The boys and I have left Combe behind. We made some decent coin and after Blake had taken it back to town it was time to move on, much to my disappointment though, we were not yet going to Bree. We passed through Staddle, where the least memorable part of our adventure so far took place. Due to bad weather we stayed a night in the Staddle Armoury, since the place has no inn. At this point I welcomed a chance to stay the night in a common room with the boys, eating, drinking and singing… however Blake seemed in a rather bleak mood and I didn’t want to ask him for a song, so we spoke only quietly and rested thereafter. Toby told a story about that time all his dad’s sheep ran off and that at least made me laugh thinking of Toby running down field trying to catch old Mary but instead falling on his face! Thank the Valar that he has grown up to become a lot less clumsy, now that he is swinging a sword and throwing a spear.
We went into the Midgewater Marshes the next day to deal with some spiders and some goblins… goblins! They are real, I saw them, and I killed a few. I find it easier to aim my arrows at goblins than at men, I am not sure why, but I have had no sleepless nights over taking out a few goblins.
The swamp itself was a pretty dreich place, but I did have a bit of luck with the weather in the morning, as the sky had cleared after the night’s heavy rain. A clear day with no rain means you can see for miles and miles, to far mountains and strange places. It fills my heart with a giddy joy, knowing that one day soon, I might be travelling to these far ends of the world!
Most of the time however, the swamp was mucky and wet. My fingers were stiff and cold, whilst my bow was slippery and it’s hard to aim properly when you can barely see a hand in front of you. It was pretty miserable overall, and we spoke less than we normally do, we definitely laughed less. I felt it dragging me down, I couldn’t think of anything to put a smile on their faces. Blake in particular seemed gloomy, and I wasn’t quite sure why. Perhaps he’s still thinking of those two missing farmhands Old Farmer Bauman had asked us to look out for. It wouldn’t surprise me, Blake has that kind of complex mind that is always thinking of the bigger picture and so he carries the worries around with him. I figured we would all cheer up when we got out of that dreadful place.
The one really memorable thing from our visit to Staddle was meeting Willowsong. I am not quite sure what kind of creature she is, I thought perhaps an elf, but Blake referred to her as the river maid, so perhaps I have yet to meet a real elf. She sure looked like I would have imagined an elf looking like, she was graceful, and her beauty was… sort of timeless, different. I normally feel very envious when I see a beautiful woman and it makes me feel awkward and self-conscious. I didn’t feel like that around Willowsong, I more just accepted that she was beautiful and kind in a way that no human will ever be anyway, so there is no need for me to be envious. Wait, I’m getting so carried away writing about her that I forgot to mention why we met her… Following an incident with a sick dog, there was suspicion that the water in the Staddle well had been poisoned. We helped with the investigation and Willowsong helped us cleaning the water source, that’s how I found out that she is a river maid, not an elf. There’s a difference, Blake knows this and he knew Willowsong already, he’d met her before. Maybe one day he will tell us more about her.
