I would like to thank cathleen for letting me borrow her wee piglet, Tulip.

Meant To Be

She does not yet know what she will make as she sits down beside the bed that holds her youngest child, but I am already here in her heart. The lad still coughs deep, rattling coughs but not as often now and he needs to rest less between them. Because of that, he has grown fussy and today his mother brought in the needles and yarn.

He knows how to knit, although at this juncture ‘tis only knit stitches and pearl stitches, and those only straight back and forth. He has made a scarf for Merry and bands that his Ma and sisters use to hold their hair away from their faces. He also made one the hair bands for his Auntie who taught him to knit. There he sits in his bed, blankets pulled up over his legs and around his waist, well supported by a few pillows at his back while his hands and mind are busy with the needles and yarn the colour of a summer sky.

The yarn she has chosen for herself is pink, as well it should be for what she will be making. She has started later than her lad, having needed to help him with casting on the stitches for the scarf he said he wishes to make for his Da. How to cast on seems to be easily forgotten by the lad. His mother deftly casts some stitches on her needle and begins to knit. She watches her child much more closely than she watches her hands, not really noticing as she increases here, casts on a couple of more stitches there, or decreases the number of stitches.

“What are you making, Ma?” the lad has stopped his own knitting and has been watching her for a few moments.

She looks carefully at what is in her hands for the first time. “I’m not sure I know what it is, Pippin.” She holds me up, well the beginning of me, turning me this way and that to see if I make more sense from different angles.

“Looks too small for a sweater, Ma. Too small for any of us that is.” The lad is looking at me as intently as his mother, turning his head different ways as she turns me about. “And it looks too big for a dolly sweater.”

“Yes, you are right, dear. I’m thinking this must be something else.”

She smiles. She has her suspicions. After all, I won’t be the first stuffed toy she has made. Yet she is mystified. “How have I got this far and have no idea what I’m making?” she wonders to herself as a small shiver goes down her back. She shakes off her strange feeling.

“My! Look at the time, Pippin. You must be starving, my dear little lad. Shall I fetch us some elevenses?”

“Yes Ma,” Pippin answers through a yawn. “I’m goin’ to sit back while you’re gone,” he says as he wiggles comfortably into the pillows behind him. His eyes are already closing.

My back will wait patiently in the knitting basket.

She is a good mother to all her children, a good wife as well, so she is not able to sit in the low, armless sewing chair beside the sickbed all day. It isn’t until past afternoon tea of the next day that she stops with a surprised gasp.

“I think we have a wee baby piggy, Pippin!”

Her son looks up from his own work with his bright smile upon his face. But the smile fades. “Wee?” he asks, confusion showing on his face and in his tone.

My back and my tummy have been joined together, and as my head is included, it is fairly easy to tell my species. It wasn’t comfortable, being sewn together, but I am very new and not yet as real as I will be, so it didn’t hurt as much as it might have otherwise. That, however, is not what has the lad troubled. I look more a sow than a piglet.

“Yes . . . yes indeed,” she mutters as she turns me all about again. “Yes, Pippin a wee piglet, or she will be when she is fulled*.”

Pippin looked blank for a moment then nodded excitedly, which caused him to moan and hold his head. “That made me dizzy,” he whimpered, but he looked up at his mother with a smile despite his woozy head. “That is shrinking things you want to shrink, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Very good Pippin! I’m surprised you remember that word as it isn’t one that gets used often.” His mother smiles affectionately at him while gently patting his cheek. “Shrinking and making the fabric smoother too. She will be a wee smooth, slightly fuzzy piggy after she is fulled.”

“She?”

They both look at my over sized, snout-less, earless, faceless self. I would have nodded if I could, or said something, but I’m not quite able to do those things yet, but she whose hands are forming me slowly nods her head.

I was gently stuffed with soft lambs wool, which will shrink a little within me as I shrink a great deal during my fulling. Not stuffed full, mind you, lest I be hard as a stone when I’m my proper size. Stuffed a bit more than half-full. Then she knitted my snout and my ears; stitched them all into their proper places, placed me in the bag she uses to wash her dainties in, and carried me off for my fulling.

I hate being fulled.

The water is hot as hot can be with a small touch of pleasant smelling soap added to it. Not that the pleasant smell in the least bit makes up for the burning hot water. Some other things are dumped into the hot water with me to bump against me and cause the fulling to happen faster, then we are all beat about the inside of the tub with a large paddle!

“Poor piggy!”

I barely hear her say it above the sloshing of the hot water and the fact that I’m in a bag.

“I’m being as gentle as I can and still have you shrink to a proper piglet.”

It does make it somewhat easier to bear knowing she cares and feels bad for me.

I get pulled from the water, lying on the broad flat blade of the paddle, several times until I have finally shrunk to my perfect baby porcine shape and size, then she blots me dry as best she can before setting me beside the hearth in the kitchen to dry thoroughly.

It is there, in the kitchen, in the quiet of the night, that her skillful fingers give me my eyes, nostrils and smile. They are embroidered, which is a fancy form of sewing. The needle hurts, but it is worth it to have my face.

“There,” she says to me at last. “You are finished, wee lass. Wherever did you come from? I sat down thinking I would make a sweater for Tolley’s new baby daughter, and instead I make a wee piglet.”

She smiles her mother’s smile. She gives me a kiss on my snout, breathing her breath upon me . . . and into me, not knowing the gift she has given to me.

As she hugs me to her cheek, we leave the kitchen to go to her dear son’s room. He lies in his bed, cheeks faintly rose coloured, hair bed-tousled. His mother tucks me under his left arm that lies atop the blankets as though waiting for something to cuddle.

Our mother sighs as she gives each of us a tender kiss.

“Watch over my lad, dear wee piggy,” she whispers before leaving the room.

I snuggle up to nuzzle my lad’s chin, and as I fall asleep I promise her, “I will, Mama. I will.”

The first day of my new life begins as my lad wakens to find me tickling his ear.

“Get up, Pippin! I’m hungry and I can smell breakfast cooking!”

He looks at me in sleepy surprise.

“Hmm?”

His eyes widen, his smile blooms upon his lips.

“The piggy! You’re the wee piggy Ma was knitting. And here you are in bed with me. Are you my piggy?”

“You are my hobbit-lad,” I proudly answer him.

He doesn’t seem concerned with the difference in those two points of view.

“All right,” he says nodding his head and planting a kiss on my snout. “But I am Ma and Da’s hobbit-lad first, then I can be your hobbit-lad.”

“Of course,” I respectfully reply.

“Do you have a name or shall I name you?”

“You may guess my name.”

He thinks for a moment, but he is a clever lad and he quickly gives his answer.

“Tulip!”

“First try, my young hobbit!” I grunt approvingly. “Now, we need to attend our morning business then get our breakfast before we both starve.”

It is a very short time before he is running into the kitchen with me perched upon his shoulder, one wee pink hoof tucked under his braces.

“Ma! Her name is Tulip, Mama! She says I’m her very own hobbit-lad!”

Our mother bends down to hug our lad. She pats my head.

“I’m so glad you like her, my dear. She did seem meant to be your piggy.”

I wonder if she sees my happy tears.

I’m home.

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*What is often called felting should be called fulling according to Wikipedia.
“Knitted woolen garments which shrink in a hot machine wash can be said to have felted, but it is actually "fulled". Felting differs from fulling in the sense that fulling is done to fabric that is constructed before continuing with the felting process as noted in the above paragraph. [felting is done with unwoven, un-knitted fiber] Modern fulling is an example of how the fibers bond together when combined with the movement of the washing machine, the heat of the water, and the addition of soap. Therefore, woolen clothes should only be hand-washed or machine-washed in cold water.”

I know Eglantine would not have had a washing machine, but felting and fulling are both very old techniques for making the type of fabric we know as “felt”.

Hobbits know about felting: “Presently Sam appeared, trotting quickly and breathing hard; his heavy pack was hoisted high on his shoulders, and he had put on his head a tall shapeless felt bag, which he called a hat.” FOTR: “Three Is Company”