IN THE SHIRE-RECKONING by Diane Finnis-Robb  

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Author's Note, Table of Contents and Foreward

-Pagination in the table of contents is not consistent with online reading but is intended to give readers a sense of the length of each section

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

  1.  
  2.  

  3. 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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