Author's Note: Tolkien states that Fallohide hobbits once associated with elves, but came to mistrust them. There is also the ‘rumor’ that some long ago Took had a fairy wife, and hence their oddities and fey ways. I’ve chosen to take both of these suggestions to link the ancestral Tooks with the elves of Greenwood (by patronage, not marriage!), and give two among them the odd glimpse past the veil of time; Peredyr, in the final song he composed right before his death, and Adalgrim, in seeing that Esmeralda would bear a son, and have a nephew to teach (again, right before his own death.). That they both share bloodlines with Frodo Baggins, a hobbit decidedly both unusual and fey even before Quest was truly begun (he dreamed of the sea at Crickhollow, before he even left the Shire.), helps me feel a little less ‘outlandish’ in my divagations.

Though entirely self-sufficient, this piece does reference back to a story told in “Moonlight On Summer Leaves”, wherein a very young Legolas, running from the news of his mother’s death, is found by some of the hobbits that then occupied the land between the Misty Mountains and Greenwood the Great. He only remembers this as a dream until he sees again the Took banner in Great Smials.

*I beg forgiveness for the usage of ‘elfling’, which I know some dislike, but it seemed to fit context and mindset, the same as other authors use ‘halfling’ instead of ‘hobbit’ (which hobbits do not care for at all! *wink*).

Disclaimer: all characters, places & events belong to Professor Tolkien, save those poor contributions which are mine (and easy to spot). “The Harper’s Last Lament” (all 4 sections of it) however, is *mine*. :)