Note: I mentioned this idea in passing in 'The Home-coming of Frodo and Samwise', and thought it deserved further exploration.

The Wounded Hand

by Eruanna

‘Sam-dad,’ she said to me one night, after I had finished telling the story, ‘I have a question.’ She had just turned seven, and she was full of questions. But I didn’t mind, for they were always good ones.

‘What is it, Elanorellë?’ I asked, and tweaked her nose. But she was in no mood for that, so I knew it was a serious question. She turned and looked up at me, serious the way only a child can be, her little brow furrowed with thought and her eyes shining like twin stars.

‘It’s about Mr. Frodo,’ she said, and I drew a breath. There was concern and even a strange sadness in her face as she asked, ‘Sam-dad, why do you always call it his wounded hand?’

Well, I don’t mind admitting that that question surprised me. But the hurt in her eyes surprised me even more. She pierced my heart with that question, and I don’t guess I really knew how to answer at first. I expect I must have been quiet too long, for she squeezed my hand and murmured, ‘Sam-dad?’

I shook my head, and gave her the only answer I knew. ‘Well, Elanorellë, it was wounded, you know. I’ve told you the tale, how he lost his finger in the mountain of fire, destroying the Ring. And the wound stayed with him always, as such things do. But why do you ask that? Do you think I should call it something else?’ I asked that last to get her mind off the question; I made it a jest. But she took it seriously, the way children do.

‘Yes,’ she said, looking up at me with determined eyes. ‘When you call it wounded, it means it’s bad, like it shouldn’t be that way. But I remember Mr. Frodo’s hand, a little. And I think it’s beautiful.’

She said that last with all the conviction of a child of seven years, and I reckon I just sat and gaped at her, I don’t know how long. And she didn’t say anything more, either: I guess she knew she had to let her Sam-dad think on that one. Finally dear Rose broke in and asked gently, ‘Why do you say that, Elanor-love?’

I don’t guess I’ll ever forget her answer. She looked straight at me when she said it, and in all her days she’s never looked so like an Elf-maid, fair enough to break your heart, and wiser than anyone I’d ever known, save one.

‘I call it his beautiful hand,’ she said again, ‘because that’s the one the light shines through.’