Into the Greenwood
As were me usual custom, I began me tellin' me grandkids' bedtime story in the spot where'd I'd ended the evenin' before...
'The hart carried Beannaithe in an easterly direction towards the forest of the Greenwood. The lass assumed the hart knew its way through the woods, and she were right.
The hart happily gamboled along the old Elf-path. The path turned and twisted to avoid the great beech trees and other obstacles along the way, but it steadily if not directly led deeper and deeper into the dense, dark forest.
They had travelled quite some way when the hart began slowin' its pace before comin' to a stop. It twitched its ears this way and that as it sniffed the air.
"Daro!" said a commandin' voice. Two strange men leapt from the foliage and took control of the hart that Beannaithe rode. They spoke to each other in a language that Beannaithe did not understand.
One said to another in a bemused voice, "A halfling on a beast of the forest? Have you ever seen so strange a thing?"
"Nay," said the second, "and neither have you! This little one has unwittingly provided our evening meal."
The strange men laughed. They were not Men, of course. They were Wood-elves.
Although Beannaithe could not comprehend their words, she sensed that they were talking about her and her new friend. She'd seen that sort of gleam in their eyes before when Fikta beheld a New Year's feast in the Hall Under the Mountain.
Beannaithe threw herself between the Elves and her forest friend, spreadin' her arms to shield it. "HOO!" she shouted or something to that effect. She shook her head "no" to tell the Elves that they could not take her friend.
The Elves spoke again to each other in their strange tongue.
The first Elf said to his comrade, "Do you think this little one understands our words?"
The second Elf answered, "Nay, I do not think so, but she clearly perceives the tone in which we speak."
The first Elf spoke to Beannaithe in the Common Tongue, "Do not fear, little one, we merely jest among ourselves. No harm will come to you or your 'steed'."
So difficult was the notion of an elk-steed that it was all the Elf could do from bursting into laughter.
"At the same time," said the second Elf, "we cannot allow you to roam freely through our wood without receiving judgement from our king."
Beannaithe was at first confused by their actions, but slowly she began to understand. She held out her arms, hands palm up, in a gesture of surrender.
The two Elves looked at each other, then smiled at Beannaithe. "We do not wish to take you prisoner, little one. You will remain unfettered as long as you do not try to escape."
Beannaithe remembered the tales that Fikta had told her of Thorin and Company's misadventure with the Wood-elves of Mirkwood. She did not wish to be imprisoned nor be shot full of arrows tryin' to escape. Elves are highly skilled bowman and are unlikely to miss even such a small target amidst so many trees.
Beannaithe nodded to demonstrate that she understood the Elves' purpose.'
I stopped me story at this point as I could see me grandkids gradually growin' sleepy despite their best efforts to remain awake. I motioned to me daughters to claim their wee ones.
'Oíche mhaith,' I quietly said to me daughters.
'Good night, Da,' they answered in return.
