When the Woodmen who came to Eriador with Radagast had been there in the Chetwood for about a year, and their clanhouse was finally built up enough to gather the whole clan, Heriwulf reluctantly asked others of the clan to gather for what he hoped would be the first of a weekly clan moot. There had been much rumination before he finally decided to ask.
The concern, as he saw it, was simply this: they were not truly a clan. Far away over the Misty Mountains their clan still dwelled, led by its chieftain, Far-Scout, and still doing (as far as he knew) the same things as always. Surviving in the harsh lands under the edge of the Mirkwood and trying to push back the corruption still seeping through that wood. Hunting, training hounds, foraging, fighting off spiders and orcs, and aiding the Beornings in patrolling the Vales of the Anduin. It was scarcely more than a dozen, plus one skinchanger of the Beorning clan, who'd come over the mountains with Radagast, and none amongst them could be called a chieftain, nor a leader at all.
And why should there be? It was thought, when they set out, they would be accompanying Radagast, and as he knew the way and where he wished to go, the Wizard would naturally be the leader. Heriwulf took great comfort in the certainty of that. Everyone should know who chooses the direction, and thus will the clan walk together. But then Radagast met a wary people called the Eglain and sent the Woodmen off to find somewhere else to wait, as an invasion of a dozen warriors and their hounds would put the Eglain in the wrong frame of mind for Radagast to earn their trust. At first the Woodmen had kept a camp in the Chetwood, then when days turned into weeks and weeks into months, they built a small lodge which eventually became a full clanhouse. (It was not only safer and more comfortable, the effort gave everyone, especially Home-Wright, something to do.) And now they lived like a clan.
But a clan with no chieftain, and such a thing is, Heriwulf though, untenable. He had no great wish to be a chieftain, and even if he had, the others had not chosen to follow him, so he would have no claim to it. But no one else was chieftain either, and thus, things were not coordinated, or left unsaid and undone. And that's why it took him so much thought before he chose to call a clan moot. Even the act of calling one would set a tone of him assuming the role of chieftain, but he strove to minimize that, speaking of it more as a gathering, a shared meal.
Yet when they gathered, other than Aelfrida's ever-chatty stream of thoughts unending, no one seemed hurried to speak of anything until he brought it up, or prompted them to speak. This was really no surprise, he realized thinking on it later. If you ask who of the clan will travel countless leagues for a long journey far from home, clan, and family, you will inevitably get mostly the people who kept to themselves while home, and were thus more ready to leave their clan behind. Aelfrida was the odd exception, and Heriwulf suspected her reason to come was simply to stay with her brother. Or perhaps to fill the silence.
As the clan ate the mighty feast Eiragerd had prepared and talked over the issues facing them, the possibility of a hard winter coming (there had just been a bad storm that passed nearby, in fact), the need for more food and firewood stores, Hildegund's report of old traces of goblin activity, discussion of trade with the nearby villages, the need for someone to learn scratchings to read the message Radagast had sent them in secret, and Heriwulf's own plans to breed his old hound Brunan one more time, he kept trying to find ways to encourage everyone else to speak up without putting himself in the place of would-be chieftain, and kept feeling, more and more, that this was an impossible goal. Perhaps a foolish one. For while he had no desire to be the chieftain, continuing without one seemed unsustainable. Yet would they even accept it if anyone did step up to that role, without Far-Scout having given her blessing? Perhaps, for all he knew, many of those who came over the mountains did so to be free of chieftains and their rulings. (By some unspoken agreement, no one really asked anyone else why they had chosen to come.)
When Faron went so far as to call him chief as she left, he felt the bottom of his stomach drop out. All his efforts had been for naught. How much simpler it is for the hounds: they learn early who leads and who follows, and their efforts are then focused on the good of the pack. Not for the first time, he envied them this simple certainty, this focused efficiency. Now, a week to wonder how he could wash away this impression, that he wished to appoint himself a chieftain, if that were even possible. Worse yet, to do so while still seeing to it that the clan would say what needed to be said and do what needed to be done. It was enough to make him regret asking for a moot. If only there were some other way to be sure the clan did what it needed to do, to survive, and be ready should Radagast call on them.
