Chapter Text
A hobbit was tramping through the forest.
Tramp tramp tramp. Here was his pack, neatly tucked and slung across his shoulders. Here was his walking stick, cut and polished of oak. Here was his dark green coat and bright yellow waistcoat; here his breeches of sturdy brown wool. Here was his brave little sword hanging at his side.
The animals of the forest, more accustomed to elves than hobbits, peered out at him through the trees and thought him very odd. Yes, yes, very odd indeed.
In point of fact, he cut quite a fine figure, though he would not have said so himself. Nothing to compare to elves, perhaps! But after all he was a hobbit, and hobbits should only be compared to other hobbits—and for a hobbit he was a handsome young fellow, with golden curls and rosy cheeks, a clever light in his eyes, and a mouth that was made for smiling.
At the moment though, the mouth was pinched in a frown. Not in anger or irritation, but in worry. For this hobbit had been traveling for many days now—more than any hobbit had outside the Shire since his mother had gone on her last great adventure—and he had hoped to have reached the end of his journey already.
The sun was high overhead when he finally stopped tramping, looking up to guess the time before patting his grumbling stomach. He stepped away from the path to put his pack down under a tree. There he sat himself on a convenient rock, and began unpacking. In a short time (for hobbits are quick when motivated) he had a merry little fire blazing, and a little iron pan over it full of good things: sausages, eggs, a cheerful handful of green.
The delicious smell floated through the forest, making animal noses twitch. The hobbit paid no notice, going about luncheon with the grave air of one who is undertaking Serious Business.
By and by, there came another sound down the path. The animals heard it first. Tromp tromp tromp it went, heavier than the hobbit’s quiet footsteps had been. The animals crouched down and waited. Tromp tromp tromp. Soon the hobbit heard it too, and he lifted his head from his meal, his hand creeping uncertainly towards his sword.
Tromp tromp tromp.
Around a bend in the path came a tall figure: a Man by the size of him, in heavy robes and a pointy hat. He carried a walking stick as well, gnarled at the top to match his weathered face. He was grey all over, beard and hair, scarf, robes, and hat, like a storm cloud that hasn’t decided yet whether to vent his temper.
At the sight of him, the hobbit let go his sword in astonishment. He sat up and cried, “Bless my eyes! It isn’t Gandalf, who does the lovely firecrackers!”
Gandalf, for it was he, stopped in his tracks. “Good gracious,” he huffed, beaming. “If it isn’t a hobbit. And so far in the Wild, too! I haven’t seen a hobbit out this way since Belladonna Took in her day. You have the look of her, my friend! And you’re quite a ways from the Shire—which means you’re either a Took, or else you’re Belladonna's daughter.”
“As a matter of fact, I’m half of one and all of the other,” the hobbit said. “Bilberry Baggins at your service, though friends call me Bilba. Would you care to join me for luncheon?”
She stood up, apparently for the sole purpose of bowing to the wizard, who bowed cordially back. That courtesy done, Gandalf joined Bilba at her fire and drew up a log to sit on. “I would indeed,” he said with delight. “And an unexpected pleasure to see you, too! It’s been years since I’ve met up with a hobbit. When I saw you last, I dandled you on my knee while you tried to plant watermelon seeds in my beard.”
“The Old Took’s birthday,” Bilba remembered, putting on more sausages and a kettle of water for tea while Gandalf looked on with satisfaction. “They told tales of it for years! But tell me, I see you come from the other end of the Trollshaws where my maps say Rivendell is. Have you been there then, with the elves?”
“I’ve just come from there,” answered Gandalf, accepting a plate and a piece of trail bread with seeds and dried fruits baked into its shell. “If it’s your intention to go there, I might turn around and join you, if I may. It’s hard to find the Hidden Valley if you don’t know the trick to it, and there’s no hurry where I’m going. It’d be worth it to catch up on news from the Farthings.”
“But you said you’ve seen no hobbits in years,” Bilba said anxiously. “Does that mean there are none in Rivendell now?”
“None that I know of.”
“Oh,” said Bilba, her face falling. “Well, that makes a fine mess of things.”
Which was a strange thing for her to have said, perhaps. But the sausages and eggs were done, so her attention turned to more important things.
By mutual agreement they spoke of light matters (the better to aid digestion) over the luncheon of fry-up and hot, sweet tea. Gandalf hadn’t been in the Shire for many a long year, and he had had many friends there in his time, Disturber of the Peace though he was. After they were done eating, Gandalf helped clean and pack up the supplies before they set off together to Rivendell.
Bilba was well-pleased. Hobbits are a friendly folk, and Gandalf had once been a dear friend indeed to Belladonna Baggins, born Belladonna Took. He was possessed of many tales of adventures and things he had seen in his wanderings, and was quite willing to share them with his old friend’s daughter. The time passed pleasantly in this fashion as they tromp tromp tromped along. They were several miles from their pleasant picnic spot before Gandalf gently raised the question of why Bilba was traveling, so far out of the territory of her private and homebody folk.
“Chasing hobbits,” Bilba said simply.
“Indeed! Weren’t there enough in the Shire for you?”
“Specific hobbits if you must know. Four ‘tweens, three of them cousins of mine.”
“Out here? How’s this? Four young hobbits out of the Shire? You astonish me!”
“It’s quite my own fault,” Bilba sighed. “If you must know, my mother’s maps, and stories of adventures passed down to me. Not that I’m anything as bold and brave as she was. But I did a few trips here and there—nothing smacking of real adventure, mind. Just a jaunt to the Grey Havens to see the elves, and a trip into the Old Forest a time or two.”
“The Old Forest!” Gandalf said, surprised. “Reckless doings, even for a Took!”
Bilba blushed. “I was still a ‘tween, then,” she excused, even though she was just past her majority now. Certainly she was too young to speak so deprecatingly of her judgment a scant handful of years ago. “But my cousin Drogo came to live with us last year after his parents died. He had dreams of adventure even before, and his friends Rory and Primula Brandybuck—Aunt Mirabella’s children, you know—were used to ask my mother for stories about elves and battles and quests and, oh! You know the sort.” Her face clouded with sorrow. The loss of her mother was still too near and hard for her to speak of Belladonna overmuch.
Gandalf, who remembered Belladonna and her storytelling with great fondness, agreed that he knew the sort. “But what that does to bring you out here, you haven’t explained.”
“I promised to take them on a proper adventure someday,” Bilba admitted, “though not until they were properly of age, mind! To see the elves, or maybe some dwarves, I was thinking. I’ve never been to the Blue Mountains, and mother used to say the halls of dwarves could rival the best of elves.“ She sighed, a wistful look in her eye. Then she drew himself up, bearing the weight of her responsibility with a small frown. “They were on about it while I was trying to do the accounting. Badgering and bebothering—why wait until they were older? Why not sooner? Why not now?
“So I told them that a true adventurer didn’t ask for adventure; he went out and found it! Just to get them to leave me alone, you see. And then a few hours later I find the pantry empty, Drogo’s cloak gone, and my mother’s map to Rivendell gone from the library.”
At this, Gandalf burst out laughing. Even Bilba’s exasperation was not proof against the sound. Her mouth turned in a rueful smile.
“Worthy of Tooks!” said Gandalf.
“Well, Rory and Prim have Took through both their parents,” Bilba excused, “and even though Drogo is a Baggins by rights, he was Took through the Bolger side.”
“And you have Took through Belladonna herself, that most Tookish of Tooks! Paired with Baggins Determination. No doubt you’ll cause no end of trouble before your time is done.”
“I was thinking of settling into more Baggins Respectability,” sighed Bilba, like a hobbit of eighty-eight rather than the thirty-eight she actually was.
“Respectability, like diamonds, is something a body thinks he wants, but if wise, will discover that he doesn’t need,” opined Gandalf, who was not given to respectability himself. “But I take it since I find you here that your runaways are still lost?”
“Well, I waited a day or so. It’s not the first time a young hobbit has taken it into his head to go exploring, only to return by dinnertime. But dinnertime came and went, and no sign of Drogo. Then comes Aunt Mirabella and Uncle Gorbadoc, asking if we’ve seen Prim and Rory. And then even worse, Holman, asking after Ham!”
“Would that be the same Holman Greenhand who was gardener at Bag End? An excellent fellow. No approver of my goings on, as I recall.”
“But a good friend to my parents and me,” Bilba said staunchly. “And still gardener at Bag End. His cousin Hamfast Gamgee is apprenticed to him, thinking to go into gardening rather than rope-making like his father. He’s a good lad with a good head on his shoulders. More solid than Drogo, I thought. But then Holman tells me he’s disappeared, and that he’d had a hankering to see elves. ‘I knew nothing good would come of teaching him his letters,’ he says!”
Gandalf peered down at her indignation from under the brim of his hat, amusement deepening the wrinkles on his kind old face. “Belladonna’s teaching, I take it?”
She nodded with pride. “And father’s. Bag End’s library will always be open to any who wants to learn. But Hamfast’s coat, rope, a pan, and pack were missing, the pantry raided—likewise with Primula and Rory. We visited Adalbert Bolger, fast friends with the scamps that he is, and he admitted the rest of them had gone off. ‘In search of elves,’ he said. ‘Straight off into the Wild!’ Adalbert happening to stay behind because he didn’t see fit to miss his supper.” She sighed. “There was no help for it. The Wild’s no place for four ‘tweens. I was the only one knowledgable enough and without encumbrances to follow, so here I am.”
“But surely they would have turned back by now?” asked Gandalf, torn between amusement and alarm. For the Wild was indeed a nasty and dangerous place—and it was a long two weeks from the Shire to the Trollshaws.
“I had word of them in Bree, and then again from some merchants I met camping at Weathertop,” Bilba admitted. “They took the East Road. If they stayed on it, I imagined they’d have reached Rivendell by now. I was only two days behind them there!”
“Unless one or the other of you traveled as a hobbit would, with breakfasts, luncheons, teas, and all the unnecessary rest of them,” Gandalf said wryly.
The implication that she might have been the one to delay ruffled Bilba’s feelings. She swelled up indignantly. “I’m sure there’s no call to be thumbing one’s nose at a decent meal at a decent time, when one has just reaped the benefits oneself!” she exclaimed. “But a case of lost young hobbits is more important than proper mealtimes. I’ve been traveling the way my mother taught me: three meals only, like the Big Folk do it! Though how they grow so big on so little, I can’t imagine.
“If I was delayed, it was because of other things, not my poor empty stomach. There were trolls on the road. Great, nasty brutes. If I hadn’t used the wits my parents gave me, I’d have more to worry me than lost hobbits right now. Though come to think of it, perhaps I wouldn’t. On account of being inside a troll’s belly, that is—I daresay there’s very little to worry about once one’s reached that end.”
“Trolls!” Gandalf exclaimed. “On the East Road?”
“Three of them.”
“And you escaped them! Using your wits, you say?”
Bilba blinked up at him, her nose twitching sheepishly. She was not much given to boasting, and the brief irritation that had made her speak of the trolls had already subsided. “Oh, well. They’re thick as mud, aren’t they? They had me trussed up like a rabbit for gutting, so I lectured them on proper cooking techniques for hobbit casserole until the sun rose and they turned to stone.”
It was with surprised respect that Gandalf stared at her. “Mountain trolls are dangerous creatures. Many an armed, experienced warrior has been slain by their kind. And you killed three with cooking techniques?”
“Herbs and treatment of the meat, and those sorts of things,” she said vaguely. “They seemed interested. I wasn’t armed then, of course, except for my slingshot. Though I don’t think a slingshot would have done much good, in any event.”
Gandalf laughed. “No, indeed! I take my hat off to you, Bilba Baggins. A more astonishing thing I have not heard in many years. Like mother, like daughter. Well, well, well! I see the apple doesn’t fall so far from the tree—and it’s remarkable fruit, to be sure!”
She blushed, both pleased and embarrassed by the compliment. “And I won a sword out of it, so it’s all to the good,” she said hurriedly. “I found it in a cave near the trolls, along with a great many mathoms and gold. There were other swords there too, though sized for Big Folk. I buried them. I thought if I reached Rivendell, the elves there would be able to go and retrieve them. After they tell me if they’ve had any news of my lost cousins and Hamfast, that is.”
“If the other blades are like yours, they’ll be pleased to do so,” Gandalf said, regarding her sword with interest. “That’s an elvish design on the scabbard.”
“The elves are welcome to them, then! Though I hope they’ll let me keep this one.” She patted its hilt. “I’ve grown fond of it, though I don’t know how to use it. It glows, you know.”
This surprised him. At his request, she allowed him to inspect the sword and scabbard both. The wizard muttered over the blade, his fingers gentle on the metal. He returned it with his thanks. “And it glows, you say?” he asked, as she fastened it again to her belt. “Where and when have you seen this?”
“From time to time. There’s no predicting it, though it makes a very pretty light at nighttime, when the fire’s low. I thought perhaps it detected wolves, for I heard some two nights back—but it’s glowed other nights without any howling.” She peeked up at Gandalf, alarmed to see the wizard’s face so grim. “Why, what’s the matter?”
“That glow is no night light, but a sign that evil things are nearby. Not wolves, but orcs—what you know as goblins. Trolls on the East Road! If there’s the one, it’s quite possible there’s the other.”
Bilba’s rosy cheeks turned quite pale. “Oh dear, oh dear,” she faltered. “Goblins, you say. And my cousins and Hamfast alone in the Wild! Blast and bebother them!”
Gandalf took his walking stick firmly in hand, and huffed into his long grey beard. “We must hurry to Rivendell. Lord Elrond will want to hear of the evil walking the East Road. And elf patrols keeping an eye out for orcs and goblins will not overlook four little hobbits in the doing of it!”