A Hobbit Tale

The Archet Bugle Publishing Group is proud to release a bit of Fanfic. Hope you like it! (We really do hope you do!)

That was an astounding piece of fanfiction, Bugle-folk. But shouldn't this be in the Fanfic forum?

THE ADVENTURES
OF
MIRABELLA BANKS

A Hobbit’s Tale

By
N.T.R.* TOLKIEN (((*"Not the Real" Tolkien )))



CHAPTER ONE
DELVING INN


A long time ago there was a small but comfortable house. It had been built many years before near the top of a long grassy slope. It was a long low house, with bulging cob walls, and a thatched roof. Like many abodes in that part of the world, whether above-the-ground or below, the house consisted of one long passage which had a number of rooms opening off it. Being of above-the-ground construction, rooms had been laid out on both sides; four tiny rooms, two to a side; but there was also a large kitchen-dining area at the southern end, with a great open hearth in the middle, and windows both east and west. It was a very comfortable house as I said, because it was a hobbit house. And in it lived a respectable hobbit, and his young daughter. The father’s name was Odo Banks and his daughter’s, Mirabella – ‘Bella’ for short – and this is her story, but back to her later.

Our hobbit’s name was Odo Banks, and if you had ever met him, you could be forgiven for thinking him a most unremarkable hobbit, and in most ways he was unremarkable. Odo was plunked firmly in his middle years; sturdily built, with a wide sun-browned face, and a thick tangle of brown hair on his head. A Thatcher by trade, he was a ‘hobbit with his feet on the sod and soil between his toes’, as went the local saying.

Odo was every bit what one would think of as a Stoor (I assume you already know enough about hobbits to know what I’m talking about). Like most of his tribe, he was short bodied, almost dwarf-like in his sturdiness (beardless, of course), and a fellow who generally exhibited all the solid virtues of a respectable being. Indeed, he was typical of his kind; so why he took to wife a Took is anyone’s guess, and quite remarkable (yes, a Took!)

The lady’s name was Primula Took, and she was a distant cousin of The Thain. How the usually sensible Odo came to be smitten by the flighty, fun-loving Primula is anyone’s guess, but it was said in some quarters that ‘opposites do attract’, while others, less generously, proposed that ‘love is blind’. Whatever the case, Odo and Primula met and fell in love.
The happy event occurred one evening during the Ring Day Celebrations, one September 22nd when the two hobbits attended the Common Room of the Delving Inn in Michel Delving.

The story goes that Primula, who had not ever met, let alone, seen Odo before, got up that evening and sang and danced (on a table of all places!) Odo, enraptured by her beautiful voice (and apparently well oiled on the inn’s excellent beer), cried out: “That hobbit is more beautiful than a fairy!” This, of course, drew much laughter from all the patrons in that crowded inn. But Odo meant it.

Primula was not only flattered by Odo’s admiration, but smitten too, and one thing led to another. The two began to meet whenever they could, romance blossomed. Not unexpectedly, news of their liaison was greeted with less than fulsome approval by their respective families. Odo was the son of the steady Bingo Banks, the Needlehole Thatcher, and the even steadier, Grimelda Bulger, late of Budgeford, Bridgefields.

Contrarily, Primula was a member of the adventuresome Took clan - hobbits who thought people like the Banks and Bulgers were so dull as not to bear thinking about. Both families were wont to frown and tut about it. But they could frown and tut all they liked, because, after the briefest possible courtship, the lovers chose to marry - and as they were well out of their tweens, could make up their own minds, and they did.

After Primula moved in with Odo after the wedding, she settled down to all extents and purposes, and became a dutiful Thatcher’s wife. However, she also formed the habit of visiting The Hog and Hide in Needlehole on Market Days, where she sang and danced, entertaining the rustic folk of those parts. In this manner, Primula became quite popular – though she was not held to be wholly respectable by everyone. In answer to those who did not approve of her actions, however, Odo was oft heard to say: “People who as don’t like what she does ought best avoid the tavern ‘tween two and four come Market Days!” This was both an excellent bit of ‘sense’ (as Odo called it), and a stout defence of his wife.

About a year after the wedding, Bella appeared, and she was very much the second edition of her mother. Unfortunately, Primula died in a fall from a pony when Bella was barely in swaddling clothes, and though Odo told Bella many fun-filled tales about her mother before the hearth at bedtime, Primula was but a character in a story for the child; yes, quite the heroine, but never a real person. Indeed, to the child, she became not unlike Mad Baggins, who it’s said, in at least one version of his Adventures, slew a fierce dragon; or Frodo Nine-Fingers, who threw away a ring (a very powerful ring full of dark magic) into a fiery mountain. That was, of course, way back in the far off days of Mayor Samwise, and therefore a time of semi-legend. (I’m sure you know the true story, but people in Rushock Bog knowing little imagined much).

Fortunately for Bella, she had Grimelda Bulger-Banks to help look after her. In fact, her doughty grandmother was, to all extents and purposes, her real mother. Grimelda lived with Bella’s Grandfather, Bingo, further down the slope nearer The Water, though his store was in Needlehole. Their hobbit-hole was at the end of Rushey Lane, and was the last bit of elevated land before the reeds of Rushock Bog began. Bella loved her grand parents’ compact tidy hole, and whenever Bingo and Odo went off to search for the best thatch-making reeds, which grew in a secret part of Rushock Bog, they often stayed away overnight; Bella stayed with her grandmother.

Now, Bella was a second edition of her mother, Primula Took; as Fallohidish as they come. That’s if her outward appearance and adventurous nature are anything to go by. And they are! So it will be no surprise to anyone who knows anything about Tooks that our little hobbit went off and had a very dangerous adventure. And though her story is not as widely known nowadays as it might be (it was not even entered in the Red Book, which is a shame), I nonetheless feel it worthy of retelling. In the end only you, dear reader, can be the judge of it. Anyhow, here goes...


*

Sorry Eldo! Can you move this there, please?

Do tell more! Only, I thought that Odo was Mirabella's uncle?

The Archet Bugle wrote:Sorry Eldo! Can you move this there, please?

As you wish.

Thank you. Btw any connection with Real people is accidental. The Odo and Mirabella in the story are absolutely nothing like the Real ones on this Forum!

The Archet Bugle wrote:Thank you. Btw any connection with Real people is accidental. The Odo and Mirabella in the story are absolutely nothing like the Real ones on this Forum!

It's a good thing this is an Anarchist forum, or Odo could sue for infringing his intellectual property rights.

GB

Odo has no Intellectual Property as what I heard, GB.


{{{Great to see you back btw! }}}

is he back?

Yes, at 7:49 am on Fri Feb 18, 2011   

And about time too!   

a wizard is never late.

He is over on Facebook saving the world --- so I guess I can forgive him then...   



{{{Not bloody likely... the splitter!!!! }}}