Frodo: Memories and Memoirs

“You have to record your memories, Frodo,” Bilbo instructs as he moves about the study, dusting shelves and straightening books. “You simply have to if you are to remember things properly.”

“What do you mean? I remember things quite well. Too well,” Frodo says as he fingers the small blue journal, gifted to him by Bilbo. “I remember everything.”

“That’s quite unlikely,” Bilbo says and sits at the desk, looking pointedly at Frodo, his eyes full of concern. “No one remembers everything, not even the elves, which is why an accurate memoir is so important.”

“What’s the difference?”

“A memoir is a record. It tells us what happened, be it a grand event, a journey through the Shire, or an ordinary day, and as they're usually written near to the event, they tend to be more accurate, more factual. Once it’s recorded, so it shall remain forever.

“A memory, well, that’s a living thing. It shifts, changes depending on what others tell us of the event or what we think we remember later on. It effects the way we view our pasts and therefore ourselves, effects the way we see others, and here’s the rub: they don’t even have to be real. If you're told something false often enough, or simply just imagine it enough times, it can become like a memory even though it never took place, even if you weren’t there to see it if it did take place. I’m sure if I asked you, and if you were honest in your reply, that you would be able to tell me exactly how your parents drowned. You’ve played it out a hundred times in your mind’s eye and it has become as real to you as that chair you are sitting upon right now.”

“I didn’t make up my parents dying,” Frodo says hotly. He clutches the book in his hands, his knuckles white. “How dare you imply—”

“But I don’t Frodo. You misunderstand and I picked a poor example. I apologize. I meant only that you have a memory of something that you did not witness. With a journal, you would be able to keep track of your real experiences more easily, more clearly. I’ve found that journals are excellent sources for studying the accuracy of our memories, and it happens more often than not that what we remember years later is quite different from what we recorded at the time of the event, which is why I’ve been trying so hard to give you an interest in journaling. I know you think it trite, but I cannot stress enough how important it is. You torment yourself because you do not remember the truth.”

“So what is the truth?”

“That’s for you to discover and all you have to do is open that book.”

Frodo looks down at the book resting in his hands and opens it. He flips through the pages then looks up at Bilbo, bewildered. “The pages are blank.”

“Then I suggest you get to it,” Bilbo says and relinquishes the desk to his cousin. Bilbo leaves the room and goes outside to take a walk with the dwarves, and they sing as they head down the Hill.

Frodo leaves the chair and stands before the desk, looking out the window at the crisp autumn day. In the distance he sees Sam loading a barrow with firewood and hears the lad humming to himself a song of harvest. Frodo sets the book upon the tilted surface of the writing table and opens it to the first blank page as he sits upon the stool. He breathes the scent of the fresh parchment before he dips the quill in red ink. He carefully scrapes the nib against the inkwell and ponders the first memory he wants to commit to paper, his first swimming lesson when he was but eight years old, then puts the quill to paper.

The grass crunches beneath their feet and broken leaves of amber and gold scent the air with their faint musk. Leaves flutter from the trees in an endless rain of autumn’s farewell, and petals fall off the flowers, the beds preparing for winter’s chill. The air is thick with fog and their breaths mist around them as they wind their way in and around the trees. His parents stroll hand in hand, and he walks in front of them, kicking at the leaves every once in a while, then looking back to make sure his parents are still following. He gives no thoughts to where they are for he knows these woods well, or used to before he moved away. Many times has he walked them to clear his mind from the noise and bustle of Brandy Hall, and they are as familiar to him now as they had been when last he lived there.

They come to the glade where they will picnic and wait for the mist to burn away. Alders stand tall and proud, encircling the glade, and on the far side between a wide break in the shrubs can be seen the Brandywine River, flowing fast and sure.

When the sun rises fully and the fog lifts, they go down to the river, to the little wading pool there, which is protected from the main current of the river only by a small protrusion in the bank. Drogo lays upon the grassy bank on his side, propped up on an elbow and whittling at a woodblock. Primula strips down to her smallclothes and stands ankle deep in the water, smiling encouragingly at little Frodo, her arms held open before her as Frodo hesitates on the shallow shore, his feet just inches from the water.

“Come on now, love,” Primula says. “It’s just water, just like it is when you take a bath.”

“This is a very big bath,” Frodo says.

“You’ve the right of it son,” Drogo says. “Don’t let her talk you into such nonsense.”

“Drogo! He has to learn to swim if we’re going to live so close to the river,” Primula says.

“We don’t live so close to the river,” Drogo reasons. “We’re clear on the other side of Bucklebury, for the very purpose of being far away from the river, and now you’re going to teach him to swim.”

“It wouldn’t hurt you to learn either.”

“Me? Swim? I’d sink first, even if I knew how. Nope, it’s land or boats for me.”

Primula laughs and shakes her head. “That’s well enough for you, but Frodo needs to learn. Now, sweetheart, you are to ignore your father. I give you leave to dismiss anything he says about swimming. Take my hands, there you go, and step into the water. That’s right, Fro! Your mama’s got you.”

Drogo watches as little Frodo steps further and further into the river, beaming up at his mother as he grips her hands tightly. Drogo smiles and says, “You’re letting your Brandybuck side get the better of you, acorn. Where’s your Baggins sensibility?”

Frodo stands knee deep in the water, still clutching his mother’s hands, and she beams down at him proudly. “Good, Fro! You’ve done marvelously. Now, the first thing I’m going to teach you is how to float.”

“No.”

“Yes, you need to know. That way, you know you won’t sink,” Primula explains, “and then you won’t be so afraid when it comes to learning your strokes.”

“No, it won’t work,” Frodo says, his lowering lip trembling.

“Of course it will,” Primula says soothingly, crouching down so that she is eye level with her son. “It’s very simple. We’ll start slow, dear. Now, remember, it’s just like the bathtub. Put your face under the water, hold your breath and then come back up. Like this.”

“No!” Frodo tugs fruitlessly at her shoulder, attempting to keep her from demonstrating. “It won’t work. You won’t float.” Tears stream down his face and Primula pulls him close, holding him tightly.

“Good going, Drogo,” Primula says.

“I don’t know what this is about,” Drogo says, his voice full of concern. “I was only teasing, acorn. It’s quite safe to swim here and your mother’s one of the best there is.” He feels his father’s hand warm and heavy on his shoulder. “Come on, acorn, come sit with me here on the bank and let your mama show you how to do it.” Drogo lifts him out of the water and sits him on his lap, holding him tight to keep him from squirming, and making soft shushing noises in his ear.

“Very well, then,” Primula says, frowning at her son. She moves so she’s further out in the pool and is able to fall forward into the water without bumping her head on the riverbed. “Now, as I said, you just put your face under water and then just let yourself relax, and you’ll float. Easy as pie.”

She demonstrates and Frodo holds his breath, waiting for her to resurface, waits until he nearly passes out from the lack of air. “Papa!” he cries and turns to find his father gone and when he looks back to the river, the wading pool is also gone and a circle of hobbits stand around two forms on the ground, yards from a full and raging river.

Sam whistles as he walks by, close to the study window, shaking Frodo from his writing. Frodo blinks at the bright sunlight and smells deep the scent of leaves being burned. Sam comes past the window again and laughs heartily. “Why there you are, Mr. Grubb!” the gardener says to the toad that has taken to visiting the Bag End garden of late. “Where’s Mistress Grubb? I figured as you’d gone off to get yourself wed. I’ll have to find you a mate if you don’t find one on your own.”

Frodo sighs, laughing a little himself as Sam goes about his work and Mr. Grubb croaks. He stretches his neck and hands before turning to a fresh page. He can see now that Bilbo may have had a point about memories. That last one went horribly astray. He knew for a fact that he never put up such a fuss when learning to swim. Why, hadn’t Aunt Asphodel told him over and again how he took to swimming like a fish after just one lesson? He dips the quill again, searches for a new memory to put to paper.

The house at the far end of Bucklebury is dilapidated, the verge that once lined the walk path long ago wilted and dead, the windows covered in dust and mud, the round door hanging off its frame, holes in the roof. He goes up the walk path and pushes the door open. A musky scent fills the air inside, stuffy and stale, his eyes fill with tears at the sting of the stench, but he crosses the threshold anyway and strolls through the house, room by room, all of them empty but for the rocking chair that sits near the hearth in the parlor, where his mother would spend her days during that last long winter.

He sits in the chair, tips it back and forth with the rhythm of his feet, closes his eyes, and suddenly the stale musk is replaced by the sweet juices of ham cooking and yellow squash broiling and bread baking. In the hearth he can hear the fire crackling and he can feel the warmth of its flames. He opens his eyes, a small smile on his lips for being home again, but the smile disappears instantly when he looks into the kitchen and sees his mother standing there, hunched over the cutting board and crying silently as the food goes ignored. Drogo comes through the kitchen door, a pile of wood beneath his arm for the wood box. He lets the wood clatter to the floor and he dashes to Primula’s side, attempts to take her in his arms and comfort her, but she pushes him away and goes to the corner as if she hopes to hide herself away there.

“Don’t touch me,” she says, her voice so hollow it can hardly be recognized as hers. She pushes herself from the wall and shuffles through the parlor for the hall and the bedchambers. Frodo sees red on her sleeve as she passes.

“Mama, you’re hurt.”

“It doesn’t matter. It makes no difference.”

“Prima!” Drogo calls and follows after her, telling Frodo with a glance to stay where he is.

Frodo doesn’t listen this time. He runs out the door and away from the house before the argument and the sobs can reach his ears.

“Now, now, there Mr. Grubb, you won’t be winning any lasses with that sort of attitude,” Sam says outside.

Frodo pulls himself out of this last memory, which he is fairly certain never happened. He knows at least that the house was never allowed to reach such a state of disuse, as Milo had moved into it as soon as he married Peony. He must have been confusing the smial that his father had built, the one they had never lived in, for the house.

“Mr. Grubb! That’s no way to be a gentletoad!”

Frodo looks up at the window, perplexed, and stands to look outside and find Sam crouched in the flowerbeds, holding out a small toad to what he assumes is Mr. Grubb. “Sam, whatever are you doing?”

“I found him a Mistress Grubb but he keeps turning his back on her,” Sam explains, not looking up and continuing to frown down disapprovingly at Mr. Grubb. “Are all the fellows of Bag End bent on being bachelors all their lives?”

“So it seems,” Frodo says. “But do you think you could keep it down? I am trying to work in here.”

“Of course sir.”

Frodo sits back down and turns to a fresh page. He hesitates before dipping the quill this time, then decides to skip ahead a couple of years and see what that will bring up.

He runs through the oak grove just north of Bucklebury and south of Crickhollow Road. He hears Milo’s voice not too far behind him telling him to slow down and wait up, while Aunt Del and Uncle Rufus call out to them both and say they will picnic where they are. He is twelve in this memory and the ground is sprouting with new wildflowers for the spring as the sun shines down cool and bright upon the damp soil of the earth.

Aunt Del lays the blanket upon the ground and she and Uncle Rufus spread out the food while Milo dashes after young Frodo. He catches the lad and mimics him by bending low to the ground. “What are we looking at?” he asks and Frodo holds up an acorn.

“What do these mean?” he asks Milo.

“What do you mean, what do they mean?”

“Are they special in some way?”

Milo shrugs. “Well, it’ll be a tree some day.”

“What kind of tree?”

“An oak,” Milo answers.

“What does oak mean?”

“What does--?” Milo considers him closely for a moment, clearly thinking him odd. “It’s just a tree, like any other. It doesn’t mean anything, except perhaps good shade in the summer.”

“But Papa called me that.”

“Oak?”

“Acorn.”

“Never heard that for a nickname before,” Milo says as Aunt Del calls from the picnic area, “Time to eat, lads!”

Uncle Rufus calls now too. “I know you’re both hungry, so step to it! You lads can explore later.”

Milo goes to his parents but Frodo lingers, staring down at the little acorn that fills his small hand. At last he puts it back upon the ground and turns to join his guardians, but something catches the corner of his eye and he moves to meet it. In the middle of the grove, surrounded by numerous thriving oaks is one dead oak. He comes to the base of its bole and glances up at the tree, reaches out for it with his right hand. The bark is dry and flakes off under his touch, and the bare branches creak with the wind.

“Frodo!” Uncle Rufus calls. “I said you could explore later.”

But they don’t explore. Instead they return to Brandy Hall and Frodo takes his riding lessons from Aunt Ami, then goes to the nursery to help the nursemaids with the bairns and faunts, then seeks out Uncle Dino about his numbers lesson, and finally returns to Aunt Del and Uncle Rufus’s apartment, where he sees the calendar hanging from the wall by the clock, and he notices that the sixth of Astron is just two days away. So that’s why they’ve been keeping him so busy of late. He had allowed himself to forget, the first anniversary of his parents' deaths. He stands staring at the calendar for several minutes and possibly closer to an hour, then goes to the bathing room and draws himself a bath. His mother had said it was just like a bathtub.

“I brought you luncheon, Master Frodo,” Sam announces and sets a full tray of food on the table next to the desk. “It’s a fine day, isn’t it sir?” He hums as he straightens out the areas of the room that Bilbo had overlooked. His steps have a carefree bounce to them and there is an ever-present smile on his lips.

Frodo looks at the food, not really registering its presence in the room.

“Aren’t you hungry sir?”

Frodo shakes himself and with effort reaches for the sandwich. He takes a large bite and munches until Sam nods with satisfaction and leaves the room. Frodo washes the food down with some water and goes back to his writing, turning to yet another clean page. He stares at it for long moments before reaching for the quill, and dips the nib into the ink.

“I can swim much better than you!” Merry says proudly as he darts about near the shore of Bywater Pool. Frodo sits on the bank with his feet in the water and watches him closely, making sure that the lad’s strokes are clean.

Folco and Fatty watch with puzzlement. They only come to the pool for the fishing, which they are currently doing though they have no hope of catching trout while Merry is swimming about and chasing the fish away. They are determined to get some trout for Aunt Dora’s birthday dinner and they have been coming to the pool every day for the last week. They could have hunted dove instead, but Folco had explained very clearly why they could not. “It was either trout or dove, and I explained that it’d be a lot easier to catch fish because the birds fly too high for our lines to reach them, even if they do like worms. You see, it’s because the line is too light to stay up in the air and the birds aren’t going to come swooping down to catch the worm before the line starts coming down again.”

“You don’t fish for birds, Folco.”

“But fish love birds. Where else would they live?”

Frodo had turned to Fatty for clarification, but Fatty had been doubled over, laughing so hard he could barely breathe.

Now Frodo gives up trying to figure it out and follows Merry into the pool. They swim together near the shore for a half-hour, then Frodo swims out toward the deeper middle portion of the pool, being very stern with Merry that the lad is not to attempt to follow him. Merry agrees to stay near the shore and Frodo dives beneath the surface of the water, coming up again when he’s at the midway point of the pool. He looks back to make sure that Merry has indeed not followed him and sees his little cousin on the bank fishing with the other lads.

Frodo swims a few short laps, diving and staying under the surface for longer periods of time, until his friends are used to seeing him do that, then he takes a great breath and dives deep, swimming straight down, wanting to touch the Pool’s floor. It’s farther than he anticipates and he’s nearly out of breath already by the time he reaches it. He turns about and kicks himself off the ground, propelling himself to the surface and kicking furiously as his breath runs out. He starts taking water as he nears the surface and when he breaks water, he is spluttering and coughing. He looks at the shore, hoping that his cousins haven't become distraught about him being under the surface so long, but he sees only one solitary figure sitting on the bank. He swims slowly toward the shore and as he gets closer, he sees that the figure is Sam.

“Sam? Are you in this memory?”

Sam shakes his head. “No sir, but Mr. Bilbo wanted you to have this.” He hands Frodo the little blue book. Frodo takes it and studies the cover, which is starting to show wear at the corners, the spine creased. He flips through the book and finds the pages filled with first his mother’s elegant scrawl and later with his rigid writing from when he was younger, the writing becoming more refined with the passage of time. “What is this?”

“Well, I told Mr. Bilbo as you were having trouble with recollecting everything, so he found the real book and wanted you to have it so as you could remember right,” Sam explains.

“Why didn’t Bilbo come himself?”

“He had to leave.”

“How long have you been here?”

Sam laughs and winks. “Oh, you know that.”

“I suppose.”

“Aren’t you going to read it Frodo?”

Frodo nods and sits down next to Sam, asking him with a look to stay where he is sitting. Sam leans back on his elbows and watches the clouds float by overhead as Frodo starts from the first page and skims through the book to its end, the memories flooding back into his mind with such clarity and in such a jumble that it startles him: him with Merry, examining the bug life; with Gil and Edon, collecting likely branches for whittling; with Fendi and Morti, Tucker and Tobias and the other lads, knocking fruit from the trees, eating stolen pies, hiding from furious pursuers; with Saradoc and Merry, picking flowers for Esme’s birthday; by himself, eating his stolen horde of mushrooms with guilty satisfaction; he hears sniffing and snarling behind him and the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as he runs, the farmer’s heated words following him as surely as the dogs all the way to the Ferry.

The memories still and thin out, coming now one at a time.

He sees the great field just north of Bywater Pool, between the river and the Hill. The field is full of tents and booths and merry hobbits drinking and eating their fill, and at the center of the glade, just yards away from the platform for the band, stands the maypole, its brightly colored streamers hanging down in loose threads from its top. Frodo sits with Bilbo, Dora and Dudo. Dora reaches over to swat his back and tells him to sit up proper, no slouching, and wipe that pout off your face, young lad, you’re too young for worry lines. Dudo hands him a mug full of mulled cider and tells him to sip on it and maybe he’ll feel more inclined to join in on the games and festivities. Bilbo chuckles and tells them both that Frodo’s just fine where he is and doesn’t have to be polite or sociable if he doesn’t want to. Of course after that, Frodo has no choice but to mingle and soon he’s chatting with Halfred Gamgee and playing with little Sammy and the Cotton children, and the Smallburrow lads come over and Frodo instructs Sam, Tom and Robin in a play about the first Spring Festival, and they run up to the band platform and perform it for everyone to enjoy, even though they can’t remember half the words.

Frodo laughs at the memory; he had quite forgotten it. But the next one…

“I bought a property in Crickhollow,” Drogo says as Aunt Del brings tea for him and Uncle Rufus. Milo sits at the other end of the parlor doing his studies and simultaneously helping Frodo with his, but both lads keep one ear to the conversation of their elders. “I’m going to build a small smial there, or have one built for us. Prima doesn’t know yet.”

“You didn’t discuss this with her?” Aunt Del says.

“She’s in no position to make this decision,” Drogo says, his voice tired and strained, dark bags beneath his eyes making him appear forty years older. “Once we’re out of that house, things will improve. Once she’s away from the memories. She hardly ever sleeps in our room anymore.”

“And how are you holding up?”

“It was going to be a daughter,” Drogo says, choking on the last word. He hides his face in his hands and for a brief moment his shoulders shake. Uncle Rufus reaches out and clenches Drogo’s shoulder tightly, keeps his hand there until Drogo takes a huge breath and lets it out. His father lifts his head and though his eyes are dry, they are also red. “We named her Miradora, for her mother and my sister.”

“I was going to call her Mora,” Frodo tells Milo, who smiles sadly, then takes the lad’s hand and leads him outside to race up and down the slopes of Buck Hill.

Frodo frowns at that memoir. It says he went to bed happy that night.

His parents sit on the banks of the Brandywine with Saradoc and Esmeralda, and they sit upon the grass, the lasses leaning against their fellows. Esme is wearing her red wedding dress, the one that matches her hair and makes her green eyes so bright, and Sara still wears his wedding suit, though the waistcoat is unbuttoned and the coat is spread out on the ground beneath him and Esme. They all laugh at something that Drogo has just said and Primula responds, “But it’s true enough I suppose. It does not happen often, that a lass has to wait for the lad to come of age to marry.”

“Or perhaps it was I who did not want to wait,” Saradoc says. “Did you think of that? After all, most fellows don’t marry until they’re nearing forty.”

“I think it’s that you just love a good scandal, Sara, taking a wife as is older than you,” Drogo says with feigned sternness.

“Oh, hush you,” Esmeralda says with a laugh, which highlights her Tookish lilt. “It was my doing actually. I find younger fellows much more accommodating and easier to manage.”

“What? I am not,” Saradoc says in an offended tone, then dissolves into laughter with the others.

The memories speed up again, one building upon the other, so that he barely has time to blink before another presents itself.

His first visit to Hobbiton after his parents’ deaths, standing outside Number Three, Bagshot Row, listening to the new bairn wailing inside while Halfred stands in the lane with him and tries to cheer him up. His third visit to Hobbiton, standing outside Bag End and watching in awe as Halfred laughs and plays with his little brother; one would never know he’d also lost his mother, but Sam… There is a seriousness to Sam that isn’t normally found in children that young. His first summer living in Bag End and his first harvest, Sam showing him around and teaching him the ropes despite being years younger. His first formal ball in Tookland, Bilbo insists on preparing him for it and Sam sits in the corner of the parlor, covering his snickers behind his hands as he watches Bilbo teaching Frodo how to dance. His first attempt at baking by himself, and Sam is there to salvage the mess and then teaches him how to pay more attention rather than wandering off in his mind and forgetting the food.

Frodo closes the book and sits for a time staring out over the surface of the water. Then he blinks up at the sky and the clouds and sees far above, so high they are mere black specks against the blue, eagles circling.

“So what’s the point?” Frodo asks.

“Point to what?” Sam says.

“To everything! Why make me write out my memories if I already had a memoir?”

Sam shrugs. “Can’t say. That’s not why I’m here.”

“Then why are you here?”

Sam considers him for a moment before answering. “Well, that’s hard to tell. There are any number of reasons.”

“Then tell me what you do know,” Frodo requests.

Sam nods and joins him in looking up at the sky and he too sees the eagles. “I know you’re not as much in need of looking after as some folk think, and that you’re stronger than the rest give you credit for, and you’re by far the smartest hobbit to ever live next to Mr. Bilbo and you don’t much need help with anything, especially not from the likes of me, but it never hurts none to go the extra mile or so my Gaffer says.”

Frodo fiddles with the book, flipping through the pages, spinning it between his hands, flipping it side over side. “I’m not so sure I’m as smart as all that. None of this makes any sense,” he complains.

“Doesn’t it?”

“No! What kind of stupid dream is this anyway?”

“It seems to me as it’s trying to tell you something, but you knew that already. You often have dreams like this after all, though you hardly tell anyone about them.”

“I tell you.”

“Sometimes, but not always, though you hardly need to. I can always tell when you’ve been dreaming something awful. You’re more quiet than usual to start with, and you never bother to comb your hair until round about noon, and your face gets real pinched up and your eyes go far off, and you’re so deathly white it’d be near frightening but that I know you’re alive and well and just needing to let the darkness slip off you a bit.”

“Why do you know me so well?”

“That’s my job.”

“Only your job?”

“That’s my purpose.”

“Yet I don’t know you. Not like that.”

“It’s not time yet, but it will be soon.”

“Then will this dream be over?”

“You’ll find yourself wishing for this dream to come back.”

“I somehow doubt that.”

“We shall see,” Sam says.

He stands and offers his hand to Frodo and helps steady him as he stands up. They walk across the field toward the eastern slopes of the Hill and the gate through the hedges to the lane. They walk in silence until they reach Bag End and Sam goes back to his trimming and pruning. Frodo looks into the study window and decides to remain outside. He goes to the top of the Hill and sits beneath the oak tree there. He picks up an acorn from the ground and squeezes it in his fist. What had Bilbo said about the acorn?

“You can’t grow if you never take root, my lad. This is where your roots are, your shelter.”

“But not you. Not after the Party,” Frodo says.

“No, not me. But your friends and your family and yes, even this protector of yours, whoever he is, though I think if you really tried to puzzle it out, you’d know in a heartbeat.”

“Do you know?”

“Of course I do. I’ve known from the moment you moved here,” Bilbo says.

“Well, who is it?!”

“That’s for you to discover,” Bilbo says and points at the book. “And you need look no further than that.”

Frodo looks down at the book, and recalls the riddle he had been given, how he is to identify his protector, promised to him by his parents in another dream: someone he had met but could not remember, and someone who had never known him up to that point.* Then he looks into his cousin’s laughing eyes and smiles.

GF 3/26/06

* - references “In Darkness Buried Deep” and “When One Door Closes”

There are also some references to the dreams that Frodo has in “A Tale That Grew in the Telling”.