Hilda Greenhill's Diary 9th Entry
Good news came late in the afternoon on the last day of Foreyule. Kili and I were playing a game of Hnefetafl in the living room when a very breathless and excited Ori burst in.
"Thorin and Fili are back," he said.
"Let's go," Kili said, wincing as he stood up too quickly. The wound was still painful for him if he made sudden movements. I wanted to tell him to be careful, but he was getting fed up of his mother fussing over him all the time since the injury, so I didn't say anything.
"Any news of the orcs?" Kili asked Ori as we walked towards the mead hall.
"I don't know. I didn't stay around long enough to find out," Ori replied.
"We can find out later," I said. I had a few questions of my own, mainly relating to what happened to my farm, but I figured that they could wait.
By the time we got to the mead hall, we found that most of the dwarves had already gathered there and it was quite difficult to push through the crowd. Ori went in front of us, trying to make a path for us through the press of dwarves, but most were ignoring him. Without counting the children, Ori is one of the youngest dwarves in the settlement and he isn't much of a warrior and given his lack of interest in mining, I think the other dwarves found it easy to over look him. That was until one of the dwarves saw Kili and climbed up onto one of the tables. It was a dwarf I had not met before, to my knowledge. Later, I learnt that his name is Bofur.
"Ey up, Kili. Ah hear tha wer in a feight wi' a boar an' lost," he said.
Nori started singing this song, and the younger dwarves joined in.
Wheear 'as ta bin sin ah saw thee,
On t' Tor baht 'at?!
Wheear 'as ta bin sin ah saw thee?
On t' Tor baht 'at?!
On t' Tor baht 'at?!
Tha's been a cooartin' a hobbit lass
On t' Tor baht 'at
Tha's been a cooartin' a hobbit lass
An' we all got wet
On t' Tor baht 'at
On t' Tor baht 'at
On t' Tor baht 'at
Wer t' elves play rugby
Tha's bahn t'catch thi deeath o'cowd
On t' Tor baht 'at
Tha's bahn t'catch thi deeath o'cowd
Wit' ought thi trousers on
On t' Tor baht 'at
On t' Tor baht 'at
On t' Tor baht 'at
Wer t' sheep fly backards
Then wi shall ha' to bury thee
On t' Tor baht 'at
Then wi shall ha' to bury thee
On t' Tor baht 'at
On t' Tor baht 'at
On t' Tor baht 'at
Then t'wyrms 'll come an' eat thee oop
On t' Tor baht 'at
Then t'wyrms 'll come an' eat thee oop
On t' Tor baht 'at
On t' Tor baht 'at
On t' Tor baht 'at
Then ducks 'll come an' eat oop t'wyrms
On t' Tor baht 'at
Then ducks 'll come an' eat oop t'wyrms
On t' Tor baht 'at
On t' Tor baht 'at
On t' Tor baht 'at
Then wi shall go an' ate oop t' ducks
On t' Tor baht 'at
Then wi shall go an' ate oop t' ducks
On t' Tor baht 'at
On t' Tor baht 'at
On t' Tor baht 'at
Wer t' ducks play footy
Then wi shall all 'ave etten thee
On t' Tor baht 'at
Then wi shall all 'ave etten thee
On t' Tor baht 'at
On t' Tor baht 'at
On t' Tor baht 'at
That's wheer wi get us oahn back
On t' Tor baht 'at
That's wheer wi get us oahn back
On t' Tor baht 'at
On t' Tor baht 'at
On t' Tor baht 'at
There is a moral to this tale
Don't go a courtin' a hobbit lass
Don't go wit' ought yer hat
Don't go a courtin' a hobbit lass
Don't go wit' ought yer hat
On t' Tor baht 'at
On t' Tor baht 'at
On t' Tor baht 'at
On t' Tor baht 'at
When courtin' allus wear a hat
It was a crude song and extremely embarrassing. If there was any moment in my life that I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me, then that was it. I'm sure Kili felt the same. When the song finished, an imposing dwarf made his way through the crowd towards us. He had no problem getting through.
"Uncle Thorin, it is good that you are back," Kili said.
Thorin hugged his nephew. "You shouldn't really be here," he said, in reference to Kili's injury. "But now that you are here, you may as well stay."
Thorin turned to me. "Join us, little hobbit. Dis told me what you did for my nephew."
I felt a little awkward as I joined them. Dis and Fili were already at the table.
"Uncle, did you catch up with the orcs?" Kili asked.
"We'll discuss that another time," Thorin replied.
I wanted to know what had happened at the farm, but given Thorin's response to Kili's question, I doubted that Thorin would have answered it at that moment. It also did not feel right to be talking of such things when we were celebrating Thorin's return. Some time later, Bofur, Bifur, Bombur, Balin and Dwalin joined us, and I wondered if they were going to bring up the subject of the orcs, but they didn't.
"Tha might want to go easy on the mead, lass," Balin said to me. "It's strong stuff."
One thing I noticed was that dwarves have appalling table manners, so much so that I think it would have given my mother an heart attack had she witnessed it. It was not something which had been apparent before, but it could be that the community had been made up mainly of dwarf women before Thorin's return, or it could be that the return of Thorin combined with the excitement of Yule had made them more boisterous than I had previously seen them. There were food fights, drinking contests, Nori and Gloin in particular drank each other under the table. On a dare, Ori and Gimli drank mead until they were both sick, much to their mothers' consternation. Gloa blamed Gloin on being a bad influence on Gimli. Miraculously, there were no serious fights, even though there was a lot of grumbling and arguing among the dwarves.
Thorin called for music and the dwarves who weren't too drunk to play responded.
That was how the Yule celebrations began.