Ah the Shire, good tilled earth, a prosperous green country as far as the eye can see. A free land where you see your children playing in the fields, your wife smiling as evening supper is nearly on the table. When harvest comes, you eat of your own field, and taste joyfully of the strawberries and cream. Where there is time for birthday parties and fireworks, without the slightest concern for armies of goblins or dragons; where swords belong on the wall, not at your waste, and horses are burdened with plows, not warriors. Where adventures are for the big folk, they make you late, and you come home with mud in your shoes, messy things, adventures. No, in the Shire, when you awake in the cool morning, you see the blooming flowers outside of your window, sparkling as the rising sun reflects off the petals of purple and scarlet. After a good breakfast and perhaps, even a second, you walk down to the market where you hear the tales of far beyond, and you return with the finest catch of the day. You spend the afternoon gardening, or cutting wood, planting or writing, whatever suits your fancy. And when you are hot and tired, you run down in your bare feet across the smooth grass to the flowing streams, to wash the hot sun off of your face. And when that sun sets after a long joyful day you sit at the table surrounded by your family and warmed by the good hearth. At the fall of night, you wander out to the porch to have a good smoke, poring over the day with pipe-weed and friends. And the last thing you see as you drift off into a deep comfortable sleep is the final dance of the stars, whose melody rocks you to your slumber. And so we have lived, as long as i can remember. but no more.
If you travel outside of the Shire, you will quickly begin to hear rumors, dark tales of great perils far away. But also, you will hear of the growing shadow, the darkness that creeps ever closer to our homes. The Goblins are growing bolder they say, coming down from the mountains raiding merchant trains and villagers. Men of Rhudar and Dunland have grown increasingly hostile to our people, there are stories that even some outlying villages have been raided! Our peace and freedom is vanishing before our eyes! But it is not so close as to alert our people, they remain still asleep, not for ignorance, as we have all heard the tales, but for denial. The thought that their world could be turned from emerald meadows of sparkling flowers into a battlefield of fire and swords,may never cross their simple minds, no matter what the occasion. They are willingly blind, as an ostrich with it's head buried in the ground, it ignores the turns and spirals of the world, and waits for others to well, fix things.
Thankfully they are not all this way, many Sheriffs of both the Shire and Bree have been increasing their watch, training new recruits, but they are not soldiers or warriors. Indeed we have few of those, very few. But we hobbits have some strength, we can move silently if we wish, and remain unseen in many terrains. The men of Bree are lumbermen and hunters, and can handle well both the axe and the bow. But our greatest hope are our friends, the Dunedain, these rangers at least for now keep the darkness at bay. But we cannot rely on them, not forever.
While Arnor was destroyed they left us many cashes of arms and armor, though they remain unused to this day, they were perhaps left for just such a time. indeed the time has come, to beat our plowshares into swords, and our pruning hooks into spears. It is time for the men to become soldiers once again! To leave the fruitful field for the field of battle, and the work horse for the war horse. Yes let the lands of the free people muster, we too will fight, we to will resist the shadow. Though we may not have the strength of kings or elf lords. a hobbit has just the cause to fight for his home as does any elf or man! Perhaps it is time we pay the price of our long held freedom. Truly the night has come, and we will go forth to meet it. For this, this is the hour for the men to put the women and children to bed, and FIGHT OFF THE WOLVES!