It is the 16th day of Ethuil
In the 3018th year of the Sun
Of the Third Age of Middle-earth

Five slow weeks^[1] have passed since Gollum Sméagol was brought to dwell within the deep dungeons of the Elvenking, and still I had not seen him! Oft have I lingered in the torchlit passages nigh their doors in the hope that one or another door-warden might relent their ceaseless vigilance, but alas! to no avail. Not even my gifts of honey-cakes and wine could soften their resolve, and my mother forbade me from slipping them a sleeping draught! And though my heart still burned hot with curiosity, my hope at last began to cool.

But Legolas came in the hours after noon to our Laegren glade and called for Echeleb and my father, for he was gathering an escort to lead the creature into the greenwood! This, he said, was by the command of his father, Thranduil Elvenking, for it was the counsel of the king that to keep him ever in dungeons under the earth would bring him to fall back into his old black thoughts. Thus he deemed that in days of fair weather his people might lead Sméagol through the woods whither a high tree stands alone far from the others, and in which he has been given leave to climb aloft to feel the free wind.^[2]

The prince marked me standing eagerly behind my father, and he laughed merrily!
   'And if I do not invite you also, you will no doubt follow in the shadows even without leave... come then! And though you are not part of the guard, bring with you your bow and be wary!' he said.
Delighted, I shouldered Cúlalf and followed after them to the great gates of Thranduil's stronghold. Together with my kin there were assembled six other Wood-elves armed with bows and spears, and when the wretched prisoner was brought forth from within the Halls with a halter round his skinny neck, they wondered at the heavy safeguards made for so small a creature.
   'Small he may be, but great in mischief,' Legolas explained. 'And beware, his malice is great and gives him a strength hardly to be believed in one so lean and withered!'^[3]

And I wondered at his words too, when at last I saw this Sméagol: for he is a pallid gangrel creature, pitiful and thin. He hissed and spluttered and rocked himself backwards and forwards, and slapped his large flat feet on the ground.
   `Loose us! Loose us! ' he cried. `Gollum, gollum. The cord hurts us, yes it does, it hurts us, and we've done nothing.'
   'Are all periain like him?' I asked Legolas in dismay, for by all accounts they seem a merry folk.
   'Nay,' he said. 'I once met the Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, after the Battle of the Five Armies was fought and won, and he had a wholesome look and a fair manner, and his deeds bespoke a goodness of heart.'
   'Thief, thief, thief! Baggins! We hates it, we hates it, we hates it for ever!' muttered Sméagol. 'We ought to have squeezed it, yes precious. And we will, precious!'
   'I deem your days of squeezing are forever over!' laughed Mechenebon, one of the Wood-elf wardens, stepping forward to loom over the wretch.
   `Don't hurt us! Don't let them hurt us, precious! They won't hurt us will they, nice Elves?'

   'But what evil befell him to make him thus?' I wondered.
   'Alas, I cannot say,' replied Legolas. 'What tidings Aragorn brought to the ear of the king, I know not. My father keeps his own counsel!'
   'Aragorn?' I exclaimed. 'This then is the name of the Ranger? It is a mighty name!'
   'Truly!' he replied. 'He is an Elf-friend of noble spirit and that is the name by which he is known to the folk of Rivendell.'
   'He is known to the Elves of Imladris?' Great was my wonder at the deeds of this mortal Man! 'How so?'
   'His tale is his own to tell, and I will not speak of it so openly,' he said glancing askance at Sméagol.
   'Gollum, gollum,' he whimpered with his face to the ground, sobbing in his throat.
   'All I am told,' Legolas said softly, 'is that this creature has suffered much torment, and Gandalf deems there is a chance he may yet be healed.'
   'And who now is Gandalf?' I asked.
   'He whom we name Mithrandir in the woodland tongue is known in the North as Gandalf the Grey.'
`Ach! sss! ' said Sméagol, covering his ears with his hands, as if the speaking of the name hurt him. 'He is cruel! He is harsh, precious! He is fire!' Then he spoke again, but not to us. 'Leave me alone, gollum! We can't find it, gollum, gollum, no, nowhere! O my poor hands, gollum! Ach!'
I looked to Legolas for answers, but he shrugged and shook his head in bewilderment.
   'Come,' he said, 'the Sun is walking in her blue fields and the day grows old; we have a goodly walk of our own yet to do: a league along the woodland path lies before us.'

But when we roused Sméagol to set forth into the greenwood he had yet another grievance!
   'Misery misery! The big light hurts our eyes, it does,' he whined. 'Sss, sss, my preciouss. Not very nice for the nassty Elves to brings us out from the dark, here to where the Yellow Face burns us. No. Not very nice at all, my love.'
   'Soon she will sink and there will be only moonlight to endure.'
   `Ach! sss! The White Face! We hate it,' he hissed. `Nassty, nassty shivery light it is -- sss -- it spies on us, precious. Where are you taking uss?'
   'Not far yonder stands a tree which the king, in his mercy, has given leave for you to climb and feel the fresh air.'
He looked up at us, and a faint light of cunning and eagerness flickered in his pale blinking eyes. 'Trees, you says? Very very good, eh, my precious?'
   'Do not think to flee!' said Legolas sternly. 'We have pity, but do not repay our kindness with falseness.'
   'Yess, yess. No, I means!' said Sméagol sitting up. 'Nice Elves! We'll be nice to them, very nice, if they'll be nice to us, won't we, yes, yess. We will come with them.'
   'I do not trust this sudden change, for I doubt it runs deep,' said Echeleb with a shake of his head.
   'Indeed,' agreed Legolas with a smile, 'but we must hope that through our pity and by kindliness we may reach his wretched heart.'
   'Yess, wretched we are, precious,' Sméagol whined. 'Elves won't kill us, nice Elves.'
   'But wherefore would we slay you?' I asked him.
   'Gah! Elves have hunted us before in elf-country -- sss --- fierce Elves with bright eyes!' He looked at me with his own pale blinking eyes. 'But these are nice Elves, my precious. Kind Elves, yes, yess.'

At last we set forth into the greenwood, and Sméagol's head on its long neck was ever turning this way and that. Legolas led us towards the eastern eaves of the forest where the elf-path came to a little used end; there the trees thinned ere the straggling pools and reed-beds of the Long Marshes begin. Sméagol often paused, sniffing the air, and at the moist smell of the wetlands he moved quickly, with his head and neck thrust forward, oft using his hands as well as his feet like a beast.

Soon we came to a gaunt but towering pine that stood alone upon a low grassy knoll, and Sméagol was set loose. He went up aloft as swift as a squirrel, his soft clinging hands and toes finding holds on the rough bark which even my unshod Green-elven feet could not! The guard set themselves about the foot of the great tree, and sitting upon a thick gnarled root I looked up and saw the shape of Sméagol's large head and ears against the evening sky; now and again he lifted his head slowly, turning it right back on his long skinny neck, as if seeking something our elf-eyes could not descry. Perhaps he was but enjoying the air, but now I wonder...

Night had fallen, but the moon was yet to rise into the dark sky and we waited under the scattered stars. Sméagol still sat aloft the tree, and he paid no heed to our calls to return to the forest floor.
   'I can bring him hither!' said my father's father with a grim smile, lifting up Egros.
   'Stay your bow, Echeleb!' commanded Legolas. 'Mithrandir would not have him hurt nor slain, and we shall not betray his trust.'
   'I shoot not to kill, but to frighten. My shaft shall fly true.'
But Legolas shook his golden head.
   'But see,' said Gellin my father, pointing to a place above where the wretched creature clung.
Ergos sang and found its mark, and with a dismal croak and a flurry of black feathers a dark form fell from the high branches to land with a dull thud upon the earth.
   'Creban!' spat Echeleb, prodding it with his bow. 'Whence it came and whatever its purpose, it cannot bode well.'
   'I do not trust this black crow,' agreed Legolas.
But the sure shot of Echeleb served well its purpose, for Sméagol swiftly foresook the high branches and moved down the tree trunk, head-first like a large foul squirrel, then dropped from the lowest branches of the tree onto all fours beside the dead bird. Then he sent out a long hiss through his teeth and stood up for a moment, tense and menacing; the guard swiftly encircled him, and he collapsed, snivelling. Echeleb asked, 'Grieve you for your feathered friend? Was it spy or messenger?'
Sméagol gave him a swift venomous look, but then fell to whining piteously.
   'No, no friend. Gollum! Sméagol has no friends, poor Sméagol, and we're so lonely, preciouss.'
   'Then you know naught?' said my father.
He stared sadly at the slain creban, then pressed his long finger to it and licked his teeth.
   'We only knows that they are nice to eats,' replied the loathsome creature. 'And it's still fresh, my love!' he added hopefully.
   'Are you not well-fed enough within our Halls that you would eat carrion?' I laughed, though I shuddered at the thought of devouring such a thing. But to my bewilderment he riddled:

'Alive without breath;
As cold as death;
Never thirsting, ever drinking;
Clad in mail, never clinking.'^[4]

It was Legolas who answered. 'Fresh fish from the Forest River thrice each day, though he will only eat them uncooked.'
   'Fissh, nice fissh,' Sméagol cackled. 'Yess, nice fisshes. So juicy-sweet!' A greenish light was kindled in his pale eyes, and they seemed to protrude further than ever from his wizened face.
   ‘Come now!’ Legolas said. ‘Time wears on, and the fair Moon is rising.'
   `You are not wise to be glad of the White Face,' said Sméagol. `It shows you up.'
And casting a last look at the dead creban, he hissed and whispered to himself; it appeared that he was pleased, but wherefore I cannot tell. His halter was afixed anew and, with many a gollum in his throat, he was led back to his dark abode beneath the earth.

Now as I sit within our home amidst the beechen boughs, writing by silver moonlight and the warm golden glow of a Dale-made candle, I ponder the day's errand and all that passed...

Crebain are uncommon even in the deepest gloom of Mirkwood, for the southern Hithaeglir is their home, but perhaps the Shadow of the Forest ere he fled Dol Guldur, or the evil power that now dwells therein, drew these fell birds to our benighted woods. And ever they fly in great flocks and therefore I wonder at the coming of a single creban alone and unlooked-for, for it casts a shadow upon my heart and makes my mind unquiet. I deem it is perhaps a boding of ill, but whereof it portends I cannot guess.

And my thoughts dwell also on the creature Sméagol (though I know now why he is called Gollum by some, and it seems fitting!) Yet I feel pity for the wretch, but what ill course his life had taken to make him thus I do not know, nor can I think to ever understand his twisted mind. But was it mischance or his own deeds that defiled his heart, for he seems to me too guileful to be wholly innocent of this doom. Though I deem he is not wholly ruined, and the counsel of the king is on the mark: with pity and kindliness perhaps he might yet be redeemed.

Perhaps it is well that he was given into our care.

[1] "For [ritual rather than] practical purposes the Eldar observed a week or enquië of six days." (*ahem*)
- The Lord of the Rings, Appendix D, 'The Calendars'
[2] The Fellowship of the Ring, 'The Council of Elrond'
[3] ibid
[4]The Hobbit, 'Riddles in the Dark'

Obviously much of Sméagol's dialogue etc. is taken from The Lord of the Rings.

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