"Oh! But he looks just like me!" Faramir II, gasped. Both he and his sister Poppy were opened mouthed as they stood before the great mural in the City of Minas Tirith.
Their parents and aunts and uncles exchanged knowing smiles. "Well, he is your great grandfather." Boromir I, Thain elect of The Shire placed a hand on each of his children's shoulders, "and about your age too when this picture was made."
"So which is my great grandfather?" Éowyn Brandybuck asked with a puzzled look. "Oh no I see, of course, he's got Meridydd's silly turned up nose."
"Now then Éowyn," her mother Pansy scolded. "I love that snub nose, it's just like Théodoc's," She squeezed her husband's hand lovingly, "and yours too I might add, milady."
"Don't forget we have two great grandfather's in the group." Her brother pointed out. "Mother's grandfather is there too."
"Yes the one on the end, he must be our great grandfather. Éowyn's and Meri's on their mother's side and mine on my father's side." Harding pointed out to his new wife Columbine the figure standing shyly on the edge of the mural, his hands clasped demurely before him and his eyes set firmly on the hobbit in the centre of the scene.
"Then who is the hobbit in the middle?" Columbine asked innocently. Looks were exchanged amongst the elders but no one admonished the lass, she was new to the family, and history was not taught as it should be these days.
"That," said Holfast Gardner in a solemn voice that made the girl realise she had made a social blunder, "is Frodo Baggins. Or, as you should know, Nine Fingered Frodo the Ringbearer."
"Let me see then." Poppy wanted to show off her knowledge of the heroes on the wall. "There was Gimli the Dwarf."
"That's easy, the short man with the big beard and the axe." Faramir pointed.
"And Aragorn Strider." Poppy continued.
"Who became King Elessar." Meridydd pointed to the tall man with the large shield.
"Oh no, Meridydd," Théodoc corrected. "That is Boromir who your cousin is named for. He was the son of the Steward of Gondor and, he well…"
"I remember," Meridydd knew the sad story by heart. "He died defending Meriadoc the Magnificent and Thain Peregrin from the orcs at Parth Galen."
"And my great grandfather, Thain Peregrin," Faramir added, "swore his service to the Steward of Gondor in recompense. It was a noble deed. That was what Gandalf the Wizard said, wasn't it." He added proudly to his father.
"Yes it was indeed Faramir my son," Boromir looked up at the mural with a sad but poignant smile. "That is why I was proud to bear his benefactor's name and you are named for his brother, whose life your great grandfather also saved."
"But which one is Aragorn Strider then?" Éowyn asked. "It must be him." She pointed to the other tall man in the group with dark hair and a beard.
"Yes that is King Elessar," Holfast agreed. "Although the company called him Aragorn. He was only known to them as Strider until they reached Rivendell."
"Grandfather still called him Strider even in Gondor." Boromir put in. "He told me the story of how the Prince of Dol Amroth was shocked to hear him address a King so, but King Elessar didn't mind, because it was Grandad, and he told the Prince his house would be called Strider."
"Yes, but only in the high tongue." Théodoc added. "My grandad told me that tale too. It became Telcontar, which means Strider. But it's funny, grandad used to say, because it was only really a silly nickname that he got in Bree."
"So the other two in the picture are Gandalf the Wizard and the elf-Prince of Greenwood." Amethyst, Holfast's wife had been silently studying the mural and, being from the Far Downs with that rogue Tookish blood, always had a fancy for the mystical and mysterious. "I used to love stories of Gandalf when I was little."
"I used to think they were made up." Columbine said, holding tightly onto her new husband's hand. "Were they all real?"
"Well it depends which stories you heard." Holfast said, "But Gandalf was a genuine wizard, not just a conjuror of cheap tricks, you know. And his fireworks were legendary. But the most amazing thing I knew about Gandalf, or as folk around here would call him, Mithrandir, was that he died and came back to life, so my gaffer's gaffer told the story."
"But he never was dead and buried himself," his sister Pansy said. "leastwise not in the Shire he wasn't."
"No more was Frodo the Ringbearer." Holfast pointed out. "But he left no descendants to think on such things. "Well no immediate family, but he made Samwise Gamgee, our grandfather, his heir, that's why father was called Frodo after him."
"So what happened to them?" Columbine asked in awe.
"They went to the Grey Havens of course." Faramir piped in. "Like the elves do."
"Yes, Frodo went first, a few years after the Quest was done," Pansy told her new niece-in-law, "But grandad stayed until just after grandmamma died. He was quite old when he went there."
"Our great grandads are laid to rest here, aren't they." Poppy knew the stories well and was hoping to see her sleeping ancestors. "I wonder what they were really like?"
"I could tell you that."
The sudden strange voice made them all startle with surprise, even though the tone was gentle and modulated. The eleven hobbits swung around as one to see the exact same elf as was in the picture. Eleven hobbits gasped in unison.
"You… you must be the elf, er Prince Legolas of the Greenwood." Amethyst stuttered.
"Indeed, fair lady," Legolas bowed politely, "and now you have the advantage of me?"
"Amethyst of the Far Downs, wife of Holfast Gardener," she whispered shyly and bobbed a little curtsey the way her mother had taught her and she had practised before the looking glass prior to leaving on this journey.
Legolas smiled serenely. "I am delighted to meet with hobbits again, and hobbits with such distinguished ancestors. Pray do not tell me all your names, allow me to guess those that I may, or at least place you in the correct family."
The hobbits smiled proudly, only too happy to play this game as they delighted in genealogy and considered anything relating to it a fine sport.
****
TBC