If Gandalf the White could not remove this creature from Grifo's neck, no one could.
I returned to the room I had slept in, hitting my head only once as I filled my pockets with the tools of the wizard's trade. The hangover cure, it seemed, did its job.
I returned to my victim, struggling to formulate an appropriate strategy.
Although I knew it would do no good, I unclasped the hilt of my sword from its sheath on my belt. "Take him inside. It behaves like a serpent, so let's see if the warmth loosens it up."
The suggestion proved unhelpful. The moment we had Grifo laid before the fire, he moaned and spasmed uncontrollably. Still, no one wanted to return to the cold outside. Hard pressed to say whether it truly was the temperature that caused these disturbances.
For the next hour, I prepared various potions, tools and oils in a desperate attempt to save the Hobbit.
I stirred a putrid mixture of myrrh, sulfur and skunk glands, but it only served to fill Bag End with an intolerable odor that caused the windows to be left open until the following winter.
Using a glass vial, I made careful incisions on the creature's body, in hopes of drawing the life out of it, but this only caused the creature to tighten around the victim.
I poured a solution of henbane and ipecac into the place where the victim's mouth remained open.
When the victim began vomiting, both from the nose and mouth, I expected either the creature to be forcefully expelled, or the victim to suffocate, but neither occurred, for reasons unclear to me, even at the time of this writing.
If only I had owned a large machine with which to create automatic paintings of the innards of this patient. So much would have been clarified, so much damage prevented.
The Hobbits gave me hopeful looks, confident that my great power could cure anything.
Brienna, Grifo's wife, had been with us the moment I'd called for henbane. While I brooded upon our dismal situation, she took a damp cloth, wiping the vomit from Grifo's nose and mouth, which seemed to have a calming effect.
A bold and foolhardy one, that woman. But then again, the creature hadn't moved for quite some time.
I asked for a fuller's whitener, applying that to the creature's abdomen, and the substance foamed, causing a reaction in the beast's body like I had injured it.
Since enough damage had been done to the victim's windpipe, I stopped my experiments, rising to my feet.
It seemed that only the gods of Middle Earth could save this Hobbit now.
Raising my staff, I called out to Nienna, lady of the merciful healing tears, Esté, wife or Irmo, healer of hurts of weariness, and Mandos, the ruler of the dead, to not take this Hobbit.
I even dared to summon the aid of all powerful Manwé.
Nienna must have known my plight, for once I began a second incantation in her name, the creature fell away from Grifo's face, sprawling on its back like a spider that got too close to a candle.
It appeared to be dead.
To make sure, I drew my sword and stabbed the thing in the midsection.
Its blood burned a hole in the carpet, but it didn't move. So far so good.
I knelt by the victim's side, checked his airways.
They all appeared to be clear. He lay mercifully unconscious still, his pulse beneath my fingers faint but steady.
His body seemed wholly untouched. Had it been any other animal, he would have been missing a tongue, or part of his face.
What business did it have on Grifo's face? What had been its objective?
I pulled up a stool and just observed my patient, uncertain what to do.
Rosie brought me some tea to stimulate my mind as I continued to brood. Away from my books and my domicile, I was at a disadvantage.
The beast obviously had some sort of instinctual imperative or it would not have clamped down around the Hobbit's windpipe so tenaciously.
For breeding? No, of course not. That would be absurd!
I dismissed the idea twice before I considered experiments I'd made with a telescope in a pond near my boyhood home.
In the murky depths, I'd seen frogs lay eggs in the muddy clay, to be irrigated with nutriment by a passing male.
Could this creature have done such a thing using flesh instead of mud?
Only an assumption. I could not actually see inside the Hobbit's body. Perhaps it had only devoured the internal organs one could not see from Grifo's mouth and nose.
I decided, in case my assumption about the eggs proved correct, that another dose of ipecac would be beneficial, so I poured it down his throat, turning him on his side the moment the vomiting commenced.
The moment his stomach emptied and I lay him on his back, he awoke with a start and screamed.
He thrashed like mad, so badly that I required the assistance of several Hobbits to keep him still.
When his thrashing ceased, his chest exploded, drenching I and everyone nearby in a shower of blood.
A tiny white head, not unlike that of a serpent, but without eyes, emerged from the gore, sadly proving my supposition about eggs to be correct.
Before I could properly react, the beast sprang from the ruptured rib cage, uttering threatening things in the Black Speech, scampering away into the hidden recesses of Bag End.