EXCLUSIVE Bonus Chapter from ‘Wisdom of the Shire’ – Part 1

This is the opening to the EXCLUSIVE Bonus Chapter:

The Children of the Shire

from The Wisdom of the Shire.

Frodo Baggins was twelve years old when his parents met their untimely death, which just happens to be the exact same age as when John Ronald Reuel* Tolkien was orphaned. Young Ronald, as the future author was then called, became the ward of a kindly priest named Father Francis Xavier Morgan who, by the author’s own account, was “more than a father” to him for the next thirty years.

Father Morgan was a jaunty man, half-Welsh and half-Spanish, who enchanted Tolkien with stories and gave him access to his large library of foreign language books, thus stoking the fire of Tolkien’s keen interest in philology. Morgan smoked a pipe like a Hobbit, and took Ronald and his brother on an annual summer vacation to the countryside and the sea. He also paid for the Tolkien boys to be lodged in a cozy boardinghouse* after living with their aunt became intolerable. It’s easy to see where Tolkien got his inspiration for the story of the generous uncle Bilbo adopting his nephew Frodo.*

Reading Tolkien’s private letters you see just how incredibly important his own children were to him, and by all accounts he was a wonderful father, albeit a slightly tetchy one, especially when it came to giving advice about life to his boys. Gandalf and Pippin’s relationship is like that of a short-tempered father with an obstreperous son (Pippin was still in his “irresponsible tweens” after all, during the events of The Lord of the Rings.) Gandalf obviously loves young Pippin, but the lad drives him crazy. When Gandalf is trying in vain to unlock the magical doors to the Mines of Moria, Pippin annoyingly pesters him about what he’s going to do to make them open, causing the irate wizard to threaten to pound on the doors with Pippin’s head as one possible solution to the problem.*

The exasperation Gandalf shows after Pippin steals the palantir and gazes into its dangerous and evil depths is the same sort of reaction any dad would have watching his son run blindly into the path of an oncoming car. Gandalf explodes with out and out fury, only to be followed by sweet relief once he realizes that the Hobbit is safe. Anyone who has ever watched their beloved child do something utterly reckless knows exactly what this feels like. The first thing you want to do is scream at them, and then you just want to hold them tight and never let them go.

Tolkien’s relationship with his patron Father Morgan was far from perfect. It was fraught with the same kinds of tensions that bedevil most parents and their children. When the sixteen-year-old Ronald fell madly in love with Edith Bratt, a girl three years older than he, Morgan ordered Ronald to stop seeing her because she might interfere with his studies.* And so the distraught but obedient teenager did, at least for a time. Edith and Ronald didn’t see each other for four long years, but as soon as Tolkien came of age he wrote Edith a letter expressing his undying love, and she immediately broke up with her fiancé and became engaged to him. They were happily married for fifty-five years—until Edith passed away.

Anyone who has read The Father Christmas Letters—the collection of Tolkien’s beautifully illustrated Christmas cards telling the story of Santa and his clumsy assistant Polar Bear—can feel the love the author had for his and Edith’s four children, the recipients of these magical letters.* Have you ever written a story for your kids? You don’t have to be a famous writer (or even a good writer!) to pen a good tale. Most kids would be happy just to read a story from your childhood, or a simple account of the day of their birth. Nowadays we let too many people do our storytelling for us. One of my favorite memories from childhood is when my dad sprained his ankle so badly he had to take an entire week off from work. He spent the whole time stretched out on the couch in our living room writing a children’s book about the adventures of our insane little dog, reading me new chapters every day after school. I couldn’t wait to get home to hear what was going to happen next.

Read Part 2 of this EXCLUSIVE Bonus Chapter from The Wisdom of the Shire. Read our review of the book which is now available for purchase.

About the author: Noble Smith is an award-winning playwright who has worked as a video game writer, a documentary film executive producer, and the media director of an international human rights foundation. He lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and children. Visit his website, ShireWisdom.com and follow him on Twitter @ShireWisdom.