Bofrid's Tale

Many years ago, thirty at least, there was a terrible accident in the White Mountains in a pass near Ered Nimrais. The dwarven folk who lived in those mountains had for some time been trying to create a new tunnel under the treacherous winter pass. Unfortunately for these folk, bad luck and bad timing led to an explosion which brought the roof down. Rocks fell and almost everyone died.

Bofrid recovered consciousness on the northern face of the White Mountains, the explosion had literally tossed the poor dwarf down the mountainside, where he eventually tumbled into a small depression in the ground filled with pine needles, where, dwarves being dwarves and all other things being equal, he managed to survive his toss. When he had recovered his wits, he set out to look for other survivors. He hunted and called until well into the bitter winter's night but no-one answered his cries. Thinking that everyone else had died, in an agony of grief, he somehow stumbled down the side of the mountain.

Over the days and weeks that followed, Bofrid made his way north, the gruelling journey pulling his attention away from his heartache. By the time he arrived at the Isen River he was beginning to take an interest in life again, and as he followed the river east, he eventually fell in with a group of traders-come-mercenaries who were planning to take the old south road to The Shire. Bofrid thought he may as well see something of the world now he was topside and so negotiated a place in the caravan as a guard and for armour repair. He had it in the back of his thoughts that his father had once told him of dwarven kind living in the Blue Mountains in a place named Thorin's Hall, this Shire was on the way to that place and so the caravan suited his purpose well.

As you may imagine, the trip took many months, with both good times and bad. Along the way, Bofrid's love for sunshine and nature was born, and he knew that he would always love the topside as much as he did the stone halls of his childhood.