It seemed merchants and traders customarily set up in the same spot, or near it, every year so Oswald, Daisy and Dickon, experienced fairgoers that they were, knew exactly where to find everything they wanted to see. Estel, Amin and Meleth bewildered and even a little frightened by the noise and press of people were glad to follow their lead.
The first stop was a tent-top like the Elves' but smaller and bright orange in color. The tables underneath it were spread with a wide variety of toys. There were wax dolls some small as your hand and others as long as your forearm. The smaller ones were cast from a mold with faces and clothes painted on but the larger and more elaborate had movable arms, yarn hair and glass eyes, and were dressed in colorful cloth costumes. Most wore the full skirts and laced bodices of countrywomen but a few had long gowns of blue or crimson with tiny necklaces, bracelets and circlets of brass or tin. There were also ranks of little men cast in brightly painted lead-tin, on foot or on horseback wearing countrymen's breeches and jackets. And larger more elaborate figures of craftsmen at their workbenches whose arms and heads moved if you pulled a string. And there were long, thin figures in green clothes with little bows over their shoulders and swords at their sides clearly meant to be Rangers. Not to mention wooden puppets on sticks, carts and wagons with horses to draw them, animal figures in wood or china. Doll houses and doll sized furniture, dishes and tools. Tops and balls and skittles and hoops and anything else you could think of.
The toys were crude and garish compared to Elf made playthings but had the charm of novelty. Meleth's dolls were of ivory with silken hair and crystal eyes and real jewelry of gold or silver set with tiny gems, not plump wax figures with red painted cheeks and braided brown wool hair. Her brothers had literal armies of small metal warriors, footmen and horsemen each with his own individual armor and weapons, but no farmers or craftsmen, nor Rangers either.
Estel picked up one of the little figures. It was odd when you thought about it, he would be Chief of the Rangers someday but all his toy soldiers were modeled on the Elves and Men of the Elder Days.
"Are you going to buy that?" Oswald asked.
"I don't know," Estel showed him the copper coin, "will this be enough?" The other boy gave him a look of disbelief. "You can get at least four for that!" So he did. Four was the usual number of a Ranger patrol anyway.
Oswald bought a handful of round polished stones. "You act like you've never had any money to spend before." He said to Estel as they walked away, each clutching a little hemp bag.
"We haven't," Amin piped up, seeing his brother was at a loss, "we don't use it in the valley."
Oswald shook his head. "Funny place you live."
"When was the last time we used money at home, smarty?" Daisy asked sharply. "Don't be rude, Oswald."
"And don't you start talking like Celia!" her brother snapped back, adding apologetically to Estel: "I didn't mean to be rude, I was just surprised."
"That's all right." Estel assured him. "Fact is we think the Angle's a pretty odd place, so it stands to reason you'd find our valley just as peculiar." Little did Oswald know how peculiar!
Their next stop was one of the Dwarven booths, manned by three stocky Firebeards 1* from the Blue Mountains. Part of their stock was a selection of folding knives, some with several different blades for specialized uses, 2* that fascinated all six children but were much to expensive to buy. Eventually the Dwarves began to show signs of annoyance as the children lingered, fingering the knives and getting in the way of other customers, so Amin bought a small brass box with a lock and a key worked in intricate curlicues to mollify them, and the children moved on.
A smaller booth displayed broaches, pins, necklaces, pendants and buckles of copper or silver or gilt inlaid with enamel or nacre or colored glass on a dark felt spread over the counter. The Attmeades greeted the jeweler, a round little man with greying hair and bright brown eyes, like an old friend.
"Bertred's been everywhere," Oswald told the children from Rivendell proudly, "over the Mountains and even to the South Kingdom."
That would be Gondor, Estel reminded himself. And that explained why the jeweler was looking at them with such startled attention. He would have seen Dunedain in the south and doubtless recognized Estel, Amin and Meleth as being of the same kind.
"Errol, Amund and Melly are from the Weavers' Valley," Oswald continued blithely, "have you ever been there, Bertred?"
"No, I can't say that I have." The man replied good naturedly.
"Come to think of it," Oswald mused, "I don't think I've ever met anybody, other than Lewin and his carters, who've seen the valley."
"We're very hard to find and don't get many visitors." Estel said quickly, and almost honestly.
In the meantime Meleth and Daisy were busily examining the jewelry, which was quite unlike the Elvish work the former was accustomed to. A few pieces had a Numenorean flavor but most were in an unfamiliar style all interlacing serpentine filigree or intricate cellwork inlaid with colored glass or enamel. 3* A small broach in the shape of a running horse in copper cellwork and deep red glass took Meleth's fancy and Daisy, after much thought, bought a string of blue and yellow glass beads. By the time she'd finally made up her mind the sun was directly overhead and it was time to go back to the Inn for lunch.
1. Firebeards is one of the Seven tribes of Dwarves, (Durin's Folk are the Longbeards). Nogrod, the great Dwarf city of the Southern Ered Luin, was their ancestral home. It stood about where the Gulf of Lune is in the Third Age, destroyed in the sinking of Beleriand. But their lesser dwellings and mines further south survived and their people still live in the southern range of the Blue Mountains. As their tribe name suggests they are usually red bearded. (Mostly Canon)
2. Bet you never knew the so-called 'swiss army knife' was actually invented by Dwarves! ;) (Decidedly *not* Canon!)
3. Most of Bertred's stock in trade is made in the styles and techniques of the Northmen, (think Viking and Saxon jewelry), he comes from one of the Mannish settlements along the Anduin, (later united by Beorn and his son) and like most of the Men of the Anduin vale has Northmen blood mixed with that of the dark haired and swarthy skinned Men who've lived east of the Mountains since the Elder Days. (Fanon)