Disclaimer: I did not create, nor do I own, Hobbits or the Shire. Tolkien did. Now they belong to his estate and heirs.
(See further disclaimers and explanations in Author’s Notes, if interested.)

“What Child Is This?”

Snap. Crackle.

The embers of the fire hissed and popped as Paladin used the tongs to carefully withdraw the remaining stump of his family’s Yule log.Upon cooling, it would be stored away until used to light a blazing log for next Yule, while the hobbits offered their serenades.

A song, indeed, ran mindlessly through Paddin’s head as he accomplished this Sixth Night task:

“Ilka lassie has her laddie,
Nane, they say, ha’e I...”*

He straightened in the quiet great room of the Whitwell farmhouse and replaced the tongs by the fire. The quality of the darkness was easing as dawn approached.

He sat heavily upon a chair, resting one cheek in his hand and running his fingers idly over the table. Occasional noises -- the murmur of voices or a soft cry -- came through the closed door of his own bedroom a few feet away. On the far side of the smial, his three young daughters lay in a jumbled heap among the guestroom’s bedclothes, sleeping as soundly as they had upon their own beds.

The most recent occupants of that guestroom had departed in the night. Saradoc Brandybuck returned from a hasty dash into the village of Whitwell to bring a healer to the Took family. He then tucked his drowsy lad up in the cart next to him and, with a squeeze of Paladin’s shoulder, set off for Buckland.

Pad’s sister had stayed. It was she who was in the bedroom now with his wife Eglantine and the healer. Waiting. Waiting for... Pad placed both elbows on the table and covered his eyes with his hands.

He could see, behind his eyes, the picture of his daughters as he had left them in the guestroom. Three fine, healthy, sturdy lasses. Within this year, Pearl would mark her fifteenth birthday, Pimpernel her eleventh, and Pervinca her fifth.

Ah, Pervinca. She had been a large babe, even more so than her sisters -- took after their father, they did, his lasses -- and his Eg so small... They had thought there wouldna be another.

And yet, a few short months ago, Eg had let him know she was indeed expecting another babe. Expecting it to be toward the end of Afteryule, she thought, or perhaps even Solmath. Nae so soon. Pad dug the heels of his hands into his face and thought of his wife.

He heard, suddenly, a brief cry that was not his wife’s. Pad lifted his hands from his face to see that shafts of sunlight from the dawn had entered the smial, chasing the gloom away.

Some time later, his sister came into the great room, pushing her hair back wearily from her brow. Pad had heard no more cries.

“Essie, is -- Is she--?” he swallowed around the lump in his throat, gazing at his sister for news.

She crossed quickly to him and squeezed his shoulder. “Eg’s all right, Pad,” she assured him quietly. “She’ll be fine, now. Nae need to worry more over her.”

Paddin closed his eyes in relief, then reopened them quickly as the healer emerged from his bedroom door and beckoned him over.

“Come, then,” she said peremptorily. “Come see your wife and babe.” She ushered him into the room and closed the door behind him.

He stared for a moment at his wife, propped against pillows in their bed. Her eyelids drooped slightly, but her face shone as she crooned to the small bundle lying against her chest.

“Hullo, Pad,” she whispered as she broke off her song, her eyes never leaving the faded blanket.

“Eg!” he sobbed out, his long legs crossing the room in three quick strides to kneel by her side, where he placed his face against her hair. “Oh, Eg, I was so afraid for you! So soon, and so sudden -- and, and after Pervinca!” He gave another slight sob.

Eglantine reached one hand up and smoothed his curls. “’Tis all right,” she assured him. “This one, well, just sort of slipped out quickly!” She gave a tired giggle, then continued as he withdrew his face from her curls and stared at her in disbelief, “’Twill be a bit uncomfortable for me for a while, but I shall be fine, truly. But, Pad,” she put her hand to his cheek and her voice became more solemn, “This babe truly will be the last.”

Their eyes held for a long moment, and then Paladin finally dropped his gaze to the blanket-wrapped bundle upon his wife’s chest.

“So,” he asked, making an effort to force his normal cheer back into his tone, “What’s it to be, then? Petal or Posy?”

Eg yawned and shifted,holding the babe out to her husband. “Oh, why don’t you decide, since this is to be the last?” she asked. “See which name fits.”

Pad laughed. “I thought you always said it takes a lass to name a lassie,” he chided.

“Oh, well, you know what my feelings are,” Eg said from where she had settled against the pillows.

Pad had taken from her the babe, wrapped securely in a faded pink blanket that had belonged to each of the older lasses in turn. He did indeed know his wife’s thoughts that the youngest hobbitess in the family should have a name that was especially sweet. She had narrowed it down to “Petal” or “Posy,” but could not decide between the two.

Pad took his first look at his youngest child and felt suddenly disconcerted. There was something a bit -- off -- about this lass.

Not that he was displeased to find his wife’s features repeated. On the contrary, he found her sharp nose and chin, gentled as they were by her sweet nature, to be quite attractive. The other lasses, for the most part, had favored him in looks. Still, he had not known Eg when she was younger. Perhaps it had taken her time to grow into her beauty.

The babe shifted slightly in his arms and made a sound like “pffth” as the tongue parted the lips. Pad pushed back one of the sparse curls that had dried directly over the tip of a tiny ear.

“Be sure to check all the fingers and toes and such, then,” Eg murmured from where she lay with half-lidded eyes.

Paladin drew most of the blanket aside and pulled out a foot.

Oh, dear. He certainly hoped she grew into these as well. His first three lasses, while tall for their ages, had the nicely proportioned feet that a hobbit would find attractive. This youngest one, however, might be the tiniest babe Pad had ever cradled in his arms -- but the foot he held certainly was not. It looked to be near as big as Pimpernel’s had been at the time of her birth.

Pad steeled himself as he unwrapped the rest of the blanket. He did not notice the small, secret smile on Eg’s face as she watched him.

As he finished unwrapping the blanket, Paladin came to a sudden realization.

“Well?” Eg asked finally, after a long moment of silence, the smile still playing about her lips. “Which name is it to be, then?”

“Peregrin,” Paladin breathed out, not truly in response to Eg’s question but because it was the one word echoing through a mind that had suddenly gone still. His green eyes were fixed on the lad babe in his arms as he repeated, “Peregrin Took.”

It was the name he had first thought to use fifteen years ago. As the years passed and it became clear his children would be lasses, he had tucked that dream away. Now, the sight of his lad reawakened in Pad the hopes he had once had for the future.

“He’s to be the Thain, Eg,” he whispered, stroking a finger gently along a cheek as the babe gurgled. “The Thain of the Shire.”

Paladin himself was in line to be Thain after his older cousin Ferumbras. Despite Rumby’s continued entreaties for him to remove the family to the Great Smials -- Rumby was pleading the weaknesses of age more and more frequently -- Paladin had thought he cared little for the position, or its succession. He and Eg had frequently joked about how it was likely for the Thain to come from a different descendant of the Old Took with each passing generation.

But now, Pad found that he did care about the succession. Very much indeed.

He lifted his son above his head and, with a face that shone with joy, whispered, “Thain Peregrin.”

The lad screwed up his face, opened his mouth -- and sneezed.


_______ *from “Coming Through the Rye” by Robert Burns

(Part Two)

Paladin puffed upon his pipe in the lee of the barn. Snow covered the ground, and the air was crisp, his breath visible even without the smoke. Yet it was not the cold weather that wracked his body with chills.

So cold -- so cold for such a small babe, not even meant to be born so soon. They were lucky that the healer come from Whitwell in the night had learnt a few tricks from the healers of the Great Smials.

‘Twas where all the best healers in the Shire were, ‘twas Great Smials. And ‘twas where Rumby wanted Paddin to remove to. And didna Pad’s new little lad deserve naught but all the best? The best healers...

Pad gave another shiver and wiped his eyes as he thought of the small babe with his sneezes and his weakening cries as Pad held him. He had known his son for but a few short minutes, and already, to lose him...to lose him would be more than Pad could bear. For with that loss would go all of his reawakened dreams, and the future he could see laid out before him.

“Peregrin,” he whispered into the still air. “Thain Peregrin.”

Yes, his lad would grow to be strong and brave and true, to be the best Thain the Shire had ever seen. Pad would not let any doubts weaken his confidence in his son again. He would give his lad the strength of his own convictions -- and the best healers in the Shire.


“Wha’s dat?” four-year-old Pervinca asked ten-year-old Pimpernel as the lasses stood sleepily in their nightgowns in the Whitwell farmhouse great room. Mama was still in her bedroom, with the door closed, Da was outside, Aunt Essie busy with something in the pantry on the other side of the room, and teenaged Pearl still asleep on the guest bed.

“I don’t know,” Pimpernel whispered back, for she knew something serious had happened in the night. She raised herself slightly on her tiptoes, but could not see over the edges of the flannel blanket-lined box pushed toward the back of the cookstove’s warm surface.

“I suppose it must be a piglet,” she told her little sister, for Pimpernel had heard that sometimes farm animals required such care.

Paladin entered the smial, stomping the snow off his feet with a gust of cold air, and opened his arms for his daughters to press their warm bodies against his cold limbs.

“Good morning, Da!” Pimpernel called out happily before clamping a hand over her mouth as she realized she had meant to stay quiet this morning.

“Da!” Pervinca chirped in echo, having no such qualms about the noise.

“Good morning to two of my loveliest lasses!” was Paddin’s jovial response, although Pimpernel noticed there was something funny about Da’s eyes this morning.

He stood up and walked with them over to the cookstove, clutching one daughter’s hand in each of his. “Do you know what’s in this box?” he asked them, looking down upon it himself with the goofy smile he sometimes got when they played games.

“P’gl’t!” Pervinca announced.

Paladin gave a bit of a start and then a wry chuckle as he extracted his hands and reached for the box to lift it down.

“No, lasses, this is your brother,” he said as he held the box down where they could see the tiny babe swaddled in a nest among the blanket-wrapped bricks that lined the edges. “His name is Peregrin.”

Pimpernel just stared with her mouth open in a round “o.”

Pervinca looked into the box and announced again, with as much confidence as before, “P’gl’t!”

Paladin began to look a bit cross, but before he could say anything, the babe let out a loud wail, bringing Essie over as Pad lifted him out of the box.

“Hush, now,” he crooned. “Pipe down, lad. My, but you’re pipin’ loud,” he chortled.

Pearl had just entered the great room as her father lifted the babe. As she yawned and stretched, she thought she heard a word she had not expected.

“Da?” she asked her father from where she stood. “’Tis a lad?”

“Aye,” Paladin grinned at her from where he stood holding the still wailing baby, who was swinging a tiny fist and making sucking motions with his mouth.

“Well,” Pearl said brightly as her aunt took the babe from her father and brought him in to Eglantine, “Seems ‘twill be a few changes around here.”

“Aye,” Paladin nodded, his face growing slightly more sober. “And speaking of changes...what would you lasses think of removing to the Great Smials?” he asked as if it were a sudden inspiration.

Pearl gasped and clasped her hands together. “Oh, Dad, could we truly?” she asked before spinning about so that her nightgown twirled around her. “’Tis said that they have all the best parties, you know, and they’re ever so much fun for the teen and tween hobbits and hobbitesses!”

Pimpernel gave a shy, uncertain smile and nod toward her father, but her eyes remained confused as she glanced toward the door to her parents’ bedroom.

Pervinca did not care one way or another about any such discussion, but she was disappointed that Aunt Essie was letting Mama, and not her, play with the piglet.

Paladin looked around at his daughters, then turned his own eyes toward the bedroom door with a decisive nod. “Aye,” he said. “A new life now awaits us.”


Boxes and bundles were the order of the day at Whitwell a few short weeks later. The Brandybucks had returned to help with the packing up and the move.

Young Merry was fascinated with the new baby, and managed to be underfoot whenever one of the hobbitesses was tending to him. In part this was because he was interested to see if the lad would ever *do* something besides produce that ear-splitting shriek of his. In part, it was because his presence proved such a distraction to the older hobbits that they were very likely to hand him a biscuit, or some sort of snack, as a bribe to encourage him to go elsewhere, no matter how near or far it was to mealtime. This worked particularly well at the times when Merry could say of his newest little cousin, “Well, *he’s* eating!”

Also, Merry had discovered, grown-up hobbits were very forgiving if, after you dropped a china figurine and broke it, you told them that it was only because the baby had been reaching for it and you just wanted to move it to where he wouldn’t see it anymore.

Yes, it was becoming quite clear, thought Merry, that this new little cousin could prove to be a handy little lad indeed.

He even had a name that Merry quite approved of. Peregrin shortened quite naturally to Perry, he thought, just as Meriadoc did to Merry. It was too bad the grown hobbits did not feel the same way.

“Can I help you change Perry?” “But I want to watch you feed Perry!” “Perry is quite a handsome little lad, Uncle Paddin.”

After dozens of such entreaties and comments, Paladin finally drew Merry aside for a little talk.

“Meriadoc,” he began. “Peregrin is my son.”

“Of course he is, Uncle Paddin,” Merry agreed. “And Perry looks to be a fine little lad, too.”

Pad sighed. “His name,” he said slowly, “is Peregrin. He is not to be called ‘Perry.’” He held up a hand to stop Merry’s imminent protest.

“Ah-ah. I remember what ‘twas like, to grow up with sisters called Essie and Bessie, and how you couldna tell who was being called for, or scolded for what mischief.”

“’Twas all her fault,” Merry’s mum muttered of her sister Bessamyn from where she sat listening to the conversation.

“I hope that you and my Peregrin shall be good friends, and spend much time together, and I’ll not be having the same confusion, to not be able to tell where one hobbit ends and the other begins.”

Paladin stopped Merry as he opened his mouth again. “And he is my lad to name, and I’ll not be having a seven-year-old--”

“Almost eight,” muttered Merry and Essie together under their breaths, Merry’s tone resentful and Essie’s resigned.

“--be given the naming of him,” Paladin continued. “’Sides,” he sat back on his haunches and grinned. “If I’m to be ‘Paddin’ for ‘Paladin,’ he shall be something along the lines.”

“Oy!” groaned Pearl, clamping her hands over her ears as the babe began to shriek just as she passed through the room. “’Tis pipin’ loud indeed!”

“’Twill -- ‘twill be ‘Pippin,’ will be his common name,” laughed Pad.

When the waggons were nearly all packed, Merry’s mum bade him give one last tour through the farmhouse to see if anything had been left behind.

“Be sure to look everywhere,” she told him. “Wouldn’t want one of the lasses to lose their treasures.”

As Merry made a final pass through the great room, where he could hear Mum and Aunt Eg talking outside, he noticed a lone box left before the still-warm embers of the hearth.

Looking in, he was surprised to see the baby slumbering.

“Mum! Mum!” he rushed to the doorway. “They forgot -- Pippin,” he concluded as he caught sight of his uncle.

“Nay, Merry, we didna forget him,” Aunt Eg smiled at him. “We’re just keeping him warm as long as possible.”

Uncle Paladin had gone inside and came out now with the well-wrapped baby, to whom he said, “Nay, we couldna forget you, lad. You are our dearest treasure.”

The End

Author’s Notes:

All right, so I realized, while driving to work about half an hour after I posted the last chapter of “Blanketed in Love”, that having Pippin’s birthday fall in Afteryule (January) contradicted his statement in Return of the King that he is “28--nearly 29” in March. (I was fully aware of this canonical fact; it just took a little vacation from my brain.)

However, all sorts of other background and spin-off stories were already popping out of that universe, and I felt compelled to leave his birthday where I had put it, on the third of Afteryule, the day after the end of the Shire’s Yuletide holidays. (I have addressed this seeming contradiction of canon in a long, complex Pippin and Diamond story I hope to begin posting soon. It’s a bit of a fudgy way of addressing it, but I have done so.;)


One reason I felt called to leave his birthday on that date is because it is the hobbit calendar’s equivalent of Epiphany. I’m not sure why I felt so called to have Pippin be born on this date, but I did -- and I have tried to work in a few Epiphany-themed moments to this fic as well.

A few of the lines are from the Epiphany section of my church’s hymnal (this is what that reference to ‘further disclaimers and explanations’ meant:

Part One:
“sunlight entered the smial, *chasing the gloom away*”: “the gloom of darkness chase away” from “From God the Father, Virgin-Born”, translated by John M. Neale from 11th century Latin office hymn, tune, Antiphoner, Grenoble, 1753

Part Two:
“A new life now awaits us” from “To Jordan Came the Christ, Our Lord” by Martin Luther, translated by Elizabeth Quitmeyer, tune J. Walther, Geistliche Gesangbuchlein, 1524

“You are our dearest treasure” from “O Morning Star, How Fair and Bright!”, text and tune by Philipp Nicolai, 1556-1608