“To catch an elf.”
“What?”
Young Frodo sighed and said to his sister again, “To Catch, An Elf,” all rather slowly. “That is where we are going.”
“You mean the fair folk?”
“Fairies, elves, pixie people – aren’t they all the same thing?” This was asked rhetorically by young Merry, who had found a good elf-catching net, and was leaning on it like a walking stick.
“I want to come!” she blurted out before her brothers and their friend, Faramir Took, had the chance to turn back the way they were heading.
“Girls aren’t allowed to come. Elves are dangerous folks. And very tall. Too tall for a girl to catch,” reasoned Pippin Gamgee.
Goldilocks stomped the ground with her foot, and then ran the little ways to the front door of Bag End.
- - -
“Da! Da!” Goldilocks rushed to her father, and was swept up from the floor into Samwise Gamgee’s arms. “Da, Merry an’ Pip an’ Frodo an’ Faramir are all going to try to catch fair folk. I want to, too, Da, but Mumma says I mustn’t get all dirty.”
Samwise smiled and set his daughter back down, giving her a fatherly pat on the head. Up she looked with wide, rounded eyes. He swore Elanor and little Rose must have passed on the secret of how to wrap oneself around his little finger, especially when he caught a smirk from Elanor, who sat in the rocker and practiced her stitching. “Well, Goldi-lass, I reckon I might permit you to hunt fair folk if’n you do it the right way.”
Goldilocks bobbed her head up and down, and then let out a most unladylike bellow. “Frooooo-do! Merrrrr-ry! Pipppp-in! Farrrr-amirrrr! Da’s going to show us how to really catch fair folk,” she said to them with a smile as her three brothers and Peregrin Took’s son all tumbled into the kitchen of Bag End.
Rosie, who had heard the cry too, came into the kitchen and simply shook her head. In her arms was the wee Primrose, too young to have any opinion except to slurp her thumb and pull at her mother’s curls with one little fist. Clinging to Rosie’s skirts was Hamfast, who readily declared, “I wango fair folk catchin’ along too Da I’m big n’uff for it.” Rosie shot her husband a playful look of ‘see what you’ve started’.
Sitting at the table, cheerfully smoking their pipes, sat Peregrin Took and Meriadoc Brandybuck. Pippin’s wife Diamond was no doubt still in the nursery, fawning over young Daisy, who was about the cutest wee hobbit lass this side of the Shire. Peregrin waved his son over to him, and set him up on his lap when the lad came running. “No tearin’ a hole in your trousers like last time ya went to find those elves, a’right?” Faramir nodded profusely and was settled back on the floor. “Off you go, and listen right to Master Samwise,” he advised him, and the lad happily returned to his playmates, who were anxiously huddled around Samwise awaiting his wisdom.
“Really, Pip,” Meriadoc asked over the table, “Did you and Sam have to you naming your little ones after everyone else? It’s confuses me, having two of you and two Faramirs and two Rosies and... and two of me!”
Pippin made a face and answered him with, “We left you all the good names for when you decide to get married and have a few of your own.”
“I thought Sam was already talking about using the name ‘Bilbo’ the next son he and Rosie has,” Merry said.
“Tha’s right,” said Pippin, “but we’ve left you with Shadowfax, Asfaloth, and Bill. With or without ‘the pony’, if you like.” Pippin chuckled as Merry disdainfully sniffed his nose at him.
Around Master Samwise, a more important discussion was being had. “Now what you need to do,” he said, handing each of the little ones a little pouch, “is use this very sparin’ly. Wait until you’ve thought you’ve seen one – remember, they are tricky and very smart.” He beckoned little Hamfast forward with a crook of one finger, and the youngest of the fairy folk hunting party came forward with little quick steps. “To catch an elf, you must be vigilant. Crafty. Watchful. And- quiet,” he said, emphasizing this by lifting a finger to his mouth. Each of the children imitated him. “Well’n, off you go,” he said, walking them to the front door of Bag End. They all scampered out into the sunlight, romping through the grass with their precious bags of elf-catching powder.
“What did you give them?” questioned Rosie as she nudged Elanor out of the rocker and sat down in it with Primrose.
“Oh, nothing, Rosie-love,” replied Sam as he kissed his wife on the head, and then kissed Primrose and patted her little head. “Jus’ a few pinches of powdered sugar each. Nothin’ to do no harm.”
