IN THE SHIRE-RECKONING by Diane Finnis-Robb  

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Part One; Chapter Two "The Agreement"

   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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