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A Long Time Ago, in a Middle-Earth Far, Far Away... - Page 5

© Michael Martinez

The closest thing to a larger-than-life story we see in Bree is Pippin's account of Bilbo's disappearance at The Party. But that really isn't folklore. Once again, Pippin was there. He remembers the event (if only through a child's eyes). People knew the event had really happened. So Pippin's story would, in his lifetime, be more along the lines of gossip than anything else. Which is not to say that gossip cannot take on larger-than-life dimensions. Gossip can be particularly grandiose when it is petty and malicious. For example, Proctor and Gamble was singled out for malicious gossip in the 1980s by certain religious groups, who decided (for no credible reason) that the Proctor and Gamble emblem of a crescent moon, an old man, and thirteen stars had some connection to Satanic cults. And McDonald's, Wendy's, and other fast-food chains were subjected to various "wormburger" rumors (which, ironically, overlooked the fact that making meat out of earthworms would be tremendously expensive). Gossip, when founded on fact, can also seem unreal. Take Sam's walking tree, for example. Or, more appropriately, his cousin Hal's walking tree. I can't begin to count the number of people who have written to me, asking if that tree wasn't an Ent-wife, or an Ent hanging around the northern bounds of the Shire. I have no idea. Was Hal even telling Sam the whole story? Had Hal just had one ale too many? Was Hal pulling Sam's leg? The sterile fact is that Tolkien didn't even know about Ents when he devised the walking tree story. There is really no way to connect that anecdote with Fangorn's lament over the Ent-wives, despite his belief that the Ent-wives would have liked the Shire. Walking trees are more an indication of Hobbit love for weird and goofy tales than anything else. There might actually be walking trees, but the Shire didn't appoint any commissions to study them. It was enough simply to tell a cousin about the event and let it go at that. Hobbits loved to swap tales. Of course, everyone does. But it's usually more entertaining just to tell the story, rather than go off and find out if it's actually true. In fact, who cares if the story is true, as long as it's a whopping good yarn? Something I'd like to know is what the Hobbits told each other about the Elves. Were there stories of "Elf land" where Hobbit children got lost and played with Elf children? Were there tales of ancient Elf kings who never actually lived?

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