This is a story told by BH at the Green Dragon Inn, Bywater, on 18th December 2020. As far as is known it is simply a story, and not derived from any actual events.
(Partly based on The Cat on the Dovrefell, from Asbjornsen and Moe.)
Here is a yuletide story for you. It all happened long ago and far away: but at least it has hobbits in it, and a proper yuletide feast, so it can't be all bad. It's called: The Dog on the North Downs. It's really a story about the importance of welcoming guests at Yuletide, and of those guests behaving themselves properly.
There was once a man called Bjarni who came from the Vales of Anduin. He was a Beorning, and could take the form of a great white bear, and his hobby was mashing goblins. Although actually, he was born in the far north, where the white bears live, up past the Withered Heath. His parents were a pair of white bears who had the knack of taking man-form.
One day, he went to his mother and asked: 'Are you sure I'm a white bear, Mum?'
And she said: 'Of course you are!'
So he went to his father and asked him: 'Are you sure I'm a white bear, Dad?'
And he said: 'Yes, you're a white bear, son.'
So then he went back to his mother and asked: 'Are you really sure I'm a white bear, Mum?'
And she replied: 'Yes dear, you're a white bear.'
So he went back to his father and asked: 'Are you really, really sure I'm a white bear, Dad?'
And his father told him: 'Yes, you're a white bear, you're a white bear, you're a white bear son!' And then his father added: 'But by the way, why do you ask?'
And Bjarni said, in his little bear voice: 'Because I'm f-f-f-f-f-freezing!'
Now these bears loved their son, so they took man-form and moved to the Vales of Anduin, where it is much warmer. And Bjarni grew up among the Beornings as if he were one of them. And he grew to be big and strong, and discovered just how much he enjoyed mashing goblins.
And he mashed goblins in the valley of Anduin, and he mashed them at the Gladden Fields, and he mashed them in the Brown Lands, and he mashed them in the eaves of Mirkwood. And everywhere he went he mashed them until he got bored, usually because the goblins didn't want to be mashed so they hid whenever they saw him coming.
So he went up to the Misty Mountains and mashed goblins there; and then to Gundabad, where he mashed a whole lot more of them; and then he went mashing them in Angmar, because the ones at Gundabad got too good at running away. And in the end he came to Forochel, and mashed some goblins there too. And then winter came and it got cold.
Actually, it got f-f-f-f-f-freezing. Bjarni decided to visit the other white bears in the area, and spend the winter with them.
He asked them if it was always this f-f-f-f-f-cold up here, and they said yes: and then they told him he was an idiot, because he could leave, so why didn't he? If they went south, they would be speared and shot at by men who thought they were after their sheep; because they would be, because there's nothing like freezing your bits off to give you an appetite. But he could just take man-form and be left alone.
So he did, and went south, leaving the white bears shivering in their dens, and came to the North Downs.
Now it so happened that there was once a hobbit called Hal, who bought a farm in the North Downs. He was a young hobbit, with a wife (Laurel, who was an excellent cook), and a large family. And property prices in that part of the North Downs were astonishingly cheap. Mainly because of the trolls.
Halstead was a good farm. There was plenty of grazing for sheep in the upper pastures, and enough bottom land for some cattle and crops. The only problem was the neighbours, and even so these could have been a lot worse. They were not in any way related to the Sackville family; none of them played the bagpipes; nor did they paint their house bright orange; and they did not run an artisan tannery out of their back yard. But they were trolls.
As such they did three bad things. Firstly, they did not help in any way, shape, or form with the maintenance of the communal boundary fence. Secondly, the troll-wife was incapable of running a pantry: so she would frequently turn up on the doorstep at two in the morning wanting a cup of sugar, or a bag of flour, or a stick of butter, or a dash of milk. Thirdly, every quarter-feast they would invite themselves over and eat everything in the house, while Hal and his family went and hid in the barn. Of course, they always asked first, but Hal found it very hard to say no to the troll on his doorstep. This was worst at Yuletide, when they would come over for a full two weeks.
Anyway, Bjarni came to the North Downs and started looking for shelter. He knocked on several doors without any luck, because they were all troll houses and it was still daytime, until he came to Halstead and was welcomed in.
There he was well fed and looked after, even though he was one of the Big Folk and a stranger to them, because Hal was a proper hobbit and welcomed his guests. Bjarni found that he liked the place, and the family, and he stayed for a few days.
On Yuleday afternoon Laurel set out the biggest, most sumptuous banquet that Bjarni had ever seen; and then the hobbits all went out to the barn. Hal explained to Bjarni that the house would soon be overrun by trolls. But Bjarni refused to leave, at least not until he had eaten some of that banquet, which really was quite something.
There was goose, stuffed and roasted; there was a whole hog on a spit, with an apple in its mouth; there were pork pies, mutton pies, and mushroom pies; there were shanks of beef slow cooked until the meat fell off the bone; and there were crumbed mushrooms, creamed mushrooms, fried mushrooms, mushrooms in soup, and mushrooms in salad. And taters cooked every which way you could wish them. And don't even let me get started on the puddings!
Well, Bjarni got stuck in and ate until his belly groaned, and then curled up under a table in bear-form to sleep it off. And then night came, and winter storms went rattling at the roof, and the trolls came in the door without even bothering to knock. There was a huge family of them, and they were well hungry, and they gobbled most of the banquet up.
Bjarni slept through it all. It was while they were filling up the corners that the old gaffer-troll noticed Bjarni. He was half-blind with age, so what he thought he saw was a dog lying under the table. So he reached for a nearby platter of smallgoods and waved it under the dog's nose, saying: 'Puppy want a sausage?'
Bjarni's nose twitched, but he kept on sleeping. So the old gaffer-troll shoved the plate right up close and repeated himself at triple the volume: 'PUPPY WANT A SAUSAGE?'
This, it must be said, is not the accredited method known to animal specialists of waking up, or offering food, to white bears; or indeed, of engaging with any bear in any way whatsoever. Please do not do this at home.
Bjarni, as might be expected, jumped up and baffed the troll severely about the head and face. Indeed, on discovering the room full of trolls he did a passable imitation of a ginormous agitated mutt: for he appeared to pass through every point in the room simultaneously, scratching and biting all the trolls, and barking fit to burst.
'I guess puppy didn't want a sausage after all,' said the gaffer-troll, sadly disappointed.
Which was when Bjarni realised that he was surrounded by trolls, all of whom he had just annoyed in one way or another; and that this was not the soundest strategic position he had ever put himself in.
But he was a quick thinker, so he said: 'That's right, I'm only a puppy.' And then followed this up with a cry of: 'Mummy! Help me! I'm being attacked by trolls!'
And as it should happen, at that very moment the storm outside spoke with a particularly loud thunderclap; which might be misconstrued by a foolish and frightened troll as the roar of a humongous mummy-dog coming to help her child.
The trolls left, immediately, doing a fair amount of damage on the way out: they trampled all the furniture to matchwood, and took the door off its hinges as they went through. In fact, they widened the doorway by a foot on either side. But at least they were gone.
Hal and his family saw neither hide nor hair of the trolls for the rest of the winter, and boy were they glad about it. Bjarni stayed on, because they were happy to have him; and he was getting proper hobbit hospitatlity, so why wouldn't he?
As Springfest came on, Hal was out in the fields and saw stealthy movement under the dark of the trees on the neighbouring property. A voice called to him: 'Hey, Hal!' it said. 'Yes,' he replied. It asked: 'Have you still got that big dog with you?'
'Yes,' he replied, 'and all her pups have grown up, and they're even bigger and fiercer than she is!'
And after that, he never heard from the trolls again, not so much as a knock on the door for a cup of sugar in the middle of the night. Except that, for the next two weeks he couldn't sleep for the sound of trolls out all night long, with hammer and nails, fixing up the boundary fence.
Since then, Bjarni goes out to the Lone Lands every spring and mashes goblins. And every summer he goes over to Angmar and Ettenmoors to mash more goblins. And in autumn he goes over to Forochel, and mashes goblins there; and catches up with all the other white bears, and they have a big party.
But come winter, when it gets f-f-f-f-f-freezing, he always comes back to Halstead on the North Downs, and stays with his hobbit friends. And gets to eat proper food for a while.
So far as I know, there is a dog on the North Downs still.
The End.
