An Odd Fellow
The lads were already onto their second round when
Harwood Puddifoot arrived at the Muddy Waters Inn and slumped into his seat.
The barkeep plunked two mugs of ale onto the table in front of him and as usual
Harwood flicked him two coppers in return. He proceeded to scull one of
them back before letting out a loud sigh. Then he sculled the second.
“Hard day was it?” asked Berilac Marshdowns.
“Not a nibble my friend. None in the net either.
That’s not the half of it though.”
Hob Willows finished sculling his own ale and said,
“So what’s the other half?”
“Well, bugger me if I didn’t run into the strangest
chap that I’ve ever had the displeasure of running into, and there are some
strange chaps out there.”
“Sure it wasn’t just your reflection in the water,”
jeered Mungo Deepdelver.
The group of hobbits broke into laughter.
Harwood waited for them to stop - like he
always did. “I’m sure. This chap was stranger looking than even me.”
Two more mugs of ale saw Harwood blowing smoke rings
into the rosy-skied evening and discussing the vicissitudes of a fisherman’s
life with whoever was drunk enough to listen. Two more, with the room spinning
that comfortable spin, Harwood began to tell the story of the strange chap he’d
bumped into while fishing…
He was a bedraggled chap, with long spindly locks and
eyes big and blue. His skin was pale, so much so that it almost
appeared grey, and he was skinny, skinnier than a hobbit ever should be. He was
wearing a loincloth and splashing around in the mangroves like some kind of
madman, singing to himself.
“Woody my chap,” interrupted Mungo, “Are you sure it
wasn’t dear ol’ Mrs. Puddifoot singing and splashing around there
in the mangroves?”
“I’m sure,” grunted Harwood. “This chap was ugly
alright, but not that ugly.”
Harwood waited until the laughter died down.
Anyway, so there he was making a ruckus and I paddle
over to him and say, “You’re scaring all the fish you are.”
“Scaring all the fishes we are precious,” the odd
fellow says, like he’s talking to someone else. He’s got this high-pitched
voice.
“Hey, you!” I shout, “I’m talking to you.”
But again the chap doesn’t respond. “Don’t worry, he’s
just a nasty fisherman with a nasty net,” he says, again like to someone else, this time in a spitting growl.
I row closer to him. “Hey you!” I yell, louder this
time.
“Yes, yes. The fishes get stuckses in it, its just
trickses.”
Now this is the strange parts lads, cause right there
in front of me he lunges forward into the water with his hands, faster than
I’ve ever seen a hobbit move, and comes up with a nice wriggling
brown.
I was flabbergasted I was, “Hey how’d you do that?” I
asked, rowing ever closer.
He ignored me, set to slapping the trout against a
rock, starts singing something like:
“The rock and pool
Is nice and cool
So juicy sweet.”
“Our only wish
To catch a fish
So juicy sweet.”
“Sung like an angel,” the lads laughed.
“Quit your cackling,” said Harwood, “This is the
stranger part."
Now he doesn’t sit down and make a fire to cook the
trout or anything. He bites into it then and there, raw, still wriggling and all.
Now finally he looks at me, fish guts hanging from
sharp yellow teeth. “You can’t do it. Hobbitses are too fat, too slow to catch
fishes.”
Now this chap was getting on my nerves. By that stage
I’d been fishing all morning and caught nothing and there he was making a
ruckus and still somehow catching fish with his ruddy hands. “Oi, watch who
you’re calling fat!” I said. “You wait till I catch you.”
I paddled to the shore and let the boat run aground,
had in my mind to scare him off you know, get back to fishing.
That’s when I saw it. It was tied around his neck with
a piece of string, a simple band of gold. Now I thinks to myself, what’s
an odd fellow like that need a fancy ring for?
It did something to me lads, lured me in like that red
haired lass who’s name I’ve forgotten but bosoms I remember as clear as day. I
had to have it. Thought it would finally get ol’ Mrs. Puddifoot on her good
side if you know what I mean.
If he wouldn’t give it to me I’d just have to take it
from him.
“Watcha got lad, tied around your neck?” I ask,
hopping out of my dinghy onto shore.
“He’s seen it, the nasty fat hobbit has seen it. He
wants it, wants the precious,” said the chap clutching the ring.
I stepped closer to him, oar in hand ready to club him
if need be. “That there looks to be a fancy gold ring.”
“You can’t takes it from us,” he wailed.
“See here’s the thing, think I just might. Penance,
you know, for all the fish you scared off. Cost me a lot of coin you have.”
The strange fellow started to smirk, coughed a deep,
guttural cough like he had something in his throat and said in his low voice,
“How’s about we give him the precious, the fat hobbit does have a big scary
oar.”
“But, we can’t, not the precious,” came the higher
voice, “Lets use the precious, lets vanish.”
Standing right there in front of me, he pulled the
ring from his neck and holding it out to me with one hand hissed, “Take it.”
I grasped for it with my right hand, oar at the ready
incase he tried any funny business.
Then he disappeared.
“Wadda ya mean he disappeared?” moaned Mungo.
“I mean he disappeared you oaf, into thin air, there
one minute, gone the next. Disappeared!”
Hob was shaking his head. “You had me going
there for a while Woody. ”
“I propose a toast.” bellowed Berilac, standing and
raising his mug. “To Woody and his stories, whether they be true, or whether
they be not.”
Harwood should have known they’d never believe
him; he was a fisherman after all. He would have protested his point but
figured the lads were too drunk to see reason, hell, so was he. He clunked his mug
with the rest of them and sculled back his fifth ale of the night.
He knew what he saw.
