10.

Bandobras Took, Esquire of the Green Knight of Dol Galenehtar, Crickhollow, Buckland, the Shire,

To Legolas Thranduilion, his Royal Highness, of the Nine Walkers, Dwarf-Friend, Lord of Ithilien,

Greetings.

Isn't that a bully way to start a letter, Master?  Cousin Merry showed me what to write.  It sounds awfully grand, doesn't it?  But I cut out about half of the titles – I wasn't sure it would be quite proper to call you "Fell-Beast Bane" or not.  It sounds a bit dodgy to me.

Well, I got your letter the same time as I got a reply from your parents – I don't think your father quite understand me sometimes, but then, he doesn't actually understand you either, does he?  I mean, really – what's so difficult about a wine-barrel, or not wanting to get married?  Sounds fairly straightforward to me.  But then I'm only a Hobbit and not an Elven King and perhaps they have different standards than the rest of us folk.  Anyway your father sounds kind of hopeful – like Uncle Pip does now, when he talks about Diamond (he thanks you for your advice, by the way – certainly did do the trick, they're practically sitting in each others' pockets now) – thinks you'll find this Laustairë (what does that mean, Master?  Does it mean anything, or is it just pretty sounds?) to be more to your liking than any of the other young ladies he's sent your way.  We don’t know much about her yet, do we, Master?  Except that she's young – for an Elf, anyway, that could mean anything, you know – and quiet – are you sure you'd want a quiet wife, Master?  Not that you're thinking about marrying her anyway, but if you were, wouldn't you want someone with a bit more snap, like Seimiel?  She gives as good as she takes, like my mother says; you wouldn't get a blink out of her for any of your hijinks.  She might yell a bit, but Cousin Merry says yelling's what a wife does best anyhow, and I guess he'd know that pretty well, seeing what Stella's turned out to be like.  Though don't tell them I said that – I like Stella fine, she's just got awful loud since the baby came.  But maybe that's just so's she'll be heard over the baby yelling.

O Master, I didn’t tell you about the baby, now did I?  My, he's a squaller, that one, but awful cunning anyway – he has the prettiest brown curls all over his head, and bright black eyes, and cheeks like apples.  And I do love his hands, Master; little dimpled paws with such tiny little fingers, each with its own little bitty fingernail – how do they get fingernails that small, anyway, Master? – they've named him Saradoc, you know, after my cousin, his father.  Uncle Pip says if he ever has a son he's going to name him Faramir.  That'd be a real treat to his lordship, wouldn't it?  Not that Lord Faramir hasn't got his hands full already, what with two children and one on the way, but to have someone name their son after you, well, Master, that'd be a real feather in your cap, wouldn't it?  Would you mind if I named a child after you?  "Legolas Took" sounds well, I think.  Don't you think so, Master?

Now here I go, marrying myself before I've even met a suitable maid!  If I'm not careful I'll end up in your shoes, so het-up about this matrimonial question we can scarcely think save we stick some young lady into the equation.  I've said it before, Master, and I'll say it again – I think you and Gimli and I ought to just stay being bachelors, and let these lasses all go hang.

I dearly wish I could come see you right now, Master – your letter made me cry when I read it last night, really it did.  Seems you oughtn't to be so lonely for me when you've got so many people flocking round you, and so much to do; maybe you just need to step back more, like you did with Fastred and Hísimë, and play with them a little so the work you do don't wear you down.  If I were there I'd climb right up your lovely tower (how I wish I could see it!) up to your balcony and stand beside you looking out over the valley, and I would hold your hand like I used to, and we'd stand together looking out at the hills and trees and waterfalls and the big mountains all round us, and you'd tell me the names of all the stars, and Gimli would sit behind us and smoke his pipe and grumble in that funny way of his that we're just wasting our time.  Then I'd take you inside down to the kitchens where it's warm and cozy and no one goes a-looking for you, and fix you something nice and rich and indigestible to eat and do naught but talk together by the hearth, and if any of your people, even Hirilcúllas or Galás, came to you with papers or problems I'd send them off with a flea in their ear, I would indeed, for you need a good rest, Master; you don't need to be stretching yourself so thin, it's not right.

I also wish I could see Fastred and Hísimë – you've spoke so much of them, Master, that I feel as though I know them already, and seeing as they're Lady Éowyn and Lord Faramir's children I have a special interest in them, like.  Fastred sounds a right scamp – bet Old Gaffer Bracegirdle would of told him to take himself right off!  And Hísimë sounds like she'll grow up to be a right nice young lady someday, and from how you describe her she'll be a real beauty, too.

O Master, speaking of Gaffer Bracegirdle put me in mind of the most horriblest thing that happened two weeks ago, it was so awful we're still stunned over it.  Do you remember, Master, those smials in Long Bank we went through, the ones Gimli said looked as though a strong wind would topple them?  I know he was fairly itching to get his hands on some tools to fix them, and you know, Master, I ought to have let him and not taken him gallivanting all over the woods like you and I wanted (we both know he doesn't appreciate the woods anyways, do we, Master?), so that he could fix them up, then maybe this awful thing might not have happened at all.  We had an early Spring this year, Master, with loads of rain and swollen streams overflowing their banks and all, and the Brandywine looked like those tailraces down the Anduin did, all rushing and roaring and churning and throwing things about, picking up logs and trees and bits of stuff and chucking it all over the place, scouring out its banks and tearing down bridges – well, Master, the upshot is, the water rose higher than it's ever rose before, and undercut the bank by those there holes, and they all came a-crashing down, all twelve of them one after another like a wave, and the water rushed in and swept everything out down the river, and every single one of them Hobbits was drownded.  It was a terrible awful thing, Master, for it wasn't as though they couldn't of got help to repair their holes if they'd wanted to, seeing as Grandfather and Master Gamgee had all that there gold off of King Éomer to put to good use, but Grandmother tells me when Grandfather offered to help, them poor misguided Hobbits just turned up their noses at it and said they wouldn't take charity off of no foreign kings, thank you very much all the same, good-bye.  So there's nearly eighty Hobbits dead, and a big long gash in the river bank that looks like an ugly grin with broken teeth, and nearly all the Bracegirdles in the Long Bank area wiped out just like that through Old Gaffer Bracegirdle's stubbornness, for Mother did say that it was his opinion influenced the others to turn Grandfather and Master Gamgee away.  Now, Master, I'm sorry for the Old Gaffer but I'm mad too, if it's proper to be mad at dead people (and why shouldn't it be right, Master?  They're dead, ain't they?  It surely can't hurt them now) because there was sixty-eight young ones killed alongside of the grown-ups, and they hadn't had any say at all in whether or not their holes ought to be repaired.  Why do these things happen, Master?  Why do two or three stubborn people end up making lots of innocent ones get hurt or die?  It's not fair, and it makes my insides feel all tight and hot and sick-like so's I can't even eat, and that's saying something for me, you know, Master.  It was the same way when you brought back that rapscallion Lord Eradan to King Elessar, though to call him "Lord" Eradan seems awful inappropriate, if anyone deserved to wear a peasant's smock and till a field with naught but one hoe it was that one there – I just looked on that Man, who was so greedy and desperate to stay rich he didn't care who he hurt or killed in the process – all those soldiers, and the farmers and merchants too, and the poor women and children he was just going to auction off like cows to his men.  O but it makes me mad, Master!  Makes me want to take that sword you gave me last time and go after someone and deal out some justice.  But of course justice has been dealt to poor Old Gaffer Bracegirdle, hasn't it, Master?  He won't go trying to thrash the life out of me with his stick, or kick the dogs as he used, or whip his pony about the ears when it was tired.  A right nasty old fellow, Uncle Pip called him afore he died, and Mother nearly boxed his ears for it, but it was true in the end, for all those poor children died and it was no one's fault but his.  I hope Námo pays him back right well for that.  But I am sorry for him, and that's the truth, though I hardly understand it myself – even when he was hollering at us I felt kind of sorry for him, for he lived in that crampy crouchy hole with all them kids and they were always trampling on his garden and causing a fuss and ruckus, and he was poor and it's a terrible awful thing to be poor and not be able to work anymore because your legs are all rickety and your eyes don't work so well as they used.  O I hate it when I feel this way, Master, when I don't know whether I ought to feel one way or another – do you ever have that problem, Master, or have you learned to sort it out by now?  If you have please do let me know how you do it, for these past two weeks have been awful, what with finding the bodies downstream and burying them, and trying to clean out the mess and comfort the neighbors.  But it was what you called a Munificence, Master, and I thought on that the whole time I was there working with Uncle Pip and Holbard Boffin and Mother and the rest, trying to straighten things out – you can even do a Munificence for dead folk, can't you?  And though I know they won't rest the easier for it at least their kinfolk and neighbors might.  And there is some good come out of it after all – the neighboring smial let Grandfather set aside some of King Éomer's money to repair their holes, so the same thing won't happen to them, should we get another flood like that.  So like Mother said, it's an ill wind as blows nobody any good, and at least those other fifteen holes will be nice and snug by summer, and all those Hobbit children within them will be safe.  I'll be helping out with that too, Master – another of my Munificences – Uncle Pip says it's good practice for me, if I want to be a knight of Ithilien someday.

I wish I could come to see you right away – how I miss you, Master!  I miss hearing you sing me to sleep, and I miss how you used to hold me on your hip when we danced, and I miss watching your face and your hands give off that soft white glow in the starlight, and I miss watching your hair float round your face like gold floss in the breeze, but most of all I miss sitting next to you and listen to you talk with others until I fall asleep, only to wake in my own cot and know it was you that put me there and tucked me in.  I love Mother and Uncle Pip and I love the Shire but I think I love you more, for when I'm apart from them I'm still comfortable knowing all's well, but being apart from you hurts me something terrible.  And I'd dearly love to see you joust again when Lord Círdan's folk come calling, Master!  Shall you ride Piukka and wear all your lovely green armor again?  It'd be a fair treat to watch that, and I'd give almost anything to be there at the tilt seeing you charge down, all rattly-clangy and unseat all those other knights.  For as I tell all my friends, Master, there's no one better on the lists than the Green Knight, for weren't you Lady Éowyn's champion, and the winner of the Tournament on top of fighting that great battle?  How they love to hear me talk of those tales, Master, and of the great things you did!  Though I always feel a little foolish when I tell the part of how I was silly enough to be captured by Fenbarad's men – I still blush to think on it.

Well, Master, I ought to end this letter, for if I go on I'll only ramble on the more, and it'll be so fat you'll pick it up and wonder if I've gone and written a book, as Mad Baggins did.  Wouldn't that be a fair treat, Master!  Me, writing a book?  I'd best leave that sort of thing to Cousin Merry; he's more scholarly than me, and always seems to know the right things to say, even to Estella when she's squiffy, he can make her face go all soft and dreamy in the midst of everything still.  Makes me feel funny to watch it sometimes.

Tell Galás and Hirilcúllas to let you alone for a while, and tell Fastred and Hísimë I can't wait to meet them.  You needn't tell Gimli I said anything for I've written to him too and I'm sure he's had about as much of me as he can take anyway.

I miss you, dearest Master, and I can't wait to see you again!

Love,

Bandobras