The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien Read Free Book Online

only real official in the Shire at this date was the Mayor of Michel Delving (or of the Shire), who was elected every
     seven years at the Free Fair on the White Downs at the Lithe, that is at Midsummer. As mayor almost his only duty was to preside
     at banquets, given on the Shire-holidays, which occurred at frequent intervals. But the offices of Postmaster and First Shirriff
     were attached to the mayoralty, so that he managed both the Messenger Service and the Watch. These were the only Shire-services,
     and the Messengers were the most numerous, and much the busier of the two. By no means all Hobbits were lettered, but those
     who were wrote constantly to all their friends (and a selection of their relations) who lived further off than an afternoon’s
     walk.
    The Shirriffs was the name that the Hobbits gave to their police, or the nearest equivalent that they possessed. They had,
     of course, no uniforms (such things being quite unknown), only a feather in their caps; and they were in practice rather haywards
     than policemen, more concerned with the strayings of beasts than of people. There were in all the Shire only twelve of them,
     three in each Farthing, for Inside Work. A rather larger body, varying at need, was employed to ‘beat the bounds’, and to
     see that Outsiders of any kind, great or small, did not make themselves a nuisance.
    At the time when this story begins the Bounders, as they were called, had been greatly increased. There were many reports
     and complaints of strange persons and creatures prowling about the borders, or over them: the first sign that all was not
     quite as it should be, and always had been except in tales and legends of long ago. Few heeded the sign, and not even Bilbo
     yet had any notion of what it portended. Sixty years had passed since he set out on his memorable journey, and he was old
     even for Hobbits, who reached a hundred as often as not; but much evidently still remained of the considerable wealth that
     he had brought back. How much or how little he revealed to no one, not even to Frodo his favourite ‘nephew’. And he still
     kept secret the ring that he had found.
4
Of the Finding of the Ring
    As is told in
The Hobbit,
there came one day to Bilbo’s door the great Wizard, Gandalf the Grey, and thirteen dwarves with him: none other, indeed,
     than Thorin Oakenshield, descendant of kings, and his twelve companions in exile. With them he set out, to his own lasting
     astonishment, on a morning of April, it being then the year 1341 Shire-reckoning, on a quest of great treasure, the dwarf-hoards
     of the Kings under the Mountain, beneath Erebor in Dale, far off in the East. The quest was successful, and the Dragon that
     guarded the hoard was destroyed. Yet, though before all was won the Battle of Five Armies was fought, and Thorin was slain,
     and many deeds of renown were done, the matter would scarcely have concerned later history, or earned more than a note in
     the long annals of the Third Age, but for an ‘accident’ by the way. The party was assailed by Orcs in a high pass of the Misty
     Mountains as they went towards Wilderland; and so it happened that Bilbo was lost for a while in the black orc-mines deep
     under the mountains, and there, as he groped in vain in the dark, he put his hand on a ring, lying on the floor of a tunnel.
     He put it in his pocket. It seemed then like mere luck.
    Trying to find his way out, Bilbo went on down to the roots of the mountains, until he could go no further. At the bottom
     of the tunnel lay a cold lake far from the light, and on an island of rock in the water lived Gollum. He was a loathsome little
     creature: he paddled a small boat with his large flat feet, peering with pale luminous eyes and catching blind fish with his
     long fingers, and eating them raw. He ate any living thing, even orc, if he could catch it and strangle it without a struggle.
     He possessed a secret treasure that had come to him long ages ago, when