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Old 08-26-2006, 03:37 PM   #271
Noinkling
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Bívor and Bávor

At the end of the meal Bívor had gone back to their room to fetch his flute. As the Elves looked through the instruments piled on the table, he eased it from its soft leather pouch and gave it a try. He was a bit rusty; hadn’t played it in several weeks. Smoothing his beard and mustache back from his lips, he took a trial blow, fingering a few notes. Not too bad! he said to himself, pleased with the effort.

Bávor grinned at him and raising his mug to his own lips took a big swallow. ‘Just getting my own instrument in order,’ he chuckled. ‘So, what sorts of songs are you thinking of playing?’ he asked the Elves, watching their long delicate fingers sort through the other flutes and such.

> - <

Skirvir

The Tale of the Dwarves, the Hobbit, and the Dragon . . .

Skirvir sat down on the lowest step and invited the children to sit where it pleased them. From the deep recesses of a pocket in his vest, he pulled out a few golden coins, placing them in a little pile in the dirt at his feet.

‘Now this is how I heard it from my father –

Tens time tens times ten and yet again were the numbers of coins and jewels and pretty silvered things all set with gems that lay beneath The Lonely Mountain . . .’ he began, telling them of the Dwarves who had delved beneath the mountain and crafted many beautiful things.

From another pocket fame came a red-gold dragon with wings outspread; just the size to fit in the palm of the Dwarf’s large hand. Its underbelly was crusted with crushed pieces of gems and gold; its eyes set with small rubies. Skirvir ‘flew’ it over the heads of the children, swooping it down once or twice toward their upturned faces.

‘My armour is like tenfold shields,’ he growled in a dragon-y sort of voice as they ducked. ‘My teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!’ With a slow circling, he brought the beast to down toward the ground to lie on the pile of gold.

He sang in a low, in a voice that seemed as if it echoed within great caverns; and the beat of it seemed like the tramping and stamping of many feet upon stone pathways . . .

Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere break of day
To seek the pale enchanted gold.

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,
While hammers fell like ringing bells
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.

For ancient king and elvish lord
There many a gleaming golden hoard
They shaped and wrought, and light they caught
To hide in gems on hilt of sward.

On silver necklaces they strung
The flowering stars, on crowns they hung
The dragon-fire, in twisted wire
They meshed the light of moon and sun.

Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away, ere break of day,
To claim our long-forgotten gold.

Goblets they carved there for themselves
And harps of gold; where no man delves
There lay they long, and many a song
Was sung unheard by men or elves.

The pines were roaring on the height,
The winds were moaning in the night,
The fire was red, it flaming spread;
The trees like torches blazed with light.

The bells were ringing in the dale
And men looked up with faces pale;
The dragon's ire more fierce than fire
Laid low their towers and houses frail.

The mountain smoked beneath the moon;
The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom.
They fled their hall to dying fall
Beneath his feet, beneath the moon.

Far over the misty mountains grim
To dungeons deep and caverns dim
We must away, ere break of day,
To win our harps and gold from him!

Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away, ere break of day,
To find our long-forgotten gold.


‘It was Mister Baggins of Bag-end Under-Hill that Thorin and his company sought out. A certain Hobbit who had been recommended to them by the old man with the staff. Gandalf, by name . . .’

The story wove on; Skirvir pausing now and them as the children asked questions.

The stars had come out and gleamed like little gems in the darkness. And the little candle-lantern that hung from the eaves of the inn nearest the door threw out a pale golden track that barely touched the storyteller and his listeners.

Last edited by Noinkling; 08-26-2006 at 03:40 PM.
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