But it was not to be.  The woods had opened again into a region of rocks.  The rocks were no longer large prominences jutting from the earth.  Instead, great boulders lay in weird formations on both sides of the path, casting fabulous moonshadows across the way.  The moon herself had fallen below the peaks behind.  But her light still reflected from the high thin clouds and cast an eery glow upon the upland landscape.  Suddenly Tomilo and the elf heard dim shouts in the distance ahead and a dull scrape of weapons.   Only seconds later arrows flew past them and went glancing off the stones.
     The two riders urged their ponies on.  They had gone only a hundred yards further, though, when the elf's horse went down with an orc arrow in its throat.  Tomilo stopped and went back.  He and Drabdrab immediately lay on the ground behind the fallen animal.  The elf was already shooting at unseen (to the hobbit) targets around a grouping of stones.   The horse had fallen in high grass just to the left of the road.  Most of the orcs appeared to be on the right side.  Several more orc arrows stuck in the body of the elf horse.  Behind this breastwork, the hobbit found his mithril axe on Drabdrab's saddle.  He felt the razor-like edge.  The time had apparently come to use it.
     In fact, the moment was now upon him.  An orc leapt over Drabdrab with a hideous cry, and fell right on top of the hobbit.  He was already dead, though.  The elf had cut his throat even as he reached for Tomilo.  But many more orcs were rushing upon them from all sides.  Tomilo pushed the foul goblin from off him and stood up.  He swung the axe in a full circle, his eyes almost closed.  He felt the weapon meet metal, and he looked just in time to see the axe cleave cleanly through the mail of an advancing orc, killing him instantly.  The elf beside him was moving with lightning reflexes: he had killed four more orcs before the hobbit could raise his axe again.  The other orcs paused in their attack, fearful to come too near the flashing knife of the elf.  About fifteen remained.  The rest of their force was ahead, attacking the main host of the riders. 
     The orcs were now conversing in their terrible tongue.  The elf told Tomilo that they were planning to rush all at once.  There was little hope: their blades were no doubt poisoned.  A single nick would be fatal.  Luckily the orcs had already exhausted all their arrows.  Tomilo must swing his axe in a ferocious circle, he was told, to keep them at bay until the elf could kill them all.  This plan might have some hope, said the elf, if the orcs had continued to attack in two and threes.  But fifteen all at once would likely be too much.  The elf took one of the dead orcs' knives in his left hand and prepared to make a last defense.  The hobbit raised his axe in both hands.
     Just then a silver arrow clove through the neck of the foremost orc.  The sound of hooves broke upon them and a horse and rider passed by in a blur.  Two more orcs fell, cut in half by a long sword.  The others scattered.  The rider rode them down, the orcs shrieking and casting off their weapons.  The elf ran after one who turned back to elude the rider.  He threw his knife into the back of the armourless goblin, piercing his heart exactly.
     
The rider returned after a few minutes.  All the orcs had been ridden down, or shot by arrows.  Tomilo could not see the rider's face.  The hood from his dark mantle shadowed the moonlight from his features.  But the elf ran up at once and cried out in joy,
      'Ai!  Lord Celeborn!  You have come!  Praise the Valar!  The Lady Nerien said you were lost in the caves, and we feared you were dead.  Your return is timely, for myself and the halfling.  I had killed seven, but these last were preparing to come all at once!'
     'Yes, Daephlas [for that was the elf's name], I found my way out of the caves at last.  I searched long for the balrog, for I was wroth, and would be revenged for the death of Glorfindel.  But the caves were endless, and the balrog ever far in advance.  I came to places where an elf could not breathe, for lack of light and air, and found I must give up my quest.  Hunting these orcs was a needed vent for my anger, but I will never forget the Bridge of the Mitheithel, not though all the balrogs of Middle Earth be piled on the sharp point of Celebast!'
     'But My Lord, Glorfindel yet lives—or did when I last saw him.  Did you not know?  He is ahead with Nerien and Galdor, riding unconscious on a white bier.  But it is not a funereal bier!'
     'That is news indeed, Daephlas!  My prayers to Mandos were not unheeded then.'
     'No Lord.  But we have heard sounds of battle from ahead.  It may be that others of the orcs have attacked there as well.  We should go now to their aid.'
     'Yes, come up behind me.  And you, Tomilo, follow us on your pony.  This area is clean of orcs.  We will meet none until we reach the others, if then.'
      
Celeborn and Daephlas galloped off on Feofan.  Drabdrab and Tomilo followed as best as they could, but the two elves were soon out of sight.
     'This is no good Drabbie.  We keep getting left behind.  If we get attacked now, we're as good as done for.  How does Mr. Celeborn know there's no orcs right here?  These boulders might be hiding hundreds of goblins and trolls and balrogs and who knows what else?  I guess he looked at his blade and it wasn't blue; but those blades don't go blue for balrogs, do they?  Or what about trolls?  No, we've been left behind as shouldn't be.  A dwarf axe isn't no good against trolls and balrogs.
     'Speaking of which, I have to tell Nerien about those balrogs in Moria.  After I saw that one in the river with Lord Glorfindel, Drabbie, I knew for sure that the ones sleeping in the caves weren't any nightmare of mine.  They weren't a delusion, like.  Galka and the rest has got to get out of there, and fast!  These balrogs may be waking up all over the place, in answer to Morgoth coming back.  If that's the way of it, we've got to see that a message gets sent to Khazad-dum from Rivendell.  They can send a bird or something, I hope.  Things are just getting worser and worser, Drabbie.  And here we are smack-dab in the middle of it.  A few weeks ago I was mucking potatoes.  Now I'm in the worst thing ever, a story as bad as any hobbit story.'


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter  11
From the Lady's Swoon
to the Prince's Head

Tomilo had ridden only a league when two elves came riding up the road toward him.  Neither was Daephlas.  Both were tall guards with a grey mantles and green shields.  The shields were scarred and bloodied from recent fighting. 
     'My name is Gasan.  This is Lasla.  The Lady Nerien has instructed us to lead you to Imladris.'
     'But what of the orcs?  Shouldn't we all stay together?'
     'The orcs have been routed.  They will not dare to attack us again.  We lost another elf to their poisoned arrows, and two more horses, alas; but we destroyed many tens of the foul creatures and others are being hunted even now.   And Lord Celeborn has returned.  You have nothing to fear.'
     Tomilo did not answer.  But he remembered Glorfindel's promise in the room in Rhosgobel.  He had all but guaranteed his safety.  The hobbit was safe; but the promise had turned on the elf. 
     So Tomilo was glad to have two escorts, but he was not carefree by any means.  Glorfindel had been too confident, and then Nerien—sending the messenger ahead to Imladris alone.  Even Celeborn, thought Tomilo.  Going into the caves in his wrath, without any knowledge of the risk or the danger.  He was fortunate indeed to have come out again unscathed.  What if Celeborn had chanced to find the balrog—or more than one!  But the hobbit was the only one in Middle Earth who knew the possibility of that.
     Yes, he was indeed.  But even Tomilo did not understand why the balrogs had survived in such numbers, or why they had slept for so long.*  For the truth was that few of these creatures had been utterly defeated in the Great Battles of the First Age—when the Valar had come from the West and defeated the hosts of Morgoth.   As had been stated above, in the council, the Maiar could not be finally destroyed.  They might lose their bodies.  They might be diminished again and again, losing their powers to do good or evil.  But while the earth itself lasted, they would persist in one form or another.
     The balrogs were in the beginning Maiar.  Morgoth then turned them to darkness, and they became Valaraukar, demons of fire.  The ranks of the Valaraukar included all of what are termed balrogs; but they also included Sauron—who was not strictly, or only, a balrog.  And they included the dragons: close kin of the balrogs who had been twisted into even more terrible shapes of dread by Morgoth.  In fact, the dragons had achieved such vast size and power only because Morgoth had passed some of his own strength into them.  Just as Sauron had invested a portion of his strength into the One Ring, so Morgoth had invested himself into the dragons.  In this sense, the greatest blow to Morgoth had been the defeat of Ancalagon the Black by Earendil.  Morgoth had been forever diminished by the fall of that greatest of the dragons.
      Saruman, too, had now joined the ranks of the diminished Valaraukar.  He could never again take physical form.  Nor was his power a tithe of his original gift from Iluvatar.  But he persisted.
     
*This discussion of balrogs has been inserted by the editor.  It may be of interest to some. [LT]

     The Valaraukar that fled from the Valar at the end of the first age and hid in the east (the Misty Mountains were then considered 'east') were in complete thrall to Morgoth.  In this they differed from Sauron.  Sauron was Morgoth's first advisor, his chief tool, his protégé and his student.  Sauron was the greatest of the Maiar turned by Morgoth to evil.  Where the other Valaraukar had been in fact diminished by their alliance with Morgoth, Sauron had been augmented.  Most of the balrogs had been forcibly turned to darkness, by intimidation and threats.  They had been 'broken.'  Not so, Sauron.  He had turned willingly.  He had not even 'turned.'  Like Morgoth, he had lusted after darkness from the beginning—or as soon as the light shone fairly on others.
     So when Morgoth was bound in chains and taken away, only Sauron retained his full strength and his independence.  In fact, Sauron's power increased once more.  For, unknown to all (even to Manwe Sulimo), Morgoth had invested Sauron with a final measure of his own power, even as they cowered in Angband and the Valar advanced.  It was Morgoth who instructed Sauron to make a pretense of rehabilitation.  It was Morgoth who taught Sauron to invest his strength in external sources—the people and places of Middle Earth—that the seeds of darkness might be planted everywhere and bloom forever more.  And it was Morgoth who told Sauron that he himself would return—at a time most unexpected by all.
     The balrogs must need await this time, however, since they remained always under the direct dominion of Morgoth.  Only the balrog thrown down by Gandalf had awakened before its time, and it had not done so of its own will, but had been awakened accidentally by the dwarves of Khazad-dum.
     And what of the balrog of the Bridge of Mitheithel, you may ask?  The answer to that will soon be supplied by the narrative.

The road to Imladris was unchallenged for the rest of the journey, and Tomilo and his escort arrived there safely two days later.  They found the rest of the company already settled in, having been there some six hours.  Glorfindel was being tended by the Lady Nerien and Celeborn.  Galdor's hands and neck were wrapped in white cloths, and his face also was bandaged.   The elves of the valley had been thrown into grief by the news of the fall of their Lord and the attack of the balrog.  No songs were heard but songs of lamentation and supplications to the West for healing.  The songs to Elbereth had been replaced by songs to Este and Nienna.
     The hobbit was exhausted, but he felt he must speak to Nerien before retiring.  So he waited for her to finish her attentions on Glorfindel and then followed her from the room.
     Once she was aware of him, she stopped and called him to her.
     'My dear Tomilo, we have treated you with little consideration, and only our fears for the Lord Glorfindel can excuse us.  Even so, we should not have neglected you.  You have been left behind to fight orcs with little assistance, I hear.  I hope you and your pony have taken no hurt?'
     'No, Lady.  It was a close call, but Mr. Celeborn rode up just as the orcs were about to make us into pies.  And Laephlas was very brave.  I killed my first orc, but Laephlas killed at least a half dozen before Celeborn got the rest.  I will have to think of some way to thank them both.'
     'Do not concern yourself with it, Tomilo.  The elves would have killed the orcs in their own defense, if not in yours.  But I am glad you are here safely.  Is there aught I can do for you before I retire?  I must take some rest after our ride.  Never have I felt so weary.'
     'Then I am sorry to detain you.  And I am very tired also.  But there is something urgent I have to tell you, and it can't wait until morning.  It is about the balrog.'
     'The balrog?'
     'Yes, Lady.  That is not the first balrog I have seen on this journey.'
     'You astonish me, Tomilo!  Are you certain of what you say?'
     'Indeed, Lady.  I mean, I wasn't certain, until I saw the balrog in the canyon, and the wings and fire and all.  But I saw a creature very like it when I was in Khazad-dum.  Seven of them, in fact.'
     'Why didn't you immediately inform King Mithi?  And did anyone else see these seven balrogs?'
     'No, Lady.  That's just it.  I was the only one who saw them; and Galka—my friend who is a dwarf from Khazad-dum—who I was with in the caves—he said I must have been dreaming.  And I hadn't eaten in a long time, and we had been climbing the stairs for many hours, and I was not myself.  So I thought he might be right.  But then I saw the balrog in the canyon, and I knew that I was not delirious in the caves.  He was the same type of creature.  I had never imagined a balrog, or dreamed of one before I left Farbanks, so why would I dream of one in the caves?'
     'Where were these balrogs?'
     'Deep down in the caves.  We were lost, so I don't know exactly how deep.  At the end of a very long stair, and then through a great hall.  There was a weird fire and smoke, like in the canyon.  And in the wall there was a fire.  It was like the wall was fire, if you know what I mean, Lady.   And the fire did not emit light, but ate it.  And in the wall of fire were a sort of tombs—or like when statues are cut into in a wall.  And in these vertical tombs were creatures, like the creature in the canyon.   But they were asleep.  Some were larger than others.  Some had wings and others did not.  But they were all very large.  It was the most frightening thing I have ever seen.'
     'Oh, Tomilo, that is not the news I would hear, now,' said Nerien, looking quite pale.  'I feel faint.  Let us sit for a moment.  We must consider what to do.'  Nerien dropped heavily down onto a small stool that happened to grace the hallway.  Tomilo sat at her feet.
     Finally she spoke.  Her face was very white, and her voice trembled.  Tomilo was disturbed beyond words to see her in such extremity.  'Call the Lord Celeborn to me,' she said at last.  'Tell him I will meet him in the Hall of Fire in a few moments.  Tell him it is very urgent.'
     Immediately Tomilo rose and ran off to find Celeborn.  He found the guard Gasan first, and the elf took him to the chambers of Celeborn.  Some quarter of an hour later they met Nerien in the Hall of Fire—at the northernmost point of the Last Homely House.  They found her sitting on the floor in her shift, without cloak or other wrapping, gazing into the fire. 
     'You desired speech with me, Lady?' said Celeborn, looking upon her with concern.
     'Yes,' she answered distractedly, not looking up from the fire.  'Tomilo, tell Celeborn what you have told me.'
     When the hobbit had again related the strange story, Celeborn joined Nerien on the floor.  He too had gone pale.  After several minutes of silence, he spoke to her.
     'Do you think Morgoth is here already?  Is that why the balrog on the bridge was awake?  And will these Valaraukar in Khazad-dum also awaken?  Or are they already awakening, even now?'
     'I do fear it,' she answered.  'We must send word to Moria at once.  The dwarves are in great danger.  What birds have we here?  We might send a hawk over the mountains to the Carrock, and an eagle could go quickly from there.  He would be in Moria in a day or two.  Or a thrush might be sent directly, without crossing the Hithaeglin.'
     'Yes, and I think an elf—or more than one—should be sent on swift horses, in case the birds are shot down or intercepted by an enemy.  It appears that war may have begun before any could have predicted.  We would be wise to take every precaution.  I will see to the birds and the riders now.  But Lady, you should rest, regardless of this.  And here, take this mantle.  I fear you will take cold.  Let me call for water. . . There is no more we can do today.  And we must all take care to refresh ourselves.  Our purest strength will be needed in the days ahead, and it would be foolish to languish now.'
     'I say the same to you, Lord Celeborn.  You have ridden long without rest and in great care.  The finest herbmasters of Imladris are attending Glorfindel.  It would be well for you to allow yourself to be tended also.  You have wounds that have still not been dressed.'
     'I give you my word, Lady, if you give me yours.'
     'I do.'
     With that, Celeborn swept from the room and saw to the messages.  He gave the riders letters to Mithi, but did not tell the elves of their contents.  He did not want to alarm Imladris further.  The birds also were entrusted to secrecy.  Celeborn then retired once again to his rooms.
     But the Lady remained on the floor.  She lay down and stared again into the fire.  The hobbit touched her arm.
     'Lady, will you go to bed?  I think you are not well.'
     'No, Tomilo, I think I will rest here.  Call my ladies.  I will make a bed of cushions by the fire.'
     The hobbit brought her attendants to her and instructed them to feed the Lady Nerien and to bathe her forehead and limbs and not to leave her.  Once she began to take food, he excused himself and went to his own room.  He slept long and deeply.  And no balrogs disturbed his dreams within the walls of Rivendell.

The company returning from the council recuperated for many days.  They mourned those lost on the mountain and tended the wounded.  Glorfindel remained in a swoon and did not awaken, but he was well tended and all hope had not gone.  Celeborn led the elves of the valley in his absence, and he had ordered an increased presence on the borders and more archers in the trees.  Nerien and Galdor had decided to remain at Imladris for the time being.  The Lady's healing powers were needed there, and Galdor desired to stay with his daughter.  A messenger was sent on the Havens to inform Cirdan of the news from the council, as well as of the events at the bridge.
     Tomilo also prepared to continue on west.  He could not travel with the elves going in that direction, since they would be riding in haste and with all speed.  He and Drabdrab would have to ride alone again.  The hobbit had little fears of travelling on the Great East Road, however.  It carried heavy traffic, especially beyond Bree, and Weathertop had been re-fortified by the Kingdom of Arnor.  There were settlements of Men in the South Downs and the Weather Hills, and no evil thing had been seen beyond the Hoarwell since the fall of Sauron.  Tomilo and Drabdrab might ride quickly past the Trollshares, but even that wood was near enough to the influence of Rivendell to pose small threat. 
     The hobbit was out in the stables, talking to Drabdrab about the road ahead and making sure his trough was properly stocked with treats.  The pony liked a bit of green to go with his hay and oats, and Tomilo was in the habit of sneaking him some of the last salad shoots of the season, usually kept in the kitchens and strictly for the elves and their two-legged guests.  There were even some wrinkled apples left from the cellars: most were going to make cider, but ponies with accomplices inside also found themselves with a nibble or two.
     Suddenly Tomilo heard a great flapping and a loud call from the sky.  He went out of the stable and looked up just in time to see an eagle arriving from the East.  He wondered if a message had already come back from Moria.  Giving Drabbie a final stroke on the nose, he ran back into the house to find out what had happened. 
      No word was given to the house at large for several hours.  The Lord Celeborn was in council with the eagle, and it was said that Nerien and Galdor had joined him.  It was not until well after sundown that a meeting was called in the Council Room.  Celeborn addressed the assembly with a stern face.
     'Elves of Imladris and the Havens! (he forgot Tomilo for the moment).  We have suffered great loss in the past fortnight.  Some of us have lost our kinsmen, and all of us feel deeply the fall of our Lord Glorfindel.  Only the Valar can say when he will rise again among us.  But know now that our grief is not unshared.  Know that our tragedy is not the only tragedy.  We have news from Erebor.  The Lonely Mountain has been attacked by dragons.  Two of them came from the north, we are told, and fell upon the city of the dwarves before any were aware of it.  Many of the people of Durin have perished.   Erebor is not sacked, however.  The dragons were on an errand, it is said, and did not stay once they had achieved their fell purpose.  The tomb of Thorin Oakenshield has been broken and opened.  The Arkenstone of Thrain taken.  The rest of the mountain survived untouched.  But many of the dwarves have fled to the Iron Hills, nonetheless.  The rest are fortifying and preparing for war. They have sent word to their people in the south to send reinforcements.   It is not now known what may be done.  These are the tidings brought by Laymir, Lord of the Eagles.   
     'Many of you may be asking, with whom have the dwarves gone to war? Who is the enemy?  Whence the dragons?  And I have heard other questions asked in these halls before today.  Questions put in hushed voices.  Whence the balrog?  And whither?  At whose call?  And why now?  I am here to answer these questions, in part.  The attack on Erebor allows me to hold the information from a more general knowledge no longer.  The Council at Rhosgobel, from which we were returning when we found it necessary to travel over the Bridge of the Mitheithel, was called at the instigation of Cirdan the Shipwright, who had news from the West.   The news is that Morgoth has returned.' 
     At this, a hush fell over the room.  Then several elves cried out in grief, calling out to Elbereth to protect them.  But Celeborn continued, 'Yea, we may need not only the goodwill of the Valar, but even their power, for this is an enemy beyond any of our reckoning.  Morgoth has given up his physical form in order to escape from beyond the Walls of the World.  He is now a wraith.  We do not yet know for certain that he has arrived here in Middle Earth, or begun setting up an abode in any place.  But the attacks of the balrog and of the dragons certainly suggest in the strongest possible way that he is here, somewhere, probably in the far north.  The dragons fled in that direction.  It is hoped that the balrog has also left the Misty Mountains and returned to his master.   Or, what would be better, that it has perished of the cuts of Glamdring and Celebast, and the hand of Glorfindel.'
     At this, Tomilo turned to Lasan beside him to ask a question in a whisper.  'What did the Lord Celeborn mean, "the cuts of Glamdring."  I thought Glamdring was the sword of Gandalf—that he found in the troll's cave.'
     'It was.  But Mithrandir passed Glamdring on to the Lady, before he set sail into the West.  Galadriel had been a friend of Nerien, and I believe it was she who told the wizard of Nerien's need for a weapon.  The Lady has borne it eversince.'

Several more days passed in worry and grief.  Though Rivendell was in great turmoil, Tomilo prepared to leave.   He felt there was nothing he could do to help, and he only seemed to be in the way.  So early on the morning of the 29th of Blotmath, after retrieving Drabdrab from the stables, he said a few distracted good-byes to Nerien and Galdor and Celeborn.  The Lady Nerien's face was dark, and circles had appeared under her shining eyes.  Celeborn also looked worn and unsettled.  Galdor's hands were still wrapped in bandages, and his face was scarred red by the recent burns.  They waved as Tomilo and Drabdrab rode out of the valley of the Last Homely House, but few words of hope or encouragement had been spoken.  Even the elves in the trees were silent.  The hobbit heard not one note of song as he passed the long line of white stones out of the foothills.
     When he and Drabdrab came to the Bruinen Bridge, they found it just thrown down, and they had to cross by wading.  The bridge had been put up as a convenience two hundred years earlier; but the news from the north and east had returned the elves to their old isolation, and the bridge was no more.
     Tomilo was travelling alone, but despite the Lady Nerien's other troubles and duties, she had not forgotten to make arrangements for his safe conduct through the wilds.  She still felt that she had not taken proper care of him in the mad rush down from the Mitheithil.  Already a company of elves had passed along the Great East Road, travelling back to Mithlond.  They had scouted out all the lands between the Bruinen and Weathertop.  They had reported back to Nerien that no sign of the enemy was to be seen anywhere.  And even as the hobbit departed, other bands had been sent out by Celeborn, especially to the north, to patrol the eastern reaches of Rhudaur.  The elves of Rivendell wanted to be certain that no more bands of orcs had come down from the mountains. 
     Nonetheless, the road was a long and weary one: no amount of scouting or scouring could change that.  It was rather lonely and miserable, though the hobbit saw no more snowfall.  It remained unseasonably cold, but the sky was clear, for the most part.  Some week-old snow carpeted the forest floor under the Trollshares, but the bright sun had cleared all the unshaded lands about them.    
     On the fourth day from Rivendell they reached the Last Bridge.  Unlike the other bridges of Eriador, it had fallen into disrepair.  It was not used by the men of Arnor, since they had no reason to travel east beyond it.  And the elves had not been upon the road in great numbers in recent years.  Few of them had fled to the Havens in the fair years since Sauron's fall, and those that had did not care what state the bridges they left behind them were in.  Besides, elves were content to wade streams and travel in the wilds, off the roads of men.  They had never been bridge builders or maintainers of straight paths.
     Tomilo and Drabdrab saw nothing of interest until they reached Weathertop many days later.  Here they looked up at the new fortress with white flags waving in the breeze.  Amon Sul had been rebuilt, and it now housed a strong garrison.  The walls rose in a circle to a crennelated walkway, then continued up to a sharp point hundreds of feet above the road.  Finally the hobbit felt completely safe again.  He waved to the guards on the battlements, and they smiled down upon him.  Had they known of the information he carried, they would have met him on the road and taken them to their captains.  But they assumed he was only a hobbit on some errand of trade, and let him pass on.  News would be reaching them soon from Fornost, anyway, concerning recent events; and the Weather Hills would swell with new soldiers in the coming months.    
     There were other changes on the Great Road beyond the outlying towers of Arnor, and Tomilo now began to reach these as well.  On the far side of the Midgewater Marshes the hobbit and his pony passed a tavern and then an inn, both there to serve the off-duty warriors of Arnor as well as the new settlements of men on the South Downs.  At the turn to Archet was another inn, this one frequented by hobbits.  But still Tomilo did not stop.  He planned to spend that night at The Prancing Pony.
     At last the road turned gently northwards in a long arc and he came to the dike and the hedge of Bree.  No guard stopped him: the South Gate was no more.  The guard station had been removed as well.  An ironwork arch had been installed in its place, spanning from hedge to hedge, and announcing in fancy letters 'Welcome to Bree!'  The road passed beneath without obstruction or impediment. 
     Tomilo looked from side to side in amazement.  Bree had grown since he had been there last.  Indeed, it had grown steadily since the Fall of Sauron.  The stone houses of the Big People, up on the hill, now numbered almost two hundred.  And the Little People had swelled in like proportion.  The town had outgrown the hedge, even; and beyond the dike were many houses of both peoples (although more of the Big People, since the hobbits did not often build houses—especially on such flat ground).  Tomilo had passed a few coming up to the South Gate.  And on the other side of the West Gate were many more, reaching all the way down to the Fornost Road. 
     The Prancing Pony had also changed, although not greatly.  Blin Butterbur, of the original Butterbur family, had added a third wing to accommodate guests from Arnor, about a century ago now, it was.  And his grandson Efim presently had his name on the sign out front: THE PRANCING PONY, by Efim Butterbur.   But one thing had certainly not changed: the inn was still a constant bustle, and the innkeeper as well.  Even from the road the hobbit could hear loud clapping and laughing, and could see the shadows of rushing bodies crisscrossing in the yellow light from within.
     He left Drabdrab at the bottom of the steps and approached the great doors, open a crack even in the chilly weather—the better to draught the three fireplaces, and to ventilate the pipesmoke.  The old curtains in the front windows still gamely tried to block the light from leaking out into the street; and, by the look of it, the decades of smoke and dust they had accumulated were helpful in this regard.  Tomilo couldn't help but think that these might be the very curtains that had hung there in the time of Old Barliman himself.  Some of Strider's smoke might be mingled in the ancient smell of that now-colourless fabric. 
     At last the hobbit drew himself up and entered the poorly lit room, moving sideways across the great threshold in order to squeeze between the heavy doors.  No sooner had he set foot in the room, though, than a young girl in an untied apron ran directly into him with an umph and an Oh My!, and he found himself with several mugs of beer down his shirtfront.  There was a roar from the tables, and a small squat man with a large head of grey hair and half-spectacles ran into the room from the kitchen with a comical look on his face. 
     'Loi!' he cried, and the girl looked abashedly at her feet—also drenched in the Pony's finest.   'If you'd manage to spill a drop or two down the customers' throats occasionally, perhaps they wouldn't mind a'paying for it.  As 'tis, I've got some difficulty making back my investment in hops, don't you see?  We've give away more today in "on the house" replacements and in laundry tokens than any man could ever hope to sell by the usual inducements.'
     The room roared again, and one man from a nearby table called to Loi to spill some more on him—he could use another 'on the house', being out of money himself (he said with a wink).
     Loi ran into the kitchen in the height of confusion, and the grey-haired man led Tomilo to a table. 'Here you be, Sir,' he said, still dabbing the hobbit with a damp white towel.  'I'll have Essa over here in a minute with a beer.  And a mug,' he added with a smile.  'Don't you worry, Essa's a bit more level-like with the trays than Loi.  But Loi's a sweet thing, as you saw.  And she 'as to learn sometime.  Though I do hope she learns a bit quicker, as I will admit.  Otherwise I'll go broke from sheer loss of liquid.  Now, Sir, here's a token.  You take it next door to the lady and she'll have that shirt laundered in a jiffy.  And she'll give you a dry smock to don for the nonce, I'll warrant.'
     Tomilo was quite amused by the whole proceeding, and thought a wet shirt a small price to pay for such a show.  He suspected that a good portion of the room felt likewise, for they had not stopped listening since he came in. 
     The man continued, 'I am Efim Butterbur, what name is on the sign outside, although I can't take credit for the painting—which is by the hand of my nephew Fedot.  If you'd like to see more of his work—which most do—I recommend the baker's, where you can see a sign painted this very month, of some of the prettiest loaves you ever laid eyes upon.  Not to speak of the sign near the West Gate, what announces the turn to Fornost Erain.  And if some has said that the Prince's head is too big, I can only say they should go there—Fornost, I mean—and measure it themselves, and then they will see.'  He said this last looking around at the room over his spectacles, and the company roared again.  But Mr. Butterbur did not seem offended by this final outburst, and he retired to the kitchen also.
     As soon as he had gone, a hobbit leaned over from a nearby table and addressed Tomilo.  'Loi and Essa be his own girls.   So we all make a game of it.  Honestly, it will be quite a shock to our changepurses when the girls do learn to carry a tray of mugs.  We've drunk a river of free beer, as there's no denying.'       
     Tomilo had a bit of supper, and gave orders for the care of Drabdrab before retiring to his room.  He would have liked to have stayed up late and traded stories with the hobbits of Bree, as the stories appeared to be numerous and rich.  But he knew he must leave early in the morning, and the fun at The Prancing Pony would have to wait for another time.
     But he did have one more bit of colour before quitting that fine establishment.  The next day he awoke at 6am and sauntered groggily into the common room to find Loi serving him his breakfast.  The room was now almost empty, it being too early for the revellers of the night before.  Apparently Master Butterbur was still abed as well.   Without so many eyes upon her, Loi was calmly attentive, and nothing was spilled or burnt or otherwise spoilt.  But she was such a pretty lass, being perhaps fourteen or so; and she had such a bright eye, that Tomilo found himself looking at her instead of his pot of tea.   And before he knew it, the whole thing, cup and saucer and pot and all were swimming on the floor, with his toast floating on the top.  He jumped up and apologized for the mess, feeling that somehow justice had been done—but he couldn't say exactly how.   But Loi only laughed and said, 'Well, Sir, it is easy to do, you see!'
     

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter  12
Oakvain the Old

Drabdrab had been privy to no such minor adventures, and he was ready to be off.  So that fine morning he trotted gaily up the road and through the Western arch and under the hedge and over the dike, bumping Tomilo up and down and up again.  A few hundred yards past the dike, the East Road crossed the Fornost Road (that had been the Greenway).  Even at this early hour much traffic was upon it, going both north and south.  The carts moving north were the more numerous however, since many of them were making their way from the settlements of men on the South Downs to the capital of Arnor at Fornost Erain.  Much of the foodstuffs of Arnor was grown in the vicinity of the South Downs, or upon the pastures just to the south of the settlements.  Large vans of provision also came up from Gondor, especially in the winter months when little would grow in the north.  The farms of Gondor often had greenstuff well into early winter, and what they couldn't grow they might trade for from even farther south.  The deserts of Harondor had been made to yield corn and barley again, as well as other crops.  And since the fall of Sauron, trade had recommenced with Umbar and Harad as well.  Fruits and spices and teas arrived in Minas Mallor from the south in great wains—replacing the wains that had carried warriors and weapons in former times.  And tall ships with brightly coloured sails were oared by strong men with sunburnt skin up the Anduin from ports far to the south, in regions unknown and unnamed to any in Eriador.  In Osgiliath they unlade their cargoes of oranges and grapes and olives and cinnamon and cardamom, while taking on the products of the north—potatoes and apples and oats and lumber and great wealth of minerals.
     Some of the carts and vans on the road by Bree that morning were carrying oranges to Fornost that had been on trees in Umbar only three weeks earlier.  Even fresher fruit (by a few days) might be had from the Grey Havens, where it arrived directly from the south in sleek ships, avoiding the delays of the overland route.  In fact, for the Prince's table, the freshest food was shipped right up the River Lune and thence to the River Even, less than twenty leagues from Annuminas.  It was said that such fruit arrived with the dew still on it, although those wits in the court of Arthedain were wont to add that the dew, on closer inspection, tasted of salt.
      
But Tomilo did not stop to purchase spices, or any other delicacy, that day.  Nor did he take Efim Butterbur's advice to go to Fornost—to see the Prince's head (but if the man's head was as large as the portrait on the sign, thought Tomilo, it would merit a long line of sightseers).   No, he was anxious to return to the Shire, and now that he was within a few days' journey, his impatience began to grow.  There was one last detour, however, before he might reach his own lands: he must return the pony to Bombadil. 
     After such a long time, it would not have made much difference, perhaps, if he had kept Drabdrab another fortnight, to carry him to Tuckborough and then back to Farbanks.  But the hobbit felt he had already quite overdrawn on Bombadil's kindness, and he wished to return the pony with all speed.  For this reason they left the East Road some few miles from the crossroads—where it made a great bend to the north—and continued due west across the downs to the Old Forest.
     This land was still bleak and mostly treeless, but it was no longer deserted.  The spirits of the barrowwights had been released of their vassalage to Sauron upon the destruction of the One Ring, and they had gone wherever it is that the spirits of men go, for good or for ill.  Their barrows had been emptied and the contents scattered, and nothing but a few tumuli and strangely scored stones were left to show that men had once lived there.  For this was now a land farmed by hobbits
     On the east side of the Greenway the farms belonged to men of Arnor.  The South Downs had no hobbit settlements, or mixed settlements of the Bree sort.  But on the west side of the Great South Road, the farms and small towns were all inhabited by hobbits.  This segregation of the Big People and the Little People had not come about by any plan or passage of law; it had simply happened.  There was some trade between the two sides; but like the towns round about Lake Nenuial, the two peoples preferred to keep to themselves.  They had their own histories, their own calendars, their own customs, their own speech.  It was simply easier, and more comfortable, to be among their own kind. 
     So as Tomilo rode through the farmlands of the Barrow-downs (the inhabitants had kept the name—as a colourful reminder of a time they knew little of) he already began to feel that he was home.  He waved to an old hobbit in a worn hat, checking his field of winter rye.  In the spring he would plow it under as fertilizer for his main crop—tobacco, of course.
     Farther on he came to the hills themselves.  Here is where the scattered towns had sprung up, since the soil on the downs tended to be chalky and unsuitable for farming.  Tomilo stopped for a pint at the Gorthad Inn* in Shaly (pop. 18) and decided to stay the night.  The weather had turned beastly cold during the afternoon, and the hobbit had had more than enough of it by sundown.  He ordered a meal that the proprietor called the 'hobbit special'—meaning everything the kitchen had on hand or could borrow from next door.  After filling in all the corners of his waistcoat, he took his apple cores and a lump of sugar to Drabdrab before turning in for the night.
     The next day, the hobbit and his pony arrived at the eaves of the forest.  They entered the woods near the source of the Withywindle.  Drabdrab knew the area like the top of his front hooves, and Tomilo had long since given up the reins.  Truth be told, there hadn't been five times that the hobbit had signalled the pony since Rivendell.  The reins had hung slack for most of the journey.  Drabdrab didn't really need the bridle at all, and he might have gone like the elf horses if Tomilo had thought about it.  But he had been given the pony with bit and bridle and he would return the pony with bit and bridle.  Improvisation was never a longsuit of the little people, for better or for worse.
     
*The owners of this inn had taken its name from 'Tyrn Gorthad'—meaning 'the dreaded hills' {Sindarin}.  They themselves did not know the meaning of the words: they had simply liked the word 'gorthad,' which somehow seemed a fat and happy word by hobbit reckoning.

Tom Bombadil and Goldberry no longer lived in their house on the edge of the forest.  The hobbit settlements on the Downs had driven them further into the trees, several miles down the Withywindle.   Their new house was, in fact, more than a third of the way to Haysend, buried deep in the middle of the Old Forest, beyond the curiosity of hobbit children.  Besides, any hobbits wandering into the woods from the east would have been caught in the traps of Old Man Willow long before inconveniencing Tom and Goldberry.  But this had not been a danger (for either side) for centuries.  The hobbits already told stories to their young about the Old Forest, and not even the bravest hobbitchild from the Downs ever risked all the guaranteed horrors promised to the overcurious by their parents.  The bedtime tales of goblins and witches that had been invented and prospered on the west side of the woods, in the Shire, had leapt the Brandywine and transplanted themselves in the cradles and small beds of the Downs.  There was even talk in Shaly of building a wall to keep the terrible forest creatures from creeping into their homes at night.  They knew of the High Hay of Buckland (the hedge-wall); and perhaps the only thing that kept such a project from being attempted was lack of stones, or of the proper bushes.
     Tom and Goldberry's old house at the source of the Withywindle was now abandoned.  The hobbits could see it from the downs, but none went there.  It was rumoured to be a house of sprites (as indeed it had been): but sprites could either be good or evil, and none wanted to risk making the wrong guess about which it was in this case.  There were indeed spells set about it that would keep any from entering it or appropriating it.  Not dangerous spells, but efficacious ones nonetheless.
     Tomilo and Drabdrab passed on up the river valley.  They skirted Old Man Willow without incident.  The hobbit got dreadfully sleepy, but the pony ignored the whispered songs of the great tree and moved on down the path before his rider could fall off and come to grief. 
     The forest was already full of snow.  It weighed down the branches and fell into the stream from the laden trees with intermittent splashes, surprising the hobbit and bringing him out of his soporific thoughts.  As first he thought fish were rising, but then he remembered it was the middle of winter.  The fish wouldn't be flopping about, nor beavers neither.  No, the woods were mostly quiet.  A few winter birds fluttered by occasionally and the wind swirled a bit of snow into the air, making the hobbit sniffle.  But Drabdrab's soft clip-clop, muffled by the carpet of white, was the only constant noise.  Once or twice a deer, startled by their approach, looked at them with anxious eyes before bounding away.  And a couple of times an hour they might scare up a pair of rabbits, digging for shoots in the snow along the path's edge.  Otherwise, they were alone under the dim sun and the even dimmer shadows to right and left. 
     After many hours they came to a place where the path had been cleared.  The snow was piled high on each side in great mounds, as if a giant had walked through with a foot-plough, and this his wake.  Drabdrab raised his ears and sniffed the air.  Suddenly he broke into a trot, bouncing Tomilo up and down in the saddle and waking him fully from his afternoon reverie.  The hobbit stared hard at the end of the path, expecting something—or someone—to appear.  But they jogged on for another mile, at least, before the trees began to recede and they found themselves in a narrow clearing.  At the end of the clearing was a yellow house with a flagstone chimney and white windows.  A fragrant wood-smoke from a fire on the hearth could be smelled drifting down the valley.  As they got closer, Tomilo could see that the front door was blue, with a shiny bell-pull in the very middle.  He wondered at this:  the inhabitants of the house couldn't get many visitors in this location!
     Well-tended gardens led up to the house on either side of the path, although these were not presently at their most showy, of course.  But even now, in early winter, holly bushes and other finely trimmed evergreens were surrounded by a myriad of clever little paths and the occasional seat of stone.  And on the south end of the house stood an orchard of nut and fruit trees—all bare and lovely in their nakedness.  Two silver birches, slender and tall, rose out of fragrant earth on each side of the front steps.  Their beautiful white bark was dotted with black spots, like eyes.   The windows of the house were covered with winter shutters, and on the shutters were carved marvellous designs: trout and salmon, otters and muskrats, herons and kingfishers swam and romped and dove among river grasses and reeds and winding weeds.  And a little ditch of running water burbled right along the front of the house, directly underneath the windows—and even making a short tunnel beneath the steps before rushing away to meet the Withywindle. 

As there was no gate, Drabdrab took Tomilo to the front of the garden and gave a loud snort.  The hobbit was too intent in looking at all the ornaments on the house to remember to dismount and ring the bell, but the pony was in some hurry to call Master Bombadil, and then to see his pony friends in the stables. 
     Immediately after Drabdrab called, Tom Bombadil himself leapt out upon the porch and bumped down the stairs, making a huge commotion and talking at the top of his lungs.  His boots were of a colour to match the house, as we all know, and his jacket was the exact colour of the door.  They might have been dyed in the same pot.  He had a huge white napkin still tied about his neck, which he took no notice of, except to wipe his hands upon it as he stomped down the path. 
     The hobbit heard nothing of Bombadil's first comments—he was too interested in the man's boots.  He had thought Galka's boots to be large, but these would have swallowed Galka's whole. . . might have swallowed Galka whole.  They bordered on the ludicrous.  Were they overshoes, perhaps?  Or could anyone's feet possibly be that large?  Hobbits had rather large feet themselves (and were proud of it); but this was perhaps taking the whole thing too far.   
     At any rate, Tomilo had no more time to consider it, as Bombadil arrived and slapped him on the back and shook his hand and asked him so many questions in such a short time that he couldn't remember what the first question was.  So he just sat and nodded.
     'And there's my pony!  Back from his trip circumnavigating Middle Earth and the outer reaches of mapmaking!' began Tom again, walking circles around Drabdrab and patting him on head and withers and haunch—checking his tail for burrs and his ears for mites.  'And the hobbit has rode back with him!  You're a bit out of your way: from Farbanks, I believe Radagast said.  You didn't need to bring him back personally, although Goldberry will be glad to meet you and shake your hand for it.  She's been wanting company this fortnight, with the snows and all, and here you are, come riding up all merry and red-cheeked and stout as a summer goose in a field of caterpillars!  Hop down here my hearty!'  And Tom lifted the hobbit like a bundle of straw, plopping him down on the garden path with an 'oomph' and a chuckle. 
     'That's health!  And here's to ye!' continued Bombadil, slapping the surprised hobbit on the back again and directing him into the house.  'Take yourself up those stairs, Lad, over the bubbling brooklet and into the water kingdom of Tom and Goldberry.  Whistle a pretty tune when you get inside and the Lady will like it all the better!  I've got to take my favourite pony to see his mates, and to give him a merry bite and a proper song.  But I'll be along presently.  Don't start without me, if there's mushrooms!'
     With that, Tom began scampering about Drabdrab, dancing a mostly rhythmless dance in his yellow boots and almost pulling the pony along, like a dance partner.  As the hobbit walked up the stone steps, he could hear Tom's song begin.

     ~~~~~~~~~~
        The pony trotted a trotted along
        a clippy a cloppy a neighing a song.
        His rider bopped on his back a bump bump
        a bouncing along on his rumpity rump!
        The rider he opened his mouth to keep time
        but he couldn't a follow the clever horse rhyme.
        His words and his bumps wouldn't quite come together
        ~like thunder and lightning in inclement weather.
        First a word, like a flash of scary white light!
        then a bump like a thump of noise in the night!
        Word bump a bump word a bumpity word
        like the broken wing of a wumpity bird.
        And the rider he fell in the muddy mud puddle
        His tongue and his rump, all in a muddle.
     ~~~~~~~~~~

From the threshold Tomilo watched Bombadil disappear round the corner of the house, still whistling and singing, with a Merry dol and a Derry dol to fill the pauses between made-up songs.  After he had gone, the hobbit turned to look into the house.  As his eyes became used to the fading light of evening, he saw a large room filled with yellow candles and carpeted with rushes.  Great bowls of clear water were set about the room, and the light shone through them.  No lilies floated upon the waters in this season, only a few lovely dead leaves of yellow and red. 
     A fire also there was: it threw a red glow across the room from the left and mixed with the light of the candles.  Large stoneware jugs were standing along one wall; and terracotta pots as well, fancifully painted with the same characters as were on the shutters outside.  Near the fire a kettle was on the hob, and a lady lifted it and began pouring some steaming liquid into three sturdy cups of fired clay.  Then she turned to the hobbit and spoke.
     'Come, Tomilo, and drink!  I am Goldberry, daughter of the river.'
     'Um. . . Good evening, Goldberry,' stammered the hobbit.  'I have never seen a house like this.  So. . . watery.  Or riverish, if you know what I mean, Lady.  But these rushes are soft on my feet, even though they are no longer green!'
     'Yes.  It is here as it is in the riverbed.  All is gentle and flowing.'
     'Oh,  I see,' answered the hobbit, still rather confused.  'And you say the river is your father?  I wonder, what does that mean, exactly?'
     'I was born of the river.  I am the river daughter.'
     'Oh.  Who is your mother, then?'
     'The earth is my mother.  The river is the seed and the earth is the womb, and I am the child.'
     'Oh.  But you are a person.  Can the Withywindle also be a person if he wants to?'
     'My!  Tomilo, you are inquisitive, are you not?  You desire to know everything, I suppose.  About my sisters, and where they live and who they are married to and if we have children and how they are born and what sort of clothes we swaddle them in.'
     'Yes, all that.  For a start.  And then we can talk about Tom Bombadil and his parents.'
     Goldberry laughed.  'We are not mortals, Tomilo.  So we do not have parents in the same way you have parents.'
     'But elves are not mortals, and they have parents.'
     'We are not elves, either.'
     'Is Tom Bombadil the son of the river?  Or maybe of another river?'
     'No.  Tom is the Master.  His only sire is Middle Earth herself.  He was always here.  And always will be.'
     'He will never sail away over the sea?'
     'No.  He did not come from there.  Nor is he called there.  This is his place.  You might say, he is this place.'
     'I do not understand you.  What place?  This house, you mean?  Or this forest?'
     'No.  Middle Earth is Tom's place.  Today we are here.  Tom is here because Goldberry is the daughter of this river.  But tomorrow he may be someplace else.'
     'And will you go with him?'
     'No, this is my place.  Not all of Middle Earth, but only this river valley.  Tom goes, and Tom returns.  Remember Tomilo, we do not measure years as you do.'
  
Just then Tom Bombadil himself returned to the house.  He still wore his white napkin about his neck.  'Hoy there!  My Lady and my stout friend!  Did you save any dinner for Tom?  I can't eat raw oats and barley!'
     'The dinner is keeping warm,' replied Goldberry.  'And I have been kept busy answering many questions.  Our guest is a curious one.'
     'Is he, then?  Well, I am curious, too.  I am curious to know how curious a stout hobbit must be to forget to eat?  My pretty Lady is very fascinating, Mr. Fairbairn, is she not?  I myself have forgotten to eat for years, just looking at my lovely Goldberry.  And even then I did not get hungry.  However, let us eat and look upon her at the same time, then we shall be doubly satisfied—and we won't lose any weight for our love, either, hey!  Hah, hah.'
     Goldberry smiled at the hobbit, as if to say she was used to such outlandish compliments from the Master.  Then she and Tom whisked the hobbit into a chair at an already set table, and placed hot food upon it.
     'You will have to forgive us, Tomilo,' said Bombadil.  'We had already begun eating when you arrived.  We had thought you would be here hours ago.  But apparently you have been dawdling—looking at the rabbits and deer and the snow in the woods.  Drabdrab tells me if he hadn't snorted occasionally you would have fallen off altogether, and still been asleep in a snowdrift under Old Man Willow.  But don't worry, we have enough and to spare.  You eat potatoes, I dare say?'
     Tomilo did eat potatoes, and much of them.  In fact he had much of everything, and much of seconds after that.  Between them, he and Bombadil dispatched several hot loaves, three puddings, and a mountain of potatoes.  Goldberry ate a small trout and a single potato.  Also some berries and cream.  They all had cup after cup of hot drink, that Tomilo thought tasted of apples, or perhaps pears.  But there were hints of other fruits and sweet herbs that Tomilo was unfamiliar with.  It reminded him somewhat of the drink of the elves, but this was more earthy.  It was richer and cloudier.  It smelled of rain in the grass and on the rocks, rather than of dew on the upper leaves of the trees. 
     After dinner the three sat by the fire, and Tomilo asked many more questions of both of them.  Finally he asked the question he had been wanting to ask ever since he had first seen Drabdrab.  Could Bombadil tell him more of the saddle?
     'Yes, well,' began the Master, finally noticing the napkin around his neck and having Goldberry help him untie it.  'You see Radagast couldn't be expected to know much of that saddle.  He could tell you what it said, maybe; but he had not yet arrived at the Havens—with the other wizards, you know—when that saddle came to me.  Arethule was the son of Meodlin and the grandson of Meomir, Tomilo.  You met Meonas at the council.  Meonas is the younger brother of Meodlin, you see.  At first, Meodlin stayed in Harlindon when Celebrimbor and Meonas left to found Hollin.  He and Meonas had never been close, the elder brother being more fiery and less temperate than the younger, as is often the case.  Meodlin had the capricious will of his father and grandfather.  He also had their form: very tall and very dark, with an arch brow and a long fine nose.  Meonas was always less in strength and beauty than his brother.  But he had perhaps the better mind.  His powers of concentration were certainly superior. 
     'At any rate, Meodlin did not come to Hollin until war broke out there.  Once Sauron unmasked himself and began preparing to march on the city of Ost-in-Edhil, Meodlin and many other elves rode to its defense from the west.  Elrond also came, sent by Gil-galad.  But they were overwhelmed by the forces from Mordor, and forced to retreat in disarray.  Elrond escaped to the north, and founded the city of Imladris with some of the refugees from Eregion.  But Meodlin and many others had fallen in battle and would not return to the forests of the coasts.
     'One of the stories of this battle, Tomilo—one that is remembered by few, now that Elrond and Galadriel and Gildor and so many others have sailed—is the story of Arethule.  Now Arethule was but a boy when his father went to war in Eregion, so he was left with his mother in the forests of Harlindon*.  After a few months his father sent a present to him from Hollin.  The great battle was still weeks away, and no one foresaw the complete disaster it would be.  The elves had fortified the city, with much help from the dwarves, and they felt safe in their strength of numbers.  So Meodlin had instructed one of the artisans of Hollin to make a saddle for his small son, who was just then learning to ride.  He sent this saddle with a pony and messages to his wife.  It was the last they were to hear of him.
     'Arethule, however, being like to all the first sons of his line, was headstrong and surpassing willful.  The day after he received the saddle he left Harlindon and rode alone to the east, seeking his father, though he was less than four hundred years old (seven or eight, by your reckoning, Tomilo, I think).  He became lost on the journey, arriving at the mouths of the Greyflood—some sixty leagues too far south.  By the time he reached Eregion, the war was over.  The elves had fled to the north, and Arethule was caught in front of the returning armies of Mordor.  He hid himself along the banks of the Glanduin, it is told, and so escaped detection.  Once Sauron and his armies had passed, Arethule continued on to the city of Ost-in-Edhil.  It was naught but smoking ruins when he came upon it.  A single dwarf was scouring the rubble, looking for survivors (or trinkets) when the elfchild came riding by.  He told Arethule that Elrond and the other elves had fled to the north, toward the Bruinen.  The child asked the dwarf if Meodlin—a great Prince of the Noldor—was with them.  But the dwarf could not say.  The name was unknown to him.  He knew of a Lord Meonas—a similar name—but Meonas had gone over the mountains long ago.

*The elves of Nimbrethil had moved to Harlindon sometime before the destruction of Doriath.  It is not known how the inhabitants of Doriath knew to leave, anticipating the flooding of the entire region in the War of Wrath.  But it is assumed that they were warned, perhaps by Osse, or by Ulmo himself.

     'With nothing else to do, Arethule followed the trail of the fleeing elves.  But he was soon pursued by orcs and wargs and other fell creatures, and he became lost once more.  For some reason he crossed the Hoarwell below its meeting with the Bruinen, and so never came to Imladris.  It is said he wandered in Eriador for many months or years, searching for the elves.  Finally he perished in the wild, whether from hunger or at the hand of one of the enemy, no one knows.  It may be he died of grief, believing his father and all the elves to have been destroyed by Sauron.
     'I found this saddle in one of the hoards of the Barrow-downs.  Perhaps it had been discovered by one of the wights countless years ago, and kept as part of his terrible treasure.  Many strange things have I reclaimed from those tombs, objects of beauty and craftsmanship from the hand of man and elf.  And there is no one now left to claim them—none who know the story even as a legend.'
     'But Meonas might!' interrupted the hobbit.  'If I understand you, this Arethule was his nephew.'
     'Meonas never met Arethule, or knew of him but by distant songs.  He has never asked me for this saddle, regardless.'
     'How did anyone know to sing songs of Arethule?  How do you know this story, Master?'
     'I pieced it together over many centuries.  Some of it is conjecture, but it is correct as a whole, if not in detail.  It is known he came to Hollin, and it is known he came late, for the dwarf reported it.  And it is known he became lost in Eriador, since he never came to Imladris, and since his saddle is now here.  As for the songs, I told Elrond of the saddle and asked him if he wanted it.  I also asked if any of the House of Feanor were in Imladris, and if they might be interested in this saddle.  But there were always few Noldor in Imladris, and none of the First House.  Nor did any of the other houses wish to have an heirloom of Feanor's house.  There is still much enmity toward the sons of Feanor and all their descendants, even three ages hence.  So I have kept it.  It is both useful and beautiful, is it not?  At any rate, the story of Arethule became known there, and the elf minstrels are always keen to find a subject for a song.  No doubt they have done much more with it than I have here tonight.'
     'Do the elves in Imladris still sing songs of Arethule?  I was just there, but I did not think to ask anyone of such a thing.'
     'I do not know.  I have had no contact with Imladris since Elrond passed through the Old Forest with Gandalf and Galadriel and Gildor a few hundred years ago.  We talked long of many things, but this saddle—and the songs of Imladris—was not one of them.  The song of Arethule is but a short song of woe in a time long past.'

Bombadil sat looking into the fire for many minutes.  Finally Goldberry spoke to him.
     'Let us show our guest to his room, now.  He must be tired from his long ride today.  And that was a proper bedtime story, even for the most inquisitive.  There will be time for more stories and more questions tomorrow.'
     'You are right, my pretty Lady.  We have a soft bed all ready for our friend, cozier than any snowbank—even without the soothing songs of Old Man Willow to sing you to sleep!  Follow me Mr. Baggins. . . I mean Fairbairn.  I'm forgetting which story I'm in, now.  It seems just yesterday your four friends from the Shire dropped in to ask me about rings and Black Riders and other nonsense.  At least I won't have to come rescue you from the barrowwights, will I?  You're going the other way.  And the wights are all gone now, anyway.  But we still have beanpoles out the back window, although there are no beans on them this time of year.  Sleep well, my stout little friend.  No balrogs will come here!  Not unless they want a song of mine to freeze their fiery bones down to ice!  But if you have a bad dream, just sing Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow.  And young Tomilo is a merry lad, too!  Bad dreams don't like to hear that, you know.  Hah, hah!'
          
The next morning Tomilo began asking questions again at breakfast.  He had lain awake half the night thinking of Arethule and Frodo and Radagast and Elrond and on and on.  He had not been able to sleep for many hours.  So even before the toast had been set upon the table, the hobbit was posing a string of questions to Bombadil.  How did he make the ring disappear?  How is it he could see Frodo?  Who was older, Bombadil or Treebeard?  Why weren't there any ents in the Old Forest?  Why did wizards look old?  What was the creature in this forest that Radagast had spoken of?  Was it Old Man Willow?  What was the difference between a sprite and an elf?  Were there sprites that were men—that is to say, male?  Could a balrog be a woman?  If not, why not?
     Finally Bombadil raised his hands and sang a stanza at the top of his lungs:

     ~~~~~~~~~~
      Oi hey a lalla hey a bomba domba dillo
       stuff your mouth with toast and jam
       or I'll do it with a pillow!
       I'll tie you up in a big brown sack
       and feed you to Old Man Willow!
     ~~~~~~~~~~

Not that Bombadil sounded very serious, but Tomilo decided to keep quiet for a little bit and finish his bacon.
     At last, Tom and Goldberry cleared the table in a blinking, and the hobbit was informed that they would all go for a walk.  The Lady was going for a swim and the Master and Tomilo would accompany her down to the river.  On the way, Bombadil answered a few of the hobbit's many questions.
     'I do not know what Radagast told you about the Old Forest.  Or what creature he was talking about.  I do not think he would call me or Goldberry a "creature."  Though we certainly are creatures, as Radagast is himself.  He probably meant Oakvain the Old.  Although if you meet Oakvain, I do not recommend you call him a creature, either.  I do not think he would like it at all, especially from such a small young creature as yourself, Mr. Fairbairn.'
     'Oakvain?  What. . . I mean who is he?'
     'He is the answer to your other question.  He is the ent of Taur Iaur.'
     'Where is "Tower Yower"?
     'Taur Iaur is the Old Forest.  "Old Forest" is simply a Westron translation of the Sindarin name.  "Iaur" means old, and the wood-elves call me Iarwain Ben-adar:  Oldest Father-less.'  
     'Can I meet him?' asked Tomilo excitedly.  He had always been thrilled by the description of Treebeard in The Red Book. 
     'I suppose you may.  But you must not bother him with a lot of questions.  He does not much like company.  He has not talked to a hobbit in ages.  But I think it might do him good to meet you.  Even the hermit must be reminded of the world outside occasionally.  If he does not like you, we will go away.  He can ask no more than that.  But first let us bathe with our pretty Lady.'
     They had arrived at the banks of the Withywindle, and Tom and Goldberry undressed and dove in, like otters playing in the snow.  Tom had decided to have a swim as well. The hobbit did not follow them.  'It is too cold for me!'  he said.
     'Don't be silly!' cried Goldberry.  'There isn't even a crust of ice today.  The river runs without the least freezing.  If you don't swim now you will just have to come back later, and then it may be really cold!'
     'No, Goldberry.  We hobbits sometimes go an entire lifetime without swimming.  I think I can skip a day without any harm done.  Thank you, though.'
     'A day without swimming!  I would not have thought it possible!' Goldberry answered, shooting past Bombadil like a salmon and splashing him.
     'Oh, yes.  And when we swim, we wear bathing attire,' added the hobbit.
     'Do you mean clothing?'
     'Yes, Lady.'
     'How odd,' interrupted Bombadil, blowing great sprays of water from his mouth.  'That would be like flying with armour on.  Or running with large boxes on your feet.  Or singing with your mouth full of apples'
     'I suppose,' said the hobbit.  'I never really thought of it that way.'

After the swim, they returned to the house.  Bombadil and Goldberry dried themselves in front of the fire and Tomilo had some more toast.  Then Bombadil and the hobbit went out to the stable to prepare Drabdrab for a short day's ride.  First they would go in search of Oakvain.  Then they would ride to Haysend.  There Tomilo would have to bid Drabdrab farewell.
     'What about Goldberry?  Must I say good-bye to her now?'
     'No. She will meet us at Haysend.  It is on the Withywindle.  The path will take her straight there.  It must.  After all, it is her path.'
     Bombadil would ride, too, and he brushed up a large fat pony for himself.  She was a descendant of Fatty Lumpkin, and looked it.  Her name was Bag-of-Oats, and she was plenty sturdy—from her eponymous diet—to carry the equally sturdy Master.
     Tomilo thought Bombadil needed a name from the hobbits, since he lived next to them—and since he already had names from all the other peoples of Middle Earth.  Forn by the dwarves, Iarwain by the elves, Orald by the Northmen.  As the hobbit watched him climb up on Bag-of-Oats, he thought of several that might be fitting.  Greatgirth was the first that came to mind.  Or Proudbelly might be more to the point.  Or Bristlebeard.  Or Loudboots.  Or Songbear.   Yes, that was the best so far.  Old Songbear.
     The day was bitter cold, but the sky was clear and the sun was out above the forest canopy.  The occasional patch of sun was blindingly bright, reflecting from the white snow, and warming on the face.  As they passed deeper into the woods, though, these patches of light came less and less often, until they were lost altogether.  A late morning gloom settled around them, and it grew dark and close.
     The two riders were travelling almost due south now.  They had crossed the Withywindle by a short stone bridge about half a mile west of the house.  So they were now in that great southern arm of the Old Forest that ran all the way down to the Baranduin.  This part of the forest was even larger than the northern part, and was even less known to the outside world.  It bordered no 'High Hay.'  It contained no Bonfire Glades or other intrusions of the Shire.  Not even the Brandybucks or Maggots had ever ventured into these areas.  Tomilo may have been the first hobbit to ever walk, or ride, in the southern half of the Old Forest, beyond the outlying trees.  Deep in these woods were places untouched and unseen since Orome rode through on Nahar before the First Age, and shook the trees with the calls of his horn Valaroma.  Not even Bombadil had trod all the paths of this ancient place. 
     One who had, though, Oakvain the Old, lived in a deep valley in its very midst, at the source of a tiny rivulet that fed the Withywindle.  He was the last ent in Taur Iaur, as he had been the first.  All the other ents had long since left—to Fangorn or Mirkwood or Ospellos.*  Or they had become 'sleepy,' putting down roots at last. 

*Ospellos was the forest girdling the southern range of the Ered Luin.  The name signified the poplar trees that were common there, with their trembling leaves, and the snow that was heavy on the arms of the mountains in winter.  There was no translation of this in the Common Tongue, since none came there but elves; but a good rendering in Westron might have been Snowwood.  

     Oakvain himself, however, was not sleepy in the least.  He was ancient beyond even his own guesses, but yet spry as a young sapling.  Daily he toured the confines of his wood, breathing the crisp air, tasting the delicious soil, drinking the clear water.  And at night, under the cloak of utter darkness, he walked abroad, unbeknownst to hobbit or man.  He came then to the Woody End or to the Chetwood or to the Woods of Mellith on the shores of Nenuial.  In fact, Oakvain still counted most of Eriador as his acreage, as it were.  He had charges—trees, that is—that he looked in on occasionally as far away as the Bay of Forochel and the Trollshares.  But he never passed the Misty Mountains anymore.
     Bombadil and Tomilo found him home, clearing snow from his 'walk.'  A path had been beaten from the direction of the Withywindle, along the rivulet and up to its spring.  Most of the trees in this area were oaks, of course, with a few scattered evergreens and two or three large willows with their feet in the water.  The ground here was flat, for the most part, although the water course had cut a shallow channel among the small rocks and turf-covered meadows.  Snow still clung to the bushes and winter shrubs overhanging the stream; it lay several feet deep in a number of low depressions dotting the near landscape. 
     Oakvain's 'hall' consisted of little more than a shelf of rock six or eight feet high, from the bottom of which the spring bubbled forth with a soothing sound and much splashing and foaming.  Two elderberry trees stood, one on each side of the spring, round and full.  Oak trees on top of the ledge had run their roots down the face of the shelf, in order to reach the spring; and woodbine also hung down the short drop, winding from the trunks above.  Mosses grew upon the rocks, here and there, and lichen clung to the roots, mottling the scene with white.  All in all it was a very interesting backdrop for a room, and Tomilo thought to himself that it must be truly lovely in the spring, when the elderberry trees were in bloom and the moss a bright green. 
     As they rode up, Oakvain had just kicked a huge pile of snow out of his drawing room into the stream, where it sent up a shower of mist and melted away into the valley.  He stamped his feet and shook the snow from them with his long leafy fingers.  Snow hung from his beard and salted his dark shadowy hair.  This hair looked more like moss, or mistletoe, and the snow found it very easy to stick to.  His broad back was also clothed in snow, and it worked deep into the crevices of his barky skin. 
      He looked nothing like Tomilo had pictured Treebeard looking.  Tomilo had thought of Treebeard like the old stump of a beech tree.  But Oakvain was a hale, if aged, oak.  Beeches and oaks were not so very different, supposed the hobbit, but there was nothing 'stumpy' about Oakvain.  He was very tall, 16 to 18 feet probably, and stooped hardly at all.  His limbs were wrinkled beyond belief, but were not crooked or deformed with infirmity.  His face was very knobby.  His nose was more like a gourd than a nose.  And his ears were like swirls of bark where a branch had broken off.  His mouth was lipless: just a cave where birds might nest or squirrels might store a nut.  From this distance, the hobbit could not even see his eyes, so deeply set were they.  With a blink they disappeared altogether, and the face was no longer a face—just pattern in the woodgrain and an assembly of strange growths.
     Bombadil called to Oakvain over the noise of the spring, and the old ent turned and strode over to them.  He seemed to move very slowly, but he was upon them in a flash: a long ent stride or two and he was towering over them, studying them from under his broad overhung brow.
     'Hm, ho.  Iarwain is it?  And a little mole, dressed in green cloth.  Very strange.  The very beginning of oddness it is.  How are you Iarwain?  Where is your Lady?  She never wades up the Glassinglade {his little stream} anymore.  I remember when she was a tiny little sprite-lass.  She could swim right up to the spring without touching her belly on the stream bed, though it couldn't have been as deep as my toe.  I had to hold her legs to keep her from swimming right down into the spring and being sucked into the Well of the World.  She was that small.'
     'Yes, well Oakvain, we have come a visiting,' answered Bombadil, laughing at the ent's story.  'This is Mr. Tomilo Fairbairn, a hobbit from Farbanks.  Is that part of the Shire, Tomilo?  Or not?  I haven't kept up, I'm afraid.'
     'No, no. The Shire is just the four farthings.  We are outskirters.'
     'And are hobbits related to moles?' added Oakvain.  'Or are they closer to beavers?'
     Tomilo just smiled and said nothing.  He was clever enough to see that the ent was testing him.  
     'Tomilo was asking me about Fangorn at breakfast this morning,' said Bombadil, to change the subject, 'so I thought I would bring him here and let you tell him.  You know more about Fangorn and his history than I do.  Than anyone but Fangorn, I guess, eh?'
     'I should think.  What did you want to know?'
     'Oh, I just asked Mr. Bombadil—I mean Master Bombadil, begging your pardon—who was older, him or Fangorn.  In The Red Book Gandalf says Fangorn is the oldest living thing in Middle Earth.  But Tom Bombadil is called "Eldest."  So I was just wondering who really was older.'
     'Fangorn, old?  Why Fangorn is still green between the toes.  He still hasn't finished sprouting.  Gandalf doesn't know what he's talking about.  Never did.  Fangorn is a sapling of the freshest sort.  I was older than the mountains before Fangorn was even dropped as an acorn.'
     'Really,' said Tomilo incredulously.
     'My boy, I have blights that are older than Fangorn.  I trim my beard by a calendar of the comings and goings of the likes of Fangorn.  Fangorn!  Don't tell me Fangorn.'
     'What about Master Bombadil?  Are you older than him, too?'
     'Tom?  Well, that's another story.  No one's older than Tom here.  That's like saying you are older than age.  That's would be like claiming you predated your own Dad.  Next to Tom I'm a minnow, a cub.  Tom's forgot more about Middle Earth than I'll ever know, my little rodent, and that's saying a mouthful.  From here to the Sea of Rhun is but a trip over a root for me, a stumble and a catch.  I've walked around Mirkwood to calm the hiccoughs, strolled to Far Harad as a cure for indigestion.  But Tom watches bantings such as me come and go like leaves falling from a tree.  Everytime Tom blinks an eye, an Oakvain goes from nut to deadwood.'
     'I had no idea,' answered the hobbit.
     'That's right.  Think of the fly that buzzes around your head.  That fly is to you what I am to Tom.  And the mote in that fly's eye is what you are to me.'
     Tomilo was still trying to make sense of that (and find some way not to be insulted) when the ent went on.
     'Fangorn, eh?  Treebeard himself, you say.  If Fangorn is such a wise old bird, why are there no entings in that forest of his?  Did you ever ask yourself that, my little bunny?' Oakvain asked, with a wink to Bombadil.  'This forest is as healthy as the day I came here, in the first minutes after the sun came up.  Eriador is simply brimming with entings, though you and Fangorn wouldn't know it, nor anyone else either—except Iarwain here.  Do you think that can be said of Fangorn's forest, or of Mirkwood?  Of course not.  They blunder about, singing songs of the past (I beg your pardon, Iarwain—I know you like a song now and again) while their woods go bad and everybody falls asleep.  The trees there have to wake up and become Huorns, just to be sure that anything gets done.  Here we do things properly.'
     'What do you mean?  I thought there weren't anymore entings.  I thought the entwives had been lost.'
     'Some have lost 'em, some haven't.  Wisdom is knowing where to look.'
     'Then the entwives are here?'
     'I didn't say that.  The entwives aren't here.  The entwives are where the entwives want to be.  They don't stay where I put 'em, anymore than they stay where Fangorn puts 'em.  But some of us looked for 'em properly and some of us didn't.  Some of us has eyes that see.  That's all I'm saying.'
     'If you know where they are, you should tell the other ents!  You can't keep the entwives all to yourself!'
     'Buzz, buzz, my little fly!  Mote in my entish eye!   I don't see any other ents here to tell, my little baggage.  They left long ago for bigger and better places.  But I did not force them to leave.  I am not keeping them from their searches.  I am not giving anyone wrong directions.  Still, I must say that I do not see them walking about, crying for the entwives, calling "Where oh where are they! We cannot live without the entwives!"   Besides, if the entwives are satisfied with my company, why should I complain?  Why should I call for assistance where none is needed?'
     
Tomilo didn't say anything else, but he was quite upset.  He got down from Drabdrab and led him over to the spring.  Oakvain and Bombadil continued to converse about things of no concern to the hobbit.
     'It's not right, Drabbie!  The entwives oughtn't to be kept a secret, just for the pleasure of Old Oakvain.  If I was an entwife I wouldn't have nothing to do with that old ent.  I'd go searching for some ents that were nicer!'
     Drabdrab snorted and nodded his head in agreement.  But he was perhaps thinking to himself that it was not in the nature of entwives to go searching for ents. 
     'When I get back to Farbanks I'm going to go looking for those entwives.  They must be around here somewhere.  And when I find them, I'm going to send word to Fangorn and the other ents.  Then we'll see how wise Old Oakvain feels, when a little mole digs up the truth!  I'll be the mote in his eye all right!'
     Ents have very sharp ears, and the hobbit would have surely been overheard, but for the bubbling of the spring.  As it was, Oakvain knew nothing of the small enemy he had made.  But even had he known, he would not likely have been concerned.  Secrets told to hobbits were like secrets told to treehoppers or crickets, in his estimation.  If Oakvain had known as much about hobbits as he claimed to know about the wide world as a whole, he perhaps would have not let his tongue wag so freely that winter afternoon.           


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter  13
The Thain

Tomilo and Bombadil left Oakvain and returned to the valley of the Withywindle.  As they rode, the hobbit asked Bombadil about the entwives.
     'Do you think old Oakvain really knows where the entwives are?  Or is he just boasting?  He seems rather prone to exaggeration.  Think of what he said of Fangorn, for instance.'
     'Yes, what he said about Fangorn I would take with a grain of salt, Tomilo.  He may be older than that ent, but he cannot be vastly older.  All that about acorns was just his way of speaking.  He likes to keep the talk lively.  But I have no doubt that he knows something of the entwives.  That is what has kept him so spry after all these centuries, by my way of looking at it.  No one but a new father could lift his legs so high—especially when he can't bend at the waist!'
     'Well, if that's true, he should not be allowed to keep it a secret.  Why haven't you sent word to Fangorn, if you believe it?'
     'It is none of my business, Tomilo.  The domestic troubles of the ents and entwives are their own affair, and not for me to meddle in.  Even were I a Vala—which I'm not—I would have no excuse for getting involved.  When the entwives want to be found, they will be.'
     'But they have been found.  By Oakvain, at least.'
     'Oakvain always exaggerates, remember.  I don't know how much real "finding" he has done.  There may be a few entings in Eriador, but I don't think we are in any danger of overpopulation.  And I will say it again: it is up to the entwives to decide how and how much they want to be found.   Also remember this, Tomilo:  the lives of the ents and entwives are not measured in your years.  An entire age can pass and seem like only a little while to the ents.  In their minds, this may be no more than a temporary misunderstanding.  Like a hot word or a frying pan thrown by a hobbitwife.'
     'But what if they forget about eachother, and give up, and never get back together?'
     'Never is a very long word, Tomilo.  Particularly for an ent.  The tale is very far from being finished, no matter what happens in the current crisis.  There is always time.  Remember that.  There is always time.'
     'I still think we should send a message to Fangorn.'
     'What would we say?  We would write, "Entwives found."  They would write back, "where?"  Then we would reply, "We don't know."  That would not be a great amount of news, would it?'
     'It would be something.'
     'It would be a nuisance to them, probably.  The ents might get their hopes up, and they might begin another long search, wasting many years.  Or they might come here and battle with Oakvain, and one or the other would die.  But until the entwives send up a signal, I say let it be.  If the entwives don't want to be found, and the ents find them, they will just run away again.  What will we solve by that, Tomilo?'
     'Maybe you are right, Master Bombadil.  But I think the ents and the entwives maybe need help finding eachother.  It sounds to me like the entwives have been cross long enough.  I mean, whatever the argument was to start with. . . I mean, I just hate to see it at this sorry pass.  If the entwives heard that song that Fangorn was singing for them, I think maybe they wouldn't be so cruel.  Maybe they would be lonely again.  I don't know.'
     'You have a kind heart, Tomilo.  I hope you are right.  If Goldberry stayed in her stream and wouldn't come out, I wouldn't mind if someone helped me coax her out.  Of course, no one can sing as prettily as I can!'
     'That goes without saying, Master. . .  Look, there's your Lady now!'
     As they peered ahead they could just see a figure in the line of trees along the Withywindle, on the far side.  It raised its hand to them and a clear song drifted down the wind to their ears.  Goldberry was singing a song of her father to them—a song of the winding river.  Her voice floated high and soft in the forest air, like water running through the branches.
     There was another stone bridge here near the end of the forest, about half a mile from where the Withywindle joined the Brandywine.  The two riders crossed on their fine ponies, watching the Lady all the while.  She wore a dress of green and silver and pale blue, and a long coat of blue-grey fastened at the neck with a clasp in the shape of fish.  The coat had a tall pointed hood, folded over toward the back.  The front of the hood was encircled by a decorative band of short fur, embroidered fancifully with swimming otters.  At her waist was a girdle of golden leaves, and her hair was entwined with bright yellow poplar leaves.  Her slender boots were silver, and they shone like fishes' mail—like the rainbow belly of a slippery trout.  Goldberry was yet singing to them, and her cheeks were red from the winter air—a red only surpassed by the red of her lips.
     Tom Bombadil leapt from his pony and kissed his pretty Lady, saying, 'Here is the fairest daughter in the forest!  The fairest daughter in any forest, Eh?  Don't you be a'getting like the entwives, Goldberry, and tiring of your Tom.  I would wear my legs out looking for you!'
     'You wouldn't look far, Master.  The valley of my father is short, and I run nowhere else.'
     'That's the spirit!  Although notice she doesn't say she doesn't run, Tomilo!  Hah, hah!'

Now it was time to say good-bye to Drabdrab.  The hobbit's heart sank as he took his packs off the pony and led him over to Bombadil.  
     'I'm going to miss you, Drabbie.  We saw some things, didn't we?  For good and bad.  Well, if you ever feel like visiting Farbanks again, you'll sure be welcome.  And maybe someday we can say yes to Phloriel's invitation and go to Lothlorien!  I know we're both glad to be getting home, and you probably don't want to think about going that far again anytime soon.  But after we've both had a good long rest!  Then we can talk about it.' Drabdrab just swished his tail and gave a single plaintive snort.
     'Take good care of him, Master Bombadil.  I know you will, but I just had to say it, if you know what I mean,' added the hobbit, blushing.  'Good-bye, Tom.  Good-bye, Goldberry.  Thank you.  I will always remember your house and your valley.  May they always ring with your voices.  Good-bye!'

Bombadil had loaned Tomilo a rucksack, and the hobbit slung it on his shoulders and made off down the last stretch of the path with his few belongings.  Where the Withywindle emptied into the Brandywine, the High Hay also came to an end.  The hobbit skirted this hedge and entered the southern reach of Buckland.  To his left lay the hamlets of Briar Hill and Standelf, but he passed on, following the hedge northward toward Brandy Hall. 
     It would have been a much shorter trip to have gone due west from Bombadil's house, but there was no gate in the hedge in this vicinity.  The Withywindle flowed almost in the same direction as the Brandywine as they met, so that Buckland diminished to a narrow point at its southernmost end.  Tomilo therefore had to backtrack a fair way to finally pass the Hay. 
     Tomilo had thought of crossing the river at Haysend and so coming directly to Deephallow, but two considerations kept him from this.  One, there was no ferry at Haysend.  There was a landing stage across the river, at the Mithe—where the Shirebourn met the Brandywine; but this was used as a dock for boats embarking upsteam, toward Buck Hill. No one had any business crossing the river, for there was nothing at Haysend but the Grindwall, a small hythe protected by a fence. He would have had to swim, or find someone further upstream with a boat.  Swimming was difficult enough in fair weather, especially for a hobbit.  With snow on the ground and ice in the water, it was out of the question.  Two, the road from Deephallow ended at Willowbottom.  A hobbit well-versed in the ways of the Shire might make his way by intermittent paths over the Thistle Brook and the Shirebourn, so passing the Woody End to the south and coming to Tuckborough over the Green Hills.  But, again, the beginnings of winter made this tricky, if not foolhardy.  So Tomilo had decided to borrow a pony at Brandy Hall—or in Stock, at the latest—and take the Stock-Tuckborough road directly to his meeting with the Thain.
     He reached Bucklebury and Brandy Hall well after sundown.  He had been walking for about six hours, but his legs were only a little tired and he decided to continue on to Stock.  It was too dark to find a pony here in the town, anyway.  Everyone was indoors, having supper and getting ready for bed.  The hobbits turned in early in the winter.  It was only a little after eight, but Tomilo saw that some of the houses on Buck Hill had already extinguished their lamps.  These were probably farmers or field workers who would be up with the sun in the morning. 
     No, the best thing would be to walk on to The Golden Perch in Stock, where he could get supper and a bed and a pony all at the same place.   It was another couple of hours to Stock—if he could get a ferry immediately at the river—but that would put him in bed by ten or eleven.  That was not so very late.  Besides, it felt good to be out under the stars alone, with nothing to intrude on his thoughts.  The moon was a fat gibbous, only four or five days from full, and was already well above the horizon.  It was changing even now from a harvest orange to a pale yellow as it rode higher in the heavens.  He would not have to worry about tripping over roots or missing his step out of the ferry.
      As luck would have it, the ferry was on the east bank, and Tomilo simply poled himself across.  During the day there was commonly a driver, paid to transport the young and the old, or any unsure how to handle the pole.  But at night, a hobbit was on his own.  This gave Tomilo no pause, however.  He knew how to use a pole. There was a smaller river that ran through Farbanks, and he had been over it many times—albeit with a shorter pole.  
      The road to Stock gave the hobbit time to think.  He had been thinking all day, on his long walk, but something about the dark made it easier to concentrate.  There was nothing to see: no beautiful birch trees standing naked and white in the cold like a beautiful maiden—or like Goldberry climbing from the river like a young goddess being birthed from the foam.  No hobbit lads or lasses sweeping leaves from the walk or playing in the snow.  No farmers chopping wood or throwing ashes on the garden.  No peddlers selling trinkets or offering to sharpen your knives. 
     This made Tomilo think of his axe—the only object in his pack of any real weight (or worth).  He pulled it out and turned it in his hands.  The blade twinkled in the moonlight.  Suddenly he remembered the orcs, attacking from all sides.  This axe had killed an orc.  Tomilo had killed an orc.  He shuddered and returned the axe to his pack.
     What would happen, he wondered, now that the long peace was ending?  How bad would it get?  Would the Shire be in danger?  The high passes of the mountains were always dangerous; or so it seemed to the hobbit.  But could the Shire, so remote, so idyllic, ever really be threatened?  What would balrogs, or Morgoth, want with the Shire?  What did they want with anyplace?  Why was all this happening?  Why did the balrog attack Glorfindel?   Why were there balrogs at all?  Who allowed them to be?   Why would Vorun* make balrogs?  He wished he had asked Bombadil some of these questions.  If anyone could explain it, Bombadil could.  But Master Bombadil didn't seem to like questions.  Especially questions like that.  Next time, he would ask one question at a time, so as not to be a bother.  And never at breakfast.  Maybe then Bombadil would answer, if you didn't press him too much.

*Vorun is the hobbits' name for Eru Iluvatar, maker of all things.

     Tomilo did not know the answer to any of these questions, though, and thinking about them got him nowhere.  They only made his head hurt.  All he could come up with was that evil things were evil and good things were good.  Evil things fought good things because they were good and good things fought evil things because they were evil.  It was not very satisfactory, but it stated the case, anyway.   
     But then he remembered the council.  Morgoth was coming to Middle Earth to enslave everyone.  He wanted dominion, at any cost.  Those were the words of Ivulaine. 
     The King in Minas Mallor was a ruler.  And Mithi was a ruler.  And Meonas, too.  But they were leaders.  And their peoples loved them, in their ways.  But Tomilo did not think that balrogs loved Morgoth, or that orcs had loved Sauron.  No, they hated him and feared him, as much or more than elves or men or hobbits feared him. 
     Yes, that was the difference.  It had to do with fear. 
     Tomilo stopped thinking about Why? and started thinking about What?  What should he do?  What should the hobbits do?  Was there anything they could do?  As Glorfindel had told the council, the hobbits were not skilled in warfare.  And there was no ring this time, to be taken to the fire, or anything like that.  Nothing that it would help to be small and quiet. 
     What about burgling?  Bilbo had been a good burglar.  Or fairly good, until he got caught and almost got fried.  But was there anything to burgle now?  Not that Tomilo knew of. 

Just as the hobbit ran out of things to think of, he came to Stock.  It was very late.  The Golden Perch had the only lanterns still lit in town.  One on each side of the threshold welcomed travellers to the 'finest Inn in the Eastfarthing.'  This was writ on a large placard over the door, on which was also painted a great yellow fish leaping directly into a frying pan.  Tomilo had been to the Perch before, and he had always thought this depiction mighty convenient: it saved the fisherman all the nuisance of actually fishing.  Apparently all one need do in the East Farthing is hold out a frying pan over the nearest stream, and plop! there's your dinner!
     The hobbit climbed several broad steps and entered a large room filled with red light and much smoke.  It was rather late, but the common room of the Perch was still lively.   All the tables were full and noisy with talk and song.  Almost every hobbit had a pipe to his lips or at arm's length waiting for a draw while he talked.  Mugs were also plentiful, as the Perch served up its famous beer—still among the best in the Shire.  Those in the Marish would tell you (especially after a couple of mugs) that it was the finest, period; and that anyone who would say otherwise was a fool and a twice-fool and needed his nose tweaked.
     Finally a small hobbit, barely more than a boy, greeted Tomilo and asked his pleasure.
     'I need a room for the night, and supper before that.  And I need a pony for the morning.'
     'Well, Master, the first two we have.  But we don't sell ponies.'
     'No, I'm sorry, I didn't make myself clear.  I am very tired.  I just walked from Haysend today, and I'm lightheaded from hunger—not to say footsore and backsore.  What I mean is, I am a messenger for the Thain.  I am travelling to Tuckborough tomorrow with very important information from the east.  In the last month I have been in Moria and Rhosgobel and Rivendell.  But I had to return my pony in the Old Forest.  I simply need to borrow one of yours to ride to Tuckborough.  I will send it back in a couple of days.'
     'You returned your pony to the Old Forest?  I did not know the Old Forest was lending ponies.  What kind of rate does the Old Forest offer for ponies—I mean per day?  Was it at all affordable?'
     Tomilo stared at the young hobbit.  He was starting to get rather irked, and he was about to say something unkind, when that little person spoke up again.  'Begging your pardon, Master, I was just having a little fun.  But luckily for you, my brother works at the Bridge.  You see there was word sent from the Thain that a rider would be arriving from Bree, and that he should be given all assistance in reaching Tuckborough promptly.  But you are being looked for on the East Road, not on the Stock Road.  If you had asked Old Lomota (the Innkeeper) he would not have known who you were.  He would have asked a large deposit—a couple of silver pennies—to loan any of his ponies.  But I will send my brother, who is right over there, to talk to him.  I don't think he'll need a deposit when it concerns The Took.'
     Tomilo breathed a sigh of relief.  He was really too tired to haggle over the loaning of a pony.  Old Lomota soon came bustling over (after hearing the whole story) and welcomed Tomilo.  He showed the hobbit into a private room, where he was quickly served beer and ripe cheese and a large loaf.  That was soon followed by a plate of roasted meats.  Afterwards he was shown to a room: a nice large one with its own fire, and at a proper distance from the common room.  Tomilo could hear nothing of the continued festivities there.  He was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow.
     The next morning at sunrise he was awoken by the same young hobbit.  After breakfast they went out to the stables, where Old Lomota was brushing out the tail of a very healthy pony with a shining black coat and white stockings.  He was giving the hobbit his best pony, and seeing to it himself.  The good graces of The Took were important to an innkeeper of the Shire, and Lomota knew it.  A tavern lived on word of mouth, and the most important word (and most important mouth) was that of the Thain.  Therefore Lomota took every effort to see that Tomilo was properly taken care of. 
     Tomilo thanked him for his hospitality and complimented him on his rooms and his beer.  Then he promised to send the pony back directly.
     'Oh, it was nothing, Mr. Fairbairn.  And keep him as long as you need.  Anything we can do for the good of the Shire.  Now you be sure and tell The Took to come back and have a mug himself.  We haven't seen him here in months!  Oh, and the pony's name is Snowwade.  Because the black washed off in the snow, you know.  Good-bye!'
     'I'll tell him, not to worry.   Maybe he'll come back with Snowwade himself.  Thanks again!'
      
The ride to Tuckborough was uneventful.  Snowwade was slow but comfortable.  His legs were much shorter than Drabdrab's, but this put the hobbit closer to the ground.  Also, the stirrups fit him perfectly.  It was nice to have one's legs secure, after all.* 
     Much of the Shire was already covered in snow.  The early storms that smote the Misty Mountains weeks earlier had also dumped their snows in Eriador.  And the weather had remained cold enough that the snow had not melted.  Tomilo had found it very shallow in his walk through the open areas of Buckland, but beyond Stock it became deeper again—even deeper than in the Old Forest.  It seemed that the further he advanced away from the Brandywine, the deeper it got.   There was a single track in the midst of the road that had been worn by travellers.  Only at wide intervals did it bulge out into two temporary tracks, as ponies or carts meeting from east and west veered to pass eachother and then rejoined the already beaten track.  On either side of the road, the snow lay many feet deep.  Great boulders lay almost unseen, and bushes were like humps in the white flatness.  On the black pony, Tomilo felt like a fly in the milk.

Two days later the hobbit reached the Great Smials.  They lay at the center of Tuckborough, much like Brandy Hall lay at the center of Bucklebury.   But while Brandy Hall was delved out of a single large hill, the Great Smials were instead burrowed into a line of banks almost like a low cliff.  There was a fault in the land at this point in the West Farthing, and the

*Snowwade was equipped with hobbit stirrups, which were actually toe stirrups, of course.  The toe stirrup gives the rider a very firm hold, as anyone who has ever used one will tell you.   Much preferable, in fact, to boot and boot-stirrup.

Green Hills were split by it for the distance of a league or two.  At its highest point it was perhaps eight yards tall, and here the Tooks had begun cleaving their holes many years ago.  The largest and most commodious were in the middle, with smaller holes adjoining in both directions.  The main holes of the Took family proper were in three levels, running about a hundred yards northeast to southwest.  More distant branches of the family were further out from the center, with your rank determined by your position on the cliff.  Younger members of the family who had married 'unwisely,' or who had married not at all, often found themselves off the cliff altogether.  Low hobbit houses had been built some distance from the Smials, some facing the cliff, some facing away.  The families facing the cliff had some hope of living there again in future.  The families facing away had little.  And the families least in favour of the current Took and his nearest relations lived 'behind.'  That is, they inhabited the hobbit houses on top of the fault—where the wind blew and the gardens were bare and the water had to be carried up with great effort.  The view was nice, but hobbits didn't care much for view.  It made them feel dizzy.             
       The three-story Smials of the Tooks were a rarity in the Shire.  In general, hobbits didn't care for upper stories, especially in houses or inns.  But these upper stories had earth above, behind, and below, so that they did not really count as upper stories in the minds of the dwellers.  Besides, the third stories were usually left to the children, who found the view exciting.  And the nuisance of stairs was avoided by long earthen ramps that climbed slowly to the proper height, with all the requisite railings and other precautions.  Internal burrows were also used, and the hobbits of Tookbank scurried like rabbits up sloping halls that linked one level to another. 
             
It was now past mid-Foreyule as Tomilo rode up to the Great Smials.  He dismounted and knocked at the main door, a great round green door with a brass bell-pull in the very center.  Windows dotted the cliff above him, most shuttered up for the winter.  Some had white shutters and others were painted blue.  The ones at the very top were nailed as well as shuttered—to keep the hobbit children from mischief, supposed Tomilo.  The doors and windows of the Smials were interspersed with other less comely ornamentation: the cliffs were shared with other denizens of the Green Hills, including swallows and sparrows and maybe even a rat or two.  The hobbits made every effort to drive out vermin, but the messy nests hanging from the cliff (and not all of them made by birds) attested to their incomplete success in this. 
     Finally the door was answered by a pretty hobbit lass, about sixteen years in age, who, upon being given Tomilo's name, ran back into the hole and shouted, 'He's here!' at the top of her lungs.  Undoubtedly, he was expected.  After a long slow few moments, the hobbit heard someone else padding up the hall, leaning on a cane, or perhaps a staff. 
     Tomilo didn't know what to expect from the Thain.  He had only heard of this important personage.  He had been surrounded by wizards and Kings and Elf Princes and Princesses over the past month, but he found himself more nervous now, awaiting his own 'Lord,' as it were. 
      The Thain arrived at the door.  He was leaning on a decorative ironwood cane, in the shape of a narrow ess.  The handle was ivory, carved like a fox's head.  The twelve buttons on the Thain's waistcoat were also of ivory.  The waistcoat itself was wine-red.  The old hobbit had a lot of starched white linen for a collar, standing up to his ears; and a forest green tie bunched up above the waistcoat.  It being almost winter, he also wore a housecoat, unbuttoned.  This was likewise very showy by hobbit standards, being calf-length and lined with dark-green velveteen.  A silk handkerchief was in one breastpocket; his pipe in the other.
      The Thain shook hands with Tomilo heartily and invited him in.  'Come in, come in!  It is no day to be standing on the threshold with ones hands in ones pockets.  The Lossoth may like it, but I can't say that I do, eh?  Lewa should have shown you into the parlour.  She is a little over-excited today, Mr. Fairbairn; you must excuse her.  We are not used to visitors from Rivendell.  Not even hobbits, I mean.  Well, you know what I mean, Mr. Fairbairn.  And all this news from all over, making everyone tittery.  They don't know much, Mr. Fairbairn,' said the Thain in a whisper, leaning into him with a sideways glance, 'but what they know is enough.  The rumours are all over, and not even I can control 'em.'
      The Took led Tomilo into a private study, or library, and shut the doors.  'Have a seat Mr. Fairbairn.  Will you smoke?  I have the best leaf in the Shire at hand. I highly recommend it!'
       'Yes, thank you.  Thank you very much.  My, you do have a lot of books and documents about!  I have never seen anything like it.'
       'Well, I like to read.  I won't try to hide it:  I like books.  I like to read them.  I like to look at the illustrations.  I like to smell them.  I think I would eat them if I could!  Hah, hah!'
      'I think I know what you mean, Sir,' said Tomilo, almost laughing to himself at the picture of the old man sitting alone in his study, eating a shelf of books.
       'Call me Bogubud, my boy.  I can't stand ceremony.  No Sir or Thain or "the Took" or any of that nonsense.  Makes me feel like a statue or a skelington already.  I won't have it.  Now here's a smoke, hobbit to hobbit!
       'Yessir, by boy,' Bogubud continued, blowing great draughts of smoke from his nose and mouth, 'we have the greatest collection of manuscripts anywhere—Westmarch included.  I have pages here that have gone back and forth from Gondor and Fornost and Erebor.  I have writing from the hand of Peregrin the Great himself!  Notes from Gandalf.  Copies of Royal Orders from King Elessar.  Which reminds me, if you have any letters or notes from Radagast or Cirdan or from the elves of Rivendell—any of potential historical importance—we would love to have them here.  This would be the natural place for them, you know.'
       'I don't think I have anything.  The only letter I have is from my friend Galka.  And it is not very important.'
       'Galka.  Who is he?  Some elf prince, no doubt?'
     'No, no.  Galka is a dwarf of Khazad-dum.  A lieutenant.  He got promoted for rescuing me from the cell.'
        'Really.  A lieutenant.  From the cell, you say.  Fascinating.  But nothing from King Mithi?  Or Cirdan.'
       'No, Sir.  I mean, no Bogubud, Sir.  Nothing like that.'
       'Oh, well, I guess we better get on with it then.  Tell me what you know.  I have heard some things from the birds, but you are the first two-legged creature I have talked to who knew anything, my boy.  I guess birds have two legs also, but you know what I mean.'
       'Let's see.  What first.  Erebor has been attacked by dragons.'
       'Yes, I knew that.  Thrushes.'
       'Glorfindel has been attacked by a balrog at the Mitheithil Bridge.  He is convalescing in Rivendell.'
       'Knew that, too.  Raven.'
      'Morgoth has escaped from the Outer Darkness.  He may be in Middle Earth already.'
       'Rumours of that.  Although no confirmation.  Eagles.'
    'Khazad-dum is threatened by balrogs in the depths, who may soon awaken.'
       'They already have.'
       'What?!' cried Tomilo, dropping his pipe and leaping to his feet.
      'Calm down, calm down,' said Bogubud.  'Have a seat.  Everything is all right.  Thanks to you.  Your warning from Nerien to Mithi arrived just in time.  The dwarves had just cleared the caves, rushing out in their minecarts, as I hear, when the balrogs awoke.  A half-dozen fled the mountains and escaped to the north.  If the dwarves had been in the caves, there might have been a terrible battle.  As it was, the demons apparently only wanted to flee.'
      'There were seven, not six,' said Tomilo, as if to himself.
      'Well, that is some news, anyway.  Seven.'
      'The dwarves all got out?  I mean, all?   No one left behind, no one lost?'
     'None that have been reported.  Most of the dwarves have gone to the Glittering Caves or to Krath-zabar.  A few warriors have gone to swell the armies of the Iron Hills.'
      'I hope Galka went south.'
      'I hope so, too,  Mr. Fairbairn.  But I have no knowledge of any individual dwarves.  Now, tell me about the council at Rhosgobel.'
     Tomilo told the Thain of all the attendees, including Ivulaine and Gervain.  Bogubud found it very interesting that all of the 'Five' had finally been accounted for.  He was especially interested in their colours.  He wrote it down as Tomilo told it, with many an expression of amazement.  'Green, was it?  Gervain the Green.  All right and proper.  Gervain the Blue wouldn't do, now would it?  It wouldn't have worked at all.  And Ivulaine a woman?  Astonishing.  I never thought of that; did you, Mr. Fairbairn?  But why not?  I mean why shouldn't she?'
     He was also very impressed by the description of Nerien.  The Thain betrayed somewhat of a romantic streak, as he hurriedly scribbled the description of the elf maiden, smiling to himself and nodding.  'Aha, Mr. Fairbairn, a maiden on a white horse!  Who will she marry at the end of the tale, do you think?  I do wish you had a note or something of hers. Nothing at all?  A lock of hair, a lost scarf.   Nothing?   Well, you will have to write it all down someday, in your own words, when it is all over and there is a proper ending.  My scribe will put it in beautiful letters and we will bind it in leather.  Then we will have something.'
     Tomilo began to think the Thain a bit odd.   But the old hobbit saw him staring, and interrupted his thoughts.  'I can see that you think I am a fool, Mr. Fairbairn.  But it is the prerogative of the very old and very rich—to say foolish things, I mean.  Do not worry.  I appreciate the immensity of all this, never fear.  In fact, I have a Shiremoot called for next Saturday.  I just wanted to get all my ducks in a row first.  I needed to hear from you, for one thing.  And you have taken your time getting here.  There will be no muster, yet, I think.  I don't want to worry everyone too much, until we are sure what we have.   But the smithies are already busy making weapons, and the artisans have all been turned to fashioning arrows.  We will not all be caught with our head in a book, not to worry, My Boy.  We hope for a happy ending, but we are busy, too.  We do not leave tomorrow all to itself!
     'But now, let us take some refreshment.  Tomorrow will come soon enough.  All too soon, I begin to fear.  We will have more talk then.  I will want a full account of the happenings at the Bridge, for one thing.  I still do not have a clear picture of these balrog creatures.  I am not sure that I want to, to tell you the truth.  But we must still eat and sleep, regardless, come what may.  And so, let us to the tables.  Also, before I forget, Lewa has made me promise to introduce you to her and the other Took children: they have all sorts of things to show you in the Smials, I gather.  But your patience for that should be better after we have feasted, Mr. Fairbairn.  The tables of the Great Smials would calm any nerves!'

After the meal, Lewa and several other young Tooks came running into the dining room almost as soon as Tomilo had put his fork down.  The Thain just smiled and raised his hands, as if to say, what could he do against such numbers.  Lewa took Tomilo's arm and led him down a passageway and into a sort of music room, or ladies room.  There were several instruments here: a lyre, a lute, a recorder, and a brumma-dum.*

*A drum, or drums, peculiar to the hobbits.  Most often they were played as a set of six, from bass to alto (or piccolo).  The scale used by the hobbits was neither occidental nor oriental, but contained tonal intervals that were much smaller than any modern ones.   They grouped their notes in sestaves, rather than octaves, with one sestave covering less than two of our harmonic notes.  Six sestaves composed a 'full', which was the hobbit term for a note and its halve (what we would call an octave). A full was therefore 34 notes, plus 2 'occasionals'. The hobbits were very keen of hearing, and could recognize tonal changes that would be mostly beneath our notice. What for us would be a slightly flat note, would be for them a completely new note—one perhaps with a place on their staff. For this reason they had to keep their instruments in perfect tune, and they would commonly tune each one daily—or each time it was played. Since there were so many notes to their scale, this might take quite some time. The 88 notes on our piano keyboard would translate to 238 hobbit notes, for example—although the hobbit grand harp had a bit less than seven octaves while our pianoforte has a bit more than seven.
       The drums had a very limited range, of course; but an instrument like a lute might have as many as 24 strings (twelve doubled) as well as a large number of frets. Rich families like the Tooks might have a full-time tuner, whose only job was seeing that all the instruments were kept in proper repair and tune. {Cf. note on Elvish musical scales and modes, Book 2, Chapter 12.} [LT]

Lewa picked out a flute and asked Tomilo what he would play.  He told her the lyre and she handed him a beautiful instrument with 36 strings, already in perfect tune.  The remaining hobbit children took their places at the other instruments, or stood by to sing.  Tomilo was amused to see a hobbit boy of perhaps only eight on the brumma-dum, his curly hair sticking straight up on top of his head.  He sat on the floor in the midst of the drums, the largest drum being almost above eye level.  The child had to reach up and over to get a proper hit on the bass.
     Nonetheless, Lewa nodded her head and they all began playing at once.  The song was a staple to the hobbit ear.  It was always the first song played at any gathering.  It was useful as a final check for tuning, which was perhaps the cause of its invention.  But it had long since taken on a sort of patriotic air: it was the hobbit song,  sort of like a national anthem and 'Happy Birthday' and 'Barbara Allen' all rolled into one.  It was happy and nostalgic at the same time, simple but earthy.  Its tune cannot be translated, or even suggested, to the modern ear.  But these are the lyrics they sang that day:

~~~~~~~~~~
There is a land
green and brown
Above the sea
below the down.

O buttercup bindweed
currant hop
bittersweet milkweed
and light snowdrop   

Does it rain?
Comes pouring.
Does it shine?
Come morning.

Hartstongue and moonwort
stonewort and wrack
bracken and lady fern
holly and hack

Trees are there
to break the sky
Soil is loose
made to fly

O cowslip cornel lilac phlox
wolfbane and viola
orchid hollyhock hazel pink
heather and begonia

Shall we sing
or shall we play?
Yea, each to each
and day to day.

O aster bluet fuchsia vetch
lavender and trillium
larkspur daisy foxglove and flax
privet and sweet william
~~~~~~~~~~

The song, though a standard, was variable.  There were an almost infinite number of stanzas, all equally simple, and each with a set of flowers or ferns or shrubs or trees as adjoining stanzas.  The first sixteen stanzas were commonly sung without much variation, but a solo singer might begin creating new rhymes and combinations after that.  Usually the fauna became more outlandish—and more difficult to sing—as the song went on.  But since Tomilo had never played with these young musicians, everyone kept to form. 
       The second song was a sort of jig, or branle, and the children not playing instruments joined hands in the middle of the room and performed a charming dance.  They ran round and round the room on their little furry feet a-singing and a-heying.  At one point they all met in the middle, touching their fingertips together like a roof.  Then the smallest child, a little goldenhaired hobbit-girl of about six, leapt up and broke through the 'ceiling,' everyone congratulating her on her cleverness.
      After the music, the children showed Tomilo their drawings and their maps and their geneologies, all done with proper hobbit precision in pen and ink and watercolours.  A hobbitlad named Isambard (that the other children called 'Is') had made a very pretty map of the Bindbole Wood, indicating the nearby hamlet of Needlehole with a feathered arrow pointing to the west.  He had written inside the wood, surrounded by a circle, this message: 'Here be ents!'
       Tomilo asked him if he had really seen any ents in the Bindbole Wood.  Isambard answered, 'Yes! Many times!'   But Lewa interrupted, 'Have not!  He always says he sees ents everywhere, but no one else sees 'em.  They always seem to walk away very fast whenever anyone else looks.'
       Isambard shouted, 'I did see 'em.  Also Treskin saw 'em, too, and he told me about it.'
      'Hah!  Treskin,' replied Lewa.  'That's not much to go on.'
      Isambard put out his lower lip and began a sulk.  He did not say anything else that day, not even when Tomilo pinched his arm and made a face like an orc.

Finally the other children got tired of entertaining the visitor, and Tomilo was left to Lewa.  She took his arm and pulled him down the hall.  As they passed Bogubud's study, she looked in and asked, 'Grandpapa, may I take Mr. Fairbairn to see the really old stuff?  He has been asking about it all afternoon.'
      Tomilo had not been asking about it, in fact, but he said nothing.  After all, he wouldn't mind looking, whatever it was. 
      The Thain answered that she might, but they were to be very careful with the candle.  'If you drop wax on anything, I'll know it!  Don't think I won't!' he called.
      Lewa led Tomilo down a long tunnel.  At the bottom she took another candle from a sconce and lit it and handed it to the hobbit.  Then they went inside.  It was not dusty at all, nor moldy nor damp.  Lewa went round to light the torches on the walls, each one with a great silver bobeche beneath—to protect the manuscripts and other things from falling sparks.  Even with the torches, Tomilo was glad to have his candle.  The light flickered, and strange shadows were cast in these deep windowless rooms. 
      All the walls were covered with tall bookshelves, stuffed to brimming.  In the middle of the room were long oaken tables, also piled with papers and leather-bound volumes and other treasures.  Lewa showed him some old toys from Dale, probably leftovers from Bilbo's birthday party.  And here was a sign that said 'No Smoking,' torn down by Pippin himself.  And over here was a pair of shoes once worn by the Old Took.  He had them made when he was 128, to wear to bed.  He said his feet got so cold he couldn't sleep.  As long as he was up walking around, they stayed warm.  But as soon as he put them up, they turned to ice, he said. 
      Tomilo began browsing the bookshelves, and Lewa left him to himself for a while.  Many of the books were nothing more than volumes of recipes, or diaries.  A whole shelf was devoted to pipeweed: its discovery, its cultivation, its drying, its medicinal uses, and on and on.  A whole wall was geneologies: every old family in the Shire had a volume or two on file here.  A few learned histories there were also: The Founding of Buckland, the Mayors at Michel Delving, and The Stoors Past and Present.   Finally Tomilo happened upon a large folio volume in a red leather binding with gold letters.  It was Peregrin Took's own copy of The Red Book of Westmarch, with appendices by Peregrin the Great and his sons and daughters.  Tomilo began carefully thumbing through it, starting at the back.*  The pages were yellow and brittle, and he had to turn each one with two fingers, to keep it from crumbling or tearing.  He read a few of Pippin's entries, such as paragraphs about kingsfoil and the palantiri, and a brief description of the wedding of Eowyn and Faramir.  He had flipped all the way back to near the beginning and was about to close the book, when his eye came to rest on a line on page 28, near to the top:

~~~~~~~~~~
'All right,' said Sam, laughing with the rest.  'But what about these Tree-men, these giants, as you might call them?  They do say one bigger than a tree was seen up away beyond the North Moors not long back.'
~~~~~~~~~~

Tomilo stopped.  He read the paragraph again.  The North Moors.  They started just above the Bindbole Wood.  The wood where Isambard had written in ink 'Here be ents.'  Very strange.  It was all a very strange coincidence.  Or maybe not.  Maybe these 'giants' in the North Farthing were not ents: maybe they were entwives!

*Tomilo was left-handed.  This was not at all uncommon for a hobbit.  The percentage of left-handers among hobbits was about 50%, and most were ambidextrous to some degree.

Just then Lewa come up behind him and touched him on his sleeve.  'Sorry, Mr. Fairbairn, but I think we should be getting back to Grandpapa.  He will be worrying that we have burned the whole room down, and he doesn't like to walk down the tunnel if he doesn't have to.  I think we'd best run up and give him his tea.'
    'All right, Dear.  I'm coming.  Let's be sure the torches are out.  And don't forget your candle.  We both had one, remember!'
    Lewa frowned at Tomilo and pursed her lips, as if to say that she was too old to be reminded of those things.  She was no child.  She led him out of the room, not looking back.

That evening, after the children had gone to bed and the Thain had retired as well, Tomilo snuck back to the music room.  He wanted another look at Isambard's map of the Bindbole Wood.  Fortunately the child had left it lying in clear view, on the desk.  Tomilo sat down and began making a copy of it.  There was paper and ink at hand, and he worked very quickly, labelling everything just as Isambard had—even including the child's signature and date, as well as a little drawing that Tomilo took to be a self-portrait.* 
     When he had done, the hobbit folded his new map once and put it in his pocket.  He felt one step nearer to finding the entwives, and proving old Oakvain wrong.




To view close-ups of this map, click on the links below

1)top left
2)bottom left
3)top right
4)bottom right

*The map here is Tomilo's map, which he gave to Great Smials Museum many years later.  It is this original which eventually found a place in The Farbanks Folios.  The copy of the child's portrait in the corner is not in fact a self-portrait by Isambard; it is a portrait of Treskin—as the cap shows.  The fainter images (the profiles) are assumed to be by Tomilo.  Probably they were added later: they appear to have nothing to do with the map, unless the two to the right are sketches from memory of Isambard and Lewa.  The other image (at the bottom) may be Nerien.
     Using modern technology, I have replaced the Westron words with their English equivalents, keeping as much as possible the style of lettering.  I have considered this to be preferable to an attached translation. [LT]


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 14
Unexpected Guests

That Saturday (the 21st) Tomilo and Bogubud rode to Michel Delving for the Shiremoot.  Michel Delving had been chosen as the site not only because it was still the seat of the Mayor, but also because it was at approximately the center of many of the largest towns.  It was at the midpoint of the way from Hobbiton/Bywater and the Westmarch, and also nearly equidistant from Oatbarton and Farbanks.  This did not take Buckland into account, but representatives from across the river had to travel a long way wherever the moot was held.  Besides, Buckland was not officially a part of the Shire, and need not be taken into calculations of convenience.  Nevertheless, Old Fekla Brandybuck had been invited, and was to attend; as were the mayors of Chalkbank (of the Barrow-downs) and Staddle (Bree).   
        The moot had been called for noon, to give those who were travelling in for the day time to arrive.  The Thain and Tomilo left just as the sun came up; and those coming from Hobbiton would have already been riding for an hour in the dark of morning.    There was no road from Tuckborough to Waymoot and the East Road—only a path through the dwindling hills and an ancient rut across the fields of the West Farthing.  The two hobbits travelled alone.  The Thain required no escort or entourage.  They were bundled up heavily against the frost.  The beautiful stillness of early morning was all about them; but it remained unseasonably cold, and they little enjoyed the fresh air.  Snowwade and Canterling (the Thain's fat pony) held their heads down, their breathing visible and noisy in the dim light.  Each step crunched loudly in the icy dew, the frozen turf being permanently marked behind them, showing their progression across the wintry farmlands. 
     A couple of hours after dawn they reached Waymoot.  There was a fine inn at the crossroads here: The Magpie and Bower.   Tomilo hoped they would stop for a moment to drink something hot, but they passed on, the Thain not even looking up. 
     Finally at about ten the sun began to thaw the world.  The birds came out of their hiding places and began to skitter about and the sky turned a deep blue, here and there dotted with a lonely white cloud.  The Thain humpfhed  a couple of times, and seemed to awaken as from a semi-slumber.
     'Looks like we may make a day of yet, eh, My Boy?' he said.
    'Yessir.  I should think.  It's really rather lovely, if you don't mind cold feet.'
     'Well, I do mind 'em.  I mind them a lot.  I haven't been able to think of anything else for two hours.  But that doesn't keep what you say from being true, I suppose.   Better fair weather for a moot than another snow storm, at any rate.  But all this cold weather so early in the season has got me out of my reckoning.  I can't remember a Foreyule with this much snow since. . . well, ever.   And that's a mouthful, when you're as old as I am.  I hope it don't portend worse to come.'
   Tomilo made no answer.  He had been thinking the same thing, but couldn't find anything cheery to reply.  No doubt it did portend worse to come.   But they were not riding to Shiremoot to discuss bad weather.  

They arrived in Michel Delving just before noon.  Most of the other representatives were already there.  Tomilo saw Mayor Roundhead from Farbanks at the far end of the table as they entered the chamber.  The Thain took his place at the head of the table and Tomilo had a special seat at his right hand.  The Thain wanted him nearby, for his testimony would be crucial at this council.  Fekla Brandybuck was directly across the table from Tomilo, and next to him was Festo Proudfoot, the Mayor of Michel Delving—still accounted the Mayor of the Shire as a whole.  Several important looking hobbits were yet arriving. 
     A few minutes later the Thain called the meeting to order.  One of the first points of business was a statement of the facts.  After a short speech, he called upon Tomilo to tell his story.  This he did, in full and at length, in proper hobbit fashion.  He omitted nothing up to his stay in Shaly, on the Barrow-downs.  But he did not mention Bombadil or Goldberry or Oakvain.  Nor did he tell of his suspicions regarding the entwives.
     Afterwards there were many questions.  But as nothing was discussed that has not been told already, I will not repeat the minutes of the council here.  Only one question had not been posed before, and this question was asked by Fekla.
     'Why would dragons descend upon Erebor?' he said, standing up and nodding his old head at the assembly.  'Why would they do it, I say, and take a single stone from a tomb merely, leaving all the other hoard of the dwarves untouched?  It seems an odd occurrence, surely, you must all agree.  Is it not contrary to what we know of dragons historically?  Did not Smaug take all he could plunder, with no consideration of the quality of workmanship?  From what I remember of the story, this Arkenstone lay undiscovered by that dragon among the hoard, though it lay there blinking under his fiery eye for centuries.  Dragons are not known for their connoisseurship, my friends.'
     'Yes, Master Brandybuck,' answered the Thain, 'it seems a thing requiring more explanation.  But what that explanation may be, we do not know.  Mr. Fairbairn and I have discussed it already, but we can make nothing of it.  No doubt the minds of the Wizards and other worthies of Middle Earth are even now considering it.  Perhaps we only need wait to find out the truth.  It is such a singular thing, it cannot have happened for no reason.'

At this time, the council broke for a midday meal.  No gathering of hobbits, no matter how important or urgent, went on for long without an attention to eating and drinking. 
    The raising of hens had become the dominant market of this area of the West Farthing, and the Moot attendees were fed that afternoon with a variety of egg dishes, the hobbit favourite of which was a seasoned mash of eggs and potatoes, usually served on a bed of cabbage.  It being winter, the hobbits made due with a bed of crisp toast.  Hot soup was also served, as well as chicken sausages and pate.  Beer also, although the imbibing of this was strictly limited to one mug.  The councillors must keep a clear head for the evening. 
     When the Moot resumed, most of the talk was of arming, and of preparing for a muster.  Each region of Eriador was given a specific task.  Staddle, being on the edge of the Chetwood, was given a heavy load of arrow-making, for instance.  The existing ironworks at Frogmorton were to be turned over almost completely to the making of blades and helms and shields, as were the local blacksmiths of Tookbank and Little Delving.  Plans for the fortification of the Brandywine Bridge, the Hobbiton Bridge and the Budge Ford Bridge were made.  The authorities at Bree would need to cooperate with Fornost in increasing a watch on the crossroads.  Special Shirriffs would be appointed to the North and East, for the purpose of quickly relaying news if the Shire were attacked.  The number of shirriffs would be tripled, with a fair number of those stationed at the Brandywine Bridge and on the Oatbarton-Annuminas Road.   Farbanks was to outfit a small band to patrol Sarn Ford. 
     Almost every pony in the Shire would be given over to the shirriffs, at least until spring—when they would be needed on the farms.  Even then, many farms should anticipate being without plow-ponies, unless the news should change.  Hobbit power would have to make up for the loss of horse power in these instances, and a general alert would soon be going out to the effect that every able-bodied hobbit in the Shire should be prepared to lend a hand with the tobacco crop, when it came in next year.  The Shire now depended heavily on that crop, especially in trade with Arnor for foodstuffs; and its failure would be well nigh as disastrous as a defeat in battle. 
      The final order of business was to create a chain of command, in the event of a muster.  The Shire had gone so long without concerning itself with such hierarchies, that it was now unclear who was in charge, and in what order.  Although the Mayor at Michel Delving was the head official in the administration of the daily goings-on of the Shire, the Thain was still recognized (simply from historical precedence) as the Chief Shirriff and the leader in wartime.  A vote was taken, making the Master of Buckland second in command—a sort of captain of the forces east of the river.  And he was also Thain pro-tem, to take charge if the Thain should die or be killed.  After that came the Warden of the Westmarch, the Mayor of Michel Delving, and the Mayor of Oatbarton. 
     Before the meeting ended, The Thain stood up and asked Tomilo to rise also.  Then the old hobbit reached into his waistcoat pocket and pulled from it a shiny medallion, hung from a gold chain.  He held it up and addressed the company.  Tomilo was caught completely off-guard by this.  The Thain had said nothing of it to him. 
    'My fellow hobbits, in appreciation of the efforts of Mr. Tomillimir Fairbairn, of Farbanks: in riding to Moria on a moment's notice, in continuing on to Rhosgobel at my request, in representing the Shire at the Great Council, in surviving the Battle of the Bridge, I now present to him this token.'   The Thain motioned Tomilo to lean forward, and he placed the medal about this neck and hugged him warmly. 
    'And this,' he continued, reaching under the table and bringing up a rust-red hat with a long pheasant feather in its brown band.  'Mr. Fairbairn, by my authority you are now a Captain of the Shirriffs.  Congratulations!' 
     The assembly applauded, and several came up and shook the hobbit's hand.  Among them was Mayor Roundhead.  He smiled broadly and then laughed.
     'So, Mr. Fairbairn, you did dawdle,' he said.  'Yes, Tomilo, Bob told me the story of Radagast and all.  But we appreciate your fortitude, you can be sure; and we are only sorry that it took so long.  Some of us were quite worried about you, especially when we heard that Moria had been evacuated.  Primrose Burdoc was beside herself for a few days, until word of your arrival in Tuckborough came to us.  And Bob Blackfoot, too.  He felt responsible, since it was his idea to introduce you to Radagast.'
      'Yes, Sir,' answered Tomilo.  'It was touch and go several times, as I will admit.  In the cell in Khazad-dum, first, when I thought I was done for.  And then with the orcs—on the road down from the mountains, you know.  I am very glad to be home.  And I will be even gladder to get back to Farbanks, and to my hole.'
     'Don't worry about that, Mr. Fairbairn.  Miss Burdoc has looked in on your kitchen and your garden several times.  Nothing was far amiss when I left two days ago.  Neither one taken over by rabbits or rats. . . not yet.'

The Moot having ended, the hobbits were now spilling out onto the road in front of the Town Hall of Michel Delving.  This Hall faced the East Road, looking southeast toward Mallorn Green.  The sun was setting to their right, and its golden beams were slanting down, reflecting from the snowy yellow leaves of the town's mallorn tree, standing majestically in the fading light.  Suddenly the hobbits' attention was drawn to the left, up the road toward the east end of town.  A ringing of bells could be heard, and the sound of many horses.  As the assembly watched, a great concourse of elves, travelling upon the road during the day, advanced through the middle of town!  Windows were thrown open and heads thrust out in amazement.  Hobbit children ran into the street to watch.  More than two hundred elves there were.  All riding.  But none were singing. 
     As they got closer, Tomilo recognized Nerien and Galdor in the vanguard.  Then he noticed that they were all wearing white.  In the midst of the procession was a draped bier, also in white.  The hobbit ran up to Nerien and took her hand.
       'Yes, Tomilo.  It is Glorfindel.  He is gone to Mandos.  These elves sail with him across the sea.'
      'And you, too, Lady Nerien?' asked the hobbit, with tears in his eyes.
      'No, father and I will stay in Mithlond for a while.  It is not our time, even now.'
     Tomilo bowed his head.  But Nerien continued, 'We cannot stop.  The troubles of Middle Earth no longer concern this company.  In the morning they will sail.  There are many here, from Eryn Lasgalen and Lothlorien as well as Imladris.  Others have gone south to seek the Blue Havens.   Others will follow.   Say only this to your companions: not all will sail.  This is not the end.  Have good hope!  I will return when I may, or send for you, Tomilo.  Farewell for now, Elf-friend!'
       With that the procession continued, silently passing through the streets of Michel Delving and onward to the sea.  It is said that those living in Undertowers, in Westmarch, watched a white company of ghosts pass in the middle of the night, directly down the East Road and so away to the Gulf.  But none spoke to them, or asked them their sorrow. 

End Book One

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