IN THE SHIRE-RECKONING by Diane Finnis-Robb  

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Part Two; Chapter Nine "The Bargain"

   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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