Trolls

            “Ted!”  Sandyman the Miller tromped down the walk from the mill, finding his son, seated on a stone, hidden behind the forsythia bush, a plate with a whole roast chicken on his lap.  “That was my lunch!” the irate father fumed.  He directed a kick at Ted’s rump but kicked the stone instead, and hopped about in pain for a time.  Ted fled, taking along the chicken.

            “What trollish behavior!” commented Frodo Baggins from his vantage point on the Hill.

            Sam now had an idea for a poem.  “Old Troll sat on his seat of stone,” he murmured to himself.

  ***

            Sam peered from behind the stones that lined the beginning of Gollum’s stair.  A troop of orcs passed, followed by a line of five trolls.  One of the trolls grunted and leaned forward, scooping up a particularly small orc that walked before them.  A twist of the orc’s neck and it was dead.  In moments each of the trolls was gnawing at a limb.

            Sam swallowed down his gorge.  “Seems I wasn’t all that far off in that poem of mine about the stone troll,” he whispered.  “I swear, them’s worse than I ever thought from old Mr. Bilbo’s stories.”