dChan
alex jones ID: 8c1fd4 Nov. 4, 2021, 6:26 p.m. No.14926690   🗄️.is 🔗kun

dead. When they asked: ‘Where is he then?’ he shrugged his

shoulders.

He lived alone, as Bilbo had done; but he had a good

many friends, especially among the younger hobbits (mostly

descendants of the Old Took) who had as children been fond

 

of Bilbo and often in and out of Bag End. Folco Boffin and

 

Fredegar Bolger were two of these; but his closest friends

were Peregrin Took (usually called Pippin), and Merry

 

Brandybuck (his real name was Meriadoc, but that was

 

seldom remembered). Frodo went tramping over the Shire

 

with them; but more often he wandered by himself, and to

 

the amazement of sensible folk he was sometimes seen far

 

from home walking in the hills and woods under the starlight.

 

Merry and Pippin suspected that he visited the Elves at times,

as Bilbo had done.

As time went on, people began to notice that Frodo also

showed signs of good ‘preservation’: outwardly he retained

 

the appearance of a robust and energetic hobbit just out of

 

his tweens. ‘Some folk have all the luck,’ they said; but it was

 

not until Frodo approached the usually more sober age of

 

fifty that they began to think it queer.

Frodo himself, after the first shock, found that being his own

master and the Mr. Baggins of Bag End was rather pleasant.

For some years he was quite happy and did not worry much

 

about the future. But half unknown to himself the regret that

he had not gone with Bilbo was steadily growing. He found

himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about

 

the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had

 

never seen came into his dreams. He began to say to himself:

 

‘Perhaps I shall cross the River myself one day.’ To which

 

the other half of his mind always replied: ‘Not yet.’

So it went on, until his forties were running out, and his

fiftieth birthday was drawing near: fifty was a number that

 

he felt was somehow significant (or ominous); it was at any

 

rate at that age that adventure had suddenly befallen Bilbo.

 

Frodo began to feel restless, and the old paths seemed too

alex jones ID: 8c1fd4 Nov. 4, 2021, 6:31 p.m. No.14926732   🗄️.is 🔗kun

well-trodden. He looked at maps, and wondered what lay

beyond their edges: maps made in the Shire showed mostly

white spaces beyond its borders. He took to wandering

 

further afield and more often by himself; and Merry and

 

his other friends watched him anxiously. Often he was seen

 

walking and talking with the strange wayfarers that began at

 

this time to appear in the Shire.

There were rumours of strange things happening in the

world outside; and as Gandalf had not at that time appeared or

sent any message for several years, Frodo gathered all the news

 

he could. Elves, who seldom walked in the Shire, could now

 

be seen passing westward through the woods in the evening,

 

passing and not returning; but they were leaving Middle-earth

and were no longer concerned with its troubles. There were,

 

however, dwarves on the road in unusual numbers. The

 

ancient East–West Road ran through the Shire to its end at the

 

Grey Havens, and dwarves had always used it on their way to

 

their mines in the Blue Mountains. They were the hobbits’

 

chief source of news from distant parts – if they wanted any: as

 

a rule dwarves said little and hobbits asked no more. But now

 

Frodo often met strange dwarves of far countries, seeking

 

refuge in the West. They were troubled, and some spoke in

 

whispers of the Enemy and of the Land of Mordor.

That name the hobbits only knew in legends of the dark

past, like a shadow in the background of their memories; but

 

it was ominous and disquieting. It seemed that the evil power

 

in Mirkwood had been driven out by the White Council

 

only to reappear in greater strength in the old strongholds of

 

Mordor. The Dark Tower had been rebuilt, it was said. From

 

there the power was spreading far and wide, and away far

 

east and south there were wars and growing fear. Orcs were

 

multiplying again in the mountains. Trolls were abroad, no

 

longer dull-witted, but cunning and armed with dreadful

 

weapons. And there were murmured hints of creatures more

 

terrible than all these, but they had no name.