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| Pearl of Great Price by Lindelea | 107 Review(s) |
|---|---|
| Lady Forlong | Reviewed Chapter: Epilogue 2 on 5/26/2025 |
| Oh, what a joyous ending! I'm so glad you wrote the epilogue. This made sense, because they never found the dog's body -- just a bunch of bloody fur. I wonder what it was they buried? Gotta love Lop. The way he used his sheepdog skills to keep the little "flock" of young hobbits in line LOL Pippin needed it the most, I'm sure. Nice description of what the Shirrifs were really for, before "Sharkey" turned them into gestapo. And you just couldn't leave it at the proposal without the wedding! The perfect time for Lop to show up and create a disaster, but in true hobbit fashion they carried on. Daw the Shirriff should have accepted the invitation and stayed for the merrymaking. Thank you for writing and reposting this wonderful story. (Given the original publish date, I'm assuming it had gotten lost in the hack.) Author Reply: In the original story, they found scraps of slightly more than fur, but that got revised to scraps of fur. While originally putting the outline together, I read somewhere that wild pigs don't leave much behind. Added to that, I've watched dogs eat (raw) meat with bones, consuming bones and all, so it is conceivable that the hobbits who came on the scene concluded that the wild boars had torn the dog to pieces and devoured everything except for the clumps of hair they left behind. Thus, whoever built the cairn probably collected as much of the scattered hair as they could, then covered it with the cairn and placed the collar on top. (And seeing how Lop slipped out of his collar when returning to the farm, I could see him slipping his collar if a hog got hold of it in the fight.) One of our herding dogs had a narrow head and could slip her collar easily. We had to use a special "Gentle Leader" or "Haltie" with her leash or, alternatively, a harness. In my experience, herding dogs are happy to herd children as well as other animals. LOL! One of my adult kids told me recently about being herded to bed when the dog decided it was bedtime and he'd had enough of the children. Daw ought to have stayed! But he probably missed the announcement, being away on his rounds, or the date slipped his mind, and he really wasn't dressed in his best. And then to see what happened to Pearl when he didn't control Lop! Lastly, I'm so glad you enjoyed the story! Actually, from the posting dates, the story was deleted and restored in 2006, a couple years after the last chapter (before the epilogue) was posted. SoA admin have been defending the site from hackers for a long time, bless them with many blessings. Thanks so much for your lovely comments! I greatly appreciate your taking the time to share your thoughts and impressions. | |
| Lady Forlong | Reviewed Chapter: 35 on 5/26/2025 |
| PS Regarding one of your previous replies about Isum, it makes perfect sense to me. It's the mark of a good author if your characters take on a life of their own. Author Reply: Thank you for your encouraging response! I have heard some of my favorite authors talk about the same phenomenon, but it never fails to astound me when it happens. | |
| Lady Forlong | Reviewed Chapter: 35 on 5/26/2025 |
| So it was an accident! But naturally Pearl is going to get blamed for it, at least in "The Talk." Hobbits are so good at gossiping. Author Reply: Yup, it was an accident! I suppose it might have been called carelessness, though Pearl always made sure the wheels of Lalia's chair stopped at the raised threshold, sort of like wheel chocks or a brake. And if she had hung on to the chair, her weight and strength would have been no match for Lalia's weight and bulk in trying to prevent the tragedy. Once Lalia stood up and lost her balance, falling forward, what followed was inevitable. Anyhow, since JRRT made such a point of saying that no hobbit had ever deliberately caused the death of another in the history of the Shire, it had to be chance or carelessness. People are so fond of gossip. Unfortunately, it can take on a life of its own and spread like a noxious weed (and be just as hard to root out, as well). Thanks! | |
| Lady Forlong | Reviewed Chapter: 34 on 5/25/2025 |
| How to get on Lalia's good side 101 LOL I bet if Lalia officially stepped down as “Mistress,” she’d still be running the show from behind the scenes. Or at least she’d try, unless Ferumbras can remind himself that she'd have no real authority anymore. “May the sun shine upon your road, and the smell of supper greet you on your homecoming.” Hobbit version of the Elvish “May the stars shine upon your road.” :) Pearl has a couple of tricks up her sleeve to make herself look healthy. Bittersweet would probably see through it, but she can easily put one over on Lalia, who is anything but a healer. Excuse me?!? Ferumbras + Pearl!?! Why did I suspect it was going to come to this sooner or later? Author Reply: Y'know, I think Pearl might have encouraged Ferumbras to stand his ground, and it would have been easier for him to do so if his mother moved away to a retirement home (though it would be tragic if that happened to be Paladin's farm, and it would also have been tragic for Pearl and Isum if Pearl had actually married Ferumbras). I hadn't connected the Hobbit blessing with the Elvish blessing... that's cool! (I was actually thinking of the Irish blessing at the time I wrote that part.) Pearl's tricks come out of an old book (or more than one, probably), possibly one of L.M. Alcott's, though probably not Little Women. Fashionable young women who had ruined their complexions (i.e. late hours at balls and theater performances, poor diet, little exercise, confining clothing, and societal expectations) used tools like rouge to give their cheeks a healthy glow and something in their eyes (belladonna, maybe?) to make their eyes more luminous or mysterious or something (belladonna drops dilate the pupils, for one thing) and something on their lips to add color, moisture and/or shine (in the days before lipstick, though I don't remember the details). By contrast, "country" girls or farm girls were described as having naturally rosy complexions, bright eyes, and relative good health from eating fresh farm food and getting exercise by working at farm chores. While an idealized picture, there's some truth in it (especially in the context of Hobbits as Tolkien described them). Hopefully I wasn't too obvious in my plotting. (I hate to be too predictable!) Thanks so much for reading and taking the time to share your thoughts! You've made my day today. | |
| Lady Forlong | Reviewed Chapter: 33 on 5/25/2025 |
| Naturally a hobbit dolly would need wool on her head and on her feet ;) Author Reply: I actually stopped and thought about this the first time I wrote about a doll in the Shire. Eventually, I realized that of course a hobbit child would expect a dolly to have woolly feet, or it wouldn't look like a hobbit child's child! Thanks! | |
| Lady Forlong | Reviewed Chapter: 32 on 5/25/2025 |
| Nice trick. Isum pretends he's talking to the pony. Oh, I'm so disappointed in Ferumbras. Looked like he was growing a backbone there for a minute but Lalia managed to squelch it again. Author Reply: Isum is both wise and understanding. I like him more the better I get to know him. (Does that statement make sense? It looks odd when I read it over.) Poor Ferumbras. He has his moments, but he never really had the chance to develop any kind of independent spirit over his lifetime of being dominated by Lalia. It's too bad Fortinbras paid more attention to watching over the Tooks than raising his son instead of leaving Ferumbras to Lalia's tender mercies. Thanks for reading and stopping long enough to share your impressions. | |
| Lady Forlong | Reviewed Chapter: 30 on 5/24/2025 |
| Lalia's back to "normal" (whatever that is) unfortunately. Time for the real Thain (or the one who's supposed to be the Thain, I should say) to grow another backbone (since he seems to have lost the one he had) and stand up to his mother again. Maybe in a future chapter? I will keep reading... Author Reply: You said it. Unfortunately. She must have been awfully hard to live with. At least, that's how I've imagined her. JRRT didn't describe her in complementary terms, as I remember. Old habits and patterns are hard to break, and I'm sure Lalia made Ferumbras pay dearly for that moment of defiance. I'm sure she was convinced that he was in the wrong and she was in the right, and it was all for his benefit and for the best. Thanks! | |
| Lady Forlong | Reviewed Chapter: 29 on 5/24/2025 |
| Aww... I just knew it would be Ferdi who would find him. So sad about the dog though. Author Reply: The part about the dog made me very sad, along with someone very dear to my heart who pleaded with me to rewrite the story in order to save Lop. For me, rewriting is tricky because major changes can blur my mental picture/movie/whatever you'd call it, and then I get stuck. It took me a long time to figure out what happened to Lop if he didn't die (since the story was already written to the end). But recently, I had the idea of writing an epilogue that could explain Lop's absence and provided a happy ending for him. Whew. Thanks so much for letting me know you're reading and taking the time to share your thoughts. | |
| Lady Forlong | Reviewed Chapter: 27 on 5/24/2025 |
| When a hobbit loses his appetite, you know it's serious! And it makes sense that hobbits would have a food related version of "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it." ("bake that bread when it's risen") For a moment I thought this might be THE dissappearance when Pippin went off with a "cracked Baggins" on some lunatic quest, but then I realized it was close to a couple of decades too early. Author Reply: They have several versions, actually. Another is something like, "We'll ice that cake when it comes out of the oven" or "We'll ice that cake when it's cooled." (The Tooks tend to avoid referring to rivers and bridges, as it were...) Oh how interesting that you mentioned that disappearance along with this one! It seems as if Pippin got in some practice at disappearing before the grand event, at that! And yes, it's always made sense to me that hobbit appetite would be a reliable gauge of health. (Very much like a certain furry-footed family member of ours...) Thanks! | |
| Lady Forlong | Reviewed Chapter: 26 on 5/24/2025 |
| I'm beginning to suspect that Lalia is bipolar ;) Author Reply: Now there's a thought worth pondering... I hadn't heard that idea connected with her before! Thanks! | |