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Shire: Beginnings by Lindelea	6 Review(s)
Dana	Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 1/6/2005
'But I want to go,' Pickthorn wailed. Hawthorn bent to talk to his little brother face-to-face. 'You stay around here, Pick,' he said. 'Don't go wandering off. Wouldn't want the gobble-uns to get you!' 'Gobble, gobble!' Applethorn crept up behind the littlest brother, his fingers wiggling and clutching like claws. 'Mum!' Pickthorn shrieked, even as Hawthorn swept him up from the floor into the safety of his arms. 'Don't tease him so,' he said sharply. 'It's not funny.' How very, very adorable. The lads are all charming, in their own lad-like way -- and Pick is precious and adorable and I want to scoop him up and cuddle him. And the ending - the poor dear lad. What a shock that would have been. Love how cheery they are, though, as they're talking about eating him up. Added something, it did. grin

Lindorien	Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 1/4/2004
Hello Lindelea: Here's what the kids say. "We like it! Its good so far! We want to know more. It has good detail, good names and good adjectives. We think you are doing good with it because we think you are doing well, whether this is a kid's story or a grownup's story. We will write more when Mom reads more." Author Reply: Tell the kids it was fun to get their review. We have started The Hobbit over again. Just last night the kids pestered their dad into starting it, and they pestered him into reading two chapters instead of his usual one. It is supposed to snow heavily tonight, so it will be another good evening for hot cider and readaloud time.

Lindorien	Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 1/2/2004
I can see me reading this to my kids. In fact, I am going to. They will LOVE this. I'll leave reviews as I go and let you know what they think. Okay? I like it. Go Gandalf! I'm presuming that is Gandalf? Author Reply: O lovely. I understand the Hobbit started out just that way (not that I would ever line myself up next to JRRT... but hasn't he made a marvel of a world for us to play in?) And I thank you ahead of time for each and every review. Amazing, how they grease the writing process and make it run along more smoothly. But then, you write, yourself, so you understand that.

FantasyFan	Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 11/26/2003
Sorry, I was having a very silly day yesterday. So now, for a slightly more serious reviews of your chapter. I think it's going to be a challenge for you to write a story that doesn't have any characters at all in it that we already know and love. You do a very good job bringing to life characters like Ferdi or Nell, who really aren't more than names on a page in Tolkien's canon, but it has taken a long time for us to get to know and love them, and there always was the bedrock of Merry and Pippin, who we already had a relationship with, to play them off against. This story is set so far back, that there will certainly be no recognizable hobbits in it, but I suppose Elrond, Galadriel and the Mirkwood elves are all around somewhere if they are needed for your story, and you've already put a hint in of someone I assume is Gandalf. There are kingdoms of Men in existence too, although I will have to refer to the appendices to see who is where. Hobbits, though, are the touchstone of your stories, and of the Lord of the Rings in general, and these will be brand new. I had forgotten the part that said that the Stoors and Harfoots had crossed the mountains first, and that the Fallohides came later. So all those near the Thorn family would be similar. Why are they so dependent on the Big Folk for something like agriculture, and industry such as weaving cloth? Without them, they are so helpless as to be falling back into a hunter-gatherer subsistence culture? It seems odd to me that they would not be able to take care of themselves especially when they are settled in groups. Why have they not learned at least how to keep chickens from the Big Folk? What did they contribute to the mixed society prior to the Big Folk abandoning their area? Hopefully this will all come out later; at this point it just seems a little of a stretch. I see a prologue on the story now to set the stage - that wasn't there before, was it? It's probably a good idea, I know I was looking for my bearings jumping right into chapter one. Can't assume we remember all the things we read in the forward and the appendices. (LOL) Looking forward to see what comes next. Author Reply: Why are they so dependent on the Big Folk for something like agriculture, and industry such as weaving cloth? Without them, they are so helpless as to be falling back into a hunter-gatherer subsistence culture? Hopefully this will come clear in time, but I will answer one point. They don't weave cloth these days because they don't keep sheep in the woods, nor cultivate fields of flax. They used to... then when they retreated to the forest, they kept up those skills as long as they were able to trade with the few Big farmers who'd supply wool and flax to the Little Folk. Even I cannot remember everything I read in the appendices! If not for the timeline and notes and maps I made while charting out this story, I'd be lost! I hope the prologue clears things up. I didn't feel "dry and academic" last night when I wrote it, so it is rather folksy-sounding. Author Reply: p.s. It must have been a silly day... I went to the link you posted, downloaded it, and played it. The little ones wrinkled their noses like puzzled hobbits and said, "That's suppoased to be a song?"

FantasyFan	Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 11/25/2003
OOoo! Oooo! Is it Gandalf come to the rescue? How much is he going to interfere despite his restrictions? Was it hard to come up with five names that ended in Thorn? What are the girls called? Are these fallohides the leaders of the little people of this area? Are some of the rest Stoors or Harfoots? What's going on at the Berry's? Exactly where are they living? How long ago is it - just before the founding of the Shire? Were you thinking of the spot in the Two Towers movie where the orc says, "What about their legs - they don't need their legs"? bouncing in chair I'm so happy a new story has started, I feel like little-Pip after too many honey-cakes! (Or maybe I've spent too much time listening to Elijah and Dom's "song" over the last 24 hours - http://www.eskimo.com/~allegro/group/pandemoniumfromamerica_-_half_fling.mp3 for a giggle.) Author Reply: I will answer those questions which are not spoilers. However, you make me think that perhaps I need a prologue to let people know what is going on. I don't have my notes from hobbit history handy, but the original three groups of hobbits lived East of the Misty Mountains (in the mists of history) and each migrated separately. The Harfoots were the first to cross the mountains, settling, I think, in the area of Weathertop (am going out on a limb, pulling a date and a geographic location from memory, always risky, that) around T.A. 1050. I forget about the Stoors, though they're in my notes. The Fallohides crossed the Misty Mountains about 100 years after the Harfoots. Therefore, this story is set around T.A. 1150, give or take a year or three. Dates are approximate (brain is fuzzy), but if you look at the Chronology in the Appendices you will find what I am referring to. Bree was founded around 1300 by representatives of all three groups, I think. The Shire was founded in 1601 by Marcho and Blanco (or is it Marco and Blancho? I always have to look that up). So what you saw in chapter 1 is the group "Fallohide" that Tolkien referred to in his "About Hobbits". They are living in Greenwood the Great, not far from the Western edge of the forest, some ways south of the Old Forest Road (if you look at "The Atlas of Middle-earth" you'll see they were between Dol Guldur and Thranduil's caverns). Since Marcho and Blanco were Fallohides, and the Tooks and Brandybucks were descended from them as well, I thought I'd follow their line from just before the mountain crossing through important points in their family history. And, no, I actually wasn't consciously thinking of that spot in the Two Towers, but it does sound that way.

Tim the Enchanter	Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 11/25/2003
Just a suggestion - it seems the family is a bit too comfortable and advanced if they have a washstand. It doesn't exactly convey the impression (though the bits about gathering and being people of the forrest are good) that this is in the past. Author Reply: I was thinking that they were quite civilised... they had lived in one place for hundreds of years, perhaps, unnoticed by the Great. It is only after the spreading of darkness over Greenwood the Great, and their subsequent uprooting, that anyone became aware of them at all. The first mention of hobbits in the official records came an hundred years previously, when the Harfoots moved into the area of Bree (I think it was Bree). Even though this is eight or nine hundred years before Frodo's time (I think it is, anyhow, I don't have my timeline at hand), just think... people were washing dishes, had plates and bowls and basins and such hundreds of years ago. I bet mothers were making their sons wash behind their ears, and there were probably dishes to wash... Though these hobbits are foraging, living as hunter-gatherers, they used to practice such skills as spinning, weaving, knitting or knotting, etc. However, with the disappearance of the farmers (Men) from the area between forest and river they have had to rely more and more on natural resources. Anyhow, I'm thinking they've been around awhile, living quietly, but nobody's noticed them up until now. Does this sound plausible? Author Reply: Ooops. Not eight or nine hundred years before Frodo... more like nineteen hundred, isn't it? But still, nineteen hundred years ago, (from our time), the Romans were quite sophisticated... ...and the Harfoots moved as far west as Weathertop, according to my atlas, and Bree wasn't founded until 1300 or so.

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