Lord Glorfindel and Prince Legolas both enjoyed a hunt. However, unlike most elves, they enjoyed a lot of risk with the chase. To them, deer and foxes were decent prey, but charging down the nasties of Middle-earth was without question considerably more fun.
When Legolas had been in his youth and had ventured to Imladris to perfect his knife skills with the ancient lord, they had sealed a deal. Whenever they met in the future, they would arrange a hunt.
One winter, they rode down the Greenway with an escort of similar-minded elves, and shot arrows through the eyes of many wolves. Afterwards, at a feast held in their honour on the greensward of the Homely House, they compared the pelts that they had skinned and crowed about the hundreds that they had slain.
Then one summer, they stalked down barrow wights in the northern hills and dragged the creatures out of their dens and into the beating sun to die. They sang and danced clad in the stolen jewelry of long dead kings, and haggled over prized pieces long after their return to Imladris.
Now, it was Glorfindel's turn to come east of the Misty Mountains with a small escort of hunters who shared their passion. It had been many years since the elf lord and Legolas had last met and triumphed over Sauron's creatures. In celebration of their reunion, Legolas had excitedly planned a two week trip of hunting the growing shadow in the forest of Mirkwood.
The swelling and sprawling colonies of giant spiders were his target and as he had the King's scholars make up his maps, he clapped his hands with glee and laughed as he thought of the carnage that he and Glorfindel and their fellow hunters would cause. Oh, the spiders would be enraged! Oh, they would be devastated! Oh, what weapons they could use to stomp on, stick through, and strike down the loathesome beasts.
Finally, Glorfindel and his escort arrived and they laughed, drank and sang on the night of their remeeting in the halls of the Wood-Elven King. They boasted about their exploits in the years since that summer of wight-hunting, and poured over the maps that Legolas had made up for their party with great anticipation.
The following day, at dawn they set out towards the densest and darkest parts of the woods to tackle the first colony. Huge and horrible were their foes, and as soon as they saw their hunters, they rose up in frightful anger and came hurrying after them along the tree boughs overhead and through the undergrowth. They rushed with hairy legs waving, nippers and spinners snapping, eyes popping, full of froth and poison. In response, the disgusted elven hunters poked arrows in their bellies, prodded knives in their eyes, threw stones at their threads, and banged them on their heads with their shields.
They had a grand time, that first week. They got no booty, save that which they could extract from the sucked dry corpses that hung in bundles from the giant webs, but at night they had great fun mocking the spiders' thin voices that hissed and creaked like cranky doors over the leaping flames of their camp fires.
Then, one night at the end of the first week, as their party slept save for a couple of elves on watch, Legolas awoke and saw Glorfindel ambling off into the undergrowth alone. He watched the elf lord disappear, then picked up his weapons and followed after him.
He found Glorfindel just as the elf had finished relieving himself. The elf lord fastened up his breeches, looked at him and smiled.
"This is a very good hunt," he said amiably. "I am enjoying myself immensely."
"I am glad," Legolas said. "I have an idea. Yonder is another colony, a small young one. Say we take it on alone?"
Glorfindel's brow knitted. "How many spiders dwell in the colony?"
"Sixty, but they are all babies," Legolas said. He indicated a sphere with his hands of about one foot by one foot. "This would be about the size of the largest one."
"Very well," Glorfindel agreed. "We are carrying plenty of arrows between us. Let us go."
Together, they trekked deeper into the wood. As they drew closer to the patch of dense, black shadow where Legolas knew the colony lay, they slowed their steps and began to pick their way stealthily through the undergrowth so that they made no noise with their feet. Soon, ahead of them, they heard the familiar creaking and hissing that they had been jeering about over the campfire earlier that night. Only this time, the voices of the spiders were several pitches higher and sometimes, their voices sounded more like squeaks than creaks.
As they drew nearer to the patch of webs and began to make sense of what was being uttered, they halted just out of sight to listen.
"Now," one spider creaked in his thin voice, "for the fortieth step, y'all must stand in a line and wave your bottoms high in the air. Let's try this!"
There was a flutter of squeaking and a patter of noise up ahead. Legolas leaned around the tree trunk that they were crouched behind to observe about forty baby spiders, all about the size of large drinking cups, standing together in a clearing on the ground and vigorously waving their fat bottoms in the air. In front of the crowd stood a larger baby spider who seemed to be the one directing the others. Above the congregation and hanging from the webs that draped between the boughs of the beeches hung twenty or so more larger baby spiders who were silent and appeared to be observing the performance unfolding below them with interest.
The larger baby spider now rose up on his hind legs and waved his front legs. Most of the crowd stilled and quietened, though there were a couple in the back that did not seem to have noticed and kept wriggling their bottoms from side to side.
"Good, good!" the larger baby spider praised. "Now for the forty-first step, you must take three steps to your left. In case you've forgotten, that way is left," here he pointed leftwards with his front legs, "and that way is right." He pointed rightwards. "Now try the two together."
The babies all squeaked with delight and began waving their bottoms, then walking leftwards, waving their bottoms, then walking leftwards in perfect synchrony.
Beside Legolas, Glorfindel, who was peeking around the other side of the tree trunk, suddenly moved. Legolas looked sharply at him to observe that Glorfindel had lifted his hands to cover his mouth. The great elf lord was shaking with laughter. Legolas grinned and returned his attention to the performance.
The larger baby spider waved his front legs again. Again, the crowd stopped moving and looked attentively at him with their many bright little eyes.
"Ok, we are doing really well!" the larger baby spider creaked. "Now, for the forty-second step, we must clap our front and back legs together. Try it! One-two-three-CLAP! One-two-three-CLAP!" As the babies began clapping, the larger baby spider nodded his little head sagely.
"Well done, well done!" he hissed after a short while. "You've almost finished learning the dance! Give yourselves pats on the back and give your neighbours some pats too."
The babies hissed and squeaked and patted themselves and those nearest them with their tiny hairy legs. The noise was like the sound of raindrops smacking the surface of the river that flowed through Legolas' father's kingdom.
"Excellent!" the larger baby spider creaked. "Now, you already know the last step, which is to shout our colony cry out loud..." He spread his front legs out towards the crowd and danced on his back legs in anticipation.
"Go Northern Blackies! Go Northern Blackies!" the babies all began shrieking excitedly. Indeed, they seemed to go rather mad as they jumped and squealed throughout the following cheer, which, from what Legolas could gather, went something like this:
"Go northern blackies, go northern blackies
squish all the southerners and wrap them up for lunch
We have the fastest legs and spin the stickiest sackies
We give the sharpest nips and pack the bigger punch
So go northern blackies, go northern blackies... YAAAAAAAY!"
After a while, the larger baby spider waved his front legs again for silence. "Wonderful! You are all doing so well!" he creaked when the crowd had quieted a bit. "I am so proud of you! We are definitely going to do well this season! Now, lastly, let us practice the dance from the top! One-two-three..."
And then the dance began. The baby spiders, all in perfect synchrony, began jumping and wriggling their bottoms and waving their nippers and hairy little legs about in the air. It was quite the sight! They hurled themselves over each other, they climbed into pyramids, they shot sticky thread up into the air at the same time. Then they shouted the cheer in their tiny voices before proceeding with more waving and jumping. Finally, they squealed the cheer again.
The larger baby spiders hanging from the webs above all clapped their many legs and creaked and hissed many praises to the performing babies below.
"You lot are amazing!" the larger baby spider hissed. "I wish I was part of your cohort and could perform this with you at the Mirkwood competition! Mum is going to be so proud of you!"
Legolas felt Glorfindel nudge his arm. He looked at the elf lord and observed Glorfindel point in the direction from which they had come, indicating that Glorfindel wished for them to move further away from the colony. Legolas nodded and they crept silently away from the blackness.
When they were out of earshot, Glorfindel turned to him and Legolas saw that his face had clouded. The elf-lord said in a low voice, "I am sorry, Legolas, but I shall have to refuse your invitation to tackle that colony with you. The young inhabitants are too sweet to squish."
"They are adorable indeed, but they will grow up and grow sour," Legolas reminded.
"Even so, I do not feel like shooting an arrow into that mirthful crowd tonight."
"Then let us postpone the deed for a few more years," the prince proposed.
"An excellent idea," Glorfindel agreed and smiled.
Together, the two hunters retreated quietly back to the camp.