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I am sitting at my customary table at the Prancing Pony
about to tuck into a plate of Butterburr's venison-and-sauerkraut,
when who should sit down right across from me but Strider
the Ranger! And he has the most worried and sorrowful
look on his face and he says, without any kind of introduction,
"I need your help."
It is very flattering to hear that such a guy as Strider
the Ranger thinks I might be useful to him in some way.
Nevertheless the news sends my blood pressure right
up into the paint cards, because I can think of no way
I might be useful to Strider that is not too dangerous
to contemplate.
Strider the Ranger is never a guy I am apt to hang around
with, or even see very often, because most of the time
he is out in the woods with the Rangers doing whatever
it is that Rangers do when they are out in the woods.
But I hear a lot of stories about him, and most of them
are very wild. They even say he has elvish blood and
is descended from the old kings of Gondor, but I never
pay much attention to such stories, because if you believe
half of what you hear in Bree you will buy the Moria
Mines from a traveling dwarf and try to work out a deal
on the Lonely Mountain. But it is for certain that Strider
is a very tall guy, and also a very tough guy, and he
is also a very strange and eccentric guy. One time when
Dillwort the Dip is at the Prancing Pony and has about
three Shire-ales too many, he spots Strider sprawled
out in a chair in one of the dining rooms and apparently
catching forty winks. Dillwort thinks about what a professional
accomplishment it would be if he could lift Strider's
pigsticker right out of its scabbard. And he promptly
does so and is amazed to find it is only half a pigsticker
as it appears to be broken about halfway down. Dillwort
is perplexed at this and thinks briefly of turning the
scabbard upside down to see if perhaps there is any
more blade in there, but he does not give this thought
more than passing attention, because by this time he
is preoccupied with trying to pry Strider's fingers
off his neck. And this is Dillwort the Dip, who even
from the bottom of his cups can lift your purse with
such grace and artistry that you will go on spending
out of it for two days before you notice it is missing.
When this story gets around, some guys talk about what
a great joke it would be to rile Strider and get him
to draw his half-pigsticker in public. But nothing ever
comes of this, because nobody cares to use his personal
body to find out how much damage Strider can do with
half a pigsticker. But as to why Strider carries only
half a pigsticker when he could just as easily carry
a whole one, nobody seems to have any clue. So you understand
how the news affects me that Strider needs my help.
Anyway, Strider goes on to explain, "It involves a group
of hobbits who will be arriving here from the Shire
in a couple of days but I am not entirely sure when,
and they are intending t stay briefly here at the Pony
and then pass on to points east, and I am very much
concerned that they should succeed in this intention.
But there is a possibility they will run into very bad
trouble."
If you hail from further east than Bree you will not
know much about these hobbits, for they do not get around
much. They are the same thing as halflings, but we do
not use that word in Bree because half the folks around
here are hobbits and if they hear you call them halflings
they are apt to get insulted and ask, half of what?
We call them the Little Folk and they call us men-guys
the Big Folk. They are little folk, in fact they are
smaller than dwarves, but you will never mistake them
for dwarves because neither the hobbit-guys nor the
hobbit-dolls have big bushy beards, and what is more
the hobbits always go barefoot and their feet are as
big as Strider's and as hairy as a dwarf's face. Also
they sometimes live in holes in the ground, which I
guess is not so different from the dwarves living in
caves, at that.
Well, Strider gets to talking some more, and it turns
out his main concern is with Arwen the elf-doll, and
when he speaks her name his eyes get all sad and misty.
Apparently some moons ago Strider is out in the woods
and chances upon this Arwen, who is doing whatever it
is that elf-dolls do when they are out in the woods,
and from the moment he sets eyes on her he is a goner.
But Arwen is a high reach even for guy as tall as Strider,
because she is an elf and she will never grow old and
wrinkled, and sooner or later even such a guy as Strider
will have a hard time keeping up with her. What is more,
this Arwen is very high-class even by elf standards,
and she is the daughter of Elrond, who is the boss-elf
of Rivendell, this elf-town many furlongs east of Bree.
I personally do not see elves very often because they
rarely visit the Four Towns, which they regard as low-class
and mortal and not worth their time, though why guys
who will live forever should be careful with their time
is never clear to me. But some elves do pass through
Bree on odd occasions, and it is always an occasion
for the whole town to take notice, and in my judgment,
if there are any ugly elf-dolls in the world they must
be keeping them all at home on general principles. So
I can understand how Strider must be feeling, having
been so foolish as to get himself hooked on an elf-doll.
He will not fill me in on all the details, which is
more of a relief to me than I care to let on, but anyway
he says that these hobbits are somehow involved with
a big caper which also involves Elrond and a great many
elves and wizards and rich and powerful types, and if
he can help out and impress Elrond, he might get his
foot in the door with Arwen. . . .