HERE'S A PRETTY THING
"...to wrap and Elven princeling in!" said Aragorn in Moria. Light as a feather, and as hard as dragon scales! The mystery of Bilbo's mithril shirt.
"The wealth of Moria lies not in gold or jewels," said Gandalf as the Fellowship journeyed through the gloom, "but in mithril".
He used his lit staff to point out a vein of mithril along the rocky wall. Clearly the Dwarves had abandoned the extraction of the precious mineral around the time the Orcs had attacked their cavern. Tools lay askew on the floor amidst the rubble.
"Bilbo had a shirt of mithril rings" Gandalf went on.
Gimli gasped. "That is a kingly gift!" he commented.
"Yes" Gandalf agreed. "I never told him, but it's worth was greater than the value of the Shire!"
Frodo was glad he was small and that the others could not see the look of shock he knew graced his face. His Uncle Bilbo's precious shirt – the very one he now bore under his garments! – worth more than the value of the Shire? He had known his Uncle's wealth to be tremendous after his return from "that incident with the dragon" many years earlier. But he had not known the extent to which his Uncle's wealth had increased. Perhaps Bilbo himself did not know the value of the mithril shirt he had obtained for a bargain that night in the Lonely Mountain!
The Fellowship journeyed on, hoping the retain the secrecy they had been favored with since entering Moria. Only Gollum it seemed followed them, and his threat they could deal with later. As long as Gollum did not attract the attention of the Orcs until they reached the other side, their passage would remain safe.
Sadly that was not to last, for after they came to the desecrated tomb of Balin, young Pippin had the misfortune to knock one of the skeletons and awaken the Orcs who assailed them. They brought with them the great cave troll who brandished a long spear, and though the rest of the Fellowship tried to protect the Ringbearer, the troll seemed intent on harming Frodo. He drove his great spear into Frodo's chest before he was shot twice in the throat by Legolas.
Frodo let out a strangled cry. He was a little winded, and felt a pain in his breast, but was able to sit up, startling his companions.
"I'm alright" he said. "I'm not hurt".
Aragorn was at the hobbit's side. "You should be dead!" he said. "That spear would have skewered a wild boar".
He undid the buttons of Frodo's shirt and to reveal the sparkly, shimmery mithril shirt underneath. All of the Fellowship gasped in awe. Frodo pulled the shirt away to look at the spot where the troll had struck him. A nasty purple bruise was growing there, but his skin had not been penetrated.
Aragorn began to laugh. "Here's a pretty thing to wrap an Elven princeling in!" he said. "Mithril!"
"It seems there is more to this hobbit than meets the eye" Gandalf said sagely.
Gimli took a gentle step forward. "Why, that design is most dignified" he said. He crouched to get a better look at Frodo's garment. "See the embossed flowers on the collar? Why, the style is reminiscient of....," He paused and looked at their Elven companion, "the Woodland realm!"
The others looked at Legolas, whose face was scrunched up in what could only be described as a pout.
"Why that shirt could be from anywhere" he said. "How do you know it is the design of my father's folk?"
Aragorn undid the remainder of the buttons on the hobbits' outer shirt, and before long all the members of the Fellowship were prodding and poking at Frodo's middle, admiring the mithril.
"Look, there are silver berries painted on the cuffs!" Merry said.
"And also on the hem" Boromir noticed. "Frodo, how came this to you?"
"It was Bilbo's" he said. "He got it from the Lonely Mountain, in Smaug's keep".
"The Lonely Mountain, indeed" Aragorn said, glancing at Legolas.
"Smaug's treasure came from far and wide" Legolas said. "It could have been from any of the Elven realms under Anor".
"But all know the desire your folk have for white gems and silver" Gandalf said. He leaned forward slightly. "What is that, a rune?"
The other members of the Fellowship leaned down and for the first time, noticed a symbol sewn onto the right cuff.
"What is it?" Sam asked.
Gandalf made a show of peering closely at the rune. "Ah, I believe it is a T rune".
"Who is T?" Pippin asked.
"T for Thranduil!" Gimli cried, and roared with laughter.
A faint blush began to grow in the Elf's cheeks.
"You do not know that is my father. The shirt could be from Thingol's realm" Legolas said.
"Ah, but you betray yourself, friend" Boromir said. "Unhappy are you, that the dragon stole your father's priceless garments?"
"Did he have any other mithril clothes?" Pippin asked.
"How came to dragon to have your father's shirt?" Boromir said.
"I do not know!" Legolas said. "And I do not know! But it matters not, this cannot be my father's shirt. Tis too small".
"Perhaps he owned such clothing as a child" Sam offered helpfully.
"Ah, but Thranduil was no child when he and Oropher came to dwell in the forest East of the mountains" Gandalf said. "So T cannot possibly stand for Thranduil".
The Fellowship began to shout out suggestions.
"What about Tuor?"
"Tinuviel?"
"Tobold Hornblower?"
Aragorn sniggered. "Thranduilion?"
There was silence as all eyes turned on the Elf. He hoped his face was as stony as the walls surrounding them; only a hint of an emotion would give him away. Unfortunately, it was Gandalf who ended up doing just that.
"Ah" he said, stroking his chin as if recalling memories long since buried. "Yes. I think I do recall. Every time I visited the realm, when the princelings were tiny. One son of Thranduil with his pretty mithril shirt and his father's best hunting knife, off to slay Orcs".
There was a spluttering, laughing sound emanating from the Dwarf, and the hobbits began giggling.
"Which..." Aragorn was having trouble keeping a straight face. "Which son was that, Gandalf?"
"Now let me think" Gandalf said. "Which one was it, Legolas?"
Legolas glowered at the Wizard.
"I think I do recall some games you and your brothers would play" he said. He looked at the others. "Only one of them had the shirt, you see. So they played warrior games".
"What kind of games?" Pippin asked.
"Oh, typical, rescue-the-princess games" the Wizard went on. "One would be the warrior, one would be the Orc, and one would be the helpless princess trapped in the tower. It amused the sons of Thranduil for hours when they were tiny".
Legolas cringed as the memories came back. How could he get Gandalf to stop talking – now?
"We must move on. We must not linger" he said.
But Gandalf had no intention of moving on and every intention of lingering.
"Ah, yes" he said. "The one that played the Orc, would growl like a true one. Had I not known they were playing I would have unsheathed Glamdring. And the one with the mithril shirt made quite a display of warriorhood, on many an occasion".
"Who was the one with the mithril shirt then?" asked Merry. "Was it Legolas?"
"Legolas? Oh good heavens no" Gandalf said. "He was the princess. They would dress him up in their sisters' clothes and put irises in his hair".
The Fellowship was almost on the floor, laughing til their bellies hurt at this news.
"Do not mock me!" the Elf cried. "I was the youngest, and they took advantage of me. Anyway," – he pointed his finger at Frodo – "that is my brother's shirt! I was supposed to have it when he grew too big for it, but Smaug took it. So now I'd like it back, yes I would".
Frodo looked at Legolas for a long time, then dissolved in fits of laughter again. Then there was an Orcish cry from outside the chamber.
"To...the bridge...of Kazad-dum!" Gandalf said in between guffaws.
And so the valiant Fellowship stumbled out of Balin's desecrated chamber, still in stitches, Legolas pouting all the way.
"They were not irises" he muttered. "They were lilies".
(A/N: I always knew the mithril shirt had to have an original owner before Smaug took it. In the Hobbit, Bilbo makes a comment that it was clearly made for an Elven princeling, as it is the perfect size for an elfling, or a grown hobbit. Quite interesting don't you think, as the nearest Elven realm is that of Legolas, Thranduil and Oropher. As a loving ada and daerada, it stands to reason Oropher may have had the shirt made for his favourite brat – I mean, elfling. And as there is a fifty-fifty chance Thranduil did not grow up in Greenwood the Great, there's only one tithen Wood-Elf caun named in Tolkien's works, who has a greater chance at being the original recipient of – as Gimli put it – such a "kingly gift".
And yes I know most of this was movie-verse but in the books it was actually Aragorn, not Bilbo, that says, "Here's a pretty thing!" about Frodo's mithril shirt.
Also the phrase, "the mithril shirt he had obtained for a bargain that night in the Lonely Mountain" is a throwback to the movie, The Castle, where Dale talks about, "those gates he'd picked up for a bargain that night in Toorak"; it just kinda popped into my head).