Chapter Forty-Five: Additions to the Library

I have at long last, my dearest Sam, begun my history of hobbits for my friends here. Gandalf has told me much of the early history of which I was not completely aware. My friends and I have had many conversations already about how fond we hobbits are of our family trees. I remember Pippin telling me once that he tried to explain our convoluted family history to Faramir who, the poor man, was quite confused by it all and practically ran away when Pippin started to launch then into the Baggins family tree, saying that I was related to practically everyone. But that’s nothing compared to the genealogy of the Elves who can trace their ancestry back thousands of years and their longfathers are still hearty and hale and can repeat the history back even further. It’s rather fascinating, actually and I’ve included much of it in the history I am writing you, but I think I’ll leave you some surprises that you can discover on your own or perhaps we can discover together.

I want to make sure that they know all about you by the time you come so I am writing out the history of the War of the Ring again and this time it doesn’t hurt. I have the same memories, but the pain has been washed out of them and all I see is how much you helped me and made sure I was able to accomplish what Iluvatar set for me to do. And I know understand, more completely, than I ever did before exactly what that was. Even here, the Elves felt the Ring’s destruction, but they didn’t know exactly how that was accomplished and I am determined that they will now. I’m afraid it’s going to embarrass you terribly, dearheart, but I want them to know how special you are and why I love you so much.