings by Alaura and the scant few letters by each which were preserved by the Took family at their home in the Great Smials undoubtedly served as the major source of Goldilocks' research. She also relates many observations and sayings from Twoody’s own letters and journals, both private and public. Theudebert Took, their son, possessed and scrupulously collected all of these writings though, sadly, he wrote no commentary on the things he may have read in this collection or upon his own view of his parents’ relationship.

   As discussed in this book’s foreword, my intention is not to make a direct translation of Goldilocks’ text but to recount the earliest days of the Shire alongside one of its most famous love stories. Much historical information (and a good dose of creative conjecture) from my own research has found its way into the telling of this tale. There are, of course, other rumoured accounts which I have used as a resource and which Goldilocks did not directly cite. One such example is Deidre Took’s famed but now fragmentary song “The Tale of the Tooks and the Bucks” (first published in Year Seventy-three of the Shire-reckoning). Not much of the original version is left, though it was quite popular in her own day. Many later chapters of my book owe much to Clovis Bunce’s “The Bunces Between the Borderlands and the Branduin” (published in Year Eighty), the first generational adventure novel of the Shire and found in Bilbo’s own collection of books at the Undertowers. There are also letters by relatives and witnesses which give us the details of the marriage ceremonies of Alaura Fairheart and insights into her fascinating character. There are many accounts from their neighbours in the Buckland of the love that Gondo and Alaura had for one another and the partnership which they shared in the early years of the Shire. There also remain some accounts of their later years together which, within a generation after her death, had mostly dissolved into rumour. But there are also many accounts from later generations of hobbits which speak of the great feud between the two families without offering much in the way of first-hand evidence. Gossip, of course, is not history. But when the only recordings which we have of events are largely made up of gossip the historian must do what they can.

   I believe that all these sources tell a story of three friends who together shaped the new land’s destiny alongside their own. But in having only Twoody’s letters and journals as our principal source, the records we have of their individual dreams and hopes remains disappointingly one-sided.

   I cannot provide interested readers with first-hand evidence regarding the love between Gondo and Alaura. Those private letters are lost to us and Twoody himself writes very little on this subject. We cannot hope to know their feelings through anything other than careful study and, on my part, more creative conjecture.

   So, in the interest of telling readers¹ more of the relationship between these two famous yet still enigmatic characters -or, at the least, to reveal more of how I believe it was- I must now move past conjecture and indulge in fiction.

   The scene recorded in this chapter does not come from Goldilocks’ own text and is not mentioned in any of the surviving accounts. It is a story built around the absence of first-hand evidence. It is an embellishment of my own, formed from deep research and (I hope) a deep compassion for its characters. Perhaps it is best seen as a “testimony of character” for these two most important hobbits who have left us without affidavits of their own.

   The final section added in this chapter is a translation of the remaining fragments of Deidre Took’s song which describes this scene. Attentive readers will note that the rhyme scheme, while sometimes forced, echoes that of the famous translation of the “Ley of Luthien” found in the Red Book of Westmarch. Some historians are quick to discredit it for this reason, wondering how a hobbit in the early days of the Shire would have encountered such an uniquely Elvish song. There are some who believe it was written much later, well after the War of the Ring, when tales from the old world began being collected at the Great Smials and, as such, it is only a stylistically re-fashioned echo of Deidre’s original song. Perhaps this is true. As with my own work, it is perhaps purely the indulgence of a storyteller rather than the useful guidepost of a historian.

   It is said that “history forgives a good story.” Let us hope that will be the case.

-D.F.R.

   In defense of his faithfulness² it should be noted that Gondo, on the morning of June 13th in the First Year of the Shire-reckoning, limped his way up Bree-hill in desperate fear of the tongue-lashing he was likely to receive and with a full awareness of how richly he deserved it. He was showing up at Alaura’s father’s doorstep alone at dawn, unexpected and with no advance message of his recent return; and everyone knew that unannounced, unescorted, unexpected and quite unlooked-for guests were not met well by stand-offish hobbits like Isengrim Tinyfoot.

   But perhaps he was not altogether unlooked-for. And that made Gondo’s worried steps just a little lighter.

   He had marveled at the work done by Twoody and Alaura in the three months since the signing of the King’s Agreement. Just the night before, on Gondo’s unexpected return to the Bree-land, Twoody, Twoody’s father and many of the other hobbits present proudly showed him many of the broadsheets that Alaura had written and managed to spread throughout the Northlands. These writings were brief and bold and hopeful in their tone, projecting a future for all hobbits just as the three friends had talked about together in the years since the discovery of the land beyond the Stonebows bridge. The “Shire” she had called it, translating the King’s language better than either he or Twoody could upon hearing it. As he walked uphill toward her home the word “Shire” rang in Gondo’s ears. The previous night he had heard many hobbits from unfamiliar lands say this same word and, while all had some different accent or inflection, he could hear the hopefulness in their voices and the dream which Alaura’s broadsheets had put into their hearts. Having heard so many idealistic voices and their interpretations, Gondo did not yet know how to say the word himself. He longed to hear it in Alaura’s own voice knowing he would say it that same way for all the rest of his days.

   Twoody had been such a wise and caring friend during these past three months as Gondo had taken off (again) on his own admitted flight of fancy. Twoody had saved a copy of the very first “SHIRE-RECKONING” written in Alaura’s own hand. He gave it to Gondo the night before saying:

   ‘Well, she’s put all of our dreams and ideas here on paper, Gondo. We’ll need to do a fair piece of work living up to them now.’

   Later, in the last quiet moments he would have alone that evening, Gondo had unfolded the paper carefully, tenderly, and read it slowly, hoping to hear the firmness and humour of Alaura’s voice in his head, to be transported to the memory of her face by the signs of her pen. After a few long minutes, he carefully folded the paper again and put it in his special wallet; the one in which he carried the copy of the King’s Agreement that Twoody had written for him three months before.

   ‘I am unexpected but not unprovisioned,” he thought to himself, walking up the Hill and tapping the pocket in his new change of clothes which held the wallet. ‘And perhaps not wholly unlooked-for. Assuming old Isengrim will let me in.’

   If Alaura’s father was surprised to see Gondo coming up the hill with the dawn then Gondo could not read it on the old hobbit’s face; nor did he expect to. The watchful eyes, the bristling ear hairs, the furrowed brow, were all things that the old blacksmith employed to greet his unwelcome guests and, Gondo believed, they were all just part of a story the hobbit had cultivated about himself to keep others from bothering him. There were many Breelanders who thought that old Isengrim was just hateful and mean-spirited, but Gondo knew better. Old Isengrim Tinyfoot was indeed mean-spirited, but he was also smart enough to let the legend of his hatefulness keep him from having unwanted involvements with his neighbours.

   With his usual polite gruffness, the old hobbit greeted Gondo and stated his position on this early and unexpected arrival:

   ‘So you are alive, as anyone can plainly see. And you’re back again. Unlooked-for by myself, but not wholly unexpected. Word of your coming has not reached us. Why is that, I wonder, when you return so hale, hearty and praiseworthy?’

   ‘Hah! “Praiseworthy” is certainly a word which I’m glad to hear from your lips, sir! But I hardly have heralds to announce my coming!’ Gondo said, with a slight bow and a wide smile. ‘I apologize for any surprise which my presence brings you, but I returned very late in the evening last night and have worked very hard to settle my business in town so that I might join you in this early, but still respectful hour, at your home. Though,’ he said with a smile, ‘knowing you and your family as I do, I doubt that I have shocked anyone into wakefulness.’

   If Gondo was prouder now than when he last met Alaura’s formidable father none might argue that he had good reason. He had met with lordly knights and high kings and had never once quavered. He had spent months alone in the wilderness building a new home with his own hands and had never relented. But Gondo was also wiser from these experiences and so did not mistakenly wear pride to cover vanity as others might. He simply waited for the old hobbit guardian at the wrought iron gate to respond.

   ‘Off making a new home for yourself, or so I’ve heard,’ Isengrim said with an appraising eye. That eye looked up and down and through the old hobbit's guest; noting the still-wet hair from bathing, the clean pants, jacket and waistcoat that had never been worn into the wilderness, the clean-cut nails on fingers and toes and the fresh-brushed hair below his ankles. ‘Well, you have cleaned up well and look the stronger for your work in the wild, I will say that. But talk of your doings has caused quite a stir around the Hill. You’ve brought many strange hobbits to my door, young Bucklestrap.’

   ‘And many new customers, I should think, sir,’ Gondo replied without hesitation. ‘All those fresh hands will need tools to build with in the new lands.’

   ‘Likely so,’ the blacksmith said, still not opening his gate. Gondo could feel the measure of Isengrim’s gaze going deeper. He tried to let the pause go on without him speaking, but was eventually broken by the eyes of Alaura’s feary father.

    ‘Many of those new folks will be leaving with me this morning,’ Gondo continued, filling the long silence of Isengrim’s scrutiny, ‘though their need for your services will continue for some years, I’d imagine.’

   A nearly audible grunt of acceptance seemed to sit in Isengrim’s throat, but whether he would give it out remained uncertain. After a time he said, ‘I’d imagine so. You’ve made me busy enough already, but I’m no stranger to busy work. But “leaving with you,” you say? Off again so soon, are you? And alone then?’ Isengrim asked with some directness.

   Gondo thought for a moment about his next response and moved cautiously forward with the conversation. ‘Yes, sir, off again,’ he said. ‘There are a great number of hobbits down beneath the Hill who seem to need a guide further down the Road and have taken me for that position. I’ve seen the land and know how to lead them. No families, of course, at least not yet,’ he said with some directness of his own, ‘for there will be hard work ahead building wells and roads and mapping the lands and such.’

   The old hobbit continued to look Gondo over, his stare fixed but still appraising. If another of those small grunts of acceptance ever came out of Isengrim Tinyfoot’s throat Gondo never heard it.

   ‘And you’d like to speak with my daughter before you go, I suspect,’ the old hobbit said.
   ‘I would, sir,’ Gondo said without embarrassment or shyness. ‘If I have your permission to do so.’

*****

   After finally stepping aside in what passed for his consent, Isengrim sent Gondo to wait, as usual, in the gardenhouse. Gondo walked the familiar stone path towards the western side of the hill and under its shadow. It was high summer and so the air was still warm and filled with the aroma of flowers. Bees and other insects were waking to the Sun, but where the shadow of the Hill fell there was still a coolness and a quietness in the air. Gondo could see and even hear the buzz of activity around the inn in the town below and knew that plans were in motion, much sooner than he ever could have expected. He knew that he should not be delayed, but he was quite content for a time to sit here in the gardenhouse at the opening of a new day.

   The garden of Alaura’s mother, Celedine Tinyfoot, was at its best in high summer. The pillars and canopy of wrought iron were entwined and commingled with all manner of clinging and flowering climbers, some hanging nearly as low as Gondo’s own head as he walked onto the balcony. In the main garden just below there were bushes that were bursting into bright yellow stars, there were clusters of plants with long stalks of pale green which opened into delicate folding petals of purples and pinks and white. There were high-growing upright plants that every few inches seemed to open their beak-like petals of a fiery yellow trimmed in red, like the mouths of dragons. Bright red bulbs rising from dark green leaves in some places, and the stones through the path and further around the hill were lined with a ground cover of light yellowish-green. Towering over the rest were titanic dandelions, like they had been transplanted from the gardens of giants, with big dark faces, bigger than Gondo’s own, and surrounded by double crowns of delicate golden petals. In that moment Gondo wished that he had taken the time to learn the names of these plants and flowers; for in his wanderings and his map-making a knowledge of trees had always been more important than a knowledge of flowers. But, as he sat there waiting for Alaura, he thought about making such a garden himself around the doors of Sarehole. ‘Did Alaura know anything about flowers?’ he wondered. Surely she must, for she knew and thought about many things which he had never bothered to consider.

   After all of his ramblings to the court of the king and around the new lands, all his months away on adventures and all the plans with the other hobbits which he laid just the night before, Gondo finally found a moment of peacefulness in Celedine’s garden which he seldom felt. It did not make him reconsider his vow to leave the Bree-land today and to never return, but for a few quiet and contented moments awaiting Alaura, Gondo did not look so restlessly forward and thought instead about the joys and the blessings he had already been given.

*****

   Contrary to most opinions of the Shirefolk, Alaura Fairheart was not one to ever allow herself to waste any of her time waiting for Gondo to return. Ever since she was a young doe Alaura’s days had always been filled with the important work of planning her own future. When Twoody and Gondo were both away at Norbury those days of planning had stretched on and on, placing her in a dark and dangerous mood; for six long months she had no idea what might happen to her friends on their mission or how it might affect all of their plans. But it was not the waiting which troubled her nearly so much as the way in which not knowing a thing put all her other plans into a stasis. ‘Or a torpor,’ she once wrote. ‘For I find that not knowing how another hobbit’s life will change one’s own is a crippling condition of dependence.’ And Alaura found any condition of dependence to be ‘an unwanted confinement’.

   Alaura was the eleventh child of Celedine and Isengrim and, by Year One of the Shire, she had another four younger siblings as well. Many hobbits have said that the sheer size of the Tinyfoot household went a long way toward establishing the fierce independence which Alaura would be known for all her life. She had hated the six long months waiting for Gondo and Twoody’s return from Norbury and during that time much of that feeling was turned inward; for her inability to move on in her plans without her friends made her feel weak and this weakness was another condition of dependence which she could not tolerate. There were long dreary winter days when not even the noisy bustling and arguing of her many siblings could raise her from her bed. She wrote very little at that time, spent most of her days sleeping too much, eating very little and thinking too darkly.

   When Twoody returned to the Bree-land alone with the King’s Agreement in hand Alaura found herself lifted from this black cloud of dependence and inactivity; finally there was work to be done and a future to be seen outside of her father’s overcrowded hole on Bree-hill. The document which her friends had secured stirred her imagination. The language of it was like none she had ever read, strewn with unusual phrases and many untranslatable words, the sounds and meanings of which she could only guess at. While Alaura felt joy to have Twoody returned to her and disappointment to hear that Gondo had gone on alone, it was her intense feeling of envy which she found hardest to hide on that day in the garden.

   For, by her own appraisal, Alaura herself should have gone alongside her friends to Norbury. She should have had the opportunity to walk in those gardens, to see the high walls and towering spires, to read in the great library from all sorts of unfamiliar books and learn all that she may in the court of the Sea-king. It was, of course, only her sex, her age and, as always, the narrow-mindedness of others which prevented this.

   The walk from the Bree-land to the king’s court at Norbury was reported to be long and dangerous. Going at a wary pace a hobbit might manage to cover the distance with five nights spent in the open. But no hobbit had gone or come from that way in recent memory and the Northlands were, with good reason, considered dangerous by all Breelanders. No one felt this was a trip to be made by a proper, young and unmarried doe³ like Alaura. Most of her neighbours (and some of her family) might have found it easy to blame this ridiculous thinking on her father, a hobbit who was very well-known for his indomitable conventionality. But Alaura, in her heart, had been disappointed most to find it in her friends.

   ‘Alaura, you are not listening,’ she could remember Gondo saying to her long months ago before their trip began. ‘The north may be dangerous as many folk say, and while I would be cautious every step of the way for your safety I also imagine you might be better suited to a long trip than Twoody here,’ he said with a smile and a jab at their friend’s rather solidly stuffed waistcoat. ‘But, please, be reasonable. What might await us in Norbury is anyone’s guess. How a doe like yourself might be received there is completely unknowable. The Big Folk seldom travel with their women-folk, from what we’ve seen.’

   ‘Father has mentioned a few female soldiers coming through the Bree-land,’ Twoody had offered as weak argument, ‘but they are rare by all accounts.’

   ‘The two of you go on and on about the roles Women play in the world of Men and I simply cannot understand it,’ Alaura had replied with swiftness and a bit of anger. ‘What do Women and Men have to do with Hobbits? Why is it that the role of Women is so much more interesting to you hobbits than Men themselves are to Women? And what, I ask you again, should anything which you have observed of Men and Women have to say about us as Hobbits? Sometimes it seems to me that we’ve made the history of the male’s opposition to female freedoms more convoluted than the history of freedom itself.’⁴

   Gondo had laughed loud and quick at this argument; Alaura knew how he loved clever language and she was not above using that love to woo his attention and support. But Twoody, looking a bit stung and a little defensive said, ‘Alaura, that’s unfair. Gondo is simply suggesting that we do not know anything about the Court of the King and how you might be accepted there.’

   ‘I should be accepted just as you may be, I should think, Twoody,’ she had replied harshly. ‘Just as any of us should be by a king who respects his people. Together we should be accepted as three young, charming, well-informed, far-sighted hobbits who believe in the worthiness of our People to develop the lands beyond the Bridge for ourselves, to restore them to abundance, and to keep them free in the King’s name. I think that I can present myself in this way every bit as well as the two of you might. And I think that is the respect I should expect from any good king... and from my friends as well.

   ‘Tell me,’ she asked, sparing Twoody from her attack and looking toward Gondo, ‘should I be talked out of attending this king’s court because of my own sex or because of your own protectiveness? Can we not have one argument without the other?’

   ‘Is it wrong for us to wish to protect you, Alaura?’ Gondo had asked, and there had been a great silence between the three friends for a time after.

   ‘It is not wrong to wish it,’ Alaura had finally said, ‘and it is most kindly meant, I know. But it is not fair, nor just nor kind for your protection to contain myself as a person. You wish to protect me, the both of you, but will you not also allow me to grow from these experiences just as you will?’

   In her better and younger days (before Twoody and Gondo had gone north without her) Alaura was most always the earliest riser in the Tinyfoot home. When she had first learned to read and to write as a fawn⁵ she could not wait for each day to begin. An eleventh child in a household of fifteen children has few responsibilities in their morning, but Alaura, then not yet a tween, would rise from her cot each morning well before the Sun and drag her borrowed books, her begged-for ink bottles and her very raw and ragged strips of borrowed paper up to the eastern edge of her father’s home so the the awakening Sun might help her study. There was a small grove of trees above the north wall, a fallen stump to sit on and, if the day of writing and reading went on for too long, a little rill of water in which Alaura might refresh herself. There were larks somewhere in the grove and Alaura was happiest in those early days when she woke before they did. This strict and regimented behaviour went on for a full year before Isengrim, in his usual clipped and harsh manner, decided to put an end to it.

   ‘Here now, Little Princess,’ he had said (of all his many children Isengrim always called Alaura “Little Princess” for her being, in both her manner and her mysteriousness, most like to her mother Celedine whom he loved, respected and openly admitted to misunderstand greatly). ‘Winter is coming and the morning is cold on the side of the Hill. I won’t see you sitting upon a stump, drinking pondwater and doing the work of determining your own life unsupported. If you’re to greet the Sun earlier than your sluggard brethren, for whatever purpose suits you, then you will need a more apt place for doing it.’

   And so, while she was still quite young, “Alaura’s Room” was built into the Bree-hill. It ran through a long and divided tunnel in the family hole which made the other Tinyfoot siblings unwelcome. There was a round staircase (something hobbits generally do not favour) which was dark and discouraging and led from that tunnel to the Room’s position high above the rest of their home. The hill of Bree was very broad and Isengrim’s house was nowhere near the crest, so all of this digging was done in secret, her father and brothers burrowing deeper and higher than most hobbitholes might be. Isengrim chose to have the light come from the east and the southwest. This required round windows set high into channels of the Hill, almost like skylights, and they afforded no view to the outside world or, better still, little outside view into the room. But in this way Alaura’s Room received morning light before anyone else and evening light much longer. It was small, more like a perch than a parlour, and furnished in a spare manner so that Alaura might entertain no visitors and also never become so relaxed as to not return home at the end of a day. In the Room itself there was a well-crafted table and a straight backed chair and a row of various sized shelves (for Isengrim himself did not read nor did he yet understand the practical design of a bookshelf). Here, apart and deep in the hillside, Alaura had a room of her own⁶ and no other hobbit than her father and her brothers had ever seen it.

   On the morning of Gondo’s return Alaura sat in that highest perch of her father’s house writing new reports for THE SHIRE-RECKONING and letting the Sun stir her plans of the future. The house had begun to awaken below her but the morning was quiet and, while she could not see out from the high windows, she caught her father’s voice on the air, talking with someone. Then, and almost before he spoke, she recognized Gondo’s own voice in response.

*****

   He heard her before she arrived, of course; Alaura was never a quiet hobbit, particularly in the mornings. Just how many siblings were packed with her into Isengrim’s vast hole in the hillside at this time Gondo did not know, but while they all made a great din of talking and yelling at one another (as they did on most mornings) Alaura’s voice rose above the rest. ‘Ooch, will you get that off me!’ He heard her say. ‘Can I not have a moment to myself, please?’ ‘Oh, rocks! I cannot think for all of your prattling!’ There was a sound of crashing mugs and laughs from the others inside, to which Alaura called, ‘fine then! You take him the milk and scones! You may tell him that I shall be along presently or I shall be along when it suits me, whichever is more to my own liking! I’ve no doubt that he will understand the logic of that!’

   There was a bit more muffled disquiet caused by this response, but Gondo could not make it out. He smiled contentedly though, knowing that he was being made to wait and accepting that this might be the easiest portion of his eventual punishment.

   From the western side of the hole and through the garden below Gondo saw the small figure of one of Alaura’s younger brothers come up the path bearing a tray. ‘Hullo, Gondo!’ the youngster called waving, and quickly stopped to steady the laden tray again with both his hands. This was Clothaire Tinyfoot, whom they all called Clooty; the seldom invited tag-along on many of Gondo, Twoody and Alaura’s earlier adventures. He was six years younger than Gondo or Twoody but had followed the two of them whenever possible (and whenever Alaura would allow it). As a fawn, Clooty had been all ‘shins and hinds and elbows’ as some hobbits say, a clumsy ball of energy which the elder Twoody and Gondo could direct into whatever mischief they liked. It seems that Alaura had directed him to be her herald this morning.

   ‘Hullo, Clooty,’ Gondo returned, standing to help the youngster up the path with the overly large tray. ‘Have you been chosen as Cupbearer for the Day?’

   ‘It would seem so,’ the young hobbit replied with a smile as they set the tray on the wrought iron table in the gardenhouse. ‘“Our Ladyship” is in a temper to hear of your return and seems to be putting on airs and changing wardrobe. You’ve upset her by being gone so long, you know. But we are all very happy to see you safely returned! Three months in the wilderness without a pot to cook in, from what we hear! How did you manage? Here, I’ve brought some good morning dainties for talking. Sit and enjoy them!’

   Gondo did as he was asked, quite eagerly in fact. Most of what he had eaten the night before was done standing and between mouthfuls of conversation with Twoody and the other pioneers at the inn. Here the tray was laden with small bowls of bright summer fruits, scones and muffins alongside jams and creamy butter, two small cakes giving off hints of savory contents, and a large kettle of steamed sweetmilk.⁷ He was glad to see that there were only two cups and two plates and two napkins.

   ‘You’ll not join me then?’ Gondo asked cautiously.

   ‘Oh, heavens no! She’d have me quartered!’ Clooty replied with a smile. ‘But,’ he said, looking cautiously over his shoulder towards the path, ‘I would venture a nibble of one of those scones while we wait and talk.’

   ‘Take what you like and I’ll keep lookout,’ Gondo said with a conspiratorial smile of his own.

   This went on for another twenty minutes or more, Gondo sitting at the table talking and Clooty listening intently while standing (and sneaking occasional bites from his pocketed scone). Gondo told the youngster about all of the plans that he and the other hobbits had made the night before, about the lands that he had seen and about how much work there was to be done there.

   ‘We will leave this very morning,’ Gondo said, measuring the words which he knew he would have to repeat soon for a much more difficult audience. ‘All last night the hobbits were registering their names and discussing their shared provisions for the great task ahead of us. Make no mistake about hobbitfolk, Clooty. When they have a fire in their belly to do a thing there’s little that can stand in their way. I have never seen such a dedicated group of strangers offer to throw their backs into a job so readily. Twoody thinks we will have two hundred or so by the time we leave and each, to a hobbit, will find lands and positions for themselves by next year’s planting.

   ‘We will build roads and wells, clear stumps and open fields, dig irrigation and sewage for months first, of course,’ he continued. ‘Very hard and tedious work that needs to be done to make the first homes and settlements and farms ready. We will work through long months as the countryside is mapped and parceled. But each of these early pioneers will be able to stake out a home for themselves just as I have done and each of them will have worked alongside new friends and neighbours who will help them build it.

   ‘And this will be our new home, Clooty,’ Gondo said, looking the young hobbit straight into his eyes and recognizing the excitement which his words were fanning there. ‘We will be safe there and under the protection of the King and, as our own past has been so terrifying, that protection means we might finally live together in peace and without fear. But, moreover, this will be our land to build! What fantastic things we might do there, just hobbits together, without the rest of the world-’

   ‘Oi!’ a voice came loudly. ‘You are gone nine months without word nor message nor sign of regard. Have you come now to tempt my brother to join you or to speak your grand ideas of a future to me?’

   In their excited conversation Gondo and Clooty had quite lapsed in keeping lookout. If they had expected her to follow Clooty’s path up through the garden on the west side of the Hill then they had been foolish and forgetful; for Alaura Tinyfoot seldom came into any conversation from an expected vantage point. They were quite unprepared for her when she arrived, but Gondo most of all.

   The midsummer Sun was still low and soft and yellow behind her as Alaura appeared, bathed in Her brilliance.⁸ Alaura had, presumably, come from the other side of the Hill and down the path from the front door to catch him unawares. As she stood chastising him the Sun was behind and just a little above her, casting warm light to surround her figure and long shadows over the grass between them both.

   She walked forward to the gardenhouse and, somewhere, for just a moment, Gondo thought he heard a strange bird call in the west. High and soft and musical, it was. He knew little about gardening, but his time as a traveler had taught him much about how to follow the songs of birds, to listen for dangers and hope in their voices. ‘It must have been the lark,’⁹ he thought, ‘for she comes with the Sun.’

   Alaura had the darkest hair that any Bree-hobbit had ever seen and the morning Sun glimmered there like jewels on the raiments of the King. Her skin was pale, for she never cared for much time in the outdoors, but it had a rose-like tint that Gondo found hard to describe; no stone or flower or sunset that he had ever seen in all of his travels held the warmth and luster which Alaura’s skin did as the light of the Sun broke around her. He would travel longer and further in his future and see many sights and colours which were nothing like those of Bree-hill, but there was nothing he perceived in all those travels, since then or even later, nothing like the rosey coolness of Alaura’s skin as it remained fixed in his memory.

   She was wearing a dress of blue and it was bright as the day behind her. Gondo had never seen her in a dress before, he was a bit shocked to discover she even owned such a thing. As she walked toward him on the paving stones he watched it ripple in the morning light.

   Some years later Gondo would be the first Hobbit in all their recorded history to look out on the Great Sea. What he saw there, and what he may have thought of that vast and unending blue shimmering and rippling on into an unknowable distance is lost to us. But on that morning in Celedine’s garden he was transfixed by the rippling blue of Alaura’s dress coming to him from out of the Sun and would remember that moment always.

*****

   They spoke for a time of the king’s court and all that Alaura had missed there. Just as Twoody had done on his own return, Gondo recognized that Alaura should have accompanied them and that they had been wrong in keeping her from it. He talked for much longer about the new land, “The Shire” as she had called it, and he was glad to hear the name from her lips. ‘The Shire, it is then,’ he added with a strange kind of praise and authority, ‘the place we’ve planned to make together.’ He told her of what he had found and built there; of the small start of a well and the digging of what he called “Sarehole” and she laughed with him at the dry humour of its name. Eventually this led to him telling of his return last night and all of the plans which he and Twoody had laid at the Inn of the Four Greenfields. Just as he had always done, he told her all. For he was bold by nature and Gondo knew that with Alaura, to be bold meant that one had to be honest.

   ‘Whatever do you mean “leaving today”?’ Alaura asked with shock and surprise. 

   ‘What could you possibly mean by that? Gondo, you have only just returned!’ 

   They were alone in the gardenhouse now as Clooty had made a quick and cautious disappearance once his sister had arrived. Alaura had poured out the sweetmilk and had passed out the cakes. They were together now after nine months of being parted and she was, once again, spending her mornings planning for her future. Alaura, Tinyfoot or Fairheart or however we should think to call her, had always believed in the building of a new home for all hobbits in the new lands. She had shaped that future together with her friends and was ready to leave her present condition and begin it at heartbeat.

   But then she heard that Gondo was to leave that very morning to do the same without her, and the dish fell from her lap with a resounding crash.

   ‘Alaura,’ Gondo said, stooping to pick up the remnants of the shattered plate, ‘there are hundreds of hobbits waiting down there to be led into the new lands-’

   ‘And you must be the one to lead them? Of course, you must,’ she said with a sour voice of resignation, standing and putting her back to him to make her anger all the more obvious. ‘Why would I believe anything else of you? Of course you are leaving again. And dragging poor Twoody along with you again, no doubt. How long will you be gone this time, I wonder?’

   ‘I do not mean to ever return,’ Gondo said quietly, putting the broken shards and wasted cake on the bench, still on his knees before her.

   ‘What was that?’ Alaura said, turning back to face him. ‘What did you say?’

*****

   Surely she would marry the one of them, Gondo or Twoody but, to Alaura, on that morning and in those days, this decision was still unknown and far off. She had known it to be true long before either of them did of course, but she had not seen any reason to worry about such a matter as so many other possibilities were laid before them. And she loved them both very much and knew that her choosing would be hard on each of them; why complicate all of their lives with such matters when the planning of a whole new world was so much more exciting for the three of them together? Best to let such confusing matters as marriage and children wait, she thought, while there is important work to be done. For they were all still young and their lives were now filled with great opportunities. She would marry one or the other, of course she would, but the work they were all doing together was simply more important to her than a decision about the triviality of who she would marry.

   Or so she might have said.

   Alaura did not fear that choosing one of her friends over the other would spoil all their relationships. Such an idea would be pure foolishness; for they had all been so close for so long that she could not believe that something as practical and conditional as marriage would ever harm the friendship which they all three had shared. She realized that boys (and bucks) viewed marriage with less frankness than she herself did, but she believed that the three of them together were stronger and had a love which was deeper than such a romantic silliness as jealousy. Whether she chose Gondo or she chose Twoody simply did not matter, their friendship would always remain. She never spoke to either of them about this, but she never doubted it.

   And while she had known for years that such a decision would eventually be coming it was not simple procrastination which put it off; for procrastination was not a thing Alaura Fairheart was ever known for. Perhaps she did consider and even list the merits of one partner over the other; as if measuring the impending problem could make her choice seem based upon the logical and reasoned arguments which she had become known for. As none of her journals have survived we will never know. But certainly Alaura knew herself well enough to not be swayed in an important decision by the vanity of her ability to argue one point over another.

   And it was also not her arrogance as an individual (something which she took great pride in) which kept her from deciding. Alaura always knew that she would be married and have children. She always knew that she would have a partner and together they would raise their youngsters to be unique and individual thinkers just as she and both her suitors were. She loved her own time to write and to think and she defended it harshly. But whomever she chose as a partner, she knew that together they would raise their children in this same way and to teach them to defend their own individuality. Part of her ambition in life, from her earliest days, was to make a home which represented her own unique way of thinking and would nurture and respect the individuality of her children. Beyond the simple choice of a husband she believed this to be her fate; she was meant to leave the Bree-land and discover a better home for her family and for all hobbits who might follow.

   ‘“Anar” we have called Her for some time,’ Alaura’s mother Celedine told her one early morning when she came to find her daughter on the side of Bree-hill. She pointed toward the Sun and smiled, her whole body seemingly caught in the morning light. ‘And She travels far, daughter, far and farther than hobbits do, but still brings Her light to all places. She touches my gardens here as She does all others and, under Her light, all things grow.

   ‘For plants who seek “Anar”, who climb and grow and want, my garden is a confinement; they would follow Her light far and farther while my rows and flowerbeds might only offer a narrow space to tend their needs.’

   ‘Yes,’ Alaura replied, aware at even a young age that they were not really talking about plants. ‘But you water them and nurture them and keep away other plants which might choke them out, Maw. You protect them.’

   ‘Yes, I do when they will allow me to,’ her mother had replied. ‘But many would rather seek “Anar” than suffer from unfulfillment in the protection of my garden.’

   So Alaura had learned to trust in her understanding of the world and her place in it. She knew that the power of her own argument was not the decider of her fate. She knew that she would eventually leave the Bree-land and that her fate was somehow caught in that idea. Of course she would marry either Gondo or Twoody, and that this decision had for years lain somewhere ahead of her. Like all matters of fate, one day it would lay spread before her. She had convinced herself, before that morning on Bree-hill, that the moment of her fate had not yet come.

   But now, in this moment, Gondo was kneeled before her, proclaiming his intentions to go forth into the new land. Behind her, and from higher on the Hill, Alaura heard the call of a nightingale. It was just past dawn. It should have been the family of larks singing to her from the old stand of trees high on the Hill where she had first learned to read and write. ‘It should be larks,’ she thought, ‘and the dawn of a new day now, with him, with my choice. It should be the call of larks.’

   But no, for Alaura knew birdcalls well and read her destiny in them. On the morning of her betrothal to Gondo, Alaura Fairheart heard the song of Nightingales calling to her and knew her heart as well as her fate.

*****

   That moment, when he kneeled before her, was forever frozen in Gondo’s memory. Under the shade of the canopy gazing up to her alongside the Hill. The Sun was on the lawn behind her only and all around her only. He could not see her face well but saw the blue of her dress which the strong light of the Sun behind made to look black and white in contrast. It was Alaura. She was standing straight beside her chair, looking down at him, listening to something. Gondo was surprised at her stillness and strained his ears to listen also. But he could hear little save the noise of laughter and dispute in Isengrim’s house beside them and, perhaps, a few notes of a bird’s voice singing.

   He kneeled still in the canopy’s shadow, trying to catch the melody of that birdsong and gazing up at Alaura. There was grace and mystery in her attitude as if she were a symbol for something which he could not read. And he asked himself, ‘Now what might a hobbit-doe, standing on a hill in shadow, listening to the distant call of a bird, be a symbol of?’ He would ask himself that same question for many long years of his life. ‘If I was a painter of portraits,’ he thought at that moment, ‘then I would paint her in that attitude. Her blue dress would show off the luster of her skin in cool shadows and the blaze of the Sun’s color on her luxuriant black hair. If I were a painter,’ he thought at that time, ‘I would call that picture ‘“Distant Music.”’¹⁰

*****

   None of the letters or journals of their days together survive, no evidence of this moment recorded in their own hand has ever been found. We know of the importance and vitality of their relationship only through scattered fragments in the diaries and writings of their relatives and friends. The best account is said to have been in the original version of "The Tale of the Bucks and the Tooks" written by Deidre Took, though there is some doubt as to when these few surviving fragments were written. The original poet of that ley was undeniably close to the lovers and her own view on the matter is therefore biased. But we have this much at least:

“With fair Sun in morning he came 

To Celedine’s Garden on the Hill. 

Fairheart and promise to reclaim,

A breeze amid leaves shimmering. 

Sun shone on rose and daffodil,
As shadows sank away in shame 

Along with mists in morning’s chill, 

On hair and garments glimmering.

“The Buck was kneeled at her feet 

‘Neath Celedine’s green canopy,

For promise in her eyes to meet;

His hope like flowers quivering. 

There in Fairheart’s stillness he

Saw his new vows made incomplete 

And his wanderings a vanity;

So both stood still and shivering.

“Bright Sun behind Fairheart still shone 

Casting warmth on Celedine’s lawn. 

Her dark hair like a riverstone

Around her head Sun’s gold glistening. 

In hope of Promise like his own

To her dark eyes the Buck’s were drawn. 

But her gaze was hard, far and gone. 

Warmed by Sun, she stood; listening.

“To her from far he had returned, 

‘Neath distant stars he’d wandered lost, 

To bring a Promise reconfirmed; 

Bowed proud in his love unwavering. 

O’er Brown river -four times crossed- 

Again return’d. He assured

His wandering ways now all quashed; 

Their Promise now his favouring.

“But then beneath the canopy,

Her shadowed face admonishing, 

She heard him say, so callously, 

That he must go; unsorrowing.

Her joy now gone acknowledging 

Her Childhood’s Love’s new fantasy. 

And so she must; abandoning

Stay or go; always following.

“‘How can this be?’ Fairheart asked, 

Though what was said remains untold. 

Old arguments have long since passed 

Since that day they spoke untroubling. 

There in Garden did pledge unfold

As morning Sun pushed shadows past.

Light on Fairheart’s skin bright as gold 

While birds did call; voices bubbling.”¹¹

   Try as we may to sift through rumour and legend we cannot know the truth. Without letters or journals we cannot offer much about Gondo and Alaura as individuals beyond what our own conjectures as historians might offer to the rich tapestry of stories that have been told, whether through song or gossip, of the many difficult decisions the two lovers each made in their lives.

   But all the gossipers and historians and storytellers agree that the fate of Gondolpho the Boldbuck and Alaura Fairheart was drawn together on that morning when the pioneers first left the Shire in Year One and a strong belief in the power of fate (or whatever one might call it) was forever after attached to their betrothal.

   Perhaps it is our belief in fate outside of the clear distinction of evidence that is, in part, why we believe that history forgives a good story.

end of chapter seven

Chapter End Notes

Notes

1)  It is January 3rd, 2024 as I write this section and my wife and I are on a much-needed winter vacation. I don’t really look for people to read my writing while it is still under construction, but this novel has been a long burden that, to be frank, I felt might have started becoming a waste of my time. Having a reader outside of Tolkien fandom is important; it helps give an author a sense of whether they’re truly bringing anything unique into the writing. Outside readers will look for themes and engagements that have nothing to do with fan service. I’m happy to report that my wife found the first Part of this book very engaging and even more happy to admit that she gave me wonderful advice by telling me more of what she would like to see. That is where this chapter comes from; she quite frankly felt that she did not understand Alaura’s choice to wed Gondo instead of Twoody. I had written a strong scene of longing through Twoody’s perspective but, as most of Part One has only Twoody’s interiority, we never see very deeply into Gondo and Alaura’s relationship. So this chapter and its unique structure is my answer to her and to other readers who may feel the same way. We will see more writing, though less interiority, from both these characters later in the novel, but for now I must address the problem Molly Bloom has with love stories; “was she meant to be in love with the first fellow the whole time?”

2)  This might be an addendum to the note above, but the device I’ve used here is to echo the scene of Twoody and Alaura’s meeting from Chapter Two very directly with a missing scene between Gondo and Alaura upon his return to the Shire. There was a LOT of copy/paste done here to make it rhythmically similar.

3)  I spent quite a lot of time during this rewrite trying to sort out gender titles for hobbits; female hobbits are not “women” any more than males might call themselves “men”. “Doe” and “Buck” seem better suited here and take me one step closer to another of my non-Tolkien models for writing hobbits; Watership Down.

4)  Keeping up with Alaura’s way of thinking these two (bastardized) ideas come from Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. Much of my early idea of Alaura was framed around Woolf and I find I’m returning to that a lot as I write this section.

5)  We come back to strange pronouns of hobbit culture here. I’m not sure where I first read the idea of calling a hobbit-child a “fawn”, but it certainly has stuck with me. It appears in some fanfic that I’ve read and seems to suggest an age between toddler and teen.

6)  This little Easter egg took a while in development but, of course, “Alaura’s Room” is a feed into Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own”.

7)  I spent a very delighted and distracted time earlier today (January 7th, 2024) wondering about hobbit breakfasts. To be clear, this meal is closer to an appetizer which one hobbit might serve a guest and so does not qualify as First or Second Breakfast. But the real question for me was in the morning beverage of choice; do hobbits drink tea at this point in the history of Middle-earth? Probably not. I’d like to believe that the discovery of tea in the Shire, as it was in England, is a story for a later day. What I’m picturing here is some kind of steamed milk drink that has other dried herbs added to it, with sugars to give it a sweetness.

8)  This was a difficult sentence to construct. The “Her” refers to the gender of the Sun in Tolkien and not Alaura’s gender. I did not want to make this too overt for early readers of Fanfic, but wanted a version which would make them dive deeper; hence the capital “H”.

9)  Because of the Nightingale metaphors throughout Tolkien I felt it necessary to go a little further in this chapter. The “nightingale and the lark” comparison you will find here is, of course, from Romeo and Juliet, Act III. This continues through the scene wherein Gondo thinks of Alaura’s approach from the east as Romeo does of Juliet.

10)  These two paragraphs of Gondo looking up at Alaura are rather freely cropped from theJames Joyce story "The Dead." It is a scene which I’ve drawn and spoken about many times and was the lynchpin for my writing of this chapter. Obviously this chapter is intended to echo the meeting of Beren and Luthien, reference the Romeo and Juliet as I’ve mentioned above, but also I wanted to make it more my own by riffing upon some of my fondness for Joyce. Gabriel watching his wife Greta on the stair in private reverie is a strong moment of enchantment in The Dead with a slightly different context of powerlessness. This is also one of the joys of writing fanfic; I feel no compunctions against sampling, even outright copying, some of the things I love into something which I simply wish to make.

11)  This poem, while looser in structure than Tolkien’s own, is based on The Ley of Luthien, of course. I do not do it justice, though I tried very hard. One of my happiest moments in life comes from reading part of Tolkien’s poem at an outdoor wedding for my friends Allen and Janice. It was nice to bring my memories of that experience into my work here. (01/05/2025) During the edits of this I have finally gotten around to writing the poem in a form closer to what I would like. I apologize to any of my readers who had to deal with the earlier version but, as alway; “poetry is hard.”

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   So it was with the spring of Year Two that there were over four hundred families who came to live in the Shire. An accurate census of all those family members was still not possible, but Twoody guessed that there might be more than two thousand hobbits of various ages, skills or professions all trying to manage working together at building their homes and their communities. Alaura thought it likely to be more and that many more should still be coming. But in either case two thousand is a very great number of people and it is a wonder that they managed to work together with so few complications during those first months. Indeed, it was only the hobbitfolk’s customary kindness and gracious manners which helped to maintain the peace and, no matter what might be said of the Shire-hobbits in later days, they should be praised for this rare quality. For Hobbits on a whole were, and always have been, quite a communal and hospitable people, preferring to live together with their kinfolk alongside neighbours who they knew well and with whom they shared a sense of history. They liked space to grow (which they now had very much of) just as they liked everyday comforts (many of which they had forsaken to get here). They liked to have their loved ones around them (as now they did), but very much despised overcrowding (which was unlikely to happen for some time). So despite the ruggedness of their new homes it was, by all accounts, an excellent time to be a hobbit and a citizen of the Shire.

   A reasonably comfortable hobbit couple, married at an appropriate yet responsible young age, might expect to have seven to twelve children together over the years. In the relative safety of places like the Bree-land and now, in the Shire, all of these children could be expected to grow into adulthood and stay with their immediate family for many generations. New hobbitholes being built into the hilly areas of the Shire during Year One showed this tendency toward large family development; they were designed with space for numerous bedrooms, extra sitting rooms, secondary kitchens and long tunnels leading to new wings set aside for future generations.

   From the first influx of families the development grew fastest in three major encampments of the East-farthing; Budge, to the north, Stock to the south and the area around Bridgefields which lay about five miles down the Road from the Stonebows bridge. Buckland, further away and requiring a bit more self-reliance from its settlers, grew much slower at first and Gondo and all of his neighbours there found that situation to be most agreeable.

   It was Budge that had grown first and faster than the rest. The whole of the Bolger family had been there for nearly seven months before any other hobbit families and had made a very good start for themselves. Alaura traveled there to visit friends in the summer of Year Two and, in a letter to Twoody, she had this to say:

   “...they have already built a clearwater well, two marvelously water-driven mills, one for the cutting of lumber and another for the grinding of grains, a bakery and numerous little trade shops. When they had lived in the Bree-land some of old Heindewin Bolger’s many sons had been coopers and woodworkers, furriers and tanners, brewers and bakers (and, in good family sensibility, the younger boys and nephews were apprenticed to do the same). For any settlers coming to the Shire from small towns the familiar comforts and luxuries they have left behind can be found here in Budge, making it seem the most civilized place of all. It is easy to see why so many of our Breefolk neighbors have come to settle just inside the Bridge and north of the Road; it is not a year since the pioneering Budges came to build here and already it looks to be crowding itself into a town. I have even heard some wild talk of building a bridge across the little river. Such ambitious Budges!

   “The little public-house that they have set near the Road, charmingly called the ‘Budge-and-Bridge,’ is run by Heindewin’s youngest daughter the widow Leubovera and her young sons. Be wary should you come this way, Twoody, for she is an unrelenting talemonger who, many claim, knows the stories of every hobbit to whom she has ever served a drink. She is boisterous, bawdy, full of song and still fair to the eye. But she is keen-witted and sharp-eared and could slide secrets out of the lips of the most stone-faced and well-practiced diplomats. You might find her a very worthy conversant. Oh, but she sets a fine table in a rustic place and many new settlers have stopped there to dine and to talk and have found themselves going little further.”

   Many of the first incoming hobbits were not from the land surrounding Bree-hill but were fisherfolk from south to the Greyflood or low-bottom farmers from the Midgefield Marshes. They did not know the folk of the Bree-land well and their ways, or so it seemed to each of these new neighbours, were quite different. Many of those southern hobbits went south again from the Stonebows bridge along the Brown river to Stock and toward the Marish seeking familiar lands and familiar people. There they fished the streams and worked the land so that, for two or three years of the western expansion it was the crops of Stock which sustained most of the early settlers of the Shire. Bree-hobbits at this time became quite fond of baked fish, strawberries (a crop that many had not seen before) and it is also said that the rather advanced art of mushroom farming began there in the southern end of the East-farthing (though a famous Bree-land hobbit would perfect it some three hundred and fifty years later).¹

   Gondo had led many of these people south from the Stonebows and had this to say about the first settlements around the Stockbrook in a letter to Twoody dated the First of Harvestmath (or the twenty-second of August in our current calendar):

“There is news to give you of the southern end of the Shire which will make all of our plans more interesting! I suspect that it will have a major change in how the merchants of the Shire might think about the furtherance of their industry and so, my dear friend, Best of Bankers and Our Captain of Commerce, I must send you this news right away!

   “As you know, I am here in the southern reaches of the East-farthings at the urgings of our friend Eumaeus Sandyman; he has a pretty, charming and plump sister who has married one of those Mugwort hobbits from the Far South, those folk who have traveled into the lands around Stockbrook and done such a fine job of settling a riverside place for themselves. They have made quite a fast town down here where the the Stockbrook meets the Brown River and, for safety’s sake, I should like to send Clooty or some other of our builder folk down here to make sure that their expediency has not made them grow a town which is a danger, a health-hazard, and overly susceptible to burning from sheer carelessness. To be frank and a bit more serious, Twoody, these settlements are budding up so fast, and with so little supervision that I sometimes feel my services, requested first as an explorer, are spent more as a regulator and concilitor; ‘Oh, no, a thatched roof is fine,’ I say, ‘but straw will burn, don’t you know? Careful around that chimney, don’t you know?’ ‘River mud will make excellent bricks, to be sure, but you’ll need to mix and fire them so they won’t crack and chip, of course,’ or ‘that creek empties into the Stockbrook, you see, so you’ll want another place for your pigs to wallow.’ Stars and Moonsongs! You have become Chief Assayer of Deeds and Titles, a work for which you are chiefly suited and one which I would want no part in. Alaura has the very fine distinction of being called Chief of Records and Histories, a title which allows her the opportunity for brief social contacts followed by long bouts of writing, and we both know how well that arrangement suits her. It seems that my job lately has been Purveyor of Cautionary Tales and Judge of Disputes. These past months I have settled more arguments than townships, and, though you may think that I am well suited to this job, it is not one which I enjoy.

   “I am sorry, Twoody. I go on too long about my troubles and stray from my latest discovery. I wish you were here beside my shoulder to, in your characteristically direct way, remind me to get back to my point. I miss you here in this little adventure but I shall try, with this letter, to imagine you in my ear.

   “‘Go on, Gondo,’ you would say, ‘for I’m sure you’ll come to a point soon enough!’

   “I was asked by Dursdale Mugwort, brother-in-law of our friend Eumaeus, to take him south to the Shire’s end. ‘I’ve more family coming,’ he told me, ‘and we’ll want room to spread along the river just as we have done in our past.’

   “I was happy to take on this little job, knowing that it could excuse me from the squabbles of the other folks here in the town of Stock and, of course, explore the land further. Now there is another river about one day's walk south of the Stockbrook and so I agreed to escort Mugwort, his new wife, three brothers and their families there. About twenty hobbits in all and, I believed, a good start at settling that land which I’ve come to refer to as ‘The Marish.’ It is a fine country of low rolling hills and, if that little unnamed river² should prove to be anything like the Stockbrook, a small community might grow there quite quickly.

   “Surprisingly, Mugwort and his brothers pressed me to take them further. They felt that only a day’s walk from Stock was not far enough and wondered about the very southern edge of the Shire. As you know, I had not gone beyond this little river before. To do so would take us to the very edge of the unexplored South-farthing and, as you might suspect, I was very excited to continue. By my estimation we would have another three to five days of walking with carts of goods over unknown lands before we would approach the area marked on the king’s map for a border. In hope of shortening that time I took Dursdale and two of the other Mugwort brothers with me, leaving the third behind with the family to wait beside the riverbank.

“At first we attempted to follow the path of Brown River as it turned southeastward, but within a mile or so it became too marshy.³ So I turned our course due south for drier land, eventually finding long flat meadows with little streams and, to the west, a line of hills longer than I have previously seen in the Shire. They are low and even, running northwest toward Buckland and away southeast. We climbed the first tall hill and found that we could see the Brown River again winding its way upon the eastern side.

   “Needless to say, Mugwort and his brothers were very excited to find the big river running so close to fertile meadows and sheltering hills. We made our way to the furthest edge of hills and Dursdale claimed it on the spot; he calls it ‘Longbottom,’ for the valley which cuts deep near the river.

   “We sent the two Mugwort brothers back for the rest of the family while Dursdale and I remained to explore. He found a good spot for a pier and docks (for these Mugworts are river people who go about the water on boats, of all things!) and from there we followed the swerve of the Brown River further south. And this is where we found a most curious thing and yes, Twoody, I’ve finally come to it, the subject of my letter.

   “There is an old stone ford and the relic of a road at the southern end of the Shire! There is no guardhouse here as there is at the Bridge, but two tall pillars mark the ford on either side and indicate the road. Clearly not used for a very long time, this road seems to head northwest through our land for as far as I can see. Is this also the property of the King in Norbury? Did he set our borders here so that we should keep the ford as well?”

   While Gondo and the hobbits were discovering it for the first time, the ford of the Branduin River had long been known to the kings of Arnor and all the friendly peoples of the northwest of Middle-earth. The Númenóreans had called it “Sarn Ford” in honor of another such place in which a great battle was once fought.⁴ But the Númenóreans had not laid the stones of this crossing nor did they know who had. It is likely that this ford predates the building of the Stonebows bridge itself and has been forgotten in the memory of Men.

   But this landmark did serve as the southernmost border of the Shire for a very long time and, just as Gondo had expected, the village at Longbottom would grow to be a very important part of the Shire economy and the Mugworts would become a large and prosperous family.

   Meanwhile, north along the Road which headed into the open west, the little trading village founded by Twoody’s brother Childebrand became a very important hub of Shire activity. Accepted with dubious regard by all the citizenry, Childy had his father’s eye for an opportunity even if, as many of his customers claimed, he lacked his father's genuine friendliness with his clientele. This enterprising hobbit had, under no advisement from either his brothers or his father, quietly invested all the money of his youth in the success of the Shire. For long months, even before Twoody and Gondo had set out to petition the king in Norbury, Childy had wisely and secretly purchased any tools and supplies which he believed eager pioneers would need in the coming years. These included farming implements, general hardware for building and seed for planting. He hoarded these items until the spring of Year Two and sold them at high (though not exorbitant) prices; so much so that customers were often encouraged to sign agreements offering a share on sales of their crops, thereby ensuring Childy’s continued profit in the Shire’s success.

   Now in the earliest days of the Shire Childy’s foresightedness had seemed a good thing and he was, to many settlers, as well known a figure in the Shire expansion as Twoody or even Gondo. But as the years went on this arrangement did not place him in a position of great respect among his neighbors and would later cause great issues for him and his kinfolk.

   But in Year Two Childy’s trading post had been moved from the Bree-land and built along the Road in time to meet all of the incoming families. It was also there, for convenience's sake, that Twoody came and established the first practical banking system and Alaura set up the institution of schools and postal carrying. This location, alongside the Great Road, facilitated and accelerated the hobbits' move into the west and for a few years this became the center of the Shire’s early administration. While Childy’s trading post remained its own unique and private operation the bank and the post office resulted in the first two great public buildings of the Shire; the Office of Deeds and, across the street and in a more modest size, the Office of Postings. In the well-lighted large hall of the Office of Deeds Porro Noakesburrow, one of Gondo’s friends who was very gifted in drawing, had painted a great mural of the known areas of the Shire in greens and yellows and many other bright colors of which hobbits were so fond. When new names of the families were given deeds and titles and as new settlements arose over the months and the early years Old Noakes had the steady job updating his creation; he drew boundary lines for farms and properties and set up a key list of businesses indicating their placement on the map with colour-coded dots. Many hobbits took great pride seeing their own names and their contributions added.

   “Childsbank”, as that settlement was later disparagingly called,⁵ was still ten leagues from the Farthing Stone. Only Gondo and his Bucklanders had dared to go that far and further before the spring of Year Two. But many had heard that the land around the Farthing Stone, particularly northwest and southwest of that spot, was ideally suited to hobbits. This land, called the West-farthing, seemed too remote for those first families who sought familiarity as they came into the Shire. Yet Gondo and Alaura and Twoody, and even Childebrand, always ready to push west, believed that this area held great promise. Therefore, Childy set very good conditions upon any loans to hobbits who wished to go into the west. These offers for loans were not accepted immediately, of course. While they may love stories of luck and prosperity, hobbits have a very great (and enviable) resilience against “get-rich-quick” schemes and clever promotions. It is quite rightly said that “good hobbit-sense is a good guard against a good hood-winking.”

   But any who entered and settled in the West-farthing could hardly deny its beauty. Rolling grass-covered hills with small stands of oaks and alders and silver birches. Other than Buckland the first area to be developed was called Hobbiton-by-the-Water. The little lake there and the hills which surrounded it looked like a dreamscape for the Breeland hobbits who had been crowded into one great hillside for the past two or three generations. There was farmland which surrounded these hills of course, but here a hobbit family could have a whole hill of their own and create a little garden for themselves of flowers and vegetables. They could keep their pigs or chickens in small numbers and remain largely self-sufficient. There were little valleys near to the lake where a little town, with a mill and an inn and hopefully a brewery, might one day prosper. It was quite knowingly named “Hobbiton-by-the-Water” in the hope that this would become the very great capital city of the Shire. Twoody himself bought land and commissioned a house there, though it would be many years before he would come to live in it.

   All the remaining land along the Road between the Stonebows bridge and the Farthing-stone had, by Year Ten, been claimed for farms or shops or public works. The Stock Road and the Budge Road were built quickly during that first decade and shops, shippers, public baths and inns lined their way inviting travelers and commerce. Budgeford grew its population with workers and tradesfolk as did Stock and, eventually, the Marish with fishers and farmers. But it was the wealthiest of hobbits who were encouraged to fill up Hobbiton-by-the-Water and even the noisy little swamp town which grew in the lands east of it, Frogmorton. Rather idyllic hobbit holes were built there at the edge of the West-farthing, some of the oldest and most well-crafted homes in all of the Shire, built during its earliest prosperity. An undelivered letter by Childebrand Swiftalk, believed to be written early in the calamitous Year Fourteen of the Shire, indicates something of the settlement by that time while also hinting at the trouble brewing beneath the surface of the Shire’s early history:

   “Last year’s harvest in the Bridgefields [Year Thirteen?] proved to be one of the most profitable on record and shares in those farms have provided the necessary sums for more acquisitions in the township called Hobbiton-by-the-Water. The homes and holes of that pleasant little settlement are among the most desirable west of the Stonebows bridge, built with the best of materials and the finest craftsmanship since the Shire began. It is there that I have partnered with many of the best shopkeepers to set their businesses. All of these shops are neatly arranged and constructed in the little rows of streets, having round wooden doors and windows, clean stone walls and neatly thatched roofs. Many have signs upon their doors, neatly painted in a great variety of colors, proclaiming the professions and shopowner’s names alongside a numerical designation: “Ragnfred Roundwort, Cooper and Bowl-maker, no. 17” and “Obo Longriver, Ferrier, no. 19” and “Tassilo Hedgehopper, Tailor, no. 15” which stands next door to “Durand Hogpen, Butcher, no. 13” and across the way from the small shop of “Adalhaid Goodbody, Cheesemonger, no. 14” who is my current (and rather too talkative) neighbor. In short, there is a series of specialty shops which serve the small community of new business owners who have recently come to this land. Many are still young with no large families of their own but have staked out large areas of land for their homes and taken significant mortgages on their investments.

   “The little township has no large industry of its own as one might find in Bridgefields, Stock and Budge, but the homes here are all rather large and have room for many generations of families. They have quaint little gardens and some raise their own livestock, but mostly this is a settlement ideal for the wealthiest of hobbits and our investments in its future have been sound, judicious and, I believe, will lead to great profit.”

   The dream which the Townfathers had for the West-farthing did not happen, or to be more exact, did not ever happen just as they meant it to. In the earliest designs of Twoody and Gondo and Alaura, and, indeed even Childy, Hobbiton-by-the-Water was meant to be much more than a place wherein country gentlemen like Bilbo and Frodo Baggins might retire. It was meant to be the capital of a new and thriving nation and, in spite of these wishes, it rather became a placid township for people who cared nothing for the world outside their own fenceposts.

end of chapter eight

Chapter End Notes

Notes

1) For those of you who may be reading this out of context with the rest of my work on The Fall of Arnor, this is a reference to a character found in those books and not part of the regular Legendarium. Tolkien gives his hobbits a great love of mushrooms but research shows that to be quite a modern bit of farming in Northern Europe. Mushrooms are seldom grown in open fields as Farmer Maggot seems to do in FotR. My own work plays with that a bit.

2)  This river will eventually be called “the Shirebourn” but it seems too early in the land’s history to give it that name now.

3)  This would be “the Overbourn Marshes” noted on the map and east of the Old Winyards.

4)  “Sarn Ford” is named after “Sarn Athrad”, the stony ford of the river Gelion in East Beleriand. There Beren, great hero of ancient Men, led a battle against the Dwarves of Nogrod.

5)  I did mention before that Childsbank is my own invention for this first settlement which would later, by Frodo’s time, be called Whitfurrows. It is placed in the perfect spot for a trading post of western migration, but Tolkien didn’t leave us with anything further about its Whitfurrows’ origins.

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   ‘To the White Downs, yes, Twoody,’ Gondo replied, ‘but the border which the King set goes very well beyond that and also mentions another range of low hills.’

    ‘The “Far Downs”, you have called them,’ Alaura added with a smile. ‘Not your most inspired bit of naming, I should think.’

   ‘Well, I’ve not seen them yet have I?’ Gondo returned with a smile of his own. ‘Who knows?’ he paused and, gesturing broadly with his hands, continued to say, ‘Perhaps they’ll have two wide and rounded hills divided by the Road that I, in some fit of my homesickness, will come to call “The Bride’s Hips.”’

   Twoody laughed uneasily; he delighted in having these long conversations with his friends, but he remained a bit uncomfortable with Gondo and Alaura’s bawdy jokes to one another. As they spoke together that night it was the first day of Astron, in the third year¹ of the Shire, and therefore the first anniversary of Gondo and Alaura’s marriage. They had feasted all day with the Bucklanders in their growing little town around the well and afterward the three of them were walking up the little road toward Sarehole. As usual their private talks, even on such a celebratory day, turned to the problems of keeping up with the Shire’s surprising growth; but Gondo and Alaura always seemed to keep a very separate line of conversation for themselves.

   ‘Oof! Now why would you want any hobbits going further west along any such road and toward such a heralded destination!’ Alaura chided back. ‘It seems to me that any proper husband treated to such a moment of nostalgia should come running back home and bar his neighbors from the experience of such wonderful sights.’

   ‘Hah! Wonderful indeed!’ Gondo said laughing as he grabbed at his wife’s hips, ‘and an undiscovered country for others which I shall keep to my own!’

   ‘There are many settlers in the White Downs already,’ Twoody said, hoping to change the subject back to something more practical and much less embarrassing for himself. ‘There are good grasses over those low chalk hills. Comfortable farming and easy digging will attract many a hobbit. And once some enterprising individual builds a market there-’

   ‘Or a bank!” Gondo and Alaura said together laughing.

   ‘Yes, yes, yes. Or a bank!’ Twoody replied with his usual sufferance, ‘Once any of these conveniences come to the White Downs then, well, while I hate to admit it, Gondo is quite right; more and more of the incoming pioneers will go even further west and away from our current settlements.’

   ‘Yes, they will,’ Alaura said. ‘And they will set up their own communities with rules quite beyond those few laws which we already have established in our own part of the Shire. There are many I know of who might prefer just such an arrangement as that.’

   ‘Well,’ Gondo said calmly, ‘they’ll have trouble setting up communities, let alone banks or markets, with no knowledge of the land. Shouldn’t we look it over first?’

   ‘Oh, yes, by all means this requires deeper investigation by you two worthies,’ Alaura replied, her face now quite serious belying the mild jest still in her voice. ‘Or, and let me just put this idea forward for my tenth or twentieth attempt, perhaps by not telling everyone what to expect in a new land you might make them happier with what they themselves will discover. Perhaps letting them discover things and go their own ways will make them work all the harder to realize both the land’s potential and their own. I think,’ Alaura continued as she stepped between the two and took each of their hands in either of her own, ‘that there are some here in the Shire who have already grown dangerously attracted to being told what to do by such experienced hands as these.’ Both Gondo and Twoody blushed at this little joke, but for entirely different reasons.

   ‘Now, Alaura,’ Gondo said, ‘that seems unfair. You know I’ve got no desire to lead our folk anywhere other than into their own best interest and well away from our own garden. And poor Twoody here, banker though he may be, is as fair-handed as the miller’s daughter and would trade spun gold for straw while knowing better than any the price for each.² He wouldn’t sell a rusty nail to his worst enemy nor lead a wealthy ninnyhammer into a bad decision for the simple sake of profit.’

   ‘Yes, yes, I hope that is true, Gondo, and I thank you for saying it,’ Twoody said, offering his own opinion on an old argument. ‘But we all know that there’s more in this comment of hers other than questioning our profits or our egos.

   ‘Alaura,’ Twoody said frankly, ‘we have set down some laws and agreements together you and I, and I know well your concerns about how “rules, though mostly well intended, become history’s constraint upon a people’s own future.” That’s a fine saying that is worth remembering and I do hope it will go into one of those books you are writing. But what I mean to say in response is likewise simple; I respect that you have that concern even when I don’t feel that way myself. And many times, Alaura, when I talk to other Shirefolk I do not feel as generous as you do in regard to every hobbit’s own good nature. How can we ask our neighbours to build roads together, to take on shared responsibilities, to school their children or help maintain the Bridge, how should we ask them to act beyond their own obvious self interest, without some rules and agreements in place? Agreements can be fine things between two or three people, but it takes laws to grow a nation. And, yes, I know how you feel about laws and I have understood your caution about rules even when I have found many of those positions to be very impractical.

   ‘But what is it that you are saying now?’ Twoody continued. He did not look into his friends’ eyes as he spoke, for he had not intended to be so confrontational when he began talking. It had just started to come out that way and there was a part of him which wished such a thing had never happened. But he loved his friends dearly and, as he was used to doing in their company for so very long, he boldly went on speaking his mind in trust of their love.

   ‘More and more are coming west, Alaura, and many more will follow,’ Twoody continued. ‘Should we just send them along their way and hope to hear news of their success? Should they have access to the same postal systems you’ve worked so very hard to establish? What if they want none of that and no involvement with the rest of us here and in the East-farthing? What if they have no interest in keeping the Road or any other part of the King’s Agreement? And what if they start making their own laws out in those new lands, laws which may be very different from those we’ve begun to establish for ourselves? Is the Shire to be one land or just a very large place in which any small group of hobbits might come to make little kingdoms of their own? How shall we answer to troubles like that without laws and agreements?’

*****

   There was a fairly long pause in their conversation then and it seems important to point out some of the reasons why this most uncomfortable moment came about. While politics seemed to be the subject of their argument at this time there were other considerations between these three hobbits which lay beneath the surface of their talk.

   They had been friends since their childhood of course and, like all young people everywhere, they believed that their special friendship came from having a unique but like-minded view of the world around them. This may indeed be true for, from generation to generation, it is our youthful friendships which most often inspire us to create a life for ourselves in accordance with our ambitions. Sadly, mothers and fathers, who do so much to shape our childhood, can seldom compare with the importance of our friends as we grow older and into ourselves. Hobbits or Men, Dwarves or Elves, it is through our friends that we learn to be something other than sons or daughters, other than extensions of our own families. Children will learn a very great deal about themselves in their interactions with their peers other than what they might through their parents and sometimes, if they are lucky enough to have found true and supportive friends as these three had, those interactions will take them very far indeed. The hopes and cares we share with our young playmates often shape our futures better than any well-intended advice from parents, uncles, aunts or any example of the older generation. Together these three had learned what they each wanted from life at a very young age. And seeking that future together now in a new land had made the uniqueness of their friendship all the stronger.

   But, as any older person may tell you, this bond between friends, as important as it may be in youth, does not always withstand the test of time nor the changes to one’s own worldview which invariably come with age. Much of who we believe ourselves to be can be written in the very sincere and ambitious conversations of our youth only to be examined or rejected or -most often- cautiously rewritten in our much more judicious and circumspect futures.

   The three friends were still very young hobbits despite the many responsibilities which life had recently brought them. Alaura, youngest of the three, had not yet seen her twenty-third birthday and Gondo and Twoody were only four years older. None of them other than Gondo had held a job or a responsible position before the signing of the King’s Agreement. Despite all of their honest hard work since, they had no practical experience of the world to balance against their ambitious, unique and hitherto agreed upon vision for building a new nation of hobbits. They were young when they began this task and, lacking in practicality as youth often does, they were comfortably supported by their shared idealism. Concepts like “fairness” and “justice” and “equity” had been the centerpieces of their earliest conversations, but now they were met by daily practicalities like “land titles” and “shipping costs” and “public works”. More than any other hobbits involved with the establishment of the Shire, these three young friends had been given the rare and troubling job of adapting their shared beliefs into the practical politics which were required to move their dreams forward. They very seldom spoke of it openly (for they were hobbits after all, and as such did not believe that purposeful burdens could be lightened through any such conversations which might sound like complaints), but all three felt the changes which three years of practicality was forcing upon their youthful ambitions.

   Yet there is another point to be noted.

   These three were also part of a generation in the midst of great change. It had not been two hundred years since the Witch-king had been pushed back to Angmar and the North had entered into another long and watchful peace. For uncounted generations before that hobbits, who were never a warlike people, had lived spare and dangerous lives of fear and hiding; they were reduced to thousands of small family colonies (or so it is believed), barely aware of one another, moving about constantly to avoid strife or enslavement or slaughter. When peace came to the North (and while more dangers appeared in the east and the south of Middle-earth), hobbits had come to collect themselves in this one area, and they had come to know one another again and to learn, quite rapidly, how to prosper together. For it is wisely said that “all birds are vastly increased in numbers after mild winters and in relatively catless days.”³

   Little is known of Gondo’s background or of Alaura’s people beyond her own immediate parents. But Twoody’s illustrious grandfather, Priamus Swiftwalk, had brought his very extended family into the Bree-land less than one hundred years before the founding of the Shire and Twoody’s father, Hincmar, had in a very short time after that become the most prosperous hobbit in the land before his own thirtieth birthday. This makes Twoody a particularly fine example if we should examine the character of all three of these friends and of the generation of hobbits who came out of the Bree-land and pioneered the settlement of the Shire; for in many ways they were the children of prosperity and the grandchildren of deprivation. They grew up in good holes around warm hearthsides filled with firelight and in the comfort of safe communities, with food and room for plenty. But sitting there beside those homefire they heard the tales of their families before, the stories of struggles and hardships, the plight of family members who had become refugees and hunted people. This generation of Shire-hobbits, those like in age to Gondo, Twoody and Alaura, grew up happy, contented and well-fed, but knew very well, and were often specifically reminded, of the darker times of their history.

   Hobbits (with a few notable later exceptions) do not normally long for adventure as many other young people do. But it may also be said that this particular generation of hobbits were beginning to feel a bit hemmed in before the opening of the Shire; they could feel their towns and hillsides filling rapidly around them and, like the famous discoverers Marcho and Blanco, they had perhaps felt that their opportunities were being crowded out. They most certainly did not long for the hardships which their grandsires had endured, but they had grown up listening to those tales and honoring them. Feeling their own opportunities to be much less than those of their parents, this young generation of hobbits may have chosen adventure (adventure of all things!) the likes of which their grandparents had so heroically faced. For it can also be seen that youth often neglects the status and comforts of their parents in favor of a better self-image.

   This may certainly be said of our three friends for they had accepted challenges which no other hobbit of their time had yet imagined and, while there was little to no danger in the settling of the Shire, it was an heroic and daunting adventure for such young people to undertake. As they walked up the hill to Sarehole on the first anniversary of Gondo and Alaura’s wedding, it might be said that each of the three friends could see how the experience was changing them. But they were also still young and, like many young people, they were uncomfortable recognizing those changes within themselves and one another. They had begun to form differing opinions surrounding their youthful idealism and, as true friends should do, they would continue to question one another’s views throughout their lives together. But now they seemed at the edge of arguments; a place where they could feel their opinions changing inside them but could not yet admit to their newfound differences.

   Twoody may have indeed been ungracious in his frankness, but he was not wrong in speaking up, even on his friends’ anniversary. For they all three feared a time when they could not speak so freely, a time when their growing practicality and uncertainty might petrify their youthful assuredness. But, for now, they were all three still young.

   And that is another point to be noted.

   For this tale is a history and one which has been written and handed down by many scholars who were, at the time of their expertise, all much older than Twoody, Gondo or Alaura in this Third year of the Shire. There is a problem with all such histories written about young people by aged historians; as all older people will confess, we sit in our own hearthside comfort and try to understand how the generations which follow us seem so surprisingly different from our own. We measure them by our own standards of repudiation or acceptance. I do not know if any historian, theorist or philosopher has found a maxim for this problem, but here we can see an obvious and much overlooked equation found in Alaura Fairheart’s hand in one of her later letters to Twoody;

   “All young people, of any race or generation, believe that they have a uniqueness which is entirely their own and that it is forged in their friendships rather than the teaching of their parents. Is this the arrogance of youth, to insist that no one may understand them like themselves? I believe I would have answered that question in my youth very differently than I may now. For one day I or any young person, finding themselves fortunately if not quite happily older, may fall upon the cause to write a history. Will they find their youthful ambitions to be so unique? Moreover, will they find that their present view of history is in accordance with those visions, conversations and ideals which they once thought made them and their generation of friends so startlingly fresh and insightful? I do not know, but I imagine the fish out of water to be the only one who has an inkling of water.⁴

   “History is a constraint which we never care for while we are young but find comfort in as we grow old. It is a desperate and unforgiving thing which will always deplore our youthful idealism and eventually destroy it with ideas of retrospective analysis and tempered reasoning. History is selfish. It wants no friends for itself and often forces us, who come into its thrall, to disavow any of our own who might uncomfortably remind us of past youthful ambitions which now, in our cautious and reflective age, seem naive, unwise or outright impossible. History is a warm and soft blanket made of iron which we, being older and selfish for our comforts, lack the strength to throw off and rise up from. We praise its warmth but disregard its constraints.”

   The idea that they were, as ‘townfathers”, creating the history of the Shire weighed heavily on the three friends. Each new development in the growth of their community had put them in a rather awkward position of deciding things and they had begun to realize how differently each of them viewed their situation. Gondo had the easy-going boldness of a natural leader, Twoody the careful and structured mind of an organizer and Alaura had the decisive cleverness to see a future behind any problem. All three had unique qualities that their neighbors had counted on for settling the Shire in a fair and peaceful manner. But they had lately seen themselves become “authorities” in the land’s development and that is something none of them had expected nor desired.

   Twoody felt horrible for bringing such a conversation up on his friends’ anniversary, but he knew that the subject of their authority somehow lay underneath all of this discussion and many others. He was, perhaps, a bit uncomfortable with the bawdiness of his friends and may have brought up such a serious argument to disrail that discomfort, but he still knew how to cut to the heart of the matter.

   And he knew that there was, of course, a much simpler math that was not being discussed (and yet again another point which should be noted):

   Gondo wanted to travel West again, Alaura did not want him to go but would not hold him back, and Twoody had accepted his usual position as go-between in that unspoken debate.

   That would certainly be another way of reading the moment.

    But the pause in their talk lasted for some time and all of them would have reason to remember it in their futures.

*****

   They had walked for a while up the hill in silence and stood together before the carefully-painted red door of Sarehole before anyone began to speak again.

   ‘I do not know, Twoody,’ Alaura said, breaking the silence. ‘Are many little kingdoms somehow worse than one large one? Do our people come here to build a great nation or to simply make a place of their own?’

   Gondo stood apart from the two of them. The door for Sarehole was on the north side of the hill (as all proper hobbit doors should be) and he looked west then to the brightening stars. He loved the view from this spot. He had set his first dig here years ago at the close of day, watching as the big hill seemed to shelter the smaller ones from the last rays of the Sun. He remembered how the big hill had reminded him of a mother bear protecting her cubs and how he had wanted to build a home which signified peace and protection to Alaura and, one day, to their children and all of the hobbits who would follow him this far west. He knew that he had become a leader of these people, even if he was uncomfortable with the job of telling them what to do. Like Twoody and Alaura, Gondo knew that the subject of leadership lay beneath all of their discussions lately and he had no wish to speak of it.

   ‘But the Shire isn’t a kingdom, Alaura,’ Twoody responded softly. ‘We have met the King and he has given us the land to develop as our own, but he is still the King. And I shouldn’t like to see any upstart family of Stoors up from Dunland crown themselves and suggest otherwise.’

   Gondo’s mind went back to the little village they had just left, the town which was now growing around them. There were, after all, a few Stoors up from Dunland who had ventured there with Gondo in the earliest days. At the center of Buckland there was a well; and Gondo had dug the beginnings of that well before anyone else had decided to live in the Shire. It was a meager thing then, for Gondo only had himself and one clumsy and overworked shovel to do the job. But his wandering and mapping of the area suggested a strong underground spring which collected there in the little valley. An underground source of good clean water, which he knew, would be the start of a town and, as much as he loved the open country, he knew that Alaura loved the energy of towns. After a long week of digging his hope bore out; he found cool, clear water below in a depth which he had no tools to measure. ‘Here,’ Gondo thought at the time, ‘was the very heart of a town like she might wish for.’

   ‘I appreciate the king’s gift more than many, Twoody,’ Alaura replied, ‘but kings are none of my concern as long as they are willing to keep their distance from our daily life. Your Argeleb the Second sounds like a wonderful and kind sort of fellow and let us hope that his Argelebs Three through Twenty-seven feel the same way. I’ve very limited knowledge regarding the behaviour of kings other than their tendency to beget more kings and the further tendency for those young kinglings to want to outdo their own fathers. And, from what I’ve heard tell, they often reconquer lands their fathers have given away just to prove their own kingly importance. But, again, and not having gone to Norbury myself, I know little of kings other than their reputations.

   ‘But I should not like to see a kingdom happen here in the Shire any more than you do, Twoody,’ she continued.

   ‘You’re worried about some petty King Sandheaver-up-from-Dunland but I am worried about something much more insidious; I’m worried about laws which create judges which create taxes which create public officials which create enforcers which creates a people who can no longer do as they please. I’m worried we will turn our own officiousness, for simple want of efficiency, into a kingship!’

   ‘Organized people need faithful leaders, Alaura.’

   By the time Gondo brought Alaura to Buckland (just one year before) the other hobbits of the region had made his initial diggings into a fine little well and a centre for all their meetings. There were about thirty hobbits living in the area by that time and Alaura was the first wife, the first doe, to come this far west of the Stonebows bridge. The well had been small then but quite lovely for the care that all of the pioneers had taken with it. As he stood beneath the stars listening to his friends’ argument Gondo could remember clearly in his mind’s eye what the little well had looked like at that time. There was a small slate canopy to give it some shade and a good pulley system for the raising and lowering of three buckets. There were benches and a good supply of clean clay cups for anyone who might come to meet there for casual conversation. Many of Gondo’s neighbours felt, even in those first days, that it far surpassed the old well in the Bree-land, especially in cleanliness and its potential for conviviality.

   And he remembered keenly the silence of all the young hobbits as Alaura took her first drink of water from the well upon her entrance into the Buckland; it was, like their wedding the day before, one of the important first ceremonies performed in the Shire and Alaura, clever as always, recognized it as such. She drank deep and slow, not sipping lightly but taking the whole of the cup in a gentle and unhurried manner that seemed auspicious and formal by all the expectant hobbits who had come to greet her. When she had finished drinking Alaura turned the cup over, empty, and set it gently on the table before her. Smiling broadly then she said to them all, ‘it is that taste of the good clean water of this new land which I will hold in my memory with every new wish I might make for our future.’

   Two days after, when Gondo had to finally get back to the business of the village he left his new bride up at Sarehole and had come back to the quiet and still underdeveloped square. He saw that there was a new sign set there; tall and straight above the canopy of the well. This would be the first signpost ever seen in their village and he approached it then with curiosity and wonder. In those early days he had never learned who placed the sign there and, many years later, he would wish that he had bothered to ask. But now, on the occasion of their first anniversary, he remembered how it made him feel to see the fine letters chiselled there naming this place “The Wisher’s Well.”

   ‘Why?’ Alaura replied heatedly to Twoody’s statement. ‘Why can an organised people not benefit more from learning to organise themselves rather than being led?’

   Gondo felt himself growing further and further apart from their discussion. He knew, as he looked out at the stars in the western sky that he must, eventually, respond to the argument. This was an old debate between the three which seemed unsolvable but had woven itself into all their daily decisions of the Shire; should the Shire have a leader to set laws in the king’s name?

   Gondo had, within his nature, the ability to end such discussions between them or, in the very least, put them off for a time. But the quiet night sky which he saw from his doorstep seemed not to care for his friends’ debate in the least, and so he let the vision of it carry his mind peacefully west beyond all arguments.

   They were returning tonight from their first wedding anniversary where a feast of sorts had been established at the Wisher’s Well, quite outside of Gondo’s knowledge. Flowers had been strung from the sign and the canopy and long tables were laden for many guests. Beer and great stores of food were set aside to praise “the Lady of Buckland,” as the pioneers had begun to call her. There were many other families who had come to Buckland by then, but Alaura had been first and as such she held a special place in the hearts of the other young hobbits. She had charmed them tonight, as she always did, and the feast had lasted many long hours of talking.

   ‘All hobbits are free to come here,’ Twoody continued, ‘but should they be free to do as they please without help or guidance? Without working together they might not survive. But, Alaura, by being part of what we have started they might thrive.’

   ‘Thrive? You mean that they might prosper, Twoody, and that the community itself might prosper as well. And I believe you are right, in the short end at least. We will prosper together by working together. But will we, as families and as individuals, will we thrive? Of that I am less certain. “Thrive” is a very different word with its own set of conditions.

   ‘Individuals thrive by facing challenges. It is only governments which thrive by offering to remove those challenges.’⁵

   ‘Alaura- ‘ Twoody said, but he was stopped by Gondo interrupting the debate.

   ‘That’s enough for tonight,’ he said calmly, turning back to face his friends. ‘I do not know how we will ever answer this question the two of you are arguing or if it is even our place to do so. It is we hobbits who govern ourselves here in the Shire and I hope we will always do so. Twoody is right and we should be cautious of little kingdoms. And Alaura, you are also right that we should fear any laws which might make us a government rather than a collection of well-intended neighbours. For in accepting the land we are subjects of the king, after all. But I don’t feel we need to solve this or that we have the authority to solve it on our own. It's a discussion to be had by more Shirefolk than just we three.

   ‘But it is not a discussion for tonight,’ he said and, with that he turned to look back into the west and away from the conversation.

   ‘Of course, and I am sorry for opening it up,’ said Twoody. ‘It’s late and I should not have bothered a pleasant celebration with such talk of strategies.’

   ‘It was not you alone, Twoody, and it has never been such,’ Alaura replied. ‘For we all know that I love a good argument better than a Bolger loves his second breakfast. I am more toothsome in talk than most hobbits are in dining.

   ‘Your room is ready, as always,’ she continued, smiling brightly. ‘There’s clean sheets and bath water and some of our Buckland friends have lit the little fireplaces in the kitchen, the parlor and the bedrooms to make it homey on our arrival. I look forward to our talk over breakfast, as I always do when you visit. But we’ll say goodnight now, if you don’t think that’s rude of me, and I’ll join my husband here for a time to watch the stars.’

   On clear mornings Gondo believed that he could just barely see the distant mountains of the west from the top of the first hill of Sarehole. They were like a torn edge of the world off in their distance and there were many days that he sat there on the hilltop drawing at dawn’s hour, trying to capture the Sun as She painted those far off western peaks first in bright red and then vivid white. It was late in the evening now, for the Bucklanders had insisted on feasting long in Alaura’s honour, and he could not see any mountains but only the black of the land as it met the bright field of stars in the western sky. As his friends talked he tried to examine the farthest points of that sky and compare it with the shape he had recorded in his drawings. He felt he could still find the world’s torn edge in his memory as the whole explosion of stars was turning and glimmering above it.

   Twoody did not find his friends’ behaviour rude of course, and, saying goodnight in return, he went happily off to his cozy guest room in the west of the hill. Gondo and Alaura walked to the top of Sarehole hill and lay together for a long while beneath a small copse of birch trees which grew there as they looked out over the great canopy of stars as it lay over their heads and in all directions. The night was soft around them, the sky quiet and mysterious above them and the stars seemed like ripening fruit which they might, if bold enough together, reach up and take into their hands.

   No one knows what Gondo and Alaura might have said to one another on that night. If it was recorded somewhere it remains among Alaura’s writings that most hobbits contend were destroyed after her death some thirty-four years later.

   But on the next morning it was decided that Gondo and Twoody would leave on a long expedition to map the western edges of the Shire. They would meet with many surprises there, for one of them would not return and afterwards their friendship would be forever broken.

   But on the first day of Astron in the third year of the Shire-reckoning the three friends had discussed the community’s future with all of the idealism of their youthful friendship. In their own futures it would make them each unbearably sad to know that this was the last time they would all three spend together as friends.

end of chapter nine

Chapter End Notes

Notes

1)  Twoody brought the King’s Agreement to the Bree-land in March of 1601. This was considered to be Year One in the Shire calendar. But sensible hobbits like Alaura agreed that each new year should close or begin with the winter solstice; generally December 22nd or 23rd in the Gregorian calendar. These two days that begin the month of Yule were called “Yearsend” and “Yearsday” in the Shire. Gondo and Alaura were wed on the First of Astron in the new calendar Year Two, making this date in Year Three their first anniversary.

2)  This is a small allusion to the Tale of Rumpelstiltskin. I’m trying to pack some of the early hobbit metaphors with tales or proverbs which relate to the Grimm fairy tales because I believe they are in keeping with Tolkien’s vision for these nomadic and Northern European people.

3)  Though I have altered it slightly for syntax this lovely sentence comes from Letter 75 in the Humphries book of Tolkien’s letters.

4)  This lovely saying is one of Tolkien’s own from Letter 52 in the Humphries book. It is a rather scathing diatribe about politics written to his son Christopher during World War Two, but has been sitting in my quotations file for years as I waited for the right opportunity, and the right hobbit, to say it.

5)  Alaura began as something of a Virginia Woolf figure in my mind and she still retains that in much of her wit and writing. But her politics seem to be turning to a strange conflation of Ayn Rand and Emma Goldman as we get into this argument. I didn’t expect that, but I find it really strange to see how those kind of voices need to be raised against the complacency of the Shire.

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*Author’s Note:

   As we move further into our history of the Shirefolk we must pause to consider the broader world which surrounded them. This chapter does not come from any of the writings found in the 1961 excavation of the Great Smials but out of the existing scholarship as it regards the long ages of the Elves. As these histories can be confusing to some readers, just as it would have been to hobbits, an attempt is made to focus on the people of northwestern Eriador where our story is set.

   This is, after all, a story of hobbits and the Elves, who will have some effect upon the lives of the Shirefolk, are not featured and remain almost entirely absent from the tale. But it is also a story of the Third Age of Middle-earth and must therefore be put into perspective with the Great Events of the World at that time.

-D.F.R.

   Whether or not Argeleb the Second had ever mentioned the elves of Lindon in conversation with the two hobbit ambassadors remains completely unknown. It is certain that he still had congress with the Fair Folk to the west of his lands and trade still moved between Fornost Erain and the Grey Havens during his reign. In fact Argeleb accepted, just as did the whole line of Númenórean kings since the days when Elendil himself came out of the sea, that the elves of Eriador had wandered freely in these lands and that all of his people were graced by their friendship.

   But not all people of the North felt this way.

   In ages past there were other Men who lived in this part of the world. They had come from the far east and out of a haunted place of which they recounted no tales. Some there were who traveled together in great clans and eventually they became noticed by the Elves, the Elder People, who claimed to care for them and offer them protection. There were three great clans that became the High Houses of Men and, pledging fealty to the Elder People, they followed them over faraway mountains and went with them to war against the Enemy in lands which are now drowned beneath the seas. But there were other Men not of those High Houses who lived and remained in this part of the world. These Men did not serve the Enemy then as many other creatures did but instead they hid themselves in the dark caves and woody places of the north. Their lives and their hopes were meager, for they had no ancient pacts of trust and friendship with the Elder People as their cousins of the High Houses did and therefore they were granted no gifts of learning and language and no lessons of honour other than those they taught to themselves. Some legends suggest that these Men had the favour of great people other than the Elder Folk; for they learned many things of importance such as toolmaking, animal husbandry, planting and reaping and even singing, though they performed them quite differently and apart from the way in which the Elves had taught the Men of the High Houses.¹ The singing of these Men was queer, but it was nonetheless joyful. They were not lettered, but for many, many long generations they kept rich stories of their own which have now been mostly forgotten.

   Then the day came when the world was broken and the Great Powers went to war with the Enemy in those now sundered and sunken lands beyond the Blue mountains. These other tribes of Men, those who lived in this land and did not engage in open warfare, hid themselves in terror; for stars seemed to rush down from the sky to meet fire and billowing smokes which surged upward in the western lands. For many days the earth shook, lakes dried and rivers changed their courses. To the Men of Eriador (for that is what the elves called this part of Arda at this time, though those Men which lived here knew no such name) it seemed that the Great Powers and those Elder People and those High Houses of Men, had brought about the end of days and there was nothing to do but flee to cavern and wood and fear the coming darkness. No light but fire and storm could be seen for the skies had become ash, and there was the terrifying sound of a distant, continuous and deafening thunder.

   And then, after some amount of days which no one can account for, the skies returned and the earth stopped its shaking. The Sun showed Her bright face again and the air was newly filled with the scent of daylilies.² Men walked out again into bright days of a peace which they had never yet known. They came out of their hiding places and, in these happier times, they found one another again. They began to collect themselves into small communities. They built houses of stone and timber and planted their crops and bred their animals. And so they lived, for a time, free from the worry of dark creatures.

   Somewhere in these early years of the Second Age these Men met the Dwarves and learned to trade with them. They were taught lessons in carving stone, the building of cities, the making of weapons and some of the art of metals. They would never hope to surpass the Dwarves in those arts of course, but good trade was established between these two Peoples even if trust remained unsure.

   But during the whole of this time in which Men came out of hiding, they knew that the Elves remained in the subtle and quiet places of the North and built their new homes on this side of the Blue mountains.

*****

   The War of Wrath, as that far off battle in the West was called, had resolved and (for a time) ended the dominion of Morgoth, the Great Enemy, and the Eldar (as the Elves call themselves) were given the boon of forgiveness and invited to come home to the Undying Lands in the West where all mortals are forbidden. There were many of the Eldar who had become greatly aggrieved by loss and battle and wished to leave this world as soon as they may. Of these, the Noldor were perhaps most prominent, for they had broken faith and done dark deeds even though they were among the few of their kind who knew the light of Oiolossë,³ the high peak of Aman. But the Avari of Middle-earth, Elvenfolk who had not yet seen the Undying Lands, were likewise grateful for this gift and there were many among them who also wished to leave a world which now seemed filled with grief and weariness.

   But there were many others who did not choose to depart.

   In the War of Wrath Beleriand, jewel of Arda and home to many of the Eldar, had fallen into the Sea and Morgoth’s great fortress of Thangorodrim was likewise shattered and destroyed. The whole of the world was remade in this conflict and the Elves, being old enough to remember everything which had been lost, believed that the scars of anger and battle would forever show on the skin of the world. There were many, many Eldar, lords of great lineage, who fell when that Great War was fought and would never again see the beauties of Arda. Those that remained were lamented by the loss of many of their folk and kin.

   Yet there were also many Eldar who chose to linger, mourning the loss and the changing of the world. They had been granted a great gift, but they lingered and did not yet wish to leave behind the lands which had captivated them for so many long years.

   But what does “lingering” mean to an immortal people?

   When Beleriand fell into the sea there were many great Elf-lords who stood away from the destruction on the western edge of the Blue Mountains in a land they called Lindon. The mountains had been broken here in the north and the coastlines of Middle-earth were new and uncertain, so the Eldar began to make a place for themselves by a great river which empties itself into the Gulf of Lhûn. It is from here that Círdan the Shipwright built the vessels which would carry his people over the sea and into the Undying Lands. And this port, set where the newly formed seas met ancient lands unfamiliar to many of the Eldar, was called the Grey Havens for it was a somber place where the Eldar might leave their love of Middle-earth behind and prepare to go into the light in the West. Here the greatest concentration of Elves in the northlands came for final passage. But there were many also who came there and chose not go forward into the west.

   Gil-galad was one. He was High King of the Eldar in the dawning of this new Age and he drew many who were left in Eriador about him to his court at the Grey Havens. Some were there with him who went south and east and set up new Elven kingdoms in Hollin and, further east, in the Greatwood.⁴ These lands seemed fresh and wonderful to them, for Eriador, where most of the Elves now dwelt, was open and empty and felt much like Beleriand the Lost had when first they came there in ages long past. The Eldar made great castles and dwellings after the War of Wrath, but they kept them secret from the Men of Eriador, for they did not trust these Men and wanted little to do with them. They accepted the Dwarves more readily, despite past conflicts, but considered Men who were not of the High Houses to be ignorant and clumsy and quite beneath their regard.

   The Men of Eriador knew of the Eldar, the “Fair Folk” they called them, and they feared them and kept a safe distance from their courts and markets. For the Men knew that it was the Fair Folk and their unceasing battles with the Great Enemy which had brought all of the most grievous past destruction to the world.

   So the Men and the Elves of Eriador lived willfully apart for many centuries during the Second Age of Middle-earth and both were, by all accounts, quite happy with that situation. If either people told tales of one another then those tales were certainly ignorant and misguided; they were but fables and childrens’ stories coloured by bias, fueled by contempt and proffered by imaginations which had been inspired to prejudgment. How can two peoples, sharing the same land for hundreds of years yet having no contact, be expected to tell tales of one another which are filled with compassion?⁵

   Six hundred years after the War of Wrath the Men of the High Houses, now calling themselves Númenóreans, began to return to Middle-earth on great ships fashioned to look like giant swans. They were feared by the Men of Eriador at first but were openly welcomed by the Elves of Lindon. They brought many great gifts with them and the Men of Eriador learned much from the Númenóreans; but the Sea-kings, as the Men of Eriador called them, took much from the exchange as well. Great forests were felled to build ships for their navies, mills and farmlands were put in these newly deforested areas, but they supplied grains and livestock mostly for the Númenórean tables. No castles were built at first, but great ports began to dot the western coasts so that the Númenóreans might easily supply themselves and continue their voyages into strange new lands.⁶

   But, just as the Men of Eriador had feared with the Elves, it was these Númenóreans who brought their old conflicts with the Great Enemy back to Middle-earth with them.

   Dark creatures were rising in the eastern lands almost from the day that the Númenóreans set foot again in Eriador. Orcs and Trolls had not troubled the land for many hundreds of years but now they appeared, quite suddenly, in great numbers. It was the Dwarves who met them first high in the Iron Hills, but soon they were raiding and pillaging all of the lands of Eriador. The Elves, as expected, rode out to meet them, but the towns and villages of the Men of Eriador were left to defend themselves.

   In this time it was Sauron the Deceiver who was the new Enemy and he claimed all of the inland territories of Eriador for his own. Hollin, the great Elven kingdom in the southern region fell and the Dwarves of Khazad-Dûm shut their gates against him. Elves of the Greatwood would not come forth and, for a time, Sauron held dominion over all the lands. It seemed that the Men of Eriador must again go into secret caves and woodlands to hide from the Dark Powers. But then, on a day unlooked for, the Númenóreans came in full force out of the Sea and Sauron was defeated. They took him prisoner and his great fortress in the south, the high tower of Baradûr, was destroyed.

   And so again the Men of Eriador came forth in hopefulness to bright skies and the scent of daylilies. But their joy did not last for long.

   For now, after the capture of Sauron, it was Númenor who became the uncontested Great Power in Middle-earth and even the Elves grew distrustful of the Sea-kings’ and their ways. Gifts the Númenóreans still gave, but many more resources were now simply taken and greater castles and fortresses were built in the western lands of Middle-earth. Colonial governments were established and, if the Men of Eriador did learn things from the High Houses of Númenor at this time they came at the great expense of their freedoms. It was said that the will of Sauron, even in bondage, had corrupted the king of Númenor. If the Elves of the region knew or cared about the troubles suffered by the Men of Eriador no record tells us. But within a few hundred years Eriador was ruled by the Sea-kings; the Men who were native to that land, who had lived there for so long, were now left with very few opportunities to control their own destinies; they were taxed heavily and, as a new darkness seemed to rise in designs of their Númenórean masters, many were taken into bondage or became the victims of sacrifice. The Men of Eriador, and presumably the Hobbits who came to wander in these lands at this time, learned to fear the Sea-kings and the Elder People nearly as much as they had feared Orcs and Trolls.

   And then, in some far distant land that the Men and Hobbits of Eriador had only remotely heard of, yet another War of Wrath was fought. The Sea-kings, or so later generations returned to tell it, in the darkness of their spirit and the arrogance of their condition, challenged the true Great Powers of the World and were summarily punished. Once again the skies grew dark so that no Sun nor Moon nor Stars could be seen and a tremendous sound, like a thunder and a cry of grief all in one, came from rock and tree and air so that no living creature did not cower at the noise of it. But then, after what was only moments of terrific suffering, the cataclysm was ended. Where it should have been day the Sun was returned. Where it should have been night the Moon also returned; but now the Stars were strange.

   It is true that Eriador itself was little affected by this changing of the World,⁷ but the souls of every People alive at this time felt and knew that a great change had come. There was no scent of daylilies then to offer forgetfulness and all of the Peoples who lived in that time were humbled, frightened and wary. Great Powers were at work in the world and all who lived in it were made to know that their actions had brought consequence that should be remembered.⁸

   It was at this time that Elendil and his people came out of the Sea to join with the faithful Númenóreans who still survived in that part of the world. With all of their skills and knowledge they built great kingdoms for themselves in Middle-earth. They were, to all Peoples of the land, fair and just and their government was based upon the loyalties and integrity formerly held by the High Houses of Men; they honored the Great Powers and held deep friendships with the Eldar. They forsook all of the darkness which Sauron had brought with him to Númenor and looked to build a peaceful home for themselves in new lands. But also they wisely created new friendships with the Men of Eriador and showed them ways to govern their own lands as autonomous fiefdoms. The Men of Eriador would never again be colonial servants of Dark Númenóreans but would now be offered protections by the Sea-kings. This practice of Elendil’s was very much what Argeleb the Second had on his mind when he gave the Shire to the displaced hobbits of Eriador over eighteen-hundred years later; For Elendil’s wisdom tells us that ‘to rule should be the great responsibility of the wise, should concern itself chiefly with lightening the burdens of all, and should never lead to its own reward.’

   But it was not far into Elendil’s reign that war with Sauron came once again to challenge the Peoples of Middle-earth. For Sauron was a corruption and a challenge whom the Great Powers had not chosen to destroy. His doom, it is said, must one day be written by the Peoples of Middle-earth and not through the acts of the Great Powers.⁹ And so it was that Sauron was returned to be their own Great Enemy for another age.

   Some Men of Eriador, drawn by Elendil’s justice and his lordliness, marched beside the Númenóreans and even alongside the Elves in the Last Alliance. These brave people went south to Mordor and many, many died before the Black Gate. If their time among the Elves was ever recorded it has been lost with their deaths and if any Elves lived to speak of the bravery of these Men it is also not a matter of record. For the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, as it is recorded by Elves, speaks mostly of their own folk and also of Elendil the Tall and the Númenóreans who followed him. They neglect to tell of the brave Men of Eriador who never returned home to their own lands and families. Comrades they may have been for a time, but the Men of Eriador had not outgrown their suspicion of the Elves of the West.

   Now, as Gondo and Twoody go west and investigate the borders of their land, it is sixteen hundred and four years into the Third Age of Middle-earth and those wars against Sauron the Enemy are well behind them. Tales are still told of the Last Alliance but they seem as fables or children’s stories may seem to the practically-minded people of Eriador in these later days. To the Big Folk and the Little Folk who gathered around Bree-hill, Elves are quite genuinely believed in but remain (quite happily) unseen. It is commonly believed that they hold great castles and estates in the wilderness areas of the North, but no one, certainly no hobbit of Gondo and Twoody’s generation, has ever journeyed there nor ever wished to. If hobbits of their own time and acquaintance have ever met one of the Elvenfolk we have no record before this one. If Elves had met hobbits by this time we also do not know; for while Elvish histories are quite detailed they do, as a matter of course, include only the Elves as their subject of study.

   Gondo and Twoody walked west to the edges of their land but did not realize that the edges of that land which the king had granted them was proscribed and defined by a long-standing pact with the Elves.

*****

   The two hobbits were very certain that they had been followed for many days. Gondo, always wary and keen in a wood, suspected it before Twoody had any idea. There were no footprints to be seen near their campsites, no glimpses of far away watchers and no sounds in the day or night which might give them evidence. Yet Gondo and Twoody were both very smart and suspicious hobbits and, as such hobbits do, quickly knew when they were under the eyes of a predator, dangerous our no.

   If Twoody’s grandfather, old Priamus Swiftwalk, had any memories of time spent among the Elves he had never shared them. The Big Folk living in the Bree-land all felt the Elves to be a danger, but we have no idea whatsoever about how other hobbits of the Northlands felt in those days. Perhaps Twoody and Gondo believed, as some other people did, that gaining the attention of the Fair Folk signaled an auspicious beginning. There were others of course who believed it prophesied a dangerous end. Perhaps the two explorers wondered, as generations had before them, whether the Elves may have their own claim of rights to these lands and therefore would refuse all newcomers. So, observed yet unapproached, they debated whether these western lands recently granted to them were by right their own or perhaps the current habitat of Elven lords whom the king had failed to mention. This discussion, held very quietly, came mostly at night, for the two had adopted new traveling habits once they realized they were under scrutiny; they would break camp after morning was nearly finished and walk the greater bulk of their time in the afternoons. This was a scouting mission after all, and so they wanted to follow the Road west as they may through daylight. They would occasionally stop to sketch a row of hills or large wooded area and Twoody made many notes while Gondo tried to orient these features into new maps. They made certain to appear to all watchful eyes as peaceful travelers moving at no great haste and upon no great mission. But it also allowed them to sit up long together in the night and under the stars, times when they felt that the eyes of the Fair Folk were certainly upon them. So, being noticed and still unapproached, they were themselves watchful for what may happen next; if this land belonged to the Elf-lords how would they ever come to settle here?

   Twoody and Gondo had left the developed area of Buckland some four months ago and were now engaged with mapping the lands in early June of this third Year of the Shire-reckoning. In the Bree-land (and in the Shire) this time of year was called Lithe,¹⁰ the days of the new Moon which we call the summer solstice. These Summerdays were considered by many Peoples as a time when the world was to be refreshed and renewed. If this time held any keen importance to the Elves of the Western lands the two hobbits could not say. So together Twoody and Gondo went cautiously forward on their task of discovery and cartography. They talked of good hillsides for settlements and fields for planting and, with the afternoon Sun on their faces, continued on west toward the mountains. They sat up late at night talking quietly, singing a little bit to keep their spirits up and, most importantly, looking for some glimpse of the Fair Folk under the bright starlight.

   The meeting which they eventually had did not end as expected.

end of chapter ten

Chapter End Notes

Notes

1)  This is an indication that the “Lesser Men” (a name I will staunchly avoid using) may have had contact with the Ents, the Ent-wives, the Púkel-men or other characters like Radagast or Tom Bombadil. It is difficult to write about these “Lesser Men” because I need to recognize all of the ways in which Tolkien was susceptible to the narrow ideas of race within his own time. It's an unfortunate characteristic which I prefer not to look at too closely but also cannot avoid. These are the indigenous people of any land that is not touched by Colonialism; he does not, I’m sorry to admit, treat them as well in his writing as I should like to in mine.

2)  The scientific name for daylily is “Hemerocallis” and I considered using some more Tolkienesque version of that word here. But I think this section runs a little long away from how hobbits might talk, so I went for the more colloquial name here. The important idea is that in Chinese culture the daylily symbolizes forgetfulness or memory loss.

3)  Taniquetil or Oiolossë is the Great Mountain in the Undying Lands where Manwe and Yavanna sit in judgment (or the just plain watching) of Middle-earth. Using that name here places the narrator’s voice as someone familiar with the broader Legendarium; it is a slightly more aware voice than in most of the preceding paragraphs and, I hope, makes this section more like how the elves might tell this part of the tale.

4)  At this time, the dawn of the Second Age, I’d like to suggest that the Great Wood included the lands which would later become Lothlórien and that kingdom would be established by Amroth and Nimrodel.

5)  Sometimes in writing I find I’m just fishing around for the big idea which has attracted me to the act of writing. In the note above I mentioned how I wished to write something from the narrative position of Tolkien’s “Lesser Men” without ever using that term. In point of fact, this whole chapter was meant as a link for talking about the Elves without including the Elves directly in this novel. To do that I spent quite a lot of time exploring how the Elves feel somewhat superior to everyone they meet in Arda. I genuinely do believe that is their great failing. But to be able to address the notion of “compassion”- the exercise which teaches us to never separate our hopes and concerns from those of others- seems like the big idea of writing this bit, and fuels a lot of how I write the Elves in the bigger tale of The Fall of Arnor.

6)  I’ve been hoping for some time now to fit a Star Trek line into this piece; this is the closest I’ve managed so far.

7)  Tolkien never really settled the idea of how much the lands of Middle-earth were changed after the fall of Númenor and the world became round. The big problem is that he wrote many stories of the Second Age which use much of the landscape for the Third. Just as Karen Wynn Fonstad does in her excellent The Atlas of Middle-earth I’d like to put forward the notion that the changing of the world from flat to round was not boundered by science but by Iluvatar’s will of how the world should now look. Therefore grace was afforded to the innocent folk of Western Middle-earth and greater upheavals occurred in the far south and east, lands still under Sauron’s control.

8)  Revisiting the history of The Silmarillion as I’m doing here it's impossible to not wrestle a bit with my own feelings on Christian ethos as it runs through the Legendarium. To my thinking the sinking of Númenor and the change in the shape of the world is not something which the divine will of Illúvatar wants us to ever forget.

9)  So. We come to that thing where people usually ask “why did the Valar let Sauron go?” Fair enough. Here’s my take; the Eldar were meant to overthrow Morgoth after great suffering and the realization that they and not just he, for all their hubris, were only part of the Greater Designs of Illúvatar. In the War of Wrath and destruction of Thangorodrim the Valar recognized their complicity in the work; they had some part to play as stewards of Arda in all the battles of the Quenta Silmaril and even in the choices of Fëanor and the Noldor. Eärendil returns the Silmaril and reminds them of this. The Valar go to war and change the shape of the world, but Illúvatar does not. And then, once more complicit or ignorant of the plan, they pardon Sauron expecting him to return to Valinor for “Higher Judgement”. In this moment the discordant music of Melkor is sustained. They believe that they are done with the work and the Elves believe they are also done with the work. Forgiveness is greatly given, new lands rise and everyone hopes that all will return to a state of happiness. No guidance from Illúvatar comes at this time. But the Music, of course, is still playing. When the Númenoreans assault the Undying Lands Manwë does not attack them; they are the Children of Illúvatar and it is Illúvatar’s decision. Manwë calls for the Higher Court and all of the world is remade. But Sauron, most surprisingly of all, was not destroyed in the height of Illúvatar’s wrath. Sauron was the new problem which would arise after Morgoth and it seemed that the Valar, unwilling to judge one of their own, let him slip through their courts. Further, it seems that Illúvatar himself, in the reshaping of the world, allows Sauron, the great architect of the Númenórean’s downfall, to escape and take some other form. But I’d put forth that Sauron was not meant to be overthrown by the Valar or even the Elves; he plays a later part in the Music. For Sauron needed to be overthrown by the wise choices of Men (and Hobbits, who are a subset of Men) so that Men might arise to take control of Middle-earth as the Elves leave. But, remember, Men could not overthrow Sauron in the Second Age; they listened to him and took his advise and therefore became separated from the Valar. He was not destroyed in the sinking of Númenor because Men had not yet fully learned to reject him. The Third Age is not so much about the disinvolvement of the Valar or the Elves as it is about the engagement of Men (and Hobbits) in their resistance of Sauron. Rant over.

10) Dedicated fans will know that this time had a different name in the Shire calendar, “Forelithe”, but that distinction had not yet been made yet in the time of this story.

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   Twoody and Gondo had spent the whole three days of Lithe, the celebration of summer solstice, in the company of one dozen Elves of the Western Lands. “Noldor” they had called themselves and a few had hair as golden and bright as flowers in a meadow. The elves had escorted them to a place for their meeting in a quiet glade down a path of tall elm trees. They came to the center of the glade where Twoody saw a great black tree of a kind he was unfamiliar with. Though old and bare its limbs were vast and filled the whole of the clearing around it. In the wide hollow of this tree beds had been prepared for the hobbits and sumptuous foods were laden on a small table. Nob, their pony, was given oats and grasses and even an early summer apple.

   In no documents of the Shire are any of the names of these elves recorded or is there any account of what was discussed. But for many years Twoody would say that the gracious courtesies of the Elves, even in such a rustic setting, surpassed even that of the King in his high court at Fornost.

   The sun had gone behind the mountains on the last of the SummerDays as Gondolpho Boldbuck and Theudebald Swiftalk were to have their last conversation as friends at the western edge of the Shire. They stood for a moment together watching the stars quietly awaken. Gondo’s eye was caught by a bright red twinkling of light in the northeast as the sky darkened around them all.

   ‘“Carnil”,¹ she had called it,’ Gondo said softly to his friend. ‘I have not heard them named before. Have you? Not that one nor any other. Do we have names for the stars, Twoody, or am I just too thick and have never learned them?’

   ‘I don’t know much about the stars and such,’ Twoody replied. ‘Maybe we do have names for them, or maybe we had once. Our folk were travelers for many long generations before we came together you know, and travelers always have a need for stars to guide them. And the king had names for them, if you remember. “The Swordsman of the Sky” he showed us that one night, Gondo, and, oh, but it blazed above our heads the whole time he spoke. Do you remember that? Maybe he could tell us more about the stars.’

   ‘Not as much as these fair folk, I think,’ Gondo said as he turned his eyes west to the small party of tall and pale travelers who were standing in the open air and preparing to leave. Only seven now remained of them, each more than twice the height of Gondo or Twoody or any other hobbit that they had ever known. As the sun’s light failed and the stars were growing brighter these wandering folk seemed to shine against the night all the more. Twoody could see that from the distance Gondo watched her, their leader, transfixed he seemed, as her golden hair became like silver in the night.²

   ‘We have done well in this meeting,’ Twoody said cautiously, hoping to draw his friend’s attention away from the visitors, ‘for they are a powerful ally to have on our far western border. Very queer folk of course, as all the legends say, but clearly very mighty, very wise and, if quite mysterious in their ways, very willing to leave us be about on ways of our own. Yes. Quite a successful if unexpected meeting, I should say.’

   More stars were brightening behind them now, Gondo thought that he could feel them, and, as his eyes were focused upon the tall Elf-queen he believed he saw all of the light of these dawning stars surround her; her hair and her face and her raiments, and he knew that in her there was knowledge to be found that was deeper than any adventure had yet revealed to him. He had stopped listening to Twoody’s talking and somewhere, either behind or before him, he imagined that he heard a nightingale softly singing.

   And so, as Twoody would tell others later, Gondolpho Boldbuck became enchanted.

   ‘I will go with them, Twoody,’ he said, ‘and learn more about the stars and the West and all of their songs. I will follow them on their trek to the Great Waters.’

   ‘Gondo, no!’ Twoody said to his friend, grasping his arm as if to pull him out of his dream. ‘What are you saying? We have done well here, my dear friend, and have no need to go further. We have mapped much of our western lands and made good agreements with our gracious but very queer neighbors. But here our work ends. They need no ambassadors and we need no further trade. What, tell me, can such an adventure provide? Why go further west when we have a home to build here in our own lands?’

   And the whole of this time Gondolpho’s eyes were looking to the elves and seemed to pay no attention to Twoody’s argument. At least not until the very end.

   '“Ambassador,” you call it?’ Gondo asked. ‘Yes, that is the word indeed, Twoody. I see them and I see the light of stars fall about them and I think we will always need an emissary, some intercessor between their folk and our own. And, seeing them now, all of my heart bends me to this task. Twoody, there is so much we might learn! I will follow them for a time as our Ambassador to the West.’

   And here Gondolpho shrugged off his friend’s arm and hastily began to pack up all that he might need to follow the elves west into their lands. Twoody waited for a moment, watching his friend, and collecting his thoughts to offer any argument he might imagine against this enchantment. It took long minutes as the skies continued to darken and the stars began to shine and the Fair Folk who they had met began to depart. They had drawn together near the side of the Great Road and the hobbits could hear them as they began to sing. Gondo and Twoody could not understand the meaning of their song of course, but the sweet syllables fell like clear jewels of blended word and melody.³

   ‘A Elbereth Gilthoniel’⁴

   ‘What shall I tell Alaura?’ Twoody asked, feeling as if he could do or say nothing else that might stop his friend.

   ‘Oh, I’ll be back before too long,’ Gondo said, though he stopped his packing for a moment and looked back away to the east. ‘And she’s certainly put up with my leaving many times before,’ he said with a sad smile. ‘You’ll watch out for her until I return.’

   ‘silivren penna míriel’

   ‘Of course I will,’ Twoody said, seeing now a familiar sureness in his friend’s eyes which made him certain that any hope of argument was lost. ‘But when will you return? How far will you travel?’

   ‘Not more than a year, I promise.’

   ‘A year! Gondo, that’s-’

   ‘It will be Mid-summer again, yes,’ Gondo interrupted, ‘and a special day for their people and ours. I will tell them that I vowed to return and I must meet you here on Mid-summer. But I must go now, Twoody, or I will not catch them up.’ With this he threw his pack on his shoulder and took up his walking stick at a very great pace.

   ‘Wait!’ Twoody said. ‘Wait, just one moment then, you impetuous and bull-headed vagabond, for if you must go then you’ll certainly need some person of intelligence to go with you! Let me just gather these few things and douse this fire...’ and, quite against his better judgement and certainly against all his better plans, Theudebald Swiftalk, found himself hastily breaking camp and leaving much of their gear behind to follow his friend on yet another adventure.

   ‘o menel aglar elenath!’

   He quickly poured out good clean water from good clean pots and kicked up loose dirt over the fire, all the time reaching for important items to throw into their saddle packs. He then ran forward to their little pony, their fellow traveller for many years, and began to fit him for the journey. ‘We can’t leave old Nob behind us, Gondo,’ he said sharply as he worked, ‘for that would surely be the most unkind treatment to such a respected old friend. Much like, I must say, you were planning to do to me!’ At this he expected to hear his friend laugh but, looking about their small camp, he discovered that he was alone; Gondo was far in the distance, running down the Great Road trying to catch up to the elves without waiting for Twoody or Nob or any reasonable argument.

   ‘Na-chaered palan-díriel

   ‘O galadhremmin ennorath,’

   ‘Dear, oh dear,’ Twoody said aloud (preferring not to curse at friends). ‘He has gone on without even a goodbye! Well, we shall have to catch him up and redress him for this insult, won’t we, Nob?’ If the pony had any wisdom to offer, Twoody could not hear it. Softer and softer the elvish song became, though it rang in Twoody’s mind for many years after.

‘Fanuilos, le linnathon ‘Nef aear, sí nef aearon!

‘A Elbereth Gilthoniel

‘O menel palan-diriel,

‘Le nallon sí di'nguruthos! ‘A tiro nin, Fanuilos!’

*****

   ‘Not one quarter of an hour!’ Twoody thought to himself now as he and old Nob walked west along the Great Road out of the Shire in search of their friend. ‘He could not wait for us that long, Nob?’

   The Road forward took many turnings and around him the land was becoming thickly wooded. It was dark now, and the shadows from these woods made it difficult to track. He knew that Gondo and the Elves must have left the Road to follow their own mysterious paths and that soon, unwillingly, he must give up his search and turn back towards home. He would return to the settlements they had built together and that his friend (who Twoody was so greatly disappointed in!) had now abandoned. He would have to see Alaura and explain how he had let their friend run incautiously off into the west alone and without aid. He would have to explain the power of the Elves and, if he was to help his own people in developing and exploring their new land, he must also explain how dangerous contact with the Elves might be.

   Twoody paused in the middle of the Road, listening. He heard Nob swishing his tail. He heard the chittering of insects and the soft rustling of leaves in the low wind. He tried to shut all these sounds out and listen only for the Elven-folk singing, joyful and alluring and dangerous as he knew it to be. He listened carefully, hoping to hear a song which might point some way forward to where he might still find his friend. But the song had passed from his concerned ears.

   At length in the moment he turned his eyes skyward and, unlooked for, a star rose glittering and bright in the northwest. But Twoody had no name for the star and felt the loss of his friend all the greater. In that moment, gazing at that far off star, he thought he heard the call of a nightingale, but it came from behind him and back in the direction of lands which he knew.

   So with great sadness and frustration he turned himself and the pony Nob around, deciding against hope that they must leave their incautious friend behind and return to the Shire. It was the sixteen hundred and fourth year of the king’s calendar, the Third Year of the Shire-reckoning, and Theudebald Swiftalk knew that he had a responsibility to his people, to his friends and, above all, to Alaura, his friend’s wife.

   Gondolpho Boldbuck had become enchanted on Mid-summer’s eve and things between the two prominent families of the Shire would never be the same.

end of chapter eleven

Chapter End Notes

Notes

1)  “Carnil” is the Quenya name for the planet Mars, seen as a star by the Elves and all the people of Middle-earth. It is one of the early stars created by Varda and shines at early hours of night in the middle of summer.

2)  This is the first indication within the story that the leader of this group may have been Galadriel.

3)  This phrase is quite directly lifted from LoTR of course, but this is exactly the kind of Easter eggs I enjoy strewing about for fans like myself to enjoy.

4)  Translations for this prayer to Varda (Kindler of the Stars) can be found easily online, but my wife suggested I should place it here as well: white) glittering slants down / sparkling like jewels / from [the] firmament [the] glory [of] the star-host! / To-remote distance far-having gazed / from [the] tree-tangled middle-lands, / Fanuilos, to thee I will chant / on this side of ocean, here on this side of the Great Ocean!

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   In Year Three of the Shire-reckoning, after Gondo had gone off and abandoned him on the western border of their new land, Twoody Swiftalk took twenty more days to return to the village of Buckland; at that time this was the most western city in the hobbits’ very early development of the West-farthing and, more importantly, Gondo’s home.¹

   ‘Hardly a city at all, really,’ Twoody thought as he took his time in returning; delaying his course by sleeping late and ending his day’s walk early and all the while rueing the conversations he would eventually have regarding his friend’s sudden and unexpected departure.

  ‘There’s lovely rolling hills there in Buckland,’ he thought to himself, walking along slowly beside Old Nob, their faithful pony. ‘A perfect place for hobbitholes,’ he then said aloud, deciding to talk the issue through with Nob as if the trusted pony might have some solid advice to give. ‘Certainly they have built a good cluster of buildings down southwest of the Farthing-stone and established a very fine town well. There are fresh springs under all those hills, enough to water many gardens.’ Twoody had seen the changes himself and backed many loans for the young pioneers as they moved that way under Gondo’s guidance. In just a few years they had set up property lines around those hills and begun building many wholesome and comfortable dwellings. ‘It’s beautiful land there, of course,’ he said to old Nob, ‘and I suppose that I might find a comfortable hole for myself among them for the next year. Alaura’s youngest brother, Clooty, is there and could help get me set up. Plenty of work in loans and supplies to be found among the Bucklanders, of course.’

   Nob, being a kind and dedicated companion, did not respond to Twoody’s musings and likely had nothing to offer his master at this idea for new business prospects.

   Twoody, who still considered himself to be a clear-headed businessman rather than a bold pioneer, had not dug a hole as Gondo did but instead employed workers to build him a comfortable home and sturdy storefront in the more well-to-do settlement called Hobbiton-by-the-Water.² There, just north of the Farthing-stone beside a gentle river and small lake, the largest number of hobbit businessmen and shop-owners were now planning to settle into a community where Twoody and Alaura both expected they would do good trade in their little hamlet so close to the Road. Twoody’s home there had not been completed when he and Gondo set forth four months ago, but the excavators had done an excellent job and he knew that it had the makings of a very fine little hole overlooking the lake. A bachelor’s hole only, but he had wisely staked out enough land to grow a good sized family should the opportunity to marry ever find him. He would miss such an opportunity now, and that house and storefront, if he was to live for the next year or so in Buckland.

   ‘Well, that can’t be helped,’ he continued telling Nob, ‘Gondo began building that great smial³ in the Buckland three years ago and already quite a proper community has grown up around his energy and spirit. I cannot simply neglect Alaura and those other folk now as he has done.’

   There were many changes which had happened very quickly in the Shire during the past three years and Twoody had tried very hard to keep up with all of them. He was not as dedicated a memoirist as Alaura was, but many of his early thoughts on the political and practical growth of the community work their way into other accounts of those early days. ‘A new nation needs careful guidance,’ he had been known to say of the Shire’s formation. ‘And a strong and healthy garden will resist the guidance of too careful a gardener,’ Alaura would often answer in their on-going debate. If Gondo had any such witticisms to share on the topic they are, sadly, not preserved.

   The three were very different in their approach to building a new land. But for the next year of the Shire’s growth it would now be up to only Twoody and Alaura to lead things.

*****

   THE SHIRE-RECKONING, that early news journal which had done so much to spread an account of the Shire’s growth to hobbits all across the North, carried a leading article in the late summer of Year Three about the dangers at the farthest edges of West-farthing. Much of the journal's content was known to be written by Alaura Fairheart in the publication’s earliest years, but this is one of the few articles written by Twoody and entitled “THE CAUTIONS OF THE WEST”.

   “FOR MANY LEAGUES WEST along the GREAT ROAD our LANDS EXTEND and REMAIN BOUNTIFUL. FOR MANY MILES NORTH AND SOUTH of that Road the KING’S AGREEMENT gives to ALL HOBBITS a RICH AND PLENTIFUL HOME wherein our FOLK AND FAMILIES MIGHT GROW AND PROSPER AND EXPAND. There are places WEST OF THE FARTHING STONE for TOWNS and FARMS and HERDS APLENTY.

   “BUT THE WESTERN EDGES OF OUR LAND are FIXED BY THE KING’S AGREEMENT and are to be considered DANGEROUS TO CROSS. WE HAVE NO ENEMIES there, but OUR WESTERN NEIGHBOURS ARE FEY, UNFAMILIAR in our WAYS, and, I believe, BEST AVOIDED.

   “THE ELDER FOLK, ‘Elves’ as some may call them, ARE OUR NEIGHBOURS to the West and THEY HOLD THEIR PRIVACY WITHIN THEIR OWN LANDS to be a MOST IMPORTANT CONDITION. They RESPECT OUR BORDERS and CARE NOT ABOUT THE LAND which the King has granted us, THEY CARE NOT ABOUT THE ROAD which crosses our land, and THEY CARE NOT FOR FURTHER CONTACT OR TRADE with Shirefolk; they want only to walk freely in the woods of their own lands and ASK THAT WE, AS GOOD NEIGHBOURS, KEEP TO OURSELVES. We have MET with them AS EXPLORERS AND AMBASSADORS and spoken with THE LORD AND LADY of these WESTERN NEIGHBOURS and AGREED TO THESE CONDITIONS.

   “THE GREAT ROAD runs through a CHAIN OF LOW HILLS at the WESTERN EDGE OF OUR LAND and this we have named THE FAR DOWNS. It is a PLEASANT COUNTRY for herding, filled with grassy rolling fields. BUT TO JOURNEY BEYOND THESE HILLS is to LEAVE THE SAFETY OF THE SHIRE and pass, UNINVITED AND UNLOOKED-FOR, into the LANDS OF THE ELVENFOLK. ANY HOBBIT WHO DOES SO FORGOES THE PROTECTIONS afforded him in THE KING’S AGREEMENT. IT CANNOT BE SAID MORE CLEARLY than this; THE ELVES AND THEIR LANDS are to be LEFT ALONE BY ALL SHIREFOLK. THEY ARE A CORDIAL PEOPLE by all accounts, but wholly set in their own ways and WANT NO CURIOUS VISITORS nor WELL-WISHING WANDERERS, no BOLD TRAVELERS nor ENTERPRISING TRADERS, and will tolerate NO ENCROACHING ENCAMPMENTS into the LANDS WHICH THEY HAVE HELD SINCE THE CHANGING OF THE WORLD. WE OF THE SHIRE, striving to be GOOD NEIGHBOURS, have AGREED TO LEAVE THEM WELL ENOUGH AND WELL ALONE.’

   This article is the only accounting of the Elvenfolk in Shire records for more than twenty-five years to come. If there were hobbit settlers in the West-farthing during this time who were curious about these foreign people no one can say. But the area of West-farthing had grown very populated very quickly, just as Gondo and Twoody and Alaura all imagined it would, and soon there was a great collection of holes and houses being built into the side of the White Downs, not far east from the chain of hills at the Shire’s edge.

   But no hobbit ventured west to the Far Downs for decades and no herdsmen or cautious wanderer would dare to approach those western slopes. It was rumoured that great tall towers could be seen in the distance from the Far Downs but, when questioned, those who spoke the rumours had never seen these things themselves. It seemed that most sensible settlers of that part of the land felt that once warned was, indeed, once enough and twice frightened was, likewise, twice too many.

*****

   Twoody and Nob were camped well off the Road but with the Farthing-stone in their sight as the Sun was slowly going down behind them again. Hobbiton-by-the-Water lay not far to the north and the land near the Farthing-stone was, in the three months that Gondo and Twoody had been away, becoming fairly well trafficked. He did not want to see, or be seen by, anyone yet and so Twoody made a small camp for himself in a copse of birch trees on a low hill south and west of the Stone. He lingered there for a day and a night and most of the next day, knowing that he would have to go to Buckland soon and report how he and Gondo had met the Elves and how he had let his friend, Alaura’s husband, run off to join them.

   ‘What do you mean?’ she would say, and ‘How could you let him go off on his own again? Again, Twoody?’ she would also say.

   He could hear Alaura accusing him in their talk. Then and instantly, as had happened frequently on this return trip, he found himself transported to that Spring evening (the 3rd of Thrimidge, more than three years ago now⁴) when he sat watching Alaura come into her mother’s garden with the sunset falling in the west behind her. He thought of her black hair in eclipse and the cream and gold colours of her gown. That had been the last time he had to tell her that Gondo was gone. He wondered if, when he came to their home in Sarehole, she would be wearing the same dress? No, he thought, Twoody had never seen her in it since. After she moved to the Shire, Alaura had adopted her old wardrobe of short pants instead of dresses. But this wondering did not help with his real problem; should he leave now and try to arrive at her house again by sunset?

   ‘Everyone knows better, of course,’ he spoke aloud in his continuing conversation with Nob, his patient friend. ‘Everyone knows that Elves are a danger. Everyone. They are magical, mischievous, beguiling, seductive, sad-seeming while glad-sounding and, above all else and under the stars that shine, they are not entirely to be trusted. Everyone knows that!’ Twoody said, his voice rising nearly to a shout. Nob, quite content with the long rest they seemed to be taking, had nothing to share on the subject.

   ‘“Oh, you will make an excellent ambassador, Gondo,” I should have said,’ Twoody went on, with a voice that, for all his wanting, couldn’t quite manage to emphasize his anger over his sadness. ‘I should have said; “An excellent ambassador indeed! For you are every bit as capricious, mercurial and wholly as frustrating, and, most obvious from this recent action, you are every bit as steadfast in your irresponsibility as those glimmering and nightwalking Fair Folk are themselves reported to be!” I should have said; “I hope you will be very happy maundering about with strangers, Gondo, while the hard work of all your friends continues without you!” I should have said; “You would go and learn songs about stars when we have a nation of families to build?” Yes, these are things which I very much should have said.’

   Twoody stood now beside a birch tree looking northeast to the Farthing-stone. The sun was gently setting behind him and the light on the hills of the Shire was the gold of sunset; with the shadows of trees and hills growing long at the end of day he was hidden to any of the inhabitants of the land. He alone knew, if no one else other than Nob might see, that his eyes stung with tears from berating his absent friend in this way and that it was the grief of loss which moved him more than any anger. He did not wipe his eyes but, through waters of loss and his own blameful recriminations, looked out at the progress of the nation which they had built together.

   The Shirefolk had done much work in the months that he and Gondo had been gone. He could see a road now running from Hobbiton-by-the-Water south to, he imagined, the green hills of Buckland. Roadside signs had been added, though he could not make them out from such a distance. He wondered who had lettered them and demanded their planting, but that question came with an immediate answer. ‘Alaura, of course,’ he answered himself gently.

   The very idea of her made him turn his head towards the south and look towards Buckland for a moment; he could not see much there yet, but he knew that the development must have steadily grown under her guidance. Sarehole was not directly visible from where he stood and he had to go just south of the Road to get a glimpse of it as he had done some nights before. He knew that if he did go to look that way again come nightfall, just as he witnessed the night before, he could expect to see many lanterns in many windows. Were they meant to light Gondo’s way home, Twoody wondered?

   Twoody was not ready to go there yet. ‘Maybe tomorrow night,’ he said to Nob and to himself.

   The pony snickered and twitched his tail but had no insights to share beyond those simple comments.

   So, having decided, he instead sat himself down beside a birch tree and took a piece of dried meat from his haversack. He looked back toward the Farthing-stone and, chewing slowly as the sunlight was fading, thought again of his friend and looked to the Stone with his watery eyes.

   ‘...it should come from the better understanding of our future...’

   Twoody heard the old king’s words again in memory as he looked out towards the darkening skies above the Farthing-stone. He could hear the King’s deep voice again as he thought about the two days which he and Gondo had spent in great debate here at the Stone; the memories in an acute collision. Twoody thought about how, together, he and Gondo had drawn the map of the Four Farthings which would shape the development of the Shire in their lifetimes and for many generations after. He remembered how proud he was to write in stone the inscription ‘By The Gift of Argeleb II, T.A. 1601, To His Friends.’ He remembered how, at the time, they had both wished that Alaura could have been part of their discussion.

   He remembered also alongside these other memories the day of the Shire’s first wedding; how Gondo and Alaura had decided to be married on the Stonebows bridge so that the ceremony might usher in a new tradition of hobbits coming to the Shire. He knew that soon he would be telling Alaura that her husband had departed from her now so soon after their first anniversary.

   ‘For adventure,’ Twoody said aloud, anger coming into his voice more easily now. ‘For travel into new places and for old stories from ancient peoples! While there are still so many new discoveries, so many new and important struggles to be had here at home. Stars above, Gondo, how could you do such a thing? Either to Alaura or to myself?’

   And while a resolute anger and scornfulness may have finally come into his voice it was never really deeply present in Twoody’s heart. He knew Gondo’s wanderlust well and had himself experienced a small part of the enchantment which an encounter with Elves brought to those who sought adventure. Alaura would understand this too, but Twoody did not want to be the person who told her; for, at the base of it all, beyond his anger, Twoody knew that he did not respect Gondo for his decision and knew of no way to tell Alaura of what her husband had done without expressing that to her, without condemning his old friend and making him seem irresponsible. Twoody dearly loved Gondo just as he did Alaura; he did not want to criticize what he saw as one friend’s great weakness in the face of the other’s loss.

   “If hope may indeed be found in Middle-earth then I believe it should come from the better understanding of our future than dwelling on our former glories and lost past,” Twoody could hear the deep voice of the King say, the memory of it folding again into his memory of the day he and Gondo carved the Stone and his concerns about meeting Alaura.

   Daylight was fading now and he could no longer clearly see the Farthing-stone and the Road beyond it. Turning his eyes southwest he imagined that he saw the lights coming up again in the littles houses and holes of Buckland. While he could not say for sure which it was, he knew one of them was Sarehole. He could see, or imagined that he could see, Alaura in her cream-coloured dress, putting little lamps in her windows.

   ‘Come, Nob,’ he said to the pony (though also more to himself), ‘it is indeed time to get you home.’

   Saddling Nob and packing his bedroll and provisions took very little time. He took the pony’s reins in one hand and his black walking stick in the other and, leaving the shelter of the birch trees, found that the stars now lit his way down to the little road below, the one leading off to Buckland. He knew he would find his way to Alaura’s house from there, but what he found upon arriving was quite unexpected.

*****

   Gondolpho Boldbuck, having gone off to follow the Elves, did not return home with Twoody in the Third Year of the Shire-reckoning and so, unknowingly of course, he would miss the birth of his son. When Twoody arrived at Alaura’s doorstep, alone once again and once again reporting his friend’s absence, he found her to be four months pregnant. When the boy was born Alaura named him Theudebert, after their friend Twoody, just as she and Gondo had always planned to do. All the hobbits of the region (and for all the years of “little Berty’s” youth) generally called him Youngbuck in remembrance of his missing father and they all expected great things from the young hobbit.

   Twoody Swiftalk remained in Buckland and took on many of Gondo’s old responsibilities there. With the help of Alaura’s brother Clooty he built a small hole in the second hill of Sarehole that he might live in and thereby be on hand to help her when the baby came. He kept his own house up in the village of Hobbiton-by-the-Water, but had not spent a night there. The steady onslaught of newcomers and new problems to be solved kept them both, Twoody and Alaura, quite busy from Thuedebert’s birth in December and through most of the new year.

   Over the following midsummer Twoody shut his offices and responsibilities down and took the Road west again hoping to find Gondo returning just as promised and to be the first to give him the good news of the birth of his son. Twoody and Nob the pony made camp for three weeks in the same place where they had met with the Elves before and each night Twoody listened for the song which might signal their return. But neither Gondo nor the elves came.

   Afterward Twoody returned to Buckland so that he and Alaura could manage the ever growing population of that part of the Shire; there were deeds to register, roads to build, wells and holes to be dug and policies to be established. Twoody’s responsibilities had grown and they built a new Assayer’s Office in Buckland which tracked all the new deeds and families. A new Buckland Postal Branch building was put next to it from which Alaura managed her plans for other small schoolhouses and could continue the distribution of THE SHIRE-RECKONING. Twoody continued to stay in the second hill of Sarehole near to Alaura and began to build a fine home there. The deed of that hill was put in young Theudebert’s name on his first birthday so that the boy would have a stake in the land while his father remained lost. At this time the absence of a proper deed for all of Sarehole was noted and Twoody co-signed for it under Gondo’s name (left unsigned) as guarantor. No one, it seemed, doubted that this was “the Oldbuck’s” own land of course, but the matter of deeds had become more keenly delineated as more and more hobbits were moving into the Shire and filling out the empty spaces. Once Youngbuck’s name was put on the deed for the second hill the rent, which Twoody paid earnestly, was set aside for the child’s future. For Twoody was a loving uncle to little Berty, but at heart still very much a banker. Throughout this time Twoody himself retained the deed to his property in Hobbiton-by-the-Water (though that house would remain empty for many years).

   In Buckland Twoody and Alaura were busily engaged with the good hard work of creating a free and friendly nation for all hobbits just as all three of the friends had dreamed of together. With the coming of Alaura’s son she and Twoody did not travel back and forth to the East-farthing as Gondo had often done and, in this way, the Buckland became the de facto center of the Shire government for a time. But every Midsummer’s month for six more years Twoody left his new home to make camp on the western edge of the Shire and wait for his friend’s return. No other hobbits ever accompanied him on these trips, though Gondo, in his absence, had grown even greater in their respect and many of his old friends wished to go off and find him. Twoody always turned them away, cordially of course, explaining that the responsibility was his alone. In those six years he had, quite unwillingly, become the furthest pioneer in the west, making quite a comfortable little place for himself on what the Shirefolk had been told was the very edges of their safety. Twoody had come to name the place where he and Gondo had first camped “Greenholm” and had spent the Summerdays for seven years there hoping to see his friend again. But he never mapped the area and filed no deed for the land for many years.

   In the tenth year of the Shire-reckoning, after seven years of waiting, some Shirefolk began to suggest that Gondolpho Boldbuck (now called the “Oldbuck”) should be officially presumed dead. Certainly being gone this long, especially amongst such dangerous and unpredictable people as the Elves, meant that he had fallen into some mishap that not even the Oldbuck could survive. The hobbits of the Shire, having little else to gossip about on an annual event like the Summerdays, had various theories of his untimely demise; most all of them involving a bold and bloody death as a cautionary tale to anyone who might be foolhardy enough to follow him.

   The legal question of land estates was becoming an increasing annoyance in Shire policies and, while none would deny that the vast property of Sarehole belonged to Gondo, many wondered how long it should remain empty, waiting for his return. On the Summerdays of Year Ten (still referred to as ‘Lithe’ by many of the newer hobbits) Twoody went once again to Greenholm to look for his friend; but to no avail. It fell upon Alaura and Twoody, as officiants in the early development of the Shire, to be the signatories then of the Shire’s very first Certificate of Death. They did so in private, speaking to no one about it. Then Nob the pony passed away in that same year, and most of the hobbits in the neighbourhood of Buckland felt that to be an indication that the pony’s former master would never return. Twoody set his black walking stick aside in a closet and there it remained unseen by any for a very long time.

   It was later that same year that Twoody and Alaura were married and the great row of hills that was named Sarehole, the first hobbithole in the Shire and originally dug by Gondo, was considered, by new Shire law, to be the property of Twoody Swiftalk and his new legal bride. For laws of the Shire, new as they were, made no conditions for widows and ownership of the land passed to Twoody as Alaura’s new husband, her son’s adopted father and cosignator of the deed. But the second hill, where Twoody had stayed as a bachelor and an uncle and a friend for seven years, was, by Twoody and Alaura’s own signature, the property of Gondo’s son, named in all deeds and licenses afterward as Theudebert Youngbuck.

   The real trouble between the two most prominent families in the history of the Shire, the great feud which would separate them for generations, would occur years later, in the twenty-ninth year of the Shire-reckoning, when Gondolpho Boldbuck, the ‘Oldbuck’ as he was then called, finally returned home.

End of Part One

Chapter End Notes

  Notes

1)  As mentioned before, “Buckland” here in the West-farthing is an invention of the story and has little to do (well, maybe more than little) with the Buckland of Frodo’s time. But it should be noted that this part of the Shire will, eventually, come to be called “the Tookland”.

2)  Again, this earlier name suggests the more suburban plan which Twoody held for this land and which, by Bilbo’s day, had completely happened.

3)  "Smial” is a curiously hobbitish word. It is an invention of Tolkien’s based on the Old English word smygel. This from Tolkien Gateway: “Smial is a translation of the Hobbitish word trân (Rohanese trahan "burrow"). Tolkien explained in his Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings the origin of the name Sméagol in the lemma on smials: ‘Smials. A word peculiar to hobbits (not Common Speech), meaning 'burrow'; leave unchanged. It is a form that the Old English word smygel, “burrow” might have had, if it had survived. The same element appears in Gollum's real name, Sméagol. So the names Smaug and Sméagol are etymologically related.’”

4)  This date is from the Shire calendar, which I believe was also devised by Alaura Fairheart, and indicated May 24th, the day Twoody returned to the Bree-land and met Alaura at her father’s home.

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i) On Growth and Industry

   By its Twenty-ninth year the Shire had gone a long way toward becoming a safe and independent nation of its own within the splintered kingdom of Arnor and the northwestern part of Middle-earth. It is unclear if the people of neighbouring lands, or the King himself for that matter, had any idea of how rapidly this was happening. It seems that word of the Shire had spread only to hobbits throughout the northlands and, answering the call, it was only hobbits who came there in great numbers. Occasionally small groups of Dwarves might pass through the land and, while they were always greeted kindly, they showed no interest in the developing cities along the Road. Some of the Big Folk would come riding through from time to time, but always in haste and without the courteousness of meetings. For many early years of its existence the land of the Shire was all for hobbits alone. Moreover, by Year Forty no other community of hobbits was to be heard of in that part of the world other than in the Shire and those few remaining (and stubborn) ancestors which the Shirefolk had still living in the Bree-land.¹

   Crop and livestock production was also bountiful in the early days of the Shire, aiding the boom in population. Potatoes, a familiar bumper crop for farmers in lowlands throughout the North, became the staple food of every table. Carrots and tomatoes the hobbits also grew in large numbers. Game in the Shire was both plentiful and non-threatening. Some said that there were wolves in the North-farthing, but if that is so then they certainly troubled the hobbits very little. Much of the land’s bounty was shared with the Breelanders in early days and goods moved freely over the Stonebows bridge for nearly a dozen years. But as their population grew the Shirefolk wisely became much more interested in sustainability than in trade. Twoody, always watchful of developing markets, sent fish and strawberries from Stock to be traded with pork and dairy from Buckland, to be in turn traded with vegetables and grains from the Bridgefield Farms and further traded for breads and delicacies and other fineries from Budgeford.

   Currency and documentation were becoming increasingly important in the early days of the Shire as the population swelled. In her accounting of the “FIRST FAMILIES OF THE SHIRE” Alaura had recorded just a few more than four hundred families who entered and were granted land in Year One. Many of those were young hobbits from near the Bree-land who had few or no children at the time. But by Year Ten as most of those families increased, newer families were listed with six or more children in Alaura’s revised editions and therefore the making of marriage licenses and birth certificates became another booming industry. Many of the Shire-does who had aided Alaura in the writing of pamphlets and copying of documents became successful bookkeepers and accountants; for in the long and nearly forgotten days of their pre-Shire history it was always the mothers and does among those hobbits who took up the art of writing.

ii) On Population and Documentation

   The first great population explosion of new hobbits came to the Shire in Years Three and Four. The earliest copies of THE SHIRE-RECKONING, circulated as a handbill spread throughout the Northlands, had done its job and word of the land’s success had found its way into the small and scattered hobbit communities which remained in the north. Every hobbit who could come did, and in a surprisingly orderly fashion. Most were like the Bree-land settlers who came before them; family groups of different sizes but from far away places. They had accents which seemed strange even when they spoke with expressions and manners which were surprisingly familiar.² Very few came with ponies or livestock as the Bree hobbits had. Instead they carried their few belongings in carts or pulled them in sledges. They did not appear to be especially poor but instead seemed lacking in any of the luxuries that Bree-hobbits had come to know over the past century. They did not appear sickly or ill-kept, for many were indeed very spry from their look and exceedingly good-natured in their manners. Their clothing was rough and handmade. There were some of those who came from southern lands wearing short kilts made of grasses. These were called “Stoors” by the people who knew them and they had dark hair, slender builds, quick hands and muddy feet. Others there were who claimed to come from over the northern mountains and were shorter in build. “Harfoots” these hobbits were called, Isengrim Tinyfoot’s own people, and they were browner of complexion, wore skins and furs and even a few among them wore boots! None of these newcomers carried weapons, other than bows and some short knives or hunting javelins, and, to a person, they did not seem fearful as they came over the Stonebows bridge to meet other hobbitfolk. But they all seemed watchful of the way behind them, as if there were great storms gathering there which they felt relieved to have escaped in time.

   And these hobbits, so different from the young folk who had lived around Bree-hill, brought great changes with them.

   The population of the Shire was never, in any history which we have found, firmly established by census. For the first three decades of its existence the careful records of land and business titles alongside the records of marriages and births and the registering of public officials were the only documents by which we may track the growth of this new land and its people. This system is, of course, unfavourable to bachelors, single females, widows and non-landowners. It sadly overlooks the important wandering workforce of cobblers, tinkers, carpenters, cropworkers, serving-help, cleaners, herd-drovers and every travelling salespersons who may hope to participate in an unnoticed (and untaxable) economy. Many of the newcomers fit into these often under-reported categories. Twoody and Alaura, and the many, many registrars and recorders who worked alongside them, had managed better than most could ever expect against the rush of immigrants and the marriages and childbirths which occurred in Years Three and Four of the Shire. Add to that the hobbitish penchant for name changes and you will see that the matter of assessing the population of the Shire in its first two or three decades is largely one of informed guesswork.

   If four hundred young small families had first registered themselves to settle the Shire in Year One this meant that a little over two thousand people may have come into the land to claim it as their own. By Year Twelve that number, as shown through the then more well established and still existing records, had swelled to twenty-two thousand. Keep in mind that the mechanism for recording this information was still made up of hand-written documents kept by a very low number of people working in three or four more densely populated settlements. While the whole of the land had still not been explored, the total area of the Shire was thought to extend to roughly 18,000 square miles. It is easy to see how only a handful of community leaders like Twoody and Alaura had any idea of how fast the community was growing and the problems which it might face.

iii) On Centres of Trade and Administration

   Great changes came to all the settlements of the Shire between Year Three (where we left our tale in Part I) and Year Twenty-nine (where we will take it up again in Part II). These changes were likewise recorded by hand and most often coloured by opinion. As the job of building the internal mechanisms of self-governance was growing so too were the voices of other settlers. With Gondolpho Boldbuck, the perceived if reluctant leader of the pioneers, gone missing, the centre of government (such as one might call it) was relocated to the Buckland under the guidance of Twoody and Alaura. The Bucklanders had already built the fine beginnings of a little town around the Wisher’s Well and the original young hobbits who had first dared to settle Buckland with Gondo now had large holdings of property and were starting families of their own. Gondo and Alaura (“the Oldbucks” as they are still called) were, by everyone’s account, the first family of the Shire and so other Bucklanders were ever ready to help take on the responsibilities of their Founders. This part of the Shire would, as of Year Four, become a principal center for culture and community for many generations to come.

   But those same original Bucklanders, loners and individualists just as their founder himself had been, did not receive strangers easily and many of them were reluctant to lease or sell some of their land to newcomers. Many new immigrants to the Shire went there to earn a living as sharecroppers and field hands. So it was that Buckland, from the beginning an outlier of young pioneers, became a thriving town full of small shops surrounded by great plantations of wealthy farmers. Some of the most desirable land of the Shire was found there in the southern West-farthing and the early settlers of Buckland had profited greatly by coming to this part of the land before anyone else had dared to. But they also knew the value of being first and holding on to property so that the Buckland became a great community noted as an example to young entrepreneurs; for the twenty young hobbits who settled there first alongside Gondo became among the wealthiest landowners for many generations. It went from being the cutting edge of settlements to a place of illustrious success within five years and many newcomers to the Shire went there first to learn farming and industry from the experienced and prosperous Bucklanders. They were paid good fair wages for their service and went on to develop lands to the south and the north of the village of Buckland adding new roads to that part of the Shire even before new names for these settlements were chosen.

   The disappearance of Gondo, the first recorded (but never witnessed) death in Shire history, set off numerous legal problems for a community who did not yet have a formalised local government. The Bucklanders, loyal to Alaura and her son without question, were not distrustful of Twoody, but were aware that no document bearing Gondo’s signature had been left behind dealing with his many land holdings. There were many folk, outside of the Bucklanders of course, who believed Gondo to be dead after Year Four, and many of those then began to whisper questions about this land and its availability. Twoody foresaw this and, using his position as Chief Assayer and Gondo’s business partner, put some of Sarehole in the name of young Theudebert, Gondo’s son, on the occasion of his first birthday.

   But this may have made matters worse. No one questioned Berty’s right to the land, but there were many who wondered about their own land rights in the death of a spouse. Given that the land deeds were all in the names of male hobbits now, the old family traditions were changing; things were being passed from a father to a first-born son instead of a mother to her children and this left many hobbits in a place of uncertainty. Added to this is the fact that Gondo and Alaura, being the first to wed on the very gates of the Shire, had never filed a certificate of their marriage.

   It would take years before a new tradition of heritage would be set in place, but Twoody’s move to make sure that Berty’s future was secure caused ramifications. The Shire was not yet five years old, most of its citizens, still illiterate, had no courts nor established government, but already they had set themselves a fertile ground for lawyers.

   Other settlement towns begun by the four hundred families who first came into the Shire had also grown to a surprising success. From as early as Year Three these busy settlers had built farms and roads, mills and silos, public bath-houses and local markets, a post office and an office of deeds and a bank. Stone and wood for building were abundant but at a size and height which was manageable to folk of a hobbit’s stature. Every hobbit who came into the new land had the opportunity to, according to their own resources, create a future previously undreamt. It seemed clear to all that the Shire was, just as Alaura had described it, “a LAND of REWARD for the INDUSTRIOUS.”

   The First Bank and Trust at the Assayer's Office which Twoody had built in the Bridgefields alongside his brother’s trading post was abandoned and all of its files, were relocated to a new, and much bigger, hole in Buckland when he took permanent residence there in Year Four.

   The Postal Office which Alaura had established in Bridgefields remained there throughout Shire history and, by Bilbo Baggin’s time over a thousand years later, it was referred to as the Free Post Office of the Shire. The reason for this distinction would come much later of course, but the rule of free postage to or from this location has always been considered a memorial to the Shire’s first Postmaster (or “Postmistress” depending upon who you speak to).³ That office, like the others which followed in later settlements, served a dual purpose; for they became a schoolhouse for hobbits, young or old, who had not yet learned their letters. All lessons were free to attend and the literacy rate in the Shire rose rapidly within the first generation of citizens.

   The Bridgefield farms themselves were, from the very start, immensely profitable. Settlers from the first wave in Year One had laid claim to those lands but, consistent with the great demand and the fear early settlers had of minimal resources, many of these farms were small. This allowed them to grow quickly enough in the first few years but, faced with the influx of new pioneers wishing to move further west and south, their lands quickly became hemmed in by neighbours. Unlike the Bucklanders, the first farmers of Bridgefield were constrained by only going a little way from the Stonebows bridge. With smaller and more moderate portions of land they couldn’t hire more than a few hands to expand their holding more quickly as the Bucklanders would do. But as the years grew longer they learned to profit from their position on the Road and planted crops which sustained the publichouses in the neighbouring settlements. Pioneers in out of reach places would come to see the fresh produce, meats and cheeses of the Bridgefield Farms as rare delicacies for the most civilised palettes.

   The community of Stock had likewise adapted to the market of sudden growth and westward settlement. For a people who claim to fear large bodies of water all the hobbits of the Shire have a curious and undeniable liking for fresh fish. Hobbits coming up from the south, mostly families of Stoors, settled in this area and began good trades as fisherfolk along the Stockbrook and up the Brown River. The town of Stock itself was small and given over mostly to tradesmen and freight carriers who were responsible for shipping the mornings’ fresh catch as far away as the tables of Buckland by sunset. “Morning work in Stock,” or so many there said, “began while the farmers of Bridgefield still lay farting in their featherbeds.” And this may be true, for the fishers of Stock had a days’ catch barreled and loaded before the Sun showed herself each morning. They were, for the first ten years of the Shire’s history, the major suppliers to the dinner tables of wealthy hobbits. The land of Stock itself is soft and not well suited to hole-dwellers, so many there lived in houses of wood or brick or, more shocking still, built homes for themselves on quays which hung over the river, with long fishing poles and comfortable chairs; “stocking from their own backyard” as some called it. Those Shire hobbits who had not come from the Stoors or other river folk found this behaviour queer and left these neighbours to themselves. But they all ate the fish and strawberries from Stock and made sure that the roads to this vital resource were well maintained. It was here, outside of the greater traffic found on the Old Road, that the second publichouse of the Shire was built; The Golden Perch it was called, and from all recorded evidence it survived as a family establishment well past the days of Frodo Baggins and the War of the Ring.

   In Year Seven the first major bridge was constructed in the Shire. The land west of the Stonebows was hilly, just as hobbits liked, and the Old Road had many small bridges across rills and streams leading off to the unknown ends of the world. Who had built these bridges remained as much a mystery to the Shirefolk as it does to us today, but it was a mandate of the King’s Agreement that the hobbits should be charged with their maintenance so, from the very start, they began to very responsibly study the science of bridge building.

   Despite their nomadic wanderings hobbits had, from all of their remembered histories, preferred to make their homes in the comfort and safety of well-constructed holes. Where this characteristic predilection came from, no one could ever say but it did seem to imbue many hobbit architects with a keen understanding of compression and tension which is so necessary to bridge design. Like tunnelcraft (or wellmade hobbit-holes), bridge-building requires not only a sophisticated understanding of materials and stresses but also a clear vision of one’s current purpose, a thoughtful understanding of future usefulness and a close friendship with the earth usually uncommon among the bigger and clumsier races.⁴ When we build a road we are most often finding a way to travel faster from one place we know to another we also know; we build a road to make our current lives easier. When we build a bridge we think about how much we may yet discover and we plan for our ambitions on that further shore; we build a bridge to make the dreams of our future possible.

   Alaura’s youngest brother Clothair, who had always been something of a dreamer, was only seventeen years old when he followed Gondo into the Buckland with the First Pioneers. He travelled at Gondo’s side for nearly three years, as he had done since he was still a fawn back in the Bree-land, and learned all that he could about the new land and the careful thoughtfulness which would be required to build it. There were many who said that Gondo had a wide range of undirected (or perhaps under-employed) interests; farming, irrigation, cartography, drawing, stonecutting, woodworking, hunting, dendrology and, in his later years, herbology. These interests proved useful to him in his wanderings and a blessing to all his neighbours in the early settlements of the Shire. He had a voracious appetite for learning the world around him and became a quick master of skills which were useful and practical to his needs. His acolyte Clooty had a mind that was very much different. ‘Less broad, less restless and more set to wrestling,’ Clooty said on more than one occasion, but that was only his own humility speaking. Clooty was not so wise in the ways of his neighbours as Gondo had been and did not go on speaking much about plans for “the scope and future of a nation” or “vistas of our liberty yet unseen.” In fact, since coming to the Shire, Clooty had left quite a bit of his former approval-seeking blather off and had, through his own personal leanings or his time spent travelling quietly at the shoulder of Gondo, developed a habit of simply looking without talking. And what he looked at most was the construction of the Old Road and its various bridges. What he discovered there became a guiding principle throughout his life which he was happy to share with all of his neighbours; “good things should be built to last.”

   Whether or not dwarves had built the bridges and laid the course of the Old Road was not important. They were, to Clooty’s eyes, the most beautiful things which he had ever seen. He spent much time studying them. He did not have Gondo’s hand for drawing, so his initial designs are simple and direct. It was said that he could explain the force and stresses of a structure better than any one of his fellow pioneers and had helped many of his Bucklander friends in their own hole-building. He had played a part in the design of all the early public buildings of the Shire and, after Gondo’s disappearance, when Clooty was still just twenty years of age, his services as an architect and engineer were sought throughout the land.

   How Clooty came by this talent is unknown. His father Isengrim had taught him nothing of ironwork and little of anything else. Isengrim was greedy with his skills and wanted no rivals, whether they be his sons or any other Breelanders. Perhaps Clooty, quite in secret, had watched his father perform every exercise of his art with keen eyes and a sharp mind; and so he understood the construction of their home on Bree-hill very well through careful observation. He had told no one about this of course, except perhaps Gondo or Twoody, and had no practical outlet for his talent until he came to the Shire. Certainly Gondo and Twoody had both done all they could to rely upon the young hobbit’s knowledge and to foster it right away. It was Clooty, in Year Six and Seven who built the Budgeford bridge, the first great architectural feat of the Shire.

   The Bolger family in Budge had entered the Shire earlier than any other and, owing to their numbers and their range of skills, had built the most comfortable, most truly civilised, community in the new land. There was a mill and a bakery, a townmarket and a brewery in Budge as early as Year Three and many merchants set their shops there at first, mingling with the Bolgers and taking advantage of the quick influx of pioneers who saw this as the original “Big City” of the Shire. And Budge was indeed, from all that we can discern, one of the most populated settlements for the first two or three decades of Shire history.

   But Budge was a divided city from Year Four. The small northern river, then called the Norbourn, had been its northern border when the Bolgers first settled there in Year One. The river was shallow here, even by hobbit standards, allowing a natural ford only one hundred and fifty paces across in springtime when the river was in its fullness. But the Norbourn was cold and fast and many hobbits (skittish around any threat of drowning) feared to cross it.

   As the town grew in size, and the Bolgers grew in wealth, there was a desire among the residents of Budge to build along the further shore. So it was that old Heindewin Bolger sent for Clooty to find a dry solution to Budge’s northern expansion. A bridge was called for.

   Now the span of one hundred and fifty hobbit paces over shallow water might not sound like a great accomplishment for us today. But there are no records of hobbit construction which predate this accomplishment and many documents of the day which treat it as the marvel it certainly had been. The Budgeford bridge was, without question, the first great public work ever accomplished by hobbits; built by the new community who still lacked any system of taxes, government funding, worker payment or worker incentives. And it certainly was the last great public work in many of these categories. Put quite simply, Budge had grown faster than much of the Shire and there were many young pioneers who by then had become quite wealthy and had an interest in seeing it grow faster still. Clooty’s plan, commissioned by the Bolgers (though no record of payment has ever been found), presented a work of such unique accomplishment that many other young Shirefolk became involved in its building for reasons of their own; pride seeming to have been their greatest motivator. By all records this bridge survived for over nineteen hundred years as all the land grew around it. It is said that the Budge bridge was the last door closed in the Shire when the hobbits finally departed.

   The Bridge consisted of five small arching spans as its support, all made from river stones. There was a surprisingly straight and even road of quarried slate (likely added later), and a covered roof of baked clay shingles. In its earliest days a great round door protected its north gate and there were round windows along the walls on either side. Together Clooty and his friends had built a singular public work. The question of how “public” the bridge itself might be would come into question later.

   And so the settlement of Budge, now called “Budgeford” for the splendid bridge there, grew all the faster. The Bolger family, knowing that the bridge was coming, had visited Twoody in the new Assayer’s Office and taken up great parcels of land on the northern side of the river. Their ownership of the north bank within half a mile of either side of the bridge was set well before its completion. Old Heindewin, always fearful of water, crossed the bridge on the day of its opening and never went back. He built a great mansion of a hole for himself on the farther side and left the running of the town to his sons and grandsons. But for many years he collected a toll from every hobbit who made the crossing and at his death in Year Fourteen he was thought to be the wealthiest of all Shirefolk. That was not exactly true, though it would take the events of Year Fifteen and Sixteen to prove that matter out.

   Hobbiton-by-the-Water was growing and growing from Year Four to Year Fifteen. The plans which Gondo, Twoody and Alaura once had of making this a governmental capital of the Shire faded when Gondo disappeared and Twoody moved to the Buckland. But the land itself was so lovely and manageable that it quickly nurtured a community of gentry; for many hobbits were becoming quite wealthy with the influx of new workers and there were many among them who were excited to find a place which would showcase the trappings of their wealth.

   Most of the shops founded in Hobbiton-by-the-Water were part of a service industry that was new in the North; glovemakers and candlesmiths, weavers and spinners, farriers and tailors, patissiers and embroiderers were not familiar trades in the Breeland or any other communities. But in the Shire, and in Hobbiton-by-the-Water particularly, these craftspeople and the luxuries they offered were in great demand. It should be remembered that hobbits were not at this, or any other time in their history, an extravagant people. They were never so interested in luxury as they were in comfort. Many hobbits may have yearned for trappings of wealth but, if so, those yearnings were only made visible by their delight in (and not their excess of) comfort. From their earliest days, and well in keeping with their fugitive and nomadic past, the economic dreams of the Shirefolk were built upon providing comfort. They never knowingly wanted for excess but all aspired to comfort as an indication of their newfound security. And so while excess of luxury had never been the plan for Hobbiton-by-the-Water, by Year Fourteen it was an accepted condition. “Fancy as Bywater” became a term as early as Year Ten and lasted for thousands of years in Hobbit history.

iv) On Notable Families and Great Advancements

   There were seven large family groups recorded in Alaura’s volume “THE FIRST FAMILIES OF THE SHIRE”; they were the Bolgers, the Mugworts, the Chumleys (later called the Chubbs), the Sandyheavers (later called the Sandymans), the Noakesburrows, the Gamwich (later called the Gamgees) and the Whitfoots. These were families which settled with twenty-five or more members by the end of Year Two of the Shire-reckoning. As we have noted before, Gondo had no known relatives in the Bree-land but was the first of the long line of Bucks who would settle the Shire. Twoody was accompanied to the Shire by one disreputable brother and three sisters who married into other prosperous families. And, as we will see, from Twoody and his brother Childy, and their further exploits, the Swiftalks later became known as another great family in Shire history called the Tooks. While she was at times called “missus Oldbuck” by the Bucklanders, Alaura took no other name for herself in all her writing but "Fairheart"; and there are no others in all the long history of the Shire who have dared to take such an ill-fated name as that for their own. But her brothers and sisters who were recorded in the early histories were named the Pudifoots (largely in honour of the bravery of Marcho and Blanco who came to the land first) and some of them were later called the Proudfoots. In some documents they are also called “Proudfeet”, but that argument was later put to rest by an expert.⁵ In the first few years of the Shire’s history the main push of early settlers came from the lands surrounding Bree-hill and south toward the Greyflood.

   For the first decade of their expansion the Shirefolks’ relationship with the Breefolk remained strong and, just as Gondo had predicted, Isengrim Tinyfoot made a tidy income while he remained responsible for virtually all of the metalwork and tools needed by the pioneers. But in Year Eight the large family of Tomba Fallohide, an enterprising and much more personable hobbit than old Isengrim, came to the new land. 

   The Fallohides arrived together as a group of seven hundred or more and the Shirefolk had not heard of anything like this flood of people since Twoody’s own grandfather, Priamus Swiftwalk, had come into the Bree-land eighty-four years ago. Unlike old Priamus, who came from out of darkness with his sword in hand, Tomba rode a painted wooden cart, a mock chariot really, drawn by eight large hogs and he laughed and he smiled at all as he brought his people over the Stonebows bridge and into safety. If fear and darkness were behind him it did not show on his glad face.

   What relationship existed between Tomba and the other seven hundred hobbits who travelled with him remains unclear. All of them seemed to call themselves “Fallohides” and they acted very much like a family.⁶ But many among them had other surnames as well as titles or other secret names spoken in a strange tongue. They were taller and slimmer of build than other hobbits, some growing to four feet or more in height.⁷ Both their skin and their hair tended to be fair and no Fallohide ever grew a beard of any kind. They had travelled from farther east than any of the Shire hobbits had heard of in generations; from the river Hoarwell and in sight of the Misty Mountains, lands the other hobbits had fled long generations ago. They wore rather finely-made clothing of greens and browns, billowing cloaks of grey and tight waistcoats with many bright buttons. There were many who carried short bows for hunting and some even had small swords in scabbards of tooled-leather. But they were by no means a war-like or aggressive people. They smiled freely and, while their speech was strange, they spoke graciously. They were quite prone to laughter and merriment, but not afraid of hard work when convinced of its importance. They knew very well many old songs and stories which most hobbits might only dimly recall and they had clear voices for singing as well as keen wisdom for listening.

   In later years of the Shire-reckoning some research was done into the three great families (sometimes grossly referred to as “breeds”) of hobbits. This work is problematic as it suggests that certain traits, favourable or unfavourable, could be linked to the original strains of these three families. That is an unfortunate misunderstanding of these kindhearted people and of the time they lived in. History shows us that among the Shirefolk this kind of narrow-minded typification of individual character through ethnic background, the very seed of racism, was never embraced nor considered. Through a closer study of history we see that Hobbits, no matter where they came from, no matter the language that they spoke, the clothes that they wore, their height or their hair color, their handiness with either a bow or a plough, a fishing rod or a stewpot, no matter their gift for singing or their talent for writing, hobbits were instantly and universally recognized by one and all as simply being hobbits.

   The attempt to distinguish between Harfoots, Fallohides and Stoors was never centred in our modern (and tragically near-inescapable) tendency toward racial stereotypes. Hobbits of the Shire were simply trying to identify or examine their lost and unrecorded pasts as a disparate people through the three major lines of hobbit migration which eventually found their way into the new land. The “stock”, or genetic backgrounds, of Stoor, Harfoot and Fallohide could be found in all of the Shirefolk by Bilbo’s time and, as any reclaimed history should, the mention of it was meant to tell every hobbit-child more about their background and to limit nothing of their future.

   Tomba Fallohide, the reported and identified leader of his family, set up his first blacksmith shop in Frogmorton and, within a year’s time, he and his family were making all the tools for the Shirefolk. Records tell us that Tomba had heard, shortly after crossing the bridge, that blacksmiths were needed and, with a characteristic sort of ease, he himself became a blacksmith. How he had acquired the skill is unknown but, unlike old Isegrim Tinyfoot back in the Bree-land, he taught it freely to all who wished to learn.

   One of his sons, Turpin, established himself as a cooper down in Stock. He married a daughter of the Mugwort family and for centuries the “Roundwort” name was on every good quality barrel and box made and shipped throughout the land.

   Another cousin, one Hugo Stumbletoe, was an uncommonly good stone-cutter, though he certainly did not look the part. He wore simple, practical clothing, always of some neutral grey tone, and carried no great sack of tools as other stonecutters, tunnellers and builders might. But he was reportedly very dapper in his appearance with a large collection of brightly coloured neckscarves. In his work apron, also grey but never dirty, there were pockets for one small hammer, three iron chisels and a strange tube-shaped device which he would draw forth with some flourish and carefully hold to his eye. With this he would examine great slabs of stone, sometimes spending long hours just looking. “Hugo Firstcut” many of the hobbits later called him, for he had an uncommon knack for dropping only one chisel-cut into a stone from which his assistants could draw the rest away in minutes. Alongside Clooty, Hugo became the major architect of the Delvings, the far western cities that would become the most densely populated region of the Shire by Frodo’s time, and there was stonework there, built in Firstcut’s day, which would make the few dwarves to ever visit that place marvel.

   In his most well-received work, “Herblore of the Shire”, Meridoc the Magnificent claims that the custom, or art, of smoking pipeweed was the Shire’s greatest contribution to the culture of Middle-earth. But at the time of his book’s writing he had, through his own interests, quite overlooked one of the Shire’s greatest, more long-lasting and most singular achievements.

   There was another cousin of the Fallohides, his name is quite unfortunately forgotten, who brought the science of high-fire ceramics into the Shire. There is no evidence to be found of hobbits firing clay in high temperatures before this. Indeed, the later and more enduring roof of the Budgeford bridge could not have been built without this advancement. But we can say with some certainty that kiln-fired ceramics begin in the Shire about Year Ten and the art advances to high-fired porcelain there by Year Seventy-One. While developments in pottery can be found elsewhere in Middle-earth, no records exist in Gondor or any other place in the known world of this important and sophisticated development. Historians believe that this may indeed be the earliest introduction of porcelain into the world and that the art was sadly lost in later years never to be regained in the later Fourth Age. Men of the west fell out of contact with the hobbits then, and the skill, if it was ever known outside of the Shire at this time, does not come into the broader world for many centuries. Yet great stores of porcelain pots and kettles and cups were discovered in the excavation of the Great Smials in Year 1961 of our present age. Whether King Elessar, the Grey Wizard or even King Thorin Oakenshield told anyone of the splendid place settings of Bilbo Baggins’ table remains unknown. But it seems that the obsession hobbits had with comfort and dinnerware would lead to an invention lost to other people for thousands of years.

   Another notable family of the Shire arrived in Year Ten and brought with them a major and defining resource for hobbit culture. It was at this time Obidias Maggot, leading his family of eighty and his livestock of five hundred, came across the Sarn Ford to make a new home. Where he came from remains undetermined, for he and his family all had light-coloured hair as some of the Fallohides did, though the Maggots all spoke to one another with a different language. Coarse it sounded to some, but rolling, rhyming and alliterative it seemed as well to those who bothered to listen. The Maggots made no claims regarding their former home or ancestry, but claimed to know well the lands east to the Misty Mountains and across the Great River.

   ‘Ponies, I’ve brought from there,’ Obidias said in his rough and rugged accent,⁸ ‘and I’ve driven them far to bring them here. They’ll shoulder ploughs, drive carts and deliver packages as they’re needed. I could sell them to you all, I suppose, for the fact is that all of you farmers and porters need them more than I do. But I’d rather trade them for a strip of land which I and my family may call our own.’

   And so ponies, formerly a rarity in the Northlands and prized by hobbits and dwarves for their manageable size, came in plenty just as the land’s growth was in great need. From that day on they would remain the great working beasts of all the Shire’s industry. Obidias did indeed trade off nearly all of his herd and in return took for himself much of the land in the East-farthing south of the Bridgefields. But four score head for breeding he gave to his eldest son, Hartgard, and the boy drove them north and west into the lands still undiscovered. He followed the river that ran through Hobbiton-by-the Water and found a safe place for himself and his livestock along a hillside which he called “Needle”. It was long and thin and tapered with a great green valley below and there Hartgard built a hole which looked out on a fenced grazing field. He lived as a bachelor there for many years with only a few helpers to tend his growing herd. The “Boy’s Farm” hobbits called it for a long time and so Hartgard lost the surname of Maggot and came to be called Catton instead.⁹ In later generations many of his people would settle into Hobbiton and farm the area around the Bywater becoming known as the Cottons.¹⁰

   The Shirefolk then had little need to travel back and forth to the Bree-land after these last demands for their self-reliance were met and, without plan or consideration, they turned inward (as was always a hobbit’s usual manner) so that their contact with outer lands abruptly ceased. Some trade with the folks of the Bree-land remained of course but, by Year Twenty-nine the two civilizations became like distant cousins who had met at a grandmother’s wedding; they knew of their kinship, respected one another’s distance, and seldom sought one another’s company. The Shirefolk had now become a nation of their own in custom and consideration and cared little for the world they had left behind.

v) On The Ingenuity of Childebrand Swiftook

   The history of any new nation can often be written around the originality of a few free-thinking people and their struggles for freedom and independence. But we might also shape our understanding of any nation’s history through its rare and unique opportunity for economic success. Often we will find that an applied understanding of economics, while much less exciting, can be more useful to a history than any tales of its heroic pioneers.

   If we are to examine the early years of the Shire before turning back to our story of the Bucks and the Tooks, some attention must be drawn to the events of Year Fifteen. For generations after, the Shirefolk would call this “the Year of Entanglements,” which certainly seems appropriate in light of later events. While there is no direct evidence to be found in her remaining writings, it is largely believed that Alaura was the first to coin that term and that also seems appropriate given her strong feelings of opposition to a central government.

   Year Fifteen was most certainly a time of major consequence in the growing community and hobbits, like most people, were always very keen to place a name upon such interesting periods so that they might better establish their own place in it. The recorded history of the Shire would see only seven major upheavals in their citizens’ otherwise comfortable and prosperous way of life; the Economic Crisis of Year Fifteen, the Opening of the South in Year Twenty-nine, the Southerner’s Sickness in Year Thirty-six, the Fall of the King in Year Three-Hundred and Seventy-four, the Battle of the Greenfields in Eleven-Hundred and Forty-six, the Fell Winter of Year Thirteen-Hundred and Eleven, and the Subjugation by Sharkey in Year Fourteen-Hundred and Eighteen.¹¹ In all seven of these crises hobbit lives were lost and the Shirefolks’ views on their need for government and their position with the outside world were changed. It should be said that any Shire-hobbit of any good-sized family knew exactly what their ancestors were doing at any of these important moments of history and would happily share their opinions on these matters as if they had lived through these times themselves.

   To call the events of Year Fifteen an “economic crisis” is simply a matter of academic explanation. It should be noted that the very concept of money was new to most of the hobbits who had not lived in the Bree-land or had not interacted much with the Big Folk. It was the original pioneers of Year One who brought the use of currency with them. Shopkeepers, like old Heindewin Bolger and Twoody’s brother Childebrand, entrepreneurs like Horris Bunce and purveyors like the farmers of Bridgefield all used this familiar system for the valuation of goods and services which they had learned from the Big Folk. And it was indeed useful from the very beginning. With so many hobbits coming from so many strange and far off places it was important to set standards of value. Currency was seldom exchanged in the first few years, for many of the hobbits had very little of it. Something like a shovel could always be bartered for of course, and most often it was, but, just as it was back in the Bree-land, there was a monetary value also attached to the shovel and that value was, in the most practical sense, set by the shovel’s usefulness. This sounds simple enough at first glance, even for hobbits unfamiliar with the use of money. But, as anyone can tell you, when everyone is digging holes the value of a shovel can become greatly increased.

   Twoody, forethinking as ever, implemented a rudimentary form of currency in Year Four and some version of it was used exclusively among the Shirefolk throughout their known history. The principal unit was called a “kast”,¹² a printed note which bore the likeness of King Argeleb II as drawn by Porro Noakesburrow from careful descriptions by Twoody himself. This item was commonly called the “Kingsnote” and it may well represent the first use of printed currency in the west of Middle-earth outside of the Númenórean cities of Gondor and old Arnor. The Kingsnote was not quite money as we know it today, for it was not backed by any bankable reserve or traded in any other lands outside of the Shire. These notes were, in Twoody’s conception, only to be used as promisories of value and therefore not many were issued in those first few years. They were meant to only be exchanged when other goods were not available to hand. A hobbit might trade a pig at the Stonebows’ market for one note and walk further up the Road to exchange that note for a shovel. If a pig was worth more than a shovel on a given day then, certainly, more notes would be granted and exchanged. The seller of the shovel might then exchange that note for a pig or some other thing of relative value at a different marketplace. It was a simple enough arrangement for expediting trade and Twoody felt it would curtail the inflated cost of everyday goods made important through demand; if a shovel was worth one note at the market then only the surprising and sudden lack of shovels could make it worth two notes elsewhere. It seemed to him to be an efficient enough idea as far as things went, though he found it difficult to explain to the other pioneers (for in the earliest days of the Shire hobbits worked on many projects together and owning an idle shovel when a neighbour might need to do some digging was largely unheard of).

   Food is not shared in this same way, of course. When important goods like food can no longer be bartered for but are instead sold at an open market, and when there is a shortage of currency for people to use at these markets, inflation of prices can cripple the everyday consumer. If the potatoes in their own garden which formerly fed a hobbit family are suddenly or surprisingly gone then someone from the family must go to the market for potatoes. But if there is very little currency available the opportunity for purchasing becomes restricted; if a Kingsnote is more rare than a potato then how much should a potato cost? And if there is no control of market costs, then the wealthiest of hobbits, either through currency or barter, may pay inflated prices and accrue debt in the purchasing of potatoes which will fix a valuation on potatoes that might leave the poorest of hobbits, without Kingsnotes or credit, going hungry. Needless to say, there were no hobbit experts in economics at this time able to explain the subtle pressures of marketplace and inflation. And, as anyone might suspect, many of the Shirefolk became angered when a force which they could not understand might eventually lead to a life-threatening situation or disrupt their enjoyment of an otherwise good meal.

   With the Shire growing so alarmingly fast and the successful pioneers trading goods to pay for services more rapidly, the valuation of these things became dependent on a currency which was misunderstood and in short supply. But the simple matter of printing more Kingsnotes, promissory notes not backed by a standard surplus, would only devalue the goods and services; if a shovel is worth one Kingsnote out of a thousand, what is that same shovel worth when there are forty thousand Kingsnotes? It is easy to see how the early settlers of the Shire could become confused by such an arcane system and we should never blame them too strongly for their ignorance or for their trust in fellow hobbits.

   Those who live in the history of a new nation, brave pioneers and free-thinking people, often dream beyond the constraints of practical economics in their struggles for freedom and independence. But historians know that the chance of a nation’s success can also be readily measured through the actions of keen businessmen who perceived their rare opportunities for economic success. The troubles related to money were not entirely unexpected by the townfathers. The main focus of many arguments between Twoody and Alaura, and even Gondo, since the Shire’s initial founding had centred around economic independence. But in Year Fifteen that subject they had argued about would be finally put to the test. The answer they would settle on would divide Twoody and Alaura further in years to come.

   For, as many learned in Year Fifteen, it was Twoody’s own brother, Childebrand Swiftalk, that was the true problem.

   For if we are to extend our metaphor just a little further it may be said that Childebrand Swiftalk, as early as Year One, owned all the shovels.

    Childebrand was the second son of old Hincmar Swifwalk, the shrewd entrepreneur who had been the first of his clan to make his fortune in the Bree-land. Hincmar had purchased the Inn of the Four Greenfields while still under the age of thirty and, through his unique blend of cleverness and congeniality, quickly made it the most noteworthy tavern in that area of the north. In Year 1558 of the Third Age Hincmar married a distant cousin of the Swiftwalk hobbits, Ingletrude Swiftsower, who, like himself, had come into the Bree-land as a young fawn. Ingletrude, like her husband, was considered an excellent host and a great charmer and reputedly had a great gift for singing. So in the early days of their marriage many people in the lands surrounding Bree-hill would come often to the Inn of the Four Greenfields to hear songs and laughter and smatterings of gossip from the larger world. The first son of Hincmar and Ingletrude, Hartnid, was born in the springtime of Year 1560 and many regular customers came to see and celebrate the youngster and the happy couple.

   Childebrand was born late in the next year before the Yule. It is remembered by a few that the day of his birth was dark and cold with rain. Ingletrude tragically died that day in giving birth and all the town grieved at the loss. The lights went out at the Inn of the Four Greenfields that day and for the long weeks of Frery (the month we now call January) the doors there remained locked. Hincmar retired to the hole he had built for his family on the Hill and accepted no visitors.

   Then, on the very first day of Solmath (January 21st in our modern calendar), Hincmar opened the inn once again with a spectacular party to introduce his new son to all of the Bree-land. All the Breefolk were happy to see Hincmar come out of mourning, but there were many who also missed the singing and laughter of Ingletrude. To those who would be bold enough to mention it, Hincmar would thank them for their memories of his wife and say, “but she has left us these two young bright voices, Hartnid and Childebrand, to fill our future with songs.” As the years went on Hartnid developed a fine voice and made many of his neighbours happy with the songs he had learned. But Childebrand did not take to music as his brother did and instead paid close attention to the business of his father.

   And Hincmar remained as busy as ever. He remarried five years later and his second wife, Gloriana Hopesinger, also had a splendid voice. There were many older townsfolk who would argue about which of Hincmar’s wives was the better singer (though never in the family’s presence, of course). Gloriana bore ten more children for Hincmar and Twoody was the seventh babe of that line. Thus Hartnid and Childebrand were fifteen years and more older than Twoody and did much to shape his upbringing, particularly in matters of business.

   From a very young age all the children of Hincmar Swiftwalk worked alongside their father at the Inn of the Four Greenfields. The business expanded as the family did and all of them had a share in its success. Together the eldest brothers Hartnid and Childebrand inherited the responsibility of managing the Inn of the Four Greenfields under their father’s watchful eye. But everyone knew that Hartnid, less than one year older than Childy, would, on the eventual but still unrealized occasion of their father’s retirement, always be the leader in their shared enterprise. Hartnid was the oldest child and there were traditions within hobbit culture which were maintained even in the Bree-land. There are some who say that Childy found this condition unfair (though no one ever heard him speak of it openly). And it was certainly true that even from a young age it was Childy who was considered to be more observant of an opportunity, keener with a cost, and harder at a bargain; all very respected qualities of a young businessperson in the Bree-land. But no matter his acumen or his abilities, Childy’s brother Hart would always be the first son of their father. So, or so it has been said, Childy set his eyes well beyond the ownership of the Inn of the Four Greenfields while still in his twenties. But he was also characteristically patient in waiting for a truly solid opportunity to arise.

   Hartnid met and married a very respectable Bree-land hobbit while he was still at the young age of twenty-five. Within a year there were grandchildren who made old Hincmar very happy. It was at this time, Year 1585, that Childy made his first business trip east of Bree-hill along the Road to the Weather hills. There were still a few hobbit settlements along the Road in those days and there Childy met and married Oda Brownlock of the Midgefield Marshes. Oda returned with Childy to the Bree-land for a time and there she bore him a son, Reginard, on a winter’s day in Year 1587. But unlike Hartnid’s family who continued to grow under the shadow of Bree-hill to their grandfather’s delight, Childy sent Oda and their son back to the Marshlands to attend to the new business opportunities he had established there. Childy would leave his father’s house to visit his wife and son occasionally over the next fifteen years, fathering two more children, but his wife never visited their family in the Bree-land again. Twoody, who grew up in a large family which he loved very much, had nieces and nephews whom he would not meet for more than forty years.

   Some say that it was Childebrand who convinced his father to fund the first excursions over the Stonebows bridge. And there are some who say he also prompted his brother Twoody and his friend Gondo to go north to Fornost and petition the King for usage of the land. There is nothing of that to be found in Twoody’s own journals however and, given the later developments, we should recognize that this might just be the gossip of hindsight. But it is certain that Childebrand Swiftalk and the dubious value of his contributions were held in great regard by the earliest pioneers and townfathers of the Shire. His original plans we cannot know, but the results of his business can be seen in the earliest days.

   For we know that Childebrand had prepared himself for just such an opportunity as the King’s Agreement would present. Living at his father’s home and being legendarily frugal (if not miserly) in his social attachments, Childebrand had scrupulously saved all of his earnings. What was spent on his family in the Marshlands was unknown, but all Breelanders saw the Marsh-dwellers as poor and provincial. Many joked that Childy had gotten himself a family out of his “knowing a bargain”, but this was crude talk which no one would say openly to one of Hincmar’s sons.

   At the age of thirty-three, while still managing the inn alongside his brother, Childy purchased the Bree-land stables and, with the help of builders, eventually tripled its size. In Year 1601, while Twoody and Gondo were away in Norbury, Childy hung a less-than-humble sign on the door frame there declaring his new business; “Swiftwalk Purchasers, Purveyors, Packagers and Porters -Things Provided and Things Took.” There were indeed many of the Bree-folk who found this to be a sign of the young hobbit’s foolishness, for at that time very few things were bought or sold in the little village other than the pints and provenders at the inn and very little goods were packaged or ported to or from the village to anywhere else in the world. How much business Childebrand was doing before the signing of the King’s Agreement is unknown and most folks, believing this new enterprise to be unwise (but still wishing to respect Childy because of the high opinion they held of his father) seldom asked about his newfound venture. But they did notice that he commissioned help from outside of the Bree-land in the expansion of his stables; help which came from strangers and Big Folk. These workmen came and went on loaded wagons from the east, none staying too long or becoming familiar to the Breefolk. With the assistance of these strangers the stable grew rapidly just as Childy’s storehouse did in the back of his establishment. In the six months that Gondo and Twoody were away the additions to the stable were completed but the doors to Childy’s storehouse remained closed. If any of the Breelanders were at all curious, there is no record of their suspicions until after Year Fifteen; and those are observations which we might certainly put down to the clearer vision of hindsight. To most Breefolk Childy’s new business was both an enigma worthy of speculation and an opportunity for back-talking gossip and ridicule. No one knew what he was doing and so, by their own self-important regard, he must be doing things wrong.

   Breelanders, like any small-town folk, cannot resist the opportunity to gossip about a neighbour whom they believe is doing things wrong.

   After the King’s Agreement was signed, in fact the very day that Twoody and Alaura posted it on the walls of the inn, we are told that Childebrand went to his father and his elder brother Hartnid asking to sell his share of inheritance. Childy was forty then, in that time we name as Year One of the Shire-reckoning, and his father, for so long the big voice of the family, was seventy-six but still quite active in the family business. With the use of money being so rare in hobbit culture during this time, the selling of a family legacy would have been seen as a very peculiar occurrence. How old Hincmar originally took to the idea is unknown. But Twoody, in one of his early letters with Alaura (perhaps late in Year Two before his own move to the Shire), hinted at the significance of this unique situation. In this letter we see the germ of the Kingsnote and the lesson of economic planning which Twoody had been learning from his older brother for some time:

   “Money, some kind of valued currency of our own, will be necessary for us to move settlement forward rapidly. Childy has recognized this and reacted to the fact of it faster than all of us. Hobbits pouring into the Bree-land as a gateway to the Shire will need currency to make barter easier. Childy has wisely based all of his earliest prices for goods against the cost of a drink at the Four Greenfields; for the disposable currency of an inn can be seen as the best quantifier of what a hobbit (or even one of the Big Folk) is willing to spend. Childy has planned better than any of us. He takes a share of the inn’s profits and uses it to build his surplus of trade goods. In this way most of the new coin coming into the Bree-land passes through Childy’s own hands.

“My brother is no more a pioneer than I am, but he is uncommonly keen at an opportunity. He has traded away his legacy and his future in the Bree-land over the success of the Shire. To my thinking this was an act of boldness and forethought. But he knew that his buyers of that legacy, my brother Hart and my Father, had less practical use for currency at that moment than he would, and so Childy took the great chance that the currency’s value would increase as the Shire’s needs grew. He was indeed correct in that observation and it was a bold move; I doubt that even my Father understood its full importance. If only a few families of hobbits had come to make their home in the Shire then Childy’s plan would never have been successful; he would have given up his security for stamped pieces of wood and metal which have no value in a new land and only small usage here surrounding Bree-hill. But as the many hundreds of hobbits keep pouring in he has become the community’s principal vendor; he owns a surplus of goods, stockpiles the coins which flow into the region, uses them to purchase more goods quickly from outside sources and is thereby capable of establishing his own prices. We will need to see to that if we are to keep pricing fair in the new land.”

   There is no way to know the details of Childebrand’s settlement with his elder brother and his father but certainly, with the influx of hopeful pioneers, trade goods were greatly demanded in the Bree-land and Childebrand’s new business opportunity, just as Twoody notes in the letter, benefited best by having both currency and goods readily at hand. When he opened his shopdoors one week after the announcement of the King’s Agreement many curious people from the Bree-land filled the space. They found all of Childy’s wares were selected specifically for the needs of anyone willing to go forth and settle the Shire. And they found him very willing to buy (or trade) for some of the former luxuries of any hobbits interested in making the journey. He offered currency to those who would not depart, but always preferred trade- good and honest trade- with those who would. He encouraged the building of the Shire in every way and all of the Breefolk could now see how the whole of his business was built upon the land’s success.

   In the meanwhile, wains and barrows of hobbit-folk were arriving in the Bree-land daily during Year One seeking the tools they might need for building a new life in the open lands which they had heard about. Those tools could only be found at Childy’s shop and so “Things Provided and Things Took” became a common departure point for many of the new settlers. It was their gateway into the West and more hobbits came through there in the first two years of the migration than visited the Inn of the Four Greenfields. They spent what coin they had, and traded whatever they might no longer need. And still, all this time, the loaded wagons of the Big Folk brought goods to and fro to Childy’s storehouse.

   Where those wagons came from none knew and, with business of their own to care for, none of the eager settlers, nor even Childy’s Bree-land neighbours, thought to ask.

vi) On the Childsbank

   Childebrand retained ownership in the Bree-land stables for many years after but, early in Year Two of the Shire, just before the first families came (and before his own influential brother Twoody came as well), Childy relocated his shop to where the business of trade was most needed. His new place for business ran along the Old Road, just an hour or so walk from the Bridge and right where the new northern road to Budgeford began. His own offices and stalls there were not large; a hastily built above-ground place to meet with his clients, a stable for ponies and the unloading of goods which was erected of wood and plaster with a thatched roof, and a small number of open air stalls stretching themselves westward along the Old Road. Whatever else would be said about him in later days, Childebrand was not one to believe in comfort or ostentatiousness over efficiency. His new property was, to the casual observer, much smaller and much less grand than his old stable and warehouse in the Bree-land.

   But the deed he staked out for this business, easily the size of any small neighbouring farm, consisted of two narrow strips of land on either side of the Road. That land, being so close to Road, was largely unwanted by most of the pioneering farmers who had already come to the Bridgefields. Many of those pioneers believed, and rightly so, that the Road might eventually become a busy throughway and wanted little to do with such a potential disturbance to their peace and success. So the Bridgefield farmers, hesitant to build too close there, had set their fenceposts farther back and the Roadside was, in Year Two, not something to which they gave their attention. When Childy came to make an offer on this underused property the farmers, busy enough with their own concerns and somewhat indebted to Childy already for helping them with their early stakes, graciously agreed to move aside and see how he might develop the land. They were the first Shirefolk to turn over parts of their deeded land and, from all the records we have found, they did so free of charge thinking it would benefit themselves and all of their neighbours.

   It is in this place that Childebrand put his foresight and his opportunity to use, expanding on the success of his older marketplace in the Bree-land. He built and arranged simple stalls of long outdoor booths, first set up on crates and overturned barrels, which lined the roadway and seemed to lead travellers west rather than north towards the competing shops which had crept up in Budgeford. His sign above the Bree-land stable was taken down and a much larger version of it was erected here at the crossroad; "Childebrand’s Purchasers, Purveyors, Packagers and Porters -Things Provided and Things Took." No one thought to ask about the change of Childy’s family name on the previous sign to his personal name on this location. Like many who came to the new land, they assumed that Childy simply wished to make a fresh reputation for himself. And that he certainly did.

   Here he brought all of the supplies from his old shop behind the Bree-land stables, concentrating on things of greatest need to the recent arrivals. His tall sign could be seen by any pioneers coming up the Road from the Bridge and his goods here were smartly arranged to attract the attention of enterprising hobbits upon their entrance into the Shire. Barrels and tools, boxes and sacks, seed and brick and lumber were sold here first and much of that came, as they did in the Bree-land, on wagons driven by the Big Folk from parts unknown. Childy had downsized his inventory to focus on the most important items.

   But here too is an example of his ingenuity.

   In a very short time, other hobbit vendors came there to set up shop, paying rent to Childy for the length of stalls which he had the foresight to build and provide. The surrounding Bridgefield farmers came first, looking to sell their perishable foods and charming household crafts to the newcomers. They had given this land to Childy by deed and now, simply because of this newly perceived opportunity, they found themselves renting stalls from him on the same property. His prices were fair, as always, and the opportunity was not a mistake; many of the Bridgefield farmers established their reputations in the Roadside shop of Childebrand’s P.P.P.&P. And if there were some who were suspicious of this situation at the time then, sadly, they did not mention it to their neighbours.

   Not long after this the tradesmen from Budgeford, missing some of their former business, set up shops on Childy’s land as well, selling breads and cheeses and household practicalities like blankets, leathercrafts, cookingspoons and wheelbarrows. Some of these merchants preferred to build shops rather than the stalls that the farmers used and Childy understood and appreciated their needs. As the cost of these buildings would be initially expensive, he agreed to defer the payment of rents against a percentage of profits and this too sounded like a very good arrangement for his tenants. Small shops were built then on both sides of the Road, on Childy’s own land, and promissory notes were signed by the owners of these shops as to the shares which Childy might expect in coming years.

   After Year Eight and the building of Tomba’s forge in Frogmorton (less than two miles away from Childy’s shops) one of the Fallohides set up an impressive boutique of iron cookingpots, ceramic containers and an array of unusual spices and herbs. We do not know the original shopkeeper’s name, but some version of this original idea for a shop dedicated to comestibles would exist in hobbit culture for many generations to come. There were others; weavers, coopers, loomers and tanners who all leased their small shops in the stalls of Childy’s market. Eventually, as immigration numbers grew, there was a pledgebroker,¹³ an honest and likeable member of the well-respected Bolger family who made trades with the new and poorer hobbit families for their old and archaic luxuries (now unneeded) like telescopes, joolstones, toyboats, handkerchiefs and embroidered handbags. It was not long after this that the very talents and aptitudes of those poorer immigrants also became a part of the marketplace; for this became a kind of trafficstop for newcomers and a good place to find inexpensive labor. New settlers went there to meet “placementbrokers,” fellow hobbits who would use their knowledge of the land and their friendly contacts to suggest where a new settler might find his best opportunities; all at a nominal price.

   And so the length of Childebrand’s Roadside marketplace grew and grew for a dozen years, and always it pointed west toward greater possibility while making profit from people who were transitioning themselves into a new life.

   When Twoody had first come to live in the Shire during the early months of Year Three some of Childy’s land along the Road was leased (but not granted) to him so that he might build the very useful First Bank and Trust; a place where hobbits could safely deposit or withdraw the currency which was in such short supply. Twoody, like his brother, had rightly seen that a bank would eventually be needed to invest in the Shire’s growth. The First Bank offered accounts and small loans as needed but collected no interest. Unlike Childy’s enterprises, Twoody’s were seldom built around an idea of great personal profit. Cautious in its initial ambitions, Twoody hoped that the Bank would aid the flow of currency which was hampering much of the trade and building going on at that time; the hobbits still laboured side-by-side together, but supplies were always in demand to match the speed of the communities growth.

   Next to the Bank building, and also on Childy’s land, was the very important and more often visited Office of Deeds (referred to earlier). This too was operated by Twoody and some of his more forward-thinking associates. Here pioneers filed for their land grants, showed evidence of their history of public work, and were given copies of their deeds for lands or the titles and registrations for their shops. The Office of Deeds was one of the largest and most ambitious public buildings of its time and, while the architecture was unfortunately wooden and all above ground, the building was also greatly noted as the home of “The Shire Map”, a lost relic of the early days. This was a large mural depicting all the known lands of the King’s Agreement which was constantly being updated with information of new settlements and deeds.

   In the early days of the Shire’s growth one would wait there in the Great Hall for their deed to be processed while watching Porro (now charmingly referred to as “Daddy”) Noakes paint and define their holdings on the Shire Map. The mural was a work of greater pride than purpose perhaps, but here- in the place all hobbits came to as they took the land in their own name- here was visible evidence of their place in a new and growing community. To sit in the great open space and watch one’s property be marked and assigned was one of the most proud moments of belonging recognized by those pioneers of the early expansion. There are many long books of hobbit family histories which begin by recounting the joy of that singular experience. But the Office of Deeds collected no taxes in the early days and charged no registration fees for the handing out of property. Twoody, and all those who built it, always hoped that the Office of Deeds would remain a house of pride for all the Shirefolk for many generations. But this was not to be.

   Also built at this time (and also referred to earlier) and on the strip of land directly across the Road from the Office of Deeds, was the Shirefolk’s first Post Office. It was not so large a building as the Office of Deeds, for fewer hobbits wrote letters in those days than laid claims to land ownership, but it was built in the same architectural style. It was believed for many years that Gondolpho the Oldbuck had made the first drawings for both these buildings as a gift to his friends Twoody and Alaura but new evidence shows that both were in fact early works of Cloot the Builder. Only the Post Office remained in Frodo’s time and we have a writing from Thane Peregrin Took (of all people!) which speaks of the building and its importance:

   “We must, at any cost, preserve this grand old building! The story of our connection as a People exists there still in its dusty letterboxes and cobwebbed sorting slots. Since Year Four of our Reckoning this building was the heart of our communications and all of our growth. Every Shire-family, and most certainly my own, has preserved letters and documents which have been received, sorted and delivered through this beating heart of our history.

   “The wood-shingled roof is now nearly gone, but the great pillared porch is still strong and resilient nearly fourteen-hundred years after its construction! The signature round windows and door have all lost their glass, but not the charm which inspired generations of our distinctive hobbit architecture. This old and glorious structure, both interior and exterior is still strong but in need of replacement and reinforcement. Why have we hobbits, proud of our past, allowed it to fall into such disrepair?

   “To preserve the First Post Office is to preserve the most important building of our earliest days. To balk at such a project out of concern for its expense is to ignore the value of our history and I will not condone nor forget any foolishness of this sort.”

   The First Post Office and the Postal Service itself was the work of Alaura Fairheart of course, and whether or not the land was granted or leased from Childebrand for this project remains unclear. But from here the very beginnings of a postal system and a school system were created in the North and, as Thane Peregrine notes many centuries later, through it all of the communication between the Shire’s settlements became possible. Like the First Bank and the Office of Deeds, it was a public work built upon the idea of providing services to the people rather than upon its own profitability. The Post Office charged no fees and paid no wages to its carriers. The teachers there taught their lessons for free and the copyists, who responsibly managed THE SHIRE-RECKONING, the land’s free and public newsheet, all assembled at this post office in the earliest days. It was, for many generations, run by volunteers who came there everyday to help move correspondence, educate neighbours and disseminate public information throughout the Shire. Despite the condition which Thane Peregrin finds the building in after the Subjugation of Sharkey in Year Fourteen Hundred and Eighteen it was, for all its long history the most notable Free Post Office in all of the land.

   All three of these public buildings were important destinations for newcomers and vital to the workings of the new country. Gondo and Twoody and Alaura had all hoped to put them at Hobbiton-by-the Water, but it was decided to be more practical here closer to the Stonebows bridge and the eastern edge of the Shire. To some eyes the importance of these buildings, standing as they were amid Childy’s marketplace, was co-opted by commerce. Some saw that the public buildings there legitimised the market’s importance and gave it a kind of official authority. But it could not be argued that every new immigrant came here, to this strip of land along the Road in Bridgefields, expecting to settle their futures.

   And all of them did business at Childy’s market.

   During the first fifteen years there were wagonloads, always driven by the Big Folk, arriving at Childy’s market every tenth day carrying familiar goods from the Bree-land as well as new and useful tools from places far beyond. The public services of the Post Office, the First Bank and the Office of Deeds brought the newcomers; but Childy’s marketplace turned them into customers. For those hobbits lacking currency to pay the market prices- and that was many of them- Childebrand graciously took promissory notes from any who were in need. If Kingsnotes were not available from the Bank, then they signed separate agreements with Childy himself. This arrangement seemed to many of the newcomers to be a friendly and welcoming gesture by their new neighbours and, having little goods of their own and needing much, they signed these notes against the only practical worth they now had; the freshly written deed to their newly allotted land.

   Unnoticed by many, this practice began in the winter of Year Two after the families had come over. There was an increased desire to build in all of the young pioneers and make their new holes more comfortable. Many took loans from Twoody at the new Bank and Trust but many more signed notes in the market with his brother Childy. And there were many, no matter who their lender, who found this situation embarrassing and seldom spoke of it to their friends or neighbours. There were many others in the same situation, particularly the new arrivals from lands to the south, who had almost no experience with money or debt. They had no expectation of what indebtedness meant other than the gratefulness which comes from being offered help by a neighbour in a time of need and no experience of the difference between gratefulness and debtorship.

   And Childebrand continued to take their business while all the while seeming to keep his prices reasonable.

   Twoody departed for the Buckland early in Year Four to help Alaura with her newborn son and the businesses of the First Bank and the Office of Deeds moved with him. Many newcomers at this time were increasingly interested in the land of the West-farthing and happily went there to make their start. But even so, many more used Childy’s services. So many that as pioneers first came across the Stonebows bridge the marketplace and the Post Office and the surrounding area became known as “Childsbank”; a marketplace and loan service unto itself. Even though the prices seemed fair, it was not spoken of fondly by many of these new immigrants. Through their experiences at Childsbank many came to learn that they might have to give up much of their old self-reliance to live in the new land; something the rumours and the broadsheets had not told them.

   In Year Ten Childy annexed the old and then unused Office of Deeds which held the Shire Map. It still maintained the ongoing mural of all the landowners and, despite the Assayers’ Offices being moved to Buckland, Daddy Noakes still came there every month or so to update the Shire Map. It is said that Childy would take his conferences there with new debtors to show them the glorious opportunities which lay before them. But it is also said that he had his own employees add blue paint to many of these properties, never explaining the cause for this change. By Year Fourteen and its failed harvest, much of this map was blue and, for a time, to have your name and your land written on the great mural there became something quite short of an honour and would, in the next year, lead to dangerous troubles which no hobbit had foreseen or would ever forget.

vii) On the Crisis of Year Fifteen

   In Year Fourteen the Shire saw its first season of heavy rains. There were some diarists from this period, mostly among the Fallohides, who attached a mystical and malignant force to the change in weather. “Fell voices” were said to be heard in storms and, believing this or not, all of the hobbits in the Shire began to protect their heads in the rain. Hats became a fashion for a brief time but Tomba Fallohide, agreeable to his neighbours’ needs and as inventive as ever, built the first umbrella anyone had seen and ushered that novel little luxury into the hobbit lifestyle. Milliners who saw new prospects in a wet summer were put out of business by the fall. Within a month Tomba left his smithing job behind for the much less exhausting work of umbrella-manufacture. By doing so he remained happy and wealthy for the rest of his days, his products always in demand, often left behind, and badly needed only on occasion.

   But whether through the runoff of heavy rains or the dark curse of fell voices, a blight had come to the potatoes and carrots of the Shire in Year Fourteen. After years of growth and prosperity the Shirefolk were unprepared for the collapse of their most plentiful homegrown food. Systems of trade between the new towns and settlements were well in place by this time, other crops were abundant and fish and game were still plentiful; so no hobbit starved during the Blight of Year Fourteen. But for the first time in their history, hobbits had to rely not on barter but on purchasing to feed themselves. This created a hitherto unknown and (by many) certainly unexpected run on currency.

   And Childebrand Swiftalk, once again, was more prepared for the situation than most.

   Childy’s portage company was the first true success of the lean Autumn of Year Fourteen. He had wisely purchased many ponies from old Obidias Maggot and young Hartgard Catton a few years before, so from the first his stables in Bridgefields was prepared to carry goods to meet the needs of all the Shirefolk affected by the Blight. These services were at a cost which was reasonable to many, but they were always at a cost.

   As prices for perishable goods rose in the stalls of Childy’s market, so too did the rents upon those stalls. Farmers and tradesmen who owed money to Childy for establishing their businesses were forced to take out additional leans against their debts. And, as always, these new debts were seen as genuinely helpful and the borrowers, if embarrassed for their need, were thankful for the assistance. And all the time the blue paint filled out more and more of the Shire Map and all the while the wagons of Big Folk from the east brought new goods which might be purchased on these extended lines of credit.

   And then, on Yule Day of Year Fifteen, the Big Folks in their wagons made their regular deliveries but did not leave. A large makeshift bunker was set up for them near the old Office of Deeds and within a week’s time two score of these Big Folk were standing around the market, eating food and drinking beer and taking liberties for themselves in Childebrand’s name. Soon after this the first real trouble came.

   On the twelfth day of AfterYule the Forge building in Frogmorton was the first to fall. Tomba Fallohide had left the business to his son (or cousin or nephew or some other indistinct relation with the same last name) some months before. He however neglected to inform his heir of the rather large debt which the forge, as a business and not Tomba himself as a private citizen, still owed to Childebrand Swiftalk. On the early morning of that cold day a dozen of Childy’s enforcers walked into the forge offices and seized control. Workers were thrown out and new locks were put on all of the doors and windows. From the storehouse they took two wagonloads of supplies; rakes and hammers, shovels and spikes, cutting tools and pickaxes. The Men broke the office table in two¹⁴ and from the wreckage made a new sign to hang over the door; “Took in Arrears”¹⁵ it said, and if any questioned its meaning they were given little or no answers. No violence was committed in this takeover and it was said that the Big Folk moved quickly on to their next targets without explaining anything to the dumbfounded Fallohides who had formerly run the forge’s business who stood with their mouths agape.

  On that same morning these and other ruffians marched up and down the Road seizing and locking property in the name of Childebrand Swiftalk; from the Budge-and-Bridge publichouse at the eastern edge to the farms in Bridgefields and to some of the houses and many of the shops in Frogmorton, businesses were seized whose owners had an unarguably substantial debt to Childebrand Swiftalk. Signs were hung over their doors indicating a new ownership, but no one was given any instruction of what these new conditions of ownership would mean. In the meanwhile Childy himself remained secluded; whether in his offices or his home or elsewhere none of the Big Folk would say. But all the Men carried with them very official looking papers which bore the hobbit-landlord’s handwritten name. In this way Childebrand Swiftalk, a name he had earned from his younger brother’s accomplishments, was, in one winter morning’s time, renamed “Swiftook” by all his neighbours, and this was not a name which they used in jest nor kindness. But all of these hobbits who saw the shops and businesses being taken knew that they represented only a small portion of Childy’s debtors. They worried over what might happen next and what their own debts might be. Childy, from wherever he stood in hiding, had exerted the force of his economic power with surprising quickness using the support of outsiders, thuggish Big Folk in his employ who intimidated every one they met. Now he lay back waiting to hear how the Shirefolk would respond.

   Many did not respond on that morning and there is very little record of any argument between the surprised citizens and the Big Folk. The "Reacquisitioning Officers”, as these fellows called themselves, had come early in the winter morning and made quite a ruckus, as Big Folk invariably do, and then moved on quickly to mark and lock their next targets. It remains uncertain why the hobbits did not push back when first confronted. Perhaps they held back because they felt embarrassed for their debtorship, or perhaps it was simply a shock for them to be preyed upon for their need, or maybe they felt cowed and bamboozled in their naivety; why they didn’t resist at first is unknown and did not much matter. The seizure of their property was over before most of them had finished their second breakfast, let alone had time to organise a revolt.

   The fact that they were not quick to retaliate no doubt saved a tremendous amount of potential bloodshed, for the Big Folk were reportedly armed with clubs and knives and all manner of wicked weapons which the hobbits had never seen in their hands before. If it was simply surprise and a lack of organisation which prevented an early resistance then history, and the Shire-hobbits themselves, are the better for it. The Big Folk who seized hobbit lands in Childy’s name were organised, they had maps and an established route, and they went about their work as a large and efficient group. More terrible, they also seemed all too ready for confrontation. If the meanness in their eyes was a trait of their own or the instructions of their master was unknown, but any hobbit would have been unwise to meet and resist these usurpers if they were not themselves prepared for desperate violence.

   And then there was something else which happened that made the situation even more desperate. As trouble was happening from the Budge road and moving its way west another score of these ruffians came marching over the watched but unguarded Stonebows bridge shortly after sunrise on that same day. These fellows were not porters or baggagemen. All had the look of criminals and dangerous folk and they carried clubs and poles and curving knives of unusual design. At their head was a tall rider on horseback, dressed all in black, and he carried a curved sword, unsheathed, its oily black blade lying menacingly across his lap and upon his saddle. These folk answered no questions from the Bridge-wardens as they crossed and many laughed at the hobbits they encountered along the way. The black rider himself said nothing. And so, with this new and decidedly more dangerous group added to the mix, there were sixty of these Big Folk forming an encampment around the Office of Deeds and they were busily engaged in keeping any hobbit protesters or questioners away.

   By early afternoon the Big Folk had locked up three dozen businesses and stalls from the Budge road to Frogmorton and taken nine wagonloads of confiscated goods back to the Office of Deeds. There they had set a camp for themselves with attention to its defences. Crowds of hobbits were now starting to form there, but none of the Shirefolk were let inside the perimeter of the Office to speak their peace and Childy was still nowhere to be found.

   The hobbits now knew, though they had ignored it previously, that they had very unwisely signed away their futures while trusting upon their dreams. Worse, and much more disheartening, they had been blinded by the disingenuous helpfulness of a fellow hobbit. These revelations brought about feelings which can shatter the hopefulness of any trusting people and so we should not be surprised by their slow reaction or response. They were not so much paralyzed by fear as they were stunned by this first disappointment of their trust.

   Twoody and Alaura heard about the foreclosures just before noon and went to the town centre of the Buckland to speak with their neighbours and all other interested parties. It should be remembered that the Shire had no Mayor nor Court nor Captain, no ruling body elected or appointed who might sit in judgement of Childy’s claims or speak on the effects this incident may have on the community, but many folk experiencing the troubles in East-farthing sought the “townfathers” for advise. An unplanned townmoot had begun around the Wisher’s Well which, by end of day, drew hundreds of people from all of the surrounding area. Reports kept coming in which made the situation look increasingly bleak. After hearing of the second group of Big Folk crossing the Stonebows, more and more of the Shirehobbits were showing up to the meeting armed and ready to march. But there was no direct leadership in place to spark them.

   Alaura went about those assembled and tried to calm them. Meanwhile Twoody met with many of the wealthier landowners, from Buckland and from the East-farthing, and tried to make sense of the new reports and the ongoing situation. Some cautious estimates were drawn up of the amount of Childy’s lien on Shire property and the forecasts were staggering. Budge and Stock and the Buckland itself were more or less free of his usury, but many of the newer settlements along the Great Road were not. Childy’s holdings in Frogmorton, Bridgefields and Hobbiton-by-the-Water were extensive and the calculations of this debt was beyond even Twoody’s excellent mathematical skills. The First Bank and Trust in Buckland became a scene of panic and confusion for a time as many Shirefolk, fearing the worst, began withdrawing their holdings and preparing to flee further west. This caused a run on the bank and, when the hobbits discovered that the bank did not hold enough ready currency to pay, their panic increased. Alaura and Twoody could do little to calm the fears of the growing crowd.

   The greater part of the discussion amongst the townfathers and landowners centred not just on what they should do of course, but on what they could do; for no one amongst them contested the debts which they and their neighbours had freely agreed to. For many this was the darkest moment of the Shire. Faced with debt and distrust, many of the young hobbits’ dreams were broken. These earlier pioneers, who worked so hard to build something new, were now faced with a shocking realisation of their naivety and of the results of usury. Many turned their heads away in sadness and despair rather than raise them in anger or vengeance. There were none amongst them who could say which, anger or despair, was the wiser response to Childy’s aggression. For all those assembled in the discussions that afternoon the dream of the Shire had been their greatest call to action. They were all mostly young and for fifteen years the idea of a new land of their own had been their greatest ambition. Some were Twoody’s age; idealistic and hopeful of a new future, while a few were older and had known fear and failure in their dangerous and nomadic past. Many of those folks were ready to take what they had left and move on just as their history had taught them; avoiding more conflict, they were willing to accept that their dreams had been a mistake and were once again unwilling to challenge their persecution. The conversations between these hobbits were stalled for many long hours and there were many at that meeting who doubted that the Shire could go on in the face of such an unresolvable dilemma.

   In the springtime of Year Sixteen, after the bloody cost of settling these disputes had been paid, Alaura wrote one of her most poignant pieces in THE SHIRE-RECKONING regarding the formation of a central government:

   “TOO OFTEN when we EXAMINE THE INEQUITIES of POLITICAL CHANGE do we OVERLOOK the CRIPPLING SADNESS and the PERCEIVED HOPELESSNESS of THOSE PEOPLE who were FORCED TO LIVE through SUCH CALAMITOUS TIMES; through our COMFORTABLE PLACE IN HISTORY we wonder HOW THEY DIDN’T SEE IT COMING.

   “BUT in doing so WE FORGET that THE SPIRIT OF PIONEERS is BUILT UPON HOPEFULNESS. WE FORGET how BOLD A PEOPLE MUST BE to LEAVE BEHIND their erstwhile POSITIONS OF COMFORT IN CITIES and BESIDE FERTILE RIVERBANKS for only a TENUOUS PROMISE OF NEW FREEDOMS. WE FORGET that PIONEERS do NOT BEGIN as MALCONTENTS, WANDERERS, REFUGEES, OUTSIDERS or EXILES but mostly THEY BEGIN AS DREAMERS.

   “THE FIRST CRIMINAL of OUR COMMUNITY WAS NOT AN OUTSIDER or AN INVADER. THE FIRST CRIMINAL of ANY COMMUNITY is, and ALWAYS was, THE LANDLORD; FOR it is THE LANDLORD and THE USURER who employ BANKRUPTCY and FORECLOSURE as the PRACTICAL WORLD’S WAY of DESTROYING the OPTIMISM of PIONEERS AND DREAMERS. THEY USE THIS PRACTICALITY to DASH OUR HOPEFULNESS OF A NEW FUTURE against THE HARSH MEASUREMENTS of our OWN NOTIONS of PROFITABILITY, SELF-WORTH AND SUCCESS.

   “IN A LAND which is meant to be FREE TO ALL HOBBITS we see how IT IS the POSSESSOR OF DEEDS AND TITLES, the LOANER OF GOODS OR PROPERTY, who can EXERT THEIR CONTROL OVER ANY HOBBIT’S FREEDOMS.

   “THE DREAM OF THE SHIRE is STILL that of A FREE LAND in which all HOBBITS MIGHT DEVELOP OUR OWN FUTURE. TO SUBJECT OURSELVES to the CONTRACTS and OBLIGATIONS of ANY LANDLORD is to DENY OUR OWN FREEDOMS within THIS LAND FREELY GIVEN TO ALL HOBBITS BY THE KING.

   “IF THE SHIRE BELONGS TO US ALL, as THE KING has GRANTED and INTENDED, then THOSE WHO CAME FIRST should SHARE in this BOUNTY and NOT BE ALLOWED TO PARCEL AND SELL THEIR CLAIMS to NEIGHBOURS AND NEWCOMERS.

   “THOSE CRIMINALS who would DO SO have CLEARLY NOT HEARD OF THE KING.¹⁶

   “BE NOT TOO TRUSTING of any HELPERS WHO WOULD QUANTIFY YOUR DREAMS through a SET PRICE and an ESTABLISHED VALUE. Their MECHANISM and their MEASURE is UNFAIR, UNKIND and UNINTERESTED IN ANYTHING OTHER THAN THEIR OWN VALUES and PROFITS. A LANDLORD is A BOSS and A POWERBROKER and NOT A FRIEND NOR A NEIGHBOUR. A LANDLORD has NO INTEREST in HIS TENANT’S SUCCESS beyond the VALUE OF HIS RENTS. THIS is the VERY SAD but also the VERY TRUE MODEL of our CURRENT ECONOMY and, if the DREAM OF THE SHIRE as a FREE LAND is to SURVIVE, then TOGETHER WE MUST FIND A WAY TO CHANGE THAT CRIPPLING CONDITION.”

   Horris Bunce, a member of Twoody’s Buckland council that night, was not so inclined to give up his dreams and leave as many of his neighbours were discussing. He had taken up large holdings of land between the newer community of Hobbiton-by-the-Water and his own home in the Buckland and owned many deeds on these lands with people who also had debts to the “Childsbank.” If Childy and his Big Folk were to foreclose on these properties Horris’ own investments would be threatened. He had never borrowed a dime or entered into a single contract with Childebrand Swiftook himself but now, or so it seemed, his own future had become tied to the outcome of this struggle.

   Horris had come to the Shire from the Bree-land in Year One recognizing an exciting opportunity. Like Childy, Horris sold all of his former business to set himself up with an eye to profit in the new land. Like most of his neighbours, he had made the very smart business decision of following Gondo’s bold development of the Buckland rather than remaining closer to the Stonebows bridge. But unlike Twoody or Childy or even Gondo the Oldbuck, Horris Bunce was, by his nature, fierce as a badger when backed into a corner.

   In his long and windy family narrative, “The Bunces Between the Bridge and the Borderlands,” Horris’ grandson Clovis has this to say:

   It must be set down that, while still a fawn, Horris Bunce beheld with his own eyes a scene as stirring as any known in the annals of hobbit-folk: the fall of his father, Borris Bunce, who perished bravely in the act of securing the escape of his family into the Bree-land. Was it this that set his heart aflame with that strange yearning to take up arms for what he deemed right? Perhaps so. Yet, my grandfather—both before the desperate affair of the Battle of the Bank and in the years that followed—spoke but rarely, and always with a certain reluctance, of this trait that impelled him to action. He would confess, in moments of candour, that to be moved by wrath or the thirst for battle was to be marked by some failing for any hobbit, even though such impulses would one day bring him renown. Truly, he was born to an age when courage was a coin of the highest value, unlike the calm and comfort which we know today. For fifteen years in the Shire, Horris Bunce was, so far as any hobbit can say, a gentle soul, peaceful and reserved. Yet within him there smouldered a fire, one that made the perils threatening his home and kin more grievous to him than to any of his companions in the Shire.

   Horris had been involved in all of the meetings Twoody held regarding strategy and economic assessment and measured response. He listened alongside all of his peers and, for many hours, he also argued for patience. He hoped, as many did in these meetings, that the matter could be sorted out and the correct diplomatic approach might be taken. He was five years older than Twoody but they had been friendly since childhood and, for many hours of that long day, he respected and supported Twoody’s call for a cautious and measured response.

   It is not known, through his grandson’s history or any other source, what changed his opinion. While there are numerous accounts of Horris’ activities on that day which can be found in many written resources, we will encapsulate some of them here.

   We are told that an hour after the Sun had set Horris walked straight and silently out of the new Assayer’s Office in Buckland where Twoody’s important meetings were being held. By this time there were at least two hundred Shirehobbits assembled into various groups awaiting more news and hopeful that something may be done quickly to solve the situation. A great bonfire had been erected near the Wisher’s Well and, by all reports, Horris walked directly toward it, ignoring the eager questions from his neighbours and eyeing only the fire. There was a long-handled axe nearby which someone had left alongside a bench and Horris took it up without asking of its owner or their permission. He then turned to a nearby table and, speaking to no one, moved plates and cups aside to take up its tablecloth. With everyone giving up on their questions and watching him, Horris walked toward the bonfire while wrapping the iron of the axe’s blade in the long folds of tablecloth; wrapping it over and over, as he spoke to the crowd;

   “You ask if anything has been decided,” he called to them with a strong and steady voice. “As we speak here and as we decide about our safeties and our securities and our commitments, there are others who are running about this land and stealing our freedoms. It is all too familiar. We- my family and so many of yours- we have always fled from these abuses in the past. If we regretted trading our homes for our safety in those days I cannot say. We did what our fathers and mothers decided for us for many long generations and so, in safety and as wanderers, we survived. But none of us, no hobbit I have heard of, has ever had a land which we could call our own until we came here into the Shire. Maybe in the past it was easier to leave, for we had no more than our own lives to defend. But now we have been granted land by the King himself. And now, or so it seems, that land which he has given to us is being stolen. And worse I think; we are being told and convinced that our loss of this land is caused through our own shortsighted trust in helping one another.

   “I will not, NOT! let the lands which the King has given me escape my hands or let them be torn from the future of my family over something so meagre, so cheap, as usury and thuggery,’ Horris said, now thrusting his cloth-wrapped axe into the bonfire. “I will NOT allow invaders or false-friends to take the land and the hope and the promise of the Shire, the promise that the King has given us.”

   The flame on his axe caught quickly and he held it high amongst all of the Shirefolk who had been listening. Now, loudly, he said:

   “I will carry this brand to defend the Shire for all who would take it from us! I will throw out the invaders and the usurer and see us defend our land! And I will not, NOT! see us flee again!”

   Such a cry of rally and fervour went up amongst those assembled so that Twoody, Alaura and the others came from the Assayers Office believing that an attacking army had come to the Buckland.

   They were only half right, for the army had been waiting there all along.

   Saying nothing further Horris Bunce, ever after referred to as “The Firebrand,” strode quickly out of Buckland and up the West-farthing road toward Childsbank. Nearly all of the hobbits assembled at the Wisher’s Well went with him, lighting torches of their own. By the time they reached the Farthing Stone they were easily three-hundred strong and the blaze of their torches could be seen from many miles away. The Shire had mustered against its first threat.

viii) On the First Battle of the Shire

   Records from the beginning of the Fourth Age tell us that the Battle of the Bywater in Shire Year Fourteen Hundred and Ten was “the Second Battle of the Shire.” This is true, but somewhat misleading. For many years before the discovery and excavation of the Great Smials in 1961 of our present age, we had only the scant records found in Gondor (and curated for King Elessar largely by Thane Peregrin) along with the Red Book found in the excavation of the Undertowers with which to describe Shire history. The accounts found in both these cases were concerned primarily with the War of the Ring (as one might expect) and did not include the detailed Shire histories that the much later excavation of the Great Smials has provided.¹⁷

   For a long time our notion of what the first battle of the Shire may be comes from Bilbo’s only other citation of dangers which befell the Shire; namely that incident in Year Eleven Hundred and Forty-six when a band of Orcs, separated from their kind further north yet led by their king Golfimbul, crossed the Brandywine and were met by Brandobas “Bullroarer” Took above the Norbourn river not far from Budgeford. There in the hilly area called the Greenfields, the Bullroarer knocked the head of the goblin king from his shoulders with a club and so, Bilbo goes on to tell us, the game of “golf” was invented.¹⁸

   To mark this event as the “First Battle of the Shire” is a misunderstanding of Bilbo’s intention in telling that rather comic tale. We now know, through our further evidence, that the danger, the hobbit casualties and the severity of that battle in Eleven Hundred and Forty-six were small. Golfimbul and his people had been routed by the Rangers of the North; they were few in number, unprepared and unexpecting of any organised resistance. Despite Bilbo’s amusing record of it, the Battle of the Greenfields does not compare with the losses, and the many repercussions, of the Battle of the Bank in Year Fifteen.

   As Horris Bunce led three hundred hobbits up the West-farthing road from the Buckland torches were kindled by those who went alongside him. As the throng turned east at the Farthing-stone they were met by more armed hobbits who, in support and in anger, kindled torches of their own. These were in turn seen blazing by the hobbits of Bywater and Frogmorton who also joined. The phrase “Fear! Fire! Foes! Awake!’ was heard for the first time in the land and all the hobbits who could respond answered the call.

   For the best account of the coming battle we must return to Clovis Bunce’s book, “The Bunces Between the Bridge and the Borderlands:”

   It may well be imagined that the Big Folk, entrenched about the grand Office of Deeds, beheld from afar the glimmering procession of torches that marked the approach of the Shirefolk—a sight as ominous as any that ever troubled their dreams. Whether some among them, seized by dread of the swelling host, abandoned their posts and slunk away into the darkness none can say, for if such tales were whispered in later years, they have long since vanished into oblivion. Meanwhile, those hobbits who had already encircled the Childsbank offices found their courage quickening; the flames of their torches flickered ever brighter, and voices rose in chant, swelling to a mighty chorus that echoed across the night. Thus it was that, when Horris at the vanguard reached the marketplace, he beheld a multitude—hundreds upon hundreds of Shire-hobbits, their faces aglow, torches and humble weapons held aloft with grim determination. The Big Folk, discerning that mere clubs would no longer suffice to hold their ground against this relentless tide, withdrew into the building; and soon the sinister sight of drawn longbows could be seen in the round windows, auguring the violence yet to come.

   Swift and sure, as if drawn by destiny’s hand, the newly mustered throng of Shirefolk encompassed Childebrand’s office—the venerable Office of Deeds—so that not a soul could escape their vigilance. As for Horris, let it be said he was no soldier by schooling, nor, indeed, was any hobbit of his generation versed in the arts of war. Yet so compelling was his manner, so instinctive his wisdom, that the others hastened to obey, keeping to prudent cover as he directed. The outhouses and stables were scoured thoroughly, and those among the hobbits who could string a bow took their places, arrows nocked, eyes fixed upon the windows and doors of that ill-fated edifice. Nor was this all: from the wagons—those very same that the Big Folk had seized in their greed—were drawn forth pikes, axes, and sturdy staves, so that each new arm added to the swelling arsenal of the Shirefolk, their resolve hardening with every moment.

   For a brief space there fell a hush—deep and portentous—over the assembled host, and from within the looming edifice not a whisper nor challenge came. The silence was as the calm before a tempest, fraught with unseen menace. At length, bidding his neighbours to steel themselves, Horris Bunce strode forth alone, undaunted. In one hand he bore his soot-blackened axe, in the other a new-lit torch, his figure limned by flame as he advanced into the uncertain gloom.

   “Hearken, ye that dwell within!” cried Horris, his voice ringing clear and bold through the torch-lit gloom. “We, the honest citizens of this land granted us by the hand of the King in Norbury, have come in open council to parley with our neighbour, Childebrand Swiftook. If he be present, let him come out forthwith! But if he is not, then know this: all those who claim allegiance to him and yet hide behind these walls are but trespassers and usurpers, unbidden upon the King’s own soil. We, the King’s own sworn folk and rightful guardians, bid you begone! You are beset and unwelcome. What say you?”

   For many heartbeats, a tense and weighty silence hung over the scene, as if the world itself awaited the next stroke of fate. At last, with a slow and ominous creak, the door was drawn open, and there emerged a figure—one of the Big Folk—stooping low to pass through the humble and hobbit-sized portal, only to rise up upon the porch in all his formidable stature. He stood head and shoulders above his kind, towering more than twice the height of Horris, and was clad from crown to heel in sable garb, with high boots of gleaming leather such as a horseman might wear. In his left hand he bore a long, sinister sword, its blade curved, dark, and glistening with oil; and upon his countenance there rested a look at once composed and cruel—a mask of calm beneath which malice may be read.

   “Well, well,” intoned the Man, his voice deep as thunder rolling over distant hills, as he descended the steps and came to stand, vast and menacing, above his diminutive adversary. “Are you then the bold little captain who dares to challenge me? Speak, small one—declare your name, and by what strange courage you presume to command me and my company?”

   For an instant, the spirit of Horris wavered beneath the weight of that ominous voice, and in the flickering torchlight, with the dark form of his adversary looming before him, he was seized by the bleak conviction that he had blundered grievously.¹⁹ Who was he, a humble hobbit of the Shire, to marshal his folk against such a formidable foe, lacking all plan or stratagem? The spectre of responsibility for the lives of his neighbours pressed upon him with crushing force, and—honour to his heart—this dread was more grievous to him than any peril to his own person posed by the Black Captain. For a space he stood silent, stricken by doubt; and that silence stretched, heavy and unending, so that it seemed to all present as though time itself faltered, and their hopes ebbed away in a swelling tide of despair.

   Then, from the ranks of his neighbours—none could ever say from whose lips it first sprang—there rose a cry: "Firebrand! Firebrand! Firebrand!" Like the clarion call of an ancient battle, it swept through the assembly, growing in strength until it became a mighty chorus of hope and resolve. And Horris, hearing that cry and feeling the fierce loyalty of his folk, found the chill of fear banished from his heart. Deep within, as though a secret flame had been rekindled, his courage blazed anew, and purpose surged through him with the force of destiny.

   “Know me, then, you thug,” cried Horris, his voice rising clear through the shouting, “for I am called Horris the Firebrand. You name me bold, and well you might, for as you hear, I am not alone: the voices of my friends and my people rally at my back. I am the son of Borris, whose courage none may gainsay, and who gave his life for kin and kind. By the King’s own writ I hold my place among the first citizens of the Shire, my claim founded in service and in steadfast loyalty to neighbour and land. Who am I? I am he who commands you and your band of marauders to quit these fields, even as a housecat, watchful and true, might bid a scurrying knot of field mice be gone from its threshold. That is who I am, black captain. Tell me, little mouse-lord, do you not know the clemency of cats when it is freely offered?”

   That answer, so full of daring, struck the Black Captain with a force for which he was ill-prepared. He recoiled as if stung, a hiss escaping his lips, his visage contorted—not simply with frustration, but with the shock of one long unaccustomed to resistance. Gone was the composure of a master; in its place, fear gleamed in his eyes, awakened by the unexpected valour of the Shirefolk. In a surge of wrath and desperation, the Captain swept his sinister blade at Horris, but by fortune or by fate, the hobbit twisted aside, suffering only the glancing blow that tore at his leg and bore him to the earth. The Black Captain, towering in his fury, raised his sword for the coup de grâce—yet in that instant, doom befell him. From many angles, the archers of the Shirefolk loosed their arrows in a deadly storm. The Black Captain fell where he stood, pierced by a dozen shafts, the last cry of his malice dying unspoken on his lips.

   Thus it was that, bereft of their captain and gripped by a sudden panic, the Big Folk within the Office of Deeds loosed a wild and desperate volley from every window. Many of the arrows were sent blindly into the crowd, yet not a few found their mark among the ranks of the Shirefolk. But the hobbit archers, calm amid the tumult, answered with a storm of their own—shafts swift and true, loosed in such number and with such deadly purpose that silence soon fell upon the beleaguered edifice. Meanwhile, swift-footed runners darted forth to retrieve Horris, rejoicing to find their champion yet alive. He was borne to the shelter of a waiting wagon, where gentle hands tended his wounds. For a fleeting interval, the tumult of battle subsided, and a heavy stillness brooded over the field.

   By what agency the next dire act was wrought, none can say with certainty, nor has any soul ever stepped forth to claim responsibility for the fatal turn that now ensued. Yet it happened that, in the tumultuous interval between Horris’ bold stand against the black captain and the storm of arrows that swept thereafter, the venerable Office of Deeds was set ablaze. Many a tale tells how the spark was struck at the building’s rear, even as Horris held his adversary in parley, and that the creeping flames went long unnoticed amid the clamour. Most chroniclers agree that Horris, for all his courage, neither sanctioned nor dreamt of such destruction; yet, as ever in the affairs of men and hobbits, there are those who would weave a web of intrigue and lay the blame at the feet of leaders, preferring a tale of conspiracy to the simple chaos of a roused and leaderless throng.

   In any event, the fire was kindled at the rear of the building, at a moment when every eye and ear was fixed upon Horris and his fateful parley upon the porch. By the time the dread truth was discerned, the moment for salvation had long since passed. As the timbered walls to the rear of the building caught and leapt with ravenous flame, the Shirefolk, seized by a passion seldom awakened in their gentle breasts, hurled their torches with wild abandon. A hundred brands, perhaps more, arced through the sooty air before a soul within could respond. The stately porch, with its proud pillars, was swiftly wreathed in fire, and a pall of choking smoke closed over all. Bereft of command, the multitude surrendered to the elemental fury—fire and tumult blazing alike in every eye.

   “Come forth, and claim your freedom!” called Horris, his voice strained yet resolute as he crouched behind the shelter of an overturned cart, his wounds tended by the gentle hands of his neighbours. “Step out and no harm shall befall you!” he cried again, though by now the flames roared with such fury that it was doubtful any within the Office of Deeds could hear mortal words. At length, a handful emerged—a dozen perhaps, for the chroniclers of the Shire are uncertain on this point—scarred and seared by fire, their faces blackened and their garments in tatters. Yet the hobbits, moved by compassion rather than vengeance, laid no hand upon them; indeed, some among the survivors were given what meagre healing supplies could be found. Though a border escort was mustered, it soon proved needless, for those Big Folk who had tasted the fire at the Battle of the Bank bore away a lesson they would never forget, nor would they trouble the Shirefolk again.

   Within two hours of Horris Bunce’s altercation with the black captain the old Office of Deeds was destroyed by flame; the Shire Map inside it, formerly a proud symbol of the community’s expansion but in recent years only an indication of hobbit debt, was now a memory. The neighbouring but abandoned First Bank and Trust, Twoody’s original offices taken over by Childy, the stables and many other stalls and low buildings burned down with it. The gathered hobbits, usually quick to respond in such a conflagration, seemed to have no interest in saving any of these buildings and were content to let them burn.

   All evidence of individual debt to Childebrand Swiftook was also presumably destroyed in the blaze. It is believed that more than forty of the Big Folk, along with their unnamed captain, had died in this battle or the fire and, for some time, no one was certain that Childebrand himself had not also perished.

   Nine hobbits were killed on that day; most by the volley of arrows which came from the building in response to the black captain’s death. A plaque was erected there at the site a year later bearing their names: Richomeres Harfoot, Cotman Longhole, Waiofar Bottomhill, Grifo Noakesburrow, Helinand Heathertoes, Fulbert Sandheaver, Reginar Rumblebelly and Tobias Oakbottom.

The ninth hobbit who died that day, Roderick Farfoot, a young cousin of Alaura’s, was discovered later. Roderick was a Bridge-warden, a hobbit of the Nightswatch, on that fateful evening, tasked to guard the Stonebows. While the other hobbits of the Nightswatch marched on the Office of Deeds that evening, Roderick stood alone at his post. His body was found the next morning at the centre of the Bridge, pierced by many knife wounds. Whether he had faced someone entering or fleeing the Shire is not known, but it was clear that he put up quite a fight in defence of his post. It is from this incident that his wife and children came to be called the Proudfoots.

ix) On Debt and Threat and Argument

   On the first morning after the Battle of the Bank a letter was found in Twoody and Alaura’s mailbox at Sarehole. How or when it had arrived was unknown as the matters of the previous days had certainly taken away everyone’s attention and quite stopped the delivery of daily posts. While found at their home, the letter was addressed “TO the SHIRE COMMUNITY” and written in Childy’s familiar, regular and even script. It read:

   “For FIFTEEN YEARS it has been THE BUSINESS of CHILDEBRAND’S PURCHASERS, PURVEYORS, PACKAGERS and PORTERS (THINGS PROVIDED and THINGS TOOK) to DEAL FAIRLY with ALL of our NEIGHBOURS and ALL NEWCOMERS here in THE LAND which THE KING has GIVEN to HOBBITS. WE have provided SERVICES, EQUIPMENT, LOANS and SUNDRIES to ALL HOBBITS wishing to TAKE THEIR PLACE in THIS NEW LAND which they have called THE SHIRE. ALL of our TRADES have been considered GENEROUS in accordance with MARKET PRICES and ALL of OUR TRADING PARTNERS have SIGNED AND AGREED on these FAIR PRICES.

   “GIVEN THE MOUNTING DEBT of OUR TRADING PARTNERS it has become OUR DECISION at CHILDEBRAND’S P.P.P.&P. to FORECLOSE ON THE ACCOUNTS of OUR MOST EXTREME DEBTORS and SEIZE in accordance with PREVIOUSLY SIGNED AGREEMENTS the LANDS, PROPERTIES, BUSINESSES and GOODS which were used TO ENSURE PAYMENT. For FIFTEEN YEARS we have FOSTERED the GROWTH of this NEW LAND and NOW THAT DEBT HAS COME DUE.

   “In a BLOODY and CRIMINAL ATTEMPT to FORESTALL PAYMENT of these debts A MOB of THE SHIRE COMMUNITY MARCHED UPON OUR OFFICES and PROPERTIES PUTTING THEM TO THE TORCH and KILLING MANY of our LAWFULLY APPOINTED WORKERS in an UNPROVOKED AND HEINOUS ACT OF ORGANISED VIOLENCE. This WILL NOT BE TOLERATED by ourselves or our associates and RESTITUTION WILL BE SOUGHT. Whatever PEOPLE of WISDOM see themselves as DIRECTORS of THE SHIRE’S BUSINESS or CAPTAINS of THE SHIRE’S MOB should BE AWARE that RECORDS of the PERSONAL DEBT of ALL were NOT LOST in this conflagration and THAT THE DEEDS, PROPERTIES AND GOODS which are DUE US WILL BE EXACTED. We at CHILDEBRAND’S P.P.P.&P. now consider the WHOLE OF THE SHIRE MOB RESPONSIBLE for these ORIGINAL DEBTS as well as LOSSES INCURRED in the DESTRUCTION of OUR OWN PROPERTIES.

   “RESTITUTION MUST BE MADE or we SHALL TAKE WHAT IS OURS BY FORCE.

   “THE DIRECTORS and CAPTAINS of THIS MOB THAT CALLS ITSELF A COMMUNITY have until the FIRST DAY OF RETHE 20 to COMPLY OR VACATE THESE PROPERTIES AND LANDS.

   -Childebrand’s Purchasers, Purveyors, Packagers and Porters- Things Purchased and Things Took, AfterYule Fourteen, Year Fifteen in the Shire-reckoning”

   We know from later writings that Twoody himself was the first to read this letter and to recognize it as being in his brother’s own hand. But in all of his later journals and letters he speaks of his brother seldom and we can only imagine how deeply he was affected by the betrayal. Alaura wrote about this moment of the Shire’s history many times in her future, but what she may have thought on a personal level is also sadly missing from the records. But we do know that the two understood better than most that this letter was not so much a suit for damages as an all out threat of war.

   Childebrand Swiftook, though he is dealt with later in this history, remains a great mystery to those scholars interested in the early development of the Shire. What do we really know about this person who so quickly and masterfully profited from the settlement of the Shire? What do we really know about his allegiances and resources? Nothing from his hand has survived other than a few scattered account sheets and an even fewer number of letters to his family and his debtors. We know that for years he had been providing the Shirefolk with a steady stream of their most necessary supplies, but how did he, as a hobbit with little travel experience, know so acutely what would be needed by his pioneering neighbours? Who were these Big Folk in his employ and where did they come from? If he did indeed encourage the early exploration of the Shire, if he also did encourage Gondo and Twoody to go north and petition the King, how much foreknowledge of the land did he have and, perhaps more importantly, how had he gained it?

   Unless more records should one day surface, the answers to questions like these will never be known. It seems certain that, to his generation and those who came just after, he was the first great villain of Shire history. But many since have wondered about where his opportunities and even his goals may have originated.

   A great Shiremoot was called. Unlike the spontaneous meeting in the Buckland of two days past, this would be the first organised assembly of the community. Runners were sent out to every settlement in the land and a time was appointed for early morning on the third following day. Twoody wisely decided to hold this meeting at the first Post Office so that those gathered could see the destruction from the Battle of the Bank just on the other side of the Road. A high podium for speaking was set on the front of the Post Office and a representative from every family, no matter how large or how small, was invited to sit along the covered porch. With so many families in attendance this space was quickly filled and had to spill onto the lawn as well. But each representative member was given a seat while all other hobbits assembled would have to stand or sit on the lawn or along the Road. A kind of makeshift platform of raised benches was made along the Road to accommodate such a large crowd of on-lookers; for the letters and family journals describing this event indicate that no fewer than two thousand Shirefolk were present.

   Twoody was the initial speaker. He did not begin by discussing any of the events of the last few days, nor did he read the letter from his brother. With a great softness in his voice which held everyone’s attention, he used his time to eulogise the nine hobbits who died on the day of battle. In all of this he did not mention his brother by name or give a personal opinion of any kind regarding the battle’s cause. He felt instead the strong need to discuss, with solemnity and sadness, the loss of lives separately from the loss of property. Wise as he was, wiser than most in the ways of politics, Twoody was careful not to allow politics to rule his heart’s intentions.

   We know from diaries that he asked Alaura to read Childy’s letter to the crowd. We also know that she refused. Many times in her life Alaura had been specific about how being clear on an opinion was more important to her than presenting a report. She fully intended to speak to the crowd that day, but had no interest in being the carrier of someone else’s information. “If I am to talk from my heart,” she is said to have told Twoody, “then my heart should not be shackled by the words of another.”

   So Rangfred Bolger, heir to old Heindewin from the Budgeford Bolgers, was asked to read. He had been prepared for this task the night before and remained one of the few Shirehobbits to see the letter before the meeting. Rangfred was, by all accounts, an excellent speaker and able to keep the audience’s attention as the threats and demands of Childebrand “Swiftook” were revealed to all assembled. As expected, there were great shouts of anger from the crowd which punctuated nearly every sentence of the letter, but a general sense of order remained until the end. At the phrase, “RESTITUTION MUST BE MADE or we SHALL TAKE WHAT IS OURS BY FORCE,” there was a lasting uproar and it seemed that all the hobbits were torn between feelings of rage and worry for their safety. There were long minutes of this open discussion before anyone took the podium again. No full record was made during this meeting of course, but we do know from various letters and family tales much of the discussion which ensued.

   There were many present who thought that they should immediately send a delegation to the King up in Norbury. “After all,” they said, “it’s he who has promised to protect us in his own lands.” There were others who pointed out the problem of this plan; “For after all,” they reminded their neighbours, “it’s he who granted us this land and he might not look too favourably on those of us who have sold it off without his say so.”

   Still another group suggested that they should stand and fight as they had done two nights before. “There’s many of us here, for the first time anywhere, with strength to hold onto ours and only one bridge to defend.” But there were still others who cautioned against such boldness. “There’s many of us, to be sure,” they suggested, “but few to none who know little to nothing about war defenses and such. Arrows and even stones cast from many hands can last only so long against Big Folk on horses with swords and armour, I should think.”

   Many faces in the crowd seemed darkened by shame rather than lit by terror. “It’s us that were foolish enough to bargain as we did. How do we, through force of arms, propose to hold onto a thing we so foolishly signed away?”

   “I’ll not ask any neighbour to lay down his life for my debts as those Nine heroic hobbits did here at the Bank four nights ago,” said another. “I’d sooner leave you all then see my poverty and gullibility get another hobbit killed.”

   Still others had a look of outrage on their faces and they spoke with loud and angry voices. “It’s one hobbit, one villain among all of us, who's done this all! We don’t need to stand against a host of the Big Folk on horses, but just to find one greedy and conniving criminal and set him straight!”

   As no clear answer was given to how any of these ideas might be accomplished the discussions went on in small clusters and knots of all those assembled for the better part of the hour until Twoody once again took his stand at the podium.

   His speech, or some revised form of it, was recorded in THE SHIRE-RECKONING on the following day and was saved in many other scrapbooks and family journals. Whether the original speech was impromptu or not, the effect that this published version had upon all the Shirefolk would be remembered for hundreds of years.

   “WE are STANDING on this BURNT BATTLEFIELD today, the FIRST BATTLEFIELD of OUR VERY SHORT HISTORY while we hold the FIRST GREAT MEETING to DECIDE THE FATE of OUR ONCE HOPE-FILLED FUTURE. This is the FIRST TIME IN RECORDED MEMORY that HOBBITFOLK have RISEN UP and PERISHED IN DEFENSE of THEIR LAND, but also THE FIRST TIME SUCH A NUMBER OF US, so MANY FAMILIES OF US, have ASSEMBLED to REMEMBER THOSE WHO HAVE FALLEN and have SPOKEN TOGETHER about WHAT WE MAY DO in the future ABOUT SUCH SERIOUS THREATS.

   “SO MANY FAMILIES! BOLGERS and MUGWORTS and CHUMLEYS and SANDHEAVERS! NOAKESBURROWS and GAMWICH and WHITFOOTS! BUCKS and PUDIFOOTS and FALLOHIDES and BUNCES! MAGGOTS and CATTONS, FARFOOTS and FLEETFOOTS, BROWNLOCKS and BARROWES, GOODCHILDS, STUMBLETOES and RUMPLEBELLYS! There are TOWNENDS and HAYWARDS, BOTTOMHILLS and BOPHINS, GOODSONGS, HOPESINGERS, HEATHERTOES and RIVERHOPPERS! And SO MANY, MANY MORE ASSEMBLED here today to RECOUNT OUR LOSSES, ASSESS OUR CONDITION and DETERMINE OUR FUTURE. I DON’T KNOW HALF OF YOU as well as I should but I PRAISE ALL OF YOU TWICE as much for YOUR ATTENDANCE.²¹

   “NO MOOT like this has EVER BEEN KNOWN TO HAPPEN in all of OUR DIMLY RECALLED HISTORIES. ALWAYS IN TIMES BEFORE we traveled AS EXTENDED FAMILIES, leaving a place WHEN TROUBLE CAME and going WHEREVER THE WISDOM OF OUR FATHERS and OUR MOTHERS MIGHT TAKE US. HERE, across this porch and this lawn and along this Road, WE ARE MANY FAMILIES and MANY MOTHERS and FATHERS FINDING OUR WAY. BUT HERE, IN THE SHIRE, WE can do AS WE HAVE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO DO BEFORE; WE CAN COME TO OUR DECISIONS TOGETHER for, JUST AS the author of THIS LETTER chooses to CALL US, WE are finally A SHIRE COMMUNITY!

   “BUT WE are NOT A MOB. WE SHOULD NOT BE so RECKLESS in our DECISIONS as WE ARE QUICK TO OUR ACTION when PUSHED INTO A CORNER. WE ARE NOT the SHAMEFUL COSTDRAWEES, UNREPENTANT BORROWERS or MISCREANT ‘TRADING PARTNERS’ that THIS LETTER’S AUTHOR MIGHT name us. NEITHER SHOULD WE BE VICTIMS of FALSE CHARITY, WILLFUL USURY and DEADLY BULLYING. TOGETHER WE ARE A PEOPLE and, as such, WE SHOULD FACE OUR PROBLEMS TOGETHER!

   “WE MUST take on THE RESPONSIBILITY of this DIRE SITUATION for OURSELVES. I WILL NOT BRING NEWS to THE KING that we have SOLD HIS GOOD TRUST IN US for A SEASON’S WORTH OF SEEDS and BETTER PRICES ON PITCHFORKS. WE, the HOBBITS OF THE NORTH, were GRANTED THIS LAND BY THE KING and I WILL NOT GO and BEG HIM TO DEFEND IT FOR US against OUR OWN SHORTCOMINGS and INCAUTIOUS MISFORTUNES.

   “So WHAT SHALL WE DO? And, for THIS SEEMS VERY IMPORTANT IN THIS PARTICULAR MOMENT, HOW SHALL WE DECIDE TO DO IT? ARE WE TO REMAIN a LOOSE CLUSTER of FAMILIES ALL LIVING TOGETHER IN ONE PLACE, or ARE WE TO BECOME a NATION OF HOBBITS with the RULES and SYSTEMS IN PLACE to make SUCH DECISIONS and AVOID FUTURE ENTANGLEMENTS?²²

   “I BELIEVE that the TIME HAS COME for US TO DECIDE on THE SHIRE’S GREAT and LONG FUTURE. WE CAN NO LONGER MAKE DECISIONS just AS FAMILIES but MUST LEARN TO MAKE THEM as A COMMUNITY. WE ARE CALLED TO IT by the author of this letter and THREATENED NOT TO.

   “IF WE ARE TO RESPECT those HOBBITS WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES DEFENDING our PROPERTY and OUR FREEDOMS, WE MUST BEGIN by DECIDING OUR FATE, TOGETHER as a PEOPLE, and ESTABLISHING LAWS to help us FACE THIS and OTHER NEW CHALLENGES. Our FAMILIES MUST BE IN UNION to DECIDE OUR FATE.”

   This speech, delivered mid-day on the Seventeenth day of AfterYule, was quickly written down (presumably by Alaura) and copied in an emergency issue of THE SHIRE-RECKONING. That document was disseminated around the principal settlements of the Shire on the very next day, while the Shiremoot itself was still going on. Many more hobbits flocked to the meeting place to have their own voices heard at such an important occasion. It was there, on the Eighteenth and Nineteenth days of AfterYule that the first government of the Shire was born.

x) On Government, Death and Settlement

   Alaura Fairheart did not take the podium on the days of the First Shiremoot as she had intended. What opinions or criticisms she had regarding a localized government would eventually be published in THE SHIRE-RECKONING on many occasions, but whatever protest she may have wished to make at that first meeting went unspoken. Despite their “old argument” Twoody’s speech had won the day and all of the Shirefolk were ready to follow the course he had laid at their feet. Alaura chose not to dissuade them. Perhaps this was because she knew better than any the sorrow that Twoody felt from his brother’s betrayal or, as some others believe, she felt her own argument against a local government were lessened by the current threat. None can say for certain.

   But a unique government of the Shirefolk was indeed formed in Year Fifteen and it would change very little from its original construction for the next two thousand years’ of their recorded history.

   There were twenty-eight “Great Families” in the land at this time (all of them had been named in Twoody’s speech) and each had their representatives in front of the Post Office on that day. It was very quickly agreed that these twenty-eight should immediately form the first “Shire Council.” Twoody’s own name is not among them, but the name “Buck” is curiously inserted to the list. With Gondo’s presumed death his young son Theudebert was the only hobbit by that name in the Shire, so perhaps this was meant as an honorarium of sorts. Either way it seemed to have skewed the definition of “Great Family” away from sheer number of family members. Twoody and Alaura had been married for five years at this time and beside Thuedebert (whom Twoody had adopted) they had two other fine children of their own, hardly enough to sit on the Council, yet there were many Shirefolk present who trusted Twoody and wanted his advice on the “Swiftook Problem”. He was therefore elected to the position of Chief Assayer, a role he had held for some years already, and given the responsibility to assess the debt of the Shire and advise the Council on all economic issues.

   Alaura was likewise asked to serve as Secretary and keep record of the discussions of the new governing body. She declined this offer for her own reasons, but wished to maintain her current position as Postmaster and to attend Council meetings so that she might report on important matters and decisions. This position was immediately granted to her.

   Rangfred Bolger was chosen as Chief Organizer of the Council and given the task of presiding over their meetings and keeping order. His first official motion was to adjourn the Shiremoot so that the Council could retire to a smaller meeting hall at the Budge-and-Bridge Inn (a Bolger family-run business nearby noted for its fine beer and delicious pastries). Here the first great Shiremoot ended and while many of the citizens did not leave the area or return to their homes, the Council was adjourned to chambers to make their further decisions. Twoody returned to the Buckland to do his part as Chief Assayer and father while Alaura, a silent participant but careful reporter, attended the Council meetings.

   On the Nineteenth day of AfterYule, from within their private deliberations, the Council named Horris Bunce, the great hero of the Battle, as Chief Constable. He was immediately set to the task of defending the Bridge and the border. Horris’ wounds were still serious enough to preclude him from travel, so a temporary office was set up for him in a neighbouring building to the inn. He was granted power to choose two score of the young hobbits from the Battle as deputies who might rush with orders from the Council to various parts of the land carrying information. All would operate directly under the orders of the Council through the Chief Constable and further be empowered to pull labour or supplies where they were needed for the public defence. For this ability these deputies were given the title of “Reeves.”²³

   By the Twenty-third day of AfterYule Twoody, still respectfully called “Swiftalk” rather than “Swiftook” despite the now greatewr fame of his brother, had examined many of the contracts Childebrand had made with the Shirefolk. Many existing papers were provided to him by the many hobbits who owed money to Childebrand but many, many more of these were unavailable. Whether this was through an individual hobbit’s embarrassment about the cost of their debt or mistrust of Twoody himself none could say, but still only rough estimates of the overall cost to the Shire could be made. Twoody had begun some of these calculations on the day of the Battle and all the new evidence, scattered as it was, made him less hopeful; his brother Childy had managed to buy up nearly a quarter of the developed land or businesses in the Shire by swindling his fellow hobbits and cheating them through their hopefulness. We are told by others that Twoody was sickened by this discovery, though he never wrote about it; his journals, and his letters, reveal a propriety, an unwillingness to blame or chastise, which should be seen as a quality of his character. His heart had been broken by the criminal actions of his brother and we hear this from many sources. But never from Twoody himself.

   On the morning of the Twenty-fourth Twoody left the Buckland to deliver his report to the Council. He brought Berty, then twelve, with him so that the boy might see how a good government might solve the most difficult of problems.

   They were only an hour along the Great Road when they saw a messenger riding quickly toward them on a pony bringing with them bad news out of the Bree-land; Twoody’s beloved father Hincmar Swiftalk was dead.

   The funeral for Hincmar Swiftalk, held on the Twenty-sixth Day of AfterYule was the largest social occasion that any Breelander of that time could remember. There was a very modest and sober blackened wreath hung upon the door of his place of business, the Inn of the Four Greenfields, but for three days before the funeral and three nights after the commonroom there was filled with stories and laughter. The food (which was plentiful) and the drink (which was excellent) was free to all of the “friends of Ol’ Hinc” who might care to pay a visit with their respects. And many came from near and far to do just that.

   Many of the Breefolk had considered Hincmar to be the richest of all their neighbours, though he had never been accused of being either miserly in his business doings nor ostentatious in his home; he was remembered as courteously-mannered and plain-speaking, bright-eyed and sharp-witted, kind-speaking and clear-voiced, firm-handed and clean-dealing by all of his neighbours and his customers. There were others, mostly Big Folk from the outlying regions around Bree-hill, who had little contact with the other townspeople but had fond memories of the old innkeeper, the stories and the news they had heard from him, the excellence of his beer and the genuineness of his laughter. But his closer friends and his immediate family, who were also many, knew that Hincmar’s wealth and congeniality ran deeper than his business. For that same old innkeeper had lived to a very full age of ninety years, sired a dozen children, buried two wives whom he loved greatly and played with dozens of grandchildren who would always remember him fondly. He had known many successes and seen very few failures, if one were to read his life as a ledgersheet. But his children and his close friends all knew (most of them at least) that the first thing Hincmar had ever taught them was that “to read the wealth of any person’s life as a ledgersheet would be, at the very least, a great misunderstanding of that person’s character and, at the more-than-likely worst, a terrible misunderstanding of life’s worth.”

   So for three days following the old hobbit’s demise his children and grandchildren kept the doors of the inn open for all who would pay their respects, but only during the daylight hours. They would listen to the kindly stories of Hincmar’s acquaintances and keep their private memories to themselves to share over dinner as plans were set for a funeral of special significance.

   While Hincmar was indeed old, his passing was sudden. He had retired from the business of the inn many years before, but occasionally still went there in the early evening to see all the new traffic moving through the Bree-land. He knew many long-bearded dwarfs by name and, when the Moon was full each month, he would keep an arranged meeting with a tall rider who would speak to no one else.²⁴ All of these little meetings would take place in the small hall in the north wing which Hincmar himself had built so that hobbits might comfortably engage with the Big Folk but still have some degree of privacy. It was to this room that Hincmar had taken Gondolpho Bucklestrap fifteen years earlier and here that the plan for settling the Shire was put into action.

   Hincmar had gone there again on the Twenty-first of AfterYule, the night of his death, and if he had met with anyone there none can say. But he was found in the little hall the next morning, quite peacefully gone in his sleep beside the embers of a fire, with a book in his lap and half a mug of Bree-land ale at his tableside.

   Twoody’s brother Allowin was dispatched that very morning to collect his family in the Shire so that they might attend their father’s funeral. He had been met by a very serious group of guardsmen at the Stonebows bridge that same evening but, giving Childy’s name before Twoody’s, found himself detained. Eventually he was allowed to cross and then led immediately to the Budge-and-Bridge Inn, which had become the new seat of Shire government. There he met Alaura and told her the news. It was clear that news of recent events in the Shire had not yet reached the Bree-land.

   Twoody and Alaura, with young Berty in tow, two babies left at home and another on the way, returned to the Bree-land with Allowin on the Twenty-fourth of AfterYule. They were not surprised to find Childebrand Swiftook already in attendance.

   There are no records of the things which were said by Twoody and Childy that have yet been found. Neither the excavation of the Undertowers (in 1892 of our present age) nor the later discovery of the Record Halls in the Great Smials (1961 of this same age)²⁵ give us any information of the deal which was struck in the Bree-land. There is gossip, of course, which seems to be the common case with all Shire-hobbits even in their earliest years. But archeological exploration of the area surrounding Bree-hill, changed and redeveloped over the long centuries as that land has been, provides us with no written histories as the Shire sites do. Whatever settlement and agreement was reached is commented on by later sources, but there is no one to tell us what was said between the two brothers on the occasion of their father’s death.

   Peace was made, of this we are certain, and the threat of war was lifted. Some restitution to all injured parties was promised and, of course, detailed in later Shire documents. But we have no record of how the deal was struck. The best indication we have of Twoody’s mind in this regard comes from a letter written to Alaura seven years later:

   “The land has been granted to all of us hobbits by the king and so he [Childy] has an undeniable right to have joined us here. And surely he has in the past used his resources to support our endeavour and help us all develop the promise of the land faster. He was full of guile from the first, which I did not see then but now very much believe, and through that guile he offered opportunities for others to build homes which he might later steal for himself. I don’t forgive his duplicity, but I also don’t doubt his honest claim to payment on honest debts.

   “By incorporating the Shire we, as a community, took on those debts and became forced to make restitution under threat of war. War of all things! The very idea of hobbits going to war with one another, brother against brother, is the most calamitous notion I have ever heard of and it shames me terribly that it comes from my own brother’s hand. I know, Alaura, that you do not forgive him for his usury, and I understand that. I am forced, through my understanding of his nature, to see his actions as control of a keen business opportunity by a person who chose, long ago, to be a competitor. He offered an honest price but always, always, attached a greater settlement on the default of his neighbours. As if he planned for it to happen.

   “I can forgive him for his ruthless acumen, but I cannot forgive him for his threat to all of our neighbours..

“I will not see him again and I will not let him meet any of our children. Let Horris or Matfrid or someone else from the Council meet with him and remind him to keep far away from our door. He has a place in our land, which I have staked out myself and held for his taking, but he is not welcome in our house. I should not enjoy telling him this myself. I’m glad that Berty has already forgotten him and we should do whatever we can to avoid them meeting again. Childy and his people have the right to their share of the Shire and its opportunities, but he is no longer a part of our family.”

   In the early morning on the day after Hincmar’s funeral, before most of the family was awake, we are told that Twoody and Childy met at the stables. While she did not witness this meeting, Alaura wrote about it many years later in a letter to her son Berty.

   “I am saddened by some of your choices, my darling, but I am happy that you remain so dedicated to our dear Twoody. His life has been filled by such terrible partings and always, in each moment of his abandonment, he has been made to feel shortchanged by fate. To myself and to all of his friends Twoody has given the greatest possible happiness. If anyone might have saved me from my fate it would have been him and, while we are now parted, I carry with me the certainty of his goodness and his affection. I know that I should never have lasted this long against my own darkness without his love and his kindness.

   “When your father disappeared it was Twoody who brought me the news. I remember the depth of his loss and his grief then and it hurts me to recall that I once believed mine was the greater. And I remember too the time he said to me ‘when you consider things like the stars, Alaura, our affairs don’t seem to matter much, do they?’ He had let your father go in a way which I yet could not, feeling that the call of your father's fate was greater than Twoody’s own.

   “Such a quiet and comfortable sense of one’s self and such a great care for others is rare in any person.

   “I remember too the day in which he parted company with your uncle Childy. He was deeply hurt by the things which had transpired in the Shire. His brother, despite all his offenses, had been a great inspiration to him in younger years. I did not see them part, but he came back to our room at your grandfather’s house in the Bree-land that morning and I have never forgotten what he said to me; ‘Growing up, I’m sad to say, is mostly a story of losing some of our youthful illusions in order to make room for new dissatisfactions.’ ²⁶

   “Twoody has been hurt by so many people, my dear one. You may think of me as the greatest of these, Berty, but I am only the last in a line. I am glad that he has you even though it means that I do not.

   “Remember that, my dearest. For it proves that I am not so selfish a person as others might paint me.”

   Twoody and Alaura and Berty returned to the Shire on the Twenty-eighth day of AfterYule and went directly to the Council to discuss the terms of settlement which Twoody had made while in the Bree-land. He had no direct power to negotiate this settlement of course, and made this clear to all in the Council. But the members all understood the rare opportunity which they had been given and so, once again, a deal was made between the hobbits of the Shire and Childebrand Swiftook. A second Shiremoot was called for the Thirtieth day of AfterYule where the Council could present the proposed agreement to all of the Shirefolk. These details, once voted upon, were then written down in THE SHIRE-RECKONING two days later. While no original document or bull has been found (for the Shire Council was not yet in the habit of writing these important things down), numerous copies have been found in the remaining books and memoirs of some of the original families, for it is written in the formal-sounding manner which all hobbits feel is appropriate for any official document:

   “AS the SHIREFOLK have FORMED THIS COUNCIL to SET THE COURSE of our RESPONSE to the CLAIMS OF DEBT and THREATS OF RETRIBUTION by THE LANDLORD, CHILDEBRAND SWIFTOOK, CERTAIN CONCLUSIONS ARE MADE and are herein RATIFIED BY ALL.

   “FIRSTLY, it is DETERMINED AND ESTABLISHED by this COUNCIL that ALL THE LAND of THE SHIRE was GRANTED TO HOBBITS by THE KING’S OWN JUDGEMENT.

   “SECONDLY, it is also DETERMINED AND ESTABLISHED by this COUNCIL that ALL HOBBITS HAVE A RIGHTFUL HOME in this LAND in ACCORDANCE WITH THE KING’S AGREEMENT.

   “THIRDLY, the DEBT of ALL SHIREFOLK to the LANDLORD, CHILDEBRAND SWIFTOOK, has been ESTIMATED, COLLATED and QUALIFIED by an AGREEMENT of the LANDLORD and OUR CHIEF ASSAYER, THEUDEBALD SWIFTALK. This COUNCIL has AGREED that ALL FORMER DEBT by ALL SHIRE CITIZENS to the LANDLORD are INCLUDED in our PLAN FOR SETTLEMENT.

   “FURTHERMORE, it is DETERMINED AND ESTABLISHED by this COUNCIL that NO HOBBIT may BE ORDERED or BANISHED from THIS LAND by ANY OTHER JUDGEMENT than THE KING’S OWN.

   “LIKEWISE it is DETERMINED AND ESTABLISHED by this COUNCIL that THE KING’S AGREEMENT SPECIFICALLY AND DIRECTLY ALLOWS a RIGHTFUL HOME in this LAND ONLY FOR HOBBITS and that NO OTHER FOLK should be ALLOWED TO SETTLE here without WRITTEN CONSENT OF THE KING.

   “FURTHERMORE it is DETERMINED AND ESTABLISHED by this COUNCIL that THE LANDLORD’S SUPPORT of the SETTLEMENT of this LAND is CONSIDERED to have been RENDERED AT A FAIR COST to all HOBBITS and therefore INSTRUMENTAL in OUR DEVELOPMENT. HOWEVER, the COUNCIL DETERMINES that the LIENS and SEIZURES of PROPERTY THROUGH DEBT should be CONSIDERED UNFAIR to any FAIR-MINDED PEOPLE and NOT IN ACCORDANCE with JUDGEMENT of THE KING’S OWN.

   “THEREFORE it is DETERMINED AND ESTABLISHED by this COUNCIL and ALL FREE-PEOPLE OF THE SHIRE that NO LANDLORD MAY EVER TAKE AWAY through THREAT AND USURY that which THE KING HAS GIVEN.

   “YET it is ALSO DETERMINED AND ESTABLISHED by this COUNCIL that THE DEBT STILL MUST BE PAID. A DEBT which was FAIRLY INCURRED must be FAIRLY RESOLVED.

   “WHEREAS THE LANDLORD has the SAME UNDENIABLY RIGHTFUL CLAIM to A HOME within THE SHIRE as ALL HOBBITS have by THE KING’S AGREEMENT this COUNCIL has DETERMINED AND ESTABLISHED CERTAIN CONDITIONS of REPAYMENT.

   “MANY UNDEEDED and UNDEVELOPED LANDS exist still in the SOUTH-FARTHING and in the LOWER WEST-FARTHING of THE SHIRE. It has BEEN PROPOSED that a LARGE PORTION OF LAND there SHOULD BE GRANTED TO THE LANDLORD, CHILDEBRAND SWIFTOOK, as RECOMPENSE for ALL PAST DEBTS. He SET HIS VALUES in UNDEVELOPED LANDS and WILL BE PAID FAIRLY AND IN KIND. THE LANDLORD is FREE to SETTLE and DEVELOP THIS LAND in whatever way HE WISHES, but it is ESTABLISHED that OWNERSHIP of this land shall be, as with ALL THE SHIRE, ONLY GRANTED TO HOBBITS in ACCORDANCE with THE KING’S JUDGEMENT. No OTHER FOLK may LIVE or RESIDE THERE.

   “FURTHERMORE THE LANDLORD, CHILDEBRAND SWIFTOOK, and HIS FAMILY may DO AS THEY WISH in their OWN LANDS, but will be ALLOWED NO ACCESS to MARKETPLACES in other parts of THE SHIRE until such a time that THE COUNCIL DEEMS THEM WORTHY.

   “We WILL GRANT THE LANDLORD HIS DUE as HONEST and RESPECTABLE PEOPLE. But we will NOT ALLOW HIS FURTHER CORRUPTION of the GROWTH OF THE SHIRE.”

   And so, on the Thirtieth day of AfterYule, in the Fifteenth Year of the Shire, this proposal was agreed upon and set into motion. With it came the fundamental points of a new and localised government: that the Shire was undisputedly a land ruled by the king up in Fornost and that its people would recognize the King’s Authority and the King’s Judgment; that the king had given stewardship of this land to hobbits and granted them a home there, but only the King’s authority could remove them from that home; that the land was intended for Hobbits only; and, lastly, that all hobbits were, despite past offense, free to live in the land unless the King’s Judgment should deem otherwise.

   Of great interest to historians is the subtle use of the word “grant”, both as verb and noun, in this document. THE SHIRE-RECKONING, like all the writing from this time in this part of the world, was in a curious blend of the Common Language of Westron with occasional elements of the much older Hobbitish spoken language from their forgotten past. The word chosen here was “creant” from the older language.²⁷ It has the specific meaning of “promise, guarantee, confirm and authorise” and identifies the land as remaining the property of the King and that the Hobbits do not themselves own it.

   This is, of all documents found and translated, the most direct example we have of any localised government, small or large, in the Third Age of the world. If the Númenórean’s, in their own ancient kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor, voted on, ratified and recorded such precise legal decrees then those have been lost to time. We cannot say with certainty if the kings of Arnor themselves knew of this document or how the Shirefolk had interpreted the rules and laws of their community as both separate but part of the King’s Authority. But nearly fifteen hundred years later King Elessar, standing before the Stonebows bridge, quoted much of this document as he declared the Shire a Free Land under his protection and turned the Hobbitish word for “grant” into another Hobbitish word; “ghifte”.²⁸

xi) On the Ordering of the Shire and the New Wave of Expansion

   And so, by decree of the newly elected Council of Families aided by the timely intervention of their Chief Assayer, the debt of all the Shirefolk was relieved and the threat of war was quickly resolved. A great feast day was called for and all the hobbits of the land, now temporarily freed from their worries, very happily took the time to celebrate their good fortune. Within a few days, and after many celebratory toasts had been made in praise of their wisdom, the twenty-seven members of the Council were released from service, and an agreement was made that they would reconvene twice a year to settle any other important matters which may arise. In announcing this decree it was clear from the tone of Chief Organizer and Council Chairman Rangfred Bolger’s voice that he did not expect any such matters to in fact ever again arise and such future meetings would only be an excellent excuse for a holiday.

   It was also unanimously ‘determined and established’ that Horris Bunce, “the Firebrand”, should remain in the position and hold the duties of Chief Constable and, furthermore, that he should retain one score of good hobbits as Reeves to travel throughout the land keeping on eye on the borders and keeping the general peace. A salary was to be provided to Horris and his lads for their important service and the Council, very happy to have accomplished so much in their very short term of meetings, would decide upon how payment would be made at their next convenience.

   And that, of course, would create more problems; for in their enjoyment of successfully abating a terrible threat, the Council had also determined and established the idea of public works without a notion for how those services would be paid for.

   Childebrand Swiftook, as he was now called, became owner of a great part of the Shire by this new decree. Indeed, more land was to be registered in the Swiftook name than ever before in the Shire’s history. The deed for this settlement was to be written in absentia; for the former “Landlord” had departed the area and his whereabouts remained unknown. There were a few Shire-hobbits who thought his return was doubtful, but they agreed with the decision of the Council nonetheless and wished to see the matter resolved into a good and clear document for all the parties to understand. Preferably one with a keen and important-sounding verbiage and many detailed maps. So it was decided that Twoody and his brother-in-law Clooty, both trustworthy and skilled at such matters, should take it upon themselves to establish a fair portion of lands to the south for the settlement.

   The hobbits of the Shire had not yet settled on the division of fields by acres as we now use. Units of length were known still by stride, or ranga, and the average Númenórean stride, the official measure at that time in the northlands, was roughly just a bit longer than the height of most hobbits. A mile, by our current standards, would consist of about sixteen hundred and fifty ranga. Working backwards using the distances and landmarks mentioned in this deed, we have a fair idea of the amount of land set forth in the settlement. Later histories also tell us that the land allocated for Childebrand Swiftook in Year Fifteen became developed into later and well-known towns; from Whitwell to Sackville and Pincup to Hardbottle according to maps of Bilbo’s day. If we measure the allotment using these later (and much more accurate) Shire maps we can see that this area covered about fifty square miles by our modern standards or, more precisely, about 32,000 acres. The Shire itself, while still largely underdeveloped, was considered to be just under 12 million acres in size.

   Twelve million acres is quite a lot of land for a people to settle in just fifteen years. There may have been as many as twenty-five thousand hobbits living in the Shire at this time but it should be remembered that they were historically a cautious and communal folk from their wandering history and tended to cluster in large family units with only a very few of the more intrepid amongst them (who were largely late-comers) traveling past the Farthing-stone and into the undiscovered countrysides. It may very well be said that the reason the Council so willingly gave up such a vast amount of land was because they honestly believed that they would never miss it. Whether or not Childebrand Swiftook ever dared to set his toes in the Shire again was a matter of some debate. But to give him empty lands which few hobbits had yet entered seemed a very good way to get rid of a rather vexing problem.

   The allotment, or “the Tookland” as it would be called, began south of the Buckland and the Green Hill County and ran southeast to the hills which border the Marish and also northwest to the edge of the White Downs. It carried away south to the still-undiscovered end of the Shire; a wide and fertile land with many open and flowering fields of low grasses, small hills, the scattered but strong growth of old shadetrees, and strong running streams. It was a beautiful land at the time it was given away and the only reason it had remained unsettled in Year Fifteen was simply that few people had chosen to try it. With the very few exceptions of Stock, Budgeford and the Buckland, all founded by the explorations of Gondo Oldbuck, most of the Shire-hobbits had settled along the Great Road going west rather than striking out on their own towards the south or the north.

   This land in the south had one other feature to it worth mentioning, and whether this was a factor in other Shirefolk choosing not to settle there (or in Childy’s acceptance of it) no one can say; for through this land and old roadway passed, running northwest from the southern ford to the distant western edges of the Shire.

   When Gondo Oldbuck discovered the ford in Year Two he saw the very head of this ancient road breaking off to the northwest but never had the opportunity to explore it. Twoody and Clooty found it again on their own expedition not far south of the Green Hills and followed it northwest toward the White Downs. They believed for a time, just as Gondo did, that this was the southern border of the Shire. But had they followed it south and back to the ford they would have found that the road split and another even older road was in fact their southern border.

   In this way Childebrand Took was given more of the country than was truly expected, for the deed said “THOSE LANDS SOUTH to THAT OLD ROAD at OUR SOUTHERN BORDER”. The finding of the further branch of the road meant that the Swiftooks, and the Shire itself, were greatly enriched. But that would not happen for another decade or so and is not recounted in this tale.

   After the reconnaissance was made Twoody himself wrote up the document for allocating these lands to Childebrand Swiftook. Clooty drew up maps for the document and copies were made by Alaura and her fellow scribes to be retained at numerous important public houses and offices in the Shire. It was the intention of the Council and all Shire-hobbits that this land should remain empty until Childy, or his family, should come to claim it.

   Many suspected that he would not come. How one family might settle that much land was one question of course, but whether “the Landlord” would dare to show his face again in the Shire was quite another. A settlement had been reached with him by the new government of the Shire, but it didn’t resolve the hatred and contempt which many hobbits felt towards their former business partner. It would be a brave thing indeed for Childebrand Swiftook to show his face in the Shire again and there were many who doubted that he ever would.

   They were, once again, only half-right.

   The Tookland lay unclaimed throughout the remainder of Year Fifteen. Twoody and Clooty’s mapping of the land had taken some months and, of course, the language and of the deed had to be ratified by the Council at their LetheDay assembly. Very soon after that a Letter of Agreement along with copies of the allotment and maps of its area were sent east to the Bree-land and the Inn of the Four Greenfields in the name of Childebrand Swiftook. These were signed for and kept at the inn by other members of Twoody’s own family. Autumn harvests came and passed, but no response came from Childy.

   The Council met again just after Lethe in Year Sixteen and decided that if “the Landlord” had no further response then they had no new resolutions to make. A quick adjournment was almost made, but the question was asked about payment to the Chief Constable and his Reeves (for it had been eighteen months now that they had dutifully served). Once again, this topic was tabled for a later meeting, but it was agreed by all that these offices were very useful and should remain in place.

   Yule came and went and then the observance of the second anniversary of the First Shiremoot, the Fifteenth day AfterYule, drew the Council together once again. As “the Landlord” had still not bothered to take up his claim, much attention of the meeting was spent on how long he should be able to hold his rights to the given lands. No resolutions were passed on this subject as very few of the Council families had any concern about “those empty lands to their south.”

   What was resolved at this meeting was a more subtle but equally important thing. No one among the Shirefolk had anything bad to say about the services of Chief Constable Bunce and his twenty assistances. They travelled throughout the land to all of the settlements and did their best to aid the community in many of the ways that Gondo the Oldbuck had done. The issue of outside invasion seemed to have passed, but the undeniable usefulness of these thoughtful hobbits as arbiters, advisors and official messengers appealed to all of the community. The issue seemed to be how the folk of the Shire should pay them for these services.

   Twoody, still serving in the role of Chief Assayer, was called upon to offer a suggestion.

   “It seems that there is an UNDENIABLE NEED for OFFICERS of the PUBLIC GOOD,” he said in a speech later recorded in the SHIRE-RECKONING. “They SERVE A ROLE of PUBLIC USEFULNESS which TAKES THEM from THEIR OWN HOME AND FAMILY and makes them into STEWARDS, DEFENDERS, ADVISORS AND HELPERS which ENABLE the SUCCESS OF OUR COMMUNITY as a whole. But HOW SHOULD THEY BE PAID for THIS SERVICE? The PRACTICAL SOLUTION is simple; IF THEY ARE TO TRULY SERVE THE BENEFIT OF US ALL then THEY MUST BE PAID A FAIR WAGE BY US ALL. Some form of PUBLIC COLLECTION and DISBURSEMENT MUST be FOUND.

   “For it is the LEGITIMATE OBJECT of ANY COMMUNITY is TO DO FOR THE PEOPLE what NEEDS TO BE DONE, but WHICH THEY CANNOT, by INDIVIDUAL EFFORT, DO AT ALL, or DO SO WELL, for THEMSELVES.” ²⁹

   It may sound strange to all of us today, but hobbits of this time had never really had to consider the idea of taxes before. For generations unrecorded they had existed as large multi-family units, nomadic in nature and having little need for public works. In the Shire’s early days when a road was to be built or a well needed digging hobbits showed up and did their part of the labour. When bricks and lumber needed purchasing for such public works collections were taken up or the wealthiest of neighbours put forth what they could. In recent times some of the hobbits had learned the ways of Men, living amongst them in the north as many had done in the Bree-land and other places to the south and to the east, and Men had different ways of providing for the public good. But these were never large organized communities of the Big Folk and if the vague notion of taxes had ever come to them from the great cities they were seldom embraced or looked on with favour by the locals. A tax on businesses or individuals was by no means a new idea in the history of Middle-earth at this time, but it is an idea which was certainly new to hobbits.

   "WHEN a PEOPLE are TOLD THAT THEY MUST PAY FOR THE PUBLIC SERVICES of A COMMUNITY,” Alaura wrote in a later rebuttal, “are THEY TRULY the DECIDING MEMBERS of THAT COMMUNITY or have they, QUITE WITHOUT MEANING TO, BECOME THE COMMUNITY’S CUSTOMERS? If PAYMENT is to be the COST of having a BETTER COMMUNITY, have we not then BUILT FOR OURSELVES A ROOMINGHOUSE rather than a HOME? TOGETHER we NEIGHBOURS have BUILT ROADS and BRIDGES and SCHOOLS and WELLS. MARKETS and STABLES, MILLS and GRANARIES, FENCEPOSTS to keep our VISITORS out and STREETSIGNS to WELCOME THEM IN. Will we one day say, ‘why, I HAVE PAID MY TAXES for these things and I AM OLD or I AM TIRED or I AM TOO BUSY and WHY DO MY TAXES NOT PAY SOMEONE ELSE TO DO THIS WORK?’ ‘INDEED,’ we might say, ‘WHY DOESN’T MY PAYMENT OF TAXES ENTITLE ME TO HAVE NICE THINGS WITHOUT THE NEED TO WORK FOR THEM?’

   “Shall we, AS TAXPAYERS then, slowly become UNRULY and DEMANDING CUSTOMERS at THE EXPENSE OF OUR COST and, eventually, EMBITTERED CHASTIZERS of NEW WORKS which might not MEET WITH OUR APPROVAL? Might THE MEMORY OF ALL WHICH WE HAVE DONE TOGETHER as A COMMUNITY FADE when, AS TAXPAYERS we do not feel WE ARE GETTING OUR WORTH?”

   Still the decision needed to be made as to paying for the services of the Constable and his cohort of public servants or suspending them until the next uprising or natural catastrophe should arise. It is important to remember that the deciding body, the First Council of the Shire, was made up of twenty-seven individuals representing the largest families in the new land. Many of these families had come with Oldbuck and the Pioneers in Year One and owned significant holdings of land or businesses within the Shire. This did not make them all wealthier than their neighbours per se, for the economy of the time was still very much one of local trade and barter and a quick-witted and newlycome entrepreneur had as great a chance of success as a stubborn first generation landowner. But, unlike the younger and newer settlers, the twenty-seven members and their families were largely hobbits of much greater means. As such they saw very good reasons for having reeves and constables to help protect their interests and could, despite Alaura’s argument, very well imagine the helpfulness of a fund for the development of more roads and bridges.

   So it was decided in the summer of Year Sixteen that Twoody, as Chief Assayer, should assign a system of taxes on all newly deeded lands which should “be FAIR to NEWCOMERS and PROVIDE for the COMMON GOOD.” He did just that, but he also created a small tariff on all shipping within the land; in this way even the original settlers and well-to-do business-hobbits would also contribute to public services. Things were indeed moving quite fast for the newly formed government of the Shire and, though he never spoke of the burden, Twoody was shouldering a lot of the work of the changes which were being made.

   Year Seventeen came and went without incident. No word had yet come from Childebrand regarding the settlement and some of the Shirefolk began to feel that it might never happen. Most were content with the current situation of taxes and therefore turned their eyes far from the south and towards the western and northern areas of the land. Two great settlements were established along the Road and in the area of the White Downs, “the Delvings” they were called for now and Clooty had been sent there to plan for a great western city of hobbits. Some miles north of the Downs the Bywater split and turned both north and south so that hobbits found good irrigation and well-forested areas for new construction. They were not yet at the western edge of the Shire, but in just seventeen years they had managed to create a string of small settlements that were better than thirty miles from the Farthing-stone. And still the hobbits grew in number.

   Twoody and Alaura had their last child together that year, Deidre, and even at birth she had a lock of lustrous black hair like her mother.

   Horris Bunce added ten new Reeves to the payroll, for the distance they needed to cover had become too great for his usual stalwart company. During the past year many of his deputies had become largely responsible for the collection of taxes rather than their former services as advisors and peacekeepers. Tax collection had become such an important part of the Shire’s growth that the only answer which the Council could find for covering more area was the hiring of more tax collectors.

   Horris finally moved his own Office of the Constabulary back to his home in the Buckland where it stayed for many long years just south of Sarehole and near to Assayers Office. Together he and Twoody had suggested that other public servants should also be added to the Shire’s payroll roster; teachers and cartographers (who were badly needed) and engineers and roadworkers (who were never enough in number) and postal carriers (who provided the most beloved of Shire services). Alaura, Postmistress herself, rather strongly objected to this idea, saying; “TO PAY a hobbit for THEIR OWN rather CIVIC RESPONSIBILITY of TEACHING OUR CHILDREN or the rather PERSONAL ENJOYMENT of SHARING NEWS WITH A NEIGHBOUR is a GREAT MISUNDERSTANDING of PLAIN HOBBIT VALUES. ANY TEACHER or NEWSCARRIER who would NEED TO BE PAID for SUCH an IMPORTANT PUBLIC SERVICE has indeed FORGOTTEN WHY SUCH VALUES are important amongst OUR OWN FOLK and I WOULD ALWAYS WONDER about their INSPIRATION for TAKING ON THE JOB.”

   Needless to say, no teachers nor postal carriers were, at this time, added into the Shire’s payroll. But budgets were set by Twoody and Horris and Clooty, acting on the Council’s behalf, for construction of public works and many young hobbits were paid fair wages for helping with tasks which the first settlers had formerly done for free.

  At the Council’s summer meeting, held on the First day of After-Lithe in Year Eighteen, Rangfred Bolger offered his resignation as Chairman. He was quick to say how honoured he was by the opportunity to do such fine work as they all had done together, but he was older than many of his peers and felt that the job of running a young nation was more burdensome than that of running his own bakery. No provision for such a thing as his retirement had yet been established, so it was agreed that the Council should discuss this matter and offer some ideas at their next meeting in AfterYule.

   And it seemed to many, in the Council and among the folk at large, that growth within the Shire went on quite well in all of Year Eighteen; that certain matters had been put to rest by their chosen officials, certain rules had become established by their most respected peers, and cordial agreements had been made regarding numerous unexpected problems. Taxes and tariffs were now being collected, but they were considered fair to all and clearly resulted in better public services. Indeed, most of the citizens felt that business within the Shire was buzzing along quite nicely and all the hobbits who wanted to build a home in the new land had a great opportunity to do so.

   When the Council met again in AfterYule of Year Nineteen they discovered they had very little to talk about. There were simply no new developments nor disputes and very little business for them to preside over. Matfrid Bolger was named to represent his family’s seat at this meeting and his uncle Rangfred was thanked for his three years of service and praised for his characteristically calm and even manner. Hubert Sandheaver, from another Great Family who had holdings in the South near Stock, was named to take his place as the new Council Chairman. As Chief Assayer, Twoody revealed to the Council the open records of his budget, the anticipated flow of income from taxes, and where it was earmarked to be spent. It might be said that the trust the Council had in Twoody far exceeded their attention to his voluminous documents. As Chief Constable, Horris suggested that some money should go to provision an exploration of the Shire’s further borders to the south and to the north. This met with less approval for it meant the hiring of additional sheriffs with the purpose of exploring new lands. Clooty, who had taken up the bulk of the work in the western settlements called “the Delvings” was named Chief Builder, and all the Council members were very happy to bestow upon him this new and unique honour. Many hobbits among the Council found the building of a bigger western community to be a potentially very profitable endeavour and voted for the necessary increase on taxes. Projections were made for the budget of the coming year and promptly agreed upon. The whole agenda of Council business took only four hours to complete (not counting, of course, the three breaks for meals and the inevitable banquet which followed).

   It was suggested that two Council meetings a year were not entirely necessary and that the Seventeenth Day of AfterYule, the anniversary of the first Shiremoot, should be chosen for an annual overview of any important matters. This continued from Year Nineteen on, and the citizenry turned the occasion into a feast day which all the Shirehobbits eagerly anticipated. In this way the civic duties of the Council’s decision-making had fallen into an annual celebration of their former decisions.

   And then, in the springtime of Year Twenty-one, the Swiftooks returned to the Shire.

end of interlude

Chapter End Notes

Notes

1)  It should be said here from the beginning that Tolkien leaves us with little to no history regarding the settlement of the Shire. The entire section here is fiction of my own and layered over the few things which we do have from his stories, notes and letters. But in many ways Tolkien’s Shire is a very realized depiction of good country living and seems to stand well outside of the events in the larger world; it is kind of stuck in some idealized agrarian culture of late 18th century England. I’ve tried to keep that model in mind as I’ve worked to create a history of settlements becoming towns.

2)  Little is known through Tolkien’s writing about Hobbits before they came to the Shire and I’m going to respect that as best I can. But the 2022 television show, The Rings of Power, while very much a mess that many Tolkien fans despise, does have an interesting take on Hobbits from the Second Age. I’ve drawn on it here a bit for how I depict hobbit families living before the Shire, but very... carefully. Why kick a simmering pot?

3)  The idea of “Free Post Office” is an echo of Benjamin Franklin and the notion of a Free Library which we ALL should agree is so important to a nation formed on liberty and cultural access.

4)  While I come about it sideways for my talk about bridges, some of this language is meant to echo the “friendship with the earth” comments found in the prologue of LoTR.

5)  This is an allusion to “The Long Expected Party” of course. Bilbo knows his history (and diction) better than any hobbit of his day and I’ve tried to expand on that little scene here.

6)  Going back through my edits to this later draft, I feel like a note belongs here. The Fallohides are a strain of Hobbits which seem to have Elf-like characteristics which may come from some exposure to the Eldar. I’m expanding on it here to suggest that they don’t have the same kind of family structure that other hobbits had; the Elves referred to them all as “periannath” which, in their own tongue, might have got turned to “Fallohide.”

7)  This description of the Fallohides comes directly from Tolkien Gateway. Some of you might remember that I made an early decision within this story to suggest that Marcho and Blanco (remember them?) were not Fallohides. This is why I made that change. I told you I would explain it all later, didn’t I?

8)  We’ve not yet gotten to the link between hobbits and the old horse lords of the North who became the Rohirrim. I’m suggesting that Maggot's ancestors came from that part of the world and brought the ponies of the Shire with them.

9)  “Cotton”, as a surname, has nothing to do with the plant but is indeed a softening of “catton”, a family name in in England from the Old Norse word “káti” meaning “boy” and the Old English word “tūn” meaning enclosure or settlement.

10)  I went a long way for this little joke. Farmer Maggot is the first “unusual" hobbit Sam meets and he doesn’t take to him very quickly. In my little fantasy the world of the Shire becomes just that much smaller as Sam marries into an indirect relative of Old Maggot’s.

11)  “The Subjugation by Sharkey” is, of course, the Shirefolks own limited perception of the great events in the War of the Ring. Sam and the others told their friends about their journeys, but it doesn’t seem like most of them either understood or believed the tales. But the events in the Shire itself were harrowing enough to stay in the long memory of any hobbit.

12)  We have a good number of references to money in the Tolkien Legendarium, but very few details on its value or its use in different parts of the world. We do know that the chief unit of currency in Gondor was called the “castar” which is called a “mirian” in Sindarin. There were smaller coins which were divisions of the castar called “tharni” or “canath”. Mirian may be derived from “mîr” which means jewel is Sindarin. But according to Tolkien the Hobbitish word “kast” and the Rohanese word “kastu” relate to the word “mathom”, a thing of value. I’ve decided to use “kast” here in the early days of the Shire, but what money may’ve been called by Bilbo’s time remains anyone’s guess.

13)  A “pledgebroker” is the root word for a pawnbroker and it seems particularly more hobbit-like.

14)  It seems that the origin of the word “bankruptcy” can be found in the act of breaking the bench or stall of a moneylender.

15)  Arrears has the obvious legal meaning of “backpayment” but I just liked the sexua lpun of “Took in arrears”.

16)  The famou sShire phrase “they have not heard of the King” is, in my writing, used fo rthe first time by my own little social justice champion Alaura Fairheart. These are the kind of moments which make writing fanfic so rewarding.

17)  The appendix for LoTR and Tolkien Gateway do indeed claim that the Battle of the Bywater is the second battle of the Shire’s history. I don’t want to ignore that, but I’m going to play with the edges of counterfactuality here just a bit. Please indulge me.

18)  The story goes that Bullroarer Took, brandishing a mighty club, knocked  the head of the Goblin king Golfumbil clean off his shoulders and into a nearby hole and thereby invented the game of golf. It seems clear to me that this was an anecdote Bilbo (or Tolkien) told for that whimsical invention and not likely a traumatic experience on par (pardon the pun) with the Scourging of the Shire.

19)  For those who may have read the first part of The Fall of Arnor it is my intention to suggest tha tthis captain may indeed be a Black Númenórean with some power of the Voice of Command.

20)  February 20th in our current reckoning.

21)  There is, of course, a little play here on Bilbo’s speech at the Birthday Party. As I spend more time on this project I enjoy the subtle in-joke that Bilbo, a very widely read hobbit, may in fact have been freely quoting things said by own characters.

22)  Uhhhmn, fans of Joyce’s ULYSSES might recognize that little Easter Egg of “a people all living together in the same place.” I couldn’t resist it.

23)  ”Reeve” is an Old English predecessor of “sheriff” and just another way of following theTolkien word-nerdery. A “sheriff”, in its original sense, is a person who has local governmental control particularly in the collection of taxes. But it is believed that this word, “sheriff”, comes from the older meaning of “reeve”; to pull or to yank.

24)  This is another of those Tolkien-teases; as I write this I have no clear idea who Hincmar would be meeting with. But as this story links itself to The Fall of Arnor, in which Bree, and this very inn, is a place of some importance, I’d like to suggest that a relationship which I’m developing there goes further back.

25)  As mentioned in previous notes I have set the fictional date for the discovery of these lost and fictional texts for my stories in the year of my birth, 1961, referring to it blandly as “our present age.” Since most of the likewise fictional history of Tolkien’s “discovered” material was allegedly excavated from the Undertowers and then translated, I have decided to place that discovery in the year of his own birth, 1892.

26)  Much of the text in this letter comes from Virginia Woolf. I knew, over a year ago, when I was first creating Alaura, that Woolf would be part of the model. Alaura does not have the same political leanings of course, but her thoughts on Twoody are meant to echo Virginia’s thoughts on her husband Leonard.

27)  “Creant” or “creanter” come from the Old Anglo-French which seems appropriate to Hobbits.

28)  Google tells me that this is the Middle Dutch word for “gift” and, to my eyes, it looks a lot better than some of the other possibilities I might have chosen. Tolkien never gave us any history to the hobbits prior to the Shire, but his linguistic choices for names and the few surviving Hobbit words suggest the language had many origins.

29)  This bit towards the end comes from Abraham Lincoln. That seems right for poor old Twoody.

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   Berty, or Theudebert Youngbuck as he was called at the time, had a great respect and an equally great contempt for the subtle art of accounting. He believed strongly, as his uncle had impressed upon him, that a clear and reliable balance sheet might be the key to a comfortable future. But as he sat at the ledger books and tried to make sense of their long pages of names and numbers, his mind invariably became clouded by abstractions and distracted by ideas of escape.

   ‘I don’t know how to explain it, uncle,’ he offered as an apology. ‘I feel that I may just have no head for such matters. I come to the office each morning with a clear notion of what’s expected and what needs to be done. The course of the day is as clear as the grain on the surface of a block of pine and I know, walking into these offices, how I might whittle away at it. But then you put these ledgers in front of me and a knothole appears which I can’t seem to scrape, carve nor sand my way around.’

   ‘Hah!’ Twoody laughed at his nephew’s response. ‘You’ve your mother’s gift for metaphor even if you’ve learned very little from me of accounting. But let’s go a bit further with the metaphor, shall we?

   ‘You, Berty my boy, are no blockhead,’ Twoody continued. ‘I should say that you, for better and for worse, have a mind like a lumber-room. It's filled with many marvellous things; lengths and scraps and shorts, wide planks and jagged cuts of refuse from older jobs that are now forgotten. Some of these things you are quick to make of use when recognizing a job which is called for, for you are a person who knows how to use the materials at hand to meet fresh problems. But when you don’t wish to do a job, or find that job too boring to hold your attention, well, then you are very much the person who enjoys sitting in that great lumber-room of yours and discovering all of the other things you might make rather than solving the problem you were set to.’¹

   Berty looked down to the ledger books and then earnestly back into his uncle’s eyes with a slight, challenging smile on his face. ‘Well, yes I suppose so, uncle,’ he said. ‘But tell me; does this lesson in metaphor mean you think I’d make a better carpenter than a banker?’

   ‘You should be so lucky!’ Twoody responded with another laugh. ‘Your uncle Clooty can’t take you west and away from us that easily!’

   This conversation was happening on a bright summer day in the Twenty-ninth Year of the Shire-reckoning in the three-room offices of the Assayer of Titles and Deeds in Buckland, just nextdoor to the Buckland Postal Offices. These two buildings adjoined one another and Berty (Youngbuck to his friends) had spent all of his young life running between one office to the next. His mother, who held many titles since the founding of the Shire, had comfortably settled into one which she felt was the most important; Post-Master General (though there were some hobbit-folk who couldn’t quite wrap their heads around the gender declination and preferred to call her “General Mistress”). From her offices nextdoor Berty’s mother set the paths of volunteer mail-carriers throughout the Shire and continued to distribute THE SHIRE-RECKONING, her hand-copied broadsheet of all of the important news of the land. The offices of the Assayers of Titles and Deeds, uncle Twoody’s establishment in the adjoining building, was the most important stop for all hobbits wishing to move to the Shire and register their holding of lands. It was only recently that Buckland had become a central location for conducting these two very important governmental affairs, but the need had developed quickly as hobbits moved further into the west.

   Berty’s uncle Theudebald Swiftalk, as he was known then to his friends, was a “townfather” and had been an ambassador to the King. He was one of the most illustrious figures in the birth of the Shire and a major policy-maker during the land's early growth. During all of his young life Berty knew his uncle Twoody to be one of the most respected and talked about hobbits of his time. Berty had other respected uncles of course; for “the discoverers” of the Shire, Marcho and Blanco were his mother’s older brothers. But Berty had met them only once and never heard anyone in their family say much of anything about their further story. They lived far away in the Bree-land and, it seemed to Berty, they had no interest in coming into the land which they were famed for discovering and for little else beyond that. One of Berty’s other uncles (the very same carpenter which he and Twoody were referring to in their talking), one Clothair Pudifoot by name, was also quite famous and the youngest brother of Berty’s mother. “Cloot the Builder” people now called him and he travelled far outside the Buckland helping new settlers to build homes and farms in the western lands. He had been a good friend to Berty’s father in the early days and many Shirefolk had come to seek his advice in the establishment of towns and wells and farms. Uncle Clooty had helped to raise Berty as an infant and there was a great love between them; it was he who first called Berty ‘Youngbuck’ and it had certainly been a name which stuck to the boy well before he knew of its origins.

   For Berty was told from a very young age that, beyond the notoriety of his mother and his uncles, he was also the only son of that other famous “townfather”, the illustrious Gondolpho Boldbuck, now called “the Oldbuck”, who had gone lost among the Elves while exploring the western regions of this land.

   There was a drawing of his father in an oval frame above the mantle in their home at Sarehole. Berty, who had quite a keen hand for drawing and a careful eye for looking, had studied the picture all his life. It was, curiously enough, a self-portrait of Gondo made on a summer night some time before Berty’s birth; a dark face in black charcoal silhouette, eyes and features barely indicated, while behind him there was a bright night sky which showed a careful attention to the placement of stars, of luminous white chalk on the cool grey of the paper. There were nights when Berty himself would climb to the top of his parents’ home and look for the same arrangement of stars above his head. He would hold a mirror in his lap and try to imitate the mysterious look of the hobbit in that portrait; but he never felt that he quite got it right.

   ‘He drew that the night before we departed west,’ Berty’s uncle Twoody had once told him. ‘Oh, I am glad to have taken it from him before he just let it go to waste like so many other of his drawings. It captures him very well, Berty,’ Twoody had told his nephew, ‘though more in mood than in likeness. He cared very little about likeness, his own or of other things he drew, and cared much more about placement and moment. He achieved likeness as easily as he did most things; and if your father could achieve a thing easily he cared about it less. That’s why this portrait is so dear to your mother and I; one can see through it that he cared much more about the stars than his own self. Ah, I bless him and miss him, my boy, but his disregard for his own skill at hand was but a condition of his wanderlust, and that has cost our family much.’

   Gondolpho Oldbuck, once called Bucklestrap and later Boldbuck, had been the first great pioneer of the Shire. Together with his lifelong friend Twoody he had been first ambassador to the King. Those two friends, bravely exploring the farthest reaches of their land, had in the year of Berty’s birth, met the Elves on the western borders. Stories and gossip in Berty’s own time regarding his father were sometimes different from those things he heard from uncle Twoody and his own mother, but the general agreement was that Gondo had been beguiled, enchanted or somehow tricked by the Elves and had disappeared forever. Berty’s mother seldom spoke of him, but Twoody, and all the other folk of Buckland, always did so with great respect. Berty never pursued these stories much; for to be compared to his father was a condition Berty avoided whenever he might.

   ‘But I am just so much better with a chalk and ruler in my hand than I am with a counting-device, uncle,’ Berty said, staring across the desk filled with graphs and bills of sale. ‘And I can draw a map much better than I can write a contract.’

   ‘Yes, you certainly can, my boy,’ Twoody replied gently. ‘But for now, and for this summer at the very least, you are apprenticed here and will learn what I can teach you. But at your next birthday, not so long away! you will be twenty-six and fully of age. You can make decisions about your own future then, though I dare say your mother might have something to add when the time comes.

   ‘Now,’ the older hobbit said, looking at an hourglass beside his desk, ‘back to work! I can tell you from personal experience that complaining about ledgers will not make them go away!’

    Berty returned to his arduous task and said little else for the rest of the afternoon. With great effort he managed to balance the accounts of twelve deed-holders and estimate the tax revenues against the cost of the new road west through Buckland and out toward the Delvings. Thankfully there were no visits to the Assayers Office that afternoon, it being on the cusp of a holiday. With no distractions to take Berty’s young mind off of the boring work of sums and charges he was able to present his uncle with the reports in a fairly short time.

   ‘Well done, my boy!’ Twoody said with his usual warm smile. He looked once again to his hourglass with grave seriousness.‘Well,’ Twoody said quietly, ‘ I think you’ve earned yourself a little free time for the end of the day and before tonight’s gathering. Now, best go out the sidedoor so that your mother won’t see you and press you into her service. Off you go!’

   And Berty, wisely taking his uncle’s advice, was out the door at a run.

*****

   For this particular summer day was June 20th, “Lithe”² it is called in the Shire calendar, first of the Summerdays, and a time for communal feasting. Some of Berty’s friends, old enough to be out of school like himself yet still too young to spend their off hours in public-houses, would be heading to the large family dinners and entertainments going on in the town square of Buckland and elsewhere throughout the Shire. The Summerdays were the main cultural holiday in every town and settlement and, in typical hobbit fashion, there would be feasting and drinking and singing and dancing from sunset tonight until morning two days hence. All the Shire-hobbits of all ages would join in the celebration and it was generally considered to be the most anticipated and enjoyable of Shire traditions.

   On other such occasions, Highdays and Yule and Birthdays and Namings, Berty’s mother and his uncle Twoody would play a position of great honour at most public festivities. They were “the townfathers” after all, and such duties were expected of them. Uncle Twoody would be called upon for speeches, Berty’s mother to give blessings and wishes for new babies and the whole family would often be called upon to travel to some of the more faraway places of the Shire. These were favourite memories of Berty’s youth; for at those times he got to see more of the world around him and learn of his family’s importance in the land’s history. It made him proud of his parents and of his lost father, and, less comfortably, it placed upon him an understanding of the role he was expected to play in the Shire’s future. Through the actions of his mother and his uncle, as well as the reputation of his lost and unknown father, Berty had become prominently engaged in the workings of the Shire even from his earliest years.

   But on the Summerdays Berty's family, quite contrary to the behaviour of all their neighbours, stayed home and did not take part in public celebrations. They feasted well on these days to be sure and, like all the Shirefolk, they did not go to work or see to other responsibilities. Yet their feasts did not celebrate the changing year or welcome the new one with the same joy as other hobbit feasting did. For it was on a LitheDay, twenty-six years before, that Berty’s father went forth with the Elves and so it was generally accepted as a day of loss within Berty’s household. In remembrance of this loss Berty’s mother would accept visits during the Summerdays only from family members and immediate friends. These were not public parties (though there were doubtlessly many neighbours who, for political reasons, wished to attend) but very private occasions. No invites were ever made, for inviting friends to grieve would be a very un-hobbitlike notion indeed. But each year, and with an increasing number, many hobbits from Buckland forsook their own Summerday feasts and showed up at the Sarehole to offer their respects to Berty and his mother. And while there was a great solemnity to the matter of who would attend, this was by no means a dour gathering. Guests drank and talked and ate for all three days as they told their stories of older times. It was, in that respect, very much like the parties which the celebrants in the town held in their welcoming of the new year. It was never, not since the earliest moments of Berty’s memory, a time solely of grief. It was neither a somber nor lamenting occasion but, unlike the other public feasts of Summerdays in the Shire, the “Buck’s Days” up at Sarehole were clearly meant as a time of remembrance rather than celebration. Stories were told of the early days of the Shire and the role of Berty’s father within it. Those stories were often comical, recounting a pioneering hobbit who settled the land like a lone pilgrim and then led others here like a proud chieftain, yet they were told with the genuine humour and sadness of people who missed “the Old Buck” greatly. There was no weeping for loss (except perhaps in the earliest days of Berty’s memory), but the tears, which remained plentiful, were accompanied by the smiles and the joy of fond memories. ‘Not all tears come from bad things,’³ his uncle Twoody was fond of saying and it seemed that he said it every night standing before the big dinnertables set up in their yards during the Summerdays.

   More and more in recent years some of the older generations of Shirefolk had begun showing up at Sarehole in honour of the Old Buck. There had been as many as sixty guests last year from the surrounding area and even from as far away as the Bree-land. They were never invited, not one of them for all the reasons of solemnity already mentioned; but likewise no guest which Berty’s father had known in his life was ever turned away. And, as they were all hobbits with well-developed and old-fashioned habits of propriety they seldom showed up empty-handed and were, of course, ever-willing to pitch in and make the occasion more comestible. But Berty’s mother and his uncle Twoody were famously excellent hosts who had a reputation to provide a very good table and so, this being the twenty-sixth anniversary of the Oldbuck’s disappearance, the family spent many months of the springtime anticipating the needs of their yet undetermined number of guests. In these past three months Berty’s young (and admittedly inexpert) hands had been put to the job of building tents and pavilions, tables and chairs, hammocks and holes for the many of the forthcoming uninvited-but-likely-to-attend guests which his family foresaw. Taking his uncle Twoody’s advice and running out the sidedoor on this June day meant that Berty kept himself from potentially being roped into some last minute tasks which his mother might need done or something new she might have in mind; but it also served Berty’s more secret purposes.

   As a tradition of old, Berty and all his siblings would be expected to put candles in all the windows of Sarehole in hopes that the Old Buck might find his way home. As the home itself grew, so did the task. Berty could remember doing this alone with his mother and his uncle since he had first learned to walk. He had later learned to make a game of it with his younger siblings. But it was not a custom he looked forward to repeating this year on this auspicious anniversary. Berty knew, just as his uncle Twoody most probably did in suggesting the sidedoor, that he would be late coming home for dinner tonight. Indeed, Berty knew, as his uncle could not, that he did not mean to come home at all.

   Running out of the Assayers Office (and looking about to make sure he hadn’t been spotted by his mother or anyone else who might question where he was going) he darted between the buildings toward the West-farthings road and, quickly as possible, out of the village of Buckland. Berty and his friends had their own secret plans for the Summerdays and he would not be caught nor distracted by other responsibilities.

   He would not be home for dinner, would not light the candles for his father’s return and, more horrifying indeed, through his actions tonight he would court his mother’s lasting disapproval.

   But on these Summerdays just before his coming of age, Theudebert Youngbuck, with approval or no, would be going into the west and, he hoped, eventually leaving the Shire.

end of chapter one

Chapter End Notes

Notes

1)  This expression comes from FoTR of course, in a letter to Frodo in which Gandalf describes Butterbur; “his memory is like a lumber-room: things wanted always buried.” I’ve always loved that, but wanted Twoody to use it differently here to describe his nephew's artistic nature (and, in many respects, my own).

2)  “Lithe” is derived from the Old English word líða, which was the name of the months for June and sometime July. It seems to have referred to the first new moon around the summer solstice. In the Shire calendar this time is more accurately accounted for than it was in the Bree-land calendar. Lithe is the first of “the Summerdays” consisting of three to four days (with the condition of a Leap year) and is celebrated with a long feast.

3)  This is an extension of Gandalf’s comment near the end of RotK when he says “I will not say do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.” I have always loved this quote and tried to remember it in every genuinely joyful moment of my own life.

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   Leaning his back against a birch tree and picking absent-mindedly at the poor fare presented to him as supper, long-faced and calm-voiced Bovo Bunce was the first to offer his dissatisfaction with the Plan.

   ‘I just don’t see the purpose here, Youngbuck,’ Bovo said. ‘Yes, our idea was to travel to the Delvings and present Poppy to your uncle Clooty so that our friend might find a trade. You still want that, don’t you, Poppy?’

   ‘Well,’ Poppy Noakesburrow said, standing timidly on his good foot and a little apart from the others, ‘yes, sir, I do. Very much. I’m old enough to work and have a need to. But if I can have the chance to work off in the faraways with Cloot the Builder, why-‘

   ‘Yes, that was the impetus of the second version of our Plan,’ Bovo interrupted, ‘and I liked that idea well enough when we first talked of it; in this way we’d all get a chance to run out of these boring and wretched Summerday celebrations and do something nice for our friend here. That was the new Plan we agreed upon, yes?’

   ‘And it still is. We will do all of that,’ Berty said, ‘but I have decided to travel further and be gone longer. I hoped that you and Gilley, as my friends, might accompany me for a time.’

   ‘But as far as Greenholm?’ Bovo replied. ‘To the very western edge of the Shire which is feared by all hobbits? I would ask you “whatever for?” if I did not already have a guess.’

   ‘And what might that guess be, I wonder,’ Berty replied to his friend with a familiar and challenging smile.

*****

   The four friends were excited, as many youngsters would be, by their “Plan”; a shared act of defiance of their parents and of the established order of the Shire. They had been friends together from a very early age and now, with Poppy going off to work and Berty coming into his own inheritance, they felt this would be the last summer of the lives they had once known. So, as young people often do, together they set out to make this Summerdays festival one which they would all remember and one that would be uniquely their own.

   The earliest versions of this Plan was initially referred to as “The Stolen Feast” and they all thought it to be a very grand idea worthy of just such a grand and exciting title. Dreamt up many weeks ago, “The Stolen Feast” was to be their own rebellious and private version of the feasts held by their families on the Summerdays, but kept exclusive to themselves, catered through a little bit of larceny and peppered with a quiet form of protest. They had planned to sneak away in the afternoon, concocting wild stories to cover their absence. Bovo, in his own peculiar and dry humour, suggested that they should start a rumour of being chased off by bears but, fortunately, that part of the Plan never came about. The relative danger of bears notwithstanding, they all knew that their disappearance would worry their parents greatly and did not wish to compound it with hurtful stories of false dangers. Yet they were resolved to have their planned adventure and very much wished to show their parents (and themselves) that they had the right to make their own decisions (for better or for worse).

   So in April of Year Twenty-nine (“Astron”, as the Shirefolk called it) they had made their Plan for this “Stolen Feast” in secret. Who came up with the idea first none could rightly say but, as young people often do, they agreed upon its boldness almost immediately. For weeks the four conspirators had put aside their secret provisions against the day; they hoarded “missing” bottles from their fathers’ cellars, “reportedly broken” plates and “bent” forks from the family cupboards, butter and jam and honey taken carefully from the back of their mothers’ larder and, more recently of course, all manner of cheeses and cured meats, fruits and freshly baked pies which their parents were setting aside for their own upcoming festival.

   Two days before their intended act of insubordination, when news came that Poppy must leave them to go find work soon after, Youngbuck had come before them wanting to amend the Plan.

   ‘If Poppy is really going off to the Delvings in a few days,’ he had said to them all, ‘why don’t we take him there ourselves? We could have a lighter feast together on the first night and then walk the Road the next day. It will surely be quiet on Summerdays and I doubt that there should be anyone there to discover us. I could then introduce Poppy to uncle Clooty in person and we could stay the second night in the Delvings as his guests. What do you say?’

   Poppy had been excited by this idea. He needed to find work and the opportunity of doing so with Youngbuck’s uncle, the legendary Cloot the Builder, was a rare opportunity. He had never been excited about walking the lonely Road to the Delvings alone and introducing himself without his friends beside him, so this new Plan seemed very, very good indeed.

   Bovo, who was more comfortable with open acts of defiance than his other friends were, had also liked this new Plan. He had called this second iteration of their Plan “The Great Disappearance” and hoped to confound their parents with a clear act of disobedience. There was some part of Bovo which took the whole idea of running off as being very comical, a kind of dark commentary on Shire-life that only he found to be funny. He had agreed immediately to Berty’s new and second version of the Plan and never questioned if it had some hidden purpose.

   It had been Gilley who showed concern at this time. She would happily take Poppy and Berty to the Delvings and had agreed that this might be a wonderful way to ensure Poppy’s success. But to disappear from their families, with no word or warning, for three or four days rather than one night seemed to her an unfair cruelty.

   ‘Ah, but that’s the best part,’ Youngbuck had told them. ‘Poppy will not be disappearing now, will he? His whole family will know that he’s going off to look for work and will, no doubt, give him their blessings. And his gaffer, Old Noakes, who is a very sweet old gentle-hobbit, will want to do anything he can to help young Poppy along. And that will help the three of us just as well.'

*****

   Leaning back on the birch tree, Bovo, with the same rather bored and disaffected look on his face which he normally held for such arguments, was not stayed by Berty’s challenge.

   ‘My guess as to why you want to change our Plan yet again and go trundling off to Greenholm?’ Bovo asked in reply to the earlier question. ‘Well, Youngbuck, my guess is that you are every bit as sentimental about the Summerdays as is the sorrowful tradition within your own family. And furthermore I guess that you have seized the opportunity to come up with this new Plan because you wish to be in Greenholm on Overlithe, just one night after tomorrow’s, with the bright stars over your head, looking west and hoping to meet those same Elves who carried off your father. Yes. That would be my guess, or my two guesses I suppose. It seems to me that you have changed our Plans twice now at the last minute, shaping them closer to some Plan of your own which you may have originally held in secret. And, beyond just guessing all of that, I would, as your friend and Gilley’s, be rather remiss in not pointing it out to everyone. Yes. With all possible respect, Youngbuck, you have your uncle’s cool head for negotiation, but your famous father’s reputedly reckless heart for planning dangerous adventures.’

   Bovo then picked up the meagre little sandwich that had been offered to him as first supper, took a large and decisive bite, and waited to see how things would play out.

*****

   Bovo’s guess was in part true: three months before, quite in secret from his family and his friends, Berty had privately decided to leave Buckland and perhaps the Shire. The idea had struck him like a thunderbolt from a blue sky really, and he remembered the moment of its striking quite clearly. He had been sitting on one of the benches on the western side of Sarehole and watching the sun go down over the long string of hills to the west. Each of those six hills had been deeded to Berty and his siblings on the occasion of their first birthday. Being the eldest, Berty’s own hill was first in the line, and his uncle Twoody, in his bachelor days while living there, had begun a wonderful construction of rooms. Berty would come into his ownership of these rooms and all of this hill when he reached adulthood in the coming winter of this year. The other five smaller hills of Sarehole, originally registered as the land of Berty’s father, had been given to the children of his mother and his uncle Twoody.

   On the memorable March day Berty was sitting with his mother and his youngest sister, Deidre, still only twelve years of age, atop their house watching that larger hill cast its shadow across the others. As they talked the Sun was catching like fire on their peaks and Berty’s mother was teaching Deidre to name the hilltops.

   ‘Your own home is the farthest of course, for you are the youngest of my little darlings and I cannot bear to let you go so far for many, many years,’ his mother said. ‘Before your own hill comes your brother Clothaire’s. And what does he call his future home?’

   ‘Builder’s Bungalow!’ Deidre said with enthusiasm.

   ‘Indeed,’ Berty’s mother replied, ‘for he has aspirations to join your uncle Clooty one day but, I’m glad to say, he also holds my own enjoyment of assonance. And the next hill to that?’

   ‘Hinky’s Hole!’ The hobbit-girl said, giggling with delight.

   ‘Yes,’ mother said, ‘for now at least. I do hope that your brother Hincmar will come up with a more suitable name as he grows older. It's comical, certainly, but not in a way which he truly understands yet. And the one just closer before that?’

   ‘That will be Gondo’s house and he calls it Stonewell,’ Deidre replied. ‘It’s not a very good name, if you ask me. He just calls it that because of the little well which father had built there.’

   ‘Yes, well, it doesn’t do to criticise a person’s creativity, Deidre,’ their mother said, ‘and, trust me, there is no lasting value in making fun of your older siblings. And the next hill?’

   ‘Next is Redberry Burrow. Ganda planted shrubs all over the place so many sweet summer berries will grow there. We will go and pick some next week. She plans to have a hillside filled with strawberries and raspberries in years to come. Will she, mother?’

   ‘She will. She has her grandmother Celedine’s knack growing things, that is certain.

   ‘The first and closest hill is for Berty, though he is the slowest in naming it,’ Alaura said to her daughter while smiling at her son in a knowing way. ‘It has a wide top and broad shoulders, roomier and almost as broad as our own house here. There is rich soil in the gardens that your father planted, Deidre, before you were born of course, and some lovely round windows for southern light. There are birch trees on its crest, my darling, do you see? Just as there are here on our own hill, and those are a sign of luck indeed. Have you named it yet, Berty? For it will be yours to occupy when you come of age at ForeYule.’

   ‘No, mother,’ Berty had said. ‘I worry that I have no head for such things and, well, naming a thing seems rather a permanent choice, does it not?’

   ‘No.’ Alaura said with great certainty, a lesson in her voice. ‘Don’t be fooled into sluggardly behavior by the habits of foolish hobbits, Berty. Never put a thing off which needs doing simply because the doing of it seems difficult. You are right in some ways: naming is an attempt at forcing permanence but permanence, particularly in names, is illusory. Call your home what you will, knowing that someone else may call it something different later. But know also, that if you delay too long then someone may name it sooner than you’d like and in a way which could be much less to your liking.

   ‘You can own a thing, for a time at least, by naming it,’ she said with pointedness and some sadness, ‘but a thing, the hill or the name, will often outlast whatever you may call it.’

   ‘I think you should call it Silvertop,’ Deidre said. ‘Those trees are bright and shiny in the gold light.’

   Berty smiled broadly at this. ‘Not as bright and shiny as you, sister! Maybe I should call you Silvertop, eh?’

   They laughed together at this, for though Berty loved all his brothers and sisters dearly, Deidre held a special place in his heart. Even at this young age all the family remarked at how much she looked like, spoke like and reminded them of their mother. She had the same lustrous black hair which glinted like starlight.

   ‘Well, I know the name of my house already and have made a list of its rooms and how I plan on using them. Mother says it is the last hill before Buckland and there I can have a porch and a garden where I can watch the whole of the city grow. I made drawings of all the flowers I want to grow and all the rooms I want built. I will call it my “Peachable Veranda”,’ Deidre said proudly.

   ‘“Unimpeachable”, dear,’ their mother said with a smile. ‘It means “undeniable” but also, mmmn, it means that no one can argue with it. And “veranda”?’

   ‘Means “porch”!’ Deidre said excitedly. ‘No one can ever argue with me on my porch!’¹

   Deidre’s delighted laugh lit up their mother’s face, as it usually did, but Berty, older and wiser, could see the sadness which still lay behind it. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘and a great perch of assuredness your porch will surely be. And so the last hill of what was our hole will be renamed.’

   And Berty realised in that moment that naming, just as his mother had alluded to, could be a very ephemeral thing with hobbits or with any people.

   The very deeds which Berty had worked on in the afternoon before escaping to join his friends had to do with a road which was planned to run past the front door of his own yet unnamed hill. He noted at the time that some of the construction notes called these lands by their old name, “Sarehole”, while others newer records called them “the Great Smials”. Now this small change of naming had been the talk of many older hobbits in Buckland for as long as Berty might remember, and it left Berty in a difficult position when it came to the naming of the hill he had inherited from his lost father. For the older inhabitants of Buckland, as older people often will do, saw something sinister in the changing of names while younger people, of any time or generation, saw the changing of names, whether they be land titles or job titles or honorary positions, saw such changes as the footprints of progress. This new generation of Shirefolk, Berty’s peers, might have felt a name change from “Sarehole” to “Great Smials” to be a bold sign of some idealistic future. We do not really know with any certainty, for there is no voice among that generation of hobbits which arises so clearly as Alaura Fairheart’s does to talk about politics and affairs of the day. But it is clear that Berty himself, for whatever reason, had put off the naming of his home for many years of his life and we have no written accounts to suggest why.

   Sarehole, by its original name, was quite famous for being the first hobbithole in all of the Shire and many of the old-timers were very proud of Berty’s absent father who had dug it himself and started the whole settlement of the land on his own with just a shovel, a bow and quiver of arrows. When Berty’s mother married his uncle Twoody, back when Berty was only a fawn² of seven years, the name of the estate was not changed, for the land which Oldbuck had taken was never deeded. Uncle Clooty and some of the older generation of Bucklanders still referred to it as Sarehole, but it seemed that almost everyone else, Berty himself at times, had adopted the new name of “Great Smials.” And the name had certainly come to fit, for “smial” meant “burrow” to most people and a very great burrow these hills were becoming. Tunnels connected each of the seven hills by this time, even before their front doors were all dug. The deeds were held individually by the children, but it was clear that the plan was to make a great burrow where all of the family would be connected.

   In the past twenty years of Berty’s life the Great Smials had become very great indeed. The tall western hill with its chain of six lower hills had seen an enormous, if still cautious, development over the years through uncle Twoody’s practice of financial and societal prudence. In the years since Berty’s birth that first humble dwelling for his mother and father had turned into a veritable warren of early excavations and long tunnels. There were great round doors fashioned in each year that one of Berty’s siblings was born, gifts to their family from friends and neighbours. There were nice north-facing holes cut into the hillside on their first birthdays to mark their future locations. Paths were cut and gardens staked out and plans were made for each of the children to come into their own land ownership on their twentieth-sixth birthday just as Berty himself would this coming winter.³

   If his mother had ever said one thing or another about the name of their home, “Sarehole” as given by the Old Buck or the “Great Smials” as given later by their neighbours, Berty could not remember it. But he remembered, as they sat in the failing sun of that March day, thinking that he had never heard his mother call their home by name. Her use of the phrase “what was our hole” was the closest she ever came to speaking of the issue or, Berty thought, of ever sounding wistful.

   Berty had no way of knowing this at the time, but many surviving correspondences between Twoody and Alaura explain the reasons for the practice of transferring the deeds of the land to their children.

   When Twoody returned from the west to find Alaura with child he wanted to be near to her and to offer his help. Sarehole had already become a good sized excavation with numerous guestrooms, but for Twoody to stay there did not seem proper by his or any hobbit’s sense of standards. So he built a little hole for himself on the first smaller hill in the chain; hardly a full home at first, just a bed and sitting room really, but it had a nice round door and two lovely windows facing to the west. He cooked for himself out-of-doors (very rustic by Twoody’s own standards) and all during this time he remained within earshot of Alaura up on the larger hill. In the months before the birth, Twoody and his friends had laid a very nice stone path between the two front doors. That path, from its earliest beginnings, was well-gardened and had many flowering bushes and summer blossoms. There were some older hobbits who referred to it as “Talk’s Swift-run” in Berty’s time, though Berty did not understand this name until much later. Even in the famous days of Shirehobbits at the ending of the Third Age this path in the village of Tuckborough (as Buckland would later be called) had a similar name, “Took’s Run”, though it is uncertain if even Thain Peregrin himself knew why it was so called. But it was there, on a bench above Talk’s Swift-run, with his mother and his youngest sister beside him, that Berty had made his decision to leave.

   “And the last hill of what was our hole will be renamed,” she had said.

   Berty had been born on December 15th in Year Three of the Shire-reckoning (this was called “Foreyule” in their calendar and, if the changing of names for hobbits is not confusing enough, the changing of calendar names and dates would certainly only complicate matters much more). But one year later, on Berty’s first birthday, his uncle Twoody, with his power as Chief Assayer of Titles and Deeds, redescribed the second hill of Sarehole, the place where Twoody himself currently lived, as the sole property of Theudebert the Youngbuck. In a letter to Alaura he wrote;

   ‘This is to be his land now, little Berty’s. Our Gondo may return, as he promised, with the next coming Mid-year and I will most certainly go west to meet him as I did before. But little Berty must have a home in his own name. You cannot give this to him, for on paper the land belongs to no one and only to Gondo by reputation. But I can give him that home because Gondo and I were partners on many other deeds and articles of business. We need only name this second hill as “Berty’s Hill” and the deed may be drawn. Only Gondo himself might contest it, and, of course, I wish he were back to have his say on it one way or the other. But in the meantime your Berty will have his own.’

   And so, for seven years of Berty’s childhood his uncle Twoody lived at ‘Berty’s Hill’ and awaited his friend's return. He helped to raise young Berty and to tell him of all of the adventures of his father. But then, despite the patient waiting, Berty’s father did not return and new laws within the Shire suggested that he should be legally declared dead. In this way his significant land holdings would pass on to a relative or go to auction. Shirehobbits, you will remember, registered deeds to the male founders of the land and this unfortunate short-sightedness put Alaura’s rights, as a spouse without a marriage contract, and those of other widows into question.

   The deeds and taxations which Berty had studied earlier on that day of his escape had posed interesting questions to his young mind about the ownership of his home, but to suggest that these were the principal motivations in his leaving would be incorrect; Berty had a restless nature that both his mother and his uncle Twoody had noticed from a young age and, loving Berty’s father too much as they did, they never sought to curb it in his upbringing. Berty was not raised by Gondo, but those parents and uncles and aunts that he had did most certainly raise him in what some might call “an incautious reverence of his father’s shadow”. Berty was let to be all of what his parents believed his father had been. And so, on that spring day with his mother and his sister naming the land, with a sudden decision very reminiscent of his unknown father, Berty felt he heard an omen of his future in his mother’s comment and he plotted a course for himself based upon the look he saw in his mother’s eyes.

   He had never before been more like his unknown father than he was at this moment. Though he would be again.

*****

   Hildegund Bramblethorne was another of Berty’s steadfast friends and a frequent arguer of whatever cool and detached position which their other friend, Bovo Bunce, might present for discussion. She was round-faced and plain-speaking; "Straightalking Gilley" to those who knew her well and a real terror to any had wound up on the wrong side of her arguments. She was born in the same first years of Shire-children that Bovo and Berty and Poppy were, from a family of Breeland hobbits who came from east of the Hill and, upon their arrival, had known very few townfolk. But her father, like Bovo’s and Poppy’s, was a proud founder of the Buckland and counted himself a friend to the famous Gondo from the very first year of Shire-reckoning. Gilley was the third eldest child of what had since become a very large family and the most distinguishing things about her (according to most who knew her poorly) were her slightly reddish hair, her large fists and her outspoken manners. To those who knew her better Gilley was a person who understood and respected the no-nonsense views of her parents’ pioneer life and made them a hallmark of her own. It did not go well for any hobbit, young or old, to underestimate Gilley’s wisdom or her tenacity in an argument; for she loved to quarrel and could be as quick with her tongue as she was heavy with her fists.

   ‘O, now it's very flattering to see how you’ve taken my safety into your own concern, Bovo,’ Gilley said, ‘but we all know that I can take very good care of that myself. We don’t agree as often as you think we do, you and I, but you do have a good point here. Youngbuck, is this true? Do you mean to go looking for the Elves?’

   Berty took a moment to speak and therefore drew all their attention closer.

   ‘I mean to be gone longer than we had planned, yes,’ he said calmly. ‘And Bovo has guessed it right that I mean to look out into the west from the last place where my father was seen. The mountains at the edge of the world can be seen quite clearly from there, my uncle tells me, and I would dearly love to say that I have seen those while so few Shirefolk can. Wouldn’t you all wish to say the same?

   ‘But Bovo, convinced as he always is about some things, is likewise wrong about others; I am not going west because of sentimentality over my father, my family’s past or anything of that kind. I am going for a chance to think about my future. My uncle and my mother have great plans for me which I remain unsure of. My friends, you all know this! You know that I don’t wish to be, a banker, or a townfather or-’

   ‘Or master of the Great Smials?’ Bovo finished his friend’s uncertain statement.

   ‘Or that! Least of all that!’ Berty replied welcomely.

   There was then a long silence between the four friends punctuated only by the soft sound of Bovo, in his quiet acceptance, munching on his disappointing sandwich. It was still not quite dusk and if there were animals or birds stirring in the little stance of trees around them the sound would have been quite welcome to Berty. It was Poppy Noakesburrow who finally spoke up.

   ‘I’ll go with you, Youngbuck,’ he said. ‘If your goal is to reach Greenholm in two nights then we needn’t waste our time in the Delvings tomorrow. You can introduce me to your famous uncle Cloot on our trip back. My family knows that I’m going away for a long time, so that leaves me in the comfortable position of not disappointing them further. I’ll go see Greenholm with you, if you’ll have me.’

   ‘Thank you, Poppy,’ Berty said, ‘and you are always a welcome companion and dear friend. But you don’t need to do this; I know how you mean to start work and aid your family. That was the important part of our Plan, of course, and I would never change it at your expense.’

   ‘And I thank you for that,’ Poppy replied. ‘But work can wait a bit for such a friend as you.’

   ‘Hmmmmn. Yes. Well that is disconcerting,’ Bovo said with a sarcastic but humorous glumness to his voice. ‘With Poppy’s compliance it seems that our Plan is, once again, irrevocably changed.’

   He took a long moment to look around and then another longer one to bite more of his sandwich before again meeting their eyes. ‘Who would dare to challenge Poppy’s unwavering support? Certainly not I. Yes, Youngbuck, things seem to have worked in your favour and our destination has now changed again. While the food we’ve brought is much less exciting than that served back home on Summerdays I will say that I much prefer the company here to back home and, yes, if we're going west without dropping Poppy, then it seems that the old Plan of dining with your uncle in the Delvings tomorrow also no longer matters. I quite like those previous titles of “The Stolen Feast” or “The Great Disappearance”. “Forth, toward Greenholm” seems less mysterious to my mind, but I’m willing to undertake the adventure.’

   ‘You could just say “yes, I’ll go too,” could you not?’ Gilley replied, smiling at Bovo. ‘No. Of course you couldn’t.

   ‘You’re apt to bring us all into some adventure here, Youngbuck,’ she continued. ‘But my parents warned me of the unfortunate possibility of that from the first time we met. Bovo and I don’t agree often, but you do, just as he has said, seem to have your illustrious father’s thirst for wandering set into your manner. You’d be a fool to deny its calling, because all of your friends recognize it already.

   ‘I’ll go,’ she continued, ‘but I’ll tell you this; I am not as polite as your dear uncle Twoody or our friend Poppy here. I will go to Greenholm with you and look for Elves or answers or anything else that you wish to search for. But I will not go, or let you go, west of Greenholm. I will not sit idly by while you, or any of the rest of you for that matter, become enchanted by songs or faerie lights or ghostly apparitions of any kind. I will, quite roughly if I must, grab you by the points of your ears⁴ or the scruff of your feet and keep you from going further. I brought no club or mallet, but I would use any such device, on you or on any tall Elf-lords, to keep the lot of you from danger. I see that as my duty to you as my friends, no matter what your complaint. Do you still want me to come?’

   ‘More than ever,’ Berty said with a broad and welcoming smile.

   ‘And you will promise me that we will not go west of the Shire’s border?’ she said.

   ‘I have promised it to my mother and uncle before and will pledge it to you, to all of you, again now,’ Berty answered.

   ‘Then finish up your sandwiches, my friends,’ she said, ‘for we’ll need to be on our way quickly to reach Greenholm in time. We will spend a lot of our time walking beneath the stars tonight.’

   And so just before dusk the four friends set forth on their new and unexpected adventure. Bovo looked despondently at his last bite of bread and wondered when there would be time for a proper meal.

   ‘If we walk most of the night and rest for just a short time,’ Gilley said to them all, ‘we can come to the Waymeet⁵ with the dawn and get the necessary and longer provisions that Youngbuck has not planned for. Don’t look so downcast, Bovo! You’ve agreed to an adventure and must accept that adventures are not always very agreeable!’

   And so the four friends were to set forth on a new Plan and with little expectations as to where it might bring them. But first, being hobbits, they had the good sense to finish their meal.

end of chapter two

Chapter End Notes

Notes

1)  The words “unimpeachable” and “veranda” were chosen from an educational website which explains all of the more complex words in The Hobbit. I rather like the idea of Alaura teaching these kinds of “big words” which that novel presents for young readers to her own children.

2)  “Fawn” is a word I quite like for describing the childhood of hobbits. It appears in the literature found in the website Stories of Arda quite frequently with different spellings and covering different periods of child development. As stated earlier, I believe that hobbits of this time period did not develop in the same comfortable situations of Frodo’s time and so “coming of age” at 33 would, as it does for most pioneer folk, happen at an earlier age. I’ve chosen 26 here to make certain elements work within the novel. But the “fawns” would describe the pre-teen years of hobbit childhood when they could not be given tasks of their own to do and instead needed to be “fawned over.” Then come the “teens” (13-19) and the “tweens” (20-25). More on this in the next note.

3)  In a later draft of this story the time of Gondo’s wanderings was changed from twenty years to twenty-five. This meant that Berty, and all of his siblings, became five years older at the touch of the keyboard. But since the coming of age for hobbits in Frodo’s day was thirty-three years of age it did not seem out of line to set it at twenty-six in Berty’s time.

4)  There is some argument among Tolkien fans as to whether or not Hobbits have pointy ears. There is absolutely no indication of it in the Professor’s writing or in his drawings for The Hobbit. But it is a popular later trope from many other illustrations and I’ve never heard of the Professor criticizing that feature. And, of course, the movies and cartoons all use it. I think this is probably the closest I’ll come to indicating my own feelings on the subject.

5)  I doubt that Waymeet itself was a town at this time but may have been, as the name suggests, a simple meeting of roads. Some early settlements and provenders might have accumulated there, but Gilley seems to like the opportunity of it rather than Little Delvings. More on this in later chapters.

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   Gilley was right in her assessment of their way ahead; for the new settlement of Waymeet was five leagues or more west of the Farthing Stone near to where the four friends were having their early supper. She knew that they would make good time on the Road, for as night came on all of the Shire-hobbits would be at table and hearth enjoying the first evening of the Summerdays festival. It was unlikely that they would meet anyone on their walk or to be asked any uncomfortable questions, and in this way, or so Gilley hoped, they might slip away from the areas of Buckland and Hobbiton-by-the-Water quite undetected.

   ‘Now, Poppy, this is very important,’ Berty had said to them all just two days before, ‘your gaffer must not say anything to our parents until after we are gone. All of them will be at Sarehole for the day I’m sure, for your family has been welcome there before I was old enough to sit at a table. We three will give to him sealed letters from each of us which he can deliver to our parents at the feast and after we are well on our way. Write whatever each of you wish, but in this way they will know that we’ve gone on a good purpose, to help our friend Poppy, and, more importantly, they will learn of it well after it is quite too late to stop us.’

   So it was that these letters were written by Youngbuck, Gilley and Bovo just two days before the holiday and delivered very secretly to Poppy’s grandfather, Old Noakes. They were quite secure with him for, not being able to read them himself, he was honoured by the task of bearing such auspicious letters to such important people.

   Sadly, we are left with none of these letters except Berty’s to examine. In it we see the first, and perhaps best, description of the “Tookish nature” which he and all his heirs would be accused of for many generations to follow.

*****

Beloved mother and Dearest uncle,

   As you receive this letter at the onset of Summerdays you will likely be worried as to where I am. Please, do not blame Old Noakes for his part in my Plan; he is an unaware accomplice bearing the upsetting news which this letter contains and I dare say that if he could read it himself he might’ve clubbed me over the head and brought me home in his old rusty wheelbarrow. But he is a sweet old hobbit and will no doubt blame himself when the news of my departure comes out. Please see to it that he knows that I am sorry to have used him in this way and will always think gratefully of his kindness to myself and to our family.

   I am leaving the Shire for a time and I do not yet know where my travels might take me. West first, for I mean to introduce poor Poppy to uncle Clooty that he might find employment in the Delvings. As you read this I and my friends are on the Old Road and expect to come to the settlements there on the next morning. Poppy may be clumsy of foot but he is very skilled at hand, a fine carpenter, and I am certain uncle Clooty will find good use for him. I’m happy to have helped my friend and his family in this way, for, as you both have taught me, a friendly deed, unexpected and unasked-for, rewards both giver and recipient with community and faith. But I must also confess that this deed is not entirely selfless and, in my mind at least, it became a ruse for my own purposes. I am happy to take Poppy to the Delvings and to see uncle Clooty again, but I will be gone from the Delvings before sunset tomorrow.

   Bovo and Gilley are travelling with us and, as you read this, letters from them will have likewise reached their parents. Please tell them not to be unhappy with their children, for my friends came at my invitation and to serve, as good friends will, both Poppy and myself. They do not yet know my Plan of leaving and I do not know what they will do when it is finally revealed. It's very likely that Gilley will assign herself the same duty that Old Noakes would have done; to club me on the head and drag me back home. She does not much like the idea of change and tends to meet it head on and with fists raised. Bovo is more calculating and suspicious in his manner, as you both well know, but no less a cautious friend; he will try to argue me away from my Plan, of course. He is as headstrong as Gilley is heavy-handed; I can only imagine what they both will say when my true Plan is revealed. Again, Dear mother and Dear uncle, I ask you to forgive them for any complicity they may have had in my leaving, for they are loyal and true and should not be held responsible for helping me in schemes which they knew nothing about. Do not make your own minds up about decisions they have not yet faced. If they decide to follow me further or to drag me home to you, no matter which, they shall always remain as good friends to me no matter the turnings.

   But I do not mean to return. Not for some time. I am not sure how to explain my feelings in this matter without insulting you both, but I shall try; I do not feel as if I have the makings to be any of those things which you have raised me to be. I’ve no head for accounting, no desire for diplomacy, and little ability or interest in writing. I do not see myself as a ‘townfather’, the role you both would like me to fill as you both have so amply done. I am proud to come from a family who has accomplished so many great and important things for the Shire, but I am no policy-maker, no adjudicator and no governor. I feel that for all my life I have been trained for jobs which I have never wanted and now, coming of age as I must, I begin to realise how ill-suited I would be for such positions. I do not mean to sound ungrateful for all that you both have taught me, but I feel there is something inside me which resists all the careers that your training has set before me. I simply do not wish to be the master of any house which I did not build for myself.

   I know that you have both prepared a place for me within the government of the Shire and the ownership of our own lands. I do not wish to sound ungrateful but I do not want these things. I have tried to be a good and dutiful son to the both of you but, as I come of age and now make choices for my own life, I confess that being a landowner was never important to me. ‘Berty’s Hill’ was never really mine and should, I hope, come into the ownership of my siblings. Please, if I might make one request, call it ‘Sarehole’ as our land was called in my father’s day so that every one of my brothers and sisters will remember that name.

   I will go to the western edge of the Shire for a time. Maybe I will see Elves there and maybe I will hear news of my father. I have sworn to you both that I will not enter the western lands and I will hold to that oath; seeking news of my father is not my goal. I would simply like to begin the decisions of my own life from where he left his own behind. I do not go to seek the father I have never known. Despite all of the wonderful stories I have been told of the Oldbuck over the years I could never have wished for a better father than you, uncle Twoody.

   I wish to see the mountains. I have looked at drawings of those western mountains for so many days of my life and, often and in secret, I have dreamed of walking west to lay in their shadow. But I have promised you, and so I will not go into the west.

   Perhaps I will go north. Maybe I might find my way to the halls of Norbury and see the towers and gardens of the King which uncle Twoody has described. I think that would be very fine; to sit in those gardens of the King at the end of the day as Twoody and my father have done and make plans for some undiscovered and yet unknowable future. That might be very fine indeed.

   Or I may turn about and go east toward the Bree-land; for that is the furthest I have ever been from home and I feel a calling to visit the Inn of the Four Greenfields again. I might camp beside the Crossroads for a time, listening to the wind for a call telling me ‘North’ or ‘East’ or ‘South’. I do not mean to be coy and keep my destination from you but, as of this moment, I have still not decided on one and hope that chance will come along to guide my feet.

   I will not say that this is goodbye, for I love you and all of my family very greatly and I know myself well enough to understand that this love will draw me home again in the future. I did not know my father, but perhaps there is more of him in me than any of us had expected; for I feel an inner decision has occurred, one made not with the cautious thinking in my head which you both have taught me to do, but in the clutching weight of my chest that you have always taught me to respect; I feel that I have no choice but to go and see the world and therefore understand this part of myself better.

   Nothing that I can write will ever convey the love and thanks I have for you both. But the strength which I have found to make this decision comes from all that you both have taught me and that is a gift which I will keep forever.

Your son, Berty

   If any of Berty’s companions ever saw this letter we do not know. It remained among Twoody’s possessions for many more years and then, much later, among Berty’s own. But it was kept. The envelope it was delivered in was still intact. If it was read more than once, by Twoody, Alaura or Berty himself, we have no way of knowing.

*****

   So with sunset of the first day of Lithe, the start of the Summerdays on what we now call the 20th of June, in the Twenty-ninth Year of Shire-reckoning, the four friends left the Farthing-stone and set out along the Old Road west.

   At this time in the early development of West-farthing farmers and settlers tended to keep their holes set rather far back from the Old Road, whether from fear or for privacy none may say, but the travellers knew that there would be no homes or public squares in sight until they came to the little collection of wagons and shops that was called Waymeet. They could see lights up on some of the small hills and occasionally a bit of music or laughter would come to them down the wind but, on the Road itself, things were very quiet and they saw no one. Under Gilley’s direction and set for Poppy’s hopping pace they all walked and talked casually, happy at just being together under the bright light of starry skies. That night they were truly free of responsibility and agreeably charting their own futures. Among them it was only Berty who had the vaguest notion of a Plan which was older than their dinner; they talked excitedly about where they might go and what they might see together as if going on an unexpected, and quite unpermitted holiday. Gilley knew better than the rest about how to plan for their undertaking and what lay immediately ahead. She knew that while it was not quite a town yet, Waymeet would have hobbits enough who might ask them many questions. She knew that they would need to have a rather serious talk with Berty about going there, but yet she still felt it was the best choice of their new Plan. Yet Waymeet was many miles off and for now they had time to discuss other practicalities and enjoy one another’s company.

   ‘Well it is certainly a pleasant enough night for walking,’ Poppy said, ‘even if our destination has changed.’ He ambled along beside the others at a good pace despite his bad leg, happy to be heading further away from home than he had ever been before.

   ‘I could’ve done with a heartier meal to begin such an enterprise,’ Bovo said glumly. He walked with his head high just as he usually did but with his unstrung bow resting across his shoulders and a quiver of arrows across his back he looked more like an adventurer than any of them. ‘But we still have some nice rashers and cakes for when we camp and I’ve also brought three highly praised bottles of wine from deep in my father’s cellar.’

   ‘We won’t be camping for long, Bovo,’ Gilley replied, ‘and we may have to enjoy those cakes of yours cold and your father’s wine from the bottle while walking.’

   ‘Oh, now that strategy is simply too much, Gilley!’ Bovo said with feigned excitement. ‘These are the very last vestiges of our original Plan, our Stolen Feast. I thought we were meant to be enjoying ourselves on this holiday excursion together, not living like soldiers on a forced march.’

   ‘Yes, well, the Plan has changed, Bovo, has it not?’ Gilley replied, smiling at his irritation.

   ‘I should think there will still be time for rest, Gilley,’ Berty said. ‘After all, I had never meant to thwart our enjoyment of the trip with any plans of my own.’

   ‘Ah,’ Gilley said. She was still taking charge in her rather direct way which all of them noticed but none of them had ever come to question. Even Bovo, though he would certainly never admit to it, knew that if they were indeed on an unexpected adventure then they would all come to better ends left in Gilley’s capable hands.

   ‘Youngbuck,’ she asked, ‘ other than coercing the rest of us to join you, I must say that I don’t think that you have quite thought this Plan of yours through. It is said to be twenty leagues and more from the Farthing-stone to Greenholm but, tell me, have you yourself ever been there?’

   ‘To Greenholm? Never,’ Berty replied. ‘I know something of how to get there. I’ve been told that there is a great stand of dense trees south of the Road as we pass the last hills of the Far Downs and that moving due southwest through that bit of forest, along what is probably now a very old path, brings us to the hollow-tree settlement where my uncle and my father first encountered the Elves. But I don't know of anyone other than my uncle who has ever gone there.’

   ‘So you’ve no idea how far off the Road or where exactly we should turn?’ Gilley asked calmly.

   ‘No, I do not. Still,’ he looked lost in thought about their way forward. ‘Our original Plan was to go to the Delvings and on from there. Uncle Twoody and I went to the Greater Delving last autumn to visit my uncle Clooty. We left two hours before the dawn on that day and arrived three hours after sunset. It was a very pleasant bit of travel along the Road and I thought we might do the same tomorrow.’

   ‘Oh, “a pleasant bit of travel” was it? And did you carry packs?’ Gilley asked.

   ‘No, not really,’ Berty replied. ‘Uncle had his pouch of contracts and such, and I carried a haversack of bread and jams, cheeses and also two winesacks.’

   ‘“Cheeses and two winesacks?” Very pleasant indeed, I should think,’ Gilley replied with a laugh and a smile. ‘And tell me, Youngbuck, how many meals did you and your kindly uncle enjoy along the way?’

   ‘Only three,’ Berty said. ‘And they were indeed quite spare. I remember mentioning it to uncle Twoody, cautiously of course, and he laughed and once more recounted tales of my father and how lightly they both had travelled through the early days of the Shire. But as it had been my job to carry the food, I remember thinking, it should have been my decision whether or not I might carry more, my father's past methods notwithstanding.’

   ‘Well there’s wisdom in that,’ Bovo said coldly. ‘For if I’ve gone through the trouble of appropriating good wine and provisions from my own father’s cellars I believe that I should have some say in when to unpack it and a restful place to enjoy it.’

   ‘You should listen more carefully to the lessons of your father and your uncle,’ Gilley said, ignoring Bovo and with a cautious jibe to Berty (whom they all knew was sensitive on this issue). ‘We are all of us packed for the earlier version of our Plan and not for your previously undisclosed Secret Purpose. We carry bedrolls for two expected nights of sleeping and extra, and to my mind rather too fine, clothing for some party with your uncle Clooty which we will no longer attend. Poor Poppy even brought his tools! We also carry provisions for a rather fancy cooking of tonight’s dinner, which is also now not likely to happen-’

   ‘And that is only through your design, Gilley,’ Bovo interrupted, ‘which I frankly disagree with.’

   ‘Well certainly you do, Bovo,’ she said, ‘but perhaps you will give me time to explain my design in a manner that even you will understand.’

   Knowing he had been bested but waiting for another opportunity to complain, Bovo chose to be quiet.

   ‘We are each of us carrying,’ she continued, ‘considerably more than you, Youngbuck, had on your last leisurely trip to the West. It also sounds to me as if that autumn day was quite “pleasant” and mild. Good for you! But we will now be going much farther and walking with our laden packs for an unknown number of days in high summer; so I shouldn’t think the going to be quite so easy. And you are right, we might still make the Delvings by supper tomorrow as originally planned and take a loan of new supplies from your other uncle there. But if you really wish to make it to Greenholm without further restraint from your family I believe that we should be more cautious with who we meet; we should skirt the Delvings where questions will indeed be asked, and head straight on to the borders. Poppy has already said he does not wish to let us go on without him, so the Delvings are no longer our true destination. Are we all agreed in this?’

   ‘Well,’ Berty said, looking a bit sheepish, ‘if the truth be told I had always worried about lying to my uncle Clooty. If I was to get provision for a trip from him there it would, as you say, lead to many questions. I don’t think he would let me go west.’

   ‘Oh, he would certainly not,’ Bovo added laughing. ‘Your uncle Clothair is no fool, Youngbuck, and while he loves you just as much as the rest of we poor fools do, if he should ever hear of your proposed adventure he would lock you in his toolshed and send a letter off to your mother that she might come and collect you like an errant umbrella.’

   Berty and the others laughed at this image, for all of them knew it to be true.

   ‘So,’ Gilley continued with the logic of her argument for moving forward, ‘as Poppy has decided to come with us into the West and the Delvings are no longer part of our Plan, I think that particular stopover destination is to be avoided and we will need another place to provision ourselves for travel.

   ‘I have been to the Delvings, but I also know the Road from Buckland to there very well. It is fair and even as I remember it, but not very shady. We’ll do better walking by night rather than camping and enjoying ourselves, or Bovo’s delicacies, overmuch. I’m sorry we shall miss your expected meal and fireside songs, Bovo, but the sleep and merriment which we will be spare of tonight will serve us as we move forward tomorrow.

   ‘I believe that if we take only a few short rests we might come to the Waymeet at dawn.

   ‘Now beyond that-’

   ‘But why go to Waymeet?’ Poppy asked, interrupting Gilley’s thoughts. ‘I mean, if we’re meant to escape notice from Youngbuck’s family should we not avoid all... the settlements along the way?’ He said this somewhat sheepishly, but Berty did not seem to notice.

   Poppy and Bovo both seemed to think this was an excellent question and awaited Gilley’s response. Unsurprisingly, she had one ready to hand.

   ‘Waymeet is barely a settlement, Poppy,’ she said. ‘There is a large open valley there with a good spring running through it for fresh water and, as most of us in the West-farthing have heard, there is to be a new road running far into the north and then away towards the west side of the Great Smials that will cross the Great Road at Waymeet. Is that so, Youngbuck?’

   ‘It is,’ he replied. ‘In my regrettable position at my uncle’s office I reviewed documents on that very important and completely boring topic this very afternoon.’

   ‘No wonder you want to run away,’ Bovo said with his usual comic dourness.

   ‘Waymeet is little more than a collection of wagons turned into storefronts, Poppy,’ Gilley continued to explain. ‘But storefronts and provisions we will certainly need if we’re going on to Greenholm. If we are to avoid discovery by Youngbuck’s family in the Delvings then our last chance for supplies will be found in Waymeet. Indeed, some merchant traders have set their shops there to feed supplies to all of the folk moving into the Delvings. But our biggest danger is that Youngbuck’s own black sheep relatives run the Waymeet and are there making a tidy bit of business for themselves.’

   There it was then, the thing which Poppy had carefully alluded to, put right out onto the table.

*****

   Uncle Twoody’s older brother, Childebrand, had, many years before, been forced to abandon his holdings in the first settlement uproad from the Stonebows bridge. The events leading up to this had made that hobbit the most hated individual in the land and the first criminal of the Shire. But in Year Fifteen, to pay off debts to him which other Shirehobbits had collectively incurred, an agreement had been reached which parcelled much of the undeveloped south of the Shire to Childebrand’s family, who were now called the Swiftooks. In Year Twenty-one, just eight years ago, the children of Berty’s uncle Childy came back to claim those lands. The public ousting, if not outright exile, of the Swiftooks had happened while Berty was still a fawn and the details were seldom discussed among his other family members. To Berty, his uncle Childebrand was a distantly remembered face further clouded by little-discussed family intrigue.

   It was said that all of Childebrand’s cunning had made him the first “Landlord” of Shire history and that all of his claims had led to the first system of tacit hypothec, later called mortgage laws, in all of Middle-earth. This dispute of land ownership came to have great and lasting effects on hobbits and other people of the north for many, many generations and some might say that those disputes have never been rightly resolved. But it can also be said, and with greater certainty, that in any culture the first landlord gives birth to the first lawyer; a position Berty’s uncle Twoody had taken upon himself and which Berty now rejected with all of his youthful energy.

   When the Swiftooks returned across the Bridge they were led by Childebrand’s first-born son Reginard. He had finally come to claim his father’s land and, to do so, he held a signed copy of the proposed agreement in his hand. Histories tell us that Reginard Swiftook led eighty hobbits behind him, all watchful but weaponless, and that they also brought three dozen carts of building equipment driven by twice as many ponies. Reginard was the only one among them to speak to the Bridge-wardens and that speech was later recounted in THE SHIRE-RECKONING for all to see:

   “I RETURN to the LANDS which MY FAMILY and MY FATHER HAVE BUILT and which WERE PROMISED by WORD OF THE KING and by the CONTRACT OF HIS SUBJECTS. HERE, in these DESIGNATED LANDS. MY FAMILY will BUILD and will GROW and we will offer OUR FRIENDSHIP and OUR ASSISTANCE to ALL OF OUR NEIGHBOURS who would have it.

   “LET old DISAGREEMENTS be PUT ASIDE, old DAMAGES be DIFFERED and old ARGUMENTS be ENDED. WE, MY FAMILY and MY FATHER’S, have come to TAKE UP OUR RIGHTFUL CLAIMS and to BUILD NEW KINSHIPS despite OLD DISPUTES.”

   They were, of course, allowed to pass the Bridge and, keeping quietly to themselves along the way, they turned immediately south along the road to Stock. They crossed the Stockbrook and continued toward the Marish. At the southern edge of that land they crossed a second river which Gondo and his friends the Mugworts had discovered. It had been unnamed until that time, but Reginard Swiftook was the first to call it “the Shirebourn”.

   They did not stop there however. They continued on until they found the same ford which Gondo had and there built their first settlement beside the banks of the river, far away from any of the earlier settlements of the Shire.

   Eighty hobbits and three dozen wagons did not seem like much to settle all of the Tookland’s thousands of allocated acres. In fact they were not heard from again for another three years and the Shire-hobbits who lived in fear of the Swiftook’s revenge were very glad for the silence even as they were puzzled by the mystery of this southern colony of strangers.

   But in the early spring months of Year Twenty-four some of the Bucklanders living in the southernmost part of what Gondo had called the Green Hill Country noticed many campfires in the lower valleys. This was reported to Bovo’s father Horris Bunce, Chief Constable for the Shire, and he himself took all of his twenty Reeves to investigate. They saw, even from a distance, a great settlement there of over two hundred hobbits. In Horris’ usual manner, they marched boldly forward to the encampment until they came to the remnants of an ancient road. On the other side of this landmark more than one hundred of these strangers, seeing Horris and his deputies approach, stood with shovels and pick-axes and other tools in hand. This was the first official meeting of the Shirefolk with the representatives of the Swiftooks since the Battle of the Bank in Year Fifteen and, as we are told in his grandson’s book, Horris Bunce was once again at their head.

   Once more, Horris the Firebrand, undaunted by the scars of former strife, led his twenty companions boldly into the jaws of peril. The famed axe—its blade blackened by the fury of past flames—he bore still, but, wounded grievously in the First Battle of the Shire, he leaned upon it more as a staff than as a weapon. Yet such was his spirit that his fellow hobbits, steadfast and resolute, followed him without hesitation, their own arms gripped tight and a stern resolve blazing in their eyes.

   Never before had the Firebrand and Reginard—son of the Landlord—stood face to face; yet each, by some deep intuition of destiny, knew the other for his rival. With the weight of their peoples’ hopes upon their shoulders, the two leaders strode forth, meeting at last upon the ancient, grass-grown stones of the old Broken road. There, beneath the watchful sky, they paused—adversaries drawn together by the inexorable currents of fate.

   “You and your people have journeyed far from the southern ford, Master Swiftook,” said Horris, his tone measured yet edged with curiosity. “Truly, it astonishes me to behold so great a company gathered here, when not long past but a handful crossed the Stonebows. Whence sprang these numbers, and what wind has driven so many strange Southron hobbits to this meeting ground?”

   “We hobbits flourish where our resources are strong, Constable,” replied Reginard, his words carrying the easy confidence of one accustomed to wide holdings. “Here, in the southern marches of the Shire, the land stretches broad and open before us, and it is our lot—and perhaps our duty—to make it thrive with the presence of our kind.”

   “That may indeed be so,” answered Horris, his gaze steady and searching. “Still, you now stand upon the very edge of Buckland, far indeed from those places where we believed your folk to have found their home. Tell me, Master Swiftook, what cause has drawn you and yours to these distant bounds?”

   “Your words have merit,” allowed young Swiftook, inclining his head with measured courtesy. “Yet remember, Constable, that the border of Buckland upon your side is the very same as the boundary of Tookland upon ours. This road, ancient and once well-trodden, runs from the Ford and is in the rightful claim of our lands. Here we have chosen to settle, as is our due. Tell me, then—does any among you claim that we trespass where we have no right?”

   “Neighbours found where one least expects them are not, by that token, trespassers—nor does their sudden presence render them unwelcome, Master Swiftook,” said Horris, his tone measured and grave. “Yet let us not pretend that such unheralded arrivals do not breed a measure of unease, for any new friendship may be tested when it springs from surprise. Would you not agree, master Swiftook, that un-looked for surprises can make for uncomfortable beginnings?”

   “I would indeed, Constable Bunce,” replied the hobbit, his voice grave and unwavering. And at those words, a subtle change swept through the gathered folk: on either side of the ancient road, hobbits set their feet more firmly upon the turf and tightened their grip upon their staves, as if bracing themselves for whatever fate the next moment might bring."

   Thankfully a greater confrontation was avoided as both parties agreed that this old broken roadway was indeed set as the border between the West-farthing and the Tookland to the south. So it was there that the Southrons built their first commercial centre and some careful trade then began between the two. “Whitwell” they called their new town, for they had found an ancient stone well there which Horris and Twoody had overlooked in their own examinations of the countryside. How they knew that this well existed or, indeed, just how many hobbits had come up from the south over the ford, was a surprise to the Bucklanders and a subject for further suspicion.

*****

   ‘Your ever-enterprising uncle Childebrand and his folk have expanded west farther and faster than any had imagined, Youngbuck,’ Bovo said, continuing the story. ‘Their settlements in the south end of the Shire are small, from the little that any of us have heard, but there are many. At Waymeet, just as at Whitwell, the Southrons build their small camps swiftly to lay claim to the land. Some rumours I have heard around my fathers deputies say that the Swiftooks had come to both places four or five years ago.’

   ‘I’ve no knowledge of my uncle Childy,’ Berty said. ‘If I ever had any contact with him then I was much too young to be remembered by him now.’

   ‘Oh, but he might remember you, Youngbuck,’ Gilley said. ‘And that would be every bit as bad for your Plan as visiting your other Uncle Clooty in the Delvings now seems. Worse even. For he has quite a grudge against your parents and all of ours. But if we can get past him...’

   ‘I see! Without him noticing who Youngbuck is! Hah! That is an adventure!’ Poppy added with excitement. ‘Gilley’s new Plan would seem both daring and sound, even to me. We certainly will need some equipment if we are to set out further to the west. How long do you intend to spend in Greenholm, Youngbuck?’

   Berty was silent for a time because he truly did not know how to answer. None of the others pushed him in any way, but the conversation stopped as this question lay between them all.

   The letter which he had written to his mother and uncle had been quite final; Berty did not intend to return to the Shire, or at least to Buckland, for many years but had shied away from confessing this to his friends. If he told them now he feared they would try to dissuade him and that all their Plans would change again.

   ‘Perhaps,’ he answered after a long hesitation, ‘perhaps a month or more.’

   ‘A month!’ Bovo laughed dryly. ‘Well, our parents will certainly come to miss us all by then!’

   ‘A month in Greenholm?’ Gilley asked Berty again with suspicion. ‘Youngbuck, that is a great amount of time to live in the wild and, to be frank, not something which you are prepared for.’

   ‘Well, yes, but that’s why I wish to do it, Gilley,’ Berty answered as earnestly as he could. ‘I have been taught no skills for hunting or foraging; only bookkeeping, cartography, cost assessments and letter-writing. I know more about the price of fox skins than I do about the hunting or the skinning of foxes. I can cook a meal or clean a hole as well as any hobbit, but I’ve never planted a vegetable garden nor built myself so much as a footstool. I know more about how to set up a ledger book than how to install a doorknocker! How shall I, if I am ever to choose my own path in life, know how to take care of myself in some new town or settlement?’

   ‘Well, why you should ever want to learn how to do any of that is beyond my imagination,’ Bovo said. ‘Really, Youngbuck, you are, or stand to be, one of the wealthiest hobbits in the Shire. I don’t see that the pioneer life truly suits you nor that you should have any need to become suited to it.’

   This comment may have been a bit unkind, but Bovo often pushed at the edge of common courtesy in his conversations among friends. The other three understood that behaviour for what it was, sheer provocativeness on Bovo’s part, and they took his occasional barbs of this kind in stride; for they had recognized it as his way of pushing others away whom he did not care for. They had seen that very often over their years together. But when the same behaviour came out among them, his close friends, whether out of love or discomfort, they chose to let comments like this fall aside; for Bovo was frank in speech beyond all of his other defenses and his friends knew the value of his frankness where others might only see the lack of courtesy.

   It was widely known that Berty’s uncle Twoody, as a chief investor in the earliest days of banking and real estate for the Shire, had become one of its richest citizens. Bovo’s own father, Horris Bunce, had made a tidy sum from developing and then parcelling farmland in Buckland and the West-farthing to some of the more recent settlers; the family of the Firebrand was wealthy well beyond his sheriff’s salary. Gilley’s parents had become quite successful in sharecrop farming on their own substantial bit of property south of Buckland. Her father Emmon was another of Gondo’s early Pioneers and so he held wide and fertile lands in the family name while he and his children worked hard to manage their own. It was really only Poppy, son and grandson of generations of labouring gardeners, artists and tradesmen, who would need to fret about money in their future; the Noakesburrows always had plenty of work but had, quite unluckily, never become “landed” as other hobbits were.

  The first settlers of the West-farthing, if we see them represented by the parents of these four friends, had done quite well for themselves and for their children. Yet hobbits, like most genteel folk, detest open talk of money and seldom comment on one another’s economic status. If Berty was stung at all by Bovo’s comment it did not show. He looked away and, rather simply, replied;

   ‘So you mean to say that the banker’s life might suit me well enough.’

   ‘Well, I-’ Bovo began to say.

   ‘Is that what this is all about, Youngbuck?’ Gilley asked, saving the two from the impending argument. ‘I must say that I didn’t fully believe you when you claimed that it wasn’t about your missing father and I now guess that I wasn’t wholly wrong in that; do you really wish to learn some of the skills your father was known for?’

   ‘Well, not in the way you mean it but, yes, Gilley, I do,’ Berty replied carefully. ‘Or I feel that I should. I am thankful for the very comfortable life I’ve been given in the Shire but, as I think about my own way forward, I’ve come to believe that I, well, that part of me I have been told to be proud of, has become rather too complacent and perhaps too soft to deserve such comforts.’

   None of Berty’s friends said anything in response to this. They were together walking west along the wide Road, all four abreast, and, just as Gilley had recounted, there was little tree cover to either side that might shade their way. The Sun had set some two hours or so ahead on their path and a wide open and star-filled sky now rested quietly above their heads. There was a stillness in the starry sky, and Berty had felt its quiet calling tonight just as he had many times before when he would sit on the hilltop of his home back in the Buckland. Now he wished that his friends could feel that quiet urge too and, understanding its call, would not question him further. But part of him knew that this would not be so; they did not listen to the stars as he did and instead they simply waited, as good friends will, for him to explain himself further.

   And so he did.

   ‘My family has done things,’ Berty said after some long minutes of walking and hoping that the subject might become changed, ‘things which I am rightly- no, I should say genuinely- proud of. I doubt that I shall ever match them and believe that my trying to do so would not be anything but arrogant folly.

   ‘But I do not wish to be an inheritor of someone else’s success. Forgive me if that seems too proud and too ungrateful. But I’d like to live in a hole which I have dug for myself and, at the end of a long day’s work, whatever my job might be, I would like to sit in a chair which I had made for myself. My parents have not taught me these things, how to make a chair or to plant a vegetable garden, this kind of self-reliance, and I hope, dear friends, that you will share some of your own teachings for our short time alone together before I must decide my future. I am sorry that I haven’t made this more clear or been more upfront about my intentions; but, despite what Bovo may think of my planning, I am not sure that I have ever fully realised or understood this for myself until now.

   ‘I don’t want to be what they want to make me,’ Berty said softly and finally. ‘At least I do not want it if I can not figure out a way to do it for myself.’

   There was another pause at this and all three of Berty’s friends looked at the ground as, together, they walked further along the Road west. The stars shone brighter still and it was maybe twenty minutes or more before anyone spoke.

   ‘Well, Youngbuck, I don’t know why you could not have told us that sooner,’ Poppy said, breaking the tension. ‘I can certainly show you how to build a footstool or cane a comfortable chair. If you had told me sooner then we needn’t go all the way to Greenholm for such a lesson.’

   ‘Cold cakes and wine while walking it will be then,’ Bovo said with his usual glum kindness. ‘Let us hope the rashers will keep for breakfast and that Gilley will allow us a small fire by that time.’

   ‘A month or more it is to be then,’ Gilley said, smiling her broad grin. ‘Well, you have our support in this even if you have gone the longabout way toward asking for it. But I feel you will have to get to know your uncle Childebrand’s family a bit better, Youngbuck, if we are to be provisioned, all four of us, for that much time in the wild.’

   ‘Yes, Gilley,’ Berty replied with a mischievous smile of his own. ‘While I had not considered any of that before, I believe that I now have a Plan for the Swiftooks as well.’

end of chapter three

Chapter End Notes

Notes

1)  I have been using the word “Delvings” here rather freely and should explain why. I mean this to be the same area which would later be called Michel Delving and the de facto capital of the Shire in Frodo’s day. “Delving” means “excavation” and, at this early day of the western expansion to the Shire, I think that word might have been used for all of the early constructions that had not yet grown names of their own.

2)  While the location here was called “the Sarn Ford” in Frodo’s day and, earlier in this text, I believe that title would have come from the Númenóreans, I don’t think hobbits would’ve named it as such just yet. As said in my previous note, there is a connection between this name and a famous battle of the First Age so the name could’ve come down from the Dunedain or through the Elves. But hobbits would not know it.

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   To tell the story of Gondolpho Oldbuck’s return in Year Twenty-Nine of the Shire one must, once again, cross that delicate line between biography and rumour. It is, after all, a one-sided story from the vantage point of history and, as was made clear earlier, rumour and history are never far separated in any examination into the lives of hobbits.

   Many of the old journals of Theudebald Swiftalk and his nephew, then called Theudebert Youngbuck, have been recovered in the excavation of the Great Smials in 1961 of our present Age. So too were the letters that those two hobbits received and saved from the other parties in this drama. These first-person accounts help us to understand the earliest days of the Shire through the eyes of the first hobbits to settle there. But, like all first-person accounts, they are only as reliable as their authors. There were many of those writers who had strong opinions one way or another regarding the events related to the feud of these two families and, in many of these letters, accounts differ greatly. In Year Fifty-Three of the Shire, long after Gondo’s story had come to its most tragic ending, Berty’s sister Deidre penned the very first version of “The Tale of the Tooks and the Bucks''; a story written in verse and to be sold in some of the earliest bookshops found in the north of Middle-earth (that bookshops should be the invention of Shire-hobbits should come as no surprise to anyone who has read this far into their history and, indeed, into this very book). The popularity of Deidre’s tale undoubtedly formed the framework of all subsequent rumours about the feud of the two great families. It is unknown just how much access she may have had to any now missing journals and letters; for her father Twoody was long since dead but her brother Berty had become the first (and only) President of the Shire¹ and, by all reports of the day, had become quite possessive of the family archives.

   The version of the story by Deidre Took was written in song (for she was quite gifted in this way and, for a time, she even outstripped her mother’s former fame as a documentarian with her own work as a lyricist). There are numerous versions of the story in differing styles and metres which are found in old copybooks, but no complete version exists to reveal the original form. No original version of “The Tale of the Tooks and the Bucks” has yet been found, though many letters and journals speak of its publication in Year Fifty-three. The fact that no copy of it remained in the archive of the Great Smials seems to indicate that President Took himself did not approve of the story and, as some scholars believe, may have had a hand in its suppression and subsequent loss. But that too is a rumour beyond evidence.

   Some of the verses from Deidre’s tale remain, found in old letters or gossip, but the complete tale, and its tune, were lost by Bilbo’s days. Here is a sample of one section, “Oldbuck Return’d”, which is clearly a later bastardization, rendered in a more simple rhyme scheme, when we compare it to Deidre’s more complex known writings:

“By Road and West and dusk return’d, 

“Past riven rock and tall trees grown, 

“Past homes and holes never known, 

“He came by Road and West return’d.

“In Summerdays’ golden parade, 

“Marching home in uncertain haste. 

“Memories lost, the Buck he chased, 

“To home, to Sarehole, to persuade.”²

   Though the full text of this poem is lost to us now it clearly informs the tale which Goldilocks wrote over fourteen hundred years later. Was the original poem known to her and other hobbits at this time? We cannot say.

   History may not be fully recovered from these days, but the rumour we do know. Letters and other accounts tell us that on the evening of June 20th, in 1630 of the Third Age of Middle-earth, on the first night of Lithe in the Twenty-ninth year of the Shire-reckoning, Gondolpho Bucklestrap, now referred to by those who remembered him as “the Oldbuck”, came walking west down the Great Road with the sun setting behind him. First he came to the old encampment that he and Twoody had made when they met with the Elves at the westernmost edge of the Shire twenty-five years before. And there, or so we can only assume, the Oldbuck was baffled by what he saw.

   Twoody had stopped making his yearly pilgrimage to this place long before this time but he had, for the first seven years after his friend’s disappearance, built a nice little cottage there in the hollow of a very large tree. In that same hollow the Elves of the West had once made a temporary home for their hobbit ambassadors and the Oldbuck’s eye, upon returning, was caught in the stillness of remembering that former day and setting it against the condition of change which the old tree showed him upon his return. Ancient and bare as when they first saw it, the tree was covered, then and now, in bright moss and from that, though Gondo had no way to know it yet, Twoody had given it the name “Greenholm”. It was designated on many maps at this time as the furthermost deeded land in the Shire. No hobbit other than Gondo or Twoody had come within miles of the place in all the long years, but its claim was staked and filed in the Office of Deeds leagues away in Assayer’s Office in the Buckland during Year Five of the Shire.

   What the Oldbuck would have seen on his return must have come as quite a surprise. Firstly, there was no way to refute the evidence that hobbits had come so far west in his absence; for the single dwelling, though set into a tree rather than dug into the ground, was certainly very hobbit-like in its manufacture. There was a nice round door, pointing north of course, and Gondo could see the remnants of an overgrown but still quite lovely garden which was composed of local flowers. Inside the cottage-hollow there was a small sitting room with two well-crafted and hobbit-sized chairs and even two comfortable stools for weary feet. A few now-mouldering blankets had been carefully rolled and put into the cedar drawers of a bedroom sideboard built onto the tree’s leeward side and there was even a small long-neglected birchwood writing desk beside a nearby fireplace. Exploring further, Gondo found that there was also an outdoor kitchen with an open cupboard and pantry, and, inside of that, a few mugs and plates, and even some old and now well-rusted washing buckets. In the small stone cooking stove which sat outside of the overhanging branches, Gondo found tarnished forks and a knife on the rusted, blackened grate. All of these tools and household goods were familiar to his eye and to his hand they measured as quite unmistakably hobbit-sized.

   What the Oldbuck thought of this discovery we cannot know; it is one of hobbit history’s most disappointing facts that few of the letters we have in Gondo’s hand from the later years discuss his observations upon returning. He would, or so we think, have been very surprised to see any evidence of hobbit settlements so far west in the Shire. We must also believe that he would later be more surprised to learn that his friend, that very same sedentary banker and unabashedly comfort-seeking city-dweller Twoody Swiftalk, had built this place all on his own. Certainly he could not have expected that. But what Gondo may have thought of this discovery of Greenholm, if it was ever recorded, has not survived and the other stories related to his return to the Shire would soon outstrip their importance.

   But, quite certainly, the Oldbuck must have wondered even then at just how long he had been gone.

   For whatever reason, no matter what distance he may have travelled earlier that day, we know that Gondo did not camp in the deserted treehouse of Greenholm that night. We know from the dates of his later meetings that he must have continued west down the Great Road all night; the stars over his head and his old walking-stick at his hand, urging him forward. He would have his first encounter with Shire-hobbits the next morning in the developing settlement of the Delvings.

   The events of the Oldbuck’s return play an important part in our telling of the Shire’s history but, yet again, we lack the written accounts of the principle characters. Therefore we must rely on the two Shire-hobbits who figure large in this part of the history. The things which they said or wrote inform much of what is recorded here.

   Our first reports will come from Eumaeus Sandyman, one of the groomsmen at Gondo’s wedding in Year Two of the Shire, who was the first of his name and an offshoot from the larger family of hobbits called the Sandheavers. No one knows why Eumaeus changed his name while his brothers did not, but the deed for his home in the Buckland was recorded in Year One with that very same “Sandyman” name. Eumaeus was a loyal friend and follower of Gondo’s and one of the first Bucklanders. In the earliest years of his life he did not know his letters nor write much beyond his name and the name of his family. His folk, the Sandheavers, had lived in the Bree-land for only a few years before moving to the Shire and had come from the Southlands below the Barrow-downs. They were goat-herders there, or so stories tell us, but they had become pig-farmers in the Bree-land and brought much of that stock with them upon the settlement of the Shire.

   Pigs do not care much for sandy soil and, perhaps, this is where the “Sandheavers” derived their name upon first entering the Bree-land; preferring the rich and muddy lands under hills to softer stone and loose earth of low hilltops. Many of Eumaeus’ brothers had settled between the Bridgefields and Stock when they first entered the Shire, but Eumaeus himself had decided to settle to the south of Buckland along the edge of the Green Hill Country where he tried, for a time, to return to the practice of goat-herding. Most of the Shirefolk believe Eumaeus named himself “Sandyman” in respect to his old family yet with a specific choice for starting his own life apart from theirs.

   Although Eumaeus was largely unlettered he is the perfect storyteller for our understanding of the time because of the significant part which he played in the Oldbuck’s return. Beyond that he was, by all accounts, quite a popular person with a keen but droll way of speaking, a sort of beloved clown-figure and town-crier who was seen as quite quotable by the Shire-hobbits of the second and third generation. Most notably among these was Arbogastes Bophin, a young nephew of Alaura’s, who tried to lampoon many of Eumaeus’ stories and witticisms into a series of comic articles published in THE SHIRE-RECKONING some forty years later. Therefore Eumaeus’ observations come to us, as most rumour usually does, through retelling by others who believe themselves to be wiser than the first-hand witness they are quoting. But if, as many people say, “imitation is indeed the highest form of flattery”, then Eumaeus Sandyman’s way of telling a story must’ve been well-loved indeed.

   “So preparatory to anything else it should be said that I, myself as I was at the time, was in no way nor in no manner readily accepting when from around the turning of a small hillock came a figure of middling hobbit height, evidently on the morning prowl, and calling: “Mace!” So suddenly nearby was the intruding figure that I started rather dizzily and, actuated by motives of inherent delicacy inasmuch as I have always believed in minding my own business, moved off but nevertheless remained on the alert with just a prudent shade of anxiety.”³

   For later developments we will also look at the important records of Ermenberga Bophin, the younger sister of Alaura (and mother of Arbogastes), who had come to the Shire and married in Year Seven. Ermy, as she was called, was two years younger than her sister but had also learned to write and read from an early age. She was one of the first copyists of THE SHIRE-RECKONING and after Alaura’s departure wrote many original articles for that broadsheet. Ermenberga was also known as one of the longest serving teachers in early Shire history, running a small schoolhouse in the Buckland for five decades and even accepting the Post-master position for a time after Alaura’s departure.

   Ermy was married to Euric Bophin, one of the Shire Reeves in Bridgefields, and they had many children together. Many became Shire Reeves (eventually shortened to “Sherriffs”) like their father, or farmers like their uncles and even educators like their mother. A few, like Arbogastes, sought the unique lifestyle of poets, social critics and political dissenters inspired by their famous aunt Aluara Fairheart.

   Ermenberga was as close to her sister as any of her siblings might claim to be, but far afield in her own views of independence. She visited Alaura often in the years after Gondo had departed and helped with the raising of Youngbuck for some time before Alaura’s second marriage. She was always called “dear Auntie Ermy” by Youngbuck and his siblings, and that title had stuck with many of the children who attended her classrooms over the years. She was as proud of that title as any which she later held and smiled softly and inwardly to hear it said.

   Auntie Ermy had held Alaura’s confidence for many decades and kept specific notes on their conversations, committing them to her own otherwise unspectacular diaries. Through her we have some of our only recordings of how Alaura may have felt about Oldbuck’s disappearance, her second wedding and the reason behind her third wedding.

   Strangely enough, all of Ermenberga’s letters and diaries were found preserved and intact in the excavation of the Great Smials and accompanied by the quotations of Eumaeus Sandyman, published and unpublished, which had become accredited to Arbogastes Bophin. Presumably these were part of an aborted attempt at some book Arbogastes was writing on the subject over fourteen hundred years before Goldilocks Gardener wrote her version of the story. Why they were collected at the Great Smials is unknown and little or nothing is written about the failed literary career of Arbogastes Bophin. If Youngbuck, as President Took, ever read these letters and notes or was in any way aware of their content remains unknowable.

   Careful reading will tell us that Ermenberga and Alaura differed on many many topics and thought about the politics of relationships in very different ways. But the journals of Auntie Ermy during Shire Years Twenty-Nine and Thirty, though written through her own sense of decorum (if not outright prudery), might be the best window into Alaura Fairheart’s own thoughts which remains available to history.

   “I can listen no longer in silence and must do something to settle her condition. She frets and frets and wishes to meet him by such means as are within her reach. He pierces her soul, as always, leaving her half in agony and half in hope even when she thought that such precious feelings were gone forever.

   "Will she offer herself to him again with her heart, broken as it was twenty-five years ago, renewed by her passions and blind to their past? Should one say that a husband forgets sooner than a wife, that his love has an earlier death? Perhaps, but I cannot dissuade her of his integrity. Unjust I may have been in my assessments, resentful of his leaving she may still be in hers. But in love she has been only practical and never inconstant. Have I not seen this? Shall I fail to understand her wishes in fear of her heart’s safety?

   "She believes that there is true love, true attachment and true constancy among hobbits, among husbands and wives and, most of all, among friends. Excellent sister! I wish I could help you in your uncertain fate.”⁴

   These two reporters will play heavily in the tale of the Oldbuck’s Return, though filtered through their own methods of recording. There is some certainty that Goldilocks Gardener may have had access to these accounts and, as this book concerns itself largely with presenting her version of the story, we will try to support or enhance it with what we know from these other sources regarding Gondo, Twoody and Alaura and the fate which befell them.

   But it is important to mention that the meeting of Gondo and Berty, which happened on the second day of Lithe in Year Twenty-Nine of the Shire, was not witnessed or commented on by either of these reporters. Seven other hobbits were present then (along with two allegedly unscrupulous Big Folk and four very loyal ponies) and if any of these had ever written of the event, those writings are currently lost to time. Much of what we will discuss next regarding Gondo’s impressions upon re-entering the Shire comes not from Goldilocks’ tale, not from the diaries of Auntie Ermenberga and not (directly that we know of) from the fireside gossip of Eumaeus Sandyman. It comes from the general gossip of Shirefolk of the time, found in letters and songs, and re-enforced by the later material as discovered at the excavation of the Great Smials.

Forgive, if you can, this lack of better accounting. But i believe that this is, with most careful research and all informed consideration, the best story we may put together without better evidence.

end of chapter four

Chapter End Notes

Notes(6/20/24)

1)  “President of the Shire” is an invention of my own which will be talked about later in this book and developed a bit further in Book III of The Fall of Arnor. Without opening up what might be a rather boring political debate at this stage of the writing I should simply say that, in my mind and my fiction, the structure of Shire government is meant to reflect failings, as I see them, within my own American template of late-colonial and rather idealistic government. There are many terms, like “president”, which sound very wisely-chosen at first yet, to my mind and in their practices of power, fail in their later usage.

2)  I have a very weird process when it comes to writing the poetry or songs in Tolkien fanfic. I often make way more lines of a poem than I ever intend to use as I try to become accustomed to the metre. For the Song of Eärendur (another work which fuels the longer Fall of Arnor) I’ve written much of that story in the style of Tolkien’s Beowulf translation and I may wind up publishing it somewhere later; yet another fragment of the working process. Some of this poem began with Tolkien’s Roads Go Ever On, a suitable source, but the metre and pattern changed through my playing with it. The poem itself was begun during Christmas week in 2023 and I now find myself wanting to go back and layer more of it into the previous chapters. There’s something very satisfying about the four line pattern and the idea that it comes from Alaura’s daughter that I feel I need to elaborate on. God, this book on hobbits is unending!

3)  Many, many things that I do here are not for Tolkien fans only but for my friends who are Joyce fans as well. I teach Joyce's work professionally and there are many friends reading this lengthy book about hobbits because of the respect they have for me in that academic world. The character of Eumaeus Sandyman and his way of talking are Easter eggs for fans of Joyce’s ULYSSES. I am echoing the “Eumaeus” episode here broadly, boldly, and with the greatest opportunity to make my friends who are reading this laugh at my own quirks. You are, as always, welcome to do so.

4) Yet another chance to play with narrative voices in Tolkien’s world. This bit comes from Jane Austen’s “Persuasion” and seems to hit all the right notes. I am not really an Austen fan or a regular reader of her work, but I wanted a voice for Auntie Ermy which seemed to romanticise her sister’s feelings while still sounding somewhat prudish. Austen seems the proper fit. I will expand on both these narrative styles in later chapters, so consider yourself warned.

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   Reginard Swiftook took a long and appraising look at the young hobbit doe and her three friends. He did not like what he saw; neither the clothes which they wore nor the letter and the supply list they had brought with them. But he was by this point of his life quite well-experienced in the game of negotiations and so his mild face did not betray his thinking. ‘And a pony, you say? All of that and a pony?’

   Gilley tried to respond with equal calmness but, as her friends could certainly see, the manners of the shopkeeper had begun to annoy her. ‘Yes,’ she replied, meeting his steady gaze with one of her own. ‘Saddled not for riding but for porting.’

   ‘The transporting of pelts, you say?’ the older hobbit questioned further. ‘You are notable hunters, or so you say, and have been sent forth, as this letter tells me, to hunt along the western border of the Shire. The four of you. You younglings?’

   ‘The four of us,’ Gilley said with diminishing patience, ‘as you say.’

   ‘Tell me, is there something wrong with my father’s letter, master Swiftook?’ Berty asked, doing his best to affect a glum, disinterested but dangerously important voice. ‘The two of you have had dealings together of old, yes? Or so he tells me and so he writes in his letter. Is that not so?’

   ‘He does write that and yes we have, young master,’ the calm-faced hobbit said, rising from his seat behind his makeshift counter to address the self-important looking speaker. ‘I know Horris Bunce only too well, which is to say that I know him well enough to not feel a strong need to do him any favours.’

   It had been perhaps an hour or two after the dawn when the four friends had come into the camp and its market. Waymeet, or the small collection of shallow living holes, hastily-crafted wooden shacks, low-fenced animal pens and fresh water barrels that were working hard to become a true settlement town, was the home of no more than two dozen hobbits or so. It could be found about half a mile south of the Great Road in a little valley, but its campfires and its smell could easily be discerned by travellers from much farther away. A rough wagon path had led Berty and his friends south from the Great Road and there they saw a market of small wooden shops covered with tarps and sackcloth and all manner of weatherproofing methods. Barrows and carts were scattered amid blankets and crates, tools and produce. Some ponies and some chickens were about, some in pens and some roaming freely. There was a team of thirteen well-fed goats, tethered to one another, picking through a refuse pile. The animals cucked and neighed and brayed as newcomers approached, hopeful of leaving this drab little place. The tarps and the blankets, and even the foods and the housewares, were as colourless as the mud of the roadside.

   There were perhaps ten or twelve stalls to the market and perhaps as many hobbits tending to them. Further south, standing a bit above the other buildings, was a large tent, four times the height of any hobbit and easily six or seven meters wide. Beside that was the largest and best provisioned of the shops and it had a blue sign; the only bright colour to be found in the camp, reading “SWIFTOOK P., P., P., & P.” Here Berty and his friends had come face-to-face with the heir of the Swiftook family in a lawless place where they had no friends and he had many.

*****

   But not long before that, further east and off the Road in a small but concealing cluster of trees, they had made a small camp where they could eat Bovo’s prized and stolen morning rashers and form their newest Plan.

   Gilley and Poppy’s families were both from the lower edge of the Buckland and therefore had many stories to share of their Swiftook neighbours in the settlement at Whitwell. Trade, cautious and suspicious trade though it was, did exist there along the borders of the South- and West-farthings, but the people from these communities did not mix and friendships between them were largely unheard of. Berty and Bovo, living in the centre of the Buckland and coming from families of some authority, knew nothing of Whitwell nor its people. Berty’s uncle Twoody spoke of the Southron hobbits seldom and of his family members there not at all. Any news that Bovo had to share came from talking to his father’s reeves who kept careful watch at their southern border.

   ‘I’ve not met your uncle Childebrand before, Berty,’ Gilley had said at the time, ‘for rumour tells us that he has seldom been seen among the hobbits of the Tookland. But I have met your cousin Reginard, and you will forgive me for saying that I do not like him at all. He is nothing like your other uncles which I have known and I can see why most of your family will have nothing to do with him.’

   ‘Some say that he and his father spent a dozen years outside the Shire. In exile,’ Poppy said, savouring the idea of that strange and final word. ‘That would certainly harden a person, or so I should think.’

   ‘That may be so, Poppy,’ Gilley replied, ‘but there’s other tales of his time away as well which make me less sympathetic to his troubles.

   ‘Either way,’ she went on, ‘we met not in Whitwell but out here in Waymeet. My father and I had come along the Road with two of my brothers some months ago. We were driving two dozen young pigs up to the Delvings and the market there. This was in Rethe,¹ and the trip was easy enough but not quick, for young pigs are willful and not readily driven. They will stop at every mudhole to cool themselves and thereby slow the whole of your marching. Now if you went there in Autumn, Youngbuck, then you know that the Delvings are growing quickly indeed, and there was good profit to be made from bringing young animals to the new settlers there.

   ‘It was not by choice that we stopped for a time at Waymeet, but it was the pigs who made that decision for us,’ she continued with a smile. ‘My father may not have the same history with the Swiftooks that your’s does, Bovo, but he has a keen eye for keeping well out of dangerous business.

   ‘That place is not so much a town of its own but another mudhole along the great Road which has grown in size and grime just as any other mudhole will; through traffic. There are no farms and it seemed to me that few huntsmen were present, so who knows where their food comes from. There is no mill nor post office nor public house to be seen, no streets nor comfortable holes nor even proper buildings. It is a disorganised collection of wagons and tents, near-to-spoiling vegetables and sewage still carted off in buckets. As I say, my father did not intend to stop there, but the piglings took a liking to the smell from a mile off. Waymeet is nothing but a community of twenty or so fortune-seeking Southron hobbits looking to profit from the Delvings' success and willing to “cut deals” with any and every hobbit who might come into their camp.’

   ‘Brilliant imagery, Gilley,’ Bovo said, taking a bite of the fresh bacon and a happy swig of wine from his bottle, ‘but should I remind you now that it was your idea we go there. And just why was that, exactly?’

   ‘My uncle Twoody took us wide around Waymeet when we came this way,’ Berty said. ‘He knew that his brother Childy, or Childy’s sons, or other of the Southrons were here and rather fiercely insisted that we should have nothing to do with them. “There is bad history between us, Berty,” he told me at the time. “My brother and I were close, very close in earlier days, but there are some past grievances which may not be forgiven.” Uncle Twoody never said anything further, but that is the first I had learned of the settlement at Waymeet.’

   ‘Not the first I have heard,’ Bovo remarked calmly, much more content now with his mouthful of warm crispy bacon, soft cheese and toasted bread. ‘My father rather hates your uncle, your uncle Childebrand that is, and has had past dealings with his son Reginard, of whom he is still distrustful. He has, at rare times, talked proudly in our house about running him out of the Shire years ago and openly insisting it should be done again.’

   ‘Now that is severe!’ Berty replied. ‘I thought an agreement was made to change all of those old arguments.’

   The other three were quiet for a time until Gilley finally spoke up:

   ‘Oh, Youngbuck, you are right, and I’m sorry that none of us have spoken up or done anything about this before,’ she said earnestly. ‘But you are right; your parents have sheltered you from things which you should learn and know. They may seem like rumour, but these are the things which most Shirefolk know that you do not.

   ‘Your uncle Childebrand is an usurer, a person who lends money to those in need but charges interest at an exorbitant rate,’ she told him. ‘He brought great shame upon your uncle Twoody and, some say, it was that same shame which killed your own kindly grandfather Hincmar back in Year Fifteen² while we were allstill children. I am sorry to tell you this, Youngbuck, but he had taken advantage of so many of the Shire’s early pioneers and therefore held an option on deeds for, as I’ve heard it, more than a quarter of the settled properties of that time.’

   ‘More, to hear my father say it,’ Bovo added. ‘“The Child’s Bank,” as he has called it, tried to force out the entire settlement of Hobbiton-by-the-Water and nearly pushed my father into poverty. If your parents and another few great landowners hadn’t established a very quick and important set of laws for banking within the Shire then the “Child’s Bank” would’ve become its own little nation by now. We all may be too young to remember, but he even had some Big Folk from the Bree-land serving as enforcers before his fall and they were seizing lands by threat of force and running off the owners.’

   ‘It was your own brave father, Bovo, who saw to them,’ Gilley said. ‘The Firebrand Bunce won the day at the Battle of the Bank, and Youngbuck’s uncle Childy was forced into exile for a time.’

   ‘Lawks!’ Poppy said. ‘What a terrible thing to happen between good-natured hobbits! I’m glad to have been too young to know more of those days!’

   ‘But,’ Gilley continued, ‘some of those Big Folk follow him still, for I saw a few with Reginard upon our meeting last Rethe. Trust me, Youngbuck, this cousin of yours is no simple “black sheep” but a true villain in dyed woolly cloth; Reginard may still respect and fear your parents, and your father as well, Bovo. He might deal with us in a way which you will find profitable, but he will, as is his reputation and his nature, take all that he can from any trade no matter the family relations. And more, if force and his taste for vengeance will allow it.’

   ‘What a scoundrel!’ Poppy said through his own mouthload of breakfast. ‘I’m sorry, Youngbuck, but he sounds very much like a person to avoid.’

   ‘Yes, he does,’ Bovo answered. ‘And this just makes me wonder all the more why Gilley suggests that we should visit him.’

*****

   The older hobbit, Reginard, was walking forward as he addressed Berty. He was not tall or physically imposing in any specific or measurable way, but his body and his manner conveyed a sense of authority about him as he rose from the seat behind his desk and he knew well how to use this in his relations with others; slowly he walked, making other conversations in the open-air storefront seem unimportant and causing them to suddenly cease. Berty, trying his best to continue with a bored facade which he hoped gave off an authority of his own, acted unmoved in a way he had never attempted before. No one said a thing as the two hobbits took the measure of one another.

   ‘Is this about money, then?’ Berty asked in a removed and disgusted tone of voice. ‘Is it so boring a thing as that which delays us? I should think that if you’ve had dealings with my father, yes, the kind which you allude to and that I have heard of far too often myself, then I should think that you might want to respond more readily and more favourably. You must know that he can pay any reasonable price that you are asking. Furthermore, you must know that a successful venture of his which you have aided will also aid your own position and reputation. But if there is some grudge of old-’

   ‘Our history is old, to be sure,’ Reginard interrupted, ‘but grudges are a weakness for common dirtfarmers and should be considered both unbecoming and impractical for businessmen.’

   This comment, offhanded as it sounded, bit into Berty’s temper and threatened his disguise; many times he had heard his uncle Twoody say that “anger is unbecoming of adults and impractical for businessmen” and knew it to be a favourite maxim of Twoody’s own father, the much beloved Hincmar Swiftwalk. To hear this saying mangled and maligned in such a way upset Berty greatly; as if everything the old hobbit had taught his sons had been twisted not fifteen years after his own death. He could feel Gilley, daughter of a farmer, bristle at his side with the same anger and knew her to have much less patience.

   But Berty was only acting, after all. He remembered that he was here not as himself to confront his notorious cousin or to take offence on behalf of his family. He had a role to play and must manage to put his anger and impatience aside to keep his disguise as they had planned. Berty was to be Bovo here and Bovo, he knew, would not have cared at all for so small a thing as a family insult.

*****

   ‘Well, if you all say that I should fear him, then perhaps it is best if I never meet him,’ Berty had told them earlier that morning as they were camped for breakfast. ‘Though I admit that hearing all that you have said only makes both my uncle and his son seem all the more terrifying and myself all the more curious. Gilley was right in suggesting we go to Waymeet, Bovo, for we will need provisions going forward. If not from the one uncle in the Delvings then from the other along in Waymeet.’

   ‘So are we back to visiting your uncle Clooty in the Delvings after all? Well, that is disappointing news. It means that we might have enjoyed our dinner and a rest if that Old Plan is to be the New Plan once again,’ Bovo said dryly.

   ‘No, I don’t think so,’ Berty replied. ‘For I think that while Clooty is certainly less dangerous there we would run the greater risk of having our whole mission, our freedoms and our hope of going on to Greenholm unravel. I would not see that happen. We would certainly be recognized in the Delvings and, given what Gilley has told us, we might remain completely unknown in Waymeet. And, furthermore, I believe that I’ve thought of a way we might play a joke on the Swiftooks which would make all of our families proud.’

   So it was that a forged letter from Bovo’s father, along with a list of supplies, was quickly drafted and sealed. Berty composed most of it, but Bovo could not resist dropping imitations of his father’s way of speaking into the writing as well as adding items to the list which he thought would seem particularly odd or unnecessary to the task in mind: one ranga of blue ribbon (medium width), one thimble (metal preferred though bone was also acceptable) and four to six matching buttons (material and colour unspecified). Such was Bovo’s sense of humour; acutely for the enjoyment of himself and his friends and often indecipherable to anyone else.

   The four friends would claim to be travelling as a hunting party (and this idea was mostly drawn from Gilley’s comment about a lack of huntsmen and fresh foods) led by Horris Bunce’s own son. According to the (forged) letter, the party had an open line of credit backed and guaranteed by the Chief Constable. Gilley was known to Reginard and would claim for her part to be guide and spokesperson for “the CONSTABLE’S SON and his TWO LIEUTENANTS” as they were named in writing. The whole of the letter made them sound quite grand and their mission to be of great importance.

   Reginard had met none of the others beside Gilley and it was important to their Plan that no one should know Berty’s true name or parentage. So Berty, posing as the Chief Constable’s son Bovo, would be the leader of their party, sent forth by his father on a hunting expedition into the far west of the Shire; a mission which the Swiftooks, in their own suspicious nature, might rightly mistake for espionage.

   ‘Yes, I understand the joke, Youngbuck,’ Gilley said with some hesitation at this idea, ‘and I understand how it plays on the distrust between the Swiftooks and Bovo’s own father; making their past disagreements an opportunity for profit. It's quite clever and, I should say, also a clever way for you to get Bovo here to play along. But there is some danger in the prank. The Swiftooks take no greater liking to strangers than most hobbits do, and if Reginard should feel openly hostile to Bovo’s father then your suspicious-sounding Plan and elaborate shopping list may get us nothing but a good knock on the head.’

   ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that it is as dangerous as all that, Gilley,’ Bovo said.

    ‘To which I may say that you haven’t met the Swiftooks, Bovo,’ she answered firmly.

   ‘That is true, Gilley,’ Berty said, dismissing another of the everbrewing arguments between the two, ‘but, though I have been left out of such family intrigues I have been raised on family maps. You see, Waymeet is not part of the South-farthing or the Took-lands at all, but part of the West. Don’t forget, I was looking at deeds and plans for a road going that way just yesterday. My uncle Childy, as I understand it, has been granted a great amount of land here in the Shire; but Waymeet is not part of that grant. We cannot possibly be seen as trespassers in the Tookland and I see no reason why four young hobbits like ourselves, with permission from the Chief Constable, shouldn’t be able to do a bit of poking around.’

   ‘Ah. Of course. You seem to have figured it all out,’ Gilley said.

   ‘And so, just as expected,’ she continued with a shrug and smile, ‘the Youngbuck has set us all on yet another adventure.’

   So, choosing the best-tailored clothes from among their very small combined wardrobe, Berty dressed himself to be rather a dandy version of Bovo Bunce, son of the famous Firebrand. Gilley put on one of Berty’s better shirts to look a bit more business-like (though she kept her well-worn slacks, old duffel and battered hat). Poppy, for his part, was glad that he did not have to change his clothes much or worry about changing his name; for he would now be acting as “Master Bunce’s personal servant.”³

   But it was the real Bovo Bunce who took on the biggest disguise. Dressed in some of Poppy’s old work clothes, he wore his own wide-brimmed and dark green sun hat, his bow and his quiver across either shoulder and Gilley’s well-worn traveller's cloak to make him look more the part; for it was Bovo, under a different name, who would need to draw Reginard Swiftook’s attention as a worthy hunter and a potentially dangerous individual.

*****

   ‘I know your father, master Bunce,’ Reginard continued, ‘but I don’t know you. It has been said that he was always clever at a bargain which is a thing, despite their differences, that even my own father greatly respects in him. Even after,’ and here he paused to look directly into Berty’s eye again, ‘the other troubles which your father and his mob brought to my father’s former place of business.’

   Berty’s eyes did their best to say nothing.

   ‘Yet he is very open-ended about his price here,’ the older hobbit said, holding the letter up and shaking it gently in his hand. ‘Much less prudent than I might have known him to be in our past negotiations.’

   ‘Ah,’ Berty said coldly, still trying to look bored. ‘So it very much is about money. Yes.’ And Berty also allowed for an emphatic pause.

   ‘Well, I am sorry to inform you, shopmaster,' Berty continued, 'that I did not set out into the wild with any kind of purse for picking and certainly not with any desire to haggle with short-minded hobbits looking for fast gains over long returns. If you do not like the language of my father’s offer or, for some unfounded reason you are doubtful of his credit, then I’ll thank you to hand the letter back to me and I will seek my provisions further down the Road in the Delvings.’

   ‘Why did you not?’ Reginard said, still holding the letter in his raised hand, but drawing it away from Berty’s outstretched grasp.

   ‘I’m sorry?’ Berty asked.

   ‘The question could not be more simple; why did you come here to Waymeet when you could have gone on to those kindly share-and-share-alike pioneer-folk in the Delvings? Certainly young miss Bramblethorne there did not make the suggestion of using my services,’ he looked at Gilley and smiled a wolf-like smile which gave Berty his first glimpse of just how chilling his black-sheep cousin might be.

   ‘Yes, that is certainly true,’ Berty replied as calmly as he could. ‘In fact I think she finds you very distasteful. I am sorry for this, Gilley,’ he said looking at his friend but maintaining his guise of authority. ‘You warned me, just as my father did, that the Swiftooks here might prove intractable. Yes. Perhaps I should have listened better. But the truth is, shopmaster, your little camp came first along the way and I’ve grown impatient from walking and wished to be on to my enterprise. If you cannot, or will not, meet my needs then I suppose that my impatience has proven to be nothing more than a waste of time for both of us. I will take that list back and go.’

   ‘There are no inns or publichouses here to soothe your impatience or your tired feet, master Bunce,’ Reginard said, looking back at his potential client and again pulling the list away and placing it in his opposite hand. He examined it again as if to give it greater importance in their conversation. ‘It is true that you and your folks might have been very much more comfortable along the Road and could have passed our “little camp” entirely.’

   Behind them the real Bovo Bunce, in the curious and mismatched costume which he had borrowed from his friends, was moving amid the stalls of things for sale. His role was to be that of “notable hunter” as mentioned in the letter, so he wore his hat low to shade his eyes and had his bow and his quiver hung carefully on either shoulder. He moved forward letting his keen eye and bored hand pass over small shovels, farming implements, carpentry tools and carrying sacks set atop overturned barrows. He finally took an unstrung bow from one of these carts into his hand and held it on two fingers checking the balance. He raised it lengthwise in one hand and looked from one end to the other checking its right curve and its forward straightness. It was then that one of the Big Folk, clothed in worn leather, with tattered boots of old cloth and broken heels, came around the side of the wagon to show himself. Bald as a saladbowl he was, well past twice of Bovo’s height and with arms wider than frying pans. His hands were thick and ham-like with wide sausage fingers on pink-coloured palms, each of which were quite large enough to grasp full around a hobbit’s head. A moment later another of these enforcers came silently forward from behind some other nearby wagon. That one, less tall and less stout, had matted hair and equally shabby grey clothing with a formless cap on the top of his head, but there was a longknife on his belt to which the nearness of his hand kept ready.

   ‘Now I do not mean to suggest that your father’s offer, at least what of it he addresses in this letter, is unacceptable, young master Bunce,’ Reginard continued, ‘but knowing your father is not the same as knowing you and so I find myself having to make some guesses about that. And my guesses tell me that you are not quite what you say.

   ‘Your letter claims you to be “notable hunters,” but the little Bramblethorne girl, from what we’ve seen, is little other than a clubfisted pigfarmer and livestock-drover. If she’s a quiet and experienced deer-stalker then I’m an acrobat at birthday parties.

   ‘Your turn-footed fellow there, Noakesburrow, is it?’ Reginard went on to say, ‘well, he looks more a carpenter than he does a valet. Look there! He’s got a mallet which hangs off his belt rather than some dusting brush for cleaning your lordly waistcoat.’

   The other folks around the shop began to laugh in a way which, to all, seemed a bit uncomfortable. The two Big Fellows did not laugh. It was as if the people of Waymeet had heard this kind of speech from Reginard before and some feared what might happen next. Those other two had no such fear of what might come next.

   ‘My father tells me that there was an old Daddy Noakesburrow who was quite a gifted painter of the Shire Map,’ Reginard continued. ‘Has his talent dried up so that his grandsons have now become daylabourers?’ As calmly and as casually as he may, Berty did look at Poppy, standing there bravely on his best foot and suffering the insult. They were all so used to their friend’s mallet being with him all the time that no one had noticed the important incongruence of it hanging from his belt now.

   ‘And you are certainly no hunter yourself, master Bunce,’ the Swiftook said with slow and deliberate authority. ‘Your dress is too garish, your walk too confident and your manner too polished. No, at a glance I can see that you’ve spent more time in schoolrooms and sitting parlours than you’ve done in the wild and it makes me wonder why your father, who is not one to waste talent, would send you on such a silly excursion claiming you to be a “notable hunter.” Horris Bunce would have raised you to a much better position with hope of a greater talent.’

   There was a long pause here as the two hobbits, once again, took one another’s measure. Many discoveries had been made that worked against the Plan of the four friends, but Berty, despite his inexperience, did not flinch and, with a braveness that he never knew he had, said nothing as he awaited the next move in the game.

   ‘But, no, you’re not a waste at all, are you, young master,’ Reginard said, stepping closer. ‘No. For I can see that while your hands are soft and uncalloused there is ink on your fingers; stains from daily use, by the look of them.’

   Berty could see Gilley from where he stood and saw also the visible tension in her shoulders. Her eyes were darting around and whether she looked for weapons or avenues of escape he could not tell. Knowing Gilley well, he assumed it would be weapons. He was glad that he could not see Poppy from this vantage point. Poor Poppy was not made for this kind of drama and adventure and, glad as Berty was to have him along, he felt responsible for the terror his friend must now be feeling.

   All Berty could do is look into the menacing eyes of his Swiftook cousin and try to hold onto his own disaffected facade. He thought to speak and then thought better of it. Wisely he waited. He waited until, eventually, his waiting worked.

   ‘You’re no hunter,’ Berty’s blacksheep cousin Reginard said finally, weighing his judgement. ‘You have a keen and unwavering eye, a steady hand under tension and scrutiny, and ink-stained fingers, master Bunce. I don’t think you’ve been sent off to hunt, because that is not a talent you seem to possess and therefore a waste of other talents which your father would not make. No, you have been trained for a deeper and much more important task, I would say. You’ve been sent off to make maps, haven’t you?’

*****

   Map-making was an important (and lucrative) skill that was in great demand during the second generation of Shire expansion. Hobbits, coming into the Shire as they did from their many hiding places in the world, had no institutions nor apprenticeships for developing the science of cartography as some other People of Middle-earth had. They had been a nomadic folk to be sure, but if any maps were kept of their former travels none exist among the few recovered libraries of Hobbit culture. It seems that any skill they had in cartography (though they never called that skill by such a lofty name) comes out of their relationship with the Big Folk and many historians find it worth noting that hobbits used Númenórean words for units and scales of measure rather than those more common among the people of the Bree-land.

   But cartography is, of course, not simply a science of measurement but an art of rendering the measured world into a schematic and understandable space. Draughtsmanship and an acute sense of description are no less an important part of the cartographer’s art than are his tools of measurement.

   There were no places within the Shire to learn the science and art of cartography but, as more and more of the land was becoming rapidly settled, and deeds could not be filed without accurate maps, there was a great need for people who had some skill in map-making.

   Berty’s father had drawn the earliest and most famous maps of the Shire record. Those were drawn in great need and haste, often made while on his travels with chalk or other rough tools for rendering and on crude papers folded and jammed into knapsacks carried over long distances. But for all that they had a clear keen sense of translating the distances and dimensions of large areas of the landscape. The maps of the Oldbuck remained, for many long years of hobbit history, a relic and an artifact which show the Shirefolks' connection to their past. Just as Alaura’s book, First Families of the Shire, copies of Oldbuck’s drawings were commercially reproduced for many generations and the copying of these maps, particularly since their creator’s disappearance, was the only way a young hobbit might try to learn the art for himself.

   Before his disappearance the Oldbuck had taught some of his skills and technique to his brother-in-law, Berty’s uncle Clooty, who, for quite a few years, refined all of the Shire’s early maps into regimented documents which could record the parcels of all the ownerships in the new land. Clooty, though we are uncertain as to where he may have learned it, brought the first notion of survey into his maps and, through that art, began to chart the elevations of hilltops. When Old Noakes drew the famous Shire Map that Reginard had just spoken of much of it was done from the detailed maps of Clothair Pudifoot. And that young hobbit showed great skill as a draughtsman and for a time fell into the important (but unofficial) position of master Mapmaker in Year Four of the Shire-reckoning. For more than a few of his young bachelor years, and between his other feats of engineering, Clooty had travelled from town to town making his considerable fortune by drawing maps which all the hobbits of each settlement could agree upon. Each fencepost and lane, every shared well and boundered grazing land, were set down and agreed upon by maps bearing the signature “CP, B” for “Cloothair Pudifoot, Builder” and set into the records of every town from Rushby to Hardbottle.⁴

   For the craft of map-making is, of course, essential to the growth of any settlement, any town, or any county or nation. One must have a clear delineation of the land if one can truly claim it as their own. As the community of hobbits grew greater and the expansion of properties grew farther and farther away from the maps of the Oldbuck, a new generation of mapmakers was needed that could see the land, understand its features, and set it forth for all to understand. A map-maker makes the world not only discoverable to pioneers but factual to the arguments of lawyers; map-makers indicate what is where and, ultimately, make it easy for others to determine who exactly might own what.

   But Clooty, for all his skill, was at heart more of a builder than a wandering map-maker. Some of his earliest assignments took him to the further edges of Shire development where all of his various talents could be put to use. It gave him a fairly legendary status among the newer pioneers and the younger generation of hobbits like Poppy Noakesburrow, but it left him no time for the mentoring of apprentices. He was doing important work in the Delvings, for that had become the heart of new development of the West-farthing, but at this time there was no one in the Shire who was a match for his map-making talents.

   Berty, though he had from a young age shown much of his father’s skill in drawing, was never truly trained to be a map-maker. He had seen all the old maps in his mother’s schoolrooms and his uncle Twoody’s Assayer’s Office and there were some, like the elevations and placements of the hills of the Great Smials, some of which Berty could recreate from memory. But, more like his mother and his uncle and very much unlike his father, Berty had (until very recently) been a homebody. With a few rare exceptions he had never travelled very far from the Buckland and therefore had no practical understanding of roads and rivers as they wound around hills and woods. He could find the west and east as any sensible hobbit could, knew the logic of walking a straight course in a forest better than most, but having an organized method by which to measure it remained beyond his experience if not quite beyond the grasp of his intellect. But, like his father, Berty had the keen ability to turn a little bit of knowledge into practical service; he could find talent within him when need arose.

   Reginard Swiftook was no blood relation of Berty’s; he was the son of a brother to “uncle Twoody”, who was Berty’s adoptive father. If those two brothers shared any deeper characteristics beyond their manner and likeness, Berty could not, at this moment of their conversation, see it in this son. This hobbit who stood before him was, well, “an unsavoury sort”, Berty might have said at the time. His dress was a bit rough and worn, though not overly dirty or tattered, his feet were certainly muddy, though not uncombed or uncared for, and his hair was certainly longer, darker and more unkempt than Berty’s own, though this in itself was not something which made him stand out from other countryside hobbits. What made the hobbit shopkeeper seem “unsavoury”, Berty recalled later, was to be found in Reginard’s way of speaking, his manner of standing and how oddly it reminded Berty of his uncle Twoody. Reginard had authority and presence and was quick with a response or an observation in the same way that Twoody could be. There was a kind of small smile and gleam of the eye that both had in making a smart response or seeing an overlooked point in the conversation. But Berty could see that Reginard’s smile was entirely ungentle; wolf-like. It was as if the very assets of character which made his uncle Twoody so charming and compassionate made this older brother’s son nothing but dangerous.

*****

   ‘My business and my travels beyond this camp,’ Berty replied, ‘will remain my own, my father’s, and none of yours, I should think. Now, will you supply some of the items on our list or shall I take that business elsewhere?’

   ‘Oh, I can help you with your supplies, that is easy enough,’ Reginard said, looking over the list again, ‘and we can keep this letter as a promissory note between myself and your father just as you wish. I imagine he’ll be quite piqued to hear you’ve come to see me, won’t he? Hah!’ He laughed, as if the idea of doing business with Horris Bunce gave him some sinister pleasure.

   ‘He’ll pay, and right quickly I am certain, when he hears it is me who holds your note. But I’ll need a bit more from you and your little group of hunters if we’re to do business together, master Bunce, just a small bit more and nothing out of your line or off of your way, really,’ Reginard said, sitting back down on his little chair behind the makeshift desk of his open area storeroom. As he did so the two Big Folk drew in along either side of him, saying nothing and keeping their eyes on Berty and his friends.

‘You’ve come at a very propitious time, you see,’ the shopkeeper said, settling his elbows onto the table and looking at Berty over his interlaced fingers. ‘For I find myself wishing to negotiate the services of a Map-maker.’

end chapter five

Chapter End Notes

Notes (06/22/2024)

1)  “Rethe”, you may remember, is called “mudmonth” by some hobbits and corresponds to March in our calendar.

2)  This would be 1616 of the Third Age and Berty, Bovo and Gilley would have been thirteen or fourteen years of age.

3)  I’m really sort of avoiding the idea of servants in the Shire culture. There definitely is a class system implied in Tolkien’s writing and Sam is definitely cast as Frodo’s servant in many cases, but there also seems to be a more agreeable understanding of class relations than I, as an American, am very comfortable in portraying.

4)  These two towns, probably quite small in Year Twenty-nine of Shire-reckoning, are found far to the southeast in Marish and to the northwest of the North-farthing. They represent what I believe to have been the most distant edges of Shire civilization from that time.

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   Amongst all of the artefacts recovered at the Great Smials in 1961 of our present age there can be found no complete historical information on Reginard Swiftook, son of Childebrand the Landlord. Much conjecture on his background comes to us through Clovis Bunce’s book (already cited), later letters between Berty and his friends and a few letters which Reginard himself wrote to his wife, Donnamira Swiftook. Presumably Clovis learned all he knew from his father on this matter, making him a fairly respectable source of information, but it should also be noted that “The Bunces; Between the Bridge and Borderlands” is an adventure novel, one of the first of its kind for that matter, and a great licence with historical reporting has certainly been taken in its creation.

  Reginard was the Landlord’s first son and heir. He was born in the winter of 1587 of the Third Age in a small and unnamed village in the Midgefield Marshes. This would make him forty-three years old in the summer that he met Berty and his friends at the roadside market in Waymeet, but Reginard had already lived many of those years in much more dangerous places than the Shire. His mother was a hobbit who lived in the Midgefield, but her people were from an older clan who lived in the Weather hills northeast of the marshlands. At one time, or so their history told them, many of the old hobbit-tribes had travelled together seeking to escape the dangers of desolation and evil forces in the East. But Reginard’s mother’s people had broken off from that group and settled into the western side of the hills. These were the “Lausa-hobbits”,¹ and for generations they had lived secretly in deep and crowded warrens avoiding strangers, whether they be hobbits or no. There were some among the Lausa who remembered the sword of Priamus Swiftwalk, paternal great-grandfather to both Berty and Reginard as he led hobbits, including some of their own number, out of the dangers of the east and eventually into the Bree-land. It was an old memory among them but nonetheless honoured and so they respected Childebrand, Priamus’ grandson, and took him, through marriage, to be as one of their own. When Childebrand first left the Bree-land to begin his take-over of the Shire he sent his wife and his three children to live among the Lausa; to learn their ways and cultivate their allegiance.

   While the Lausa did not live as other hobbits did, they were certainly true to their hobbit nature in their joys and their desires; for they loved good stories, full bellies, and bright mornings. They used simple tools and, while they lived in a dangerous part of the world which made them more hardy than most town-hobbits, they shunned the unnecessary carrying of weapons. The danger of their situation caused them to spend much of their time underground in large warrens, to hunt above ground warily and in small groups, to gather vegetables and building materials only cautiously and to make friends only with other Lausa clans. This made them more practical-minded and more austere than some other hobbits of the North perhaps, but they were by no means humourless nor did they lead lives of dour desperation. They had never seen the wealth and comfort of their relatives in those larger communities to the west and so, as all hobbits are quite capable of doing, they lived well and comfortably with what they had.

   When the King’s Agreement was signed and the Shire became open for all hobbits Reginard was only fourteen years of age. He had been to the Bree-land once to meet his grandfather and there he saw the comfort of Bree-land hobbits. If he himself was impressed by the luxury of the Breelanders no record tells us. But we do know that he had a keen eye for all that he saw there and reported it back to his people in the Weather hills. And it was the rumour of luxury and wealth that he spread which made the Lausa begin to think about leaving the safety of their holes for the green pastures of the Shire, following him and his father there in Year Twenty-One.

*****

   Reginard and his father Childebrand were not ignorant of the lack nor the importance of map-makers. After all, Childebrand had once used the great Shire Map itself as the clearest way to establish his take-over of property. Reginard had never seen that map of course, but he had heard tales of how his father had subtly laid claim to the early deeds of nearly a quarter of the assigned areas drawn there, slowly filling them in with blue paint, a mystery to the Shirefolk at first but later an illustration of his father’s authority. Reginard had chosen that same shade of blue as a symbol for his own house; for he would remind all the Shirefolk of his legal claims. Like his father, Reginard was a cunning hobbit, more so than most, and he knew that a thing which was remembered, even if it was simply the vague memory of a colour associated with debt or loss, was ever a useful thing to apply.

   And, also like his father, Reginard was cunning enough to seize any new opportunity for success. And a chance for unexpected success is what he saw in four young hobbits on that Summerday in Waymeet.

   Reginard knew that the Delvings were now being built, town and farm, public building and countryhouse, just a few hours west of his current location. He knew that Clooty Pudifoot was making maps and dividing parcels of land, establishing borders and granting ownership to pioneers using the same foolish methods that had been employed in the earliest days of the Shire. Reginard, through the grant made to his father, had more land available to him in the fertile south of the Shire than his own family (and even their friends among the Lausa) could hope to fill in six generations. But still his competitors in the northern parts of the Shire were more quickly moving west and limiting what his father believed to be the south’s commercial opportunities. If northern hobbits reached the land’s borders before his own people did (a motivation set by his father which Reginard himself did not entirely understand) then, or so Reginard had been told, the hope of his family's success would be lost.

   ‘We must hold the westernmost towns of the Shire,’ Childebrand had said, ‘it is vital to our enterprise and a condition of our partnerships in the east. We hold the ford and long, long acres of undeveloped land now in the south. That is good. We can make a good living here and even cautiously open up trade again with our former friends in the north. But if the way to the west is blocked from us, if we have no people there, my son, we will lose everything.’

   Reginard did not understand what his father meant by these “conditions of partnership”, but understood the seriousness of the situation. He had pushed his people to build their settlements as far and as fast into the west as possible and now, here in Waymeet, they had left their own deeded holdings in the South-farthing for new lands that were yet unestablished. Waymeet would come to be a town soon enough; for the Swiftooks knew of the coming plans to build a road west from Buckland. And with this road there would be opportunities for more trade and more expansion. But for Reginard and his father Waymeet was just a stop-over to those lands on the Shire’s western edge.

   But establishing themselves in these unclaimed lands still proved to be a problem. Their competitors in the north of the Shire were traveling into the west along the Great Road, surveying the lands around the Delvings and setting up deeds in accordance with the King’s Agreement. But this same opportunity was not open to Reginard or his Lausa-folk. The family of Childebrand Swiftook could no more walk into the Delvings and take up residence there than they could walk back into the Bree-land and retake Hincmar’s inn. The Bunces and the Bolgers, the Pudifoots and the Fallohides of the West-farthing would not enter into negotiations with the Swiftooks again and, while the King’s Agreement made this land available to all hobbits, those families would block their attempts. Without a map-maker to survey the land it could not be properly registered.

   And the Lausa made no maps.

   Though he may have been ignorant to many of his father’s larger plans, Reginard did understand that holding the western end meant holding western trade (whatever western trade may one day be), and it was his job to see this much of his father’s plans through.

   For Reginard had, as always in life, followed his father’s plan. He had lived in the rough land of the Weather hills while his father had gone forth to develop this green and bountiful country. He had then, by his father’s placement and instruction (and by showing instruments of his family’s traditions) enlisted the aid of all of the Lausa to join him and to come forth and take their holdings in the Shire. He had come with an offer of peace (written by his father) and a show of force (commanded by himself) to open up the Southern Ford in the month of Astron eight years past. Reginard had even openly challenged the very people who had exiled his father by building new cities on the outskirts of their own lands. And now he found himself and his family here, in this lawless, unsettled and ungoverned region of the West-farthing, a member of the Shire in ways his father could not be, making money again as his father once had; off of the hopefuls, the pioneers and the dreamers; exploiting, as his father once did, those less cunning hobbits who were going far west without any idea of what they needed but willing to pay great prices for things which their ignorance saw as useful. Twenty-five years earlier and more his father had traded stores and supplies for deeds and shares and amassed great wealth from the gamble. Now Reginard, heir to the greatest parcel of land in all of the Shire, needed new lands on the far western border. Because that was his father’s plan. And so he had come to this place of Waymeet where he was, on behalf of his family, relegated to the guise of roadside peddler while scouting and hoping to lay claim to the western border through his knowledge of the game of negotiation.

   So what did Reginard, this shrewd player in the game, see then in the idea of a young map-maker sneaking his way into the West on a holiday, a day in which no Northern hobbit travelled far from home? How much did his scorn of Horris Bunce, a rival who had gotten the better of his father in their past, make him certain that there was some great scheme afoot with these four younglings?

   If this son of the Firebrand was indeed a map-maker as Reginard surmised, why did he not go to the Delvings for provisions? The answer seemed simple; the boy’s thin guise as a "notable hunter" would be of no use there. Clooty the Builder would know this youngling for who he really was and then this secret excursion West would be known to everyone.

   So the next question Reginard had to ask himself was why would Horris Bunce want to send a map-maker, indeed, his own son, secretly into the west? This answer also seemed simple; Bunce meant to register the lands west of the Delvings for himself before other hobbits could. And that was something which Reginard could not allow to happen.

   For such is the way of all folk who have turned their hearts to bitterness, jealousy and profit; presented with the obvious fact that these four young hobbits were lying, Reginard could only understand their motives in relationship to his own; as an act borne of avarice and opportunity. To Reginard's way of thinking these younglings had come, whether on their own or (more likely) on the Firebrand’s command, to map the western regions of the Shire. They would record and sell plots of land which Reginard, working on his father’s behalf (as always) dreamed of owning but could not yet get a hold off.

   Unless he could make an opportunity of this current situation.

*****

   ‘... for I find myself wishing to negotiate the services of a Map-maker,’ Reginard said through laced fingers, his eyes unwavering as he looked at the youngling. ‘So. Are we going to end this little dance with you telling me that you have no skill in that area, master Bunce?’

   ‘Oh, I can draw a hill, describe a stream and measure an acre better than some, yes,’ the hobbit said. ‘It doesn’t take much specialised learning to know east from west or a ranga from a league, master shopkeeper, though you might not get much education of that sort off in the Tooklands.’

   ‘Well, he is every bit as bold as his father,’ Reginard thought in response. ‘Caught in a deceit he braves his way through with bluster by insulting my own education. That is bold.’ But Reginard could also see how terrified Bunce’s companions were by this kind of response and knew, with resolve, that his earlier guess had met the mark.

   ‘Well, then I trust that you will forgive we poor and uninformed hobbits from the south for our needs just as I will supply you with your own,’ Reginard said, evading the insult. ‘For I have three parcels of land in the west which I wish to have measured for a claim. You are going west over those very lands, it seems. If the supplies which you request can be provided then I see an opportunity in which we can help one another. Would you not agree?’

   ‘Hm,’ the younger hobbits said, ‘it was my intention to purchase provisions, not trade services.’

   ‘Your intention was to purchase on credit, you mean,’ Reginard replied flatly. ‘And that is not a service which I normally provide. It seems that if we are to work together then some small accommodations must be made by us both.’

   A remarkable thing happened then; the three other hobbits looked very sharply at the young negotiator and Reginard could see the fear and refusal in their eyes. They wanted to leave immediately, he knew, and they felt trapped by whatever decision their friend was about to make. He could feel their resolve crumble and their willingness to run away from too rich a gamble. But not so this young Bunce, the Firebrand’s son. He did not look at any of them, did not seek to consult or argue, and only looked straight into Reginard’s eyes.

   ‘You have all those supplies on my list, then?’ he asked.

   ‘All and more,’ Reginard answered.

   ‘Including papers and chalks and all that is needed for your own purpose?’ 

   ‘And more should your own unspoken purposes need them.’

   ‘Very well,’ the youngling said with a firm and unwavering voice. ‘I will give you three days of my time to be spent measuring your three properties and no more. We are agreed that my services will equal the debt of the supplies and, when your maps are made we shall exchange them for my father’s letter. Agreed?’

   ‘Master Bunce,’ Reginard said with a wolf’s smile, ‘I can think of no more fair an agreement.’

end of chapter six

Chapter End Notes

Notes (06/24/2024)

1) “Lausa-” is from the proto-Germanic for “the breaking up of an army”. There is no hobbit phrase for this of course, but I find this one to be particularly useful for the purposes; I like the idea that Priamus once led thousands of hobbits away from the dangers of Angmar and that many of them came from this highly disputed and war-torn land around the Weather hills. The Lausa, like many of the different pre-Shire hobbits in this book, are my own creation.

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   The SummerDays of Year Twenty-Nine (June 21st, 22nd and 23rd by our current calendar) brought many changes- social, personal and historical- to the Shirefolk. Many of these could have been averted, for better or for worse, through what most people might now call luck. Whether or not one believes in such a thing as luck is quite beyond the point; for a study of history shows us many moments when “things might’ve gone another way” but yet they did not. As peaceful and as simple as the country life of hobbits may seem when weighed against the larger events in the northern region of this world, it is clear that the fates of these early settlers in this new land were already being drawn into the complex history of the Third Age.

*****

   When the letters from Berty, Bovo and Gilley were opened and read at sunset on the first night of the Summerdays (June 21st) their parents immediately took action. Horris Bunce and the remainder of his family along with Gilley’s father and mother, Emmon and Genofeva Bramblethorn, were usual guests at the Great Smials on the Summerdays and so, in accordance with Berty’s plan, these letters were read by all the parents at the same time. Twoody and Alaura drew the parents of Bovo and Gilley into one of the small sitting rooms of the warren to discuss what should be done. In comparing the letters written by their children it quickly became clear that Berty, the Youngbuck, had a larger plan in mind than even his best friends had been aware of; to go beyond the boundaries of the Shire and perhaps never return.

   ‘Hildegund will have none of that nonsense,’ her father said. ‘Running out west of the Delvings, indeed! We raised her with a better head on her shoulders and a better sense of responsibility, too. Mark my words, Alaura, I do believe she will drag your Youngbuck back to us in a few short hours; by her arguments of good hobbit-sense I hope, or by firm grasp of ear or toe should need be!’

   ‘I do hope you’re right, Emmon,’ Alaura said more calmly, ‘but I wouldn’t underestimate my son’s ability to charm his friends into an adventure. And we all know it certainly wouldn’t be the first of such occasions.’

   ‘And,’ Twoody put in, ‘if the stated cause is to help their friend Poppy Noakesburrow then I should say that the four of them are probably quite resolved to reach the Delvings, whether they have heard of Berty's other plans or not. They wouldn’t want Poppy to go there alone, of course. Horris, what do you think?’

   ‘I think my own son will be happy to stay away as long as he can,’ the Firebrand answered briskly. ‘And I think that he is glad for having fellow truants, with all respect, as his companions. He has been avoiding all talk of mature responsibilities for some months now and has become happier wandering about and sleeping out of doors than at home with the rest of us. Yes, Twoody, he’ll need collecting, in my opinion.’

   So it was decided that Euric Bophin, one of the Firebrand’s most trusted reeves, should be sent out immediately along the Road towards the Delvings to either find the four runaways or, if he could not overtake them, carry word to Twoody’s brother-in-law Clooty about their plans. Bophin, also in attendance at the house and married to Alaura’s sister Ermenberga, was a level-headed hobbit who knew all four of the youngsters well. Twoody wrote a letter that Euric might carry to Clooty should the four friends not be found on the Road, but also cautioned him on how to deal with Youngbuck and his friends should he meet them.

   ‘You might well catch them up if you leave now and go straight on, Euric,’ he said, ‘for their pace will be slow and, feeling quite confident, they will not be overly wary. Should you see them, my friend, it is Berty you will need to convince; he has a way of setting his mind to a thing in secret and there are few who can dissuade him once that has happened. I wish you luck in that case, and perhaps you might tell him-’

   ‘Tell him that his family still needs him,’ Alaura interrupted with a clear and frank voice. ‘Tell him simply that “his mother believes that it is irresponsible to leave one’s family to answer the call of an uncertain future.”’

   None of the other parents had anything to add to a message like that.

   And so it was that Euric Bophin, who was tall enough to ride a strong pony, did indeed leave the Buckland right away and make good speed in his travel. But, as we already know, he missed Berty and his friends entirely; for just an hour before dawn, and just outside of Waymeet, the four friends had turned off the Road for their morning breakfast. They were in a clearing perhaps two hundred paces away as Euric passed them. Their morning cook fires had not even been lit yet, otherwise they most certainly would have been caught.

   If the older hobbit had encountered them the whole trip to Waymeet would have certainly not happened. Euric, like many of the Firebrand’s reeves, knew very well of Reginard Swiftook’s presence there and saw it as a danger to all the folk of the West-farthing. If he could not convince Berty and the others to return home his instructions were to escort them further on to the Delvings where Clooty the Builder, through the orders in Twoody’s letter, might delay them. At the very least he would have kept them from meeting with the Swiftooks.

   And these were Euric’s orders as he went hurriedly and unaware past the youngsters’ hidden encampment on June 22nd, an hour or so before dawn, along the road to the Delvings. Had Bovo started his cook-fire twenty minutes earlier then the smell of fresh sizzling bacon would no doubt have changed everything.

*****

   Eumaeus Sandyman had “the very great misfortune of leading a collection of extraordinarily stubborn and obstinate goats into the Waymeet” on the first night of Lithe (June 21st). “Thirteen they were in count, which is a portentous number in accordance with many sources (particularly amongst bakers, magicians and moon-watchers) but,” as he was discovering on his long day’s journey from the Buckland, “enough that it made for an unmanageable cadre of woolly-chinned miscreants who did not respond well to either the proffered carrot nor the threatened stick.”

Eumaeus had left the Buckland before the dawn on that morning by himself, hoping to bring his livestock all the way to the Delvings just after sunset. But with his rather characteristic short-sightedness, he had decided to do this alone, leading the tethered group behind his loyal pony, Whistler. It seems that the two had been no match for the thirteen willful goats. By all reports they tugged and turned aside from the Road at “any occasion of their choosing and stubbornly set all fifty-two of their stringy, strong-muscled legs against any unwanted advise for their mutual advancement.” The pony Whistler, “who was anything but an experienced herder,” would then lockstep with them and Eumaeus, “who was anything but a professional whistler himself, endeavoured to hail them by emitting a kind of weak call between his rounded lips and holding his arms arched over his head.”

   By midday it was clear to Eumaeus that he would in no way reach the Delvings on his own travelling in this fashion. “The quandary was, bringing common sense to bear upon it, that there was evidently nothing for it but to put a good face on the matter and foot it to Waymeet for the evening.

   “So in due course I accordingly did just that, proceeding perforce toward a new and unwelcome destination. Making tracks in that direction, debouching themselves from the Great Road, the distinctly fetid atmosphere of the little town touched the hairy snouts of my attendant livestock and urged them forward on a spree which I and dear desperate Whistler were forced to follow.”

    And so it happened that Eumaeus Sandyman found himself in Waymeet on the night prior to Berty’s arrival. For some reason, the facts of which remain unrecorded, Eumaeus did not stay in that settlement for the night though his thirteen goats did. As to whether he had dealings with Reginard Swiftook we have no record, but all accounts place him somewhere outside of Waymeet and not yet having gone to the Delvings two mornings later when he meets the Oldbuck. Later chapters of the story told here will try to reconcile that peculiar situation as best we may but, for now, it is important to recognize that Eumaeus Sandyman was not present on the morning of June 22nd when Berty and his friends came walking into Waymeet and therefore was in no position to avert the coming events. Eumaeus had known the Youngbuck since his birth and the disguise Berty had chosen and, indeed, all of their Plans would have been quite impossible with that older hobbit’s involvement in the mix.

   We do not know what happened to Eumaeus in Waymeet or why his thirteen goats remained and he did not. We do not know why he was lingering in the hilly lands around the Waymeet for two nights until he, quite by accident, met the Oldbuck on his return. We also have no information what happened to his overworked pony Whistler.

   But if he had been in Waymeet to watch Berty and his friends negotiating with Reginard Swiftook then certainly the outcome of those events would have been greatly changed.

*****

   Two mornings before the day that Berty and his friends left the Buckland (June 20th) a letter was sent forth from the Southern Ford to Reginard Swiftook away west on family business in Waymeet. It was carried by his brother Leufred and, more importantly, it came from their father Childebrand.

   “My most Faithful and Resourceful son,” the letter read, “we have received unexpected and most complicating pressures at our border as of last night. A small band of horsemen, no more than a score or so, have made a camp for themselves on the eastern side of the Ford and, as yet, have not made their allegiances or their intentions known. They are armed Men, but fly no banners. The ropeline for our ferry is still intact on the distant shore and, fortunately, the raft remains on our side of the river.

   “I do not know who these Men are,” the letter went on to say, “and while I am doubtful that this is some kind of attack their presence slows our improvements. The horsemen watch the river but seem unconcerned with us who dwell on the other side. But this means that, for a time at least, our supplies from the east are cut off. Our partners there will not be pleased by this development and will, I am sure, take whatever measure they consider to be an appropriate response. But that may take many months and slow our goals of western expansion.

   “I will need you to return to the Ford immediately, Reginard, and find out more about these Men. Our business in the west, important as ever, must wait until this unforeseen trouble is resolved and I have no one else, my most Faithful and Resourceful son, who can handle this as you can.”

   The horsemen who took watch over the southern crossing into the Shire, and their intentions, would not be revealed for some time. How long this blockade of the Southern Ford lasted is not known through the documents found in the Great Smials, but its consequences will be revealed later in this story.

   But the letter, and its demand of Reginard’s immediate attention, which should have been delivered by Middle-night on June 21st did not reach him until three days later. Reginard’s younger brother Leufred had friends in Whitwell and, instead of following his father’s orders and heading straight on to Waymeet, Leufred had stopped to feast with those friends at their Summerday dinner. It is also told that Leufred’s friends had a lovely young daughter who persuaded him to stay through the night, and so the younger brother entered the camp of Waymeet in the early morning of June 24th, shamefaced, and well after Youngbuck and his friends had themselves passed through.

   Had this letter arrived on time Berty and the others might have never met Reginard Swiftook, never been challenged by him, nor met the Zaragamba brothers, nor been pressed into their service. They might have purchased their supplies on Bovo’s line of credit as planned, gone on to visit Greenholm that same evening, and never had anything else to worry about in the next dangerous days to come.

*****

   While the Summerdays were perhaps the most anticipated of Shire holidays, guards were still being posted at the Stonebows bridge all evening in Year Twenty-Nine. It should be noted that this was not something which the King himself had ever asked for nor was it a tradition which continued for very long throughout Shire history (with a few notable exceptions). But in those first few decades since the Shire’s founding, when tales were still being told of the Battle of the Bank and of the brave sacrifice of Roderick Proudfoot on the Bridge, to be posted as guard at the Stonebows was considered to be quite an honour for young hobbits, even when it meant missing a night of feasting.

   There was also a Daywatch in those early years, but this mostly consisted of volunteers from nearby farms or villages manning the post for a few hours each. Most of the traffic over the bridge during the daytime still came from the Bree-land of course, and Shire-folk who were stationed there held the job of directing other hobbits, now mostly relatives and returning merchants rather than settlers and newcomers, toward their destinations. The work was easy enough, particularly in the heat of summer, and a hobbit could while away a few easy hours catching up on gossip and making new friends while all the time fulfilling a public duty.

   But being a member of the Nightwatch¹ was quite a more serious matter.

   It was said that the Oldbuck himself had set up the first Nightwatch in Year One of the Shire. After bringing the first Pioneers into the land he had been anxious to put them to some good function right away. Those Pioneers were over two hundred in number, dragging carts and pushing barrows and leading ponies. They had walked two days from the Bree-land and, crossing the bridge shortly after nightfall, had no real idea what to do next. As anyone might guess, two hundred tired hobbits, most of whom had never met one another, does not make for a small and organized camp at the end of a long day. There was not much open space around the bridge at the time other than the broken turret of the old guard tower and the length of the Road that stretched west into the darkness. Bickering about what to do next began to ensue.

   As the stories go, the Oldbuck chose eight of the sturdiest hobbits he could find and led them into the turret. The place still held some store of old and forgotten arms; impossibly long bows with arrows as tall as any hobbit, wooden pikes which were twice that height, and old swords, broad in their blade and wider than a hobbit’s waist with a haft and handle thicker than a hobbit’s head and longer than a hobbit’s thigh. These artifacts of war were mostly rusted or ruined by age and weather and presented these new Pioneers more with terror than any hope for protection.

   But, or so the stories continued to tell, the Oldbuck took from these stores four of the great rusted pikes with their wooden handles and handed them to his eight selected guardians.

   ‘Carry these out for the others to see,’ the Oldbuck said to them. ‘These are protections from the King who has ruled this land long before we have come here and clear evidence that we come now in his service. Cut them in half while the others can see you do it and then make two groups of yourselves. Those four who bear the head and its iron blade will be the Nightwatch at this bridge. You will protect the Road as the King has asked and allow no danger to come into our lands after nightfall. Those who carry the wooden shaft will be our Rounders. Take the company as far along the Road as you may that all might find rest tonight as one long company. Your staves and your pikes are the King’s own blessing and are the symbols of your office.’ And with this the tradition was made that many of those Shire-folk who walked the outer borders (the “Reeves” they were called in Horris Bunce’s day and the “Bounders” in the days of Frodo Baggins) carried thick wooden rods taller than other hobbit walking sticks.

   The shortened bladed staves of the Nightwatch however never left the Stonebows bridge and had taken on a rather ceremonial mystique among the younger hobbits. Years ago they had been cleaned and tended to by the renowned Tomba Fallowhide, first blacksmith of the Shire and wealthy inventor of the umbrella. Tomba had been asked to treat them with great respect and, so doing, he cleaned the rust and the pits from their blades with great care, oiled the ancient wood and replaced mouldered leather straps at the joint of blade to haft. They were still rather useless as weapons for hobbits; the weight of the blade and the shortness of the handle made it quite impossible for anyone of their small stature to wield. But, in the years after the Battle of the Bank, they had come to represent the resilience of the Shire-folk and their ability to defend themselves.

   Since that time, and for many decades of the Shire’s early history, the Blades of the Nightwatch were taken out each evening at dusk to stand in defense of the Stonebows bridge. In those still early days four hobbits were given the assignment to do this and to guard the bridge alongside these relics. They were to question or detain, by force if it should ever seem necessary, anyone who came over the bridge at night whom they deemed a threat to their community or, and here the language was quite specific and was reported to come down from the Oldbuck himself; “if they had not heard of the King.”²

   This was the kind of a job which appealed greatly to young and disenfranchised hobbits. While there was certainly no recent history of danger attached, being one of the Nightwatch carried a certain heroic largeness; one got to handle important weapons (though they were unusable) and ask important questions (though there were seldom travellers to ask them of) and one was also given the responsibility to make decisions for the safety of the community (though there was very little to decide on). But to be a young hobbit, particularly one who had no real inheritance or plan for his future, there was a prestige to be found in serving the Nightwatch even when it meant missing out on the first feasts of the Summerdays.

   On the late afternoon on the first day of Lethe, while Youngbuck and his friends were nibbling sandwiches and changing their Plan, four hobbits came to the Stonebows to take up their guard. They all knew one another, for they had all taken on this duty before, but had not met all together for some time. They said hello to one another outside of the old broken turret before the beginning of their shift, as the fateful night was falling.

   Eracles (‘Harry”) Heathertoes was the oldest at thirty-six years of age. Eracles was the kind of a person who expected to be a leader and hadn’t yet learned that he was nothing of the kind. He was a bit taller, definitely a bit broader and, many would say, decidedly louder than the other three hobbits on Nightwatch.

   But he was not boisterous, rude or ill-mannered to the others and whatever bluster he had was seldom at the expense of anyone other than himself.

   Waltraub (“Troby”) Thornburrow hailed from Frogmorton and was the youngest. The Thornburrow clan was becoming quite large by Year Twenty-Nine and Waltraub’s father, Ansegar, had great plans to marry as many of his children as soon as he could so that he might be called to the Council of Great Families within a year or two. Waltraub, still only eighteen years of age and with no such matrimonial intentions, thought that serving the Nightwatch during the feast of the Summerdays was an excellent chance to avoid the issue of potential brides that his father had selected.

   Gundahar (“Gundy”) Grubb was the younger friend of Eracles Heathertoes. His own family was large, larger than Waltraub’s or Eracles’ and they had a seat on the Councils since its very beginning. Gundahar had opportunities which these other hobbits did not share, but he lacked both interest and ambition. If ever there was a hobbit who needed the spark of some other hobbit to guide them, well, this may be said of Gundahar Grubb in relation to Eracles Heathertoes. They each needed one another’s company to reassure them of their own purposefulness.

   The last of the four was Odulf (“Dulf”) Bramblethorne who, being the youngest brother of Emmon Bramblethorn, was Gilley’s own uncle. He had been born in the Bree-land thirty-two years ago and once, in his infancy, had the rather fleeting honour of being the youngest of Pioneers to cross over the Stonebows bridge on his own downy-haired feet. The Bramblethorn family was large and Odulf was the youngest of his generation. He had not yet taken a claim of land for himself nor had he married or decided upon a trade. His older brothers were all drovers and livestock farmers and so this was the only trade which he had been taught. But the truth was that he hated the smell of pigslop and chicken coops and goat hair. He had no true fondness for animals and found them to be more of a burden than a resource. He admitted this to no one of course, but happily volunteered for the Nightwatch so that for the next three days he might avoid such complicated questions about his future.

   These are the kind of people who often stand vigil while the rest of us celebrate; they sometimes seek honours which have not yet come, or they have been given responsibilities which they never asked for, or they have opportunities which are, to themselves, unappealing or simply not what they wish for, and then too there are many, many, who simply have not found their place in the world. And many times all of these folk are drawn together as comrades simply because they do not ask questions of one another’s purpose.

   The four hobbits stood their guard in the usual shifts on the first night of the SummerDays. They shared and ate together the provisions which they had all brought, and caught up on what news they had heard. As night fell the watches were set; two for the early evening to trade off with two after middle night. Eracles and Gundahar took the first watch (as they usually did) and Waltraub and Odulf went off to sleep without any concerns.

   Four hours after sunset Waltraub and Odulf were awakened. ‘There is a company of the Big Folk, soldiers maybe,’ Gundahar told them, ‘riding toward the Stonebows up the Road from the East. Harry has gone out to meet them at the second rise of the bridge and he’s carrying one of the Blades with him!’

   Dulf rubbed the sleep from his eyes and, standing quickly to action, strung his bow. Troby was somewhat slower to call from sleep, but each hobbit knew the seriousness of the situation. In the past fourteen years since the Battle of the Bank no one had heard of nor seen a company of Men riding into the Shire. And a company of soldiers traveling by night might certainly be seen as a sign of trouble!

   As they ran past the bridge gate and up to the first rise there was nothing for Dulf and the others to see. The three remaining Blades of the Nightwatch were still in their ceremonial rack and Harry, who must be over the first rise of the bridge by now, was also not in sight. Dulf and Troby ran as fast as they could up the bridge carrying their bows, outstripping Gundy who took time to grab one of the old Blades in the rack for himself. When they came to the top of the second rise, the one on the further side of the bridge, Dulf and Troby finally saw Harry. He was holding one of the Blades of the Nightwatch in his right hand and his left was held out in warning.

   ‘Hold your position, travellers!’ Harry’s big voice boomed. ‘For you are entering the land of the Shire and we hold this bridge for the king!’

   As Dulf and Troby came rushing up to the top of the rise to join him they saw the train of riders below. It was just as Gundy had reported, a cadre of tall soldiers, thirteen in all, mounted on great big horses, twice as tall as any hobbit. They wore leather armor on their legs and arms and bright ring-mail hauberks covered their chests. Over the top of these they wore long cloaks, all of a dark green color. They all had swords at their sides and shields on their backs; soldiers certainly, though they carried no banners and had no devices on their shields which might show their service.

   ‘And what king might that be?’ said the rider in front. He wore no helm as the others did and his face looked calm from what Dulf could see of it; calm yet stern it seemed in the moonlight. In fact none of the soldiers looked upon the hobbits in a threatening manner. Their swords still hung at their sides and they kept their rank, three by three, in line behind their commander at the base of the bridge.

   Gundy came up from behind them then and, holding his own Blade, took up position on Harry’s right side. ‘Did he say he hasn’t heard of the king, Harry?’ Gundy whispered. ‘Is that what he’s saying?’

   ‘I don’t think so,’ Harry whispered back to all of them, ‘but let me ask before we jump to conclusions.’

   ‘Are you saying you haven’t heard of the king, then?’ Harry yelled back at the commander, filling his questioning voice with all the authority he might muster.

   The commander smiled complacently. ‘Well now,’ he said, ‘that does seem to be the important question. I’ve heard of many kings, little Bridge-warden. Which one, I wonder, do you serve and who might he be that claims this land as his own?’

   The four young hobbits looked at one another, each clearly flummoxed by this quite simple but unexpected question. They knew their duty as citizens and as wardens and had been told, as all hobbits had, that the land was given to them by the King. But just ‘what king?’ they had never bothered to ask. If he had a name that one of them knew then, in silence they desperately tried to find it on one another’s lips. There was a long, and increasingly dangerous, pause then until finally:

   ‘The King up in Norbury,’ Troby shouted out, speaking the most of what little he knew. ‘The King up in Norbury has granted this land to our people, hobbits we are and that is, so that we might tend it and keep peace on his Roads. And also his bridges. The Shire we call it as our own, but, yes, we hold it in the name of the King up in Norbury.’

   ‘Where in the world is “Norbury?”’ one of the other riders asked, and many of his comrades chuckled.

   ‘The Shire, you say,’ the commander called back. ‘Well, that is as good a name for this land as any I have heard of for a very long time. I’ve ridden through here in younger days, warden, when it was a somber and empty place. I pray that you tend it kindly and find great bounty here as it did yield of old.

   ‘But if you hold this bridge and this land in the name of the “King up in Norbury” then perhaps you’d be kind enough to tell me the name of that king?’

   And at this another long and potentially dangerous pause ensued. Eventually it was Dulf who found his wits and spoke up:

   ‘We cannot, traveller,’ he said, ‘for we are simple Bridge-wardens as you have said and do not, as such, go on a first name basis with those high folk that are kings. And such. But if you would care to wait for a time perhaps, then one of my associates here might go and fetch someone of proper authority to answer your worthy questions.’

   At this all of the soldiers laughed and the commander smiled broadly. ‘Ah! We have met a clever warden who knows it easier to stall uninvited guests with his lack of authority rather than with the blade of his pike. Tell me, what is your name, little hobbit?’

   ‘I am Odulf Bramblethorne, captain,’ he replied, quite unable to stifle a little bow to the commander for his compliment. ‘Or simply “Dulf” to my friends, if you will. And might I ask your name as well?’

   ‘You may and you should, Warden Bramblethorne,’ he said, ‘for whether we become friends or no, it is well within your right as guardians to expect as much from “travellers” who would go armed through your lands at night.

   ‘I am called Ohtar,³ and my company and I ride in service of the heir of Elendil,’ he said calmly, sitting high in his saddle. ‘It was Elendil who was the first great King in this land and from whom your “Norbury king” is but a lesser descendant. As we are both loyal servants to the heirs of Elendil, you through your king and we through our Princess, I tell you now that we have as much right to ride through these lands as you do to defend them. Tell me, wardens, does hearing that much ease your wariness?’

   The four watchmen talked together of this while the soldiers waited.

   ‘I don’t know about any Elendil or any Princess,’ Gundy said, offering very little help to the problem, ‘but this Ohtar does seem to know more about the Shire’s history than we do.’

   ‘And he seems too clever for your idea of making him wait, Dulf,’ Troby said. ‘But that was a sharp notion in a blunt pitch.’

   ‘Yes, very clever at need, Dulf,’ Harry said coolly. ‘But it, and the sharing of your name, seems to have put you in the drive of this negotiation. I’m not sure that is best for us, but he knows your name now, and so there is that.’

   ‘Would you prefer I gave him your name, Harry?’ Dulf asked.

   ‘Lawks, no!’ Harry responded quickly. ‘But I trust you’ll discuss any new ideas with the rest of us before any further comments.’

   ‘Warden Bramblethorne,’ the commander called again, ‘the hour is late and I am certain that we all have business to attend to. Will you come down and hear of mine?’ At this they saw the commander dismount and walk a pace or two forward on the bridge.

   ‘See!’ said Harry quietly to the others. ‘I told you that you should not have given your name. Now he thinks that you’re in charge and has called you to parley! Oh, lawks, that’s bad. I should be the one to go...’

   ‘And what’s “parley”, Harry?’ Dulf asked before his friend could speak to the commander.

   ‘You see? This is why I should go,’ Harry said in a harsh whisper. ‘You don’t even know what parley is and now you’ve put yourself forward to speak for us and, by extension, all of the Shire! But it's fine. I’ll tell him that I’m in charge of the Watch and it should be me-’

   ‘But you’re not,’ Gundy whispered, cutting his friend off. ‘I’m sorry, Harry, but there’s no leader here on the Nightwatch. You’re my friend and I trust you here by my side should things go wrong, just as I’ve ever done. But he’s called Dulf out and I don’t think it's a good idea to look so disorganized as to not let him speak.’

   The four hobbits looked at one another for a moment, and a silent agreement was made.

   ‘Here then, Gundy,’ Dulf said. ‘Take my bow as it will be no use to me there, and I’ll take that rusted old Blade of yours, if I may. If I am to represent the Nightwatch I must hold the trappings.’

   And when this was done Odulf Bramblethorne found himself walking carefully down the slope of the bridge. He had to move slowly, for he carried the Blade of the Nightwatch before him in both hands and the weight of it going down the slope strained his shoulders and his back and left him more than a bit imbalanced.

   ‘Greetings to you, Warden Bramblethorne,’ the commander said as they met at the bridge’s base. Dulf had the higher ground here still by a bit, but the commander was more than twice his height and towered over him nonetheless. Standing close together Dulf could now see that he was an older man, clean-shaven, but his hair was mostly grey. He had taken off his leather gloves and stood there with his open palms near to his waist in a sign of peace. Dulf could see that he had a plain ring of bone on one finger.

   ‘That is quite a cumbersome relic you carry,’ the commander continued saying, ‘but I see you have cut it down for size and tended it with care. I should very much like to believe that this is indicative of how all hobbits treat all of those things they have found in your “Shire”.’

   ‘I am told that these “relics” as you call them were left behind from when the King’s own soldiers once stood watch on this bridge,’ Dulf said. ‘We hobbits don’t care much for weapons, but we respect them as symbols of our office and our duties to the king. And all things deserving of respect are deserving of care, or so it seems to me.’

   ‘Well spoken, master Bramblethorne,’ the commander said. ‘And does your duty to that unnamed king preclude you from allowing travellers over the bridge at night?’

   ‘Not directly, no,’ Dulf replied, trying to seem both curious and unwavering. ‘But to protect this bridge and our land, as you have said yourself, means asking questions after nightfall. Will you tell me your purpose and your destination, Commander Ohtar?’

   ‘Indeed,’ the commander replied. ‘All of it that I may which concerns you and our travel in this land you call the Shire.

   ‘It is our mission to take as prisoner any enemies who serve our great enemy, the Witch-king of Angmar. Surely that name is known among hobbits?’

   Dulf hoped that the commander had not seen him blench at this name.

   ‘It is, Commander,’ he replied, ‘though I am glad to say he is rarely to never spoken of in our peaceful Shire outside of the fearful tales of our grandmothers. But there are many hobbits here who have come to escape the dangers of the East.’

   And if the commander had not seen Dulf cringe before at this name he certainly saw him go pale, eyes widening, as a new realization came upon him.

   ‘Are you saying that, no that cannot be, that there are agents of... no that cannot be...’

   ‘Calm yourself, Warden Bramblethorne,’ the commander replied. ‘Cling tighter to that relic and let it help you to find comfort in your own mission.

   ‘I did not say for certain that there are agents of the Witch-king here among your people,’ he continued to tell Dulf, ‘only that our purpose, of which you have asked, is in seeking them out.

   ‘As for our destination, there is an old ford of the river some forty leagues south of this bridge. My people have been spying caravans out of the east moving that way for many months now and find their point of origin, like their purposes and destination, to be suspicious. These are wagon trains of Men not hobbits, Warden Bramblethorne. What seems worse to us is that these wagon trains seem to be supplying a garrison that is being built on the other side of that ford. Now, if I might ask you a question in return for those two which I have answered; do you know anything of Men settling into the south of these lands and across that ford?’

   All of this new, and very important, information quite put Dulf off his guard with the commander and he set the butt of his Blade to the ground between them and rested his hands across the top. As a Bucklander he did know something of the lands to his immediate south and had gone with his brother Emmon one time to sell a small drove of pigs in Whitwell. The Tooklanders down there were developing the town awfully fast, or Emmon had said at the time, but no one that he knew had any further contact with them beyond Whitwell. And a month or two past Emmon and three of his children had driven a bigger herd out to the Delvings and reported that the Tooks held a new settlement at Waymeet, deep in the West-Farthing.

  ‘Men? Men in the South-farthing, you say?’ Dulf asked in reply. ‘Well that would be a surprise to all of us here, to be certain. There’s no one here who has been as far south as that ford, for that’s all Tookland and we don’t interact with those folk much. Due to some past grievances, you see.’

   ‘Tookland?’ the commander asked.

   And at that, Odulf Bramblethorne, inexperienced as he was and desirous of helping this commander in what seemed to him such a noble mission, began to recount what he knew of the Swiftooks, the Battle of the Bank and the Landlord that hobbits in the north of the Shire called Childebrand Swiftook. This was mostly rumour of course, for Dulf had been a bit too young to have participated in the Battle himself, but he had listened eagerly to the stories of his older brothers and their friends. Also he remembered clearly the day, just over eight years ago, when the Swiftooks marched back into the Shire and set their course south to take up the lands which were promised to them.

   ‘We’ve called that part of the south “the Took Land” for a decade or more,’ Dulf said, ‘having given it to the Landlord to end our old arguments. The Swiftooks have developed there uncommonly fast it seems, but we had no idea of, well, outside help I guess we should call it, until you mentioned it. I am only a volunteer warden, Captain Ohtar, and we Shire-folk have no standing army. Nor do we want one. Lawks, no! But if those kind of Men who helped the Landlord in our past have set up some kind of encampment in our south, well...’

   As Odulf’s consideration of his own authority to make a judgement on this issue caused his conversation to drift off, the commander spoke again.

   ‘I do not know what foresightedness was given to Argeleb the Second, your “king up in Norbury”, to grant this land to your people, Odulf Bramblethorne,’ he said, ‘but I am pleased by the wisdom of his decision. I have met only a few hobbits in my time and this past hour spent with you and your comrades makes me reconsider everything I have formerly thought about them. You are brave and you are earnest. You stand sincerely against great odds and speak your heart without bluster. And, most importantly, when told of danger in your own lands, you wonder how you and your comrades may address it rather than quail in fear. I deem hobbits here in the Shire to be of a much higher quality than I had previously considered them and I am happy to confess my mistake. Argeleb the Second is not my king, Dulf, but you and your friends do him a great courtesy by your allegiance.

   ‘But the hour is late and now you and your comrades must decide,’ he said, standing taller and putting on his gloves. ‘Will you let us cross this bridge, now, for your tale tells me that the need is great, and turn south to the ford? Do not take this as a threat, my friend, but as advice: I do not think it would be wise to make us wait.’

   And so Dulf climbed the rise of the bridge to talk to his friends and recount all that he had been told. Harry was in an angry mood that so much had gone on that he was not a part of, but he listened intently to all that Dulf had to say and made only reasonable responses about how much his comrade had let on to foreign strangers. After all of the discussion had been told to the other hobbits it was Gundy who said, ‘Well, if they’re going south to look for Men- evil Men who may serve the Witch-king himself, they say! Lawks! Men like that in our own land? Well, why should we deter them?’

   So the decision was made to let the soldiers pass over the bridge and proceed south to the ford and a plan for their responsibility in this was devised. They all voted upon this plan, for they felt that was the best way of deciding among themselves as to how they might represent the rest of the Shire, and afterward Odulf went down to the base of the bridge once again to tell the commander of their decision.

   ‘We thank you, wise Warden Bramblethorne, for your vigilance, your information in our hunt, and your friendship in allowing us to travel through these lands which you now call your own,’ the commander said in return. ‘I hope that when our business in the south is done that I might return to this place and tell you and your other comrades of the land’s deeper history; for you and your people make it seem happier to me than it has been for many generations of my own people.’

   And at this the party of soldiers climbed the bridge, a double file of thirteen horsemen with their captain in front. They cleared the second rise and, coming upon the gate and the old stone turret, saw young Waltraub Thornburrow sitting upon a pony that was clearly too big for him to manage comfortably, a heavy Blade of the Nightwatch strung across his back.

   ‘And who might you be, young master bridge-warden?’ the commander asked.

   ‘I am called Troby by friends, commander,’ he replied, ‘and I hope you will come to see me as such. But I have family not far west of here, the Thornburrows we are called. It will be my privilege to escort you through the lands of the Shire until we enter the Tookland in the far south and, if you’ll have me, I will continue further in your company to see that our neighbours are dealt with fairly and within our laws. Does this meet with your approval, commander?’

   Many of the other riders laughed at the blunt challenge of this lone hobbit on his little pony, but the commander only smiled and, with a slight bow of his head and an opening gesture of his arms, accepted this new traveling companion.

   ‘Oh, you are most welcome, Warden Thornburrow,’ the commander replied with a smile and a gentle laugh. ‘Lead on and we will let your little pony set our pace.’

   With Troby leading the commander and his Men south, the three remaining hobbits had to decide what to do next. Surely some “Hobbit of Authority” should be informed that a party of soldiers had entered the Shire. As it was now close to middle-night, and the first feasts of the SummerDays were mostly concluded, Gundy suggested that one of them should go out to Buckland where, arriving by early morning, they might meet with the Chief Constable and the Chief Assayer. This was further than just going to Frogmorton of course, but they could all agree that there was no hobbit in Frogmorton of any genuine authority and also likely none who were currently awake. Harry suggested he should be the one to go (of course), but it was argued that Dulf had better do it, having spent the most time with the commander and, no less important, having heard first hand his report of the matter.

   But, if things had gone differently, if the four hobbits had managed to stall the soldiers until morning or, much worse, if the Men had decided to ignore the Nightwatch and simply march along their way, then the relationship between the north and the south of the Shire would be much different in the next few days to come and many hobbits would be the worse for it.

*****

   Though he did not arrive until very late the Oldbuck did not stay long in Greenholm on the first night of Lithe (June 21st). What he discovered there, the signs that hobbits had come so far towards the border in such a short time, had seemed strange to him and so he decided to walk further that same night so that he might discover more. He had always enjoyed walking by night, but this had become the common practice in his travels with the Elves. Lately he had begun to feel as if he could see the land all the better at these times and that his feet were refreshed all the more under starlight. So he walked north and west from Greenholm to come to the Old Road again under the bright night, feeling cool grass on his feet in a way that seemed both familiar and somehow forgotten.

   Following the Road he came to the low hills of the White Downs well before dawn smelling things he had not encountered in some time. There were the heavy remains of many cook fires still lingering in the air to the north and the older, more rank smells of livestock and turned earth. Climbing one of the higher hills to look north of the Road, Gondo was surprised once again. In the wide valley below it seemed that a very large village had begun to grow in his absence; it was wider and more populous by great extremes than the Buckland or the village under Bree-hill or any other hobbit place he had visited but yet it lay here, some ten or fifteen leagues west of the Shire’s furthest settlement.

   ‘How have they come this far in so short a time?’ Gondo asked himself. And he began to wonder how the world around him was so vastly changed. To his great surprise, this wide settlement seemed to spring up from maps which he himself had once drawn of the then barren land on his last trip to the west.

   He stood for a time, wondering about time, and yet could come to no resolution.

   It was not full morning as he drew closer to the settlement and a few stars still shone cold in the awakening sky. Gondo could see fences and farmhouses dotting what had been empty hillsides in his memory. There was a footpath in that memory which he and Twoody and Nob had established in their first explorations of this empty land, but now it had become a well-tended lane showing the ruts of many wagons and even a signpost naming it “Delvings Way.” This sign alarmed Gondo more than the path itself, for only Twoody, Alaura and he had ever imagined and discussed a Shire filled with road signs and named pathways. Seeing the fact of that idea, sprung from their imaginations and carved on a great wooden sign, made his hopes of a future now seem somehow overripe and distasteful.

   ‘I cannot say what I make of this sign,’ Gondo thought to himself, standing beneath it for a long time and eyeing it with great concern. ‘It feels either insulting or nostalgic or, perhaps, an indication of the failure of our best plans.’ Insulting in a personal way because Gondo, an explorer at heart, had always argued against signs; nostalgic in a sad and familial way because it made him remember those old arguments that he and Twoody and Alaura had in their organising the Shire and the care which they each put into it.

   ‘We never intended to make visible borders in the Shire which hobbits might feel constrained by, as this sign for “Delvings Way” might do,’ he thought, considering how such a thing as a road sign might be construed as a failure. ‘The labelling of roads is unnecessary for those who are familiar with travelling them and Alaura used to say that such a thing just creates borders between who lives on one side of a signpost and who lives on another. Seeing it now I don’t like that very much and it seems against all our best plans.’

    As Gondo continued down the lane the Sun came over the trees along Her slow climb in the east. Responding to the Sun’s call Gondo could hear the sounds of livestock; of chickens and cows and pigs awakening and answering, and he could see lanterns being lit among some of the farmhouses. Drawing closer into the village he could see that many of these homes and buildings had lanes of their own adjoining this “Delvings Way”, some with names of their own. Once again Gondo stopped to marvel with great confusion at how much had been done in his time away. It was as if the very dream that Twoody and he had imagined for this valley had happened all at once while he had been gone and, try as he may to understand it, he could still not resolve the matter; often stopping to look at the smallest of details: (for example) ‘How,’ Gondo thought, ‘has that iron clasp of a gate, or that barrelhoop over there, come to be here and to become rusted in so short a time?’ Or ‘How,’ (by another example) ‘did bricks come to be used for that house, when bricks were still being made so far away as the East-farthing and in such short supply?’

   As he came to the end of the farmhouses Gondo found that there was a very great collection of buildings and shops surrounding the village square and another building which was unmistakably the town’s well. All of these shops were neatly arranged and constructed, with the round wooden doors and windows which all hobbits favour, but had clean stone or brick walls and neatly thatched roofs which are less than common among the hobbits he knew. Some windows of these shops were opening to let in the new morning light and Gondo could see many young hobbits there but he recognized none of them. All the buildings had signs upon their doors, neatly painted in a great variety of colours, proclaiming their professions or their names and, Gondo was more surprised to notice, each door even had a numerical designation for its place upon the street.

   Being drawn forward in his bewilderment, he walked further into the neatly arranged town square. Gondo could see the familiar shape of the well now and, beyond it, a great stone building built high above the ground. Still unfinished, the structure was larger than the old Assayer’s Office in Bridgefields (the largest building of the Shire which had begun being built during Gondo’s former time there) and looked to be three stories high (quite an uncommon size for any hobbits to approve of). It had wide columns of what appeared to be single-cut stone and a tall pointed roof of ceramic shingles. In his own travels Gondo had seen many wonderful things, including towers so tall that they seemed like mountains compared to this developing structure. But all the same it made him stop in his place, thunderstruck with astonishment. How could hobbits come to build, or learn to build, or even wish to build, such an un-hobbitlike thing?

   He looked back towards the well for reassurance. Gondo had dug the beginnings of the first well in the Shire himself in Sixteen-hundred and One of the Third Age, before any other hobbit had come to live here. That well had been a meagre thing at first, for Gondo only had himself and one clumsy and overworked shovel to do the job. It had been his friends the Bucklanders who had shaped it into something greater. But the well here in this village looked to be an echo of that Buckland well done on a grander scale. There was the same slate canopy and pulley system, but here it drew four pails at a time and had shaded drinking tables and watering troughs for thirty feet in either direction. The roof was spired and a small green banner flew from its top with one white bar and a golden crown.⁴ Despite the unusual size and decoration it was a clear copy of the Wisher’s Well.

   And with that observation all of the Oldbuck’s bewilderment at all that he saw turned to memory and longing and, eventually, understanding.

   He remembered keenly the silence of all the young hobbits (had it really been many years before?) as Alaura took her first drink of water from the well in Buckland. She drank deep and slow, not sipping lightly or daintily as some would expect but talking the whole of the cup in a gentle and unhurried manner that seemed auspicious and formal by all the expectant hobbits who had come to greet her. In his mind he could still see her doing this; the smile in her eyes and on her lips, her raised jaw and her rosey-white throat drinking. When she had finished Alaura turned the cup over, empty, and set it gently on the table before her. Smiling broadly she then said to them all (and he could still hear it now), ‘it is that taste of the good clean water of this new land which I will hold in my memory with each new wish I make for our future.’

   ‘And they named it “The Wisher’s Well”,’ he said to himself softly.

   Now, returned from his time with the Elves, Gondo could no longer refute that the world of the Shire had changed greatly in his absence. Where there had once been nothing but hills and maps a great city was rising; a thriving, bustling urban centre built on their earliest plans. All the other things which may have happened in his time away then made Gondo afraid and, for the first time in his memory, he sat frozen in place looking at the well and thinking about the call of night birds.

   In the dawn light there were already a few hobbits assembled by the well; they were either the very old or the very young and Gondo could not recognize any of them. Some may have noticed his odd behaviour and clothing but, being Shire hobbits and therefore unwilling to ask deeper questions (nor to immediately offer their assistance to a stranger) they mostly kept their distance. To them Gondo was simply another queer newcomer; one of those hobbit-folk who come into the Shire from outside lands and are not quite sure what to make of things. This was not an uncommon occurrence in those years as hobbits had never had a safe place of their own before and now were eager to come only to be surprised by what they found. He did not look like the typical refugees who had started coming up from the south, with his dusky-green travelling cloak, his sword at his hip and his intense and thoughtful gaze, but he had the very same fish-out-of-water expression often seen in the newcomers. Eventually, still trying to understand how things had all changed, he sat himself down on the paved stones of what was becoming a very well-manicured town square.

   ‘Are you alright, sir?’ the voice of a young hobbit asked him. ‘May I offer you a good morning and perhaps a cup of clean water?’

   The Oldbuck stared up at the youngling who addressed him. He had dark hair, nearly black, and bright eyes. He carried a large water satchel with him and in his outstretched hand he offered a small clay cup. Gondo rose quickly as he could and ran out of the Delvings and into the low hills, quite uncertain what to do next.

   Had the Oldbuck stayed and taken the charity offered to him things would very certainly have been different. He would never have sat those remaining hours in the hills wondering what to do or where to go next. He would certainly never have seen the small group of travellers coming west across the open lands nor decided to follow them for more discreet answers to his many questions.

   If the Oldbuck, in all of his fear upon discovering just how long he had been gone, had decided to accept the young hobbit’s hospitality he would have met and spoken with his own nephew and namesake; Gondovar Pudifoot, son of Clooty the Builder, and, perhaps, been told many of the things which he rather badly needed to know.

   And things would have been very much different.

*****

   On that same morning before the start of Lethe (June 21st again) an important discovery was made in the North-farthing. Hugo “Firstcut” Stumbletoe, greatest stonemason of Shire history, had been busy in the Delvings building wells and a post office, an assayers’ office, a library and a town square. Together with his friend Clooty he hoped to build the first great city of the Shire. While there was good limestone to be found in small hillsides throughout the land the white hills which surrounded the Delvings were mostly composed of chalk and clay; ideal for digging and useful in brick-making, but bad for the kind of stonework Hugo prided himself on. So in Year Twenty-Seven Hugo had sent his four nephew-apprentices into the four directions of the Shire in search of a good repository of building stones.

   Other little quarries were found, but the greatest one was discovered by the youngest nephew, Timboldt Stumbletoe, in the uncharted lands above Budgeford. Not many hobbits had ventured that way, but within a day’s walk of the Budgeford bridge Timboldt found a large cluster of rocky hills made of good, hard stone. He was no map-maker, but Tim knew the importance of recording all that he could see and putting it in a letter to his uncle. Perhaps that is what convinced him to wander alone in such inhospitable lands for a week and to sleep in uncharted caves (a thing which no careful hobbit would ever do).

   The letter which he wrote to his uncle went undiscovered for nearly three hundred years. The evidence later found seems to suggest that Timboldt spent his last night in one of these uncharted caves and, so doing, became the first hobbit to encounter a troll within the boundaries of the Shire.⁵

   If Timboldt had survived and his letter had therefore been sent then Shire-hobbits surely would have migrated into this area very soon and, knowing next to nothing about combatting trolls, might have found themselves in a quite unexpected war which they would’ve been completely unequipped to handle.

*****

   All of these incidents may seem unrelated to our story of the Youngbuck and his friends, to the consequences of Gondo’s return or to the struggle for western expansion in the early days of the Shire. But one should remember that history, whether in the quiet countryside or along the clashing borders of warring kingdoms, is determined by the small chances of one thing happening instead of another. If one is to believe in “luck”-whether good or ill- it can be read in the study of history’s missed connections.

end of chapter seven

Chapter End Notes

Notes (06/29/2024)

1)  To call the guardians of the Stonebows bridge “the Nightwatch” might seem simple, facile and too much like Game of Thrones. To be frank, I never worry much about that sort of thing. Those books steal so openly from Tolkien’s work and my work here is nothing like the intent in those stories. The idea of a day-watch and a night-watch grew organically in the writing of this story. I might have come up with different names to spare my audience any confusion of similarity but, and I think this more and more about fanfic, why bother? If you’ve read this far and haven’t realized that my writing has little or nothing to do with Game of Thrones I will be shocked. But if you also think that George R.R. Martin should hold an exclusive copyright on anything remotely similar sounding to “The Nightswatch” than you’ve obviously missed the point of fanfic.

2)  This expression “not heard of the king” remains in the Shire-hobbits way of speaking for many generations to come and is, of course, mentioned in the prelude “Concerning Hobbits”. Once it was determined that I needed this scene (which was a much later development in the writing) I decided it might be fun to link to this old expression.

3)  You find a note below this one which mentions the idea that characters from The Fall of Arnor, my much larger work, were finding their way here. Ohtar comes from a long line of Ohtars.

4)  This flag is my own invention, still roughly noted here, and may wind up being a flag for the Shire in later writings. They need one.

5)  While this last little bit about the Timboldt Stumbletoe might seem unconnected it is intended to be the origin story of Sam’s Troll Song and something I play with again in The Fall of Arnor. Timboldt Stumbletoe is the “Uncle Tim” of Sam’s troll poem.

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   Bovo Bunce, the real Bovo Bunce, was unhappy with this new Plan. Youngbuck had placed them in great jeopardy in Bovo’s opinion, and something would need to be done about it and, also in Bovo’s opinion, done about it quickly.

   Within two hours after agreeing to Swiftook’s proposal they had assembled all of the supplies on their list and more. Bovo and Gilley, who had more practical knowledge about camping and hunting than Poppy or Youngbuck, provisioned themselves from the best of the equipment to be found at Waymeet. Bovo, who had been given the name “Berno Bophin” in their current ruse, found three decent bows and three quivers of serviceable arrows, planning to teach his friends how to shoot but also thinking of their own protection just getting out of Waymeet. They each carried small eating knives already, but needed skinning knives to look the part of hunters. Bovo was happy to keep his own strapped to his belt and easily within reach.

   Bovo would have liked to leave Waymeet as soon as possible, but some more time was spent by Youngbuck, who had some knowledge of ponies, and was making a very careful selection from the few there to be found for sale. The best of the lot was a young mare named “Snips”, so called because she disliked her owners and would snap her teeth at them in disapproval of unwanted commands. But Youngbuck saw her to be a strong and keen-eyed creature in need of better handling. He re-named her “Cinders” for she had dark black colouring on her legs which turned to a cool grey at her haunches. She took to the name and Youngbuck’s commands readily, and almost immediately seemed happy to be leaving.

   Once the pony was fitted and the bags were packed the four friends walked north to meet with Reginard Swiftook on the muddy path near the border of Waymeet. The two Big Folk who they had seen earlier were with him there as were three other hobbits leading ponies of their own. These ponies and hobbits, and even the Men, were likewise provisioned for travel.

   ‘I do not like the look of this,’ the real Bovo muttered quietly to his friends.

   ‘All packed and ready, I see,’ Reginard said as Bovo and his friends approached. ‘Time to meet your companions. Here are my cousins,’ he said, indicating the three hobbits, ‘they are Gormadoc, Marcoul and Olo Zaragamba respectively, and they will be escorting you to the lands that I wish to have surveyed.’ All three of these hobbits were older than Bovo and his friends, the oldest looking closer in age to Reginard. They had sandy brown hair and held strange looking woollen caps in their hands. They wore soft roughspun clothing, dirty in places and frayed a bit in others, but despite that Bovo could see that they had scrupulously groomed their hair and their feet for this morning meeting. Their faces were kindly, but they viewed Bovo and his friends with some suspicion or reserve.

   ‘Good morning to you, master Bunce,’ the older of the three, Gormadoc, said, offering a slight bow to Youngbuck. ‘It is a pleasure to make the acquaintance of the son of an illustrious father, sir,’ this made the real Bovo chuckle darkly, ‘-and an honour to have you be the first to visit our new homes.’

   ‘Your new homes-?’ Youngbuck said. ‘I thought we were to be measuring the land for master Swiftook here.’

   ‘Oh, not for me personally, no, master Bunce,’ Reginard replied with a smile. ‘My father and I have all the land which we can possibly manage in the South-farthing. I am involved simply as a favour to my cousins here.’

   ‘I see. Yes,’ Youngbuck replied, trying to look bored with this new wrinkle in Reginard’s plan while all the time trying to understand its meaning. ‘And the three of you are farmers, then?’ The three brothers looked at one another as if uncertain how to respond.

   ‘Sure we are,’ Gormadoc said, and his brothers quickly began to nod in agreement. ‘Farmers or hunters or herdsmen or builders as we’ll need to be living so far west of other folks, I would guess. What we don’t know of those trades we’ll just have to learn in the doing.’

   ‘I see. Yes. Very well then,’ Youngbuck said. ‘Well, three days of charting three parcels of land I’ve promised and three days you will get. I’m glad to see that you are ready to depart.

   ‘Master Swiftook,’ he continued, turning to Reginard, ‘I will take my leave of you now, and would like that le-’

   ‘Oh, let us not be in such a hurry, master Bunce,’ Reginard replied with his same wolfish grin, ‘for you’ve not yet been introduced to your other travelling companions.

   ‘Here are my associates Zelik and Amram,’ he said pointing to the two Big Folk who stood a little behind, ‘two gentlemen for the Road.¹ They will assist you however they may and prevent any... dangers you may encounter.’

   ‘Oh, now that is too much,’ the real Bovo Bunce said, forgetting his role in the moment of his anger and striding forward to directly confront Reginard Swiftook. ‘I don’t know these two and have no desire to mistreat them, but the hobbits of the West-farthing remember only too well the Big Folk who worked for your father, Swiftook, and we are not ready to welcome them into-’

   ‘Yes,’ Youngbuck said, speaking over the real Bovo in order to maintain the illusion of his authority. ‘Old arguments aside, Swiftook, we have no need for their... assistance nor their protection going into the west and, I would remind you, we made no such agreement for these escorts in our talks.’

   The two men said nothing at this exchange between the hobbits. If the conversation registered with them at all their response seemed to be one of displeased boredom. The bigger of the two, Amram, looked away west towards the distant mountains and if he wished to go in that direction his face did not reveal it. He had a long drooping moustache and a bushy dark brow, but his head was otherwise hairless. Bovo could see that he was also provisioned for short travel, but at his side was a small round shield and from his belt hung an old mace of blackened iron. Beside Amram was his partner Zelik, wearing a soft grey-coloured cloak and a slouching, brimless black hat. His knife was still at his right side, but beneath the other arm there hung a scabbard of dark cloth and it held a narrow blade as long as any hobbit was tall. His arms were crossed on his chest and he watched Bovo and the others with an expression of patient distaste.

   ‘Ah, but they are not your escorts, master Map-maker,’ Reginard explained, ‘but escorts for my cousins. They will represent my interests in the venture and once our arrangement has been met, they will return to you your father’s letter, which I have countersigned with our agreement.’ At this he withdrew the folded letter and gave it to Zelik. “Surely your friends and you can put up with them for a few days. If they are unwelcome in your own camp at night,’ he said looking back at the real Bovo in response to his outburst, ‘I am sure they will watch over it carefully from a safe and respectful distance.’

   Seeing no other way forward, Youngbuck agreed to the terms. ‘Very well,’ he said, turning to the Big Folk, ‘if you two must follow along then do so. We will be leaving the Road a league or so before the Delvings and travelling in the open country to the south for a time. Keep up if you can.

   ‘I will not say good-bye to you, master Swiftook,’ Youngbuck said, turning back toward Reginard, ‘for I have very little doubt that you and I will meet again. Whatever your motivations in this arrangement may be, you’ve met your side of the deal fairly so far and so I will now do the same. Until our next meeting.’

   And with that Youngbuck turned and walked north to the Great Road, leaving the others to follow as they would. If Reginard Swiftook had any last remarks, Youngbuck was no longer listening. To his right his friend Bovo was saying softly; ‘no, I do not like this new Plan of ours one bit.’

*****

   Just a few hours later Poppy Noakesburrow was making good time on his bad leg, but he was a bit concerned about the way ahead. They had left the Road a short ways back and he could now see the low white hills coming up before them. The grasses and shrubs were low and the ground was fairly soft. There were fewer stands of trees here in the open as there were shading the Road, the hills themselves being a bit rocky. Youngbuck had promised they would rest a bit near the first hill and Poppy’s leg would surely need it. ‘How far from the Delvings are we?’ he asked Gilley who was walking beside him.

   ‘No more than a mile or three from the outskirts, I should think,’ she replied. ‘These are the lower and southern end of a chain of hillocks called the Chalk hills. See the whitish layers here and there? Soft earth for digging, but with little rills and streams and grassy valleys. Look there, just beyond that row of hills in the north and you can see some of the town’s many cookfires. The chain of hills turns northwest there and new settlers have built a very large town not a mile north from the Road. The Delvings has already twice the population of Buckland and is growing daily.’ Poppy was reminded here that Gilley and Youngbuck and even Bovo (the real Bovo) had been this far west, but he himself had never travelled more than five miles from his own home before last night. It excited him to do so now, even with the danger they found themselves in, but he was worried that his bent leg would slow them all down. He would need to rest it before long if they were going to travel up and down those hills he saw ahead.

   Youngbuck, in his guise as Bovo (and with the real Bovo beside him), led the way. The four friends had not had an opportunity to talk privately since their meeting with the Swiftook, but all of them realised the danger that they now were in. Did Youngbuck actually know how to make maps when the time would come for it? Poppy didn’t know if Youngbuck could or not, but he certainly hoped so. The two big warriors following them would certainly have something to say about it if he did not.

   Bovo (the real Bovo that is) had given them each bows and quivers to carry once they left the Road. He strung the bows for Youngbuck and Gilley and himself, but offered one unstrung to Poppy. ‘Use it as a walking stick if you need to, Poppy,’ he said. ‘It’s not a very good bow after all, so let it serve you however you think best.’ Poppy hadn’t had to do this yet, but the white hills made him thankful for the consideration.

   They walked in a long file since leaving the Road; Youngbuck and the real Bovo (Poppy was already finding this disguise all very confusing) were in the lead seeking the surest path. This helped to create some distance between the four of them and their unwanted companions, an the “two Bovos” in the lead took advantage of it while they could, using the opportunity to very quietly argue. Behind Gilley and Poppy came the Zaragamba brothers, each leading pack ponies of their own. These foreign-looking hobbits were affable and smiling for the most part, but they clustered to themselves since leaving the Road and Poppy could feel their watching. Behind them came the two warriors in any easy walk which never let any of the party get too far ahead.

   Quite suddenly the real Bovo raised his hand motioning the whole party to stop. They did so and remained silent as he raised his bow and rather effortlessly notched an arrow. Poppy’s breath stopped and beside him he saw Gilley hesitantly raise her own bow and look for an enemy.

   Without a sound Bovo’s arrow flew from the bow, arcing high, to hit land some forty yards away. Before anyone knew what was happening he went slowly stalking forward, another arrow already knocked and at the ready. Half a dozen yards or so on and, stopping suddenly, he fired again and then, fast and smooth and still, knocked and turned a little to his left and fired yet again. As Poppy trained his eyes to see what the target was, a fourth arrow landed in the tall grass near the hillside kicking up dust and motion. He then saw Bovo (the real one) running forward, the bow now resting on his shoulder, towards where the arrows fell. Minutes later he was returning to the party with four large rabbits in hand.

   ‘What a fine bit of shooting,’ Poppy heard one of the Zaragamba brothers say.

   ‘Oh, he truly is a notable hunter,’ said another.

   Poppy was stunned. Bovo Bunce (the real Bovo Bunce that he knew) was never much regarded by his schoolmates and the other Bucklanders for anything other than a quick wit, a tendency toward insensitive jibes, a youthful disrespect of traditions and his legendary and general lack of good manners. That he had talents beyond these came as a complete surprise.

   ‘Did you know he could shoot like that?’ Poppy asked Gilley very quietly.

   She stood beside him, smiling broadly and with an uncommon blush in her cheeks. ‘Poppy,’ she said, ‘that hobbit is continually full of surprises.’ And then she looked away as if not wanting to say more.

   ‘Yes,’ Youngbuck said, returning to his commanding guise as Bovo Bunce, master of the party, ‘it appears to be time for lunch then. We’ll stop here.’

   Poppy looked behind at their companions and saw that the Zaragamba brothers were also very happy with this decision. Further behind them the two warriors were drawn together in a quiet conversation. They were both looking at Bovo Bunce, the real Bovo Bunce, with renewed interest.

*****

   Gilley Bramblethorn took on the job of cleaning the conies² while the younger Zaragamba brothers, Marcoul and Olo, set up a cook fire. There was a small stream running nearby the hill, so the hobbits decided to make a stew that might feed the whole party. Olo had brought flour and salt, carrots and some potatoes and even a few herbs that were unfamiliar to Gilley. She thought that they smelled heady and rich like autumn trees in foreign lands. The hobbits were talking happily and settling into the preparation of a restful meal, but the two warriors were not agreeable with the decision for such a long pause.

   ‘We have not been on the march for three hours and you’re already stopping?’ she heard the tall thin warrior, Zelik, say to Youngbuck. ‘You hobbits will never cease to amaze me. If we are to stop every time one of you wishes to eat we will be a week in getting anywhere.’

   ‘Oh, we’ll make such good time as we wish to,’ Youngbuck answered, ‘and we will make it in the time that we wish to do so. Remember that I have promised to escort the Zaragambas just as you have, but certainly not just as you decide. We will march at my own pace and then, escorts or no, we shall be done with one another soon as we may.

   ‘But be glad, Grey-stalker! For there will be stew enough for you and your mountainous, moustachioed friend as well. Courtesy of we irritating hobbits!’

   He turned away from the warrior and toward the other hobbits at the cookfire, ‘We will take two hours to let our stew boil to its best and to ease our tired feet,’ he told them. ‘My friends and I have walked all the way from the Buckland last night with only short rests and are thankful for the pause. Tell me, Gormadoc, how far is it by the Road from Waymeet to where we are going?’

   Gilley saw the hobbit look at his brothers for a moment and then back at Youngbuck with surprise. ‘I’m sorry, master,’ he said, ‘how long by the Road?’

   ‘Yes,’ Youngbuck replied with some frustration. ‘I assume you went that way before when you first scouted the land. We are all trying to avoid the Delvings now and so must go a longer route through these hills, but knowing how long it took you by Road would be helpful.’

   ‘Oh, I see,’ the older hobbit replied. His eyes darted back to his brothers and they all looked a bit sheepish and unwilling to speak. Finally Gormadoc said, ‘well, that’s just it, you see? We’ve not been there before, by Road or any other path.’

   ‘What?’ Youngbuck asked, showing more surprise than he had done in all of his interactions that morning. ‘How can this be? Your own master Swiftook said that he had “three parcels which he wanted measured for a claim.” Are you telling me that he hasn’t visited them yet?’

   ‘Oh, I can’t say anything as to that, master Bunce,’ Gormadoc said, ‘for he is substantially better travelled than I or my brothers here. He’s gone very far and very wide in these lands, the Young Took has.’

   ‘The Young Took?’ Gilley heard Bovo (the real Bovo) ask.

   ‘Yessir,’ Gormadoc answered. ‘We call him the Young Took and his father, who is husband to my mother’s sister’s aunt, you see, we call him the Old Took.’

   ‘How very charming and, sadly, how very familiar,’ the real Bovo said dryly.

   ‘So you have never been where we are going,’ Youngbuck said, taking control of the conversation again, ‘but these lands have been promised to you by the Young Took?’

   ‘Yessir, master Bunce,’ Gormadoc replied, ‘just this very morning, though my brothers and I have been hopeful for such a chance for many months and that is why, bachelors as we are, we have been waiting out our time at Waymeet. For a chance to have lands in the far west, that is. The Tooks tell us that the west is where all hope abides, and we would like to abide in it, with your aid, master Bunce. I’m sorry if you thought we had been there first, but that is not so. We’ve only been shown the lands we are to look for on the Young Took’s maps.’

   ‘Maps?’ Gilley found herself asking. ‘Do you mean to say that he has maps, maps which you have seen, of the western edge of the Shire?’

   ‘And so we see yet another reason why unnecessary delays make time for unwanted intrusions,’ Zelik interrupted, walking back into the circle of hobbits as they talked. ‘Maybe my answers will explain better and get us back to the business at hand.

   ‘It is very true that the Swiftooks have maps of this land and I am certainly sorry to hear that it comes as a surprise to so many of you. Perhaps, master Bunce, during your extensive travels you will make some of your own. Or you may return to Waymeet after our mission to inquire of these maps further. Maybe master Swiftook will choose to share them with you. Frankly, that is no concern of mine.

   ‘But the land to be plotted is at the edge of what you Hobbit-folk call “the Far Downs” and they are perhaps, from what I have seen, four leagues along the Road from the Delvings. While I agree with skirting around the Delvings for now, I,’ and this last bit seemed to burn in the mercenary’s chest as he spoke it, ‘I strongly suggest that we return to the Road soon after and make up for this lost time.’

   And then, as a most curious and cold bit of commentary, Zelik added; ‘Respectfully speaking, of course.’

   ‘Yes,’ Youngbuck said, holding his judgement apart and making the others await his authority but still staring down the menacing Big Man. ‘I see. So I am to provide escort and leadership to first-time settlers, mark their claim and then go on my own way. Yes. I see. And you two have come along to see that I do this, is that correct?’

   ‘In keeping with your own agreement and master Swiftook’s,’ Zelik replied. Gilley saw the tall thin man and her friend look at one another for a long moment and both seemed to reach some understanding of the other’s intentions.

   ‘Very well then,’ he said, turning back to the Zaragamba brothers. ‘We shall have a stew from these conies and a rest for myself and my friends. We will then continue south around these hills and the Delvings and turn north to the Road after. From there we will go on, but it will no doubt be too late in the day to begin our explorations. We will camp and begin to examine the land tomorrow morning at dawn. After a light breakfast, of course,’ Youngbuck said, smiling darkly as he directed this comment to the tall soldier in grey. ‘I will measure your three properties, draw your maps and then my friends and I will be on our way. Berno, let us take all the canteens and fill them at that little stream before we rest.’

*****

   From a small stand of trees on a neighbouring hill Gondo saw the strange procession come to halt and begin to make camp. ‘Now what!’ he thought to himself. ‘Seven hobbits leading four ponies loaded with gear across the open land. Curious enough, but they are accompanied by two of the Big Folk who are very clearly soldiers of some kind. What are soldiers, big or little, doing in the west of the Shire?’

   After his shocking discovery of the newly-grown town just to the north of the Road Gondo had traveled south into the uninhabited hills to consider his position. He had clearly been gone from the Shire for quite a lot longer than he had ever expected or might account for. His time and his travels with the Elder Folk were cloudy; he had seen so many strange and wonderful things and been to so many mysterious lands that, looking back now, he could not manage to measure the days, the cycle of the Moon or even the change of seasons. Had he walked in their dream-world for one year or for one hundred? He had eaten their foods and drunk their wines and stood for countless hours listening to hear the music of the world which the Eldar alone seemed to recognize. Had he now become ageless as they were? Had the Shire and Alaura and Twoody and all that he loved passed away while he had been gone? He had come to better appreciate the enchantment of the world but could not recognize the place of his friends within it.

   ‘No, the Shire itself has grown,’ he thought further, ‘and not faded. Hobbits are here now, here in the far west end, building homes and going on outings as these seven are doing. But with soldiers among them? How can that be?’

   Earlier that morning and in this same small group of trees Gondo had berated himself for his reaction to seeing the unexpected town here in the Chalk hills. He should have asked questions, should have taken time to gather his wits and to investigate further. But he had instead run from the place fearing what may have happened to Alaura during his time away. But shortly after his initial panic his better reason took hold; he knew that he could not return to the Buckland just yet, not without knowing something of how long he had been gone and what may have happened since. So he had climbed this tall hill near the southern end of the chain to reflect on what should come next. He spent much of the early morning hiding himself among the trees and working up the courage to go back into the town. He would do so in disguise, or so he had planned, and had already chosen a name and a story for himself that he hoped would keep others from guessing his identity. But the strange town which he had seen that morning was so big, already the largest settlement of hobbits he had ever experienced, and he had to admit to himself that he was indeed quite frightened by the size of the place. Still, true to his reputation, Gondo was a hobbit who could admit to fear without succumbing to it.

   But, also true to his nature (and that of many of his descendants), the Oldbuck was one to easily change a plan once a better opportunity came along. He looked down on this group of seven hobbits, four ponies and two soldiers with a renewed sense of purpose.

   ‘I will go and meet this intrepid group and their curious companions,’ he thought, seeing them make camp in the shadow of the neighbouring hill. ‘Maybe they will have the answers which I need and, perhaps, even some news of Alaura.’

   It is hard for us to know the Oldbuck’s mind on that morning.

   What is it like for a clear-headed person to come out of Enchantment? To discover that while you slept or you travelled or you lay in a field somewhere dreaming, the whole of the world you had known had existed, grown, lessened, breathed and managed for itself quite well without you? Imagine that you believed, in your former youthful arrogance prior to your Enchantment, that you had been a builder and a shaper of that world. Imagine what it might feel like to realise that with you suddenly gone the world had somehow gone on as if you had never been its steersman. Would this be a liberating feeling to have, or a demoralising one?

   And imagine further what it might mean to have no idea how long you had spent away in your Enchantment. This is harder for most of us to imagine. But Enchantment is timeless (of course) and the world which an enchanted person leaves behind is not. Gondo had seen enough of the enchanted world to prepare him for this shock, but, to understand him better, we must take a moment to grasp the idea for ourselves. Great buildings and cities might have risen or been caused to fall while you were away; how do we reconcile ourselves to the idea that one moment of Enchantment might last one year or one thousand? All those who we once knew and who we still loved might be long gone while we dreamed and travelled along Enchantment’s strange roads. What is it like to finally leave those roads and come once again into a new moment of time, to return to a world which is now unfamiliar?

   And what, furthermore, is it to love and to be loved but still follow Enchantment’s call?

   There are some who might say that having a fair heart and a true love should make a good person able to resist such foolishness as Enchantment. But those who say this have a more simple and defined idea of right and wrong than they have an understanding of Enchantment; for the equations of right and wrong are always clear boundaries to such people and they seem ever ready to make their harsh judgments at those borderlines.

   But a fair and compassionate heart does not accept such rules or boundaries in love and may understand better the nature of Enchantment. How, being fair, can such a heart blame a loved one for stepping away from the world to follow the call of Enchantment and their own nature?

   Fair hearts and compassionate friends, or so the Oldbuck believed, forgive most of all.

   Gondo, standing on the hill south of the Delvings on that morning, had no way of knowing how many years had passed, or whether Alaura was still alive. Would she have cause to hate him for his absence? Certainly, but he knew that her heart was fair and that their love was great and so he was still hopeful of her forgiveness.

   So there, alone and wondering, he had sat for hours. All that Gondo had been able to do that morning, faced with the realisation of his Enchantment, was to wonder how long he had been away, if Alaura were still alive and how, if equipped with better knowledge, he might reach her. And then, quite by chance, this strange procession of hobbits came into view to the south.

   And Gondo was ever one to seize his best opportunity when it came wandering in front of him.

*****

   ‘If a well-mannered and gracious-sounding snake offers to aid you on your road ahead, Youngbuck,’ the real Bovo said to Berty, ‘it's best to proceed cautiously, remembering that he is still a snake.’ The two friends were down by the little stream at the foot of the hill, busying themselves with the task of filling canteens while talking discreetly about the situation in which they found themselves.

   ‘Well, we have discovered something here, that’s for certain,’ Berty said in return, ‘and it seems to be something neither your father nor my uncle Twoody had foreseen; the Swiftook’s are trying to settle the western borders of the Shire. But why?’

   ‘Yes. I certainly do not know the answer to that,’ Bovo said. ‘They have plenty enough open lands to the south and the Far Downs are, just as described, quite far from their most western settlement at Whitwell. Do you think that these maps they have might say more?’

   ‘I do wonder about that,’ Berty replied. ‘I’d like to get a look at those and to hear who may have made them. But I doubt that “well-mannered snake” back there in Waymeet will be so cordial upon our next meeting.’

   ‘Will you be able to draw these new maps he’s looking for as you’ve claimed?’ Bovo asked.

   ‘Oh, I have copied my father’s work often enough and seen uncle Clooty’s newer drawings from the Delvings. I can manage to draw a passable map for a land deed if I need to. And I’m somewhat doubtful that the Zaragambas can read whatever I put down. But the bigger question now is whether I should.’

   ‘Yes. Well, I think we might run into some trouble with those big ruffians if you do not,’ Bovo said in his bored and unaffected way. ‘The Zaragambas seem kindly and innocent enough, however. I don’t see any harm in helping them.’

   ‘Other than in how it might benefit the Swiftooks, no,’ Berty replied. ‘I don’t see any harm in them either. But why send those soldiers? They clearly have some other purpose here, I should think. And if they already have maps of the western parts of the Shire, why is Reginard in need of my services as a map-maker? What is it about those maps that he can’t, or won’t, show to my uncle Twoody?’

   Looking back to their camp Berty could see that the two Big Folk had split off to themselves and settled for a rest. But they were still watching all the hobbits carefully. Gilley and Olo, the youngest of the Zaragambas, were leading the ponies over to the stream where Berty and Bovo were standing. Behind them Poppy and the other brothers were chopping meat and vegetables for the stew and arguing politely over the proper ratio of spices.

   It was Berty himself who was the first to see a lone hobbit, strangely clad in a grey cloak and carrying a black walking stick, come over the top of the hill.

*****

   Olo Zaragamba had never seen such a hobbit as this. He wore a cream-coloured shirt of some light material and a proper vest as the wealthy hobbits of the Shire often prefer, but in his left hand he held an old wooden walking stick and on his belt, very strange indeed, there hung a sword encased in a scabbard of tooled leather. The hood of his cloak was down about his shoulders and clasped with a leaf-shaped brooch of shining silver. And looking into his face, Olo thought, was the strangest sight of all; for his skin was rather light for a hobbit and the midday sun made him look remote, like a living, moving figure that had been carved from pale pink stone.

   ‘Mae govannen,’³ he called to them in some strange tongue as he walked down the hill toward the four hobbits and their ponies. Master Bunce’s pony, Cinders, they called her, whisked her tail and tossed her head happily as the hobbit spoke. Then, seeming to remember himself, the stranger waved with his right hand and said, ‘Hail and hello to you, Shirefolk!’ Looking behind himself for a moment, Olo could see that his brothers were now also walking forward to meet the newcomer. Behind them the two Big Folk were on their feet and, although still at a distance, were unhappily watching this unexpected development.

   ‘And a hale and hearty welcome to yourself, sir,’ said master Bunce (who was, in fact, not the real master Bunce, though Olo did not know this at the time). ‘You are travelling quite lightly through the open country and so far from the Road. Do you live nearby? I hope we are not unintentionally trespassing on your land.’

   ‘No,’ the stranger said, as he came closer. ‘My home is quite far from here, but I do enjoy a walk in open lands. You don’t seem to be bound for town yourselves, but packed for an excursion.’

   ‘Yes, my friends and I are hunters,’ master Bunce replied, indicating his friends, ‘and these other gentle hobbits are showing us some of the woodlands to the west and south of the Road. Do you know the area well?’

   ‘Oh, not as well as I would like,’ said the stranger. ‘I’ve recently come into this part of the land and haven’t yet had time for much exploration. But I would be happy to receive advice from those who know it better than I do.’

   As he said this the stranger came up to the four hobbits and their ponies and offered a small but very formal-seeming bow. ‘Hail, travellers,’ he said, with his hands outstretched and a smile on his kindly face. ‘May a star shine upon the hour of our meeting.’

   Olo found this idea about stars a bit queer as it was still early afternoon and a partly cloudy sky above, but he saw master Bunce step forward and take the stranger's hand. ‘A very gracious greeting, sir,’ he said. ‘And I welcome you to take your leisure with us for a bit. We will not stay long, but we have a hearty stew on the fire and, while it is meagre fare, there is enough for all.

   ‘I am called Bovo, and these are my friends, called Gilley and Berno. Our guides are the Zaragamba brothers from the south end of the Shire. This one is Olo and here coming now are his brothers Gormadoc and Marcoul. Yonder is my friend Poppy, who may seem shy at first, but at least he has the presence of mind to keep stirring the stew.’

   ‘A pleasure to greet you all,’ the stranger said with a smile, shaking hands with all as the two other Zaragamba brothers joined the group. ‘I am called Hincbert Undundol,⁴ a traveller in the land, and happy to see that the reports of Shire hospitality have not been mistaken. But tell me, friends, who are your other companions?’ His gaze turned to the two soldiers who maintained their distance but continued staring back. ‘Do they also travel with you?’

   ‘Ah, yes,’ master Bunce said. ‘Not so much with us but alongside us, I should say. They are representatives of our employer, the hobbit who outfitted our party, and they are here to collect their payment.’

   ‘Hmmn,’ said master Undundol. ‘They have a hard look for delivery boys, master Bovo. I should pay them off and be rid of them as quickly as possible if I were you.’

   ‘Hah! My thoughts exactly!’ said master Bunce’s companion, Berno.

   The Zaragamba brothers also laughed nervously at this little joke and Olo saw that master Bunce seemed to take notice of this.

*****

   Amram had been Zelik’s friend and partner for twenty years and could feel the man’s displeasure increase with each new and unexpected development of the Plan. He knew, from long experience, that this displeasure would eventually boil over into trouble and, in their line of work, trouble always meant violence. He knew that Zelik did not like these little people very much at all, so this displeasure had been on a very slow boil for over a year now as they were stationed in this green little land and so Amram was, as always, cautious to not bump the pot.

   ‘He is carrying a sword,’ Zelik said to his friend in their shared Dunlander⁵ tongue. He said this evenly and calmly in a tone just under his breath which Amram recognized as his friend’s most dangerous way of speaking.

   ‘A sword it is,’ Amram replied with a gentle smile. ‘But with a blade shorter than my boot and nary as wide as my toe.’

   ‘A narrow blade is often an indication of the skill of its master,’ Zelik said, placing his hand on his own long and dangerous weapon. ‘And mark it, Amram. That is a blade made to a halfling’s proportions and, while I cannot tell much of it from here, it is no cast-off dagger or kitchen knife. It was forged for his own hand. Who is this little princeling?’

   ‘A shiny blade does not a prince make,’ Amram replied, ‘and beside that, these little folk have no princes.’

   Amram knew that Zelik did not really hate the halflings as some other of the mercenaries did; Zelik simply hated the assignment. He couldn’t understand why they had been sent to this peaceful little land to watch over the squabbles and petty quarrels of such annoyingly cordial rabbit-folk who wanted nothing more than six or seven meals a day and a place to rest their hairy feet. As always, Zelik was restless. Amram knew that his friend would rather be on a battlefield opposed by a hundred Gondorian knights then put up with another month watching the evolving politics of these little folk and, as always, Zelik’s restlessness made him more dangerous.

   But Amram was not so restless and had a more clear understanding of the assignment that they were on. Both he and Zelik had been in enough campaigns and heard enough talk in tents of great generals to read the signs. They had both seen the maps. Here was a peaceful and open land of rolling hills and scattered forests. An Old Road ran through it, well-maintained, and on its eastern border there was a sturdy and defensible bridge. To the south there was a shallow river-crossing where their patrons had already established a beachhead. Amram did not know what or who might reside in those mountains to the west; another Gondorian outpost perhaps, for the map showed that beyond them lay a great port for ships. Clearly this land was important for the Great Wars in the North.

   Nearly thirty years ago, as he and Zelik had heard it, a foolhardy king had given this land over to these poor and unwarlike folk to use as farmland. Amram had known the fate of such “farmland” away in his native south; warring tribes took what they could hold and burnt what they could not. Amram knew that many of the halflings from his own lands had come north to the Shire to escape such wars. It saddened him to look at what they had done for themselves here, confident of their safety and ignorant as they were of what was certain to come. War was following them and they could not yet see it. Not so overtly grim nor deeply pessimistic as his companion, Amram simply wished that their assignment was over and they could simply walk away before all these poor ignorant and naive little farmers would encounter what would eventually come to this land.

   As he and Zelik stood together watching this new, and admittedly unusual, hobbit enter into their plan Amram’s attention was drawn again to the western mountains. He wondered what was there which the maps of Angmar refused to reveal. He thought, and not for the first time, about suggesting that he and Zelik abandon their current assignment and go to have a look at those mountains for themselves.

   But he knew that his friend was too honourable to quit a contract and, as the years had shown, Amram was too honourable to quit his friend.

   Together they watched the Buckland hobbits and those witless Zaragambas welcome this strange newcomer and walk with him to their encampment.

   ‘There is better work to be had not twenty leagues to the north in Fornost Erain,’ Amram reminded his companion. ‘The Sea-kings there do have princelings and a wealthy king, of course-’

   ‘Sea-kings with their swan-crowns I will not work for,’ Zelik said for what might be the hundredth time that Amram had heard it.

   ‘Be it a crown of silver and pearl or a crown of blood and cold iron, it is those kingly heads which give us our assignments,’ Amram said. ‘But are we not free of such judgements? You and I have chosen to serve no king and therefore may refuse work where we wish to, or so I understand things.’

   ‘Hmm,’ Zelik said, still frowning at the newcomer who had been led into the hobbits’ camp. ‘Then perhaps you understand me less than I thought. I will not work for the Sea-kings.’

   ‘No, of course not, my friend,’ Amram said with the same gentle smile. ‘I do not misunderstand you. But every once in a while I mean to make you realise how your intractability is part of your unhappiness.’

*****

   Marcoul Zaragamba found himself completely captivated by the stranger. He had never seen such a person as this. The hobbit had come out of nowhere, bearing only a small haversack beneath his cloak and walking boldly in unexplored lands. Like his brother Olo, Marcoul noted right away the strangeness of the traveller’s garb and the sword which hung on his belt. It was known that the Old Took’s grandfather, the great Priamus Swiftwalk, who was famous throughout the Lausa, had carried such a sword. The Young Took was master of that sword now, it was said, but Marcoul had heard of no other hobbit to ever wear such a bold weapon. But this stranger wore his with ease and without comment; as if it had been on his hip for many long years, a part of his person but outside of his notice.

   Olo and the young doe, Gilley was her name, remained at the stream to water the ponies. But Marcoul and Gormadoc walked back to the small campsite with master Bunce, Berno the hunter and the stranger, master Undundol. Marcoul found himself looking at the stranger, and his sword, very often. What did it mean to meet, quite by chance, a fellow hobbit who carried a sword while you were in danger? The Lausa of Marcoul’s parents’ and his grandparents’ generations had lived desperate and dangerous lives in the Weather hills. The great armies of the Sea-kings constantly fought against those of the Witch-kings in that land. Long swords and heavy hammers, great spears and wide axes would sometimes clash for a whole winter while the Lausa lay hidden in their warrens. The stories of Lausa grandparents were stories of cleverness, of wariness and of hiding. His People were diggers, listeners, runners and masters of the swift warning. They were cunning and full of tricks and so they were never destroyed.⁶ They lived each day as if they had a Thousand Enemies and taught their children to do the same.

   And while the Lausa wore no swords themselves they had many tales in which they would be led by a hobbit who did. Now, in the danger which Marcoul and his brothers all felt, what did it mean to meet yet another hobbit with a sword?

   As they approached the fire master Bunce’s man, Poppy, came forward to introduce himself.

   ‘Ah, our thoughtful and retiring cook,’ the stranger said with a smile. ‘I thank you for your diligence and attention to purpose.’

   ‘Poppy Noakesburrow, I am called, sir,’ the cook said, ‘and I am pleased to make the acquaintance of any who my friends have welcomed.’

   ‘"Noakesburrow," you say?’ the stranger asked. ‘Was there not a rather well-known Noakesburrow, a very skilled draughtsman and painter, who came early out of the Bree-land and across the Stonebows bridge?’

   ‘You have heard of my old gaffer⁷ then? Oh, but he would be glad to hear that his reputation has spread so far west, sir,’ Poppy replied, genuinely excited by the attention paid to his family. ‘Very proud indeed.’

   ‘“Gaffer”, you say?’ replied the stranger, and Marcoul could see the hobbit draw back a bit, as if trying to account for something difficult in his head. ‘Were you yourself born here in the Shire then?’ He asked.

   ‘Oh, yes sir, and proudly so!’ Poppy said. ‘Why I and my friends here,’ and with this he pointed to master Bunce and the hunter, ‘are Bucklanders, sir, and very proud of our kinfolk-’

   ‘Yes, thank you, Poppy,’ Marcoul heard master Bunce say, ‘but tell me, master Undundol, have you walked in the Shire before? For to know of the Noakesburrows is to be as a neighbour to us all. Please sit with us while the stew cooks. Berno, have you any more of that wine for our guest?’

   And so master Bunce and master Undundol sat together in the shade of some bushes near to the cookfire while Marcoul and the others went about the business of making camp and preparing the meal. Marcoul, intrigued by the strangeness of their guest, paid less attention to the stew and instead did his best to overhear all that was being said. Meanwhile, and from a distance, he could see that the two Big Folk also stood watching.

The stranger sat with his legs folded before him in a most unusual manner, unbuckling his sword and laying it beside him while setting his walking stick before him at a complementary angle. The whole of his sitting and the alignment of these items was done casually, in a familiar way, but with some sense of pageantry; as if he knew how strangers were meant to meet in wild lands and was willing to show the custom.

   ‘I have indeed walked in these lands some years ago,’ the stranger said. ‘Both before I had heard the name Shire and after. Of the Buckland I have also heard, but now there are Shirehobbits not two hillsides away...’ he said trailing his observations off as a question.

   ‘In the Delvings, yes,’ master Bunce replied. ‘It is becoming a very great city of the Shire. Do you hail from there?’

   ‘No, no, I do not,’ said the stranger, ‘though I was at the town well this very morning. Such a strange place for hobbits, it seemed. More buildings of stone and lumber than homes dug into the hillsides. For a place called “the Delvings” they do not seem to care much about digging.’

   ‘Oh, then you have seen too little of the town, sir,’ master Bunce responded, ‘for there are great warrens of homes dug into the Chalk Hills which surround the town centre and the well which you mention. But it is already surpassing the population of my own home in the Buckland and their well is four times the size of our own.’

   ‘The “Wisher’s Well” it was called, if I remember correctly?’ Master Undundol offered cautiously.

   ‘And still it is,’ master Bunce said proudly.

   ‘Yes. We are nearing the last of the good wine, gentle hobbits,’ Berno the hunter said, coming forward with a collection of small and mismatched mugs. ‘And the pour from that bottle is slight, I’m afraid, being shared by eight drinkers.’

   ‘The six of us and those friends of yours at the stream? And you are not including your tall friends there?’ the stranger asked with a smile, nodding his head slightly in the direction of the two warriors.

   ‘Oh, they are no friends of mine, sir,’ Marcoul heard the hunter say, raising his mug. ‘And I would sooner set fire to my own toes than offer a good beverage such as this to unwanted guests such as those.’

   ‘N'i lû tôl,’⁸ the stranger said, lifting his cup and drinking slowly with eyes closed. All the other hobbits drank as well, watching for some indication from their guest of what his toast meant and what they were in fact drinking to.

   ‘Oh. Why, that is very fine indeed,’ the stranger said upon finishing his first sips, ‘and I thank you for it. Where was it grown?’

   ‘In the hills north of the Shirebourn,’ Marcoul heard Berno reply. ‘Away in the East-farthing. The vines there are young yet, but the growth is plentiful, the farmers say. I am sorry that our own stores for this trip were not so plentiful.’

   ‘Have you travelled to the east, sir?’ master Bunce then asked.

   ‘The road east is a road to danger, but, yes, I have travelled it some, but not for some time,’ he answered rather mysteriously. ‘But you are Bucklanders, I hear? And is that not in the west of the Shire?’

   ‘I and my group are Bucklanders, indeed,’ master Bunce replied. ‘Which is to say Berno, Gilley and Poppy there. The other hobbits accompanying us are the Zaragamba brothers. They are from the South-farthing.’

   Marcoul felt that hearing himself being talked about was an invitation enough for his curiosity, and so he came closer to the two speakers and sat with them.

   ‘"Zaragamba," did you say?’⁹ the stranger asked, looking at Marcoul. ‘That is an old name from a very large family.’

   ‘Yes, sir, it is,’ Marcoul replied, anxious to speak and flattered to be so noticed, ‘and I am surprised to hear that you know it. Have you travelled in the Weather hills then, sir?’

   ‘No, I have not had that pleasure,’ the kindly stranger said with a soft bow of his head, ‘but travellers hear stories from other travellers of course, and I have wondered about our Lausa cousins for some time.’

   Hearing this, Marcoul’s older brother came and sat beside him. ‘You honour us, sir,’ Gormadoc said to the stranger, ‘for, if you will forgive me for saying it, master Bunce,’ he added looking respectfully to the other hobbit, ‘we folk have felt quite forgotten and disregarded by the Shirelings for some time.’

   Master Bunce looked surprised by this comment, and sought the eyes of his companions, who looked equally unaware. ‘The “Lausa” you say-?’ he asked, leaving the question hanging in the air between them all.

   ‘Do not feel ignorant... master Bunce, is it?’ the stranger said, looking the other hobbit over as if some new piece of a puzzle had been discovered. ‘For the Lausa have lived long in hiding and, it is sadly true, they have been forgotten by many of their kin. But disregarded? No, that would not be very hobbit-like, master Zaragamba, and not what I would make of this pleasant meeting in the fair hills. For here you are, Shirefolk all, and exploring the land together just as the King’s Agreement allows.

   ‘I had not heard that the Lausa had come to the Shire,’ he continued, with a glad smile on his face, ‘but it makes me happy. And in the South-farthing of all places? Now that is interesting! For the South, as I understand, is a beautiful land where few have chosen to settle.’

   ‘None but the Tooks, sir,’ Marcoul said.

   ‘The "Tooks?"’ the stranger asked. ‘And who might they be?’

*****

   The water which the ponies drank was cool and refreshing, but the attention of Sharp-ears (who had recently found herself renamed “Cinders”) kept drifting back to her new Master and his Important Guest.

   Sharp-ears had disliked her time with her former Masters, but that did not mean that she had any particular likes or dislikes of hobbit-folk in general; they were not cruel by nature, as Men often were, and they did not use harm to instill their demands as some other two-legged folk do. But the hobbits she had met so far were not Wise as she was, and they communicated their rather simplistic orders without listening to her response. This ignorance of simple discourse had fretted her greatly under her old Masters and she was happy to now be in the service of one who, if not truly Wise as she was, at least exhibited a caring nature.

   For Sharp-ears was aptly named; in her youth she had been awakened by the Elder People and so she knew the words and the language they spoke to all beasts and peoples. It is sometimes a difficult thing to be a Wise servant of simple Masters; one can find themselves owing their allegiance to people who are too naive to listen to reason. She was happier with this new Master who, if un-Wise, was at the least attentive.

   But the Stranger they had met was quite something other than Sharp-ears had ever encountered; he was a hobbit who spoke the Elder language. Now that was certainly something to capture all of their attention, but only Sharp-ears seemed to understand the significance of such a thing. The water she drank with her other pony-friends was sweet and cool, but her eyes and her sharp ears kept returning to the Stranger and her new Master. Would the Stranger travel with them for a time? Would he teach these other hobbit-folk the Elder language? Sharp-ears most certainly hoped so. But in the meantime she drank as the other ponies did and watched the campsite as she could.

   Her new Master and the Stranger sat on the grass and began to talk. She could not hear much from where she stood and eventually gave up drinking to turn away from the stream to watch all the better. In this way she could turn her sharp ears on the conversation.

   ‘Here, now!’ Sharp-ears heard the hobbit-mare say to her, ‘you should be drinking, Cinders, while the opportunity is in front of you. We will be carrying canteens west, but not water troughs. Take what you can while it is before you, girl!’

   Well-intentioned as the hobbit-mare’s command was, Sharp-ears did not obey it. She did not snap at the hobbit-mare as she might have done with her old Masters, but her attention was more focused on her new Master and the Stranger as they talked together at the campsite.

   ‘The Tooks, or the Swiftooks as we call them,’ her Master said, ‘own much of the South-farthing. The Zaragambas here, and many other of these “Lausa” hobbits as you have called them, are their kin. But I have not been to the South-farthing myself and cannot speak to what goes on there as others might.’

   ‘“Swiftook”? That is an unusual and unfriendly name for a hobbit,’ Sharp-ears heard the Stranger tell her Master. ‘I suspect there is a story behind it.’

   ‘A long and unfortunate one, I am afraid,’ her Master replied. ‘And an embarrassment to the Shirefolk which I do not readily share with newcomers to our land. It is not a story of our better nature,’ her Master said.

   ‘Well,’ the Stranger replied, ‘I will not be so ungracious a guest as to ask for such a tale, master Bunce. Thank you for your candor.

   ‘Now I have some other questions I would like to ask about the Shire,’ the Stranger continued, ‘but I do not wish to be unfair. We each meet upon our roads and the very oldest customs suggest that we should share our knowledge of the way with one another. You go west and I, or so I think, will be going east. What can I tell you about your way ahead?’

   Then there was silence. Her new Master, who might not have been so un-Wise as Sharp-ears expected, seemed to realise that he was, quite unwittingly, about to be caught in a Bargain; and a Bargain, all living creatures knew, was a precarious situation which could afford great reward or equally great devastation.

   Her ears were her best trait, but even at this distance, Sharp-ears could smell the cautiousness of this moment from both her Master and the Stranger. Everything between them stopped.

   From further away to the east Sharp-ears could see, and smell, the Men coming forward. She did not trust Men in general, but these she knew to be both dangerous and deliberate. These Men looked at hobbits and at ponies as if they were chickens in a yard; these were the kind of Men who would recklessly kill any of them for their own petty reasons.

   Now, after only watching for a time, these Men were walking toward the campsite with grim expressions on their faces. They were dangerous, and Sharp-ears and the hobbits and even all the other ponies, knew it. The weapons which they wore were not drawn, but any sensitive creature could read that there was a potential for violence in their step.

   Sharp-ears did not wholly love her new Master yet, but she cared for him and respected him for his kindness. She knew that this Stranger, who seemed equally deserving of her respect, had put her new Master into jeopardy somehow and that these Men would oppose him. She had no idea what to do about this problem but she did know that this was not a good time for a Wise pony to have her head down in a stream.

*****

    Gondo had learned much and more, but had to proceed with caution. How fortunate that he had found Bucklanders this far into the west! He could not have imagined such a thing and tried very hard to maintain his mask of calm curiosity rather than reveal himself. A Noakesburrow and a Bunce of all the people he might meet! Their parents, or possibly their grandparents had attended his own wedding. But how long ago? He still could not be certain. What in the world was a “Gaffer”? It might mean anything from grandfather to distant ancestor. Gondo had never heard such a term before. The Horris Bunce whom he knew when he left had no children, but a decent number of brothers. This leader of theirs was a Bunce, or so they said, but he had none of Horris’ looks. He was clearly a young adult out of his tweens, but he commanded everyone’s respect in a way that Horris had never shown. How had the Bunce’s become so lordly?

   And the name “Swiftook?” Was this some off-shoot of Twoody’s own Swiftalk family? Bunce seemed hesitant to speak of them and Gondo had been careful not to press the matter, but it still gave him very little clue as to how long he had been away.

   The accents on the Lausa were thick and foreign to his ears, just as Gondo would have expected. But these Bucklanders also had a strange way of speaking! Bunce, and his archer friend Berno, had all of the same turns to their accent as the other Bucklanders had, but they knew their speech and their courtesies better, as if they were lettered. Had Alaura’s idea of schools been responsible for this? Gondo was excited to ask, but needed to maintain his calm and get to such answers more slowly.

   ‘Now I have some other questions I would like to ask about the Shire,’ he asked cautiously, ‘but I do not wish to be unfair. We each meet upon our roads and the very oldest customs suggest that we should share our knowledge of the way with one another. You go west, you say, and I, or so I think, will be going east. What can I tell you about your way ahead?’

   And then there was a longer pause. This young master Bunce seemed to understand the old Rules of Bargain;¹⁰ he had freely given information as a host to his guest and now, in offering to return information of his own, Gondo was suggesting that they would enter into the old conditions of Bargain. Gondo had seen it done many times in his travels, but had never imagined doing so himself with a fellow hobbit.

   The younger hobbit was likewise cautious. Gondo could see that the Zaragambas and the other Bucklanders, unaware of the weight of this moment, were looking to him for a response.

   ‘Oh, he is well-respected, and long in his consideration,’ Gondo thought. ‘Horris, if this is your son he does you proud.’

   ‘Yes. I see,’ master Bunce replied calmly. As he did so his eyes swung slightly right and behind Gondo, as if to warn him of an impending threat.

   There was no need. Gondo had heard the warriors leave their distant post and come walking forward. He had very consciously put his back to them when he first sat so they would have less chance of hearing his words as he spoke to the other hobbits. But now he could hear them loudly and incautiously stamping forward to join the conversation. Gondo, who knew better than most how dangerous Men like these could be, let them come.

   ‘So, master Bunce, what may I tell you of the way ahead?’ he asked the younger hobbit.

*****

   Drowsy with contentment as they drank from the cool stream, the heads of the three Zaragamba ponies suddenly snapped up as they sensed danger in the air. Just like their Masters, the three ponies had foaled together and a deep trust lay between them. Travaldo was eldest and swiftest of the three, and he quickly turned his body toward the potential violence. Ahead of him the kind Hobbit-mare and their new friend Sharp-ears were already leaving the stream and walking back to the campsite. Beside him his sisters, Cluster and Hum, awaited his advice on what to do.

   The three ponies were not Wise like their haughty new friend Sharp-ears was; they did not understand the conversations of their Masters beyond the few words which brought them rewards. They had learned their names from their Masters and they knew some words which related to their tasks, but mostly the ponies considered the constant chatter of people who go on two legs to be nothing more than a dissonant interruption of the Music of the World around them; they tolerated it and took from it only those few words which they needed to do their work and earn their rewards. Most ponies, in their own aloof way, pitied their Masters for their incessant need to fill the World with such noises as words.

   But all ponies who work among two-legged Masters have learned to carefully listen to the tone of such noises and to smell the change in the air when violence was near. Travaldo, Hum and Cluster all raised their heads to the unmistakable scent of the potential threat of violence.

   Sharp-ears and the Hobbit-mare seemed to have smelled it too, but they behaved very differently. They walked toward the campsite and toward the danger. They denied the Common Sense of most creatures and walked forward into the smell of potential violence. Travaldo wondered at that. He believed, as most ponies do, that any creature can smell a storm and there are few but the old and the mad who would go willingly into it. Travaldo watched and sniffed at the air and wondered. His Master was there among the danger and Travaldo loved his Master, but he also loved his sisters. He did not wish to return to the campsite, but neither would he call for them all to flee. From the distance he wondered again about Sharp-ears and her ways; haughty she seemed, but willing to walk into danger for a Master she had known for only hours.

   Bravery is not uncharacteristic in ponies, but they have no expression for it in their own language. They much prefer the exercise of Common Sense for all circumstances and do not seek situations which call for any other response. But ponies, even those who are not Wise, can identify this unusual trait in one another when they see it and, like most living creatures, they find Bravery to be both stupid and admirable.

   Travaldo whisked his tail and threw his head back to tell his sisters to wait, to stand and to watch here by the cool stream. None of them knew the best way forward and they were now in strange lands. Hum and Cluster and he might find their way back to Waymeet if their Masters should die. If violence should come then, Travaldo told them with a stomp and a neigh and a turn, then they should run swiftly away.

   Then Travaldo looked at Sharp-ears and the Hobbit-mare, and now Cluster’s own Master, walking boldly forward towards the threat of violence.

   He flicked his tail, stamped his right foot, threw his head back with a proud call, and went out to join his Master and the others.

*****

   ‘Oh, I don’t think we will be looking for any further advice in how to move forward, little traveller,’ Zelik said, quite loudly as he approached the seated hobbits. ‘Indeed, if you are looking for your own way east, well, I might suggest that the Road opposite of the setting sun should be more to your liking.’

   The brash and “princely” hobbit did not flinch nor turn as the warriors came up behind him, and this irritated Zelik all the more.

   ‘Roads may offer speed but provide few insights,’ the stranger said without turning and still looking into Bunce’s eyes. ‘But travellers who meet in out of the way places may sometimes offer one another aid.’

   The Map-maker did not respond, but Zelik could see him considering this peculiar comment.

   ‘Well,’ Zelik said, as he came around the seated hobbits to look into the new-comer’s face. He did not like what he saw.

   Being an experienced campaigner, Zelik first took note of the miniature sword and walking stick the hobbit had placed before himself. He did so as quickly as possible for, as he had expected even from a great distance, the sword which lay in the grass was indeed a princely work; the tooled surface of its scabbard carried runes upon it which Zelik could not read and, though it had no other adornments, the hide itself was of a peculiar colour and the leatherwork as fine as any that he had ever seen. The furniture of the sword’s hilt was also quite fine; the guard was made of coiled iron which formed two wide loops around the ricasso and extended down into a light quillion there to trap blades and then up to a knuckle bow which adjoined the pommel. The grip was wrapped with leather of the same soft grey colour as the scabbard and fit specifically to the small size of a hobbit’s- this hobbit’s- hand. It was a fine sword, no matter the scale, and in some cities that Zelik knew of such a sword might fetch a price greater than he and Amram were being paid for this whole past year of their wretched service here in the Shire. A princely thing, just as Zelik had suggested to his friend but now, upon seeing it, more alarming was the very fact that this was not a sword of decoration or ceremony; it was a finely-wrought but practical weapon clearly made to fit the small hands of this potentially dangerous stranger.

   ‘And he lays it in front of his host like a general at a parlay,’ Zelik thought darkly. He had seen the great captains of Gondor in the south sit in this way, legs folded beneath them and their swords presented just such,¹¹ while they passed their judgements on allies and prisoners alike. ‘How has a Shire-hobbit come to find such customs and learn such arrogance? First we see the uncanny skill of that bowman, and now there is this unwanted guest. I dislike this errand more and more,’ he thought to himself and shared that thought with his friend Amram in a familiar and knowing glance. Accustomed to these unexpected dangers as the two were, Amram had walked left around the seated hobbits as Zelik himself walked right. They took up positions of watchfulness together, but Amram, on unspoken cue, made sure that he was within a lethal arm’s reach of that talented little bowman.

   ‘Well,’ Zelik said, standing hard by Bunce’s right arm and looking down on the new-comer, ‘we have now found another delay for food and gossip. Perhaps, master Bunce, this new friend of yours can suggest a good publichouse nearby and we can all go there and forget whatever purpose we had in coming this far. If you wish to aid us then tell me, master, what is your name and where can my companions here find better than rabbit stew for their always-hungry mouths and better than grass and rocks on which to lay their furry feet and heads? I worry that they miss such luxuries as I am sure you do.’

   His plan was to actively goad this little hobbit princeling; no matter the quality of the hobbit’s sword Zelik trusted the resourcefulness of his own. If he could intimidate this little prince (and intimidation had been the only martial skill he had employed thus far with these folk) into leaving all the better. Killing him would be the easier, and most relaxing, solution of course. ‘Perhaps,’ Zelik thought to himself, ‘the rare hobbit who wields such a rare sword could be goaded by pride into my easier solution.’

   The hobbit glanced up to meet Zelik’s face for the first time. ‘Give me your name, longshanks, and I will give you mine and more besides,’¹² he said. And then, with the utmost arrogance, he looked away dismissively. ‘But, master Bunce here, my host,’ he continued, looking back to the other annoying hobbit who sat to attend him, ‘tells me that you are errand-runners for his client and not part of his company. That may explain your impertinent interruption but does not make you part of our conversation.’

   ‘Impertinent!’ Zelik found himself saying as he drew back in surprise at the arrogance of this little princeling. He felt his legs square in their stance and his hand ready to draw his sword. ‘The plan of goading this little hobbit might not be working,’ he thought to himself, ‘for I seem to be the one that is goaded.’ Still, a confrontation would most readily solve the problem and let Bunce and these other upstart hobbits know their place. Zelik would not let himself be the one to draw first of course, there was no honour in that, but he would happily kill this little nuisance and take that lovely sword of his in doing so.

   But the little princeling made no move toward his own blade nor did he even look up to meet Zelig’s eyes again. He sat there calmly on the grass and, as the moment stretched out among them all, and his eyes seemed to move around to the other hobbits present, reading their fear.

   ‘Impertinent, you would call me?’ Zelik said again, as if it was some kind of challenge.

   ‘Master Bunce,’ the stranger finally said, the calm smile returning to his face. ‘I thank you for that wonderful wine we hobbits have shared and I am sorry to hear that there is no more. I certainly would agree with Berno here that I would rather set my toes afire than share such a marvellous thing with an unwelcome guest,’ and here his head seemed to gently indicate Zelik rather than look at him. ‘I thank you for that honour. Will you allow me to return it in kind? Berno, might you rinse and bring me the cups?’

*****

   Gormadoc Zaragamba felt in mortal peril during this whole time for, as the eldest of the three brothers, he knew more about these dangerous Big Folk than anyone else present. Not seven hours ago he had been called to the young Took’s tent where, though he had seen these Men often enough, Gormadoc had the very specific displeasure of meeting them for the first time.

   ‘Gormadoc, good of you to come,’ the Young Took had said, ‘please sit with me.’

   The Young Took’s tent itself was big and dark; not a comfortable place for hobbits at all. The hobbits of Waymeet shied away from it and treated it as an unwelcome centre of their developing town. Its high oilcloth ceiling and tall flapdoors showed it to be a Man-sized construction and Gordo and his brothers could not imagine why the young Took, who had been in Waymeet for months now, had not chosen to make a nice little hole for himself in some hillside as many other of the Lausa here were hoping to do. The tent was large, much bigger than all the other upright buildings in Waymeet, but it smelled old and foosty¹³ and looked drab and cheerless from the outside. It was imposing in its way, but from outer appearances seemed hardly a palace and much less comfortable looking than a good old-fashioned hole. Gordo had never been inside it before and had never spoken with any other hobbit who had. Those who had been invited in the past (and they were rumoured to be few) rather quickly went on their way right after; running tasks for the Young Took it was said, but disappearing from the Waymeet thereafter. Being “called to the tent” was a saying among the hobbits of Waymeet which carried a very dubious honour.

   Gordo was quite surprised to find that the insides of this warlike tent were rather comfortably furnished. There was a small stove near its centre, unlit now in the summer, and in one back corner Gordo had seen a very fine-looking four poster bed. In another corner there was a small dinner table, with three hobbit-sized chairs, and a kitchen pantry. Here Gordo had seen fruitbowls, small but filled, jars of cream and hooks of curing meats; all of which were dainties not readily available in the shops of Waymeet. There had been elaborate salt vessels, tubs of jams and butter, bottles of wine, a small rack of dinnerware and a collection of cups finely crafted in clay or silver. If the dingy outside of the tent had suggested a kind of austerity for the Young Took among the Zaragambas and their neighbours then the comfortable settings in the rear of the tent belied this notion. The exterior of the tent kept the hobbits of Waymeet away and the interior revealed that the Young Took was very comfortable and content with that arrangement.

   But if there was comfort in the rear of this place then the front of the tent, Gordo had also discovered, was all about business.

   There the Young Took was seated at a small and simple wooden chair before a low table. Another chair had been brought to this table, but even Gordo could see that it matched those of the dinner table and was added here only for such a rare occasion as the welcoming of a guest. The table itself was lit by a small hanging chandelier and, even in the late morning, all of the room's light seemed focused around this place. There had been a cup of wine in the Young Took’s hand as Gordo entered, but the hobbit continued to stare intently at the table before him while ushering in his guest with a gesture.

   Behind his host, resting on a stand all its own, Gordo had seen the legendary symbol of the Young Took’s office. Many of the Lausa had discussed this artifact among themselves but few had ever seen it. Gordo saw it then and marvelled at its power. Undrawn, its slightly curved scabbard pointing upward as if to revolt against oppressors, there was the Dragonsword¹⁴ of Priamus Swiftwalk.

   The Lausa do not carry weapons. For many generations living in dangerous lands their survival and their pride had been based upon their cunning and their wariness. Over one hundred years ago, as the older Lausa tell it, Priamus the Bold led thirty-five score of hobbits through the Weather Hills in search of a land which they might call their own. He had come out of the East, they said, through the great Darkening Forest and across a Great River and through mountains populated by trolls and giants and goblins. And all that way Priamus carried with him the Dragonsword, pointing with it to lead his people into the peaceful West.

   These legends also say that Priamus and all of his folk had come to the Weather hills and bid all of their cousins there to join them in their march toward a peaceful land. And many of the Lausa did indeed follow; for a hobbit, like any creature, can only live so long in hiding before the idea of escape, and the leadership of a sword, may inspire them to action. Many of the Lausa of Gordo’s grandfather's generation left the Weather hills to join with Priamus and so were taken to a new life in the Bree-land.

   And so the Dragonsword had remained legendary among the generations of the Lausa who did not go, those who remained in their old warrens beneath the Weather hills. They listened for rumours of the success of their bolder relatives and many waited to be drawn west again. The war between the Big Folk and the forces of Angmar had slowed in those years and there were many Lausa, Gordo’s own father among them, who wished they had gone forth with the others and followed the Dragonsword.

   For all the Free-people of the North, Hobbits and Big Folk alike, hope had always lay in the West.

   When the Young Took returned to the hills with this same sword a dozen years ago he used it to rally the Zaragambas and the other great families behind him, leading them into the peaceful lands of the Shire. The sword had become a symbol of peace that all of the younger generation of the Lausa had learned to follow. Now Gordo saw it resting there behind the Young Took, an emblem of his authority, which all the Zaragambas, Gordo, his fathers, uncles, aunts and his many brothers and sisters, had come to respect.

   ‘Sit beside me, cousin,’ the Young Took had said to Gormadoc in the tent earlier that day. ‘Here. I have something to show you.’

   Gordo had been cautious; he did not know why he had been called or what the Young Took might have wanted. He was the first of his brothers or cousins to be “called to the tent” and he found the young Took’s casualness to be surprising.

   ‘Would you care for some wine?’ the Young Took had asked. ‘It is still very early in the day, I know, but I like a glass or two myself when examining serious matters.’ At this comment the Young Took had risen and poured wine into a ceramic cup for Gordo. ‘Thank you, sir,’ Gordo had said, not entirely sure of how he should address his worthy cousin. ‘You honour me.’

   ‘No no,’ the Young Took had said, ‘I am not some flatterer to honour a person more than their worth, cousin. And I find that today your own worthiness and the desires of you and your brothers will be very important to our mission here in the Shire.’

   Gordo had taken a sip of the wine he had been offered, a bit befuddled by the Young Took’s response, not wishing to seem ingracious, and hoping that he would explain further.

   ‘We have a rare opportunity at the moment, you see,’ the Young Took continued, ‘to register our claim to the western edge of the Shire. The son of Horris Bunce, who, I am sure you know has been no friend to our family, has wandered west to make maps for his father. It seems that the Bucklanders wish to lay claim to these western lands before we can and I have been instructed by my father to ensure that this does not happen.’

   The Young Took had leaned in closer as he spoke and Gordo had listened very closely. ‘But,’ the Took continued, ‘the son of Firebrand Bunce has himself gone off unprepared; he is here in Waymeet asking for my help with supplies. And he shall have it. And so, in return, shall you and your brothers as well.

   ‘Zelik!’ the Took had called out suddenly, looking past Gordo’s shoulder.

   From the rear of the tent, perhaps through another door which had not been noticed, the two big soldiers had come silently forward, startling Gordo so that he spilled some of his wine.

   ‘Hah!’ the Young Took had laughed. ‘Don’t worry about them, cousin. They’re here for your protection and mine. Zelik, Amram, please join us,’ he had said. The tall lean-muscled Man had then knelt himself down beside the table (there being no Man-sized chairs present) as the Took rolled open a large piece of old leather. The other soldier, the one with arms like wine barrels and a head as bald as an egg, had taken up a position standing near the front of the tent. From his belt there hung a blackened metal bludgeon, its dark head nearly as large as Gormadoc’s own.

   As he put weights down the edges of the unrolled document the Young Took had begun to explain his plans. ‘Zelik, I should like you and Amram to accompany my cousins on this little map-making excursion. We will want Bunce and his friends to measure three parcels for registry. He will believe that these are for farms and homesteads, but you will take note of other conditions which might make them attractive to our needs and ensure that they are appropriate in size. Now look here, both of you.’

   The Young Took had then pointed to the piece of leather which he had so carefully unrolled on the table before them. Gormadoc was not lettered of course, but he had seen letters and documents enough to recognize them. This was something else like he had never seen; there were unusual marks of all sorts made across the surface and a number of long lines which seemed to divide certain areas. And there were colours too which seemed dyed into the leather; golds and reds and greens and deep browns which did not seem to have any logical placement. This was the first map Gormadoc had ever seen and he would never again see another like it.¹⁵

   ‘Now the map shows us that the second line of hills ends here along the Great Road. The Delvings are here,’ the Took had said, repositioning his finger, ‘along the eastern side of the first line; the Chalk hills they call it, not far west of our current placement.’ Here he repositioned his finger. ‘If that farther line of hills is the Shire’s border as we currently claim it, then that’s where we must put our next settlement. The old road from ford goes past the southern edge of these hills at Nobottle, where Gormadoc and his family have been living,’ he said, drawing the line with his finger. ‘On to who knows where beyond. Those ancient towers, perhaps.’

   ‘If those towers do yet stand,’ Zelik had added off-handedly, ‘or if they ever did.’

   ‘Yes,’ the Took had replied, ‘that is beyond our reports. But we’ll see about that in due time and, if I am correct, you may be the first travellers to confirm them. It is reported that the southern side of the area is heavily wooded, but there should be good spots for farming and irrigation on the northern side of the Road. And we’ll want to control that strip along both sides.’

   ‘I am sorry, cousin,’ Gormadoc had asked, ‘but what does all of this have to do with me?’

   If poor Gormadoc was in dreadful fear of the current situation they were in it was because, apart from these very dangerous soldiers, he was the only one who knew some of what the Young Took had planned. Master Bunce and his friends (who seemed to be very gracious hobbits for Northerners) were to map the lands so that the Zaragamba brothers could register them in the Buckland; for all hobbits had equal rights to settle the land, or so it was said, and no Bucklander could gainsay them that right under the king. They might try to refute the maps made by the Tooks themselves, but they would not dispute maps drawn by the son of Horris Bunce. Once the land was registered, the Young Took told Gormadoc, then he and his brothers and all of their clan could expand and populate it freely, having all of the provisions and help which they might need with their building and, by years end, the Young Took told him, neighbours enough to build a whole town. In this way the Zaragambas were to be the first settlers on the western edge of the Shire and, by Gormadoc’s understanding at the time, that seemed a very proud and important thing to be.

   ‘We can have them draw these maps, of course,’ Zelik said to the Young Took, ‘and we can have one of these cousins of yours deliver the maps to the Buckland for registry. It is quite a boring task you set my friend and I to oversee, but it suits us better than being guardians of this mudhole of a town.

   ‘But tell me, master Took,’ the man had asked with a sneering look on his face, ‘What is to happen to master Bunce and his friends after the maps are made? Do you mean to let them go free into the west about their business when it seems to compete with your own?’

   Whatever orders the Young Took may have given were not said during that moment together in the tent and Gormadoc had never asked. Instead the talk turned to the logistics of what the Zaragambas would need in this faraway place and what they should take for the next few days. They talked of wagons and provisions and when they might freely declare their intentions to settle the far western edge. When the other Zaragambas might come and what they might need. Nothing was said during this talk of the Bucklanders or if they were to help them in their enterprise after the maps were made in the next few days.

   But Gordo had seen how the arguments had gone between master Bunce and their escort and he did not think things would go well once the job was done. No Lausa, other than the Tooks that is, had any trust for the Big Folk and, thankfully, never had much reason to meet them. But all hobbits, Lausa and Bucklanders alike, could smell danger when it was in the air. Gordo had smelled it there in the tent on these two Men and he smelled it again now.

   Now this stranger had come, wearing a sword of his own no less, and had made matters much the worse.

   ‘Master Bunce,’ the stranger said calmly, ‘I thank you for that wonderful wine we hobbits have shared and I am sorry to hear that there is no more. I certainly would agree with your friend Berno here that I would rather set my toes afire than share such a marvellous thing with an unwelcome guest.’ He paused for a moment and Gordo felt the insult register on Zelik. ‘I thank you for that honour,’ he said, turning back to master Bunce. ‘ Will you allow me to return it in kind? Berno, might you rinse and bring me the cups?’

*****

   Berty wondered how long this would go on or what, if anything, he might do about it. The whole of his Plans, some very long thought out and others very hastily decided, had led him and his friends into what seemed to be a deadly predicament; and endangering his friends was something he had never meant to do. What had begun as a pleasant prank to be played on black sheep cousins had, within six or seven short hours, turned into an adventure which he now believed might get them all killed. ‘For those Men are surely more than just thugs,’ Berty knew from the first meeting, ‘and may have planned to kill us right from the start.’ Berty had not had the chance to tell Bovo (the real Bovo) this when they were talking by the little stream, but he had started piecing the Plans of Reginard Swiftook together and did not like the conclusions.

   But then, while they were at the little stream and as Berty had hoped to share his own idea of the trouble they were in, up from out of nowhere came this stranger and his sword. And Theudebert Youngbuck, like his legendary father before him (and that of many of his descendants who would come after), was one to easily change a plan once a better opportunity came along.

   ‘I will meet this intrepid stranger and invite him into our camp,’ Berty had thought upon seeing him come down the hillside. ‘Maybe he will have some answers which might help us out of this predicament.’

   But now this very same stranger, master Undundol, seemingly careless of the danger, was pushing them deeper into trouble.

   ‘I thank you for that honour,’ he was saying while casually insulting the two warriors. ‘Will you allow me to return it in kind? Berno, might you rinse and bring me the cups?’

   ‘Yes. Certainly,’ Berty heard Bovo say from over his shoulder. As he rose to fetch them from the other hobbits Berty noticed that the big warrior, the bald one with the heavy black mace, moved with him and stood between Bovo and his bow.

   ‘Do you think that offering my comrade and I a tiny sip of wine will restore goodwill, little traveller?’ Berty heard Zelik say from beside him. Master Undundol looked quite unphased by the hinted challenge and, still sitting comfortably on the grass, opened his travelling cloak slowly and drew forth his haversack.

   ‘I have travelled far in the Northlands and even further to the south, master Bunce,’ Undundol said, seeming to ignore the soldier, ‘and I have met many wellspoken people who meant ill and many others of rough speech who showed me great kindness. I am glad to say that I have never yet met a hobbit who wasn’t worth my liking. And here,’ he said, nodding his head past Berty’s own in the direction of the stream, ‘here come two more worthies with two intrepid ponies. Suilad!’

   Berty turned to look behind him and saw his new friend Cinders kick his back hooves and lower his head with a snort as if he understood the strange speech of his guest. Just behind came Gilley and the younger Zaragamba brother, Olo. Behind, and at a safe distance came one of the other ponies. Beside him Berty could feel Zelik square his posture so as not to leave his back unguarded. ‘Come and sit with us, friends,’ he heard Undundol say, ‘all is well, despite the bluster, and I’ve a gift to share in our chance meeting.’

   Bovo returned with eight cups as Gilley and Olo sat beside them. There were now eight hobbits sitting more or less in a small circle and the two large warriors standing beside them looking uncertain. It seemed to be dawning on everyone that this calm little stranger was somehow beguiling them by foreign and unusual ways.

   ‘We want none of your gifts, halfling,’ Berty heard Zelik say, his voice now somehow less than confident. ‘I don’t care what these other Shirelings have said, but I do not want you here and you are not invited.’

   ‘And you, longshanks, just as I have said, are not part of our conversation,’ Undundol replied, looking up coldly at the soldier, ‘and I will thank you to not interrupt it again.’

   Berty saw Zelik’s face struggling; his eyes twitched and his mouth turned in jerking motions as if he was trying to remember how he should act. His hand was on the hilt of his sword, but his fingers danced over it as if he had forgotten how to grasp it. Looking to the other soldier, Amram, Berty could see that he had stopped paying attention altogether and stood with his shoulders stooped and his gaze, unfocused, was directed at the western mountains.

   ‘Master,’ Berty heard Gilley ask, ‘who are you?’

   Undundol smiled and set the eight recovered cups on the grass before him. Berty could do nothing but watch as he then took a small winesack from his bag and, opening it slowly and with great reverence, began to pour a golden liquid into the cups. ‘I am a hobbit just as you, young one,’ he said, ‘though I have travelled further than most and seen more than any other hobbits whom I’ve ever met. And today, through chance, I’ve come as a friend that we might exchange gifts.’

   As the liqueur fell into the cups there was a smell that came up which Berty and the others had never encountered before; not a pungent or savoury smell like most of the ales or wines popular with the Shirefolk, but something much more, well, wholesome and refreshing he might call it, as if all the smells of springtime had been held in that small winesack and were just waiting to burst forth. For a moment Berty felt as if the flavour of the aroma had awakened some memory of high towered cities and still waters which he had never seen or known before. Looking forward to master Undundol, Berty saw the eastern sky behind the hobbit dissolve into a charcoal drawing of a dark night fixed with stars.¹⁶

   The stranger leaned forward and passed the cups into the hands of each of the hobbits. Sitting back down he raised his own saying;

   ‘Av-’yosto, i pheriain. Tolo ar nin.’¹⁷

*****

   And they all drank together and their troubles went away. For a time.

end chapter eight

Chapter End Notes

Notes (08/09/2024)

1)  These names, and their titles, are a reference to Michael Chabon’s 2007 novel, “Gentlemen of the Road.” When I first added them to the scene a few chapters back I had Michael Moorcock’s Fahfird and the Grey Mouser in mind, but those characters are really just a distant memory to me now. Chabon’s book, which I haven’t read since its release, is a closer model for what I had in mind, even though the characters themselves are entirely different.

2)  ”Cony” is an English slang term for rabbit and such a Tolkienian word that I had to find a way to fit it in here somehow. The idea to make a stew comes from Sam in LoTR.

3)  This is a strange tongue to these poor hobbits but it is, of course, the Sindarin common meeting; “well met”.

4)  “Undundol” is an adaptation of a name Gondo may have earned in his travels with the elves. “Dol” is the Sindarin word for hill and “undun” the prefix “under the”, therefore spoken in Sindarin to mean “underhill”. Readers of LoTR will of course recognize the name “Underhill” which Frodo used in his travels. I’d like to suggest that Gandalf knew or perhaps met Gondo and therefore chose that name to give Frodo. “Hincbert” is, of course, a credit Gondo gives to Twoody’s father Hincmar, who was like a father to him. “Bert” being a diminutive suffix for a male hobbit as in “Theudebert”.

5)  A rather sudden decision was made to make these two characters come from the Dunland far south of the Shire. As I said in the note above, I modeled these characters a bit off of Chabon’s “Gentlemen of the Road” which had the working title of “Jews with Swords” for some time. The Dunlander’s seem to have had a wide bit of land to themselves before it was given to the Rohirrim and I thought that might be a good echo for the lost Jewish empire of Chabon’s novel. By the time of LoTR “Dunlendings” would be the more proper term for these people, but that term comes from the Rohirrim and not themselves.

6)  In a second draft, after finally getting a solid handle on the many hanging threads of the story, I decided that the Lausa needed more development and this chapter was one of the few places in which I might manage it. This little Easter Egg of the “Prince of a Thousand Enemies” comes from a book I have quoted too little in this novel, Richard Adams “Watership Down”. In many ways that is the most perfect ideal of what a book about hobbits should be.

7)  For many years in my reading of LoTR I was unclear about the word “Gaffer’” and whether Gaffer Gamgee was Sam’s father or grandfather. The idea that this term might’ve been introduced while Gondo was away puts him in the same unexplained space. It’s such a great, such a hobbitish word that I need to bring it into this book.

8)  A Sindarin toast. This translates to “until the time comes” and is often used as a parting, but I like it here in reference to what Bovo says about “setting his toes on fire”.

9)  Okay, kind of a long time coming, but here’s what’s up with this odd sounding name. Sources say that “Zaragamba” was the original hobbitish name of the Oldbuck line, being changed to “Brandagamba” when Gorehendad crossed the Brandywine in Year 740 of the Shire-reckoning. When I first started this book I toyed with the usage of hobbitish names but, realising that there were far too few to choose from for so many characters, relented and began defaulting to the Anglicized versions more familiar to readers. But I always wanted to use the Zaragamba name and so, when I needed to create some characters who came from the older “Lausa-hobbits”, using it here seemed perfect. It is an Easter Egg, pure and simple; Gondo’s recognition of it is meant to give a hint to the idea that he knows more of the real history of LoTR than most of us do.

10)  This “Rules of Bargain” custom is an invention of my own that I use a bit in The Fall of Arnor. It has some of its origin in the Riddle Game that Bilbo and Gollum play, but is more of a condition of what travellers might owe to one another in meeting and parlay. It may have some original context in Medieval manners, but I’m mostly making it up for my own stories; a code of conduct which is mystically binding. We will learn more of it in the next chapter.

11)  The connection here is that the Gondorian captains who Zelig has dealt with in the past learned this custom from the same place Gondo has; the Elves.

12)  This is a reference to Gimli’s first conversation with Eomer in LoTR.

13)  “Foosty” is an Ulster-Scots word meaning mouldy-smelling or mildewy. It seems a very appropriate word for a hobbit to use. On a recent edit I find that I use it more than once in this novel.

14)  I have mentioned Priamus’ sword more than a few times in this narrative, but more of it will be found in Book Three of The Fall of Arnor. The grip of this sword may be made of Dragon bone.

15)  This map will very likely never surfac eagain; there isn’t time nor place within this story fo rit. But where the Swiftooks would’ve gotten such a map will cast a longer shadow through my work in The Fall of Arnor.

16)  The description of first encountering this aroma is cribbed from my own first chapter of The Fall of Arnor. This is to suggest that the drink might be miruvor, a draught made by the Elves of Rivendell. Obviously there are elements here which are specific to Berty’s point of view.

17)  “Av-’yosto, i pheriain. Tolo ar nin.” means “do not be afraid, hobbits. Come with me.”

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   Now it has quite rightly been noted in other tales that hobbits were never known to practise magic of any kind.¹ If this is indeed true, as most all scholars agree, then we can see how the chance meeting between Gondo and Berty, as it is told above, could be a subject for some debate. But once again it is important to remember how much of what we know comes to us through rumour, song, and later interpretive text.

   Berty himself never wrote about the incident; no recovered record from the Great Smials in his hand even hints at magic or speaks of this meeting. In her poem, or what remains of it, Youngbuck's sister Deidre is largely focused on the decisions made by her mother around this time and, from what we can see, leaves the meeting of father and son completely out of her original text.

   The letters and the writings of Alaura Fairheart and the Oldbuck from this summer and until the end of their days are, with very few exceptions, lost to history.

   The Zaragambas, at this point in their lives, were unlettered and left no documents behind other than land deeds and signed wills of trust.

   If Poppy ever had the opportunity to learn his letter or ever spoke of the incident with others we cannot know. History and legend in the early days of the Shire is very kind to the Noakes family, but they seldom seem to get a chance to speak for themselves.

   Bovo and Gilley also never wrote of the event or shared their thoughts on who the mysterious master Undondol had been. It is true that Clovis Bunce discusses the meeting at length in his own book offering, through hindsight, the very clear idea that Undondol was not only the long-lost Gondolpho Oldbuck but now had become a magician of great skill and power. Much of the later debate in the Shire and in our current circles of scholarship no doubt stems from the popularity of Clovis’ very successful adventure novel. But it should be remembered that this is a novel which freely uses swordplay and magic and the dangers of battle to attract its audience. It seems clear that his recounting of the tale was fueled by the gossip and popularity of some magical resolution to the events.

   But all of the gossip and songs and legends very clearly tells us that something quite unusual had happened on that day when eight hobbits, four ponies and two of the Big Folk met on the grassy hills south of the Delvings. Later arguments would be made in the long feud between the Bucks and the Tooks to suggest that Oldbuck was himself either a sorcerer or a changeling creature; and that he had influenced Youngbuck and his party just as he would with Alaura, through magic and guile.

   Was this magic?

   We do not know. When one enters into the land of Enchantment, as Gondo had, the rules of what is magical and what is natural become changed. When he bid the other hobbits to join him, was that a moment of Gondo practising some form of magic or merely providing them a chance to escape into that same enchanted land of altered rules?

*****

   The charcoal drawing of a starry sky was fading from Berty’s memory. Dusk had come and gone. The evening was set and the moon which Berty saw before him was three-quarter full and high overhead. ‘I sat facing east,’ he remembered before remembering anything else, ‘am I still faced that way?’ He looked over his left shoulder to see the rising hill beside and found he had, from what he could determine, not changed his position very much. The ceramic cup he had drunk from, his last clear memory, was still beside his right hand. It was emptied, cleaned and dried. Beside it there was a bowl, also empty, holding a spoon.² These were also cleaned and dried. Had they eaten? Berty had no memory of that.

   He felt a great desire to yawn but, given the danger which he vaguely remembered that they had all been in, he suppressed it. ‘Better to have a look around than to give a sounding off,’ he thought to himself. And so, slowly and cautiously, making as little noise as he might, he took a look around for his friends.

   All was as it had been before (whenever “before” was). Bovo and Gilley and Poppy all lay on the grass in more or less the same place that Berty remembered them to be before master Undundol’s toast. They no longer sat upright and all of them had their same cups and bowls nearby. Berty noticed that Bovo and Gilley, still asleep, held hands and he thought to himself (with the alarming clarity of an excellent idea which had never occurred to him before) how much that made good sense. Poppy looked more comfortable and content than Berty had ever seen him, stretched out on the grass. Someone had laid a folded grey cloak under his head and a waterskin between his knees to help with the pain of his twisted leg. The Zaragambas were also comfortably asleep and Berty could see a calm on their faces he had not seen since the time of their meeting.

   All of the ponies were contentedly mewing about and Cinders let out a loud, thankful-sounding noise at her master’s awakening. The cookfire had apparently long burned out and the two soldiers were nowhere to be seen.

   Still groggy in his way, Berty wanted to stand on his feet, but found them unreceptive.

   ‘Ah!’ Berty heard a voice call, ‘you are awake first! That is good for us both, though I should not be surprised by the circumstance.’

   This made Berty turn back to look behind himself, a slow and deliberate move for he was still quite dizzy from whatever drink he had been given. There, coming back from the little stream with a bucket of fresh water in his hand and his sword again at his side, came master Undundol. He was smiling broadly and Berty thought that the strange hobbit’s face looked even brighter in starlight. Berty tried again to stand and though his feet agreed to the notion this time, his head protested and he became too dizzy.

   ‘Here, now,’ master Undundol called to him, ‘don’t go rushing into things, Bovo. The stew was helpful, but you’ll want some cool clean water and a bit more rest before rising.’ He came to Berty’s side and poured fresh water in Berty’s little cup and offered it to him. Then, setting the bucket between them, master Undundol sat down just as before, his sword and his walking stick placed once again near to hand.

   ‘What-’ Berty began, but his still cloudy head was filled with too many questions to know where to begin. He took a sip of the water from his cup and found it to be cooler and finer than any spring or well water which he could remember. It awakened lingering tastes and smells and memories of his own heart's gladness. He took another slow sip, trying to be patient as the older hobbit had advised and to not rush into things. ‘What time is it?’ Berty asked.

   ‘Time? Oh, that is a most propitious question to begin with as it runs near to my own,’ Undundol said, pouring water from the bucket into his own cup. ‘But let’s not begin our talk unfairly, master Bunce. As I was saying before, we now meet upon our separate roads and the very oldest customs suggest that we should share our knowledge of the way with one another; gift for gift. You have offered me the hospitality of your camp and a very fine rabbit stew-’

   ‘Poppy’s stew,’ Berty heard himself say in a kind of absent-minded way, his eyes still trying to focus on the cup laid before him. ‘Yes, we had the stew together, didn’t we?’

   ‘We did indeed,’ Undundol said, smiling again, ‘and while I have eaten many fine meals I’ve not tasted such a good rustic hobbitish dish as that in some time.’

   ‘And we all ate it together, I think,’ Berty kept trying to recall. ‘And we were all laughing at something...’

   ‘Many little tales of the South-farthing were told by the Zaragambas,’ Undundol replied. ‘Some were concerning but most were quite comical. And your friend- Berno, is it? Your friend surprised many of you with his fine singing voice.’

   ‘Yes, yes!’ Berty said. ‘Some bawdy thing about a maiden and... a duck, was it? Gilley couldn’t stop laughing. “From there to here. From here! From there! All feathery down and flocked in her hair!”³ I am almost remembering it.’

   ‘A song so charming and improper as that has a way of sticking in one's ears,’ the older hobbit said, ‘I am sure you will hear it again. Now-’

   ‘No, no. Wait a moment, please,’ Berty said, taking another sip of the cool water. He was calm now and remembered laughing and singing, but he had awakened just moments ago to a feeling of danger which he could not ignore.

   ‘Those soldiers,’ he asked, ‘what has happened to them?’ And here he began to look around the camp for any sign of injury or conflict. But all his friends slept quite peacefully and looked healthy and well.

   ‘Soldiers?’ Undundol replied. ‘Yes, perhaps they were once soldiers in other days. But thugs they have become. Sellswords and kidnappers, I would say. But they found Shirehobbits to be much more than they were prepared for and you will not see them again I would also say.’

   ‘We... we were laughing at them, as I remember,’ Berty offered.

   ‘Long and heartily, just as you should,’ Undundol said again with a smile. ‘And I think it may have been the most terrible thing that has ever happened to them in their otherwise miserable lives.’

   ‘Master,’ Berty said with great earnest, ‘I cannot thank you enough for your help in this matter. Before you came along I and Bo-, Berno Bophin that is, had surmised that they would do us harm and that we should escape them immediately.’

   ‘Oh, I believe they fully intended to murder you from all that I have heard,’ Undundol said with that same genuine but authoritative smile. ‘But be assured, ridding you of them was no gift between us, master Bunce. I did that so you and I might have this more productive talk together. It was a rather selfish act on my part, really. Although I perceived that you were in some danger, your choice of travelling companions is your own to make. But your initial comment of “not so much with us but alongside us” put them outside of the rules of Bargain.’

   And there it was again; the word that Berty could not quite bring back into his recovering memory, the word and the custom these two had been discussing when the soldiers had interrupted. Was that the thing which made Berty awaken with some sense of danger?

*****

   Berty’s mother, among her many other talents as a writer, educator, administrator and social progressive, was a dedicated collector of tales. She had, throughout all her life, an endless thirst for legends. In the first years of the Shire, as hobbits came from all the known parts of the northern lands (and many places which had been formerly unknown) Alaura Fairheart met with families and registered their marriages and births but, always and at each meeting, she asked them to recount the stories they had heard. Stories of their beginnings mostly, and the places they had come from.

   Berty had heard his mother joke with his uncle Twoody that she had only ever married him to get closer to Berty’s grandfather, Hincmar, the famous innkeeper of the Bree-land. ‘For there are certainly more stories and legends to be heard from his acquaintances than one can find in all the West-farthing,’ she would say. ‘Oh, you are loving and handsome and funny and kind, husband,’ she would laugh, ‘but one grows tired of local deeds and marriages and land-titles while tales of giants and goblins and knights and dragons abound just beyond the Stonebows bridge. Don’t mistake me, husband, for I love you dearly. But I have always felt that your father, and his tales, were a most rewarding dowry.’

   An education from Alaura Fairheart, whether for her children or for her students in the Buckland schoolhouse, focused heavily on the legends and stories she had collected from other hobbits. The story of “The Bargain” was amongst these and Berty recalled it now in conversation with this strange traveller.

   “Two strangers would meet on a road,” Alaura had taught them, “for each had come from a different direction and the road ran through a flat place in a valley before their meeting. The one travelling west we will call Gerold and the one travelling east we will call Ricfried. Both Gerold and Ricfried could see one another coming into the valley and both were intelligent enough, as I suspect all of you will be after this lesson, to respect the Old Customs.

   “Ricfried, still a mile or two away but on higher and clearer ground, watches as the other traveller, whom we have called Gerold, stops and sets up a camp for himself by the roadside. Tell me, young ones,” Alaura would then ask, “what should Ricfried do?”

   “Draw his sword!” one student might say.

   “Leave the road!” would say another.

   “Go forth! Why leave the road? The road is for travellers, no matter their direction!" would say another.

   “Good! Good!” Alaura would respond. “These are some of the options which are open to him. And, being a bold sort, Ricfried goes forth on the road.

   “And so soon enough he comes to a splendid little cookfire beside the road and there is the other traveller, Gerold we have named him, preparing for himself a fine dinner. ‘Welcome, fellow,’ Gerold says, ‘and well met. Will you take your ease with me for a time?’ he asks.

   “‘I will, with thanks,’ Ricfried replies, and together they sit and talk.

   “The two travellers look at one another expectantly; for they know that each wants to hear something of the other’s story but are cautious to give out information of their own.

   “‘That is a very fine dinner you are roasting, my friend,’ Ricfried said, ‘Am I right in thinking there might be enough for the two of us?’ he suggests.

   “‘That may be,’ responds Gerold, ‘if we should find something else to share.’

   “‘I do not have much to offer,’ Ricfried replies. ‘I have what some consider to be a very good wine in my possession, a full skin; but I can only imagine that a well-provisioned traveller such as yourself has dinner wine aplenty.’

   “‘Good wine is always welcome on new roads,’ Gerold responds, ‘and I would very willingly share half my dinner for half a skin of good wine; quite a good barter, if you ask me.’

   “‘And quite a good bargain if you ask me,’ Ricfried states, with a sly smile on his face. And so the goods are freely exchanged and the two travellers, questions still lingering between them, have a very pleasant meal together and, for a time, they talk of less suspicious things.

   “And so, my wise little fawns, tell me, is the exchange of the wine for the dinner here a Barter or a Bargain?” Alaura would then ask.

    And here the responses would be slower and less enthusiastic.

   “Well,” one student would offer, “it is barter because the host offered it as such, right?”

   “Yes, but if you follow that thinking it is also a bargain because the guest renamed it as such before it was accepted,” another would argue.

   “I’m sorry,” a third (and usually more comical) voice would offer, “but can dinner and wine not just be dinner and wine without all of this hidden meaning?”

   “They can indeed,” Alaura would reply, “and I hope all of you will become such good hosts and gracious guests that all your meals can simply be pleasant occasions. But in tales and songs of the world outside of the Shire there are Older Rules which apply to first meetings. Not all words mean the same things to different peoples of course, and it is safest to know how to read the signs of a thing when it is not freely given.

   “A ‘Barter’ is a simple enough exchange,” Alaura would tell them, “when both parties know what they are giving and what they are asking for. Ricfried can smell the quality of the roasting dinner, but Gerold has accepted the exchange without knowing anything about the wine. For Ricfried to call it a ‘Bargain’ could just be a suggestion that he thinks that the wine is indeed better than the dinner and Gerold is fortunate for the exchange.”

   “Won’t this insult his host?” one particularly insightful student might ask.

   “Very good, indeed!” Alaura would excitedly respond. “And this kind of behaviour can be a very dangerous thing to do, most assuredly. But to ‘Bargain’ for a thing can often mean negotiating to get something of a better value than what one is paying. Perhaps Ricfried, who knows the quality of his own wine and can smell the roasting dinner, is praising the meal over the wine. We cannot be sure and neither can his host. This lack of sureness makes their negotiations more exciting.”

   And here the responses were even more hesitant.

   “Can they be both Barter and Bargain at the same time?” another might ask.

   “They can indeed,” Alaura would respond smiling, “for an old and important word like ‘Bargain’ can mean many things.”

*****

   Berty, still a bit light-headed and troubled by his loss of memory, proceeded cautiously. ‘I see,’ he replied; though he wasn’t entirely certain what he meant by that turn of phrase or what there was to see. He took another sip of the cool stream water and eyed the stranger more suspiciously.

   Master Undundol looked to Berty now very much as he had at first sight: as a young-to-middle-aged hobbit out for an afternoon stroll in his own safe lands. His dress was both familiar and strangely uncommon; for he wore the waistcoat and the short pants favoured by most well-to-do hobbits, but closer inspection showed that these, like his cloak and bag, were of unusual craft and material. The clothes, whatever their workmanship, seemed quite fine; ‘fancy as a Bolger,’ Bovo might have said, but to be well-dressed in the Shire, Bolger or no, was certainly not a subject for suspicion. Berty had not given much attention to the sword at first, uncommon a sight though it was, but he remembered thinking that there was something comforting and familiar about the old walking stick the stranger carried as he first came down the hill to meet them all. Berty knew that his uncle Twoody’s grandfather was famous for carrying a sword, but other than that family relic and the one he saw here there were no other swords of hobbit-sized proportions to be seen in the Shire in Berty’s day (nor for a very long time after).

   So upon their meeting Berty had been quite honest in asking if the stranger lived nearby; for he did not know of any hobbits holding deeds to the Chalk hills south of the Road, but as the stranger had come down the slope towards them everything about his bearing had suggested his ease and confidence. ‘Authority,’ Berty thought now and remembered thinking it at the time; ‘he walked with an authority like I have never seen in the Shire; neither in uncle Twoody or my mother, nor in Bovo’s father or even that puffed up Swiftook we met in Waymeet. He walked with an authority which came not from recognition, as others might have it, but from, well, from his presence in the land.’ And Berty had never seen the like of that before.

   Other than this air of confidence and authority, and that sword of course, there was really nothing about the traveller that gave Berty any reason to fear. But the seriousness of a Bargain, and his mother’s teachings, made him watchful.

   Now they sat on the cool grass together, Berty’s friends sleeping peacefully beside them and the stranger’s sword alongside them, after sharing what had undoubtedly been a dangerous experience. How they had all gotten through that danger Berty could not say (and this, more than anything else, made him suspicious). But he knew that the stranger had been responsible, somehow, for their safety.

   ‘So you tell me, master Undundol,’ Berty offered cautiously, ‘that I and my friends should not feel indebted to you for being rid of the soldiers, is that correct? By terms of the Old Rules?’

   ‘Very correct indeed, master Bunce,’ the stranger replied with a smile. ‘Good riddance to bad luggage, as the saying goes. And now we can talk more freely, if you have a mind to. You have shared your fire and your stewpot and I have shared a cordial which was dear to me but seemed useful to the occasion. We did this fairly and under no agreement at the time, but it has come to an agreeable end for us both, I believe. But I have a mind to Bargain further if you would do so with me.’

   ‘You did mention having questions, master,’ Berty offered, ‘that much I do remember. But did we not answer some of these? I’m sorry that my mind is so muddled that I am not certain.’

   ‘Ah!’ the hobbit said, ‘I see. No, we ate and drank together and we were in our revels, master Bunce. It was not a time of serious questions for any of us. But the night is half gone and I have more walking to do under the starlight and your answers might help to guide my feet.’

   ‘How many questions shall we engage in, master?’ Berty asked, knowing as he said it that he had set his own feet one step further into the Bargain. ‘Am I correct in thinking that three is the custom?’

   The older hobbit smiled to see the wisdom in the younger and, for just a moment, his eyes narrowed and his head cocked very slightly; should he be more on his guard with this youngling?

   ‘That is the custom indeed,’ Gondo answered. ‘And I will give you three answers in response.’ 

   ‘But,’ said the younger hobbit, ‘what if I should want something other than answers?’

*****

   “Now both Ricfried from the west and Gerold from the east have been travelling for many days and both are in unfamiliar lands. Having shared their first transaction, their bond as host and guest is established and they are safe together, from one another at least, at the campsite.

   “But there is much they each wish to know about the road ahead and so they agree to answer three questions of one another. Perhaps this will deepen their indebtedness and strengthen their bond as two solitary travellers who meet in the wild or perhaps it is just a means toward meeting their own individual goals. When we talk about Bargains and Barters it is best to remember that people enter into them for their own unique reasons. But the two travellers do agree to three questions, asked and answered.

   “‘How far is it to the next city?’ Ricfried asks, beginning impetuously, and he is told that it is another full day's walk into the east.

   “‘Are there many people in this city?’ Ricfried then asks with greater interest, and he is told that it is a great walled fortress with many folk.

   “Then Ricfried, for his third question, blurts out; ‘how do I enter this fortress?’

   "‘With a password,’ he is told. Sadly, Ricfried realises that he has run out of his three questions.”

   “Hah!” the students would laugh, certain that they had gotten the joke and that they were smarter than Ricfried, the shortsighted traveller.

   “‘And why would you want to enter the fortress?’ Ricfried is asked, for it was his turn to answer Gerold’s questions,” Alaura would continue with her lesson.

   “Finding himself in the oldest custom of a Bargain, Ricfried now had no choice but to answer truthfully; “‘I would take back a thing which was stolen from me,’ he answers proudly.

   “‘And what would you do to the person who had stolen it?’ Ricfried is asked.

   “‘I would kill him and all who would hinder me,’ he answers firmly.

   “‘And then,’ he is asked as his third question, ‘having won back your prize and levied your vengeance, what then would you do?’

   “And here Ricfried smiles, saying: ‘this is a question that has no answer.’

   “Tell me, my dears,” Alaura then would ask, “who is winning this little riddle game?”

   “Gerold, out of the east!” one student would excitedly offer, “for he kept his secret of the password and learned of the killer’s intentions.”

   “Ricfried from the west!” would say another. “He has nullified the third question and might now gain the password by granting another question.”

   “Very good and very astute, the both of you!” Alaura would say, encouraging their ideas, “but more would be said and done at this meeting before we can establish a victor.”

*****

   Gondo, perhaps a bit surprised by the young hobbit’s sharpness, proceeded cautiously. ‘I see,’ he replied just as his host had done; though he wasn’t entirely certain what he meant in that moment and with that turn of phrase or, for that matter, what there was to be seen. He took another sip of the cool stream water which they shared as he eyed the youngling with even more caution.

   This Bovo Bunce, if that was indeed his name, looked to Gondo now very differently than he had at first sight: a young adult hobbit of perhaps twenty years or more who seemed to have the respect of his peers and to have caused some worry among his enemies. Those were rare qualities in themselves but now, as Gondo began to factor in the younger hobbit’s astuteness, he wondered if his own disguised identity might have been compromised. Gondo had come down the hill toward the group and been greeted as if he was a landholder here in the Chalk hills. ‘Had hobbits really come so far west?’ he remembered wondering at the time. But now this particular hobbit was giving him much more to wonder about.

   This youngster had greeted him openly and fearlessly, despite the predicament he had been in with those sell-swords. He had accepted Gondo quite immediately then and showed no fear of the unusual situation into which their meeting had put them.

   His dress was ordinary enough, if a bit too refined for someone who purported to be a hunter. Gondo noticed that this master Bunce’s quiver was slung across his right shoulder rather than his left; the more common for trained archers. Gondo, himself left-handed as well, had not thought much of this at first, but he remembered how the young hobbit had handled his bow when they first met; quite uncomfortably, as if it was new to his hand. ‘The others might be hunters,’ Gondo thought as he reconsidered his host, ‘but this one is certainly a leader who has decided, for whatever reason, to minimise his authority in our meeting.’

   ‘Questions are most fairly rewarded by other questions,’ Gondo began, looking to further determine the conditions of their Bargain. ‘But answers, in any respect, are always considered to be boons. Are you saying that, in lieu of the opportunity to ask questions, you would expect a boon commensurate with your answers?’

   The youngling looked Gondo squarely in the eye and said, ‘yes, master Undundol, and I would go further to say that I would trust you to allocate the measure of your boon to the measure of my answer.

   ‘I am going forth from the Buckland now, you see,’ the youngling continued, ‘and quite likely from all of the Shire as well; though my friends don’t all know my intentions just yet. I do not yet know where I will go. I may go north or I may go east or I may go south; I have no mind yet on any matter which might help to set my feet on their course. I simply know that it is time for me to go. You, sir, are the first sociable person whom I have met who has travelled outside of these lands. To ask you three questions about what you know and I do not would only show my ignorance.

   ‘I do not know, and have not yet learned, the things which will help me to go forward. I do not know, as you do, what it is like to be a traveller in the wider world.

   ‘Answers for your three questions I will willingly give you,’ the younger hobbit said. ‘If, and conditionally if, you will pledge to take what I have just said to heart and offer fairly in return for my answers some boon which you believe will aid me in my way ahead.’

   ‘Hah!’ Gondo said, smiling at the wisdom the young hobbit showed. ‘I do not know who has taught you of the Old Customs, but they have stood you well! You bring my own sense of fairness as a condition of our Bargain, as all good bargainers should. But you place a condition that my gifts should, in my fair judgement, only be to your aid.

   ‘Yes, very wise indeed,’ Gondo continued. ‘So I must return each of your answers with a commensurate boon measured in my own fairness. Very wise, master Bunce! But I shall also remind you, I am a traveller who walks lightly through these lands. The gifts I may offer, though they are unique, might at first glance seem meagre.’

   ‘I will trust to your generosity and fairness, master Undundol,’ the young hobbit said, ‘as you will trust to my honesty.’

   Each then raised their cup of cool water and took a small sip; their Bargain was made.

*****

   “Now after their dinner and their questions,” Alaura would continue to tell her class, “night was coming on and the two travellers, still curious about one another, decided that they would camp together. More wood was found for the fire and more wine was freely shared between the two new acquaintances. No further questions were asked, but each of the travellers shared songs from their own lands quite freely, as is only right for travellers to do.

   “For remember, younglings,” Alaura would say with great earnestness, “songs lose a great portion of their power and importance when treated like a commodity; one should never cheapen their enjoyment of song through valuation and barter. One cannot bargain with, nor against, the power of song.

   “Gerold, from the east, carried no instrument but sang his tale in a long and unusual metre; and it was filled with many dark, sonorous tones hinting at an older language that was foreign yet somehow familiar in his guest’s ears. Long low lugubrious notes came from the depth of his voice, telling of vast cities under mountains of shadow, with high towers and golden minarets, jewelled fountains and glimmering waterfalls, colossal statuary overlooking bustling marketplaces, all now buried under wide empty plains of sand and blasted rock. There was great loss and sorrow in his tale but also there was hope and faith that after great trauma and long wandering such a time of wonderful civilization might yet return.

   “Ricfried, from the west, was moved by this song and offered one of his own. He took from his bag a small harp; horsehair strings over a small wooden body it was, and he played it with a small wooden bow. His new acquaintance had never seen the instrument’s like before, and the music that it made was sweet and high and joyful, moving from long quavering notes to quick runs like flowing waters or winging birds; the sound of the harp was like children singing on a bright summer day and Ricfried accompanied it’s sound with his own rich voice. Higher pitched than Gerold’s was his singing, but strong in tone. He sang of great deeds being done by his people; of the tall ships they sailed and the great battles they fought. He sang of beautiful ladies waiting in tall towers, dragons challenged in their halls of plunder, of jewels gathered, of gleaming weapons wrought and of great beasts hunted and conquered.

   “Gerold enjoyed the song very much and together the two travellers sat by the roadside in friendly company through a long dark night.

   “Tell me, younglings,” Alaura would then ask, “which traveller sings the better song?”

   “Ricfried from the west,” the most eager among her students would quickly respond. ‘With stories of dragons and ladies and battles which are happening in his own lifetime. He brings news of the world that he knows to Gerold.”

   “No, Gerold from the east has done the better,” another more thoughtful student might disagree. ‘He brings tales of the people of the east and what they are seeking while revealing only history. That is the more wise pursuit, for in telling a history he reveals little of himself.”

   “Is that so?” Alaura would ask all of the class. “History, as one of you might describe it, may indeed be safer than current events. But current events, as another of you suggests, is more useful to some travellers. Those are interesting ideas about the importance of the songs each of the travellers in our story bring. And neither of these ideas is inherently wrong; sometimes one might want for news and sometimes one might want for history. I suggest to all of you that knowing what you want before making a Bargain might be a very important factor in that Bargain’s success.

   “But all of you,” she would continue with a gentle smile on her face and a glint in her eye, “ in your excitement to hear the songs of the two travellers described, have quite frankly overlooked a key point of the lesson. Will anyone tell me what was overlooked? Anyone? Anyone? Come now, I have taught you all to be sharper and more forthcoming with your ideas than that!”

   There were rarely any answers from the students. Berty, who had witnessed his mother give this lesson on many occasions while growing up, had in his own time also failed the little test. If the clear memory of that lesson came to his mind on that fateful night that he sat bargaining with a stranger we cannot know for certain. But her words and her lessons stood between these two hobbits that night nonetheless.

   “You have tried to compare the value of the songs.

   “A Bargain,” Alaura would say, “is a thing to be made with caution. Like any potentially dangerous task it is best to know what you want when undertaking it. Bargains, whether between strangers or kinfolk, create obligations rather than make friendships. Be cautious, my little ones, of creating obligations for yourselves in your youthful haste which you might come to regret in later life. Ancient tales teach us of the peril of rash words. Yet chance meetings may bring fresh futures some say, and a bargain well struck may be a propitious thing.

   “But never, never,” she would say with firmness and still a smile, “never ever bargain with Song. You all have been swayed by Song, by the story I have told you, and yet overlooked my point. Never let Song be part of Bargain; it is too strong and too dear. Song should always be freely given or it loses its power to make friends. Learn tales and songs at every opportunity you have. Share them freely with others, dear ones, and you will make friends wherever you may travel. But I caution you all to put no value in Song for anything other than how you may share it; remember, there is no gift nor boon nor reward received through Bargain which is more valuable than the trust of new friends.”

*****

   After their long drink of cool water together, Gondo reached into a side pocket of his vest and drew forth his precious wallet of important papers. There was a strange and guilty feeling which came upon him as he did so, for he could not rightly remember the last time he had looked at this wallet's contents. He had a vague and dreamlike memory of sitting alone on a beach of the western shore and looking out at the Great Waters before him. In that memory he had revisited yet another memory, deeper and more dear, of Alaura on a spring morning in her dress of blue standing before the Sun. He had opened the wallet then, while sitting on the beach and thinking of Alaura, and had drawn forth the very first issue of THE SHIRE-RECKONING, written in her own hand and given to him by Twoody sometime in their distant past. Seeing and reading Alaura’s thoughts again while sitting on a western shore, quite literally at the edge of Middle-earth and farther than any hobbit had ever been known to visit, Gondo had begun to remember things which he had carelessly left behind.

   Beside this fragile and folded broadsheet in his wallet were two other pages, hastily written in brown ink on parchment, which recorded the details of the King’s Agreement. Twoody had written this for Gondo (how long ago he could not yet guess) on the day when they had separated and Gondo went forth to settle the new land. He had carried these two documents over uncounted years and unknown miles in his travels with the Elven Folk. Now these two documents were the principal items of his history. It seemed both fair and obvious that his questions should begin from there.

   ‘Here,’ Gondo said, carefully unfolding the broadsheet, ‘is the first news I had ever received about the naming of this land. It was given to me some time ago and, finding that the aspirations of its authors were as kindling to my own desires, I have carried it since. “Year One in the Shire-reckoning” it boldly proclaims.

   ‘Tell me,’ he asked with great specificity, ‘do the authors of this document still record the news of the Shirefolk so boldly as they once did?’

Berty was slow and cautious in his response. The stranger had brought forth a document the likes of which he had only seen in uncle Twoody’s archives; a copy of the first edition of THE SHIRE-RECKONING and, more precious and surprising still, one written in his own mother’s hand. Family stories had told him that his mother, having translated the King’s Agreement, wrote many copies of this document in her own hand before giving the job off to her sister and other lettered hobbits of the Bree-land. Those papers were sent far and wide throughout those first days and weeks of the King’s Agreement, but no count was ever made of their number. Berty had heard that the Fallohides, who had lived far to the east and over the Misty mountains at the time, had a copy of this document, also in his mother’s hand, which they cherished.

   Berty knew how to respond to the question of course, but the fact of this document made him pause to consider. How had this come to the stranger’s hand? Where might the stranger himself have come from? When had he received it? If this was the stranger’s first question, and about Berty’s own family, where then might the second question lead?

   Berty could see no danger in answering other than the problem of giving away his own identity. So, cautiously but very sincerely, he replied:

   ‘Firstly, though it is not a direct answer to your question, I should say that you carry a very fine heirloom of the Shire’s history and there are many folk who would love to study it in greater detail. Myself included.

   ‘But if your question asks about the authors, as you say, then there were really only two who were responsible for this early enterprise of reporting the dream of the Shire to hobbits everywhere. Both still do contribute to it occasionally but, yes, the goal of the publication is still that of reporting the news of the Shirefolk, such as it is, as honestly and sometimes as boldly as possible.’

   Berty saw the stranger smile at this and begin to ask another question:

‘They are bo-’ 

   But he stopped himself in mid sentence and poured more cool spring water into his cup and took a sip.

   Gondo had to think for a moment. The generous response of the younger hobbit had told him much and his excitement had nearly gotten the best of him. He had made a Bargain only once before,⁴ in a much more perilous circumstance, and knew that hasty responses could be a person’s undoing.

   But he had just learned very much; the “two authors” master Bunce had referred to, Alaura and Twoody of course, were indeed very much alive! Gondo had not been present when the document was written of course, but he knew everything there was to know about its origins. In telling him that those two authors still contributed from time to time the young hobbit had also reassured Gondo from his deepest fears. ‘I have not been gone for a hundred years or more then, no matter how great a number of hobbits had come so far west. But how long, truly? There were certainly no Bunce children like this around when I left. Why, Twoody might be an old grey-haired grandfather by now. And Alaura? What of her? And how do I ask without yet revealing myself?’

   Berty watched and noticed the stranger’s discomfort. ‘Master Undundol,’ he said, ‘you may choose to give me a boon for this answer or withhold it until all your questions have been answered. Which will you choose?’

   Gondo, happy to depart his current line of thinking, let out a small laugh. ‘For one so young you seem to understand this game very well, master Bunce. But truthful answers are boons to those who receive them and know them as such. They should be traded fairly,’ he said.

   Knowing what gift to make in return for such important information was difficult for Gondo; he had truthfully told the younger hobbit that he was travelling very lightly through these open lands. Much of the things he owned had been gifts themselves and he was loath to part with them. What gift might he fairly give for such a useful answer while knowing that there were still two more questions ahead?

   ‘You have told me that there are three directions into which you may wish to travel,’ Gondo said. ‘North or East or South you have said, and you seek advice and boons which might aid you. But you cannot leave the Shire and go in three different directions all at once. No. Yet three pieces of advice about travelling in each of these directions I might readily give for each of your answers. And with that advice I would suggest a boon to aid you on your chosen path ahead. You will not receive all three gifts, but, after careful choice, will take from me the item which might serve you best in whatever the direction you should choose. As a fellow wanderer I have more knowledge of travel than I have earthly possessions to pass on, but in this way both may serve you in your way ahead.

   ‘You have said that you would trust my judgement and fairness in the rewarding of gifts. That was wisely done. But I judge that it is my counsel that might suit you best. So. I offer to answer your answers with what I may know of the three roads; North and South and East. For each of these I will suggest a gift to aid you on these roads. In the end you will decide for yourself which road to take and which gift will best serve you.

   ‘Does this seem fair to you?’ the older hobbit asked.

   Berty thought for a moment and took another very slow sip from his cup of springwater. He realised that this might actually be a more beneficial arrangement than receiving three unusual objects which he might never understand and which might never aid him in his choice. The older hobbit had now consented to advising him and, after choosing, Berty would also receive a final gift to aid him. This was the best possible reading of his expectations from their Bargain.

   But he still remained suspicious, just as he had learned to do. And there was some part of him, the caution imparted by his mother perhaps, which made him feel that master Undundol had something of his own to hide. From the first moment of their meeting Berty had thought that “Undundol” did not sound very much like a proper hobbit name whatsoever. Perhaps this was some trickster and not even a hobbit at all.

   ‘So each of my answers would bring advice from you on each of my three ways forward?’ he asked with great specificity. ‘And for each direction you will suggest the gift that you would give and then, at the end of our Bargain, I may freely choose from the three?’

   ‘Indeed,’ the older hobbit said. ‘That would be my Bargain.’ 

   ‘Which I thankfully accept,’ Berty said.

   Gondo drank again from his cup, but carefully and slowly. He then poured more of the spring water for himself and his host, but also carefully and slowly, for there was not much left in the bucket now and it must carry them both through their talk.

   ‘I will begin by telling you of the North,’ Gondo offered.

   ‘The North is cold, master Bunce. To walk twenty miles north of the Shire’s borders means that a hobbit, despite all of his histories and traditions, should consider the practicality of boots. Snow and pines and great crevasses of cracked earth lie north of these lands spreading west to the Blue Mountains and east towards the Silent City of Annúminas. The lands there are wide and hard and wild and vacant. Men, great lords of Men, once held castles there which have fallen to disrepair, disuse and, finally, disregard. Some say that goblins and wargs are reclaiming these north-western keeps for themselves, but no major battle has come there beyond the fences of Fornost Erain, Norbury as we folk call it. But even so the safety of these lands is doubtful to many.

   ‘But it is not doubtful to me, young master,’ Gondo continued. ‘I know that the land north of the Shire is wild and open and dangerous, but it is also watchful and guarded. No great attack will come sweeping down from the Northland into the Shire in our lifetimes, for the lives of Goblins and Eldar are longer than the lives of hobbits like you and I. They continually fight over these northern lands, kings and knights against dark lords and drakes, and no peace will you find in the north unless you shun all society.

   ‘Which any who travel there may freely do; for the North is a wide and beautiful land for those who would seek its solitude,’ he continued. ‘A hobbit might live there, or hunt there as you and your friends claim to do, with little interruption and great results. There is war, and some say that there always will be war, to the north of the Shire, master Bunce. But, should you choose the North, you might live and hunt happily there, if that is your desire, without ever encountering the strife of Men. You might live in isolation from the King or you might decide to join him. Both these paths are possible in the North.

   ‘If you would choose to go North,’ the older hobbit said, removing his cloak, folding it carefully and setting it before himself in fulfilment of his bargain, ‘then I would suggest and offer warmer clothes for you, master Bunce. Sadly,’ he said with a smile and a curling of his toes, ‘I have no boots to give. But, while it is very dear to me, I would give to you my cloak. It has a virtue which hides a hobbit from discovery and staves off the most bitter weather.’

   Both hobbits sat quietly for a moment. Berty looked at the neatly folded cloak set before him and marvelled at the colour and the material; for he could not quite discern anything like it which he had seen before; it seemed to blend very naturally into dark grasses which lay between the two hobbits. There in that time, while looking at the folds of the garment, Berty imagined great snow-capped peaks and deep furrows of grey rocks amid glades of pine. He heard lonely gusts of chill winds on bright mornings while the Sun, in Her high courses, burned the snows off of tall fir trees and he could feel the wet and heavy branches strain in their weight. His own toes curled slightly as he thought about the very unusual idea of wearing boots and, in his reverie but not in the moment, he could imagine the sombre call of wolves.

   Then Berty said, ‘I thank you for this advice and this offer and I will consider it. What will be your second question?’

   So many possibilities were flying through Gondo’s head that he was having trouble deciding what to ask next. He wanted very much to know the year, but feared wasting a question. Even if he had been gone for fifty years it didn’t matter, for he knew now that Alaura and Twoody were still alive. He wanted to ask about them more directly, but feared giving himself away. He wanted to know where all of these hobbits had come from and what may have changed with their arrival. He wanted to know about his own home at Sarehole and if Alaura still lived there. He wanted to hear more about the “Tooks” and those dangerous Men they had hired. He wanted to know what there was about master Bunce here that made him the victim of kidnapping (for that was clearly their intent) by Men like those. He wanted to know so much that he was fearful (a rare thing for Gondo) in considering his next question.

   What he really needed to do was to find a question which might bundle some of these inquiries into its response. But he could not think of any.

   Then, as if the words came unbidden from his mouth, Gondo asked with great seriousness: ‘Who is Thane in the Shire?’

   ‘I’m sorry, master,’ Berty replied, ‘but I do not know this word.’

   Gondo was surprised, not by the strange origin of his question, for through his travels he found himself having similar moments of guidance. What surprised him was his host’s unfamiliarity with such a common word. It was not an Elvish word, of that much he was certain, and he had forgotten just when he himself had learned its meaning. But it did fit very correctly for the moment; for he was attempting to get a better understanding of the politics of the Shire which might lead back to answers about his friends. For in selecting this word Gondo was also bringing up the old argument that Twoody and Alaura had regarding leadership of the Shire. If there was a thane (and he sincerely hoped that his old friend Twoody held such a well-deserved title) then he must know about these Tooks and the dangerous Men which they had employed right away.

   ‘Oh. Well,’ Gondo replied, ‘a “thane” is a kind of regional leader, like a mayor or a chieftan. He holds the land for the king and makes laws in the king’s name.’

   ‘I see,’ Berty replied. ‘I think I can answer your question fairly then, though we have no such title or personage here. The answer might prove long, but if it helps you I am happy to give it.

   ‘We Shirefolk do not have many laws nor do we elect any of our people to positions of great authority,’ he continued. ‘And most of us prefer it this way. Each of us, when taking a land title or deed in hand, know that we hold it in the king’s name just as that document you carry describes. That is our first law, I suppose, and there are only a few rare exceptions of hobbits who do not seem to understand it.

   ‘But we have grown very quickly since that document was written,’ he said, ‘and a bigger community has a greater need for established rules even if it disdains the notion of setting up a body of controlling rulers.’

   ‘Hah!’ Gondo interrupted, laughing with a joy about him that his host had not yet seen.

   ‘Here are Twoody and Alaura’s old arguments put forward into one simple puzzle,’ Gondo thought to himself. ‘Horris, if this is your son or your grandson then you should be very proud indeed.’

   ‘I am sorry,’ master Undundon then explained, ‘and I do not mean to interrupt your answer, though it speaks to me of ideas which I have heard before. Please, if you have more to say in your answer, continue.’

   But Berty paused here for a moment and looked at the traveller. ‘Where had he heard such arguments?’ Berty wondered. ‘I have grown up in a household of them, but even my closest friends do not think about such things. Mother teaches that we should always consider what we want from a Bargain before entering into one; and so I must be careful here. Asking his question as to who is in charge puts him dangerously close to hearing more about my own family and might ruin my disguise. Who would expect to come upon a hobbit interested in statecraft in this part of the Shire?’

   ‘Well, yes,’ Berty continued. ‘In answer to your question I do have more to say. There are perhaps twenty-five thousand hobbits in the Shire at this time, I do not know how many in the Tookland, and that takes quite a bit more governance than originally planned for. Problems which we have encountered,’ and he paused here, for Berty was wise enough to not give away too much too freely in his current situation, ‘required that a Shire Council should be created to decide on important matters.

   ‘This Council meets but once a year,’ he continued, ‘and those have become perfunctory meetings now, in these very peaceful times; mostly ceremonial, cordial and celebratory. There are thirty-two great families of hobbits who are represented by their sons or daughters at this council and they agree or disagree on new taxes to be levied, public works to be built and fair prices for fair trade. They have only three officers who handle things through the rest of the year; a Chief Assayer for taxes and spending, a Chief Organizer to preside over meetings and protocol, and a Chief Constable for watching the borders, collecting tax and helping settlers.

   ‘There is no “thane” as you call it who represents us to the king,’ he said, ‘and also no king’s representative who comes seeking answers. If there is a person who might be said to be “in charge” of the council then it would be the Chief Organiser, Hubert Sandheaver. But he has not ever met with the king or his people and, charming at the table though he may be, he is not what any of us would call the “leader of our people.”

   ‘Does this answer satisfy your question?’ Berty asked.

   ‘It does indeed, master Bunce,’ Gondo replied, ‘and gives me much to think about on my own road ahead. Now for my response, East we shall go next;

   ‘“To the East lies danger, always,”I have been told,’ the older hobbit said with great severity. ‘In honesty, I have not travelled there much myself, but have heard many tales from fellows who have. Your own compatriots, the Zaragambas, come from further east than I have been and would, I suspect, have many useful tales of their own.

   ‘There is an old traveller whom I have met, a wise old pilgrim, who has told me much of the lands beyond the Misty mountains. From Angmar’s Red Gate to Mordor’s Black he has journeyed in his time; down the Great River Anduin until it reaches the mighty western sea. East over mountains and plains to the Iron Hills and the northern lands of Dorwinion his old battered boots have carried him. Forests older than mountains he speaks of, tall towers made of iron and bone, pits of burning rock and plains of wide grasses and flowering meadows. Great herds of roaming beasts are there in the east he says, and the giant cats which make them their prey. Trolls and spiders abide there in dark places and great families of Dwarven kings living under mountains still hold their ancestral halls. He has seen them all, or so it is said. For the pilgrim himself is not one to brag of himself or his exploits; though he delights in telling of the many wonderful things to be found in the world.

   ‘I have dreamed many times of visiting these far-off places and seeing these strange sights,’ the older hobbit said sincerely, ‘for I have always had a wayward foot and a head which turns for travel. But I know that I shall not, for I have more important promises to keep and I have pledged to myself that I would go no further into the East.’

   Saying this, the hobbit took his sword up from the grass and set it on his outspread travelling cloak. ‘If you would go into the East, master Bunce,’ he said, ‘then you should take this sword with you. It too is very dear to me, a gift from fair folk whom I shall not likely see again, but if you choose that road you will have greater need of it than I. For “to the East lies danger, always,” the Wise Grey Pilgrim has told me, and I can offer no greater advice than that.’

   A silence fell between the two hobbits then. Berty looked down at the sword, noting the craftsmanship of its hilt and its scabbard and wondering who had made such a thing, who the wise pilgrim was that master Undundol had spoken of, and who had given a hobbit such a gift as this fine sword. He found that his heart had also been stirred by the idea of visiting these distant lands; he saw great lakes of still and mirror-like waters, tall mountains, their white-capped peaks hovering over grassy plains, rivers wider than he had ever seen with waters rolling by fast as eagles, and forests, dark and sunless, of immeasurable size. There were armies which covered the plains and fortresses in the high mountaintops. Giant spiders and goblins riding snarling wolves and trolls with hides of stone. Berty saw himself fighting in great battles, wearing gleaming armour now instead of his northern boots, and carrying this sword, shining like a star in the darkness, forward like a hobbit king out of old legends. But then he remembered hobbits had no legendary kings and he found his own wish for such a thing to be quite foolish.

   Gondo simply looked up at the stars.

   He was wondering what would be his third and final question. He had learned much from his last question and it did not put his mind to ease. ‘Could there really be twenty-five thousand hobbits in all of the wide world,’ he wondered, ‘and how long might it have taken them to all assemble here?’ He remembered how fast the Shire grew in its first years, and old discussions he and Twoody and Alaura used to have about that growth. But they had never imagined so many. He was curious also about how master Bunce had disregarded “the Tookland”; could there be some other governing force there? ‘And thirty-two “great families” master Bunce has said,’ Gondo thought further. ‘But what, other than numbers, makes a family great? Do some hobbits have a say in how things are done while others do not? That’s a situation which Alaura would not have much patience with. Were they some of the original settlers, perhaps? Bunces and Bolgers, Sandheavers and Pudifoots?’ He did not know. A Sandheaver was mentioned as being chief of this council, “Hubert Sandheaver” it was, but that was not any name which Gondo knew.

   But from the two answers combined Gondo had determined that he had been gone somewhere between thirty and seventy years; he couldn’t explain for himself how this had happened, but he had been among the Faerie Folk enough to know that such things were possible. He had decided it couldn’t be more than seventy years as Twoody and Alaura were still very much alive from the sounds of things and it couldn’t be less than thirty given how far the Shire-hobbits had come. He was sure that this information was honest, coming from either the son or grandson of some Bunce, Horris or some other. Gondo had been fortunate indeed to meet such a person. The answers young master Bunce had given, like the questions Gondo himself had asked, were cautious but certainly honest.

   So now the Oldbuck was anxious to hurry on to Sarehole and Alaura, though he knew that he should prepare her more for his arrival. He thought to ask about her directly as his final question, but (for some reason which he could not wholly explain) worried once again giving his identity away. He did not mistrust this master Bunce with such information yet the guidance of Gondo’s heart was that he should not yet reveal himself. He thought about his next steps; he might send a letter to Alaura to prepare her. But he did not know how; asking something simple like ‘where is the nearest post-office?’ or ‘what is Alaura’s address?’ would be both a reveal and a waste of his final question. Back in that newly developing city which Gondo had fled from- the "Delvings" master Bunce had called it- seemed a very likely spot for a post-office if Alaura was still in charge of such things. But it was also too busy a place where Gondo might possibly be recognized and, again, his heart warned him of this.

   ‘What is the year?’ he might ask, or ‘what is your father’s name?’ or ‘tell me more about these Swiftook scoundrels?’ or even ‘where is the nearest welcoming farmhouse?’ all of these things he might ask and get further on his way to finding Alaura. And, in considering his own purposes entering into this Bargain, finding Alaura was primary.

   But, for some unfathomable reason, some further guidance from his heart, Gondo knew that these last questions he might think to ask were unimportant and unworthy of the Bargain he had made with this forthright and unusual young hobbit. Master Bunce was clearly unlike the rest of his friends; he had been called to wander somehow just as Gondo had many times in his own past. The conditions of the Bargain meant that their roads would now part; Gondo would return to Buckland and this Bovo Bunce, Horris’ son or grandson or whomever, needed advice in his way forward. Gondo found that he was more confined by the traditions of two travellers helping one another than he was in finding his quickest route home.

   ‘Hmmn,’ he thought to himself, ‘we are caught in a true Bargain then; for I am as interested in his path forward as I am in my own.’ Gondo felt there was little more information he could glean for himself and was now honourbound to take a greater interest in that of this newly met and most unusual hobbit.

   Then, as if it came from out of the starry sky rather than his own head, the third question came into Gondo’s mouth;

   ‘Three directions you ask me of, master Bunce,’ Gondo said, taking another small sip of spring water, ‘but tell me, as my final question; why do you not ask me about the West?’

   This was quite unexpected, and Berty took a long moment before beginning to answer. This was not because he was considering what he might say so much as finding new concerns with the meaning in the question itself and why the older hobbit should ask it. Berty looked at master Undundol again, wondering who he really might be and what his business was in the Shire. Surely there was something more than just unusual about this visitor; something magical about him, as some might say. Berty, from the tales told by his mother and the lived experience of his uncle Twoody, had a very practical view of all things magical; certainly such things and such people existed in the wide world around the Shire, but a prudent hobbit, considering wariness to be the best aspect of their wisdom, gave a wide berth to such occurrences and to such folk. And most hobbits of Berty’s generation of Shirefolk, being the complacent sons and daughters of pioneering settlers and the great grandchildren of once-desperate refugees, held a similar respect and quiet fascination for the magical world around them. They knew, as was proven by the disappearance of Berty’s own father, that the Land of the Elves to the west was a danger. Álfheimir,⁵ the Shirefolk called it (but even uncle Twoody did not know the land’s true name). Such mysteries were part of their upbringing. The hobbits of Berty’s generation had heard stories from their grandsires of great Hill-trolls and tiny brown goblins who rode on the wings of vampire bats. Of the verifiable existence of dragons; for it was well known that uncle Twoody’s own grandfather had led his people into the Bree-land carrying a sword with a hilt carved of dragonbone. All of the family histories which he and his friends had heard spoke of magic, deception and danger in the world just outside of their safe holes. The Shirefolk of Berty’s brave generation did not treat these grandmother’s tales dismissively as our children might today; instead they believed them and they knew them for what they were; a caution.

   Berty took his own small sip of the clear water, remembering this and willing himself to remain cautious. He looked again at the sword and the cloak which were laid before him, gifts which may be chosen, and then into the visitor’s searching eyes, wondering at the closeness of this third question. ‘In ignorance it is better to give mistrust undeserved than rash words spoken unwisely,’⁶ he thought to himself.

   ‘I am surprised to hear you ask that of me, master,’ Berty said with a calm smile, ‘and I remain uncertain if I should see this as a revelation of my own sloppy work (for perhaps I have already answered all that you need to know in only two questions). Or perhaps it is some new interest which my answers have awakened in you.

   ‘But you are correct; I will not go into the West and so did not ask you of it,’ the younger hobbit said. ‘As to my answer why, I can tell you two things; others have gone before me and also, and much more importantly, I have promised not to follow.

   ‘That will be all of my answer,’ he said solemnly. ‘Does this content you?’

   Gondo looked again at the young hobbit as if with new eyes. It was night of course, but the stars and Moon were bright and Gondo felt that his sight was keener in this time than on the brightest of mornings. Then he closed his eyes thoughtfully, as if he were dreaming, or looking inwards to his heart and memory.⁷

   ‘You spoke with skill in a hard place and wisely, I deem,’ Gondo said, his eyes still closed and listening to the nightsounds around him.

   ‘I told no lies, and of the truth all that I could,’ Berty said, his comment holding tight in his throat. He wanted to tell this grave and knowing stranger, whose words seemed so wise and fair, all that was in his mind. But something, in his chest and not in his head, held him back. Berty’s heart was heavy with the fear of choice and the sorrow of leaving. But “ancient tales,” as his mother had taught him, “teach us also of the peril of rash words.”⁸

   ‘And so you have, young master,’ the older hobbit replied, opening his eyes again and looking long into Berty’s face, ‘and so it is my turn to answer in kind.

   ‘The South is vast and it is bold and it is strange,’ he told the youngster. ‘I have travelled that way myself, nearly a thousand miles south indeed, and I have seen many wonderful things.

   ‘To the South lie the lands of Men and they have built many marvellous things there. Here in the North we hobbits, through our time in the Bree-land and our long marches from the dangers of the East, think that the Big Folk are rather clumsy, somewhat lazy and altogether too incautious for their own good. But that estimation is wrong. Rarely here in the North do we hobbits encounter kings and the sons of the Sea-kings, for they are a diminished people who now shut themselves up in their castles and their fortresses. There are still a few such; their eyes are bright and their knowledge deep, and they make works of hand that amaze any wanderer. They build great cities even here in the lonely northlands.

   ‘But to the South the Sea-kings still rule wide over the lands,’ he said, ‘and the wisdom of their justness still holds sway and the majesty of their works are still to be seen.

   ‘The Shire itself is but a borderland, you see,’ the older hobbit continued, ‘between the great Númenórean kingdom of old, Arnor it was named, in a part of the world which older tales called Eriador, the land between the mountains. Below Arnor are the coastal areas of Minhiriath and Enedwaith, great lands, each more than three times the size of the Shire that you know, filled with open meadows and gentle hills. There once was a mighty forest there, those elder tales say, but it was cut down by the Sea-kings an age and more ago to build their mighty fleets of sailcraft and battleships. The Baranduin, the Shire’s own Brown River, forms the southern border to Minhiriath and the river Gwathlo, which Men call the Swanfleet, its border to Enedwaith. Both flow many, many leagues south and west to join the Great Sea which draws all good things off into the unchartable and undying lands that lay across it.

   ‘But the Sea-kings have long-since left most of these lands and their former cities lie still and empty like ghost-candles carved of mighty stone now covered in mosses and ivies. Hobbits wandered there for a time, or so I have heard. But it is now a quiet and sombre land of vanished promise; the former glory of its mighty forests trying to reclaim it. A place of stubborn nomads and obstinate hermits to which even the sounds of birds come seldom.

   ‘Now the Great Road which Breefolk have called the Greenway also borders these lands of Minhiriath and Enedwaith at the eastern edge,’ he said, ‘and over it one may still travel South to those lands which remain under the Sea-kings power. There the Misty Mountains of the east begin to give way and the Ered Nimrias, the White mountain chain in the south. It runs West to East, from Thrihyrne to Mindolluin, six hundred miles or more of snow-capped peaks with few spots for easy crossing. Walking down the Greenway one can see them rising ahead, distant and unbelievably vast like a warning of the world’s edge. But they are not, no not even remotely, the edge,’ he said. ‘For the South, master Bunce, is vast beyond our imagining.

   ‘Should you travel the Greenway south then past the dark halls of the Dunlanders you will go; for they are a grim and suspicious people who want no congress with outsiders. Perhaps, if you are lucky enough to have an experienced guide as I was, you will witness the Glittering Caves of Aglarond and will learn respect for the crafting of earth and stone that would amaze any hole-dweller. But do not attempt this without a guide, for you will become beguiled and lost among the cavern’s glimmering pillars.

   ‘As the Greenway turns east beneath the White Mountains you might see the homes of the “Stone-Men-Who-Watch.” You may even be lucky enough to hear their night-talk, but you should avoid their company; they are tricksy and seem to have some old arguments with hobbit-folk.

   ‘I have seen, there between the chains of the mountains, a great tower of queer stone, black and glassy as if the earth had baked it in an oven before causing it to rise amid the surrounding mountains. Orthanc it is called, and Men have protected it by a circular wall like unto a guarded fortress. Even my companions on this journey, counted wisest of the Wise, could only vaguely remember or guess at its true purpose and its history.

   ‘There, master Bunce,’ the older hobbit said with much solemnity, ‘you will have then entered into the realm of Gondor and may go further south between the surrounding mountains or continue to follow the more dangerous road east. Either way, you will see the great lands of the Sea-kings and marvel at their works. Great cities and fortresses they have built there for, while the danger in the East still sleeps, the Faithful of Númenor hold that vigil as their calling. The lands between the Western sea and the Eastern mountains toward the South the Men of Gondor now hold and there is much to be learned from them in their peace and their watchfulness.

   ‘For myself I followed the Morthrond river through the White mountains and through the Blackroot Vale so that I and my companions might come to the coastal fortress of Dor-en-Ernil,⁹ easily a thousand miles from where we sit now in the comfort of the Shire. Once the realm of the Sea-kings went further, much, much further,’ he said with a slowing and saddening tone coming into his voice. ‘And some there are in these southern lands who dream to see it so again. But the world they describe to the south is vast, so vast, that I cannot pretend to understand it.

   ‘If you should choose to go South, young master,’ the older hobbit continued, ‘then you may go very far in relative safety and see many, oh very many, great things. However,’ and at this he drew from behind him his small knapsack and reached carefully inside. ‘The further that you may go, master Bunce, whether North or East or South, the more strange the stars will become and the more you will need those stars to find your way.’ He then pulled from the bag a very strange looking object, made of brass and of copper and of gold it seemed scaled to the hand of the Big Folk, so quite large in the hobbit’s own. It had a ring and a chain with which to carry it about a Man’s neck, but such a thing would look ridiculous on any hobbit; like trying to wear a forgetool as a pendant.

   The older hobbit opened the thing and showed Berty how its ocular device, when raised to a familiar star at familiar time of night, might show him his position in his further travels. He showed the younger hobbit how to sit very still while doing this, and how to take his position from three separate angles of viewing while relying on Moonrise and Moonset.

   ‘This last item is also dear to me,’ the older hobbit said, ‘for it was given to me by a great lord and sailor in the South whom I shall never meet again. I have heard other names for it since, but the sailor’s name for it was best; “sitara yab”¹⁰ he called it in his own tongue; “taker of the stars”. If it is your wish to travel south, master Bunce,’ he said, laying the device alongside the sword on the outstretched cloak, ‘then you should take this token with you and, I hope, learn more than I have of its usefulness.’

   Berty’s mind was filled now with mountains but the only frame of reference his young mind had was the charcoal drawings of his father’s which defined a far edge of the world he himself had never seen.

   Both of the hobbits looked at one another for a long time and, after doing so, took their last long drink of the spring water together.

   ‘I hope that this response suits you,’ Gondo said, knowing that he had asked his bargained three questions and, no matter his new insights, was not entitled to ask more.

   Berty saw the three gifts spread before him; the cloak and the sword and that other strange device for measuring the stars. He thought about all of the ideas and longings for adventure that master Undundol’s tales had put into his head; all of the things he might see and the persons he might meet or himself become. And, as he had done so many times before, Berty trusted to his own heart’s hasty decision to lead him on a path he could not predict.

   ‘Your answers do suit me, master,’ he said finally, ‘and I thank you for your offers, your graciousness and your courtesies. But, tell me more of our bargain, if you will,’ he said with a slow but very familiar smile breaking over his face. ‘What comes next?’

   And to this both the hobbits smiled and peace was in both their faces.¹¹

end chapter nine

Chapter End Notes

Notes (10/07/2024)

1)  This comes to us directly from the beginning of LoTR and needs to be dealt with right away to explain Gondo’s actions in the previous chapter.

2)  It is quite doubtful that the rest of Middle-earth had developed the technology of spoons by this time. But I would like to think that hobbits came up with them first.

3)  This is a joke at the expense of George R. R. Martin’s “Song of Fire and Ice” and bawdy song there called “The Bear and the Maiden Fair”. The lyrics in Martin’s work, unlike Tolkien’s beautifully crafted poems, are pure drivel and lack any finesse. I decided to riff on it here using the same metre and an even more sophomoric allusion. Who knows? I may yet write the whole thing (just out of contempt).

4)  I quite like the idea of this bit of history, though I doubt I will ever write about it. But it does round out the idea that the narrator of the tale knows more than he can possibly contain in these pages. That seems a very Tolkienian way to look at the method of world building.

5)  This name comes from Norse mythology (slightly “Tolkienized”) for the home of the Light Elves. I have found no place where the hobbits have called “the home of the Elves” by any name in LoTR itself, but this one seems accurate to the Professor’s thoughts on the roots of Hobbit literature being similar to the Prose Edda.

6)  This, and a few other quotes which follow, are bastardizations which come from The Two Towers and Frodo’s conversation with Faramir. I initially wrote the scene without these little remarks but, on the next draft I felt they stood out nicely as Easter Eggs for fans like myself.

7)  Also from this same scene in The Two Towers.

8)  And this ends our little Easter Eggs from The Two Towers. I had used this maxim, from Frodo, earlier in Alaura’s lesson, but waited to footnote it here where the whole of the scene made more sense. I have always thought that there was something about the exchange between Faramir and Frodo which felt like the kind of grace and understanding which a son might want from his father. In some strange and unlooked for way that impression framed all of the purpose of my writing in this chapter. Sometimes these observations happen only through the process.

9)  “Dor-en-Ernil,” or “Land of the Prince’” will one day become Dol Amroth, but Amroth, at this time, is still the elven king of Lorien. At this time in the Third Age Elves and Men held this port city together. What brought Gondo and his travelling companions there I have not yet established. But I have some ideas.

10)  This is the Persian name for an astrolabe (which is the device I am describing) and it does seem a very beautiful expression, more so than the few Quenya and Sindarin names I could come up with. There is something nice about including Persian here in describing the sailors of Númenor. There may be more of that.

11)  This little sentence comes from The Two Towers as Sam and Frodo lay together atop the stair of Cirith Ungol. I knew that I wanted to end this chapter in this sentence before I began writing it.

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   Hildegund Bramblethorn felt the warmth of the dawn Sun on her face as she lay peacefully on the edge of dreaming. In that dream she lay in a very cosy four poster featherbed in her own house under the hill and the sunlight came streaming through the glass of the bedroom’s round windows. Her youngest child, Bartingel, lay next to her cooing gently and, from outdoors she could hear the farm awakening with her; pigs and chicks and even Belle the moocow were calling for attention. She could hear the stirrings of her other children in the outer rooms and knew that another day of work would soon begin. But as she moved her left hand toward the other side of the bed she discovered that her husband was already up and awake and seeing to the farm’s morning business. She smiled gently in her dream and, pulling little Barty closer, looked forward to another few precious minutes of sleep which the dream might bring her as the day came on.

   When Gilley woke enough to realise that she was in fact laying on the grass in the Chalk hills rather than in the featherbed of a room and a hole she had never before seen, the peace of the dream did not leave her. There was no baby hobbit in her arms beside her, but as her eyes opened to take in the world around her she saw Bovo’s sleeping face beside her own. Her left hand held his right one very tenderly and all of the peace of her dream seemed to make sense in a way that dreams seldom do.

   Gilley looked for long minutes at Bovo’s sleeping face until the more practical side of her nature finally caught up with her. ‘Hold on a moment,’ she thought to herself, ‘how is it dawn and what has happened to our yesterday?’

   Her eyes reluctantly left Bovo’s sleeping face and began to flit about and see what was happening. Turning her head slightly she could see that Poppy was awake and beginning to kindle a small cookfire. The three Zaragamba brothers were also stirring, but Youngbuck was nowhere in sight. She looked at Bovo again and then, for the first time, reached over and ran her right hand gently through his curly hair. ‘Mmmmnn,’ he said softly in his slumber. Gilley then slowly took her hand from his and, turning away, stood up to start her day.

   Gilley was not a writer and we have very little of her personal reflections found in documents to inform our story. But it is said that she remembered and told the tale of that awakening to her children and, for the rest of her life, they could see her happiness in the telling.

   ‘Hullo, Poppy,’ Gilley said as she rose to meet her friend. ‘And how are you on this new and quite peculiar morning?’

*****

   Poppy had not been awakened by the Sun as many of his friends were, but by the call of morning robins. He knew very little about birds and their songs, less than Youngbuck did, but his Gaffer had always said that a good working day begins with the robin’s song and may not end until well after the nightingale calls. He had looked about him in the pre-dawn light and saw that the stranger, master Undundon, was nowhere to be seen. Poppy felt assured by this; as if he knew that this would be the case even though no one had ever spoken of it. The obviousness of it calmed him somehow, as if all of the dangers of the past day were eliminated in the wake of the stranger’s passing. He looked about to see his friends all still at peace and Youngbuck, the only other one awake, off with his new pony. Poppy began, with his usual courteousness, to gather more wood and build a small fire. The Zaragambas began to stir as he did so, but it was Gilley who rose and came to him first.

   ‘Hullo, Poppy,’ she said with a smile. ‘And how are you on this new and quite peculiar morning?’

   ‘I feel quite well, thank you,’ Poppy replied. ‘As if I’ve awakened from a very fine sleep after the best meal I have ever eaten. But it is peculiar, just as you say, Gilley, for I can neither describe the meal nor how I got to sleep in the first place. Is that not queer? For the last clear memories I have are from mid-afternoon and here it has come to be morning without my being ready for it.’

   ‘Yes, yes,’ she responded excitedly, ‘I feel just the same.’ Gilley looked behind her at Bovo for a moment and, hearing the evenness of his breathing, turned back to talk with her friend. ‘There are things which I know happened without knowing how or when. And there are other things, things that seem both odd and comfortable at the same time, that may have happened or may have been a dream. Oh, you are very right to say it is like a banquet which we cannot remember, Poppy. For I am certain of the tastes of things with no memory of having them laid before me. All seems well, but I cannot account for this feeling of wellness.

   ‘Where is Youngbuck?’ Gilley asked.

   ‘He has been sitting on the hilltop since I awoke,’ Poppy said pointing, ‘and he has taken Cinders the pony up there with him. I thought it best to leave him be for a time.’

   ‘Yes,’ Gilley said, looking at Youngbuck sitting on his hill and peering off into the distance, the morning Sun bright on his face. ‘Yes, that does seem right.

   ‘Very well then,’ she said, with the old air of authority coming back into her voice, ‘let him have the time which he needs wool-gathering while we set ourselves to practical matters. I’ll take the other ponies to the stream and water them. Gormadoc is up and coming to join us. You and he should see to some simple morning fair. I should hope that we might be able to leave this place in an hour or so, though Youngbuck may have some different idea of that.

   ‘We seem to have lost a rather unaccountable amount of time,’ she said very practically. ‘If we cannot determine how or why very readily then let us at least look for ways to make some of it back.’

*****

   Gormadoc Zaragamba had awakened from the most beautiful of dreams and, unlike any other dream he had ever experienced, he remembered this dream for the rest of his days and always, always, tried to set the compass of his future decisions by it. In the dream he was dead, oh, long, long dead; not as some mouldering old grave-wight, but as some watchful spirit of all the Zaragambas who would come to live in the Shire after himself. He knew intimately the struggles, hopes and anxieties of many many children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and greater and greater descendants for long generations of all the hobbits who came from his family line. And he had watched them all, as a loving grandsire, and tended to their wishes with his ghostly presence and silent responses, making their world and their lives all the better in the small ways which any fatherly ghosts might manage. He sat with them in their gardens at twilight while they thought about their sons or their daughters, he would gently nudge the appropriate spice jars into their hands as they were cooking, and he would try to send them important messages by any means he could (just as any concerned ghost might) when they had overlooked what he felt was a rather obvious and perfectly clear solution to their everyday problems. In his dream Gormadoc had loved, with great pride, many generations of his Zaragamba-folk as they grew to become a well-known and respected family in the Shire.

   And quite clearly in his dream Gormadoc was sitting his ghostly body beside a fire, his invisible and unfeeling toes upon an old and revered family footstool, thinking of the special connection he had with one of his great and greater grandsons. This part of the dream was far, far into the future, very many generations after his own death, when Gormadoc had removed himself from the western edge of the Shire to haunt the halls of Bag-End in Hobbiton. Bag-End was a wonderfully comfortable hobbit-hole and there Gormadoc meant to haunt and care for his family members (now called “Baggins”) for many generations to come.

   All the Baggins had arisen directly from the Zaragamba line and Gormadoc the Ghost, or so his dream told him, had protected and developed that line throughout the generations. The second Baggins of Bag-End (the forty-eighth great grandson of Gormadoc’s formerly living body) was a charming and thoughtful hobbit named Bilbo. Bilbo was a young bachelor who quite enjoyed the comforts of Bag-End and seemed to be very amenable to following the silent advice of his ghostly grandfather without fear or care or notice about the origins of such mystical relationships. Gormadoc the Ghost felt, quite clearly, that little Bilbo heard his advice without ever questioning where it came from, and so he befriended the young hobbit and took great joy in his development. Together they had sat for many long hours in the garden of Bag-End and Gormadoc the Ghost had even, after such a long time in spirit form, bothered to learn and understand his letters alongside his great descendant. But the whole time they were together, or so Gormadoc’s dream had told him, the ghost knew that this heir of his own body, born thirteen hundred years after Gormadoc’s own demise, had a much larger part to play in the affairs of the world. It had been Gormadoc the Ghost who had witnessed the unexpected party of dwarves and one rather remarkably old wizard and the very next morning (Thrimidge the sixth, in the the Thirteen-hundred and fortieth year of the Shire his dream of the future told him) nearly pushed his young descendent out the door and toward his destiny.

   This thought stayed in Gormadoc’s walking mind that morning in Year Twenty-Nine below the Chalk hills in the west of the Shire. He would hold it there for the remaining time of his life and beyond. But never as a living hobbit did he have the chance to recount it to his own son.

*****

   Whether Marcoul and Ollo had dreams which they remembered upon waking remains unknown. They woke contentedly, as their brother did, to the sounds of Poppy and Gilley talking and the light of dawn on their rosy cheeks. None of the three brothers said anything but simply looked into one another’s faces. It was clear to each that the previous day’s dangers were abated and it was time to decide what should be done next. So, as they had heard Gilley suggest, they came forward to help Poppy prepare some kind of morning meal. They immediately discovered that the stew was all gone and, though none could say that they had any memory of eating it, there was a fine and savory taste still in their morning mouths.. More curious perhaps, all of their cookware, bowls, spoons and cups had been thoroughly cleaned, though none could remember doing that either. Nothing else was missing or disturbed, but in one of the packs Poppy found the letter which his friends had forged in the name of Horris Bunce. This document, at Poppy’s last memory, had been in the possession of the two Big Folk and it was something Youngbuck had rather desperately wanted back. How its retrieval had been achieved could also not be remembered and, while Poppy shared this information with no one, he felt it to be a very good sign that the dangerous Big Folk were quite finally gone.

   With the stew and Bovo’s last bottle of South-farthing wine all used up their morning fare would be rather unspectacular but not in the least bit stingy; Gilley had seen to provisioning them with a good supply of dried meats, hard cheeses and pickled summer vegetables to see them on their way for a month in the wild and the Zaragambas were packed as well as they could be for homesteading; they had much of the same provisions as well as a sack of crisp early summer apples and a few good loaves of reasonably fresh bread.

   As Gilley returned from the little stream with the three ponies she let them free and walked over to where Bovo still lay. Bending down she took his hand again and, still sleeping, he smiled at her touch.

   ‘Will you nod all through breakfast, sleepyhead,’ she said, ‘or do you expect one of us to bring it while you have a lie-in?’

   ‘Oh. Hello, Gilley,’ he said softly and slowly opened his eyes. ‘It’s good to see you again, even though you have pulled me from a very lovely dream I was having.’

   ‘Will you tell me about it?’ she asked.

   ‘Oh. Yes. Certainly,’ he said, still smiling but closing his eyes again to try to recapture the details. ‘It was morning in the west and I was outside of our hole attending Belle so that her noisome morning mooing would cease. The Sun was just coming over our hill and in the west, through the mists, I could see the shadowy silhouettes of the Elf-towers. I seem to find them quite comforting in the morning somehow. Yes. Its a lovely home we have built there. “Faralong” we called it and Youngbuck’s old uncle Clooty had helped us arrange the rooms and build the well. There’s good land for farming there and room enough for the children-’

   Bovo opened his eyes suddenly and saw Gilley’s own; saw the tears there and the smile on her face. ‘Good morning!’ he said.

   ‘And good morning to you as well,’ she replied laughing.

   ‘Tell me, Gilley,’ Bovo asked, ‘is there any more of that rabbit stew for breakfast?’

*****

   It was another half an hour before Youngbuck decided it was time to come down from the hill. Gilley didn’t resent him for the time he took apart from the rest of them, but her usual manner of wanting to get on with business ran in opposition to Youngbuck’s dreamy soul-searching. She loved this quality in her friend (mostly because she feared a lack of it in herself) but it did at times try her patience. Gilley was an energetic, wise and practical leader; she was a clear-headed thinker who always, or at least until this present situation, believed that knowing one’s purpose always made for an actionable plan.

   But she knew, as they all did, that she was not the natural leader that Youngbuck was. ‘It comes from his father, they say,’ or so she thought to herself as they all sat quietly watching him lead his pony slowly and carefully down the hill. ‘Those that knew the Oldbuck have said that “the wind in the hills itself would be still if he had something to say.” A peculiar and natural authority, she thought; a kind presence that few hobbits had. Is that legend which does it then, gives him that kind of power to lead? And is the power of a legendary father just naturally transferred to a son by the folks who need the same kind of a leader?

   ‘No,’ she thought, looking up at him as he made his slow and deliberate descent to join them. ‘No, it isn’t legend which is the power; it’s love which gives him authority. There’s something about a person like him that we can’t help but trust and, for hobbits such as we are, to trust is to love.’

   All of them, Bucklanders and Zaragambas and even the ponies, Gilley thought, had been through a queer and dangerous experience. But there was no one, certainly not Gilley herself, who was equipped to know what to do next after such an experience. And they all, whether through instinct or fear or trust or some deeper call of their nature, they all looked to Youngbuck for answers.

   He let Cinders lead go as he reached the base of the hill and the pony ran off to greet her other pony friends. Gilley let out a small chuckle as she noticed how the social interactions of pony society echoed their own; the others formed around Cinders as if she had come to tell them all what was to happen next.

   ‘Well,’ Youngbuck began, ‘it seems that our Plans have once again gone awry and there is a need for yet another change. There are many, many questions which we all have and little time, and also little evidence, to match them with correct answers. I am sorry for that, and can only promise to tell you what I know and to remind you that conjecture into things which none of us understand, while always tempting, can often lead to misopportunity.

   ‘Still,’ he continued, ‘I will answer what I can before we each decide how to move forward. But first, Poppy, may I have a little cheese and, oh, are those summer apples?’

   Youngbuck then took some breakfast for himself and sat with them on the grass just as master Undondol had done with him the night before. Gilley had brought back fresh pails of spring water and she saw him look at it for a long time before finely, with a smile, pouring it into his cup.

   ‘First off and before any questions might come, I must apologise to the Zaragambas,’ Youngbuck said, turning toward the three brothers. ‘My friends and I had made a Plan to deal with the Swiftook in Waymeet before arriving there and the three of you have been caught up in something which seemed to us at the time to be only a small act of mischief. We had no idea of what might happen from this ruse nor any intention of pulling you and your hopes for finding a new home into our own little adventure.

   ‘But now,’ he continued solemnly, ‘after the queer events of the previous day, we are compatriots. You may wish to leave after this meeting, and you would be free to, or you may wish to join us. The choice should be yours, but it is a choice which needs to meet with even more honesty before its making:

   ‘For I am not Horris’ son Bovidern Bunce,’ he said, ‘though that esteemed comrade of mine travels with me.’ And here he indicated the real Bovo, who was rather vaguely listening while gnawing on an apple of his own.

   ‘Yes. Hello,’ he said between bites. ‘That’s true, I’m he.’

   ‘And I am not,’ Youngbuck said, smiling back at his friend. ‘I was born Theudebert Boldbuck, son of Gondolpho and Alaura, “the Youngbuck” I am called, and my friends and I decided that this was a name we should withhold from the Swiftooks of Waymeet. For we are distant cousins, you see, as my adopted father is Theudebald Swiftalk, brother to Childebrand who you now call “the Old Took.”’

   The Zaragambas looked dumbstruck to hear this news, but it did not seem to alarm them or make them distrustful.

   ‘That was wise to withhold,’ Gormadoc said, ‘for those names, even more than Bunce, are unwelcome in the ears of any of the Tooks.’

   ‘And how do they stand among the Zaragambas?’ Bovo, the real Bovo, ventured to ask. Gormadoc looked at the faces of his brothers and then back to the question.

   ‘We are kin to the Tooks, sure enough,’ he explained, ‘and as such owe them respect as all kinsmen should. And we’ve listened to their plans for developing the Shire from the South into the West and, my brothers and my family and I, we’ve followed those plans as we might. But the debts and squabbles of the earlier days of the Shire, or so it seems to me, should not be problems for late-comers who only wish to settle the land in the peace that was promised. We folk from the East, the Lausa that is, who have lived long under strife, we did not come from the dangers of living beneath the battlefields of Men and goblins to be made part of a battle between hobbits, kin to us or no.’

   ‘Oh, well said, cousin!’ Youngbuck replied. ‘If more folk throughout the Shire could learn to think so squarely of its promise rather than our petty differences we would all be a happier folk!

   ‘The Bovo Bunce whom you have now met,’ Youngbuck continued, ‘is no Map-maker, but I was true in saying that I have some skill in that area and would still help you. Tell me, Gormadoc, what are these lands which you and your brothers were to register and in whose name?’

   ‘The Young Took spoke only of holding the far western edge of the Shire, master...’

   ‘“Youngbuck” if you will call me as my friends do,’ he interrupted, ‘or even “Berty” if you would call me as my family does.’

   Gilley could see that Gormadoc was completely overwhelmed by this courtesy and so talked more rapidly of the things which he alone knew.

   ‘Berty then, as I may,’ he replied, ‘and I am “Gordo” to you and my family, if you will.

   ‘The Young Took put my brothers and I forward on the day you arrived, and this is not something he had ever done before. We had moved toward Waymeet because the plan in the South-farthing has always been that we should hold the Western border of the Shire as you Northerners hold the East. My brothers and I are not tradesmen nor border guards, but bachelors and, well, dreamers I should say; we only want for a free and peaceful home for ourselves in which we might raise our families.’

   ‘But,’ Gilley offered, trying to better understand, ‘you are “bachelors” you say. How will holding land at the very far edge of the Shire, away from your communities, help you meet your brides and begin those families?’

   The Zaragambas looked at one another again as if this was the most peculiar question they had ever heard. ‘I am sorry,’ Gormadoc said, ‘but we don’t understand what you mean by “meet our brides?”’

   ‘Well,’ Gilley went on rather carefully, ‘if you want a place to raise your families won’t you, as bachelors, need brides that you may take to wife?’

   ‘Oh, we have families.’ Gormadoc replied, surprised by the question.

   ‘Oh,’ Bovo said. ‘Yes. I think that I see it. Hmmmmnnnn. Why, that is terrible indeed.’

   ‘What is?’ Gilley asked, quite upset that she hadn’t been able to see what Bovo had.

   ‘The Tooks are offering marriages, arranged marriages I should think,’ Bovo said, ‘to settlers who are registered in the Shire. They will be given wives once they hold lands.’

   ‘Yes,’ Gormadoc said. ‘Is this not your practice? For it has been ours for many years. The Lausa have built many large warrens under the western slopes of the Weather hills, but we live there in large groups. A bachelor and his goodwife may raise children but do not become married until they have built a new hole for themselves and their family, and that is seldom done in those dangerous lands. But if it can be accomplished here then a bachelor such as my brothers or myself becomes a husband. We were told that it was the same in the Shire; a hobbit needs his own lands to build a family. Is that not so?’

   ‘It is not,’ Youngbuck said, ‘and it seems that my uncle Took has blended some of the Lausa’s customs with a pretty free interpretation of how things work in the Shire. Any hobbit may register land for himself in the Shire, but the head of a larger family may register a larger plot for his children to grow into. I do not see how three land deeds to bachelors on the western border could be so important to-’

   ‘Yes. Well. I may have a guess, Youngbuck,’ Bovo interrupted. ‘Gormadoc,’ he asked, ‘I noticed that you didn’t understand Gilley here when she mentioned “meet your brides.” Perhaps you don’t use that term as we do. I hope that I am not being too forward to ask but, tell me, do you already have a chosen mate and children?’

   ‘Why, yes,’ he said proudly. ‘My goodwife Gersvinda and I are blessed with seven sons and six daughters, master Bunce, all of them anxious to come west and build ourselves a home.’

*****

   And so Gilley and her friends came to discover more about the mating habits of their hobbit-cousins to the East; for the Lausa had lived for many generations in the Weather hills deep in hiding from the dangers which surrounded them. Great warrens of homes were dug into the spare and rocky shoulders of those slopes, but finding safe places to build new holes and start new families was difficult and very few among the Lausa would venture it. But still, being hobbits, they were a loving people who sired many offspring and believed that the careful raising of their children was an important part of their lives. So they had come to settle for certain conditions regarding their lack of personal space. Bucks and does still took vows together and had children as elsewhere in the world, but the dangerous conditions which forced them into hiding had also forced them to live among a great number of their relatives. It is believed that the scrupulous practice of keeping track of one’s cousins, twice to fourth-times removed, began amongst the Lausa in the overgrown living situations which they had once shared.

   And this is how Priamus Swiftwalk, Twoody’s own grandfather, had found things just over one hundred years before when he had come amongst the Lausa. Priamus had found that those hobbits had many carefully arranged betrothals, just as Bovo had surmised, and that they lived in a small community of overcrowded halls with parents, grandparents, cousins, uncles, aunts, brothers and sisters always underfoot and always mindful of keeping one another safe. “Goodwives” and “goodgrooms” these does and bucks were called but among them marriage, the concept of leaving one family to start another, was conditional upon finding and establishing a new home. And that was, of course, increasingly challenging in the Weather hills as wars among the Men and the goblins made the lands unsafe. So Lausa-hobbits who were parents, and even grandparents, male or female, were called “bachelors”until they could leave their warren and make a home for themselves.¹

   Sometimes an offshoot of a bigger bachelor family would try to set out for themselves from the Weather hills, but most of these attempts were ill-fated and unsuccessful. When Priamus and his people first discovered them there were but twelve families of the Lausa living in hiding; but this was still many hundreds of hobbits. There were a few bachelor-families who followed Priamus and his dragon-sword further west, coming eventually into the peace of the Bree-land. There they changed their names becoming Bolgers and Tinyfoots, Mugworts and Gamwhich, Brownlocks and Haywards, Bophins and Heathertoes,² and learned to live among the Big Folk. This meant that the Zaragambas, unbeknownst to them, probably had relatives, separated by only a generation or two, who might have been among the Council of Great Families in the northern end of the Shire. But now, hearing of the King’s Agreement, those same Lausa who were left behind had come following old Priamus’ grandchildren, Childebrand and his son Reginard, in hope of peace and safety.

   Indeed, when the Dragon-sword returned again to the Weather hills, in the hands of the Young Took, the Zaragambas and all of their kin, indeed nearly all of the remaining Lausa-hobbits in the Weather hills, followed it forward to the chance of becoming more than bachelors and building homes for themselves and their families-

   ‘Now hold on just one moment,’ Youngbuck said, raising his hand and lowering his head while closing his eyes as if the Sun had suddenly become too bright. ‘Do you mean to tell me that Reginard Swiftook, the Young Took as you have called him, carries the sword of Priamus the Walker?’

   ‘Oh, yes, he does, Berty, or Youngbuck... sir,’ Gormadoc replied nervously. He could see that what he had just said caused his distant cousin great discomfort. ‘In point of fact I saw it in his tent not two hours before we departed Waymeet, however long ago that might have been.’

   ‘Yes,’ Bovo said calmly while still nibbling at the last of his apple and flicking the core for the ponies to finish. ‘Well that is distressing. It is barely past the dawn and you’ve just given our Youngbuck here cause for yet another adventure.’

   ‘Now hush with that,’ Gilley said, giving Bovo a gentle nudge. ‘Youngbuck, you can’t be thinking of turning us around at every new development, can you?’ she asked, her voice indicating that she very much thought that he may do that very thing.

   Berty rose from the grass and took a little drink of the cool spring water. He looked to the east as if his eyes could pierce the Young Took’s tent many miles away. Then he looked at his friends and then into the west, took another little drink and looked to his friends again. ‘No, not right now, Gilley. But it is a matter that should be addressed and we seem to be the only ones available to do so. But not right now, I think.

   ‘Now is a time for the seven of us to decide what comes next,’ he said. ‘Gormadoc, you and your brothers should know that my friends and I came west with the idea of visiting the edge of the Shire for some time and determining for ourselves the course of our futures. I will not speak for them in this matter but, for myself, yesterday’s events have made my future more evident; I have decided to wander and will not return to the Buckland in any time that I may foresee.

   ‘Wait, Gilley!’ Berty held up his hand and laughed, saying, ‘For I can see your face reddening and your impatience rising. There’s no need to box my ears and to drag me back just yet. I promised you all, as I did my mother and my uncle years ago, that I would never go into the west and I shall keep that promise. For all my life those who have loved me have made me promise that I would not go and seek my father. I never knew until recently why you’ve all feared that so and, now that I do, I can only love and thank you for the concern. But your fears no longer matter; I am not my father and I will follow my own path.’

   ‘I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, Youngbuck,’ Poppy said rather boldly, ‘but that sounds very much like the kind of speech my own Gaffer would recount of your own father’s speaking.’

   ‘Hah!’ Bovo laughed suddenly and sharply. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Youngbuck,’ he said, ‘don’t let me interrupt your oratory, but I’m always amazed at how much more clever, and succinct, Poppy is than the rest of us.’

   The four Bucklanders all smiled at this, the seriousness of the moment having lifted for a time and the three Zaragamba brothers also felt the warmth of their friendship.

   ‘Very well,’ Berty continued with a smile, ‘it seems I have been reminded to come to the point. I suggest we seven go forth and measure the lands on the western edge of the Shire just as our benefactor the Young Took has requested. Once this is done I will draw the appropriate maps and letters for deeds and we will send them off to the Delvings for quicker registry. These deeds will be in your own names, my friends, for I believe that none of us owe master Swiftook anything after last night’s events. Are we agreed on that?’

   All of them quickly agreed to that notion and Poppy, in his own thoughts, began to wonder if Youngbuck somehow knew that the forged letter of agreement, the one which Swiftook held over them as a contract, had come back into their possession.

   ‘And, to be more clear, cousin Gordo,’ Youngbuck continued, ‘and also to avoid any further entanglements, do you or your families owe any outside debts, bills of sale or other agreements with the Tooks? No signed pieces of paper or spoken oaths?’

   ‘Well, no, nothing like that,’ Gormadoc said. ‘Very few of the Lausa are lettered like yourselves and, being mostly made up of large families, we don’t go in much for high-spoken oaths. We’ve built towns and wells and farms as such together along the southern road from the ford toward Waymeet and even further, but all of us have done so with the hope of making a place for ourselves, not as some debt of service.’

   ‘That is good news, cousin,’ Youngbuck replied, ‘for you’ve not fallen into obligation with the Tooks as we earlier Shirefolk had.

   ‘Then, if you and your brothers will have us, Gordo,’ Youngbuck continued, ‘I and my friends would like to stay for a month or so helping you to build your new homes. In these things my friends have greater skills than I, but hopefully we will all learn by working together. I will draw the maps and make the documents needed to claim the land and Reginard Swiftook, and his own Plans, shall be forgotten for now,’ he said.

   And then, with a turn to Bovo and Gilley, he said; ‘But certainly dealt with later.’

end chapter ten

Chapter End Notes

Notes (11/21/2024)

1)  So, yeah, this is a very roundabout way of playing with the origin of the word “bachelor.” It has a lot of beginnings in Medieval Latin and Middle English which may have given it root, but the important one comes from the 14th century where it refers to “a knight who is too young or too poor to gather vassals under his own banner.” I quite like that little word-nerdery causing a misunderstanding between the hobbits of the settled Shire and those still freshly from the wild.

2)  It was important to me from the beginning, as relates to our own national commentary, that many of the Great Families of the Shire have origins among the Lausa which they seem to have forgotten.

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*Author’s Note:

   And so it was that the seven hobbits, the four young Bucklanders and the three Zaragamba brothers, went into the west to make their mark. They discovered many marvelous things there and grew together in their fellowship, and more of this shall be told later in this story. But now, for a time at least, it seems I must shift our attention to the return of the Oldbuck and the ramifications it had within the rest of the Shire community.

   The work of Goldilocks Took née Gardener does not delve into this area of our story. If she had any interest to do so it is believed that she would have had the same historical data from the time as we have now. She does tell us of the feud which began with Gondo’s return, of the tragic results it brought, and toward the end of her tale she records the eventual reconciliation of the families three hundred years later. For it was the purpose of her document to recount as a gift to her fiancée the long history of his family which many Shire-hobbits had forgotten. But of the actual sundering of the friendships between Took and Buck in Year Twenty-Nine she tells us very little.

   It has been my intention to take all the existing and newly discovered fragments of this history and, through the scope of my research and the prism of my writing, expand them into a fuller story of the Shire’s early days than any that has yet been presented. I hope to tie up the loose ends which historical records do not always provide and to do so I have had to recount stories which are woven out of existing rumours and popular conjectures; not the most scientific method of course, but one that every storyteller must consider when historical evidence is otherwise spare.

   Therefore I have decided to add this chapter much as I did earlier with “distant music”, that chapter which dealt with Gondo and Alaura’s courtship. I do so because I believe it to be useful for modern readers and also because I believe that what happened to the friendship between the founders of the Shire may give us a more accurate picture of the depth of faithfulness that is so important for our understanding of these humble, forthright and forgiving people. But to tell this part of the story we must spend some more time in the arena of rumour.

   The events of Year Twenty-Nine and “The Feud between the Bucks and Tooks” is the first great gossip of the Shirefolk that we know of and it continued to grow in its telling for many generations after. As historians we are now able to examine the material as it was rendered or recorded by Arbogastes Bophin, who it seems tried to chronicle the story long before Goldilocks Gardener ever did. Whatever intentions he may have had for telling the story of the feud, and how those intentions were met by friends and family from his time, has long since been lost though may be worthy of further study.

   Very little is known of Arbogastes Bophin. It is a matter of record that he was the fourth child of Ermenberga and Euric Bophin and born in Year Twenty-One of the Shire. As we have noted before, that means he was still a fawn when these events took place and most certainly not a witness. While he was indeed first cousin to Theudebert Youngbuck he was far too young for them to have spoken during those days of the story which is unfolding. When or how his mother’s letters and diaries came into Arbogastes’ hands is quite unknown, but she herself passed away in Year Fifty and her writings, always personally archived and overly detailed in her statement of purpose, make no mention of what should be done with her many papers and correspondences after her death.

   But in that same Year Fifty, Arbogastes began to publish “THE WITTICISMS AND INSIGHTS OF EUMAEUS SANDYMAN” in THE SHIRE-RECKONING broadsheet under his own name. These articles brought some attention to the young hobbit as a humourist and even as a political satirist (a role which seems to be another unfortunate invention of second-generation Shire-hobbit society). How much of these ‘witticisms’ were taken directly from the source is unknown; Eumaeus Sandyman himself, then more than ninety years of age, was still very much alive in the Delvings and always happy to receive visitors. Arbogastes, who seems to have written nothing about himself and certainly leaves us no account of his travels, is believed to have lived in Frogmorton quite a good distance to the east. There is no record or rumour of their meeting and no introduction to be found in either the published papers or his discovered notes. So if these works come directly from interviews with the older hobbit or are a pure fabrication by the younger author drawn from hearsay is also unknown. But the events do seem to jibe with the story as others have recounted it and the style of Eumaeus’ speaking (though it is undoubtedly lampooned) fits with descriptions we have from more reliable (and more friendly) reports of those hobbits who knew the old fellow well.

   So once again I am departing from Goldilocks’ translated text that I might provide more of the story. And once again I remind the reader that Twoody, Gondo and Alaura, architects and founders of the Shire, were three friends who had shaped the land’s destiny faithfully, boldly and fairly, alongside their own; if they were much talked about it is because they were much loved for these qualities.

   In the earlier chapter “distant music” I fell back on one of the novelist’s easiest justifications to allow a free recording of the past; the adage that “history forgives a good story.” I believe that to be true. But, once again, we are faced with the problem of recording, for the purpose of story, a series of events rendered only in the artful gossip which well-wishing friends have left behind. Whether the hands of Arbogastes, Ermenberga and Eumaeus were guided by style or artfulness- or even by gossip’s more venial motivation; the intention of being noticed for the telling of another’s misfortune- we cannot say.

   The research which I have done has led us here: I cannot, as a novelist, leave the choices of Alaura Fairheart out of this second arc of the story and cannot, as a historian, account for the historical accuracy of anything which this chapter and chapter thirteen may tell you. It all comes filtered through gossip from a less than respectable commentator and is rendered underneath the veneer of style with which these two principal witnesses, Eumaeus and Ermenberga, speak or write. Yet through that veneer I hope to give you a glimpse of what may have happened; I will try to tell you about the sundering of Gondo and Twoody, the origins of the feud between the Bucks and the Tooks, and how Alaura came to earn and hold her own name of Fairheart.

-D.F.R.

●  His disguise still mostly intact, Gondo decided to remain off the Road now as the early morning light was coming on. He knew many things since his meeting with the younger hobbits- and began to guess at more- and this new knowledge made his need to see Alaura, like a pain in his heart, all the much more keen. He knew that he must get to Sarehole as quickly as possible, but he also worried that if he followed the Road, not the straightest path but the easiest, there might be morning travellers or even a small farmhouse along the way where he might be delayed or, far worse, recognized. He knew, from his talk with young master Bunce, that this was the morning of the last day of Lithe, the Summerdays as Shirefolk called it, and, knowing this, that same keen birdsong in his heart told him that he must get a message to the Buckland tonight or his hopes would wither like the season. Through memory (or some other urgent sense) he also knew he might take the off-road way, east-southeast, but worried that it might take him past this new settlement of Waymeet and this undesirable Swiftook character he had been told about. Gondo had no time for dealing with the scoundrel if it would keep him from Alaura’s side. So he set his quickened pace toward Waymeet through open lands, planning to turn south at the first sign of the encampment and leave the villain there to receive justice by another hand.

●  In this way Gondo thought to remain unseen and unrecognized for many miles before he should, perhaps, have to choose the Road again to reach Sarehole by nightfall. But, as chance would have it, he turned the corner of a small low-lying hill and there he saw, quite unexpectedly, an old friend.

EUMAEUS: “It should be remembered that I myself was bound for the Delvings on business and am not, by any habit or repute, a lurker on hillsides. It was not by any means unknown in this area for desperadoes, folks from the south so most say, who had next to nothing better to live on abroad in the land than waylaying and generally terrorizing peaceable pedestrians like myself in some secluded spot outside of a proper hole or settlement. Famished and itinerant loiters perhaps who might be hanging about, or even roving marauders ready to decamp with whatever booty they could get their hands on in one fell swoop and at a moment’s notice. Not to put too fine a point on it, a word of caution regarding the dangers of chance meetings proves to be the best medicine in due course through that area and I myself, unprepared for such unwanted chances, was simply enjoying the morning sun but a mile or three from Waymeet where, as the saying goes, I needed to see a fellow about some goats.

“So preparatory to anything else it should be said that I, myself as I was at the time, was in no way nor in no manner readily accepting audiences when from around the turning of a small hillock came a figure of middling hobbit height, evidently on the morning prowl, and calling: “Mace! Mace!” to me in a clear voice of some peculiar accentedness. So suddenly nearby was the intruding figure that I started rather dizzily and, actuated by motives of inherent delicacy inasmuch as I have always believed in the minding of my own business, moved off but nevertheless remained on the alert with just a prudent shade of anxiety. In any case I had a consummate amount of cool assurance intercepting people at that hour of the night or morning.”

●  The stories do not quite tell us what Sandyman was doing there in the hills around Waymeet. It remains unclear what was meant by the expression “see a fellow about some goats” and that is just one of the many loose ends to be found in adjusting to his manner of speaking. The goats had apparently been left in Waymeet the night before, but what had happened to Sandyman’s pony, Whistler?

●  The surprise that Sandyman felt upon meeting his old friend Gondo in the hills around Waymeet, while certainly entertaining, is much too lengthy for our purposes here. It seems certain that the Oldbuck did not try to disguise himself now as he had earlier and, after some reacquaintance was made, the subject of his long absence was addressed.

EUMAEUS: “And so I, still at a quandary as to any explanation of his overlong absence but, bringing common sense to bear upon the issue at hand, pondered suitable ways and means (always assuming that there was such a thing to be found), to tell him just what he had missed. Being a levelheaded individual who could give points to not a few in the matter of shrewd observation, I turned to think of an appropriate answer regarding the current state of affairs.

   “The crux was that it was a bit risky to bring him up-to-date as it were regarding his home at Sarehole, of which he inquired most immediately, due to the eventualities which might possibly ensue (remembering somebody having a temper of his own sometimes). Accordingly after cautiously dodging a few such preliminary askings, and taking the Oldbuck on to one side (conspiratorially so to speak) and knowing I had an uncustomarily dolefully ditty to tell, I had the yeoman’s service to do by saying; ‘twenty-five years and more you have been gone and given up as dead.’”

● The reaction which the Oldbuck had, according to the Sandyman version of the events which we have been given, seems to indicate that the returned hobbit had suspected as much and, moreover, was somewhat unfazed by it.

EUMAEUS: “His mind was not exactly what you would call wandering but a bit unsteady with the proffered information; rather nonplussed, but inasmuch as the duty plainly devolved upon him to take some measures on the subject for the nonce, I would say that he took the time to take some stock. Being handicapped by the silence of the circumstance, I also took the same stock of my own situation and noticed that one of the black buttons of my own storebought trousers had, to use the very timehonoured adage, gone the way of all buttons. Therefore, entering thoroughly into the spirit of the thing alongside my long-lost friend, did I find my own meager way to dwell upon our unexpected loss.

   “‘Everybody gets their own ration of luck, they say,’ said I after a long pause, heroically making light of our shared mischance.”

● While this recording of events is but a brief collection of the many notes and draft versions of “THE WITTICISMS AND INSIGHTS OF EUMAEUS SANDYMAN” as found in the notes of Arbogastes Bophin, the next section has the greatest number of rewrites. Many are in scraps from different notebooks, lending credit to the idea that they were dictated or constructed at various times, frequently altered and perhaps never fully realized. It is not set down like a dialogue and we are therefore less than certain of what Oldbuck asked or said than we are of the things which Sandyman may have said. But it seems that after establishing how long he had been gone the second thing that Gondo asked was about Alaura.

EUMAEUS: “The question so soberly approached, it seemed to me as highly advisable, touching the much vexed problem even in open ground and on the spree as we were, needed a forthright and immediate answer and, so far as I could see (and faultfinding being a particularly bad habit and the odds twenty to nil that there was really no secret about it) I answered kindly but directly. I have long lived by the notion that it simply led to trouble all round to say nothing when you knew much.

“‘Oldbuck, my dear and desperate friend,’ I told the bold Buck bravely, ‘in the seventh year of your absence you were, against all our hope and by some of our new and hapless courts, declared dead. Your great home at Sarehole, for which you held no written and established title (or so some naysayers did say) reverted to your business partner, your friend of old, Twoody Swiftalk, who was the first to pay any rent on that land.

   “‘And in the ninth year of your absence Twoody married Alaura,’ I continued cautiously, for his bright face had soured at this first bit of news and there was indeed more items, propitious and inauspicious both as I knew them to be, of news to yet be told. He looked sad and surmounted, my long-lost friend, and while professing not the least surprise at the intelligence I had offered, he lowered his shoulders in a manner of defeat. But even a fellow on the broad of his back could administer a nasty kick if you didn’t look out and so I continued carefully: ‘And together they have raised the son of your own body, born in the first winter after your departure. A beautiful son you have, Gondo, bright-eyed and keen-minded like yourself, with the same gentle manner of leading his friends and the same wild ambitions of travel and adventure. You have dandered along and as it so happens in due course and with you turning up at the thirteenth hour so to speak, the Shire has moved on without you. But rejoice, my friend if you may!’ I offered, cautiously again. ‘For you have a son you have never known and who will be glad to finally meet you.’”

● And it is here that Sandyman (or Aborgastes Bophin) recounts directly a thing which Oldbuck is credited by all accounts for having said:

EUMAEUS: “He heard all of these things which I told him and then looked back to the west and the direction he had come and the way in which he had become lost. And then turned himself back east into the morning fretfully. After a long pause he inhaled with a kind of internal rumination of dissatisfaction and said; ‘Yes. I am sad to say that I believe my son and I may have already met.’”

●  Most of the papers and notes for Aborgastes’ “THE WITTICISMS AND INSIGHTS OF EUMAEUS SANDYMAN” are fragmentary and found alongside his other set of notes drawn from the diaries of his mother Ermenberga Bophin which we will regard later. It seems clear that the young hobbit was engaged in a kind of literary detective work regarding just what happened on that last day of Lithe in the Twenty-Ninth Year of the Shire. What other news of the Shire Oldbuck was then given remains uncertain, but from the notes we can glean the plan made by Gondo on that morning.

●  A hasty letter was written by Gondo. Eumaeus, ever willing to help his friend, would carry it to Sarehole as quickly as he may by going the faster route over the Great Road. He assured the Oldbuck that he could make it there before nightfall. He was to tell no one of their meeting or of the Oldbuck’s return and simply deliver the letter to either Alaura or Twoody, whomever he saw first.

EUMAEUS: “I did not presume to dictate to him in any way, nor suggest alternate plans of attack for so difficult a problem, but wondered at why he should not go himself, with utmost speed perforce, into the breech as it were of his home at Sarehole. ‘You could go back,’ I hazarded, thinking of the very unpleasant scene this might engender, though trusting in the all too obvious love which those three friends had for one another in past times (even though.the two, those current tenants of the house, had quite unintentionally euchred their third companion). On the idea of whether Oldbuck had allowed himself to be badly bamboozled, he offered no expression of any kind. I myself could neither make head nor tail of the whole business of this esteemed lady having two husbands and what possible arrangements might come from such an unusual situation. ‘You could, you know,’ I offered again in a quiet and particularly unanimated way.

   “There was no response forthcoming to the suggestion however, such as it was, for the Oldbuck’s mind was without doubt being busily engaged in repicturing his family hearth as from the last time he saw it. His heavy glance actively roaming about the page as he wrote his brief missive defied my further questioning. No, I myself thought, I wouldn’t personally repose much trust in the boon of companionship if I were the one wearing his hat.

   “Dead he wasn’t. Simply absconded off somewhere. Surely his long-time friends would have to accept the evidence of their own four eyes. Still, people were superstitious about such things as regards the return of dead husbands and longlost homeowners. You were lucky if they didn’t set the dog at you directly in the front yard of your own property. Then a lot shillyshally usually followed; you came up against the fellow in possession of your long abandoned properties and had to produce credentials as a claimant; too many Toms, Dicks and Harrys about in the Shire these days who had never once met the Oldbuck and could cause trouble for all those involved. ‘A prudent course,’ I told him, not wishing to be overly effusive, ‘would be to sound the lie of the land first.’”

● And so it was, with Eumaeus Sandyman as courier, the Oldbuck set off on the last leg of his journey. He would travel off the road, avoiding the new settlements, particularly at Waymeet, and return to the very center of the Shire. What would happen then he could not guess but, as he had done all of his life, he went boldly forward into hard decisions trusting in the love of his friends.

Whether or not Eumaeus saw the return of his goats no further story reveals.

end chapter eleven

Chapter End Notes

Notes (07/11/2025)

1) There are no notes for this section other than this longer explanation of its very peculiar style. Readers who have come this far will know that my other great passion (and my day job) is in teaching the work of James Joyce, particularly his novel ULYSSES. There is a certain chapter of that novel (Joyce preferred to call them “episodes”) which parallels Homer’s hero, Odysseus, returning in disguise to his kingdom of Ithaca and meeting with a loyal goat herder, Eumaeus. The herder brings him up-to-date on the current state of affairs and introduces the lost hero father to his own, now grown, son. Together they lay plans to take back Odysseus home from unwanted suitors. I had always wanted to use some of this for Gondo’s return and so “Eumaeus” became the name for one of the groomsmen in the “Astron” chapter. But Joyce’s own chapter of this meeting is written with a completely overblown style and, as this novel took its own shape, I felt a desire to emulate and copy that style. This chapter took the longest of any to write; almost eight months. I don’t like AI tools for aping a writer’s style, so I had to strip the actual language down from Joyce’s text and then modify it to suit the situation. It makes for a very confusing chapter in some ways, but one which I hope readers will find as funny as I do. I cannot say if we will hear more of the witticisms and insights of Eumaeus Sandyman further in this novel, but it was fun spending time in that verbose style while I could.

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   The party of hobbits and their ponies went forward in the open lands around the Chalk hills for a few more miles. They were still confused regarding how long they had been asleep and uncertain as to what had happened to those unquestionably dangerous Big Folk who previously accompanied them. Youngbuck told them, with some surety, that those men would not trouble them again, which comforted some of his friends, but he could not exactly say how he knew this to be the case. So they all moved cautiously at first, avoiding any other chance meetings. Yet before noon of that new day, feeling that they had quite skirted the western edge of the Delvings, they turned directly north and returned to the Road. However much time had been lost to them (only one dangerous afternoon and dream-filled night, or so they hoped) the day was now fair and a soft breeze played in the air around them. The walking was easy and the ground moving forward was firm beneath their feet. The Road itself was largely unbroken here; laid with great stones on more or less even ground. Grasses had managed to break through in many spots, but the Road seemed not to notice nor care. Its paving stones had lain undisturbed for countless hundreds of years and seemed to beckon the travelers on and into new lands. The bellies of the hobbits were full, or at least satisfied, and they had renewed their purpose to reach the western edge of the Shire by nightfall. It would be some days later that they would discover this was indeed the noon of the third day of Lethe, last of the Summerdays, and Berty’s private plan to look into the west on the anniversary of his father’s disappearance would indeed come to pass.

   They were on the western side of the Chalk hills and now well past the developing settlements of the Delvings. Berty noticed that Poppy, and even the Zaragamba brothers, stopped in the Road and looked back for a few moments. All of them could see the smoke of the Delvings’ homefires, their kilns and their inns lying over the hills and behind them; they could each imagine sleeping in nice clean beds rather than such a long time of marching and sleeping on hard ground which lay before them. Berty thought again of this morning; of waking to notice how master Undundol had made some kind of cushion from their cloaks to lay between Poppy’s game legs to give him comfort in his sleep. He wondered who else had noticed this, but, in a moment, knew it didn’t really matter. All seven of these hobbits, regaining the Road again now west of the Shire’s furthest settlement, were not looking back in fear of going on but looking back at what they knew they were leaving behind. Berty had been planning this for months himself and there was something in his own restless nature which made looking back seem unimportant. But he would not disturb his friend’s thoughts on this; he knew that he had forced this situation on them in his own way, so he let them take the time to consider their own loss in a way which he did not.

   The Road turned somewhat south then after and the land there was dotted with widespread slopes of green leading into wooded valleys with groves of alder and birch. They saw no one, and quite expected not to, but birds flew and called over their heads and they saw foxes, hares and other creatures who were curious enough to come out and meet them.

   Even here in the unpopulated west of the land there could be seen the grasses, shrubs and fields of wildflowers that made up the Shire. There were many clusters of trees about, some of them exceedingly taller than these young Shire-hobbits had ever seen before, but even this far west the Shire remained excellent farmland; cleared and tended and long since emptied by the Men of the north. If the great trees were trying to claim it back (as they always do) then their pace was slow (as it always was) and the land now lay before the hobbits in peace and at rest. Only the great stone road that went quietly across it, and had done so before the memory of Men, dared to disturb these slumbering hills. The birds were in small numbers and their calls were sweet and unfamiliar to all the hobbits. Occasionally they heard the buzzing or chirping of insects which might otherwise have remained unnoticed; for the hobbits and their ponies walked many miles together in silent admiration of the land.

   Then, towards the late afternoon, the Road began to rise and turned sharply west again and, suddenly, as if in the lightning of a storm, the countryside opened up before them. Here they were met by a long range of even green hillocks stretching out like a pale curtain of mist. The wooded areas were growing thicker there and finally Berty knew where they were. In the far distance he could now see the mountains well that his father had tried to capture in many of his drawings that had outlived him at home in Sarehole. But now Berty beheld something which he had never been able to understand from those drawings; for three long vertical lines, like eraser marks, emerged from the ground to cut the green curtain beyond. Three white shapes, ‘columns’, he thought as he inspected them now, impossibly tall, stood between the hills where the hobbits were and the distant mountains beyond. Their bases were shrouded in the gentle fog which lay over the land extending for many, many miles. And far off still they were, but it was not yet late afternoon when Berty and his friends came there so the Sun was not yet behind them and they now glimmered with a milky luster brighter than the sky. Here the seven hobbits (and their four stalwart ponies), who had gone further west than most other hobbits had ever dared, saw for themselves the White Towers of the Elves.

   ‘Glory and stars,’ Poppy heard himself say, ‘that is a beauty like never I’ve seen.’

   He was right, of course. Only two hobbits of record had ever before looked out west from this spot into the enchanted lands which bordered the Shire. Gondo and Twoody had come here together twenty-five years before and seen these gentle hills dissolve into a greygreen curtain of mist. They had seen these same tall towers and marveled then just as these younger hobbits did now. Yet Berty, more than all the rest, remembered his own family history. He knew that together Gondo and Twoody had gone even further; down into those hills where the grasses end and into a gentle wooded vale just south of the Road. They were accompanied then by strange companions that they had met along the way- Elves, Twoody had called them- and the two explorers were shown great courtesy by these guides from the neighbouring land.

   At the first.

   But then, by what Twoody had called ‘Enchantment’, Gondo had gone missing into that grey unknown beyond following those unusual folk into his oblivion. And so Twoody, filled with the remorse of this loss, never spoke about this place where Berty and his friends now stood or its beauty. Or, when he did, it became a warning. Seeing the land stretch out before him now, feeling the temptation to follow the Road to those great white towers just as his own father did, Berty was reminded of the times he spent in his uncle’s office of deeds listening to the cautions Twoody offered to intrepid and would-be settlers who wished to go into the far west. He decided to quote that advice here for his friends:

   “Yes, yes, the Road does run on much farther and there is a chain of low hills there, just as you have heard. The “Far Downs” we call it, and it is indeed a pleasant country filled with grassy rolling hills,’” the Youngbuck said in a high and officious sounding voice. The Zaragamba brothers did not know quite what to make of this change in their new friend, but the smile on the faces of the other Shire-hobbits showed them that there was some joke being played here which they did not yet understand.

   “‘The beauty of that place,’” Berty continued in his affected tone, “‘as one of the only hobbits who has ever seen it, I cannot deny. But have you wondered why no hobbit will settle there?’” He paused for a moment, cocking an eyebrow in mock seriousness. His friends the Bucklanders were quite taken by this impersonation of his uncle and laughed accordingly, but the Zaragamba brothers, having never met the famous Theudebald Swiftalk, still could not understand the jest. So the Youngbuck returned to his own manner of talking, directing much of it at these new friends. ‘And then my uncle, a wiser orator than most folk give him credit for, would hang his speech with a pause and cock his most forbidding eye at any brave youngster willing to travel beyond the community of our cities,’ Youngbuck explained.

   ‘“Oh, it is beautiful and lush,’” the Youngbuck continued, returning to a higher, more stern register of his voice in the impersonation of his uncle Twoody, “‘but I must caution you that the Far Downs stand at the very edge of our safety; for beyond it is the land of the Elvenfolk and, oh, in greatest honesty and as most reliable witness I can tell you that to have congress with those Elder People is to invite danger upon yourselves. Oh, yes, very dangerous indeed. For the Elves, you see, have held these lands since the changing of the world and want no curious visitors nor well-wishing wanderers, no bold travelers or enterprising traders and will tolerate no encroaching encampments. No, if I were to advise good and careful hobbits to go into the west of this land and make homes for themselves I would, as any true advisor should, sue for caution. Go to the Delvings! New cities are being made there which will be the envy of all our countryfolk. Or, if cities are not to your liking, find some open lands in any of the Four Farthings. By the stars, we have plenty of room here in the Shire to keep even a hermit happy. But a hermit’s life is less than suitable for a hobbit, I should think. Do not, if I may be so bold as to advise you, go alone and unsupported into the undiscovered west and into danger. Stay near to your own hobbit-kind in this place we have been given. We of the Shire should stick together!’” And here he gave Gormadoc Zaragamba a broad slap on the back and an enthusiastic tug of his arm, drawing him into the lighthearted folly of his impersonation. “No, no, no and even once again no, I would say. Let our strange neighbours to the west be alone as they wish, and show the good hobbit-sense to leave well enough very well alone.’”¹

   ‘Your uncle said all of that, did he?’ Bovo asked, smiling broadly. Gilley and Poppy stood beside him, also smiling, but with some reservation. Theudebald Swiftalk, Youngbuck’s uncle Twoody, was one of the most respected people of the Shire’s brief history and for those two it was a bit embarrassing to see him lampooned in this way, even by their good friend who was, after all, Theudebald’s adopted son. Bovo, of course, had no such reservation in his humour regarding family.

   ‘Oh, yes, all of that and more,’ Berty answered. ‘All of it genuine, of course,’ he continued, ‘for my uncle Twoody knows no other way to speak. I’m probably cruel to imitate him so...’ and here Youngbuck let his voice trail off as he came forward and stood looking with his friends over the very edge of the Shire. ‘I shouldn’t mock him, really. I can believe that he very much feared sending anyone into this land because of the regret he felt over my father going forth. I never really doubted his quite honest concern for hobbit safety in the advice which he gave to others. But now, looking upon the western hills as he once did...’

   And here there was a long pause among all of the hobbits for none had encountered such singular and untamed beauty in a landscape ever before. Lausa and Bucklander alike, the openness of these hobbits’ futures had never so acutely coincided with the possibilities of the land before them. Looking out into the green hills of the Far Downs all of Twoody’s warnings for caution seemed ridiculous to them; like the umbrella carried by an old gaffer on a bright and cloudless day.

   ‘I trust the intentions of my uncle and his unwillingness to send hobbits into a place that he felt was dangerous,’ Youngbuck said quite calmly. ‘Maybe this is why I’m sharing with you all of Twoody’s words as we come to the end of our journey.’

   ‘Gormadoc,’ he continued, turning his attention to the three brothers, ‘I doubt that away in the Tookland you have heard any of these concerns regarding the Elves, and if I have made light of the warnings through mummery, well, that was wrong of me. But as we stand here looking out onto this land, this forbidden place given to hobbits by the king yet left unexplored through the hesitations of my uncle, well...’ And then the words ran out of the Youngbuck. He, like all of the hobbits, found himself standing in a great cluster together on the Road and, both individually and together, gazing west into their futures. Berty had, with a great sense of responsibility to his friends, tried to share, even in jest, his uncle’s concerns about the west. He had tried, with comedy (for the concern had quite left him now that he was here), to give his uncle’s familiar warning.

   But he could only manage it as a joke; a caution which Berty, himself bereft of a father through mischance in these lands though he was, found it hard to believe in.

   These seven hobbits stood together at the furthest edge of the Shire deciding what they now should do. Twoody’s warnings, important though they may prove to be, mattered very little to willing pioneers who looked down into the farthest reaches of their safety and saw only promise.

   For the land left them speechless.

   There was indeed a magic about this land which any hobbit, cautious and perceptive people as they were, could readily feel take its hold of their spirit and quiet their usual cautiousness. Youngbuck and his friends felt, and easily succumbed to, the undeniable wholesomeness in the air. It has long been said, here and elsewhere, that much evil must befall a country before it wholly forgets the Elves if once they dwelt there.²

   Of old, in an age of the world long before the imaginations of hobbits and before the coming of the Sun and Moon, the Elves were awakened. ‘The Age of Stars’ those Elder People had later come to call their memories of the world’s beginning, for then there was yet no time; no day nor night to delineate the moments of their experience. Such a funny and specific invention ‘time’ must have seemed to an endless people; requiring as it does, some way, irrevocably attached to the world, to say with great assurance that this thing inarguably happened before that other. In the Age of Stars (or so other hobbits in later stories did come to hear from their more friendly relationships with Elves) the heavens above were fixed as was the firmament of Middle-earth beneath one’s feet. Only the wind in the air and the flowing waters brought news from far off places and all else was still. All the world was a gift to these Elder People, timeless as they were, which they were meant to discover in their own ways.

   And long they traveled in these lands naming all of those things which they discovered and awakening them as well. For the Elves, later calling themselves the “Eldar”, were the inventors of language and, through that very singular power, they taught harmony to other living things. Tree and Stone and flowing waters were their friends and the Elves gave them names and spoke with them in secret tongues which few mortal people like hobbits had ever bothered to learn or could now understand. They taught the mosses to grow along the north side of trees and stones very long before the brightness of the Sun would matter. They talked with birds, teaching them to use song to protect one another, to flock and to grow their own language and their own communities outside of the many predators who assailed them. The birds took this advise to heart and soon after spoke with few others but their own kind. The Elves awakened the trees, or so it has been said, and told them and their shepherds³ how to settle down into the earth, to talk with rock and stone so that together they might make beautiful gardens of Middle-earth from their agreements. Some say they awakened the mountains with their speech, but the mountains were proud and would not give them any notice or reply, so the Elves, no stranger to pride, let the mountains be and rode over them looking for new friends in the world of Arda who might give them a less cold reception. Rivers the Elves listened to in that Age before the Sun and Moon, before the lighting of the Two Trees, but the rivers had their own language and the Elves, enraptured as they were by the riversongs, could not make it their own.

   But of course these are the stories of the Elves from very, very ancient times. None of this would be known by Shire-hobbits like Berty and his friends as they stood upon the Road, awe-struck, and looking into the West. They could feel the promise in the land with no understanding of its history and the part that the Elves had played in it.

   The Lausa, those three Zaragamba brothers, had come from a land which was continually torn by the battles of Men. They had been born and had grown up learning to remain watchful of wolves and goblins and many more unkindly creatures. They walked cautiously through the Weather hills away in the east. Their holes had been large and fortified (as well as any hobbit hole had ever been), for discovery in such a place could prove to be disastrous. But like all hobbits, the Lausa had a great affinity for sunlit hillsides, open skies, shady groves and easily-tilled earth. And they had come and found such land in the southeastern reaches of the Shire, the ‘Tookland’ as most folk called it. Yet there were many Lausa in the Tookland still, many cousins, aunts and uncles, four- and six-times removed by marriages as they were, and few had yet been given the gift of a home to call their own. Now Gormadoc and his brothers Marcoul and Olo stood in a land of unquestionable beauty, wondering about the dangers which may lay beyond, but ready to make a fresh start.

   The Bucklanders, this peculiarly entitled group of second generation Shirelings composed of Berty and Bovo and Poppy and Gilley, were younger than their new Lausa friends. As children they had watched the roads and the towns and the holes and public houses of their community grow and prosper, but they had never known, as their parents once did, the struggle and hard choice of coming into a new land and leaving everything else behind to build a future. Perhaps as the Bucklanders stood there they thought back to the wild plans they had made over these past few months for their own futures; their shallow desires to assert themselves as adults, to make bold statements about their maturity and independence. What had seemed like a rebellion formed months ago, their ‘Stolen Feast’ or their ‘Great Disappearance’, could not be measured against the unexpected opportunity which now lay before them. They not only saw the opportunity of their independence but felt the call to acquit themselves just as their own parents had done in the founding years.

   ‘Glory and stars,’ they heard Poppy say again, breaking the silence of their gaze. ‘I have never seen anything quite like what I see here. Tell me, Youngbuck, am I likewise enchanted?’

*****

   The party did indeed reach Twoody’s old campsite at Greenholm before nightfall. Although it had lain abandoned for over a decade, the old pony path from the Road into the southern woods had been cut relatively wide and was easy for Bovo to find; for Twoody had never meant for this place to be hidden and had hoped for many years that Gondo would come to find his way home to it again. The seven pioneers entered into that old path on the western edge of the wood and, without having to go very far, they found the old hollow tree where Twoody had made a home.

   The tree was older and far greater in size than any which the hobbits had yet encountered. What variety it might be was unknown to them, but the wood was quite dark, almost black, and the northern and eastern sides were covered in bright green moss. The spread of its ancient arms, though long dead and bare of leaf, had made a kind of clearing in the wood around it. There Youngbuck and the others found the remains of an old and overgrown garden of local wildflowers, some sprouting from old clay pots that had cracked to let their plants free to rejoin the ground beside them. Beyond the garden there was the remnant of an old stone cooking stove and nearer to the tree itself a weathered cupboard and pantry with rusted and tarnished cookware and old clay cups.

   ‘Your uncle Twoody built this, Youngbuck?’ Poppy asked as the hobbits were walking around and exploring the place.

   ‘He and my mother didn’t speak to me of the west, Poppy, or of his time here,’ Berty replied, ‘but, yes, he did build this. For many years after my father’s disappearance Uncle Twoody would spend much of the summers here hoping for his return. This was, or so he once told me, the place where they parted.’

   ‘Well, he seems to have done a good job of making it comfortable,’ Bovo said. ‘There’s a worn but well made door here on the north side. Shall we venture inside?’

   ‘I will, but it’s not nearly big enough for all of us inside,’ Berty said. ‘Why don’t the rest of you begin to set up camp for the night. Poppy, maybe you can put that old stove to some use, eh?’

   Youngbuck hadn’t exactly ordered what was to be done, but all the hobbits took his meaning; he wanted to go into the old hollow tree alone. Quietly the others took the packs down from the ponies so that they might take their rest. Firewood was rather easily gathered nearby and another well-cut old path revealed a small stream with cool running water which Twoody must have used during his own time there. Before long the travelers had a camp set up under the old tree’s boughs, the ponies were watered and Poppy had cleaned the grill of the old stove enough to start cooking some dinner. Youngbuck came out of the tree then, maybe an hour after first going inside. He shut the little round door behind him and came over to the campfire to sit beside his friends. There was something so clear in his manner of doing this that his friends, even the new friends among the Zaragambas, could read as defining; he did not want the place to be further disturbed. He then walked the perimeter of the tree’s outstretched boughs and, after much time assessing his uncle’s handiwork, returned to join his friends. With him he brought a long rod of fallen deadwood, black and knotted and leafless, but very straight and about half of hobbit height. While the meal was cooking Youngbuck sat very much to the outside of the others and began carving down this fallen bough into a walking stick.

   It was early in the evening on the last of the SummerDays in Year Twenty-Nine of the Shire. Berty had come to the place from which Gondo had departed and gone into the West twenty-six years before.

   They had a good meal together there in the Greenholm garden and, despite Youngbuck’s quietness, began to talk of their plans for tomorrow and the next few days. Together they had reached their first intended goal and now was the time to think about new beginnings.

   ‘We’re safe enough here, I should think,’ Gilley began, planning things as she did when the way forward seemed uncertain, ‘but given Twoody’s warning, we might want to set watches tonight. Bovo, you slept later than the rest of us; I nominate you for first watch,’ she said with a little smile.

   ‘Oh, yes,’ he replied calmly. ‘I’ll do that. For I think I’d like to wake before the dawn and see what hunting I might find down near the stream. Would anyone like to come with me?’

   ‘I would, sir,’ Olo said. ‘I’m a fair shot with my own little bow.’

   ‘Good,’ Gilley said. ‘If we’re to begin our mapmaking here we will-’

   ‘No, not here, Gilley,’ Berty interrupted, rising out of his mood, and leaving his carving behind. ‘I think we should start to survey the lands around either side of the Road just as the Young Took had wanted us to. He promised that land to the Zaragambas here and I would like to see at least one Tookish promise fulfilled, whether he likes the result or not.

   ‘There was good tillable earth in the western faces of the Far Downs, where we first saw those towers,’ he went on to say, ‘and direct access over the Road there puts us but a good days walk into the Delvings. We might submit deeds there quickly with Uncle Clooty before the Swiftooks have a chance to respond. Tell me, cousin Gordo, where is your family? Might they be sent for discreetly?’

   Gormadoc looked at Youngbuck as if he was beginning to understand what the younger hobbit had in mind. ‘It may be so,’ he said, doffing his cap and scratching the top of his head. ‘We might send Olo and another southeast from here toward Nobottle, where most of our folk await news-’

   ‘“Nobottle?”’ Bovo asked. ‘Where is this unlikely place to be found?’⁴

   ‘It is the farthest west we Lausa, “Tooklanders” as you may say, have come over the Broken Road from the Ford,’ Gormadoc went on to explain. ‘It is not far south of where we met Master Undundol the other day and I do not mind telling you that there were times of danger then when my brothers and I thought to escape and go there to be with our folk. 

   ‘Nobottle isn’t even a town yet, you see,’ he continued, ‘just a place at what we see as the very ending of our travel into the west along the Broken Road that is mentioned in our treaty with the Bucklanders. Some crops were planted two years ago, and it was our families, my brothers and mine, who went there to see them attended to. There are a few other families there now, not more than four or so, and while the land in that place is accommodating enough we are spread too thin to get any real building done. That is why my brothers and I came to Waymeet; hoping for some better chance to build a burrow in the west. But there are many of the Lausa folk who wait there as we did. Perhaps two hundred or so; our own families, from newborn to goodwife, being about sixty in number.’

   ‘Sixty!’ Bovo, said, ‘my dear Zaragambas, you have indeed been busy! Youngbuck, I am certain that my father knows nothing of how expansive the Tooks have been for, if he had, he would have been most alarmed and apoplectic. Oh, for the first time in days I wish that I was home to give him this information! The Flumoxxed Firebrand! Hah!’

   ‘Your father, Bovo, brave and loyal as he is, sees the Lausa and the Tooks as an invading force,’ Youngbuck said calmly, trying to remove the adversarial potential in this conversation. ‘We should not, any of us, submit to this kind of thinking, despite past differences. I do not know the goals of my uncle Childy’s in spreading so far and so rapidly into the west, but of my cousins Gormadoc, Marcoul and Olo I wish them and their families only the best.’

   At this the brothers, still seated, all doffed their caps and bowed their heads offering their open hands in a gesture of friendship. But the Youngbuck continued speaking.

   ‘What your father, Bovo, and at least one of my uncles, doesn’t understand,’ Youngbuck said, ‘is that no hobbit should at any time find themselves in war or contention with other hobbits. We are a kinder folk who excel only through our capabilities to work together and never through heated competition. My uncle Twoody warns us not to go into the west while my uncle Childy drives his folk to settle there first. My uncle Clooty builds great works wherever any of us are assembled. All three have their reasons; I will not question the merit of these reasons if I am still to respect my uncles. But these three have not worked together for the good of the Shire since I, and each of you, were children. Whatever their plans are for the success of the Shire here in the west we are the ones to to now make those plans for ourselves.

   ‘For some reason which I cannot guess at, my uncle Childy believes it is important to hold the western edge of the Road while my other uncles are less concerned with this,’ Youngbuck said calmly. ‘I do not understand all that he means with this plan. But I think he is right; if there is danger to the West, why would we not set some border here? And I can also think of no reason why the Zaragambas, promised this land as they have been, should not hold it in good faith for all the Shire’s people; northern or southron alike.’

   Here Youngbuck stood, for even he recognized that the weight of his speech had grown in importance among his friends.

   ‘No hobbit, despite what they may have been told as children, is at war or in competition with another hobbit’s success,’ he said. ‘Indeed, no hobbit of the Shire who holds the King’s land should want for anything other than the safety of all his kindred hobbits. I don’t know what my uncle Childy teaches his folk of competition but I will not lose faith in my people so much as to believe that any hobbit anywhere longs to see others of their folk driven to want.

   ‘Gormadoc, Marcoul and Olo, I will happily do as I have promised,’ the Youngbuck pronounced, ‘and make maps for you that may be filed in Buckland or the Delvings and thereby assure your rights as western border guards to all of the Shire. I don’t know what other opportunities your Young Took, my cousin Reginard, may have looked for from this arrangement, but I trust that you shall keep your watch over those lands for the good of all the Shirefolk. Am I wrong in this assessment?’

   ‘No, sir,’ all the Zaragambas said in their turn. Gormadoc, eldest among them, went further in his pledge, standing to meet Youngbuck and to shake his hand as if in affirmation of a solemn vow; ‘No, for we come to the Shire as free-minded hobbits and not as partisan soldiers, sir. We would not look for our homes, something we have long sought after, to become bargaining chips in some petty game. If our houses and our holes are to truly be our own then no fractious debate should divide us from such good friends as yourself.’

   ‘Ah, cousin,’ Youngbuck said, ‘it is sad that the years and the events have separated us until now. I think that our families on both sides might have gained much from our discussions.

   ‘Yes, very well we agree then,’ Youngbuck continued. ‘So I say that your families away in the south must be sent for; discreetly and immediately. In this way we may together develop a settlement on the western slopes of the Far Downs as quickly as possible; and, if this can begin without the Young Took’s notice, all the better. Gilley, from the few maps I’ve seen, the land south of the Chalk hills should be largely even and flat. You’ve probably got the keener sense of direction than the rest of us; will you accompany Olo and help bring the Zaragamba families here as soon as possible?’

   ‘Aye, Youngbuck, and surely,’ Gilley said. ‘I’m eager to meet these Lausa “goodwives” and rejoin them with their “goodgrooms”.’

   ‘And,’ Bovo added with a smile, ‘get them ready and on the road before they know what hit them.’

   ‘Gormadoc, if they are to go straight southeast from here how long might it take Olo and Gilley to come to Nobottle?’

   Gormadoc looked away, as if he could penetrate the night and the surrounding trees to see the settlement of Nobottle in his mind. ‘Well, as you say, Youngbuck, once they cross the last of the Chalk hills that land is flat and filled with meadows. I think they should return much the way we came and then head due south from the last of that line of hills. Olo, you could find your way to Nobottle from there, could you not?’

   ‘Yes, Gordo,’ the younger brother replied.

   ‘Good. Good,’ Gormadoc went on, still looking to the southeast. ‘I would put it not much farther than twenty miles as a crow flies between here and there; but, lacking the perspective of crows, they must take the surer course to the Chalk hills and south or they may wind up missing Nobottle all together. There are empty lands there and many chances for their course to be turned. But, if they leave tomorrow before first light over the way we have already traveled then they may hope to reach Nobottle by sundown.’

   ‘Let us hope they have found at least one bottle by then,’ Bovo said, ‘to help welcome our Gilley.’

   ‘And,’ Gilley said, ‘let us hope you do not drink the last of ours before I return.’

   ‘I can only hope,’ Bovo said smiling, ‘for I am poor at promising.’

   ‘Good,’ Youngbuck said, still standing to address the others. ‘Once again our Plan has changed with fresh insights. No hunting trip for you, Olo, nor nightwatch for either you or Gilley. You’ll sleep now as you can and be better prepared to go before the dawn.

   ‘But watches should still be kept,’ he continued. ‘Bovo and I will set the first and awaken cousins Gordo and Marcoul after middle-night. Poppy, I want you to sleep the night through as we will need your help in setting our roadside camp when we come to it in the morning.’

   ‘But, Youngbuck,’ Poppy said cautiously, for he did not like to second guess any of his friends, ‘should I not watch with Bovo? I woke this morning to see you sitting on a hill and, to be frank, I’m doubtful that you slept that night as the rest of us did. If I am wrong in that then please tell me, but won’t you take some rest now?’

   Just as Gormadoc had looked to the southeast hoping to penetrate night and forest and hill, Berty looked off into the west. It was, for Poppy, Gilley, the Zaragambas and even Bovo, a long moment in which no one dared to speak. Then, with a slow turn of his head to the right, the Youngbuck gazed upon the hollow tree of Greenholm and with great sureness said; ‘Thank you for noticing, Poppy. But I will not sleep here.’

   And with that, just as with the closing of Greenholm’s door, the conversation was at an end. The hobbits pulled out their bedrolls and tied up their ponies. They put out their cookfire and washed their pots in the nearby stream and, one by one, saying very little else to one another, they went off to sleep.

*****

   After hours on watch together, sitting silently under the barren black boughs of the hollow tree with the stars at their brightest and the Moon himself moving to middle-night, Bovo finally decided to ask a question of his friend:

   ‘And how did you find this place that you have waited all your life to see, Youngbuck?’

   Berty did not respond quickly, though Bovo knew that he did not search for the right words to say but, forthright as he was in saying things, hesitated over what his words might mean. He stopped the carving of his walking stick, which had so distracted him from his friends for the past few hours, and with his usual honesty replied:

   ‘It was sad, Bovo. It did not fill me with sadness over the lost father that I have never met, but for the adopted father who has raised me. All those years he had awaited his friend and all those years he had been disappointed.’

end chapter twelve

Chapter End Notes

Notes (09/08/2025)

1) This is a more-or-less complete translation of Twoody’s earlier speech as given in Chapter Twelve of Part One. There it appeared as published in “The Shire-reckoning” as a caution to all hobbits traveling west. Berty would not know of this publication of course, for it happened in the year of his birth, but I picture him hearing his uncle repeat much of it in the Assayer’s office for most of his young life. It felt necessary to bring it back here for this next generation of pioneers.

2)  This bit is a nearly direct quote from LotR’s “The Ring Goes South”. In writing this chapter I was staying at my brother-in-law’s house in a very green and pastoral suburb of Philadelphia. I had started teaching LotR to an extended reading group and somehow had decided that describing the enchantment of the land, a key subject of Tolkien’s work, should really be the substance of this chapter. Indulge me.

3)  The “shepherds” that I’m talking about here are, of course, the Ents. I would love to write about Ents but, sadly, this, and even the larger work of The Fall of Arnor, does not coincide with that desire. Maybe my interests and my instincts will change that notion somehow. We’ll see.

4)  So here is a place where maps and research somewhat divide themselves. The map that I’ve been using shows that “Hardbottle” is a settlement in the southwest of the Shire. Some might remember it as the place that the Sackville-Baggins hail from, so I thought that it would be appropriate to use here. But research on other sites tell me that Hardbottle is in the northwest of the Shire, which actually makes more sense in terms of the etymology. “Nobottle”, shown in the north of this map, should be where Hardbottle is. It is a creation of Christopher Tolkien’s from some of his earliest maps; he then thought it meant a place with no inns. But the word origins, in Hobbitish and Old English, make it to be “new dwelling”. So much word nerdery in this process!

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Author’s Note:

   With the history that Arbogastes Bophin has recounted as coming from Eumaeus Sandyman some questions as to authenticity may be asked. This is not so for the letters and diaries of Ermenberga Bophin, Aborgastes’ mother, which were recovered at the Great Smials and there is no doubt of their provenance. Ermenberga was a well-recorded figure in the first generation of the Shire and her careful and elegant script can be found on many documents of those earlier days. True, there are many which are accompanied by notes in what we suspect is Arbogastes’ own hand. Through these notes we know that he had some desire to arrange and collect her writings into some kind of a book, possibly alongside the “WITTICISMS OF EUMAEUS SANDYMAN” just as I have done in presenting this chapter following the earlier. But no such book, manuscript or finished article has ever been discovered or mentioned. How, when or even why, all of this material became archived at the Great Smials is yet another unsolvable question.

   But of the veracity of these writings coming from Ermenberga herself there can be no mistake. She was, or at least she saw herself as, Alaura Fairheart’s only confidant during this time of crisis. Whether her insights, delivered through the screen of her own prudery, are useful for understanding Alaura’s decision, I cannot say. But, sadly, this is all the evidence we have.

-D.F.R

●  On the morning of what we now call June 22nd, the last LetheDay in the twenty-ninth year of the Shire, as Berty and his friends made their decision to go further into the west, Twoody and Alaura were still at home in Sarehole awaiting further news. Euric Bophin, Ermenberga’s husband, had been sent forth to bring the four truants home and, after walking straight through to the Delvings two nights ago, no news of the wayward hobbits coming to that town nor any sign of them on the western end of the Road had yet come to Buckland. The parents of Bovo, Gilley and Poppy were guests at Sarehole for the SummerDays and Alaura, with the help of her sister, tried to make them as comfortable as could be. Angered, disappointed or apprehensive as they were, the guests did their best to believe that the young hobbits would protect one another and be safe together in their incautious adventure. They were no longer fawns after all, and could no longer be rebuked for setting their own course in life. Word of them would come soon enough, the hobbit parents thought, and of course they all knew that the Youngbuck was clever enough to keep them out of danger.

●  Alaura did not ascribe to those same feelings.

ERMENBERGA: “She had gone quite cool to her guest’s remarks. Perhaps, in spite of every consideration of politeness, her maternal affection outweighed her cordiality and prompted her candor. ‘Upon my word, Horris, I believe that you are perfectly right,’ she replied to the Firebrand’s remarks, ‘My son is indeed clever enough to keep your own out of trouble, no matter the danger it might bring to himself. They love one another very much of course, but I am not certain that cleverness and boldness make for a suitable match. Your Bovidern’s cleverness has never kept the two of them from seeking adventure at one of Berty’s bold notions before, has it? Indeed, it would be very strange and unusual for them to stop seeking it now without our restraint. They have encouraged each other in waywardness, a condition which had overpowered them both as fawns and has been voluntarily renewed, even sought after from one another, as they have grown. I do not know your own son’s cleverness nor his resolution as well as I know that of my own, Horris,’ she replied with that finality of speech particular to her character, ‘but I do know that if Berty has slipped past our watch and gone beyond the Delvings I will not be seeing him again for a very long time. Perhaps you and your son will have better luck than I and mine but, and I say this without doubt, Berty’s boldness will stand to be to blame for it all.”

● And so we learn from Ermenberga that even in the first day of her son’s absence Alaura had become bristly with her guests who seemed to accept that their children had acted with the relative freedom of hobbits their age. The letter which she and Twoody had received from Berty told her much more about his intentions of course and, while she did share this information with others, she had somehow come to wrestle with the idea that her loss would be much greater, and much more longterm, than their own.

● We cannot say with any certainty that Ermenberga ever saw the letter Berty had written to Twoody and Alaura or heard its contents. A longer examination of her diaries, from which you as readers are graciously spared, indicated that Ermenberga did not have the most favourable view of Alaura’s first born son nor of his father:

ERMENBERGA: “Even as a fawn Theudebert had so far gained on the the affections of his uncle, by such attractions as are by no means unusual in young children; an imperfect articulation, an earnest desire of having his own way, many cunning tricks, and a great deal of noise, as to outweigh the value of all the attention which may be considered the due of Twoody’s own children. And this practice continued as the Youngbuck grew in age for, son of the lost and famous father, he also grew in a rambunctiousness which needed careful tending but was rather too often encouraged.”

●  We also do not know if Ermenberga, who was present at the Great Smials all through the SummerDays of Year Twenty-nine, was aware of the report that Twoody, Alaura and Horris Bunce received on the morning after Berty and his friends had run off. This was from Gilley’s own uncle of course, Odulf Bramblethorn, and told of soldiers crossing the bridge and heading into the south. Though she was married to Euric Bophin, who would himself become Chief Constable one day, Ermenberga very primly maintained her abstinence from all things political.

●  But we can be very certain that she was there to see Alaura and Twoody receive Eumeaus Sandyman and the letter he brought from Gondo just before sunset and the end of the SummerDays.

ERMENBERGA: “I could not know the cause of it at the time but almost instantly the weight of her grief and the indelicacy of her conduct caused her to leave the company of guests; for she was, at that time, in such affliction as rendered her careless to civility. My sister has always possessed a strength of understanding, and coolness of judgement, which qualified her to be counsellor to all the Shirefolk, and these are qualities of her nature for which I am occasionally envious. She had no opportunity, till the present, of showing how little attention to the comfort of other hobbits she could act when the occasion required it.”

● Upon the arrival of Eumaeus and the letter it seems that Twoody and Alaura withdrew from the house for a time to speak alone and away from their guests. Ermenberga’s diaries for this evening all come to us from the end of that evening (for it was her habit and her way to close each day with written reflection) and therefore are coloured by the information she was given by Alaura later that night. But of the behaviour of the couple upon receipt of the letter she has this to say:

ERMENBERGA: “So I was given the careful and solicitous task of dismissing the remaining guests without their hosts present, knowing that this was what they required of me before knowing the contents of the letter which had so drawn my sister’s attention. I sent those curious and well-wishing hobbits along their way with empty promises of eventually answered questions. But after the last was gone I stood by the front gate of the Great Smials and could hear the voices of my sister and her husband coming on the early night air from the top of the hill. I did not know their trouble then, for it had not yet been spoken, but listened for a time to their private distress. There they encouraged each other in grief and in the violence of their affliction. While I could not hear all that was said I discerned that the agony of grief overpowered them at first, was voluntarily renewed, was then sought for and measured by each, and was created again and again. They gave themselves up wholly to their sorrow, seeking increase of wretchedness in every reflection that could afford it, and resolved against ever admitting consolation in future. What could have brought on such a calamity between two such respectable hobbits I could not yet guess. Was it possible that news, and the most ill news indeed, had come of the fate of the Youngbuck?”

● But Ermenberga was eventually let on to the news of Gondo’s return. Her diaries tell us that Twoody left the discussion and walked off and down the road from the Great Smials without entering again. Alaura came down the hill behind him and asked her sister to go and see if the children were put properly to bed. She too clung to the road which ran beside the door of the Great Smials as if she did not wish to enter.

●  Ermenberga did as she was asked and then came out to hear the news that her sister had been given.

●  The role which Ermenberga Bophin would play within her sister’s family was not decided in this moment. But yet we return to this one entry in her diary which illustrates not only the internal struggle of Alaura Fairheart on that day but, and too often overlooked, the dedication of one sister who is not very much like the other to aid and understand; different as they were, Alaura is not the only “fairheart” of her family.

ERMENBERGA: “I can listen no longer in silence and must do something to settle her condition. She frets and frets and wishes to meet him by such means as are within her reach. He pierces her soul, as always, leaving her half in agony and half in hope even when she thought that such precious feelings were gone forever.

“Will she offer herself to him again with her heart, broken as it was twenty-six years ago, renewed by her passions and blind to their past? Should one say that a husband forgets sooner than a wife, that his love has an earlier death? Perhaps, but I cannot dissuade her of his integrity. Unjust I may have been in my assessments, resentful of his leaving she may still be in hers. But in love she has been only practical and never inconstant. Have I not seen this? Shall I fail to understand her wishes in fear of her heart’s safety?

“She believes that there is true love, true attachment and true constancy among hobbits, among husbands and wives and, most of all, among friends. Excellent sister! I wish I could help you in your uncertain fate.”

●  It will be Ermenberga Bophin who will step into many of her older sister’s responsibilities and she will never be noticed nor recognized for her contributions to the Shire as Alaura was. While it was Aluara who established the schools and the post offices of the Shire it was her sister Ermenberga who would teach in those schools for five decades of her life and serve in Alaura’s spot as post master during the greatest years of the Shire’s expansion.

●  In Year One of the Shire Ermenberga, still only fifteen years of age, had been one of the most dedicated copyists of THE SHIRE-RECKONING as it went out into the lands of the North and drew all hobbits to safety. After Alaura left her role as editor there in this same fateful Year Twenty-nine, Ermenberga would manage it for the remaining years of her own life.

●  We cannot know the book that her son Aborgastes was trying to make by blending her extensive diaries with the colloquialisms of Eumaeus Sandyman. But it is certain that the contribution of Ermenberga Bophin, a key figure in Shire history, understood her sister better than anyone else, including her husbands, ever did.

end chapter thirteen

Chapter End Notes

0. Notes (08/03/2026)

    

   1) This chapter is meant to echo the Eleventh Chapter, “from eumaeus”, in its appropriation of style. Most of what is being said here is stolen rather freely from Jane Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility”. While I do feel that there is much to appreciate in Austen’s writing I should frankly admit that I am not really a fan and use it here, just as I did Joyce’s in that previous chapter, as an example of overblown narration. Sorry. Not really a Hater, but I am throwing shade.

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   On the morning after the Summerdays, the First of After-lithe as Shirefolk called it, Youngbuck and the pioneers left Greenholm behind. Gilley and Olo had departed hours before, taking Olo’s own pony, Hum, so that they might carry more provisions on their return to the Far Downs. Although he had sat the early watch with Youngbuck, and had a reputation as a devoted sleeper, Bovo was awake to see them go.

   ‘Now, Olo,’ he had said, ‘I am sorry we won’t have the chance to hunt together this morning as planned, but you’ll learn that with this little fellowship of hobbits the Plans we make together are as flexible and uncertain as a bow of willow-wood.

   ‘I hope that you won’t need to test your own bow on this little expedition,’ he continued, ‘but if trouble should arise, listen carefully to Gilley here; for you are taking our best representative of common sense with you. I can’t speak for your brothers, but between Poppy, Youngbuck and myself we have very little good sense to contribute in difficult situations and we will miss her own abundance of this very greatly. I myself have argued against her wisdoms and her tempers in the past and, while I’ve enjoyed most of those arguments, I have generally followed her advise with only a modicum of my usual grumblings. Pay no heed to my example. Such grumbling is not a strategy which I would suggest for staying in her good graces, coming to a good end, or avoiding a well-deserved box on the ears.’

   Gilley, who was not far off (whether Bovo knew this or not) stood listening with her face as red as an autumn apple. While all the others present waited to see what might happen next, she did not. She walked straight up to Bovo as if no one else was present. Taking his left hand in her right and putting her left hand on his collar, she pulled his face toward her own. The kiss was both cautious and deliberate, too short and more than meaningful. Their foreheads met afterwards in a way that felt both unfamiliar and assured.

   ‘I’ll be back with sixty hobbits to help settle this Faralong land before you know it,’ Gilley said. Then, their pony saddled and their course set, she and Olo set out before the dawn.

   Therefore at Greenholm, an hour or two later, the other ponies took on the extra burden as did the remaining hobbits. They were only an hour or two from their destination, a wide hill on the Far Downs just north of the Road that they had spied before which had been proposed for their first encampment. Bovo led the others on, for he knew that Youngbuck needed a moment to himself to last look upon the little house in the tree.

   ‘We’ll take nothing away from here,’ Youngbuck told his friends. ‘It is to remain my uncle Twoody’s property to do with as he wishes. It seems fitting that this should remain the westernmost home in the Shire; vacant as he left it until he should choose otherwise.’

   The hill they had selected for mapping was but forty or fifty ranga north of the Road. It sloped nicely up on its southern end while the western side was more steep and afforded them a long view into the misty downs and forests below and off to the great towers beyond. Once they arrived there and Poppy and the others began to set their camp, Bovo walked to the top of this hill, looking west and east to check its defenses. On its crest there was a small copse of ash trees and Bovo thought that, should there indeed ever be danger from the West, a lookout might stand here and see many miles into that distance. There in the morning light the towers gleamed. Ancient, he thought they must be, but fresh-looking, like morning milk. He wondered how, or why, anyone should come to make such an awe-inspiring thing. Hobbits, and particularly Shire-hobbits who had never lived in high places, did not care much for tall buildings. Bovo did not fear the towers, for they were very far away, but he could not understand them or reconcile their existence with his own. Why would anyone ever want to go into such a high place above the sheltering earth?

   It was then that he first heard the sound of bells but could not place them. A light cling-clanging that came over the wind, but from what direction he could not tell.

*****

   Berty upon their arrival at the hill, went promptly to bed. He took a moment or two to explain himself to his friends; ‘As Poppy has rightly guessed, I have been awake now for many hours; since our meeting with master Undundol and all of last night. But, I must tell you, we have, together as friends, accomplished all the things that I had meant to and many more which I did not expect through your grace and care. I cannot thank you all enough; but I would like to rest now, complete in those tasks, before I begin anew our Plans.

   ‘Gormadoc, tomorrow we will walk out together through the land here north of the Road and look for streams, the potential of wells and other features. If you have seven sons and six daughters as you have said, they will need wide lands to grow into!

   ‘Marcoul, after these lands north of the Road are charted, you and I will travel south and do the same. In order for these lands to be properly registered with the Shire-hobbits in Buckland or the Delvings there must be a clear report of the land’s features and this, by name, reputation and some small skill, I may provide for you.

   ‘In determining Olo’s deeds we will also ride south so that the land there might abut Marcoul’s own and begin to run back towards the open meadows. But for land holdings that the three of you should be able to claim, it will be several days of survey. Knowing the size of your families now, something the Young Took carefully did not mention, this will take more than the three days which I promised him. Likely a week, I should think; and then we will be ready to deed your claims at the Assayer’s Office in the Delvings.

   ‘It might also be days yet before your families arrive to begin the building of these homesteads in earnest, but that is something which Reginard could not have expected and will go much against his plans. By the time these deeds are filed in your own names and your own families are settling them, the Young Took will have no claim over you.’

   And, after all of this was agreed upon, Youngbuck took his rest in the shade of some nearby trees while the others set up their first real camp. They led the ponies around the eastern slope and carefully took down their provisions; Poppy and Marcoul, serving as property masters, began to take stock of all that they had brought and how it might be used. There were four stout shovels to be had, three long handled axes, numerous hand saws of differing sizes, four mallets, many boxes of nails and coils of good rope for when they would begin their building. Taking up one of the shovels, Gormadoc went a short way up the southern slope of his hill and, behind the cover of some trees, began to break ground on his new home; smiling all the while. Meanwhile Poppy and Marcoul, after seeing to the comfort of the ponies, took axes and saws and began to gather up what wood they could use for fire and for building.

   While Bovo had no skill for map-making or well-digging, he did have excellent skill in the woods. ‘Gormadoc,’ he said, ‘I’m going to scout and hunt a bit over these next few hills to the north and the east, if you don’t mind. I wouldn’t want to undermine any great discoveries that you or Youngbuck might find tomorrow, but I think we will need to build up our stores if your own families of Lausa-folk enjoy food as much as we Bucklanders do.’

   And so, taking a little haversack for his lunch, his canteen, his quiver and his bow, Bovo set out for the next tall hill to the north, promising to return for supper. The deep valley to the west of the hill rose slowly here and began to crest into five more hills equally as tall as the one they had chosen for Gormadoc’s new home. Beyond those were slopes covered with sombre trees like dark clouds, for there lay the Northlands beyond the Shire that few hobbits had visited or even heard about. But all the area about him north of Gormadoc’s hill was like a tumbled heathland, grown with ling and broom and other plants and shrubs which Bovo could not identify. Here, nearer to the hills, there were knots of tall pine trees; not wholly unfamiliar, but rare in Bovo’s own part of the Buckland. It excited him to wander through this land so far from his home, encountering his own adventures. The air was fresh and fragrant and his heart was high.¹

   Between the hills the mountains to the east seemed further off, bending into the west in a long curve that was lost in the distance. At the edge of his vision Bovo could see small groves of resinous trees, fir and cypress and others which he did not know and everywhere there was a wealth of sweet-smelling herbs and shrubs. Small streams he found, where fronds pierced moss and mould over wet rocks and larches were green-fingered, their small flowers opening in the wet turf, and above them birds were singing. Bovo, like most of the hobbits who were knowledgeable hunters, did not disturb birds in the wild but followed them into places where other small game was plentiful; hedgehogs and foxes, voles and squirrels, both red and grey. He took a few of these that he encountered at ease with his bow, but had only a small coil for carrying the game and no real means of curing them back at their encampment. Plentiful as the land was, it would not do to be wasteful. Therefore he wandered after this was accomplished, hoping to see what other game or tracks might be found in these wooded vales. In and beside the small streams he discovered evidence of beavers and numerous large fish and, best of all, muntjacs, which the hobbits called “barking deer”, a good-sized animal which could provide a hobbit family with many winter meals.

   A little way back from one such stream and in the later part of the afternoon Bovo was taking his lunchtime meal in a deep brown bed of last year’s ferns, feeling quite assured of the peace he found in these lands and thinking about returning to his friends. He had not, in his ambling through the vales, gone up to any of the neighbouring hills yet, hoping not to deny his friend Youngbuck his own chance of discovery. But as he lay at rest drinking water from a cool clear stream, the sounds of birds and insects around him seemed to cease and the woods grew uncommonly silent. From the wind in the northwest once again came the sound of bells; cling-clang, cling-clang; they were soft but, or so Bovo perceived it, not far off.

   If there were farmers or settlers or, worse even, Elvish folk here in the Far Downs then the hobbits would need to know of it. Bovo might have returned to his friends then and told them what he had heard and, if he had, they all might have gone together to the north hills on the following days. Surely Gilley would have thought that this was the more prudent and “common sense” approach. But Bovo, confident in what he had discovered already and more assured of his skill with a bow than of the skill his friends had, decided to investigate on his own.

   The southern face of the next hill had little glades of ash and pine and, between, some tall shrubberies of holly, box and foxglove. Bovo, with bow nocked, was able to swiftly and secretly make his way towards the hilltop under cover of these plants. He stopped often, hoping that he might hear voices on the wind rather than just the cling-clanging of the bell.

But the hilltop itself was bald and Bovo’s covering ran out before he could see what was on the crest. The cling-clang cling-clang came undeniably from the hilltop and Bovo knew he must break cover to see where the noise was coming from. ‘Well, Gilley,’ he said to himself silently, ‘I’m quite certain you will chastise me for this rather ridiculous maneuver should I ever live long enough to report it. But I’m not nearly as smart nor as practical as you and, lacking your better planning, can only make do with action.’

   And so it was that Bovo Bunce, his bow drawn back and his blood high, charged the crest of the hill to find himself fallen into a dream.

   The hilltop was bare of all but a few flowering herbs and shrubs. Looking left upon his arrival Bovo encountered the same view of the towers which he had seen two nights before in the dream which he had recounted to Gilley. Indeed, on the western slope below him he could, through memory of that dream, see exactly where the paddock for their livestock would be and where their little barn and their vegetable gardens would, within the dream, one day be placed. He was high above the western door, or the place where that western door would be when they would one day call this hill their home. He could now, in his memory of an experience which he had not yet had, see the place where Poppy and Clooty and he had worked so hard and diligently to dig their household well. He felt his bow go slack in his hand and the arrow drop to the ground as he remembered, no, encountered here in his fragile immediacy some future memory displaced, of Gilley with their firstborn child Gordo in her arms, coming out to laugh at the disorganized way in which three of the most famous hobbits in the Shire had begun their task of digging a well. He saw little Gordo in her arms then, memory or enchantment, and felt that there was something terrible, something ominous, that would yet happen; if he could remember what it was he might leave the hill and rush back to his friends, thereby preventing this future disaster. But he had only memories of happiness in his dream of this place and only the most vague notion of how it had come to them through sorrow.

   But despite the seriousness of what this glimpse of the future hinted at, Bovo was unwilling to leave. For somehow he was assured that he was(?) would be(?) happy here and one day, not far off, at the edge of the Shire, and here his life would be his own. No, that wasn’t a fully accurate interpretation of his dream; his life, that future life which he had glimpsed, was with Gilley and far away from the Buckland. ‘Little wonder we’ll come to call it the Faralong,’ Bovo thought in that moment of reflection. ‘For here we are both far away from our homes in the Buckland and far along with making our lives into something brave and new. It was a beautiful dream which I entered two nights ago, but even now, seeing it before me, I do not see how we came to it.’

   And then, behind him as Bovo looked out to the west, came once again the cling-clanging of bells. He turned sharply around, his bow still idle in his hand, to see a great brown cow feeding upon the open grasses of the hilltop. She took a moment from her feed to look up at Bovo and, cocking her head, her round brown eyes offered both mystery and acceptance. Twice she blinked at him and then, without a noise walked forward to meet his hand.

   Around her neck there was a purple ribbon of some material Bovo could not identify. From it hung a small brass housing and inside that were two smaller silver bells.

   ‘Belle, we shall call you,’ Bovo said with awkwardness and certainty, ‘and it is a pleasure to meet you at last.’

*****

   Just as he had promised, Bovo returned to the camp in time for supper, bringing his new friend Belle with him. The other hobbits were surprised and more than a little alarmed.

   ‘Where did you find her?’ they asked, and, ‘does this mean we have neighbours?’ accompanied by, ‘Bovo, you can’t just take a neighbour’s milkcow,’ or, more sadly, ‘has someone else made their home here before us?’ or, ‘does this mean our whole plan is to be aborted?’ Bovo could answer none of these questions, of course. After finding Belle he had done what he could in terms of investigation; he had looked out from the top of the hill for any sign of a settlement and saw nothing. There were no trails or paddocks, no evidence of shepherds or herdsmen, no smoke fires to indicate houses or settlements in any of the neighbouring lands.

   Indeed, he told his friends, the land there was more wooded, so if someone had set up a cow pasture somewhere nearby he certainly would have been able to notice it from that high hilltop. Nor could he discover tracks upon the hill of any other creatures beside Belle and himself.

   ‘I can’t explain it through any evidence, Youngbuck,’ Bovo said to his friends, ‘but I believe that I was meant to find her. Or she to find me.’

   ‘I see,’ Youngbuck replied. ‘Well, it is too near dark for us to do anything about it now. But I suspect we should set watches again tonight in case some angry herdsman comes a-looking for her. And Bovo, you’ll take the dawn’s watch so you’ll be on hand to explain things.’

*****

   With the first light of the Second day of After-lithe Youngbuck was very eager to begin their survey. After a short breakfast made from Bovo’s recent catch of squirrels, they met around the cookfires to discuss the day’s business. Youngbuck was sitting at ease as they gathered, sanding his new walking stick which he had taken from the black tree of Greenholm. ‘Despite Bovo’s unusual discovery to the north,’ he began, ‘cousin Gordo and I will go west first along the Road. I would like to establish, as best as I can at this distance, the very western edge of the King’s Agreement and set some marker there if we may.

   ‘Cousin Gordo,’ he continued, ‘the Young Took was quite wiley is his choice to place you and your brothers on the Western border; for land grants in the Shire are based upon the size of the family and the three of you, having no conflicting neighbours, beginning in unsettled farmlands rather than the establishment of township, well, I should think that you would be in your rights to choose one hundred long furrows worth of land to be deeded in your family name.’

   ‘Why, that’s nearly the size of Frogmorton!’ Poppy said.

   ‘Yes,’ Youngbuck replied. ‘I think that this was the plan of the Young Took all along, Poppy. You see, the Zaragamba family is nearly sixty hobbits strong; a deed here would be like transplanting a small town right to the Shire’s edge. He showed us three “bachelors” to chart lands for but never told us the size of their families.

   ‘Now these lands can be on both sides of the Road of course, and, if we put the deed in three names to begin with, then you and your brothers may parcel it amongst yourselves and to your direct relatives as you see fit.’

   ‘That sounds very fine, I should think,’ Gormadoc said in his usually amiable way, but also scratching at his wooly head to indicate that he did not understand all of what Youngbuck was saying.

   ‘Here in the Shire,’ Youngbuck went on to explain, ‘we measure land by what a good hobbit farmer, with a pony or a stout pig pulling an iron-shod plow, might easily turn in an hour. Do you use rods as a measure in the South-farthing?’

   ‘Aye, we do!’ Marcoul said, interrupting but happy to offer anything which might make the hobbits understand one another better.

   ‘Excellent!’ Youngbuck said. ‘So the typical long furrow is about forty rods, or, as we sometimes say, proud of our own system of measurement, about six hundred and sixty feet. One hundred of these units is a great sized farm indeed! Imagine it as spanning twelve miles in either direction.’²

   Youngbuck could tell from the way in which the Zaragamba brothers were looking at him that this idea of so much open space was not something they could understand. So he decided to just go on with their plan and get the expedition under way.

   ‘Poppy, Marcoul and Bovo,’ he said, ‘I suspect that it will take cousin Gordo and I about three days to accurately survey the land north of the Road. We’ll take one bow with us if we may, but I’d rather leave the others behind with you in case any unexpected neighbours might come in search of their cattle. We’ll take some dry store of meats and cheeses, for neither of us are as skilled at hunting as Bovo here. I trust that he can keep you all well supplied.

   ‘You’ll want to finish the work of a rough paddock for the animals, Poppy,’ he continued, ‘for we don’t know how long it will take for Gilley, Olo and the other Zaragambas to join us here nor what they will bring with them in terms of supplies and livestock. But, more importantly, you’ll want to continue the front door excavation which Gordo has already started; for the SummerDays are past and rain will no doubt follow them here in the west just as it does back in Buckland. I think we shall take Cinders with us to carry some provisions, but the other two ponies will be of greater service to you here.

   ‘From the westernmost point adjacent to the Road, cousin Gordo,’ Youngbuck continued, ‘we will proceed a league or so south and determine another border. That area, as it leads toward Greenholm looks to be more heavily wooded. I think that the better farmlands will be found in hills due north. I will make every attempt to draw these borders around physical landmarks like hills and streams or outcroppings. There is a deep valley there, Gordo, and streams or seasonal rills should be plentiful. Barring any difficulties we should make the northwest corner of your land by sunset tomorrow.

   ‘But then, heading north,’ he continued, ‘worries me a bit more. From Bovo’s description the land is rougher there, filled with more trees and wild-growing shrubs and, going uphill as we will be doing, we might be met with many twistings and turnings. Also, if there are neighbours there we will need to meet them. I’m sorry, Bovo,’ he said to his friend, looking at him with all earnestness, ‘for I know you think that discovering your friend Belle is some portent of good things to come but, despite what your bold heart tells you, my cautious hobbit head must prepare against worse fates.’

   ‘While caution has never been a defining trait for me, Youngbuck,’ Bovo said, ‘I think that you’ll agree that I have a nature which has always been well prepared for disappointments.’

   Youngbuck responded with a broad smile, ‘and I hope that I have done what I can to bolster your assuredness against your usual nature. Here we are, my friend, making our own futures for ourselves! We are on the very edge of the Shire planning and building homes that no other hobbit had thought or dared to do. And all of it without having our parents think we have been eaten by bears!’

   Poppy and Bovo and Youngbuck all laughed heartily at this and the Zaragambas, who knew nothing of this joke, simply scratched their woolly heads in waiting.

   ‘So,’ Youngbuck continued, ‘I have a proposal which might reinforce your usual expectations for disappointment, Bovo, but, rest assured, it is only a Plan against the worst.’

   ‘Well, yes.’ Bovo replied. ‘The best method which I have found for being prepared for disappointment requires a careful examination of how things could be worse. I actually pride myself on my ability to assess how much more terrible a thing may be; for that mathematic has often brought me the comfort of being right. Tell me, Youngbuck, how will your Plan further disappoint me?’

   ‘Well,’ Youngbuck said, ‘I will need you, and your friend Belle, to join us on the hill where you found her shortly after the dawn three days hence. Just you and Belle, mind you. If we do have neighbours to the north I would rather not have them know our numbers just yet.’

   ‘And this plan to meet you will disappoint me how?’ Bovo said, though the resigned look on his face showed that he had already guessed the answer.

   ‘Because if Belle does belong to some undiscovered neighbour of ours, any neighbour which cousin Gordo and I might encounter in our survey,’ Youngbuck said, ‘you will need to give her back or otherwise address the misunderstanding.’

   ‘You are right as usual, Youngbuck,’ Bovo said. ‘This is indeed another Plan of yours which I don’t much care for.’

*****

   It did not take Youngbuck and Gormadoc, setting out early, very long at all to reach the western edge of the Shire that morning traveling west over the Great Road. They brought Youngbuck’s pony Cinders with them carrying their supplies to make their walking lighter. Youngbuck was hopeful that there would be some kind of indicator of the border to be seen on the Road, whether set there by his father and his uncle or earlier in the Road’s long history. And he was correct in this guess, though they were lucky to have noticed it.

   As they followed the gentle slope of the Road into the wide misty vale the way leveled off and was surrounded by vast meadows of wildflowers on either side. The Road itself was no wider here than anywhere else but, quite by chance, Youngbuck noticed that it was flanked at this one spot by two tiny benches, long ago cracked and overgrown with ivies and mosses which sat on an unadorned and small stone bridge over a shallow river. The benches were Manish in their height, but very simple and also unadorned in any way. They were perhaps a mile or two west from where Gormadoc had begun to dig his home.

   ‘Yes, this looks about right,’ Youngbuck said, walking over to give one of the benches a closer look. For no particular reason he chose the one on the northern side of the Road, its seat had been cracked and ivy now climbed all across its surface. Youngbuck was no hunter or tracker like his friend Bovo, but if anyone had sat here on this bench within the past two hundred years he would be quite surprised to hear of it.

   ‘What is it that you see here, cousin?’ Gormadoc asked, for he could not fathom what had drawn Youngbuck’s attention.

   ‘Well, to be honest, Gordo, I don’t really know,’ Youngbuck replied. ‘I’ve walked parts of this old Road through the Shire many times, encountering a few small bridges such as this, but I have never seen it change in the Road’s width or adornment to suggest a stopping point; not a watering trough nor any evidence of a signpost. In fact one of the earliest arguments between my mother and my uncle Twoody that I remember overhearing had to do with whether signposts should be added to the Great Road,’ and he smiled gently at this memory as if he understood and appreciated the depth of the argument much better now.

   ‘You and I met at Waymeet, cousin,’ Youngbuck went on to say, ‘but that townname, such as it is, is just a convenient word for a very old custom when two travelers meet on a road; “Ricfried traveling East and Gerold traveling West” in a tale my mother used to tell. A waymeet has a much older tradition than your Young Took gives it.

   ‘You’ll notice that these stones are made of the same material as the Road itself, built in the long ages past, and it has likely been long, long years since any travellers have met here. This little stream seems to have greater significance. I believe this is likely the waymeet between the Elves and the Sea-kings and the border which they may have accepted between their lands. Perhaps. But I don’t have any way to know this to a certainty.

   ‘No, cousin,’ Youngbuck said. ‘I wish it were better marked, like our own Farthing-stone is perhaps, but I think we must accept and respect this spot as the very westernmost border of the Shire and, if you will have it, the very edge of your home.

   ‘Let us take an early lunch here at the bridge,’ he continued, ‘and then turn our attention northwards leaving our western neighbours in peace. We can use the stream as a guide.’

   And so they did, with Youngbuck taking great pains to accurately draw the two benches and their relative position to the Road so that he may indicate them in the Gormadoc’s claim.

   But if vague chance and the recent memory of one of his mother’s old lessons had allowed him to recognize the importance of this site, Youngbuck’s desire to render it accurately rather than examine it further was less propitious. For if he had more closely examined the old stone benches, particularly that one on the southern face of the Road, perhaps running his hands through the clusters of ivies and nettled flowers which had grown there, he would have found a beryl stone, rather recently placed, and had the opportunity to wonder at what that may portend.

*****

   The digging and the building was going well and Bovo was rather glad to be removed from most of the labour. It was generally agreed upon that the surrounding lands needed more exploring and that Bovo was best suited to this task. So after Youngbuck and Gormadoc left Bovo took his bow and his quiver and went exploring. He was still curious about the five hills to the north where he had found Belle, but he had promised Youngbuck that he would leave more discoveries there for later days. He went east and south of the Road over the next few days, finding tracks of small game, little streams, small clusters of tall trees and wide fragrant meadows. Youngbuck had wanted to set an eastern border for all three of the Zaragamba properties along a common stream if one could be found. Bovo did not have the eye for plants and tillable earth that Youngbuck had acquired from his own parents but, in his love of solitude he had learned his woodcraft in lands like these and knew that they would be at no loss for food or fresh waters. But more importantly, he saw no sign of any neighbours who walked on two feet.

   Poppy and Marcoul fell into an easy camaraderie working together. Both were equally industrious once a task was determined and joked and laughed with one another once they set to it. They listened to Youngbuck’s advice regarding the paddock and set about the felling of a few small trees on the southern end of the hill which would afford them a better view of the Road. With some of that wood they built a corral near to where Gormadoc had set the door and under the shade of some taller trees. Using this lumber and the rounded lids and hoops of a good-sized barrel which the Zaragambas had brought from Waymeet, Poppy fashioned a very solid workbench and, on that, a good wheelbarrow by midafternoon of the day after Youngbuck and Gormadoc had left. With that, the hobbits truly had the base tools to start building in earnest.

   Despite Youngbuck’s other suggestion, they chose not to dig much further into the hill itself; for Marcoul felt certain that this was a task which his brother Gormadoc would like to undertake for himself. So they roughed it out just enough that they might take shelter there if rain did indeed come, and then turned their attention to the building of a proper outdoor stove. Stones were cleared from nearby- between the Road and the new door of the hill they would want clear ground- and these were used to build a fire pit. Poppy was able to assemble a clever wooden spit on a turning brace above the fire for now, but plans were laid into the design for an iron grate to make a proper stovetop. When Bovo showed them a nearby stream which he found just east of the hill Poppy and Marcoul made plans for setting a little lane from the door to that place over the most level path. So before the dawn of the third day, when Bovo was preparing to take Belle to the north hill to meet with Youngbuck, the two other hobbits had made a very fair start on their encampment.

   And they had done so while remaining completely undisturbed.

   As for Youngbuck and Gormadoc, their way along the western border was easier and less time consuming than they had expected. Youngbuck had found the old meeting place, the spot he designated as the very edge of the King’s Agreement, much sooner and more easily than he had expected. He strictly adhered to his vow to not go further west than this point, but that vow did not keep him from lingering for just a bit. The two hobbits spent a long lunch at that place as Youngbuck worked to get proper drawings to submit with Gormadoc’s deed. If Youngbuck did expect or in some far off way imagine to see Elves or Dwarves or some rumour of the West to come up the Road and meet them while he tarried there no one can say. But no one came and no one could be seen west along the Road as it disappeared into those grey-green mists below the Towers.

   So, with Cinders walking happily beside them, the two hobbits set out northward perhaps three hours after midday, keeping on the eastern side of the little stream they had discovered. They had not gone more than forty ranga that way when Youngbuck stopped them again, spying a large rock which he felt should be included in his map-making.

   ‘Tumbled on its side though it is,’ he explained to Gordo as he sketched away, ‘it still looks very much like the Farthing-stone planted at the center of the Shire. Quite distinctive, really. When we have the time and the help of more than one pony, we should come down here and move it to the Road at the very border of the Shire to serve as our border. Do you know about the Farthing-stone, cousin?’

   Gormadoc, who was so happy for all the honesty and assistance he had found from Youngbuck and the others, was very interested in any information about the Northerners and their settlement of the Shire; he did not know much about how the clans of hobbits, those in the Shire and those in the Tooklands, had become so sundered, but he had learned to trust this distant cousin of his and the stories he told.

   ‘No,’ he said, ‘I have not. Will you tell the story to me while you draw? I would enjoy hearing it.’

   ‘Well, cousin,’ Youngbuck said, comfortably leaning back into both the drawing and the story, ‘while I am still a young hobbit with no real tale of my own yet to share, you and I have many uncles of great repute. It is said that two of my mother’s brothers, Marcho and Blanco, were the first hobbits to explore the Shire. They crossed at the old Stonebows bridge. Do you know it?’

   ‘I do,’ Gormadoc answered eagerly. ‘For I was among the first party to come that way eight years ago with the Young Took.’

   ‘Ah,’ Youngbuck replied. ‘Then you know it better than I, for I only traveled over it twice, and as a very young hobbit at that. We’ve brought much activity to that edge of the Shire and to cross the Stonebows now, or so I am told, is a chance to see more hobbits living all in one place than has been seen anywhere else in the world.’

   ‘It felt that way to me, cousin Youngbuck,’ Gormadoc replied. ‘The warrens of the Lausa in the Weather hills each held very large family units, but we remained underground for our safety’s sake. When we crossed that great Bridge and saw hobbits, our own folk and distant relatives, roaming openly about the roads and hillsides, when we heard that they had built inns and bathhouses, public meeting places, broad farms and small villages with little shops, we were amazed at the idea of such a thing.’

   ‘Were you in any way jealous, cousin?’ Youngbuck asked mildly.

   ‘Some of us were, perhaps,’ Gormadoc said, thinking hard on the depth of the question. ‘Yes, some certainly were, I should say. And some were, I think, prepared with that kind of response by what the Old Took had told us; “there is a land there which has been freely given to all hobbits,” he had said, “and all hobbits, having no safe lands of their own, should take it. But there are some hobbits, many of them less hardy and deserving than yourselves, who may try to hinder you.” I think many of the Lausa were told to be suspicious of our neighbours and, or so it seems to me, suspicion and jealousy make for bad beginnings.’

   ‘I could not agree more, cousin,’ Youngbuck replied. ‘Marcho and Blanco, as I was saying, crossed the Stonebows on their own over thirty-five years ago when there was no Shire here, no farms nor public houses, but only a vacated and lonely land. They were following the Dwarf-road, as our grandfathers once called it, towards the west and upon seeing the Stonebows bridge thought that they must have certainly, in only two day’s brisk walk from the Bree-land, discovered a great Dwarven kingdom. My mother used to say that her brothers “went hoping to discover the richness of the dwarves but were hopelessly disappointed to find only their own future.”’

   ‘For there were no dwarves of course, and the land was completely empty then,’ Youngbuck continued. ‘And my uncles, or so I have been told, were ill-equipped to deal with such emptiness. They traveled twenty leagues, more or less, along the Road before their intrepidness was quite exhausted and they decided to turn back. There is a small rise in the Road where they halted and, on a clear morning one can see the white caps of those western mountains there peeking above the grey mist of this valley. Sitting here now with you, another twenty leagues and more than they ever dared to come, I wondered if they were simply overwhelmed by the sheer size of this land. I must indeed take after my father, for such a challenge within me it only makes me wish to go further.’

   ‘Not I, cousin Youngbuck,’ Gormadoc said. ‘I shall be quite contented to live whatever life I am given in a home under some good hill with all of my family about me and never stand at the foot of a mountain or go climbing the long stairs in some elfish tower.’

   ‘And I am pleased to help you accomplish that, cousin,’ Youngbuck said.

   ‘So, a little over thirty-five years ago, not far from the Road, our uncles Marcho and Blanco found a large standing stone, not much larger than that one there,’ he said pointing again with the charcoal stick which he was using to draw, ‘and moved it as close to the Road as they could. “The Far Stone” they called it; the farthest spot they or any other hobbit had ever visited in this land.

   ‘By the time my father and my uncle Twoody came to map the land that was given to us by the King’s Agreement, that old marker had become the centerpoint of the Shire. Uncle Twoody and my father used it to divide the open lands into four districts, or “farthings” as they chose to call it, jutting out from that stone. So now we call it not “the Far Stone” any longer but “the Farthing-stone”. I find it particularly interesting that the stone over there, laying just across this little stream and at the edge of the Shire, resembles the Farthing-stone in such a way. If we could move it to the side of the Road, as my uncles did with their own Far Stone, we might set a clear marker between our lands and the Elvish folk beyond. The “Farthest Stone” we might call it?

   ‘But that is a task for another day,’ Youngbuck said, folding up his drawing and taking up his walking stick once again. ‘It is of fair size and very similar shape so that, if placed at the side of the Road and on the corner of your land all our folk would know to go no further. What the folk in the West might think of such a marker I cannot guess.’

   ‘If you’ve no guess then certainly I’ll not venture one,’ Gormadoc said, looking carefully at the stone. There was a long moment of silence between them after he said: ‘but I see no harm in moving it.’

   Over the remaining days, while Bovo was exploring the east and the south, and Poppy and Marcoul were busily preparing the base camp, Gormadoc and Youngbuck made their way carefully north along the Shire’s western border. By mid afternoon of the second day, which was the Third of After-Lithe, they had found a high stance of old fir trees which Youngbuck thought made an excellent northwest border for the proposed property. The wood there was old and dense and came rising out of the valley’s mist toward the northeast. While it might provide a useful resource in hunting, it would not be easily cleared for farmland. Youngbuck made a few drawings and indications on the map he had been forming, but now he felt it was time to turn east to the five hills which Bovo had described.

   ‘Do you think there are folk, Big Folk or even Elvish Folk, living there?’ Gormadoc asked, pointing north. ‘For the finding of this milkcow seems most...’

   ‘Unexpected? Uncommon? Portentous?’ Youngbuck replied, laughing just a bit. ‘Oh, all of those, I should think, but all of those words do seem to describe most of what has happened in our little adventure over the past five days, and I am therefore learning to adjust my behavior to all things unexpected, uncommon and portentous. I am sorry if I sound glib, cousin, for I do not have a better answer. Bovo tells me, well, he’s become uncommonly tight-lipped and tells me very little on this subject for some reason, but he tells me that he dreamed of some future with this milkcow on the night when we all came under master Undundol’s protection.’

   ‘Well, if I may, I would say that occasion changed many of our minds about going west,’ Gormadoc replied carefully. ‘But, if you don’t mind my saying so, cousin Youngbuck, I have noticed that you have also been “tight-lipped on the subject”. May I ask, if it is not too unwelcome, what happened to us? And, indeed, who was master Undundol?’

   Youngbuck stopped his going forward for a moment then, not out of surprise, but out of some desire to collect his thoughts before speaking them. He looked down for a moment at the black wood of his own recently carved walkingstick, then away to the skies and far-off lands to the north, then to the east and then to the south; but unlike the time they spent the other day at the roadside meeting place, he did not look west. Stopping beside the two hobbits, Cinders, Youngbuck’s pony, pricked up her ears as if to listen in.

   ‘No, cousin,’ he said calmly. ‘Those questions are neither unfair nor unwelcome, although I may not have answers which you might find to be satisfying. But I’ll take the second one first; master Undundol, I believe, was a very special kind of messenger at a time when we needed him. And, as to the first question about what happened to us, well, cousin, we chose to receive that messenger. That is not a very good explanation, I know, but I don’t have one which is more detailed nor more sure than that.’

   And so the two stood together for a moment. Youngbuck knew that what he was saying was more vague than would satisfy the curiosity of most hobbits. His kindness caused him to await any further questions but, beyond that, he hoped that this distant cousin of his would understand the openness of the idea he presented.

   Whether or not Gormadoc fully understood Youngbuck’s analysis was much less important than what he himself made of it. There were a few long moments shared between the hobbits then. Gormadoc, doffing his cap and scratching at his wooly head, looked away south and east, presumably to the hill they had chosen to be his new home. Youngbuck, waiting patiently and unwilling to prompt his cousin’s eventual answer, looked away south toward something far away.

   ‘Aye,’ Gormadoc said, ‘for a message, or so it seems to me, often comes without caring about the information it brings. We take it or we don’t, believe it or not, but it says what it says, and, like it or not, affects our purpose.

   ‘Very well,’ Gormadoc said resolutely. ‘Let us go and see this land which I believe will be the home of my family for many generations to come.’

*****

   The land which Youngbuck and Gormadoc examined moving north sloped generally upward out the misty vale of the west. This was very encouraging, for it had attractive little hills and at least two good sized creeks cutting through it that looked promising for fishing. The water of these little streams was clear and fresh and there were little lanes of trees running alongside them at times. They followed the course of one of these lanes upstream for a while; Youngbuck thought that its meandering turns made it yet another useful border to the northern edge of Gormadoc’s claim. The trees near the stream were not thick and, while the two hobbits were now traveling in a way that made them wary of sudden encounters, they clung to cover as they could. As they walked, Youngbuck spoke quietly about the land.

   ‘My father and my uncle Twoody never really wrote down much of their experiences with the High-king up in Norbury,’ he began. ‘My father had little time for such writing it seems, and uncle Twoody thought it was crass and boastful to share such memories with other hobbits. But they were there in the king’s own court, in the high places of his great castle, for many months during which they heard much of this land’s history; most of which never interested many Shirefolk other than my mother, myself and a few of my siblings. My mother used to tell tales to we younger hobbits, cautionary tales to be certain, about the people who once lived here.

   ‘Many, many centuries ago, or so it is told,’ he continued as they walked quietly in the shade following the little stream, ‘this was the great farmland of the Tall-men who came from the Sea; part of the old kingdom that they called Arnor. And a very vast kingdom it was, stretching from here far away into the east to be bordered by the Misty mountains, north to the ice plains, for which we hobbits have no name nor report, and then south to the river Greyflood where many other of our far-distant relations once dwelt. The Sea-kings of those days were friends with all of the Elven-folk of Middle-earth and had learned many skills through that friendship. Here in the safety of this land they built great orchards and gardens, stone-houses and stone-roads, which have now been lost to time.

   ‘For sixteen hundred years ago, as the stories go, The Sea-kings and the Elven-folk went to war in the south and many of them never came back.’

   If Youngbuck knew or had more to say about this it was not forthcoming; the two walked for awhile before speaking again.

   ‘We Lausa have seen much of the wars of Men in the Weather hills,’ Gormadoc replied, ‘and they seem to go stretching back into a history which none of us can recount. Elves we do not know nor have we seen, but Men have proudly trampled continuously over our homes and our safety throughout many generations in pursuit of war.’

   ‘I have met and seen only a few of the Big Folk,’ Youngbuck said. ‘For in my youth I traveled once with my mother and my uncle Twoody to his father’s funeral in the Bree-land. I remember thinking that they seemed rather, well, clumsy and not altogether warlike or unkind. But our recent escorts have shown me otherwise; for they seemed very dangerous indeed.’

   ‘Oh, yes,’ Gormadoc said. ‘We Lausa have avoided contact with Men for as long as anyone remembers and we were surprised that the Old Took had found a dozen or so to do his bidding.’

   There was a pause as the two hobbits and their pony kept walking in the dappled sunlight under the trees listening to the soft sound of the little creek running beside them. ‘A dozen or so?’ Youngbuck asked.

   ‘Perhaps we should have been more distrustful than surprised,’ Gormadoc finally said.

   ‘I think that if you were to ask most of the Shire-hobbits of my parent’s generation how they feel about the Old Took,’ Youngbuck replied kindly, ‘they might now say the same thing.’

   And so they carried on walking together for a time in silence. Youngbuck would occasionally bend down lower to the ground to take special notice of some plant or insect and, each time the lane of trees would bend, he would halt a moment to go to the edge of their shadows and examine the surrounding scenery. There they saw great open meadows. While the land had been steadily rising they were now approaching the chain of hills which Bovo had described and these lower lands were, in high summer awash with colour, the late afternoon light casting shadows in the deeper mass of shrubs and tall grasses. Youngbuck did not even try to draw it, for his hand with charcoal was a poor tool for capturing such beauty of light and colour. He wished that he had learned more about plants from his mother or from his sister Ganda who had a genuine talent for gardening. Lacking the means to draw them, he recorded descriptions and some of the names which he did know as part of the document of Gormadoc’s Claim:

   “The hills are still low here and there is a gentle flood plane which feeds these meadows and eventually runs into the old creeks and rills and, I suspect, down into underground streams. These lands are filled with many delightful and fragrant flowers which, at the end of the day, blaze with a brilliant yellow gold from buttercups and cowslips and another plant which looks much like knapweed. But that illusion of golden fields is a simplification seen from afar. For to any who enter into the land the truth of its colour and abundance comes immediately alive. All around there are ox-eye daisies adding a splash of white, tall burnet with their blood-red heads, meadow thistle and meadow saffron with pink and purple flowers which grow lower to the ground. There are sages and rosemarys, purple-headed thyme and ragged robin which lend their peaceful odours to the countryside and invite the buzzing of bees, small birds and game. There are tall ryegrasses and cocksfoot and red fescue for animal grazing; much if not all of these things must have been planted here long centuries ago before the King’s Agreement yet still thrive as Men have left the land untended. Untended, yes, but ideal for development.”

   And so in the late afternoon, looking up to the tall hill where they were to meet Bovo the following morning, Youngbuck and Gormadoc decided that here, close to the stream, they should take their rest for the night. Having seen no sign nor heard any indication of nearby neighbours they decided to stay within the tree line and look out at the gorgeous meadow while the Sun was lowering in the west. Youngbuck had been writing in his journal while Gormadoc took Cinders to water and prepared a simple meal of the supplies they had left.

   Afterward, as the Sun found the tips of the distant Elf-towers and set the slopes of the meadow into its last glorious light, Gormadoc found his voice again to ask his cousin a hesitant question:

   ‘You have stopped your stories of the Sea-kings, cousin,’ he said, ‘and perhaps it is because you don’t know more about those folk than what you have already told me. And you have told me, or so I think, as much as you know about their going off to war so many, many generations ago. Or at least that is how I understand it.’

   But Gormadoc stopped there and just seemed to look out to the beauty of the meadow in the glow of last light.

   ‘Yes,’ Youngbuck replied. ‘Cousin, you have a question in your voice, but I cannot know it before you ask.’

   ‘Why?’ Gormadoc replied. ‘“Why” is my question. Why would the people who farmed and tamed this land leave it and why, so many generations later, why would a king of great wealth and power give such a land to hobbits who have nothing?’

   ‘Uhmn,’ Youngbuck heard himself saying. ‘Why, indeed, cousin?’ Youngbuck said nothing for a few moments and, if Bovo or Gilley had been present, they might have caught their friend’s hesitancy as not only the careful choosing of his words but, as his parents had taught, also a desire to be forthright among friends. He smiled then and, scratching his head as he had seen Gormadoc do many times over the past few days, he offered an answer.

   ‘Well,’ Youngbuck said, ‘if I may again answer the second question first; I have always been told that the King in Norbury offered the Shire to hobbits because he believed we would be good custodians of the land and return it to its former use as a great farmland just as it had been of old. I am also told, and this is mostly by my uncle Twoody who, it must be said knows best, that the High-king felt we hobbit-folk had some greater part to play within his realm. Now I do not understand that nor, as I am told, did my father nor my uncle. But I am told, by that honest hobbit who met him, that we were given this land because the king believed we might make something wonderful and whole of it again.’

   Gormadoc didn’t respond right away, hoping more answers would come forth. When they did not, he realized the Youngbuck was waiting for a response. It took some time for Gordo to wrap his head around this notion of some High-king in a castle doing such a service to hobbits. But if Youngbuck said it he imagined it must be true.

   Comfortable in one another’s company they sat, the Sun slowly sliding down and the day darkening, before Gormadoc replied. ‘Imagine that,’ he said, ‘hobbits to be so honored by kings. Imagine that.

   ‘But, as to my first question;’ Gormadoc continued, ‘why did they leave this beautiful place empty for so long?’

   ‘That answer is both sadder and easier to understand,’ Youngbuck said. ‘The Sea-kings and their folk died to defend these lands against a Great Enemy, cousin. And when those wars were done and their borders secured there was no one left to do the farming.’

*****

   They did set watches for the night, for they were near to the place that Bovo had described and wondered still how a moo-cow had been found there with no other farms anywhere to be seen. Berty offered to take the first (and a longer) watch so that he might complete his writings for Gormadoc’s claim. He had never attempted anything like this before, though his time clerking for his uncle Twoody made him quite well-versed on what a proper deed request should provide. As he sat writing beside the light of their small fire Berty heard (or somehow felt) a hush in the meadow and in the trees beside their campsite. He saw Cinders the pony prick up her ears and look to the eastern sky. Doing the same Berty saw the stars awakening and his gaze was drawn to one in particular; brighter and lower than the other, like a herald or guide to all the rest. It had a warm glow of red-orange that seemed both comforting and wholly unfamiliar. Surely he had seen this same evening star many times at night in his young lifetime, but never could he remember feeling so captivated by its beauty.

   The world around him also seemed to watch the star. For long minutes Berty could hear only the occasional crackling from the fire, the rippling running of the stream nearby and the gentle snoring of his cousin Gordo. Eventually he drew his eyes from the stars and went back to work.

   If sharp-eared Cinders the pony heard anything more no one but her could say.

*****

   Youngbuck and Gormadoc rose early, just before dawn on the Fourth day of After-lithe, for the last leg of their journey. They followed the stream a bit further north hoping to come up the hillside on its western slope. They saw a fox and a few small deer out for morning meals but there was still no indication of any other two-legged neighbours. As they prepared to leave the stream and go uphill, Youngbuck’s careful eyes caught another detail. ‘Wait, cousin,’ he said in a soft voice. ‘Stay here a moment with Cinders. I’ll be right back.’ With that, and no other explanation, he went quickly and silently through the trees along the stream as it turned to the west.

   After a few moments (which felt incredibly long to Gormadoc), Youngbuck called out:

   ‘It's quite safe, cousin,’ he said. ‘Follow the sound of my voice along the stream’s edge.’

   Gormadoc did as he was asked, picking a delicate way through the trees for the pony and himself until he saw Youngbuck standing on a high rock by the water’s edge. Coming into the little clearing by the stream, Gormadoc saw what had caught Youngbuck’s eye; the remnants of an old stone bridge. It was much higher than the stream, as if it had been built in its time to span a much wider river. Some part of its road, now covered in ivies and wild grasses, crossed the stream before falling away. There the stonework on the other bank had long ago tumbled down and was covered with mosses of varying colours, but from those stones they saw that this bridge had once run directly east and west.

   ‘Another important marker, I should say,’ Youngbuck told Gormadoc as he reached into the pony’s saddlebags. ‘I’ll spare a few moments to sketch it before we go to meet Bovo. But be encouraged, cousin. The fallen rocks here have made a good little ford to the stream, but I can find no sign of anything on two feet who have made a crossing. It is an ancient land, just as we’ve been told, but vacant too, I would say. You have no neighbours here to the north from what I can see.’

   ‘Then where do you think master Bovo’s cow came from, cousin?’ Gormadoc asked.

   ‘I am afraid that this is a question for which I have no answer,’ Youngbuck said as he sat himself down upon a rock to eagerly begin sketching. ‘Though I suspect that Bovo will be happy to hear of it.’

*****

   Bovo, anxious though not exactly eager for the news of Youngbuck’s exploration, had awakened well before dawn on that same morning. He had a quick bit of breakfast for himself and packed a few more provisions for later. Then, taking Belle from the new paddock they had built at Gormadoc’s burrow he began going easily to the north to meet his friends on the further hill. He had put a small lead of rope around Belle’s neck but, just as before, he had no need to drive her anywhere; he would give only a simple and gentle pull of the lead and she would fall in step behind him with her little silver bells cling-clanging.

   Moving over the most direct and easy paths he could find for Belle’s sake, Bovo came to the hilltop about two hours past the dawn. It was already a bright morning in the east and the sky north of them was filled with big clouds of pinks and blue-greys. Rain would hold off for a day or so, Bovo thought, but not much longer. Looking to the west Bovo could see the tops of the towers lit up like milky-white torches rising out of the mists below. Beyond them a jagged horizon of snow-white and deep lavender; the mountains at the edge of the world just catching the first light of the new day.

   Bovo had thought to explore a bit, hoping that it might awaken more of the wonderful future-memories he had of the hill. Future-memories? Such an outlandish thing to say and he found he hadn’t been able to explain it, not even to Youngbuck. But Bovo knew they were true and, more importantly, he knew that Gilley did too. He wondered what she would say when she returned and saw Belle. He was convinced that he knew what their future was because he could remember it so vividly. But of what would come next he could offer no guess. He took the lead from around Belle’s neck to let her roam and she nuzzled at his head and then licked his face appreciatively. Bovo looked into her deep brown eyes and changed his plan of exploring further.

   ‘You’re right of course, Belle,’ he said. ‘The future will come whether I go looking for it or not.’ And so, taking one of the last summer apples from his pack, he sat down and looked out into the west to await Gormadoc and Youngbuck.

   They were not long in coming. From his vantage point atop the hill Bovo saw the two hobbits and their pony leave a little lane of trees along the hill’s northern foot and begin a leisurely climb. Glad to see that they still traveled alone he waved to them but did not call out. As the morning was quite bright he used his time waiting to look further into the direction from which they came. Bright as the morning was he saw nothing other than more hills of fir and ash trees and what looked to be a wide forest. Beautiful country from what he could see of it, but wild and open.³

   ‘Hallo, Bovo,’ Youngbuck said as they crested the hill, ‘a lovely lookout spot you have here. But, more importantly, tell me you have brought us more of those apples.’

   ‘I have, of course, Youngbuck,’ Bovo replied, ‘but if you had been any later in coming you would have found the supplies much lessened. Hallo, Gormadoc,’ he continued, pulling two bright red apples from his sack and presenting them to his friends. ‘How did your sightseeing expedition go?’

   ‘Quite well, I think, master Bovo,’ Gormadoc said appreciatively, ‘but cousin Youngbuck can say better than I. The land itself is wide and beautiful and generous. I can hardly believe my good fortune!’

   ‘And you found no sign of neighbours?’ Bovo asked, keeping his voice rather flat, trying to sound disinterested. ‘No insulted cattle herders or cheese farmers who find themselves short of a cow?’

   ‘None,’ Youngbuck replied with a smile, ‘but you can hardly fault me for being too cautious, Bovo, for I have no idea how your friend Belle came to be here. I know very little about moo-cows of course, but she is a beautiful creature and, with those bells around her neck and all, she certainly shows the signs of being well-tended. She’s no wild thing, Bovo, and certainly came here from somewhere. I cannot guess as to the reason.’

   Bovo Bunce had never been the kind of a hobbit that one might say was reflective or deliberate. He had a droll way of speaking whatever came to his mind and often did so without care as to who it might hurt; for Bovo was sharp-witted in speech and blunt in humour. Berty, who felt (somewhat unfairly) that he had been groomed for public speaking all of his life, found Bovo’s directness to be one of his most appealing qualities. So he was surprised to see his friend look out to the surrounding landscape without any jape or immediate response; clearly careful in the choosing of his next words. And the moment seemed to stretch on in a way that began to make Berty worry about the sudden change in his friend.

   ‘If she came from somewhere I am sure that I cannot say where, Youngbuck,’ Bovo said finally. ‘Everyone, even cows I suppose, do come from somewhere. We came from Buckland and Gormadoc there from the Tookland, but I daresay that each of us here, having come into the West, feel very different about ourselves since we arrived here and much less defined by our origins, making it the worry of how we got here seem less to the point. I know that’s no answer and I freely admit that I can’t make better sense for a response than that. But certainly I can say that Belle was here for a reason; and that reason is that I was meant to find her. Six nights ago I dreamed of her and this hill and the home and family which Gilley and I would, will, come to have here. It is like a memory of my future for which Belle seems the proof. And that is why she is here.’

   ‘Six nights ago?’ Gormadoc asked. ‘When we fell under the spell of-’

   ‘Yes,’ Youngbuck interrupted. ‘Six nights past is when we sat with master Undundol south of the Chalk hills and drank his libation.’

   ‘That was the night, yes,’ Bovo said.

   ‘There was some enchantment in or about that hobbit, if hobbit he truly was,’ Gormadoc said.

   ‘I have no doubt that he was indeed a hobbit, cousin,’ Youngbuck said, raising a calming hand, ‘but I also have little doubt that he had other- oh, shall we say qualities? -as well.’

   ‘Here it is,’ Berty thought to himself, ‘the conversation which I knew would come but which we all have managed to avoid. The shock of that night has passed; the beauty and, yes, the enchantment of this place has caught all of us up in a way so that the incredibleness of things which happened here have not felt so uncommon. But now, with that shock gone we, like all good and practical hobbits should do, we will now spend our time trying to put sense to it all. And my friends will look to me to explain it. I cannot blame them for this, for I’ve taken it upon myself to lead them. Or maybe that was also just the further workings of master Undundol’s enchantment? Whatever the cause, they deserve what answers I might give.

   ‘But,’ Berty continued thinking to himself, ‘if they are going to ask me things now because they feel like they are waking from a dream which they would like to hear explained, well, then I do not think I can answer clearly or in a satisfactory way. How does one reason away enchantment? None of them sat and spoke to master Undundol as I did; no one entered into the Bargain but I. So I know him better than they do, and I suspect that I know him better than he thinks I do. But I do not have reasons to support anything which I believe to know; I believe it beyond the support of reason.

   ‘They will ask me about magic,’ Berty knew, ‘because, for them, they are losing their ability to live in enchantment while their good hobbit-sense, preparing them for new responsibilities, goads them to seek reason. But if they are to live this close to the West, well, I must try to get them to rely upon reason less and trust in their belief more.’

   They waited for Younbuck’s response. It might have been a silent few moments except for the fact that Bovo, used to his friend’s lengthy pauses, decided to pull a third apple from his bag and take another loud bite.

   ‘Gilley and you?’ Youngbuck asked his friend, smiling.

   ‘That’s what we saw. Yes,’ Bovo said, and his face became more red and more joyful looking than Youngbuck could ever remember seeing it.

   ‘Both of you saw this?’

   ‘Yes.’

   ‘And you both saw Belle too? And you’ve spoken together about this?’

   ‘Yes and no and, I believe, yes; we did not speak in detail so much as understand what each of us has seen,’ Bovo said smiling.

   ‘Oh, I am so happy for you both,’ Youngbuck said, the joy of his friend’s feelings spreading to his own face, ‘and I eagerly await the day when Gilley sees Belle, herald of your future, just as you have and knows to trust her way forward. Who might ever have believed that all of our former Plans should lead to this?’

   This last blessing proved a bit much for the usually droll and placid Bovo. He stood, ignoring the tears coming to his eyes, and said, ‘thank you, Youngbuck. I didn’t know how to speak of it, but knew that you would understand.’ And with that he walked off toward Belle, rubbing behind her ears and offering her the rest of his apple.

   ‘So are you saying,’ Gormadoc then began asking, ‘that the things we dreamed or saw or remembered from that night with master Undundol are true visions of the future, cousin? Were they magic or prophecy or portents? Can they not be avoided or altered or proved wrong?’

   ‘I am not saying what I cannot know, cousin,’ Youngbuck answered. ‘Of magic and prophecy I know nothing and have no advice to give. But I know my friends Bovo and Gilley very well and I trust that something happened for them both that night which has set their feet upon a path. Having no other idea where this cow may have come from, I’m inclined to believe as Bovo does; that this hilltop and the finding of this cow are part of that path.’

   Gormadoc had been listening closely to Youngbuck's explanation but during the whole time his eyes were watching Bovo and the cow, registering the calm they both had in one another’s company. He watched Belle eat and enjoy the apple out of her master’s hand, her tail swishing happily for the treat. He watched as, finishing, she nuzzled the hobbit’s wooly hair appreciatively while he stroked her ears, the little bells around her neck went tinkling on softly.

   ‘Cousin,’ Youngbuck asked, breaking the silence, ‘tell me; did you also have some vision that night? Is that what troubles you now?’

   Gormadoc did not take long in responding, though his voice was strange. Youngbuck could not tell if this is because Gordo was having trouble remembering his vision or was in some way unwilling to share it all. But there were tears in his eyes when he finally spoke.

   ‘I did, cousin,’ he said. ‘And in that vision my sons and my daughters and my grandchildren for many many generations did, or will, live happily on this land that you have led us to. Indeed, some of those grandchildren, some number of hundred years from now will even become respected amongst all of the Shire-hobbits and build one of the Shire’s finest holes in all of the West-farthing. They will accomplish great things for many, many generations in my future, this I saw and, I suppose, having seen Bovo and his dream of this moo-cow, this much I believe. Or I wish to believe. And they will, all of these children and grandchildren and great great grandchildren, be happy and enjoy great comfort here in the Shire. And I remember knowing that some of those, the most famous amongst them, will suffer greater adversity and trial than any hobbit has ever known. It will be many hundreds of years from now but I seem to know it somehow as memory; as Bovo said- some future memory tells me so. And yet, even if their trials go unrecognized among our own people, they will be honoured by many, many other folk in the wider world who have previously deemed hobbits to be foolish and childlike.

   ‘Can you imagine that, cousin?’ Gormadoc asked. ‘That the Lausa, we who have spent so much time hiding from the world outside, that we might do something so honourable that it might place us in the venerable legends of the world? What father or grandfather or great great great great grandfather might ever ask for more?’

   And if Gormadoc had more that he could say of these “future-memories” he did not share it with his cousin. Perhaps the joy he found in the presages of his family's future outstripped the darker memory of how he had come to see it. Perhaps he thought he might still alter the course of his own future while maintaining the vision he had of his family.

   We cannot know. And by not telling Youngbuck all of his dream, as Bovo had, he did not have the wisdom of friends to guide him.

end of part two

Chapter End Notes

Notes (10/12/2025)

1) Some of the language in this paragraph and the next is a direct imitation of when Frodo, Sam and Gollum enter into Ithilien in the chapter “Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit”. I love Tolkien’s descriptive voice in that chapter and there is one passage in particular which I needed to imitate here; “Beyond it were slopes covered with sombre trees like dark clouds, but all about them lay a tumbled heathland, grown with ling and broom and cornel, and other shrubs that they did not know. Here and there they saw knots of tall pine-trees. The hearts of the hobbits rose again a little in spite of weariness: the air was fresh and fragrant , and it reminded them of the Northfarthing far away.” Copying that seems a way of planting the memory of that reading into the imagination of my readers.

2)  Okay, math time again. Tolkien used the old medieval farming practice for his measurements and the “long furrow”, which became the English “furlong” is slightly different from our modern measurement of an acre. That bit about rods and feet is accurate, but the furlong math here, which comes directly from the Professor’s letters, makes a Shire acre equal to about 1.2 acres now. So Gormadoc’s allotment would be, in our current understanding, roughly 100 acres of farmland. That is a sizable future for himself and his family. But it also brings up the point of the size of hobbit feet; for nowhere in Tolkien’s direct writing does it state that the feet of hobbits are disproportionate to their height. For a creature that seldom exceeded thirty-six to forty-eight inches in height a twelve inch foot would be surprising. So therefore, their measurement of length in feet is based upon the feet of Men.

3)  For anyone curious about using those maps I’ve included, this forested area is where the villages of Tighfield and Gamwich will one day be. Sam Gamgee’s folk hail from there, but that is some 1400 years in the future and no hobbits, other than Bovo here, have ever thought to go so far yonder.

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