Chapter 36. A Tale Oft Told

Tolly unstrung his bow and put it away with the unneeded arrow, and he went over to where Tod hung over the second pack-pony’s back.

‘Come here and help me,’ he said to the older brother, ‘lest I drop him on his head.’

Ted came in limping haste, and when he reached them he put the box down and rested one of his feet safely on it, as if to reassure himself. He gave Tod’s shoulder a squeeze. ‘Found it,’ he whispered.

‘Aye,’ said Tod in a cracked whisper, and Tolly said, ‘Let’s get him down.’

Ted eased Tod from the pony’s back as Tolly loosed the binding ties, and he half-carried and half-dragged his brother to a spot clear of brambles. Together man and hobbit untied the bindings around the younger man’s wrists and ankles, and then Tolly said with a frown, ‘But sit yourself down, and let me see to those feet of yours.’

‘Hobbit feet they are not, sad to say,’ Ted said with a wince, while Tod sat rubbing at his wrists and then his feet, to get the blood moving once more, for he’d been bound more tightly than his brother.

‘I’m afraid our days of going bare of foot in the woods are long past,’ Tod said, and coughed, for his mouth was very dry.

Tolly went to Wren, bringing back his own water bottle, which he pressed upon both of his prisoners.

‘Yes,’ Ted said. ‘Boots are a good thing, when you’re a woodman, just in case of the slip of an axe...’

‘Helps with brambles, too,’ Tod said, and even though they were speaking nearly in whispers, the flow of conversation warmed the hobbit with memories of past times, as he bathed Ted’s feet with the last of his water and bound them up with strips of cloth he’d carried in his saddle bags, in case of injury to someone in the muster sent to seize the trespassers. It seemed the preventative measure would come in handy after all. In the meantime, Tod busied himself gathering wood and dry moss for a fire.

The stars were beginning to peep through the canopy above when Tolly finished, and he improvised a torch for himself and another for Tod. Tolly found roots in the patch of ground that had once been Anemone’s kitchen garden, and Tod remembered where to find mushrooms growing nearby--he could find them in the gloom by the rich smell, as a matter of fact--and the brambles held berries in abundance, as if to atone for their thorny ways. Ted, by the others’ orders, remained seated, laying the wood for a small fire, just big enough to warm their hands and roast a mushroom or three.

It wasn’t long before they were roasting mushrooms on the ends of sticks while waiting for the coals to be ready for the wild roots they’d gathered. Ted sat with the box under his elbow, and Tolly could not blame him for his caution, not after holding that jewel in his hand. His caution seemed to be catching: At one point the hobbit even took out his bow once more, stringing the weapon and making several arrows ready.

‘What is it?’ Tod hissed.

‘Thought I heard somewhat,’ Tolly whispered in reply. The three listened for a few long moments, but nothing was to be heard, and soon the mushrooms were ready for the eating, and Tod moved to bury the roots in the coals.

Waiting for the roots to roast, there was time for talking, and Tolly said--though he was careful yet, to keep his voice low, ‘So... you promised me a fine tale.’

‘I don’t know how fine the tale,’ Ted said, and Tod hitched a little closer, the better to hear.

‘That’s for me to say,’ Tolly said, ‘and you to tell, as it were.’

‘Well, then,’ Ted said. ‘Let us begin with a family of woodcutters, living a long time ago, before my time, anyhow, and far away from this place.’

‘A wood, it must’ve been, if they were woodcutters,’ Tolly said.

Ted nodded, the firelight playing on his face in fingers of flickering light. ‘A wood it was,’ he said, ‘a great wood, Greenwood they called it, and a man could walk for days and find no ending of trees.’

‘Greenwood,’ Tolly said. ‘Sounds a pleasant enough place. There are old hobbit tales about a Green Wood... a place where the Fair Folk dwell...’

‘Yes!’ Tod said, excited. ‘Fair folk dwell there still!’

Tolly smiled faintly at such a fancy, that the Green Wood of old hobbit lore might be the same as Ted meant--for that fabled wood was the stuff of legend, tales old uncles told by the fireside to while away a stormy winter evening. But all he said was, ‘Go on.’

‘The woodcutter had a little daughter, sweet she was, singing and dancing and bringing joy to his life. She was all he had in the world, his only child, for his wife had died not long after the little one was born.

‘Now he was wise in the way of the Wood, and the Fair Folk let him be, for he took wood only as had blown down in storms, or was standing dead, or ridden with insects and disease, and never did he cut a healthy, living tree. While he worked, his daughter would wander nearby, singing and gathering flowers or wild fruit in the clearings, but her father was careful to tie one end of a long rope around her waist, and the other to a tree beside the path, for to lose the path was to be lost indeed, in that great, green Wood.’

‘Did he do the same?’ Tolly wanted to know.

‘As a matter of fact, he did,’ Ted said, and Tod nodded wisely. ‘In that Wood, a wise man did not stray from the path, lest he be forever lost, and he made sure to be within his own doors before dark. ‘Twas a strange and magical place, that Wood...’

Tolly nodded, sceptical but still willing to listen. He munched on a mushroom and spiked another on the end of his stick for roasting.

Ted spoke slowly, as if testing the thread he spun. ‘One day, the woodman took less note of his surroundings than he usually did; so intent was he on his work that he did not notice the shadows growing and the gathering twilight. His little daughter had laid herself down after their daymeal, and he thought her safely asleep. But he did not know that in her dream, she heard singing, wonderful song, and she arose, slipped out of her safekeeping rope, and wandered away from the path, into the Wood. How worried the woodman was, when he looked up to see the darkening sky as if nightfall were nearly upon them. He was beside himself then, when he'd gone back to where he’d left his little one asleep, to find the loop at the end of her rope empty! He forgot all in his frenzy; frantic, he ran and called...’

Tolly shuddered at the thought, and burnt his fingers taking the roasted mushroom from his stick again. ‘How old was the lass?’ he said. ‘As old as Toddy, when I found him wandering?’

‘Older,’ Ted said. ‘Perhaps twice Toddy’s age, when you found him. Four, I think she was, or five.’

‘Ah,’ Tolly said. A five-year-old, alone in a trackless Wood, a strange and magical place, as Ted had called it. In the father’s place, he’d’ve been frantic, too.

‘A terrible storm came crashing down upon the Wood,’ Ted went on, ‘rain, and wind, and though it was not yet time for the Sun to seek her bed, the forest was as dark as a moonless night, except for when flashes of lightning would split the sky and give a second or two of light. The rain came down, and hail that pounded like hammers, until the woodman fell senseless beneath the onslaught.’

‘And what of the little girl?’ Tolly asked, his insides clenched tight, hunger forgotten.

‘She’d found refuge in a hollow log,’ Ted said, wonder in his voice. ‘She followed a rabbit there, and it was as if the beast were sent to bring her to safety, for it ran into the hollow and disappeared out the other side, just as the storm broke. She huddled there in childish terror, weeping for her father, as the wind howled and the rain bucketed down, until at last, exhausted, she fell asleep.’

‘Poor mite,’ Tolly whispered. ‘What happened then?’

‘When she awoke, all was still and the new day was dawning,’ Ted said softly. ‘The storm had ended, but a mist hung in the air, and the Wood was very still. The little girl crawled from her hiding and stood upright, rubbing her eyes, for how the forest was changed! Great trees had been torn from their places, lying with their roots in the air, as if a giant had walked through the Wood with shattering strides, flattening the trees wherever his steps fell.

‘She crept along, afraid even to whisper, wondering how she’d ever find her home again, or even if that home were standing after so terrible a storm.’

‘And yet, somehow, she had faith that her father would find her,’ Tod put in. ‘She never doubted...’

‘No, she never doubted,’ Ted said, ‘though she’d no idea how he’d find her, when she didn’t even know where she was! But she stumbled along as best she could, looking all about her and lifting her little nose to sniff the air, smelling for wood smoke, listening for the sound of her father calling to her. But what should she hear...’

‘A moaning, a groaning,’ Tod said, and gave a realistic groan, for that was how he’d always heard the story.

‘She was afraid, but then the rabbit appeared once more, either her little saviour friend, or another exactly like, she never knew, but she thought him a friend, and approached him as he sat up on his haunches and sniffed the air. And then he turned around and began to hop slowly, and she heard the groaning again, but the rabbit didn’t seem to be afraid, and so she wasn’t, either.’

‘Was it her father?’ Tolly wanted to know. ‘Had she found him?’

‘She’d found someone, all right, but it wasn’t her father,’ Tod said, licking his fingers after his final mushroom, and then shoving his stick into the coals to retrieve roasted roots.

Tolly joined him in pulling out the roots. He picked up a large one, juggling it back and forth from hand to hand until it was cool enough to hold, and then he broke it open and scooped the fluffy, steaming contents into his mouth. ‘Mmm,’ he said, and with his mouth full, added, ‘So who was it?’

‘One of the Fair Folk,’ Tod whispered, his eyes alight.

‘It was one of the Fair Folk,’ Ted said at the same time, and he took a bite of roasted root and followed with a handful of berries, and when he’d swallowed he went on. ‘One of the Fair Folk had been caught by a falling tree, and though he was not crushed, he was trapped, and unable to free himself. He lay helpless, and the little girl took pity and sat down beside him, and smoothed his hair back from his face and patted his face with her little hands and sang to soothe his ills.’

Tolly swallowed hard at the picture that arose in his mind, a tiny mite of a girl soothing one of the wondrous Fair Folk.

‘Through the day and into the following darkness she sang,’ Ted said, ‘such songs as her father had taught her, and others that came into her head on the breeze, and when she grew thirsty she licked the dew from the leaves, and she sopped up water in her kerchief and brought it to the helpless Elf and squeezed the liquid into his mouth, and still she sang, through the darkness and into the following morn...’

‘It was her singing that brought her father to her,’ Tod said. ‘She had a beautiful voice...’

‘Still has,’ Ted said with a nod.

‘I don’t take your meaning,’ Tolly said, but Ted was not finished with his story.

‘Her father found them, and he used his axe to free the fellow,’ he said. ‘As I said, the Wood Elf was not badly hurt, for it seems the tree in its falling twisted somehow, for it did not wish him harm...’

‘I don’t understand,’ Tolly said.

‘I don’t, either, but that is how she’s always told the story,’ Ted said. ‘The tree was ripped from its growing place by the force of the wind, but it knew the Wood Elf was there, and turned aside from crushing him, though its limbs caught him a glancing blow and pinned him to the earth... The woodman cut him free again, and he bowed--a little stiffly, perhaps--and led the twain to their own little cottage in the wood, by some wonder spared though trees had fallen all around, and he left them there with a quiet word of thanks.’

‘He bowed to them at their doorway, and the woodman bowed in return, and when he looked up, the fellow was gone,’ Tod said.

Tolly sighed. ‘And that is your tale?’ he said, for a moment forgetting the jewel.

‘Not quite,’ Tod said, his lips twitching. ‘Go on, Ted, tell the rest of it!’