Frodo tells young Merry and Berilac a story...
(Written for Marigold's Challenge #23)
AUTHOR: Dreamflower

RATING: G
CATEGORY: General
SUMMARY: Frodo tells young Merry and Berilac a story.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: (1) My story starter was: “_______ looked around_______. This was getting them nowhere.” I had to include a spyglass, a pair of slippers, a flood and a party, and Berilac Brandybuck.
(2) In this story, Frodo is 23, Berilac is about to turn 11, and Merry is 9. (14 ½,7 and 6 in Man-years.)
DISCLAIMER: Middle-earth and all its peoples belong to the Tolkien Estate. I own none of them. Some of them, however, seem to own me.

“Berilac!”

Beri snatched his hand away quickly, and turned to see Cousin Frodo standing in the door to Grandda’s study. He blushed. “What are you doing? You know Uncle Rory would not be best pleased to see you messing about with his spyglass.”

“I was just waiting for him. Mum said I had to ask his permission to go in the mathom rooms--she said I’m still too little to go by myself.”

“Well, I’m glad Merry saw you coming in here. Uncle Rory’s gone to see if any of the fields between here and Standelf are flooded from last night’s rain.” Frodo saw the child’s face fall. “Perhaps we can catch Uncle Sara before he gets too busy; he has to go to Bucklebury to see the blacksmith. But he can give you permission, and then Merry and I can come with you.”

“Thank you, Frodo! I’m glad you’re visiting. I miss you.”

Frodo smiled. “Well, it’s good to see everyone again. I’m sorry you couldn’t come to my birthday in Hobbiton last week, but I am glad that I could be here for your birthday.”

Frodo led the lad out of the tempting room that was the Master’s study. As he knew only too well, there were a good many interesting things in there that were hard for a young lad to keep his hands off.

Merry was waiting just by the door, and the three of them hurried back up to see if they could catch Saradoc.

The Son of the Hall had a good many duties to attend to that day, but he gladly gave Frodo permission to escort Beri and Merry down to some of the storage rooms, so that Beri could pick out some mathoms as gifts for his upcoming birthday party.

Most of the items they came across in the first room were simply unsuitable for a child to give as gifts. They were mostly large items of furniture that were going unused. There were beds and chairs and tables and shelves and chests and a great stack of unused copper bathtubs.

Frodo looked around the room, and a sad look came over his face. This was getting them nowhere. He stood for a moment running his hand over a nicely carved rocking chair, before he cleared his throat, and said huskily, “I don’t think we will find anything in this room, Beri. Let’s try another.” He gave a final pat to the chair, and then found Merry clinging to his side, hugging him. His arm went around his little cousin automatically, and they left the room behind.

The next room was more likely. It was filled with a jumble of all sorts of interesting things, and Frodo watched amused, as his two little cousins began to rummage.

“Merry! Do you think your mother will like this?” Berilac held up a small blue bowl with daisies painted around the rim.

Merry looked at it very carefully, before finally saying, “Yes, Beri. I think she’d like it very much.”

The bowl was put aside with several other items that had been selected, and the two younger lads continued their search.

“Frodo!” Merry called sharply. “What is this?” He held up an item that Frodo had never seen before, yet in a way it looked somewhat familiar--as if he had heard it described before.

“Here’s another one!” Berilac held up another, identical to the first.

The lads brought them to Frodo, who took them gingerly. He inspected them carefully. Although soiled, it was clear they had once been white. They appeared to have been made out of leather, and were a little over half the length of his forearm, roughly oval in shape, flat on the bottom, hollow. He looked at them, trying to tease out the memory in the back of his mind. He put them on the floor, side by side, and stood back. What *were* they? It was on the tip of his tongue--

“Slippers!” he said, as he suddenly remembered some of Bilbo’s stories. “Those are slippers!”

“What are slippers?” asked Merry.

“Well, you know what boots are?”

Both the lads nodded, and Beri said “Sometimes our fathers put them on their feet if the fields are flooded or muddy.”

“And do you know what shoes are?” Frodo asked.

Merry shook his head. Berilac squinted in thought. “Are they like boots? Big Folk put them on their feet?”

Frodo smiled and nodded. “That’s right. ‘Shoes’ are the leather things Big Folk wear on their feet, because their feet are soft, and they don’t have nice curly hair on them, to keep them warm. So they wear ‘shoes’ and ‘boots’ for protection. ‘Slippers’ are the kinds of things the ladies wear on their feet. I’m very certain that those are slippers belonging to a lady of the Big Folk, though how they might have come to be here I’ve no idea.”

The younger lads bent down and inspected them carefully. “They must be terribly uncomfortable,” said Merry.
“I don’t know, sprout. I would think that they would get used to them, as they wear them all the time. Uncle Bilbo told me a story once, and slippers were rather important in it.”

Merry and Berilac exchanged a delighted grin, and then turned their eyes on Frodo with ill-disguised pleading. Frodo laughed. “Well, I can see now we shan’t finish until you’ve heard the story.” He pulled a box over, and sat down upon it, and his two little cousins plumped themselves down at his feet. Frodo’s stories were always a delightful treat.

“Long ago, in the Wide World, where Men and Elves dwell, there was a woodcutter and his wife who dwelt together in their cottage in the forest. They lived far from other Men, and seldom saw any other people save once a year, when the woodcutter would drive his sledge to the nearest village to sell his wood, and buy those few things they could not grow for themselves. They were happy enough together, except for one thing--they had no child.

One night, as they lay asleep, they were wakened by a great commotion in the forest beyond. They heard a clamor of voices, and the sound of hooves, and the clashing of metal. The sounds grew closer, and the two of them huddled together in fear of what it meant, but then the sounds began to fade away, lost in the distance. They lay awake for a while, but as they heard nothing else, they soon went back to sleep.

The next morning, they rose, and the wife kissed her husband good-bye as he went off into the forest to cut wood, and she turned to her duties of tending their little garden, and feeding their chickens and their goat, and sweeping their little cottage.

The woodsman went into the forest, to see which trees he would cut that day. He was a careful forester, taking only the trees which needed to be cut, so that other trees could grow straight and tall. He had not gone far, when he heard a sound. This was a small sound, a whimpering sound. He wondered if perhaps there was some animal, hurt and alone.

So he followed the sound, and lo and behold! he found a large basket. It was tucked away near the bole of a large tree, and hidden by ferns. Inside the basket was a baby. The baby was dressed in a finely woven and stitched gown, and wrapped in a blanket knitted of the finest wool. And tucked down beside the child was a pair of beautiful green slippers.

Well, the woodcutter was amazed to see this, but of course he was worried for the babe, so he took the basket up, and returned home to his wife.

Of course, they felt this was the answer to their heart’s desire. They discovered the babe was a lass, and they named her ‘Fern’ as they had found her hidden behind the ferns. They took her in, and raised her with love as their own darling daughter. But they never told her where she had truly come from. The woodcutter never took her into the village, and she never saw anyone but her parents there deep in the forest.

Now what the forester and his wife never knew was this: the king of their land was the enemy of the king of another land. One night, after their king had given a great party, his wife the queen had gone into the nursery to check on her children. Her son, the little prince, was asleep, but the little princess, who was only a tiny baby, was restless. So the queen took the baby up. She took off her slippers and lay down next to the babe until the little one fell asleep. Then she slipped away to her own room, forgetting her slippers there among the child’s blankets.

Now a short while later the nurserymaid came in. What no one knew was that she was secretly in the pay of the enemy king. She gathered up the little princess, blankets and all, and put her in a basket and spirited her away.

She met some soldiers in the pay of the enemy at the gates of the castle, and they rode away together. For the enemy thought that if he had taken the king’s child, he could make her father do as he wished.

But a guard witnessed the deed, and blew the alarm. Soon the party from the enemy land found themselves pursued by the king and many of his soldiers. They had ridden through the forest.

Finding pursuit so swift behind, the treacherous maid hid the basket and the child, meaning to come back for her later. But all of them were caught as they left the forest.

Hoping to purchase her freedom with news of the child’s whereabouts, the maid kept her silence until the king agreed. But a few days later, when she led them to the place where the princess had been hidden, there was no sign of her to be seen. Furious, the king had the maid flung into a dungeon, and he went home to his queen and his son, where they mourned the loss of their little princess.

Many years later, when Fern was very nearly a grown maiden, she was helping her mother do the spring cleaning. She came across the blanket, the baby dress and the green slippers. Since she had never before seen them, she asked her mother about it, and her mother wept and admitted the truth--that they had found her in the woods.

Fern was very confused about this, but she forgave her mother and father for keeping the truth from her.
“For if my real parents had left me there alone, I surely would have died, and so they must not have loved me as you have done.” For of course, none of them had any idea of the truth.

But Fern was very taken with the beautiful green slippers, and as they fitted her, she began to wear them.
One day her father went out into the forest and forgot the luncheon his wife packed for him to take, and so Fern took the bundle of food out into the woods and gave it to her father. On the way back, she heard noises as of many Men riding, and so she hid behind a tree.

Peeking out from behind its trunk, she saw a party of Men on horses. They paused briefly, and then there was the sound of a horn being blown. This frightened her so that she began to run. She ran through the trees to her home, never realizing just when she lost one of the green slippers in her flight.

Now over the years, many things had happened in the kingdom beyond the forest. The cruel king who had ordered the princess kidnapped had died, and his brother who was king after him was much kinder. He made peace with the father of the princess, and his son had become her brother’s good friend.

And so it was that a hunting party, made up of the two princes had come into the forest.

“What was that?” said her brother, who was Prince Noble.

“I could have sworn it was a beautiful maiden!” said the other prince, who was called Prince Gallant.

The two princes dismounted and walked over to the place where they had spotted Fern, and began to look about.

“Why look!” cried Prince Gallant, and he picked up the green slipper.

But Prince Noble went pale. “That was my mother’s slipper, that went missing the night my sister was stolen! What could this mean?”

The two princes and their hunting party began to search the forest, and they came across the woodcutter in his work.

“Master Woodcutter,” asked Prince Gallant, “have you seen a maiden in the forest? She lost a slipper, and we would return it to her.”

Now the woodcutter felt dread at their words, for he feared that if anyone found out about her, he would lose his daughter. So he lied. “No, my lords, I do not know of any maiden in the forest.”

So the hunting party searched the rest of the day, and then puzzled and discouraged, returned to the castle.

The two princes told the king and queen of what they had found. When Prince Gallant pulled out the slipper to show it to them, the queen swooned, and the king declared “Why, our daughter must be alive!”

The king proclaimed a great reward for the finding of his daughter. Proclamations were sent throughout the land.

The day came that the woodcutter went to the village to sell his wood, and to buy the things his little family would need for the winter. There he found the villagers all abuzz with the news of the proclamation. He returned home with a heavy heart; now he knew the truth of who his daughter was--not abandoned by her family, but stolen from them in malice.

That night, the woodcutter stayed up to speak to his wife after their daughter had gone to bed. He told her of what he had discovered.

“It is not right that we keep her from her destiny,” he said to his wife.

“But husband! How can we bear to lose her? I love her so! And there is this--if the king learns we have kept her all these years, perhaps he will punish us!”

And so the woodcutter listened to his wife’s fears, and kept silent. They did not know their daughter was still awake and had heard their conversation.

Early, before dawn broke, Fern arose, and dressed herself. She put the other slipper in her pocket, and made her way through the forest. She had spent much time with her father, and was canny in the ways of the wood, so she had not much trouble in finding her way to the village.

When she arrived, she was amazed to find a great crowd of young maidens gathered in the village square. She was suddenly shy of so very many people--never had she seen this many people at one time in her life, and she was far too tongue-tied to say anything or ask any of the many questions she had. But she found herself, nevertheless, being hustled into the square with the other maidens.

And then a great coach drove up. A herald in splendid clothes stepped out and read a proclamation: all the maidens would be given an opportunity to try on the slipper found in the forest. The true princess would be she whom the slipper fit.

And now Prince Noble and Prince Gallant stepped out.

The maidens were all made to stand in a long line. Shy as she was, Fern managed to get at the very end of the line.

Many of the maidens could *almost* wear the slipper, but not one did it fit exactly. Some of them were very cross indeed when they could not put it on. As the line grew shorter and shorter, the two princes were feeling very discouraged.

The next to the last maiden was very buxom. It was quite clear that her large foot would never fit the slipper, but she insisted on trying anyway. She could barely get her toes in, but she pushed and pushed, until the seams of the slipper gave way and it split.

Prince Noble gave a cry of anguish. “Foolish girl!” he cried, “now I shall never find my sister!”

But Fern stepped forward, and took the other slipper from her pocket, and handed it to him. He stared at her, amazed, and then held the slipper for her to put on. Her foot fit perfectly.

With a shout of joy, Prince Noble grabbed her up, and swung her around! “At last, little sister, you are found! Our parents will be overjoyed!”

But Prince Gallant looked at them with shining eyes, for he had fallen in love with the beautiful Fern at first sight.

The king and queen *were* overjoyed to see her once more, and lavished presents and parties and beautiful clothes on her. But she was sad, for she missed the woodcutter and his wife, who had raised her all her life. So the king had them brought to the castle, and greatly rewarded them, for as he said “Had you not found her she surely would have died.”

And Prince Gallant paid court to her, and soon she fell in love with him, and they were married in the most splendid wedding ever seen in the two kingdoms.”

Merry and Beri looked at each other. “Is that the end?” asked Merry.

“Yes, sprout, it is. That is just the way Bilbo told it to me.” Frodo smiled. “Did you like it?”

“It was a good story,” said Berilac. “But I like ones with dragons and battles better.”

Merry picked up one of the slippers and studied it carefully. “Do you suppose *this* slipper belonged to a princess? How do you think it came here?”

Frodo shook his head. “I’ve no idea how it may have ended up here at Brandy Hall. And I don’t think it could have belonged to a princess, for I do not think it is so old as the last of the kings.”

Merry cocked his head. “Maybe there will be princesses again when the King comes back!”

Berilac laughed. “Well, that means it will never happen!”

Frodo chuckled, and tousled Beri’s curls. “You never know, Beri-lad. It could happen someday. Now, if you’ve found enough mathoms let’s be on our way. I think it’s nearly time for luncheon.”

And at the mention of food the two lads jumped up, and gathered together the chosen gifts, and they left the room, and left the pair of slippers behind on the dusty floor.