Article: 208613 of rec.arts.books.tolkien Path: uchinews!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.ems.psu.edu!news.cis.ohio-state.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!portc03.blue.aol.com!audrey04.news.aol.com!not-for-mail From: <<>> (Wilbur07) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: E-Text: Prologue Part 1 Lines: 156 NNTP-Posting-Host: ladder05.news.aol.com X-Admin: news@aol.com Date: 27 May 2000 09:34:10 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Message-ID: <20000527053410.19728.00000587@ng-ct1.aol.com> Xref: uchinews rec.arts.books.tolkien:208613 I dashed this off quick this evening. Not very funny, and not as subtle as i'd like it to be (watch for the groaners!), but nevertheless, here it is. Be kind and gentle with me! And also, any takers for parts 2 - 4? Some fresh insight might be in order here . . . PROLOGUE 1. Concerning Hobbits /Habits. This book deals with Hobbits. From its pages we may readily see how a Hobbit might have a habit of wearing an all-powerful and evil magic Ring (oops! that was a spoiler wasn't it?). Further information on Hobbits will be found in the earlier chapters of the Big Red Book of Westmarch that has already been published under the title of _The Hobbit_. These chapters were composed by Bilbo himself, the first Hobbit to become famous for showing his birthday suit and salami at one of his own birthday parties. They tell of an adventure into the East and his return: an adventure which later involved all the Hobbits in the events of the Age that are here related. Since the incredible success of those early chapters of the Big Red Book, many of you wish to purchase more stories about the incredible adventures of this remarkable people, and so here they are. For such readers, some appropriate landfill as it were is provided on these pages because we need to justify the hefty price of this paperback. Hobbits are short and unnoticeable for the most part, but they've been around forever. They breed, well, like Hobbits, which is to say, they are numberous and plenty. Their favorite haunt is a freshly-used kitchen, where they hang out for hours playing pinochle and smoking menthol cigarettes. They do not and never did understand machines more complicated than a cotton gin or a ball-peen hammer, though they know how to use a kluge for some reason. Even in the old days they were shy of the Big Folk, Bilbo being the exception, because Bilbo was a big man himself. They are quick of hearing and sharp-eyed, and though they overeat and get fat easily, they can scale a backyard fence or slip into a blind alley with the best of them. The way they use trap doors, sleight of hand, misdirection, and cheap parlor tricks it may seem to some that Hobbits are magical, but Hobbits have never studied any real magic of any kind. They make great gangster characters because of their plusses to stealth and ruthlessness. For they are a little people, smaller than Dwarfs, less thick of limb, but wider. They seldom reach 3 feet, but they have gotten shorter over the years, and in ancient times they were taller and more well endowed. According to the Big Red Book, Bandobras Took (Bullroarer), son of Isengrim the Second, was 3 foot 2 and hung like a horse. He was surpassed in all Hobbit records only by two famous characters of old, but old Morrie and young Pipsqueak's story is told hereafter. It is plain that Hobbits are relatives of ours, meaning, the Big Folk. Yes, somehow we obtained the Big Red Book, or a copy of it from somewhere, but that story is lost in the mists of time, it being the 7th Age right now and all. Anyway, they look like us, walk like us, talk like us, speak like us, only they're shorter and have hair on their feet (and the Shire hobbitesses have taken to shaving their feet as well). We might almost call them aboriginals, but we don't. Anyway, they're far closer to us than to the Elves (because they have frequent, exquisite, man-like sex), or to the Dwarves (whose women hardly dare to shave their beards!). Nobody has kept any records at all of the beginnings of Hobbits, their origins were lost in the mists of time. Yet it is clear that Hobbits had been around for a long time before anyone had bothered to notice that they were there. And the world being after all full of strange creatures beyond count, these little people seemed of very little consequence. But in the days of Bilbo, and of Freudo his heir, they suddenly became, by no wish of their own, both redundant and noticeable, and troubled the counsels of the Wise and Large. Those days, the 3rd Age, and remember, it's the 7th Age now -- those days are long past. And the shape of the world is much the same; after all, 7 Ages of sentient beings on Middle-Earth are nothing compared to geologic ages (what? 7 * 3000 = 21,000 years, or barely an ice age). The regions in which the Hobbits dwelt are most obviously North-west of the Old World, east of the Atlantic Ocean. In other words, Merry Olde England/Briton/United Kingdom. The Hobbits own records began only after the settlement of the Shire, and their most ancient legends hardly dealt with vaster or weightier topics than who invented Golf. It is clear from these legends that Hobbits moved in from the East and over the Misty Mountains. There were 3 kinds of Hobbits, called "breeds" (of which Prembone the Oversexed is a different one). These breeds were the hardy Harharfoots, the Stools, and the old Yallohides. The Harfoots were browner of skin, smaller and shorter, beardless and bootless, had small hands, lived on hillsides, and generally were held as the most inferior of the breeds. The Stools were broader, especially in the thighs and buttocks; their hands were larger, and they preferred to live by rivers and marshes and were fastidious about their ruffage. The Yallohides were yellower in skin tone and also thinner of hair, but that might be due to a preponderance of jaundice. Correspondingly, they were also taller and thinner than the others and loved to camp in forests and woodlands. Parallels between breeds of hobbits and the heirarchical order of being can here be made. Harharfoots liked living in tunnels and holes, in the hills and were most inclined to be friendly with Dwarves. Stools lingered by rivers, were less shy of Men. They also kept hounds as Men were wont to do -- indeed, if there were dogs to be found then almost certainly one could find a Stool! Yallohides were a "northerly" branch of hobbit, whatever that means, and were more friendly to the sexless Elves. They hunted, sang songs, were bold, more adventurous, and in most ways were superior to the other branches of hobbit-kin. Even in Bilbo's time the strong Yallohidish strain could still be noted among the greater families, such as the Tooks and the Masters of Beltbuckle. In their trek West, some hobbits settled in the lands between the Shire and their old place out East, and in Bilbo's time one of the more important settlements remaining was a town called Bree, 40 miles east of the Shire and a little north and west of Cammembear. It was in those days of settlement that the Hobbits learned how to read and write from the Dunedain, or kings of men from Numenor. Those Atlanteans in turn learned their letters from the chaste and immortal folk of Valinor. But Westron, or Common speech, was the least complicated and had the least number of 50-cent words so the Hobbits spoke that language ever after and forswore their old languages and forgot that the Men of Rohan spoke those old languages too. Also at the time of the settlements, the Hobbits began their own accounting of the tale of years, a Shire Reckoning as they had it. It was year 1066 of the 3rd Age when the Yallohide brothers, Marxo and Blanco, set out from Bree and Cammembear and crossed the River Rubicon with a great mass of Hobbits. When Blanco later lost his wits and took to begging and chanting in the streets (ever after hanging out at seaports) the exodus was led solely by the eldest brother, and the movement thereafter became Marxist. At once the Western hobbits fell in love with their new lands, and remained there, and passed once more out of the history of Men and Elves. At no time had the hobbits been warlike, and they had never physically fought amongst themselves. Nevertheless, ease and peace had left this people curiously notorious. They were difficult to kill, had lots of hitpoints, good saving throws, good morale ratings, and had excellent leader units -- and would be highly rated as Squad Leader platoons if one were to suppose that they fought in World War II and if one played dice wargames. They were so unwearyingly fond of inanely small and petty things that they inevitably flamed each other over the slightest cause in arguments seen on the paper bulletin boards posted at the 3 farthing stone. These things astonished those who looked no further than their bellies and well-fed faces. All Hobbits originally dwelt in holes in the ground. But as demand for holes grew and the finite supply diminished, and the king's policy of laissez faire caused a huge widening of the gap between the rich and the poor, most Hobbits now lived in pre-fab buildings and semi-detached apartments. Some rich old farts like Bilbo thought holes in the ground to be kitschy and constructed great smials with round doors and such. Many many poor Hobbits, like Gaffer Gamgee, suffered to live in shanty-town holes side by side with the overly-ornate homes of the Bagginses, Tooks, and Brandybucks. The Elves, having all the time in the world to do stuff and no sexual drive to motivate them, somehow taught Hobbits the art of building in exchange for a few peeping Tom priviledges. The Hobbits, however, were afraid of heights and so built only one-story buildings. Even more intense was the Hobbits' fear of water, so they stayed away from boats and rivers and lost the advantages of free trade that waterways gave them. Hobbits were clannish at all times, and reckoned up their relationships with great care. They drew long and elaborate family trees with innumerable branches. In dealing with hobbits, it is important to observe Cosa Nostra, to remember who is related to whom, and in what degree. It would be impossible in this book to set out a family-tree that included even the more important Consiglieri of the more important families at the time which these tales tell of [Editor's Note: "I found a dangling preposiiiiiition! Professor of English Language indeed!"]. The genealogical trees at the end of the Big Red Book of Westmarch are a small book in themselves, and never should have been written for fear of their use in court against the great families. All but the Hobbits would have found them exceedingly incriminating. Hobbits delighted in such things though, if they were indeed accurate. Childish and dull they were; they liked to have books filled with things that they already knew, set out squarely fair with no mistakes. 2. Concerning Weed Hobbits kept their weed in small dime-bag sized . . .[to be completed shortly] Mark Constantino