Tales From The Green Dragon, A Hobbit's Tall Tail.

Tales from The Green Dragon.

A Hobbits Tall Tale
By Ottis413, with special thanks to GhettoElleth

Preface;
Soon after Bilbo Baggin's return from his adventures in foreign parts, tales of trolls and orcs became popular in Inns and around campfires throughout the Shire. Since our trail brings us close to The Green Dragon, let's drop in and listen to one. Falco Baggins (one of Bilbo's cousins, I believe) is just starting....
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"I was returning to my home in Scary after a 'hard day's work' some years past," snickers from the listening Hobbits eliciting a pause and a stern look from Falco. "When I espied in the distance a great troll, who it seemed had clubbed a large hole in my roof and was busy devouring the contents of my larder.

"Of course this distressed me to no end, as I was quite looking forward to some salt pork and potatoes for my dinner. So you can well understand that the sight I beheld quite unhinged me for a moment. My dinner being messily devoured by an ugly troll, not to mention my poor hobbit-hole plundered.

"Without considering the consequences I ran at the troll throwing stones with all my might. As I drew near, it turned to receive one of my missiles in a great bleary eye.

"My action succeeded all too well in distracting the troll from my larder, but alas, the afore-mentioned beast's attentions were then immediately transferred to me. Henceforth, said creature then proceeded in my direction with long lumbering strides.

"I ran along for some distance until I came to a swing that some of the children had suspended from the branch of an oak; under another tree nearby was a ram owned by my uncle Otho. Espying the rope, and thereon, the ram, gave me a sudden inspiration. In quick order, I fashioned a snare upon the ground, which I could trigger from the safety of a hiding place behind an old rock wall.

"Using this rope, one end tightly tied to a stout limb, I believed I would soon have the satisfaction of seeing the troll converted into a fine, albeit large, pendulum, swinging free to the whimsical sport of the roguish wind.

"However, I must edify that this is not what happened.

"I triggered the snare the instant the troll stepped into the circle of rope, but instead of jerking the troll cleanly off the ground, the rope went taut with a loud 'twang'. The troll soon found itself running in ever decreasing circles around the old oak, not entirely aware of the nature of what was happening. Even had I stepped forth and pointed out his predicament, in any case, I do not think it would have wasted much time in vain remonstrance.

"At the time, my uncle Otho's ram was famous in all the Shire as a fighter. He was in a state of chronic constitutional indignation. Some deep disappointment in his early life had soured his disposition and he had declared war upon the whole of Middle Earth. To say that he would butt anything accessible is but faintly to express the nature and scope of his militant posture: the universe had become his antagonist; his method of retaliations that of a flying sledge hammer. He fought with the ferocity of the gods and devils, in mid-air, cleaving the atmosphere like a bird. Rising in a parabolic curve he would descend upon his victim at just the exact angle of incidence to make the most of his velocity and weight. His momentum, calculated in foot-tons, was something incredible. He had been rumored to be responsible for the destruction of a four- year old bull by means of a single blow upon that animal's gnarled forehead. No wall of stone had ever been known to resist his downward swoop; there were no trees tough enough to stay him; he would splinter them into toothpicks and defile their leafy honors in the dust. This irascible and implacable brute -- this thunderbolt incarnate, this monster of the either, I had seen lying in repose in the shade of a nearby tree, dreaming dreams of conquest and glory. It was with a view to summoning this ram forth to do battle with my pursing foe that I attempted to snare the troll in this manner.

"Having completed my task as best I could, and still taking cover behind the remains of the aforementioned wall of stone, I lifted up my voice in a long rasping cry. The diminishing final note of my keening was drowned out by a noise emanating from the hobbled troll, sounding somewhat akin to that of a swearing bull.

"Instantly, that formidable sheep was upon his feet and taking in the situation at a glance. Within a few moments he had approached, stamping, to within fifty feet of the confused troll who now hopped back and forth, seeming to welcome the fray. Suddenly I saw the beast's head drop earthward as if depressed by the weight of his own enormous horns; then a dim, white, wavy streak of sheep launched itself from that spot in a generally horizontal direction to within about four feet of a point immediately behind his enemy. There he launched his attack, striking sharply upward, and before I knew it, I heard a horrid thump followed by a loud howl, and the poor troll shot upward with a now slack rope, higher than the limb to which it was attached. Here the rope went taut with a jerk, arresting the upward flight, then swung back in a breathless curve to the other end of its arc. The ram had fallen in a heap of undistinguishable legs, wool and horns, barely pulling himself together in time to dodge his antagonist's downward sweep. He retired to the distance, alternately shaking his head and stamping his fore-feet.

"When he had backed himself to a span about equal to that from which he had delivered the initial assault, he paused, bowing his head as if in prayer for victory, and again shot forward, dimly visible as before -- a prolonging white streak with monstrous undulations, ending with a sharp ascension. His course this time was at a right angle to his former one, and his impatience so great that he struck the troll before it had nearly reached the lowest point of its arc. In consequence the troll went flying round and round the oak in a horizontal circle whose radius was about equal to half the length of the rope, which, if I have yet to say, was nearly twenty feet long. The troll's howls, crescendo in approach and diminuendo in recession, made the velocity of its revolutions more obvious to the ear than to the eye. Evidently the troll had not yet been struck in a vital spot.

"After delivering his second blow the ram did not retire as he had before. The fever of battle burned hot in his heart; his brain intoxicated with the wine of strife. Like a fighter who in his rage forgets his skill and fights ineffectively at half-arm's length, the angry ram endeavored to reach the fleeting troll by awkward vertical leaps. As the troll passed overhead, sometimes, he would indeed, succeed in striking it feebly, but more frequently he was overthrown by his own misguided eagerness. But as the impetus was exhausted and the troll's circles narrowed in scope and diminished in speed bringing it nearer to the ground, these tactics produced better results, eliciting a superior quality of howls, which I greatly enjoyed.

"Suddenly, as if a battle horn had sung truce, the ram suspended hostilities and walked away, thoughtfully wrinkling and smoothing his great aquiline nose, and occasionally cropping a bunch of grass and slowly munching it. He seemed to have tired of war's alarms and resolved to beat the sword into a plowshare and cultivate the arts of peace. Steadily he held his course away from the field of battle until he had gained a distance of nearly a furlong. There he stopped and stood with his rear to his foe, chewing his cud and apparently half asleep. I observed, however, an occasional slight turn of his head, as if his apathy were more affected than genuine.

"Meantime the troll's shrieks were abating with its motion, and nothing was heard from it but long, low moans, and at intervals a curse, uttered in a language exceedingly painful to my ears. Evidently the troll had not the faintest notion of what was going on, and was inexpressibly angered and terrified.

"The troll's oscillations continued to slowly diminish, until finally it hung motionless by one leg, the rope hopelessly tangled in the limbs above it. I went out to this troll and was about to give it a good piece of my mind for the plundering of my larder, as well as the bludgeoning my home, when I heard and felt a succession of smart shocks which shook the ground like a series of light earthquakes. Turning in the direction of the ram, I saw a long cloud of dust approaching with inconceivable speed and alarming effect! At a distance of some thirty yards away this dust cloud stopped short, and from the near end there arose into the air what I at first thought was a great white bird. Its ascent was so smooth and easy that I shall always remember it with extraordinary celerity, and I was lost in admiration of its grace.

"To this day the impression remains that it was a powerful, deliberate movement, the ram -- for it was that animal -- being up borne by some power beyond its own impetus. My eyes followed his progress with unspeakable pleasure, made all the greater by contrast with my former terror of his approach by land. Onward and upward the noble animal sailed, his head bent down almost between his knees, his fore-feet thrown back, and his hind legs trailing to the rear like those of a soaring heron.

"At a height of forty or fifty feet, as fond recollection now presents it to my view, he attained his zenith and appeared to remain for an instant stationary. Then, tilting suddenly forward without altering the relative position of his parts, he shot downward on a steeper and steeper course with increasing velocity, passed immediately above me and struck the troll squarely in the---mid air! So frightful was the impact that not only did the limb break, but the rope too; and the body of the troll, forced against the earth, was crushed into gravel beneath the awful front of that meteoric sheep!

"The concussion resulting from the collision broke windows and chipped plates as far away as Hobbiton and Buckland. Sandyman the miller, a self described authority in all matters seismic, (as well as most other matters) who just happened to be in the vicinity, promptly explained that the vibrations were from a small earthquake somewhere to the East.

"The crater formed by the combined impacts and the amount of gravel resulting from the collision proved so useful, that the spot is now the quarry in the East Farthing. Many roads and walkways have been surfaced with the remains of that old troll.

"Okay, but what happened to the bleeding goat?" asked a hobbit-lass sitting nearby.

"Oh, having attained such an auspicious victory on the field of battle, he retired to the fields and orchards in the south of the Shire. There he sired a long line of disagreeable offspring that live there to this day. Ever and anon I would meet him in my travels in the South Farthing, and I would give him an apple or a carrot, which I would carry with me for just that purpose. He would graciously accept this gift and we would share a look as if between two veterans of some great but forgotten war.

Falco stopped for a moment, looking around at the other hobbits and feeling sure of many a free ale; finished by saying;

"Altogether, I cannot help thinking that in the realm of heroic acts, my defeat of the troll has seldom been excelled.
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Authors note;
Loosely adapted from a story by Ambrose Bierce, 1842 to 1914?
"As to me, I leave here tomorrow for an unknown destination."
-- The last line of the last letter from Ambrose Bierce,
December 26, 1913
He was never heard from again.