Maegwine’s Profile

My name is Maegwine, or so I have been told by one who was able to read the runic script engraved on the medallion which hangs at my neck.

My earliest memory is of waking alone in the woods.  In that moment, when I first became aware of myself as a separate being, I had no knowledge of any life before, nor of how I came to be there.  I was clothed and beside me lay a small pack containing some basic equipment and, beside it, a bow, some arrows, and a hunting knife.

I discovered that I was familiar with the ways of the woods and, how learnt I know not, I was adept with the bow.  So, for many years, meeting with little company, for few venture there these days, I lived out my days alone, with only the birds and animals for company. 

Until, one day, I came across one of the periannath, or hobbits as they are known to themselves and others.  He was wandering the woods, at no little danger to himself, in search, as he told me, of ‘material’ for his tales and poems.  At first, I laughed to see such a little fellow all equipped for war with club and shield and metal armour – oh, yes, and a little bow upon his back.

He was, though, a merry chap and he told me that he loved nothing better than to write poems and songs and tales which he would share at the inns and meeting places back in the Shire where he lived.

This hobbit became my friend – he was well travelled, which is unusual for his people, and he encouraged me to join him on his travels.  I went to Bree, and saw the ways of men, and he took me too to his home in the Shire where I stayed for some time and learned much of these periannath, a people for whom I have come to have a high regard.

Many times I sat with him at a fireside or beside a campfire and he would read to me, from memory, his poems and tales – and my heart was lifted, for although he did not possess the subtlety and fine sentiments which I have only recently come to know in elven song, his tales told of a love of simple pleasures, a love of the land, and of lives full of good cheer and simple fun.  And he gave to me a great gift – for he encouraged me to find my own voice in the telling of tales and the making of poetry!

So it was that when first I came to visit Imaldris, I brought with me a short poem by which I thought to tell any I met there a little of myself.  In that poem I used these words: ‘Riven rudely from my blood and kin, / At tender age I walked the woods alone.’  The full poem I have placed in this archive.

In truth, I have no knowledge of my true ‘blood and kin’, although I am elven in shape and form.  Whether I was ‘riven rudely’ from their side I know not, although I hope and wish it were so, for if not and they did willingly bring about this circumstance, then ‘twere more cruel yet.

As I have said, of my origins I still know naught.