IN THE SHIRE-RECKONING by Diane Finnis-Robb  

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Part Two; Chapter Ten "What Comes Next"

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   Hildegund Bramblethorn felt the warmth of the dawn Sun on her face as she lay peacefully on the edge of dreaming. In that dream she lay in a very cosy four poster featherbed in her own house under the hill and the sunlight came streaming through the glass of the bedroom’s round windows. Her youngest child, Bartingel, lay next to her cooing gently and, from outdoors she could hear the farm awakening with her; pigs and chicks and even Belle the moocow were calling for attention. She could hear the stirrings of her other children in the outer rooms and knew that another day of work would soon begin. But as she moved her left hand toward the other side of the bed she discovered that her husband was already up and awake and seeing to the farm’s morning business. She smiled gently in her dream and, pulling little Barty closer, looked forward to another few precious minutes of sleep which the dream might bring her as the day came on.

   When Gilley woke enough to realise that she was in fact laying on the grass in the Chalk hills rather than in the featherbed of a room and a hole she had never before seen, the peace of the dream did not leave her. There was no baby hobbit in her arms beside her, but as her eyes opened to take in the world around her she saw Bovo’s sleeping face beside her own. Her left hand held his right one very tenderly and all of the peace of her dream seemed to make sense in a way that dreams seldom do.

   Gilley looked for long minutes at Bovo’s sleeping face until the more practical side of her nature finally caught up with her. ‘Hold on a moment,’ she thought to herself, ‘how is it dawn and what has happened to our yesterday?’

   Her eyes reluctantly left Bovo’s sleeping face and began to flit about and see what was happening. Turning her head slightly she could see that Poppy was awake and beginning to kindle a small cookfire. The three Zaragamba brothers were also stirring, but Youngbuck was nowhere in sight. She looked at Bovo again and then, for the first time, reached over and ran her right hand gently through his curly hair. ‘Mmmmnn,’ he said softly in his slumber. Gilley then slowly took her hand from his and, turning away, stood up to start her day.

   Gilley was not a writer and we have very little of her personal reflections found in documents to inform our story. But it is said that she remembered and told the tale of that awakening to her children and, for the rest of her life, they could see her happiness in the telling.

   ‘Hullo, Poppy,’ Gilley said as she rose to meet her friend. ‘And how are you on this new and quite peculiar morning?’

 

*****

   Poppy had not been awakened by the Sun as many of his friends were, but by the call of morning robins. He knew very little about birds and their songs, less than Youngbuck did, but his Gaffer had always said that a good working day begins with the robin’s song and may not end until well after the nightingale calls. He had looked about him in the pre-dawn light and saw that the stranger, master Undundon, was nowhere to be seen. Poppy felt assured by this; as if he knew that this would be the case even though no one had ever spoken of it. The obviousness of it calmed him somehow, as if all of the dangers of the past day were eliminated in the wake of the stranger’s passing. He looked about to see his friends all still at peace and Youngbuck, the only other one awake, off with his new pony. Poppy began, with his usual courteousness, to gather more wood and build a small fire. The Zaragambas began to stir as he did so, but it was Gilley who rose and came to him first.

   ‘Hullo, Poppy,’ she said with a smile. ‘And how are you on this new and quite peculiar morning?’

   ‘I feel quite well, thank you,’ Poppy replied. ‘As if I’ve awakened from a very fine sleep after the best meal I have ever eaten. But it is peculiar, just as you say, Gilley, for I can neither describe the meal nor how I got to sleep in the first place. Is that not queer? For the last clear memories I have are from mid-afternoon and here it has come to be morning without my being ready for it.’

   ‘Yes, yes,’ she responded excitedly, ‘I feel just the same.’ Gilley looked behind her at Bovo for a moment and, hearing the evenness of his breathing, turned back to talk with her friend. ‘There are things which I know happened without knowing how or when. And there are other things, things that seem both odd and comfortable at the same time, that may have happened or may have been a dream. Oh, you are very right to say it is like a banquet which we cannot remember, Poppy. For I am certain of the tastes of things with no memory of having them laid before me. All seems well, but I cannot account for this feeling of wellness.

   ‘Where is Youngbuck?’ Gilley asked.

   ‘He has been sitting on the hilltop since I awoke,’ Poppy said pointing, ‘and he has taken Cinders the pony up there with him. I thought it best to leave him be for a time.’

   ‘Yes,’ Gilley said, looking at Youngbuck sitting on his hill and peering off into the distance, the morning Sun bright on his face. ‘Yes, that does seem right.

   ‘Very well then,’ she said, with the old air of authority coming back into her voice, ‘let him have the time which he needs wool-gathering while we set ourselves to practical matters. I’ll take the other ponies to the stream and water them. Gormadoc is up and coming to join us. You and he should see to some simple morning fair. I should hope that we might be able to leave this place in an hour or so, though Youngbuck may have some different idea of that.

   ‘We seem to have lost a rather unaccountable amount of time,’ she said very practically. ‘If we cannot determine how or why very readily then let us at least look for ways to make some of it back.’

 

*****

   Gormadoc Zaragamba had awakened from the most beautiful of dreams and, unlike any other dream he had ever experienced, he remembered this dream for the rest of his days and always, always, tried to set the compass of his future decisions by it. In the dream he was dead, oh, long, long dead; not as some mouldering old grave-wight, but as some watchful spirit of all the Zaragambas who would come to live in the Shire after himself. He knew intimately the struggles, hopes and anxieties of many many children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and greater and greater descendants for long generations of all the hobbits who came from his family line. And he had watched them all, as a loving grandsire, and tended to their wishes with his ghostly presence and silent responses, making their world and their lives all the better in the small ways which any fatherly ghosts might manage. He sat with them in their gardens at twilight while they thought about their sons or their daughters, he would gently nudge the appropriate spice jars into their hands as they were cooking, and he would try to send them important messages by any means he could (just as any concerned ghost might) when they had overlooked what he felt was a rather obvious and perfectly clear solution to their everyday problems. In his dream Gormadoc had loved, with great pride, many generations of his Zaragamba-folk as they grew to become a well-known and respected family in the Shire.

   And quite clearly in his dream Gormadoc was sitting his ghostly body beside a fire, his invisible and unfeeling toes upon an old and revered family footstool, thinking of the special connection he had with one of his great and greater grandsons. This part of the dream was far, far into the future, very many generations after his own death, when Gormadoc had removed himself from the western edge of the Shire to haunt the halls of Bag-End in Hobbiton. Bag-End was a wonderfully comfortable hobbit-hole and there Gormadoc meant to haunt and care for his family members (now called “Baggins”) for many generations to come.

   All the Baggins had arisen directly from the Zaragamba line and Gormadoc the Ghost, or so his dream told him, had protected and developed that line throughout the generations. The second Baggins of Bag-End (the forty-eighth great grandson of Gormadoc’s formerly living body) was a charming and thoughtful hobbit named Bilbo. Bilbo was a young bachelor who quite enjoyed the comforts of Bag-End and seemed to be very amenable to following the silent advice of his ghostly grandfather without fear or care or notice about the origins of such mystical relationships. Gormadoc the Ghost felt, quite clearly, that little Bilbo heard his advice without ever questioning where it came from, and so he befriended the young hobbit and took great joy in his development. Together they had sat for many long hours in the garden of Bag-End and Gormadoc the Ghost had even, after such a long time in spirit form, bothered to learn and understand his letters alongside his great descendant. But the whole time they were together, or so Gormadoc’s dream had told him, the ghost knew that this heir of his own body, born thirteen hundred years after Gormadoc’s own demise, had a much larger part to play in the affairs of the world. It had been Gormadoc the Ghost who had witnessed the unexpected party of dwarves and one rather remarkably old wizard and the very next morning (Thrimidge the sixth, in the the Thirteen-hundred and fortieth year of the Shire his dream of the future told him) nearly pushed his young descendent out the door and toward his destiny.

   This thought stayed in Gormadoc’s walking mind that morning in Year Twenty-Nine below the Chalk hills in the west of the Shire. He would hold it there for the remaining time of his life and beyond. But never as a living hobbit did he have the chance to recount it to his own son.

 

*****

   Whether Marcoul and Ollo had dreams which they remembered upon waking remains unknown. They woke contentedly, as their brother did, to the sounds of Poppy and Gilley talking and the light of dawn on their rosy cheeks. None of the three brothers said anything but simply looked into one another’s faces. It was clear to each that the previous day’s dangers were abated and it was time to decide what should be done next. So, as they had heard Gilley suggest, they came forward to help Poppy prepare some kind of morning meal. They immediately discovered that the stew was all gone and, though none could say that they had any memory of eating it, there was a fine and savory taste still in their morning mouths.. More curious perhaps, all of their cookware, bowls, spoons and cups had been thoroughly cleaned, though none could remember doing that either. Nothing else was missing or disturbed, but in one of the packs Poppy found the letter which his friends had forged in the name of Horris Bunce. This document, at Poppy’s last memory, had been in the possession of the two Big Folk and it was something Youngbuck had rather desperately wanted back. How its retrieval had been achieved could also not be remembered and, while Poppy shared this information with no one, he felt it to be a very good sign that the dangerous Big Folk were quite finally gone.

   With the stew and Bovo’s last bottle of South-farthing wine all used up their morning fare would be rather unspectacular but not in the least bit stingy; Gilley had seen to provisioning them with a good supply of dried meats, hard cheeses and pickled summer vegetables to see them on their way for a month in the wild and the Zaragambas were packed as well as they could be for homesteading; they had much of the same provisions as well as a sack of crisp early summer apples and a few good loaves of reasonably fresh bread.

   As Gilley returned from the little stream with the three ponies she let them free and walked over to where Bovo still lay. Bending down she took his hand again and, still sleeping, he smiled at her touch.

   ‘Will you nod all through breakfast, sleepyhead,’ she said, ‘or do you expect one of us to bring it while you have a lie-in?’

   ‘Oh. Hello, Gilley,’ he said softly and slowly opened his eyes. ‘It’s good to see you again, even though you have pulled me from a very lovely dream I was having.’

   ‘Will you tell me about it?’ she asked.

   ‘Oh. Yes. Certainly,’ he said, still smiling but closing his eyes again to try to recapture the details. ‘It was morning in the west and I was outside of our hole attending Belle so that her noisome morning mooing would cease. The Sun was just coming over our hill and in the west, through the mists, I could see the shadowy silhouettes of the Elf-towers. I seem to find them quite comforting in the morning somehow. Yes. Its a lovely home we have built there. “Faralong” we called it and Youngbuck’s old uncle Clooty had helped us arrange the rooms and build the well. There’s good land for farming there and room enough for the children-’

   Bovo opened his eyes suddenly and saw Gilley’s own; saw the tears there and the smile on her face. ‘Good morning!’ he said.

   ‘And good morning to you as well,’ she replied laughing.

   ‘Tell me, Gilley,’ Bovo asked, ‘is there any more of that rabbit stew for breakfast?’

 

*****

   It was another half an hour before Youngbuck decided it was time to come down from the hill. Gilley didn’t resent him for the time he took apart from the rest of them, but her usual manner of wanting to get on with business ran in opposition to Youngbuck’s dreamy soul-searching. She loved this quality in her friend (mostly because she feared a lack of it in herself) but it did at times try her patience. Gilley was an energetic, wise and practical leader; she was a clear-headed thinker who always, or at least until this present situation, believed that knowing one’s purpose always made for an actionable plan.

   But she knew, as they all did, that she was not the natural leader that Youngbuck was. ‘It comes from his father, they say,’ or so she thought to herself as they all sat quietly watching him lead his pony slowly and carefully down the hill. ‘Those that knew the Oldbuck have said that “the wind in the hills itself would be still if he had something to say.” A peculiar and natural authority, she thought; a kind presence that few hobbits had. Is that legend which does it then, gives him that kind of power to lead? And is the power of a legendary father just naturally transferred to a son by the folks who need the same kind of a leader?

   ‘No,’ she thought, looking up at him as he made his slow and deliberate descent to join them. ‘No, it isn’t legend which is the power; it’s love which gives him authority. There’s something about a person like him that we can’t help but trust and, for hobbits such as we are, to trust is to love.’

   All of them, Bucklanders and Zaragambas and even the ponies, Gilley thought, had been through a queer and dangerous experience. But there was no one, certainly not Gilley herself, who was equipped to know what to do next after such an experience. And they all, whether through instinct or fear or trust or some deeper call of their nature, they all looked to Youngbuck for answers.

   He let Cinders lead go as he reached the base of the hill and the pony ran off to greet her other pony friends. Gilley let out a small chuckle as she noticed how the social interactions of pony society echoed their own; the others formed around Cinders as if she had come to tell them all what was to happen next.

   ‘Well,’ Youngbuck began, ‘it seems that our Plans have once again gone awry and there is a need for yet another change. There are many, many questions which we all have and little time, and also little evidence, to match them with correct answers. I am sorry for that, and can only promise to tell you what I know and to remind you that conjecture into things which none of us understand, while always tempting, can often lead to misopportunity.

   ‘Still,’ he continued, ‘I will answer what I can before we each decide how to move forward. But first, Poppy, may I have a little cheese and, oh, are those summer apples?’

   Youngbuck then took some breakfast for himself and sat with them on the grass just as master Undondol had done with him the night before. Gilley had brought back fresh pails of spring water and she saw him look at it for a long time before finely, with a smile, pouring it into his cup.

   ‘First off and before any questions might come, I must apologise to the Zaragambas,’ Youngbuck said, turning toward the three brothers. ‘My friends and I had made a Plan to deal with the Swiftook in Waymeet before arriving there and the three of you have been caught up in something which seemed to us at the time to be only a small act of mischief. We had no idea of what might happen from this ruse nor any intention of pulling you and your hopes for finding a new home into our own little adventure.

   ‘But now,’ he continued solemnly, ‘after the queer events of the previous day, we are compatriots. You may wish to leave after this meeting, and you would be free to, or you may wish to join us. The choice should be yours, but it is a choice which needs to meet with even more honesty before its making:

   ‘For I am not Horris’ son Bovidern Bunce,’ he said, ‘though that esteemed comrade of mine travels with me.’ And here he indicated the real Bovo, who was rather vaguely listening while gnawing on an apple of his own.

   ‘Yes. Hello,’ he said between bites. ‘That’s true, I’m he.’

   ‘And I am not,’ Youngbuck said, smiling back at his friend. ‘I was born Theudebert Boldbuck, son of Gondolpho and Alaura, “the Youngbuck” I am called, and my friends and I decided that this was a name we should withhold from the Swiftooks of Waymeet. For we are distant cousins, you see, as my adopted father is Theudebald Swiftalk, brother to Childebrand who you now call “the Old Took.”’

   The Zaragambas looked dumbstruck to hear this news, but it did not seem to alarm them or make them distrustful.

   ‘That was wise to withhold,’ Gormadoc said, ‘for those names, even more than Bunce, are unwelcome in the ears of any of the Tooks.’

   ‘And how do they stand among the Zaragambas?’ Bovo, the real Bovo, ventured to ask. Gormadoc looked at the faces of his brothers and then back to the question.

   ‘We are kin to the Tooks, sure enough,’ he explained, ‘and as such owe them respect as all kinsmen should. And we’ve listened to their plans for developing the Shire from the South into the West and, my brothers and my family and I, we’ve followed those plans as we might. But the debts and squabbles of the earlier days of the Shire, or so it seems to me, should not be problems for late-comers who only wish to settle the land in the peace that was promised. We folk from the East, the Lausa that is, who have lived long under strife, we did not come from the dangers of living beneath the battlefields of Men and goblins to be made part of a battle between hobbits, kin to us or no.’

   ‘Oh, well said, cousin!’ Youngbuck replied. ‘If more folk throughout the Shire could learn to think so squarely of its promise rather than our petty differences we would all be a happier folk!

   ‘The Bovo Bunce whom you have now met,’ Youngbuck continued, ‘is no Map-maker, but I was true in saying that I have some skill in that area and would still help you. Tell me, Gormadoc, what are these lands which you and your brothers were to register and in whose name?’

   ‘The Young Took spoke only of holding the far western edge of the Shire, master...’

   ‘“Youngbuck” if you will call me as my friends do,’ he interrupted, ‘or even “Berty” if you would call me as my family does.’

   Gilley could see that Gormadoc was completely overwhelmed by this courtesy and so talked more rapidly of the things which he alone knew.

   ‘Berty then, as I may,’ he replied, ‘and I am “Gordo” to you and my family, if you will.

   ‘The Young Took put my brothers and I forward on the day you arrived, and this is not something he had ever done before. We had moved toward Waymeet because the plan in the South-farthing has always been that we should hold the Western border of the Shire as you Northerners hold the East. My brothers and I are not tradesmen nor border guards, but bachelors and, well, dreamers I should say; we only want for a free and peaceful home for ourselves in which we might raise our families.’

   ‘But,’ Gilley offered, trying to better understand, ‘you are “bachelors” you say. How will holding land at the very far edge of the Shire, away from your communities, help you meet your brides and begin those families?’

   The Zaragambas looked at one another again as if this was the most peculiar question they had ever heard. ‘I am sorry,’ Gormadoc said, ‘but we don’t understand what you mean by “meet our brides?”’

   ‘Well,’ Gilley went on rather carefully, ‘if you want a place to raise your families won’t you, as bachelors, need brides that you may take to wife?’

   ‘Oh, we have families.’ Gormadoc replied, surprised by the question.

   ‘Oh,’ Bovo said. ‘Yes. I think that I see it. Hmmmmnnnn. Why, that is terrible indeed.’

   ‘What is?’ Gilley asked, quite upset that she hadn’t been able to see what Bovo had.

   ‘The Tooks are offering marriages, arranged marriages I should think,’ Bovo said, ‘to settlers who are registered in the Shire. They will be given wives once they hold lands.’

   ‘Yes,’ Gormadoc said. ‘Is this not your practice? For it has been ours for many years. The Lausa have built many large warrens under the western slopes of the Weather hills, but we live there in large groups. A bachelor and his goodwife may raise children but do not become married until they have built a new hole for themselves and their family, and that is seldom done in those dangerous lands. But if it can be accomplished here then a bachelor such as my brothers or myself becomes a husband. We were told that it was the same in the Shire; a hobbit needs his own lands to build a family. Is that not so?’

   ‘It is not,’ Youngbuck said, ‘and it seems that my uncle Took has blended some of the Lausa’s customs with a pretty free interpretation of how things work in the Shire. Any hobbit may register land for himself in the Shire, but the head of a larger family may register a larger plot for his children to grow into. I do not see how three land deeds to bachelors on the western border could be so important to-’

   ‘Yes. Well. I may have a guess, Youngbuck,’ Bovo interrupted. ‘Gormadoc,’ he asked, ‘I noticed that you didn’t understand Gilley here when she mentioned “meet your brides.” Perhaps you don’t use that term as we do. I hope that I am not being too forward to ask but, tell me, do you already have a chosen mate and children?’

   ‘Why, yes,’ he said proudly. ‘My goodwife Gersvinda and I are blessed with seven sons and six daughters, master Bunce, all of them anxious to come west and build ourselves a home.’

 

*****

   And so Gilley and her friends came to discover more about the mating habits of their hobbit-cousins to the East; for the Lausa had lived for many generations in the Weather hills deep in hiding from the dangers which surrounded them. Great warrens of homes were dug into the spare and rocky shoulders of those slopes, but finding safe places to build new holes and start new families was difficult and very few among the Lausa would venture it. But still, being hobbits, they were a loving people who sired many offspring and believed that the careful raising of their children was an important part of their lives. So they had come to settle for certain conditions regarding their lack of personal space. Bucks and does still took vows together and had children as elsewhere in the world, but the dangerous conditions which forced them into hiding had also forced them to live among a great number of their relatives. It is believed that the scrupulous practice of keeping track of one’s cousins, twice to fourth-times removed, began amongst the Lausa in the overgrown living situations which they had once shared.

   And this is how Priamus Swiftwalk, Twoody’s own grandfather, had found things just over one hundred years before when he had come amongst the Lausa. Priamus had found that those hobbits had many carefully arranged betrothals, just as Bovo had surmised, and that they lived in a small community of overcrowded halls with parents, grandparents, cousins, uncles, aunts, brothers and sisters always underfoot and always mindful of keeping one another safe. “Goodwives” and “goodgrooms” these does and bucks were called but among them marriage, the concept of leaving one family to start another, was conditional upon finding and establishing a new home. And that was, of course, increasingly challenging in the Weather hills as wars among the Men and the goblins made the lands unsafe. So Lausa-hobbits who were parents, and even grandparents, male or female, were called “bachelors”until they could leave their warren and make a home for themselves.¹

   Sometimes an offshoot of a bigger bachelor family would try to set out for themselves from the Weather hills, but most of these attempts were ill-fated and unsuccessful. When Priamus and his people first discovered them there were but twelve families of the Lausa living in hiding; but this was still many hundreds of hobbits. There were a few bachelor-families who followed Priamus and his dragon-sword further west, coming eventually into the peace of the Bree-land. There they changed their names becoming Bolgers and Tinyfoots, Mugworts and Gamwhich, Brownlocks and Haywards, Bophins and Heathertoes,² and learned to live among the Big Folk. This meant that the Zaragambas, unbeknownst to them, probably had relatives, separated by only a generation or two, who might have been among the Council of Great Families in the northern end of the Shire. But now, hearing of the King’s Agreement, those same Lausa who were left behind had come following old Priamus’ grandchildren, Childebrand and his son Reginard, in hope of peace and safety.

   Indeed, when the Dragon-sword returned again to the Weather hills, in the hands of the Young Took, the Zaragambas and all of their kin, indeed nearly all of the remaining Lausa-hobbits in the Weather hills, followed it forward to the chance of becoming more than bachelors and building homes for themselves and their families-

 

   ‘Now hold on just one moment,’ Youngbuck said, raising his hand and lowering his head while closing his eyes as if the Sun had suddenly become too bright. ‘Do you mean to tell me that Reginard Swiftook, the Young Took as you have called him, carries the sword of Priamus the Walker?’

   ‘Oh, yes, he does, Berty, or Youngbuck... sir,’ Gormadoc replied nervously. He could see that what he had just said caused his distant cousin great discomfort. ‘In point of fact I saw it in his tent not two hours before we departed Waymeet, however long ago that might have been.’

   ‘Yes,’ Bovo said calmly while still nibbling at the last of his apple and flicking the core for the ponies to finish. ‘Well that is distressing. It is barely past the dawn and you’ve just given our Youngbuck here cause for yet another adventure.’

   ‘Now hush with that,’ Gilley said, giving Bovo a gentle nudge. ‘Youngbuck, you can’t be thinking of turning us around at every new development, can you?’ she asked, her voice indicating that she very much thought that he may do that very thing.

   Berty rose from the grass and took a little drink of the cool spring water. He looked to the east as if his eyes could pierce the Young Took’s tent many miles away. Then he looked at his friends and then into the west, took another little drink and looked to his friends again. ‘No, not right now, Gilley. But it is a matter that should be addressed and we seem to be the only ones available to do so. But not right now, I think.

   ‘Now is a time for the seven of us to decide what comes next,’ he said. ‘Gormadoc, you and your brothers should know that my friends and I came west with the idea of visiting the edge of the Shire for some time and determining for ourselves the course of our futures. I will not speak for them in this matter but, for myself, yesterday’s events have made my future more evident; I have decided to wander and will not return to the Buckland in any time that I may foresee.

   ‘Wait, Gilley!’ Berty held up his hand and laughed, saying, ‘For I can see your face reddening and your impatience rising. There’s no need to box my ears and to drag me back just yet. I promised you all, as I did my mother and my uncle years ago, that I would never go into the west and I shall keep that promise. For all my life those who have loved me have made me promise that I would not go and seek my father. I never knew until recently why you’ve all feared that so and, now that I do, I can only love and thank you for the concern. But your fears no longer matter; I am not my father and I will follow my own path.’

   ‘I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, Youngbuck,’ Poppy said rather boldly, ‘but that sounds very much like the kind of speech my own Gaffer would recount of your own father’s speaking.’

   ‘Hah!’ Bovo laughed suddenly and sharply. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Youngbuck,’ he said, ‘don’t let me interrupt your oratory, but I’m always amazed at how much more clever, and succinct, Poppy is than the rest of us.’

   The four Bucklanders all smiled at this, the seriousness of the moment having lifted for a time and the three Zaragamba brothers also felt the warmth of their friendship.

   ‘Very well,’ Berty continued with a smile, ‘it seems I have been reminded to come to the point. I suggest we seven go forth and measure the lands on the western edge of the Shire just as our benefactor the Young Took has requested. Once this is done I will draw the appropriate maps and letters for deeds and we will send them off to the Delvings for quicker registry. These deeds will be in your own names, my friends, for I believe that none of us owe master Swiftook anything after last night’s events. Are we agreed on that?’

   All of them quickly agreed to that notion and Poppy, in his own thoughts, began to wonder if Youngbuck somehow knew that the forged letter of agreement, the one which Swiftook held over them as a contract, had come back into their possession.

   ‘And, to be more clear, cousin Gordo,’ Youngbuck continued, ‘and also to avoid any further entanglements, do you or your families owe any outside debts, bills of sale or other agreements with the Tooks? No signed pieces of paper or spoken oaths?’

   ‘Well, no, nothing like that,’ Gormadoc said. ‘Very few of the Lausa are lettered like yourselves and, being mostly made up of large families, we don’t go in much for high-spoken oaths. We’ve built towns and wells and farms as such together along the southern road from the ford toward Waymeet and even further, but all of us have done so with the hope of making a place for ourselves, not as some debt of service.’

   ‘That is good news, cousin,’ Youngbuck replied, ‘for you’ve not fallen into obligation with the Tooks as we earlier Shirefolk had.

   ‘Then, if you and your brothers will have us, Gordo,’ Youngbuck continued, ‘I and my friends would like to stay for a month or so helping you to build your new homes. In these things my friends have greater skills than I, but hopefully we will all learn by working together. I will draw the maps and make the documents needed to claim the land and Reginard Swiftook, and his own Plans, shall be forgotten for now,’ he said.

   And then, with a turn to Bovo and Gilley, he said; ‘But certainly dealt with later.’

 

end chapter ten

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Chapter End Notes

Notes (11/21/2024)

1)  So, yeah, this is a very roundabout way of playing with the origin of the word “bachelor.” It has a lot of beginnings in Medieval Latin and Middle English which may have given it root, but the important one comes from the 14th century where it refers to “a knight who is too young or too poor to gather vassals under his own banner.” I quite like that little word-nerdery causing a misunderstanding between the hobbits of the settled Shire and those still freshly from the wild.

2)  It was important to me from the beginning, as relates to our own national commentary, that many of the Great Families of the Shire have origins among the Lausa which they seem to have forgotten.