Bíld son of Bóurr to Mistress Lumina wife of Leoffrith greeting!
You and your husband have been in my thoughts much during our travel east, and when your letter arrived I opened it eagerly, though with some worry. But o what delight was contained within! I conveyed your letter right away to Maddoct, and though difficult I thought it for anyone to so be, even more delighted and moved was he than I! I write back for the both of us, for whenever he makes the attempt he begins to cry.
We are so happy for you both, and with all our hearts we wish you good hours and hearty health, that you may be able to bring forth this masterwork without difficulty.
To your request for aid with the delivery, Maddoct gives his assent without hesitation. The particulars, of course, must be discussed between you closer to the expected time; there is also some possibility that unforeseen circumstance might keep him and my brother in the east longer than expected, though with such an appointment to keep now in Bree-land I am sure they will do their best to hurry back. But Maddoct is not inexperienced in midwifery, and though of late he has been considering retiring from surgery, professes that of course he will be at your side when the time comes, if he is at all able. As for myself, my experience as a healer is limited, and I have never attended a birth; but nursing I can do, and if Maddoct is there I will be sure to be available as his assistant.
Your second request, that we two consider the honor of being your child’s ‘sworn-parents’, likewise moved and delighted us. In such a duty Maddoct is again not inexperienced — he has in fact already stood as an ‘uncle’ and protector to children in the city of Dale, at least one of which I think he delivered himself. And so he instructs me to convey his enthusiastic willingness and joy to be among the sworn-parents of your future child.
I am not unwilling either, and the thought that you would entrust this duty to me has buoyed me with happiness during our days on the road. But though a joyous duty it is, a solemn one it is too, and so I endeavor to give it the solemn thought it deserves.
A concept not entirely unlike ‘sworn-parents’ exists in Dwarvish culture, too; the name I cannot write, but of it I think I can say a little, and that is that the Dwarf who takes on such a duty must not only pledge to look after the beardling’s physical well-being but to raise her in spiritual and moral health, as an integrated citizen of the mountain. If I were to be such a side-father to a beardling, I would be promising to raise her as a true Dwarf and to educate her on every commitment, privilege, and sorrow that means.
Your child of course will not be a Dwarf, and no such duty will be mine if something terrible should happen to you. And my family is prosperous, with deep-rooted veins; if nothing terrible happens to our Mountain, I should not have difficulty looking out for your child and ensuring she is fed, clothed, and protected through adulthood. Yet even for Men I wonder if there is not a similar need — a right — to be raised embedded in one’s culture and with knowledge, pride, and submission to one’s place within it. It is on that count that I hesitate, for I am a Longbeard who before last year stepped rarely outside of Erebor, even to our neighbor-kingdom of Dale; I have only begun to encounter and comprehend Men’s ways, and so the subtleties of what it means to be born in Bree-town, to a father born of the Mark and a mother born of Near Harad, is far beyond my understanding.
But I do not think that disqualifies me; it means instead that, before I can responsibly take up that duty, I must learn. And so I hope that in the coming years, you and your husband will educate me — and perhaps, if you must put thought and writing to it for my sake, you may in the doing create a record that your child, too, will be able to read and appreciate someday, when she is older.
Further — though I am disadvantaged in some ways, as a Dwarf, there are advantages to having a few Dwarves as uncles. We are long-lived, but mortal, takers of the long-view while still subject to the succession of generations, and so put great thought into educating our children for that long view. And the view we take is broad in both time and space; I admit I know little of the lands south of the East Road, save Dunland where my father lived for a few decades, but no Dwarf grows up unaware of the width of the world and the multitudinous wonders that fill the vast lands between the mountains.
What it means to be a child of Men, I do not know, and I may perhaps never know it fully, but — to be a child of the world that we all share, with its many colors commingling and clashing, is a destiny to which I was born and one with which I would gladly help any child of yours.
If still you wish to extend me that great honor, it would please me greatly to discuss it with my family in Erebor and, when I hopefully return to the west in the Fall, put together a contract to ensure that, should that most terrible contingency come to pass, all will be as you wish.
We cross over the High Pass now, towards Rhovanion; if to write to us you wish, on any topic or fancy, send your letter to Bóurr’s hall in the Lonely Mountain, where we shall be soon, if the stars stay kind. I hope that your next letter will contain more happy news, perhaps of Mistress Lithiva’s safe arrival.
Till then I joyously remain,
Yours deeply,
Bíld.
