By: Primula Baggins
Character(s): Frodo (with other LOTR characters)
Rating: G
Warnings: None, except it may induce melancholy.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters and make no money from this.
Summary: Frodo starts writing his part in the Red Book but doesn’t know where to begin. This was written in honor of Frodo and Bilbo’s birthday which is on September 22.
Where do I begin? How can I possibly ever fill the pages of this book? Perhaps I won’t. Maybe I will save some pages for Sam to write too, for he has his story to tell as well. Bilbo did his part and then gave the Red Book to me, but I don’t know how to start. Each time I sit at this table, the desk I saw Bilbo sit at so many times to write, my mind becomes a whirlwind of the things that happened.
Maybe it’s the sickness that lingers in me, those that make me so ill twice a year that I cannot rise from my bed. Maybe it’s the fear I have of remembering all the horrible things that happened. Perhaps it’s because of the way people ignore me now, here in the Shire, the place that I tried to protect. They did not believe, I think, the things that Merry, Sam and Pippin told them about the great Evil named Sauron. It was a wild story to them, perhaps. But how they can think this, I do not know, for they saw evil too right here in this peaceful place. I do not understand their reluctance to believe at least some part of it. This hurts me to my core.
Bilbo gave me the Ring on my birthday. Gollum, once called Smeagol, got the Ring on his birthday too, only he killed to get it. My cousin, Bilbo, gave it to me freely before he left. I have sometimes wondered why Bilbo did not receive the gift on his birthday too.
It was Bilbo’s 111th birthday, and it was my 33rd. As I stooped over to pick it up, I felt a stirring in my body and soul, a stirring that never left me, not even to this day. It is gone, but not forgotten. I didn’t think of the Ring often, at least not at first. I didn’t carry It with me all the time for the years before the Quest. Mostly, I left It in a box on the mantle or in my room. I took It out from time to time just to look at It. It would make me think of Uncle Bilbo and how he would carry It in his pocket. But I was It’s caretaker, and was careful to keep It safe.
I remember the time at Rivendell after I was stung by the morgul blade, that I saw Bilbo. He saw the Ring that I was then wearing around my neck, and reached out for it. By then I’m afraid, I did not want him to have it. I wanted no one to have it. I selfishly would not let him touch it again and pulled back from him. I’ll never forget the look on his face, as if he had become a monster. Later he told me that he was sorry he’d brought this upon me, sorry that I had to carry that burden.
I did not fully understand then, but I do now, what he meant. I don’t believe even Bilbo knew what a burden It became to me. He was the lucky one to have escaped Its full pull. It was said that Bilbo had lived with the Ring for many years, maybe 60, and I often wondered how he had done so. Of course, the Ring’s true owner, Sauron, did not discover that the Ring was still in the world at that time, so maybe that was why Bilbo escaped further enslavement.
Why I came to have the Ring, I still do not know. I wished to give it to another so that they might carry the burden. Once in Rivendell, I tried to give it to another, for I was weary and afraid of it and what it could do to me or what others might do to me to have it for their own. Then, I tried to give it to Galadriel at Lothlorien, but she did not take it. Boromir might have taken it from me by force, but by then, I knew that I was the only one who could carry it.
I do not know why that should have been. There was nothing special about me. I was, and am, only a simple hobbit. I am not particularly brave, nor skilled in war. When I would think about the journey to Mordor it terrified me. I did not know the way, and if it were not for my mercy on Gollum and his guidance, I would not have found it.
I cannot forget the Fellowship or Sam in that regard either. Without them all, I would have died at Weathertop or perhaps at Bree. What power led us all to overcome the evil of Sauron? How could events have aligned themselves so that the Quest could have been accomplished? I am too simple to know the answers to those questions. I only did what Gandalf bid me to do, what I knew in my heart I must do for the Shire.
When we were in the mines of Moria, Gollum was there. When I spotted him for the first time, I told Gandalf that it was a pity that Bilbo had not killed him when he had the chance. Gandalf told me that it was pity and mercy that Bilbo had spared Gollum, that he might have a part to play yet. I did not believe him at the time. I spared Gollum perhaps not so much out of pity for him as out of fear for myself. I had to believe that there was some way I could escape Gollum’s fate, for I felt the Ring, even then, taking charge over me.
