The Lord of the Rings Page 0,122

ear. That would be a most unusual ornament for a live troll!’

They all laughed. Frodo felt his spirits reviving: the reminder of Bilbo’s first successful adventure was heartening. The sun, too, was warm and comforting, and the mist before his eyes seemed to be lifting a little. They rested for some time in the glade, and took their mid-day meal right under the shadow of the trolls’ large legs.

‘Won’t somebody give us a bit of a song, while the sun is high?’ said Merry, when they had finished. ‘We haven’t had a song or a tale for days.’

‘Not since Weathertop,’ said Frodo. The others looked at him. ‘Don’t worry about me!’ he added. ‘I feel much better, but I don’t think I could sing. Perhaps Sam could dig something out of his memory.’

‘Come on, Sam!’ said Merry. ‘There’s more stored in your head than you let on about.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ said Sam. ‘But how would this suit? It ain’t what I call proper poetry, if you understand me: just a bit of nonsense. But these old images here brought it to my mind.’ Standing up, with his hands behind his back, as if he was at school, he began to sing to an old tune.

Troll sat alone on his seat of stone,

And munched and mumbled a bare old bone;

For many a year he had gnawed it near,

For meat was hard to come by.

Done by! Gum by!

In a cave in the hills he dwelt alone,

And meat was hard to come by.

Up came Tom with his big boots on.

Said he to Troll: ‘Pray, what is yon?

For it looks like the shin o’ my nuncle Tim,

As should be a-lyin’ in graveyard.

Caveyard! Paveyard!

This many a year has Tim been gone,

And I thought he were lyin’ in graveyard.’

‘My lad,’ said Troll, ‘this bone I stole.

But what be bones that lie in a hole?

Thy nuncle was dead as a lump o’ lead,

Afore I found his shinbone.

Tinbone! Thinbone!

He can spare a share for a poor old troll,

For he don’t need his shinbone.’

Said Tom: ‘I don’t see why the likes o’ thee

Without axin’ leave should go makin’ free

With the shank or the shin o’ my father’s kin;

So hand the old bone over!

Rover! Trover!

Though dead he be, it belongs to he;

So hand the old bone over!’

‘For a couple o’ pins,’ says Troll, and grins,

‘I’ll eat thee too, and gnaw thy shins.

A bit o’ fresh meat will go down sweet!

I’ll try my teeth on thee now.

Hee now! See now!

I’m tired o’ gnawing old bones and skins;

I’ve a mind to dine on thee now.’

But just as he thought his dinner was caught,

He found his hands had hold of naught.

Before he could mind, Tom slipped behind

And gave him the boot to larn him.

Warn him! Darn him!

A bump o’ the boot on the seat, Tom thought,

Would be the way to larn him.

But harder than stone is the flesh and bone

Of a troll that sits in the hills alone.

As well set your boot to the mountain’s root,

For the seat of a troll don’t feel it.

Peel it! Heal it!

Old Troll laughed, when he heard Tom groan,

And he knew his toes could feel it.

Tom’s leg is game, since home he came,

And his bootless foot is lasting lame;

But Troll don’t care, and he’s still there

With the bone he boned from its owner.

Doner! Boner!

Troll’s old seat is still the same,

And the bone he boned from its owner!

‘Well, that’s a warning to us all!’ laughed Merry. ‘It is as well you used a stick, and not your hand, Strider!’

‘Where did you come by that, Sam?’ asked Pippin. ‘I’ve never heard those words before.’

Sam muttered something inaudible. ‘It’s out of his own head, of course,’ said Frodo. ‘I am learning a lot about Sam Gamgee on this journey. First he was a conspirator, now he’s a jester. He’ll end up by becoming a wizard – or a warrior!’

‘I hope not,’ said Sam. ‘I don’t want to be neither!’

In the afternoon they went on down the woods. They were probably following the very track that Gandalf, Bilbo, and the dwarves had used many years before. After a few miles they came out on the top of a high bank above the Road. At this point the Road had left the Hoarwell far behind in its narrow valley, and now clung close to the feet of the hills, rolling and winding eastward among woods and heather-covered slopes towards the Ford and the Mountains. Not far down the bank Strider pointed out a stone in the grass. On it roughly cut