Many thanks to Andrannath Mirdaneg and to Elhath

for the English to Quenya and Sindarin

translation.

The Stories of Our People

He had been quite surprised when he opened his eyes and saw the small, curly-haired person standing a few yards distant before him. The man had never seen the like of this being, and he had met some interesting beings.

"Are you the right one?" the small person asked.

"I would suppose," the man replied as he sat up from leaning against a tree trunk and stretched, "that would all depend on whom it is you are seeking. Since I really don’t know whom it is you seek, it is most difficult to know if I’m ‘the right one’."

The lad, for so he seemed to be, took a step closer. He narrowed his eyes as he looked the man over. "You seem to fit, though to be honest I’m no judge of Men."

The man wasn’t sure if he should be amused or annoyed by this apparent dodging of his question. He decided upon amused. "What is it I fit? And why are you no judge of men, you seem an observant sort."

The lad blushed just a bit at this complement then seemed to come to a decision in his mind. With a sharp little nod of his head, he began to speak in a language greatly different from the one he had used before. It was obviously not his native tongue as he hesitated over several words.

"Nalye tana yo Quendeli anyárier? Le sen nedin laim galu a iadh óner i Nern Ianrwain?"

("Are you the one about whom the Elves have told? Are you the one who has learned the Blessed Languages and has been given the Oldest Stories?")

The Man smiled, recognizing that the first question was spoken in Quenya, the second in Sindarin. "Ai! Ai tana i selyal vanimanen, san ná! Nanye se," he replied in Quenya. 

("Ah! If that is what you meant by ‘the right one’, then yes. I am he.")

With a loud sigh of relief, the lad strode boldly forward and held out his hand. "One can’t be too careful, you know." he said, once again using English. "Most Big Folk . . . well . . . Possibility Took at your service."

The man smiled broadly while being careful not to grasp the small hand too tightly. "Ronald Tolkien at yours and your family’s." They let go one another’s hands and once again looked each other over. "Possibility Took? That’s no Elvish name. But then again, barring your ears being pointed, you don’t appear to be an Elf."

"Goodness no! I’m no Elf. Not really many of them left about. Well, not many of us left about either, truth be told. Which all gets back to why I was sent to find you. Sent isn’t quite right either. I was sort of sent as they all wanted someone to go, but I was the only one as was willing. So I volunteered to be sent."

"But," Ronald jumped in while Possibility had to stop to breathe. "Who sent you? What are you?"

"Oh, you don’t know? I’m Possibility Took . . . no, I have that wrong. You asked who sent me, not who I am. The ‘are you’ part was a what question. This is really interesting." Possibility’s green eyes sparkled, his face fair glowed with enthusiasm. "I really did wonder if you would know or if I would be having to tell you, and now I know that you don’t know. How very interesting, especially as I was told you were a most learned Big Person. I really thought that . . ."

"What are you?"

"Pardon? Oh, yes, back to that. I’m a Hobbit. The ‘whos’ that sent me are elder hobbits, those being not only elder as in older but elder as in having authority. You see, there aren’t many . . ."

"Hobbits?" Ronald again interrupted the seemingly ceaseless flow of words.

"Yes, Hobbits. You really aught to be paying closer attention. You see, there aren’t many . . ."

"Hobbits left about," Ronald finished for the effusive Hobbit. "I’ve rather managed to grasp that fact. What I still don’t know is what exactly is a Hobbit?" The question appeared to catch Possibility off guard, for when he opened his mouth nothing came out.

"PSSSSST!" Hobbit and Man both jumped a bit before looking at a clump of bushes on the north side of the small clearing.

"Pob," said a voice in a poor imitation of a whisper. "Pob, get to it would you. We haven’t got all day, you know."

The Hobbit whose nickname appeared to be ‘Pob’ looked a bit irritated by the voice in the bushes. "If you will pardon me a moment, sir, I seem to have brought someone with me." So quickly that he alomst seemed to disappear Pob was gone, but he could be heard talking to the voice in the shrubs.

"What ever are you doing here, Sair? I volunteered for this and I’m the one who is supposed to take care of matters."

"Then get them taken care of, cousin, before a whole herd of Big Folk come running in."

"I was doing well, thank you very much, before you interrupted me."

"I interrupted you so we wouldn’t all be here until tomorrow. Now go back out there and get it done so we can go home."

"You’re coming with me."

"No."

"Yes. You’re here so you can come out and meet him. He is really rather nice. And he’s ever so tall, but you can’t really tell it from way over here. You need to get closer so you need to come with me."

"No."

A sharp squawk came out of the bushes followed by two hobbits, one of which was being pulled along by one of his pointed ears. It was then the man noticed that both of the Hobbits feet were unshod while appearing to be rather hairy on the top.

"Mister . . . eh, ah, Do you remember what he said his name is?" The last was said by Pob to the new Hobbit.

"Ronold."

"Ronald," Ronald corrected.

"Mr. Ronald, I would like you to meet my cousin, Serendipity Brandybuck."

"At your service," Serendipity said hurriedly. "Now that’s over with. Give it to him Pob and we can go home."

"Pardon me," Ronald interjected. "Serendipity and Possibility are rather odd names. Are they typical for Hobbits?"

"They are," replied Serendipity, "though they weren’t long ago. We’ve had hard times the last thousand years or so and have gone over to names that are optimistic and encouraging. We used to have names like Rorimac and Saradoc, Merrimas and Merriadoc, Gorbadoc. Names like those."

"Only if you were a Brandybuck. Tooks had much more sensible names like Adalgrim and Fortinbras, Paladin and Peregrin, Gerontius."

"Those are no more sensible than ours."

"Yes they are, dear Ser, and you know it."

"Your opinion, Pob, and your opinion doesn’t count as you aren’t of age yet."

"Gentlemen!" Ronald said loudly. The bickering cousins stopped and looked at him.

"My goodness, no." Ser looked offended. "Gentlehobbits not Gentlemen. We aren’t men."

"My apologies."

"Accepted!" Pob said brightly, then he suddenly became tense. Ser did the same.

"Give it to him now, Pob!" Ser hissed. "Big Person coming!"

Pob stepped up very close to Ronald, grabbed his right hand and laid a folded piece of paper upon it. "Read it. You’ll understand. It’s very important. You’ll understand."

For a moment the small Hobbit hugged Ronald tightly about his hips. "Thank you." He heard Possibility say, then both of the Hobbits were gone.

It was a few days later that Ronald was out in a field he had never walked before. He quietly counted each step that he took, checking a compass then changing direction and counting again. He felt a fool. A grown, though still young man, on a treasure hunt. He didn’t even know what exactly it was he was supposed to find. Ronald stopped then sat down, taking a drink from his canteen before taking the Hobbit’s piece of paper from his jacket pocket.

"Dear Sir,

We hope you will be interested in this as we know you were interested in the Oldest Stories. We are fairly sure the library is where these directions will take you. We have no idea if anything will be left, it has been nearly beyond our people’s memory since any of us dared showing ourselves enough to seek it out or enter it. We needs be most cautious, even in the dark of night.

There once were great stores of knowledge kept there. Histories of Rohan and Gondor. Tales from Dol Amroth and of the settling of Ithilien by Prince Faramir the Wise. And there also lay the history of the Hobbits, as much as we knew of it. (Thanks ever to "The Hobbitess of our History) We wish to be known and remembered as you will be doing for the Elves, Dwarves and Men of what was once Middle-earth. Look for "The Red Book of Westmarch as copied by Findegil of Minas Tirith" which was kept at Great Smials until the time of our Great Loss. It was placed in the library prior to its being sealed shut. One of the last things to be done before our ancestors had to flee for their lives.

You are an Elf Friend. It is our hope that you will be our friend as well. May their blessing, and Iluvatar guide you."

The rest of the paper held the directions Ronald had been following.

He rose and returned to counting his steps then nearly fell over when his walking stick sank deep into the soil. He wasn’t really finished with the directions he had been given, but the thought came to him that earth does shift, things do change. Ronald was in a small dell, surrounded on three sides by hedges of thick brush and birch trees. The open side faced the small hill he had just walked down. He nodded approvingly. The arrangement would make the excavating easier, hiding his efforts from prying eyes. He would start his digging this very night.

It was a week of work to reach the small, for a man, round opening. Inside, running back into the small hill, was a rather huge room with bookshelves lining the paneled walls and a red-brown tiled floor. By the light of his torch Ronald could see a huge fireplace at the far end of the single story library. He could also see that despite the note saying the library had been sealed, it had been ransacked. Over the next week he packed those items that could be salvaged, into three large trunks, took them home and put them into a cupboard, intending to get to them as soon as he finished marking exams.

Time passed by, as it is wont to do. The cycles of life, of births, of classes taught, living and loving, friends and family took his attention. Ronald’s marriage wasn’t always smooth, the faith he loved and his own expectations often at odds with Edith’s. Jack and the other Inklings, those he counted among his closest friends, helped his life and his writing. He wrote the Oldest Stories. He worked them and crafted them into more cohesive stories than they were when they had come to him. He loved and labored o’er the languages, as that was where his heart was. Time passed.

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."

Ronald sat and stared at the words he had just penned on the back of yet another exam he was marking.

Hobbit.

Hobbits.

Small. Curly hair. Furry feet. The letter. The directions to the library. The three trunks in the cupboard under the stairs.

He had forgotten them.

Ronald had his boys help him move the trunks into his small study where he began to discover the stories of this other race of people from the world when it had been Middle-earth. He found himself captured by one particular story, that of one Bilbo Baggins. Soon he was polishing the gem and reading it to his children for their bedtime story.

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."

Some of what he said concerning hobbits and their homeland of the Shire he based on drawings from the various books, or pieces of books, that were in the three trunks. Some he based on the book the letter (which was itself in the largest trunk) had expressly urged him to find: Fidegil’s copy of "The Red Book of Westmarch". Time and again Ronald noticed that the many interesting tidbits and anecdotes he found written in the margins were initialed "faithfully recorded by M (G) C".

His children loved the story of Mad Baggins. The Inklings encouraged him to seek getting it published. Ronald had dreamt of this for the Oldest Stories, but there had been no real interest by the publishing world. But one publisher dared to take a chance on "The Hobbit". Ronald was amazed at the success "The Hobbit" enjoyed, hoping it would open the way for publishing the collection of Elvish tales which he had come to call "The Silmarillion", but this was not yet to be. What was wanted was more hobbits. He went back to the trunks. Gradually, he began to realize that everything was actually one long story. That by telling the lengthy story of the ending of the Rings of Power he would be telling a part of the Oldest Stories story as well.

"Of course it is," he chuckled to himself. "Just like the history of this planet after it ceased to be called Middle-earth. What one race of beings does will affect all the other beings eventually, and so The Plot weaves its way into every story. This part of the Hobbit’s story is part of the Oldest Stories, the part bringing us to the beginning of our time; the time of Men."

Ronald labored many long years, writing the epic tale while still being a teacher, husband and father. Finally "The Lord of the Rings" was published, taking slightly more than one calendar year to be released in three volumes. The acclaim that followed at last paved the way for "The Silmarillion" to be published. Ronald’s dream would see the light of day, though he himself would not be there when it happened.

He knew he was near to leaving this existence, but he had no fear. He knew there was more beyond this life, even for mortals.

She took him by surprise though he knew, without her saying, who she was. "Your time draws nigh, Storyteller."

"Yes, fair Luthien. Have you come to lead me hence?"

"I am not yet able to go to your next home, even though I chose the lot of the Mortal Men. No, other friends shall greet and guide you. The son who has helped you thus far will finish the work. Many will read the Oldest Stories and grow to understand the ages before their own. You have done your task here well."

"It was a joy and an honor, my Lady."

"Storyteller, you join those who used well their special gift. The gift of loving the stories. The gift of knowing that people who are remembered in stories are never gone. The gift of all who remember and speak the Great Stories, along with all who labor to write them down, even though their own name might be forgotten."

A memory stirred in his heart. "There is so much more to be said of the Little Folk, of the Hobbits. Stories. Stories in the margins of the Red Book of Westmarch. And . . . and the one who wrote them . . . who wrote them down?"

Luthien smiled. Great love was in her heart for this one of the race of Men who had thought of her when his young love danced for him in the woods, calling her ever afterwards "my Luthien". "The Hobbit’s stories will be given to others as the Oldest Stories were given to you. They will come to the hearts and minds of those in whom will grow a love for the Shire Folk. The stories will be told. And like she whose hand first wrote in the margins of the Hobbit’s book, there will be those who will lovingly encourage the telling of the tales. They will gather the stories of the Hobbits together into a place where others may enjoy them. Her gift, your gift, the gift to be given to yet other Storytellers will never end, for The Great Story never ends. You will meet her soon."

Luthien faded from Ronald’s sight as the last of her words merged with the air. Yet . . . he still seemed to hear voices.

"Come along, then, Professor. It’s nearly time for afternoon tea at Bag End. We oughtn’t keep Uncle Bilbo waiting."

"Aye, Mr. Frodo, Mr. Tolkien. Just a nice quiet meetin’ with us first, if that be well with you, sir. Then a right huge celebration tonight neath the mallorn in the field."

"Yes, as Sam says, huge and with fireworks! I mean, I know you’ve seen fireworks, but these are Gandalf’s fireworks and you know those are special. And you must meet Marigold Cotton. She’s Sam’s little sister and his sister-in-law both together as she married Young Tom Cotton who is Rosie’s, Sam’s wife’s, brother. So the lasses sort of traded names with Marigold Gamgee becoming a Cotton and Rosie Cotton becoming a Gamgee. But . . . you know all that already, don’t you? She loves stories just like you do, Marigold I mean. Remembers every one of them she ever heard. Of course there will be food by the wagon load and ale barrels stacked even taller than Merry and I, and . . ."

" . . . and pipeweed. Give someone else a chance to speak, Pippin. I’ve made quite the study of it and its cultivation. If I do say, it’s better than any grown before."

"Lads, are you coming or are you going to talk the dear Man’s ears off. Tea is ready, Professor, and I promise you I shan’t disappear on this grand occasion."

Ronald sighed as he followed the happy voices.