E-text Prologue Part 3
David Sulger
to give Part 3 a shot. Enjoy.
Of the Ordering of the Shire
The Shire was divided into four Farthings, North, South, East and West.
However, just to make things more confusing, and to boost their own
self-importance, the great Hobbit families named parts of the Shire
after themselves. Due to their political ambitions though, members of
nearly all Hobbit families except for the haughty Tooks could be found
all over the Shire in later times. There were two other divisions later
annexed to the Shire. First was Bucklebeltland, founded by the
notorious drunk Gorhendad "Brandybuck" Oldbuck during the Shire's
ill-fated Prohibition. The other was Wetmarsh, added after the time of
this story. Wetmarsh was seemingly granted as a generosity by King
Elessar I(tm), but it was actually a shady real-estate scam run by him
and his wife, Lady Arwen(tm). The Mayor at the time, Samwise Gamgee,
suffered all sorts of political embarrasments due to this deal.
The Shire had almost no government at the time, as the Hobbits were
more concerned with growing weed and smoking it. There was an ancient
tradition concerning the king at Fornost(tm). Although the last king
had been deposed about a thousand years ago by the Nazdaq, and
Fornost(tm) itself became a haven of sweatshops, they kept his old laws
becuase they were too lazy to changed them. They were also too lazy to
enforce them, and thus money greased the wheels that ran the Shire.
The Tooks' haughtiness came from the fact that they had possessed the
Thainship for a long number of years. The Thain was originally the
representative of the king, but later evolved into the
Commander-in-Chief of the Hobbit armies. However, since the Hobbits
were most unwarlike, this gave the Thain little to do. So the Thains
took it upon themselves to gain more political power. Eventually, they
became the kings of the Shire in all but name only. The Tooks were
infamous for their disregard for or ignorance of the plight of the
common hobbit. The worst case was the notorious Cassiopeia Took, whose
statement of "Let them eat mushrooms," led to the horrible fate she met
during the Shire Revolution.
There was also the Mayor of Michel Delving, who was elected every
seven years. Although he was considered the leader of the Shire, he was
mostly under the thumb of the Thain or the Godfather of Bucklebeltland.
Most of his duties were presiding over parties and banquets, although he
ran the Shirrifs and Messenger Service. The Messenger Service was by
far the most numerous of the two, as Hobbits tend to be busy-mouthed
gossips. Not all Hobbits were lettered, in fact many of them were
illiterate peasants, but those who could put a pen to paper did so to
spread all sorts of vicious rumors and hearsay about their political
rivals.
The Shirrifs were the Shire's police, and they wore no uniform, save
for a feather stuck in their hats. However, they never bothered
enforcing the laws, being mostly on the payroll of the Godfather.
There were also the Bounders who were employed as the custom agents
of the Shire. However, at the time this story opens, the custom service
had grown lax, as the great families had been so embroiled in their
political feuds that they scarcely noticed anything else, and of course,
the Godfather managed to get a cut in the customs, as well as
practically everything else in the Shire. In these days, strangers
began to hover around the border more and more. Little did the Hobbits
know of the weed-smuggling operations that were being set up by Aruman
the Trader, or of Sauron the Dork Lord's attempts to get back the Ring
which he had lost, due to his great stupidity.
--Dave
Öjevind Lång
>Ok, it's been a while since anyone worked on the Prologue, so I decided
>to give Part 3 a shot. Enjoy.
[snip]
And enjoy I did. Very, very funny! But I am intrigued about Cassiopeia
Took's end... We'll find out when that chapter is posted, no doubt.
Öjevind
David Sulger
>I am intrigued about Cassiopeia Took's
>end...
So am I.... :)
I intentionally left that vague. I really don't care what happens to
her. And note that "horrible fate" doesn't necessarily mean "fatal".
--Dave
wilb...@aol.com
or...@webtv.net (David Sulger) wrote:
> Ok, it's been a while since anyone worked on the Prologue, so I
decided
> to give Part 3 a shot. Enjoy.
>
Good, thanks! I had tabled this project for later, and then never got
around to paying it any more attention! Hopefully someone will take up
the reins again for part 4, or we could do the "Princess Hobbit"
solution as someone suggested . . .
Mark
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.