I’ve been fascinated by hobbits ever since I first read The Hobbit more than 30 years ago. For me that first reading had a bigger impact even than my subsequent encounter with LOTR. I think it was the ‘unexplained vistas’ as Tolkien put it (Moria, the Necromancer, the Bright-elves and Deep-elves) that the story went past so fleetingly and tantalizingly. As the professor intended, he’d written an entire mythology not just a simple novel.

While fan-fiction has explored many of the unexplained vistas from LOTR, there are still a few in the Hobbit that no one has touched on – who was King Bladorthin? But my biggest interest lies in Hobbit history. How did Gandalf become friendly with Gerontius? What happened to the ‘Tooks who went on adventures’? How much did the ‘serious’ races of Middle-earth (the Elves, Dúnedain, Dwarves etc) know about these small farmers west of Bree?

I’ve particularly enjoyed the ‘hobbit-based’ stories of Larner, Dreamflower, Jay of Lasgalen, and Anglachel. And I was delighted to see the depiction of hobbits in Zimraphel’s story about the Battle of Fornost Not for Pride Alone, which is indirectly referred to in my story. To my mind, the glaring omission in hobbit based fan-fiction is Bandobras Took. Now I know that the Good Professor may well have put in the story about Bullroarer and Golfimbul as a light-hearted aside in the story. And I guess we’re not really supposed to take the invention of Golf all that seriously. The fact remains that it is canon and Bandobras is mentioned in LOTR (as the hobbit that Merry and Pippin surpass in height). But it is intriguing that the Tale of the Years mentions nothing in hobbit history for almost one thousand years until the Battle of Greenfields followed just eleven years later by Gandalf helping the hobbits in the Fell winter. Surely these two events must have been linked? After all we don’t know when Gandalf first started to notice the hobbits, just that he was friends with the Old Took.

So I set out to write a story about the Battle of Greenfields from a non-hobbit point of view. This is long before any elves, men or wizards suspected there might be anything unusual about hobbits or the Shire. There was no guard around it like there was in Aragorn’s day. And while the Rangers and the sons of Elrond felt a duty to protect ‘simple folk’ their main focus might well have been on Bree and the lands there about. Elrond knows the hobbits are there, but many of the others have forgotten or never known much about the Shire. Only Glorfindel remembers them at the Battle of Fornost.

And I tried (I really did) to keep it serious and not too flippant. When Elrond hears that a force of Orcs has invaded the Shire he is bound to expect that the hobbits will be terrified and must flee or be massacred. But of course that’s not what happened. So I tried to construct a battle scenario that would allow hobbits to defeat much larger and more war-like orcs. Some kind of ambush (like in the Scouring of the Shire) seemed likely. And then having the sons of Elrond witness the battle but to be unable to help and be somewhat embarrassed about it might explain why the battle wasn’t widely known outside the Shire. (Un)fortunately humorous elements just kept creeping in when I tried to describe the Battle – and I’m really sorry about the golfing references…… And I implied the Chief of he Dúnedain of Arnor likes his beer too much. (Well, they can’t all have been perfect like Aragorn…) My only defence is that I must have been reading too much Terry Pratchett lately.

So perhaps someone will take up the challenge of writing a ‘non-flippant’ account of the Battle of Greenfields. Perhaps from a hobbit POV? Could get quite angsty and dark as they decide to fight, and then have to deal with the consequences (bereavement, post traumatic stress etc). Reviews and feedback much appreciated!