The Parodies Collection

by Adam Roberts

  That day did Gondor, called ‘The Brave’

  Get swatted by an arrow

  Which stuck him in an early grave

  By sticking in his marrow.

  At first he said, ‘We must attack

  We must attack right now!’

  But later he did say ‘Alack’

  And also ‘Urgh’ and ‘Ow’.

  He led the elves in battle’s press

  With awe-inspiring bellow

  But now, as good as we can guess

  His bones have gone all yellow.

  Laid low by his arch-enemy

  It’s a coffin he’s interred in;

  His skin has gone all parchmenty

  And ‘RIP’ ’s his wording.

  Poor Gondor! For Gondor, once ‘the Bold’

  Is now ‘Gondor the Covered-in-mould’.

  Gondor! Our once delicious king,

  Is now a deliquescing thing.

  Oh Gondor’s lost his majesty,

  And Gondor’s lost his honour,

  And Gondor’s lost his middle d

  For Gondor is a goner.

  Oh no!

  An orkish arrow thwacks a tush.

  Alas!

  ’Tis Gondor’s gluteus maximus.

  Beware!

  An orkish warrior hacks him as

  He staggers from the strife.

  Bewail!

  Just as French bread lacks houmous

  So Gondor lacks all life.

  He lies upon the grass

  With an arrow in his

  Body.

  The Orks were scattered to the hills, and hunting parties hunted them down. Party, here, is not supposed to suggest any kind of dancing, drinking or letting down of hair; these were very grim hunting parties indeed.

  Gondor the Brownie was burnt upon a pyre; and his people mourned him for three days and three nights. And a new monarch was crowned, Queen Eve the Elven, daughter of Gondor and inheritor of the tainted line of King Bleary.

  But because the Elves had fought the Orks alone, an estrangement grew between the Elves and the Men. The Elves did say, ‘Where were you lot, eh? Fine bloody alliance this turned out to be. Here it was, all kicking off, and you decided to have a bloody lie-in.’ And the Men did reply, ‘They attacked in the middle of the night! It was a surprise attack! How were we supposed to know?’ And the Elves did say, ‘You didn’t exactly fall over yourselves rushing to help us when you did hear about it, did you?’ And Men did say, ‘Well, if you feel that way about it, maybe we’d be better off without an alliance.’ And the Elves did say, ‘Suits us.’ And Men did say, ‘Fine.’ And Elves did say, ‘Fine.’

  So it was that the great alliance of Men and Elves fell into desuetude. And Queen Eve Attim, of the line of Arthur-Brick, 18 did vow: ‘Nevermore shall my line have dealing with mortal Men.’ And this vow caused great trouble in after times.

  18 This noble elvish line of princes and princesses were so called because they combined the wisdom and courage of the fabled King Arthur with the strength and buildability of a brick. Apparently. And – before you say anything – yes, there was a mythological figure called Arthur in the traditions of Upper Middle Earth, just as there was in our world. Just one of those strange coincidences of names, that’s all.

  Of Belend and Lüthwoman

  The First Part of the

  Tale of Belend and Lüthwoman

  At this time the kings of Men were drawn from the royal house of Prorn. King Prorn the Mighty ruled seventy years and he ruled wisely and well; but he was slain eventually in the Battle of Nirhastings, pierced by many orkish arrows.

  His son, King Prorn II, inherited the throne, and he also ruled wisely for many years, but died at last, as is the fate of all Men. Historians disagree about how he met his end: some say that he died battling a monstrous Baldtrog; some that he was slain by an Ork raiding party; some that he led an assault against Sharon and was burnt up by lava on the slopes of Mount Dumb; and some that he died at home, straining at stool. He was succeeded in his turn by King Prorn III, known as the Grrreat.

  Now the sons of Prorn III were Stronginthearm, who grew to manhood strong in the arm; and Braveface, who grew to manhood with the bravest face in all of the realms of Men. No terror could frighten his face, no debilitating or demoralising emotion could cause his lip to crumple or his eyes to moisten up. And the third son of King Prorn was Belend, who grew to manhood with a certain impressive attribute, into which we shall not, at the present time and in the present company, go.

  Belend was a solitary soul, who spent much of his time in the woods and amongst wild animals, although not in a, you know, funny way; nothing odd, just a healthy, manly enjoyment of the outdoors, fresh air, a good hike, the company of big hairy bears, and so on. And he grew to full manhood, and an extremely full manhood it was too, if you know what I mean. And one day he was walking in early autumn amongst the trees of Taur-en-Ferno, with their flame-red leaves and pollen blowing off the heads of oaks like smoke.

  Now, Queen Eve Arthur-Brick Attim III had one child, and this was the beautiful Lüthwoman. And one day she went wandering in the woods singing songs, swimming naked in the pools, and doing all that kind of woodland thing.

  And Lüthwoman was fairer than all the fair, well-formed, elegant, light-footed and fair, or did I say that already. Anyway, she was a princess of the Elvish race of outstanding natural beauty. And Belend, seeing her, fell in love with her immediately and without delay; and approached her chivalrously and got into conversation with her. And the two of them wandered amongst the trees, talking and getting to know one another; and the longer they talked the more Lüthwoman found herself drawn to Belend. For he was handsome and courteous, and as he told her tales of his many adventures, fighting Orks, travelling in the woods of the north, and befriending the wild animals she was favourably impressed.

  She said, ‘Belend, you are the throngetht and bravetht of the thonth of Men.’

  To which Belend replied, after a short pause, ‘You what?’

  ‘Oh Belend,’ gasped Lüthwoman, flinging herself upon him, ‘My paththion for you ith a thrange and overwhelming thing! Though you be mortal and I a printheth of the elvith rathe, yet mutht I embrathe you! Take me in your throng armth and kith me. Kith me! Kith me!’

  And Belend replied, ‘No, didn’t catch any of that.’ But, being no fool, he did not spurn the physical advances of so beautiful a woman, and he kithed her long and hard.

  The love between Belend and Lüthwoman was a mighty love, a passionate and majestic love; and after a twenty-minute rest it was a passionate and majestic love a second time. And they resolved, she and he, that they must be married.

  But there had never been a marriage between an Elvish woman and a Mannish boy; no, nor between an Elvish lad and a Mannish lady.19 No, nay, never, nonaynever not once had elf mated with aught else but elf and mortal with aught else but mortal,20 and that had always been the way it was. But the love between Belend and Lüthwoman broke through these barriers. It was Romeo and Juliet, it was Starsky and Hutch, it was Scooby Doo and Shaggy; it was a love that shattered preconceptions and flew in the face of society’s prejudices, yea, veritably flew in society’s-prejudice’s face like a moth flapping and making society’s-prejudice flap its hands around its face and go ‘Urgh! Get off!’

  And Belend came to the Elven Queen Eve, of the Eleven Elves of the Evening; and did say, ‘Um, ah, don’t mean to butt in, um, sorry to,’ for he was rather embarrassed and, not being in the habit of talking with royalty, he didn’t know what to say. So he cleared his throat, and thought to himself ‘Here goes’ and said: ‘I wonder if I might have an audience, ma’am.’ But instead of saying ‘ma’am’ as he intended, he was so nervous that he sort of coughed or barked halfway through the word, saying ‘ma-akh!-akh!’

  And Queen Eve the Elven was not impressed.

  She was sitting on her silver throne, at the head of her great hall, and the benches to the left and right were filled with the nobl
est and handsomest of the Elvish princes and princesses, who revered her as the inheritor of the line of Bleary and Gondor.

  ‘What is it, mortal?’ she asked. ‘For never in many long years has one of the sons of Men dared to enter the halls of the Elven Queen. Know ye not that our onetime alliance has fallen to desuetude?’

  ‘To what?’ asked Belend.

  ‘Desuetude.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Belend, nodding and going for an ‘of course I understand what that word means’ expression on his face. ‘Anyway, I really fancy your daughter.’

  And Queen Eve was astonished and astonied, as well as being astied and a’ed.

  ‘Silence!’ she cried. ‘Insolent mortal!’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Belend, reddening, and standing awkwardly with one foot resting upon the other. ‘It’s just—’

  ‘For know this,’ cried Eve, lifting her arms for a more properly melodramatic effect, ‘I am Queen of the Elves. I have taken a vow that neither I nor any of my line shall have anything to do with the sons of Men!’

  ‘Right,’ said Belend. ‘Well that’s a bit awkward, you see, because I was rather hoping that Lüth-woman and I could get married.’

  ‘Marry her!’ cried Queen Eve, in amazement and scorn.

  ‘She and I are in love.’

  At this Queen Eve laughed. ‘Men know nothing of love! Only Elves have the capacity for love: in Men it is merely lust, sentiment, habit and self-delusion. For how could it be otherwise? For Elves endure, and so their love endures; but Men wither and fade, die and pass into nothingness, and so their love is fickle.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ said Belend growing more confident, ‘I love her, and she loves me; and we wish to marry.’ 91

  ‘Impossible! I shall never permit it.’

  And Belend did shuffle about a bit on the smooth marble flags of the elven hall, and look about him at the rows of hostile faces. And he did say, ‘Oh go on.’

  And Queen Eve laughed loud and contemptuously; and her nobles, and princes, and princesses laughed, following the lead of their monarch. And Belend did blush redder still, faced with the derision of these haughty elven lords and ladies.

  ‘I say,’ he said. ‘This isn’t very courteous of you.’

  ‘Never in my reign,’ said Queen Eve, with a curl to her lips, ‘has any mortal Man dared such boldness.’

  ‘I love her, and she loves me,’ said Belend a second time. ‘I ask your blessing upon our union.’

  ‘Blessing! Rather a curse. I say you shall not marry my daughter.’

  ‘Be careful,’ said Belend, growing bolder. ‘Not lightly are the curses of Elves uttered, and easily do they go astray in the wide world. I say I will marry your daughter Lüthwoman, and so says she. Shall my word come into conflict with your word? Say again.’

  ‘I am Queen of the Elves of Upper Middle Earth, ageless and deathless; you are mortal Man,’ said Eve. ‘Should your word and mine come into conflict, yours would shatter as glass and mine prove adamantine. My own life will wither and die before my word is broken. But do you speak truly when you say my daughter has chosen you over a noble Elvish prince?’

  ‘She has.’

  Eve shook her head. ‘It cannot be.’

  ‘Why not? I am worthy,’ said Belend, growing bolder still.

  ‘Can you prove such worth?’ asked the Queen. ‘I say you cannot – it is beyond the power of any Man.’

  ‘Not beyond my power, lady,’ Belend boasted.

  ‘Very well, Belend son of Prorn,’ said Eve, laughing again though not kindly. ‘So be it. I lay a task upon you. Fetch me the Sellmi that Sharon hoards in his fastness in the dead land of Moider! – Bring me that treasure of Emu, which has fallen into the grasp of evil to our cost, and you shall have the hand of my daughter in marriage.’

  And the lordlings and ladylings of Elfland did laugh at this task, for it seemed to them impossible to achieve such a quest. But Belend gathered himself up to his full height, five foot ten and three-quarters, and did say, as gravely as he could, ‘I shall do this thing, my lady, and after it is done I shall claim what you have promised me.’

  And Belend left the Halls of the Elves, to travel, as all thought, to his certain death. And none who saw him leave expected to see him alive again.

  The Second Part of the

  Tale of Belend and Lüthwoman

  And when Lüthwoman heard what task had been set upon her beloved Belend she wept, and he comforted her in his special way, which stopped her weeping but not her cries. And after this the two of them resolved to embark on this perilous quest together. ‘For,’ said Belend, ‘Two heads, like two breasts, are better than one.’

  And Lüthwoman did say, ‘Cheeky!’ and make as if to slap him, but did not really slap him, it being a feint, comical play-acting of a pretend outrage rather than an actual assault.

  And they did kiss once more, and caress, and make cooing noises, and call one another ‘snooglums’ and ‘wiggly-pig’ and ‘jonny-tommy’ and such like. And any persons that overheard them in this exchange did desire to throw up, frankly.

  So it was that, one bright morning, Belend and Lüthwoman rode out together from the yellow-green spring leaves of Taur-Ea-Dorpants, and along the bridle path that they hoped would lead to a bridal path, and thence to an unbridled passion, and similar puns upon the word ‘bridle’ too numerous and too groany to list here.

  ‘But,’ said Lüthwoman, ‘how thall we protheed? For Moidor! ith many leagueth from here, and there are hordeth of Orkth and other uglieth between uth and the throne of Tharon, Lord of Evil, Lidleth Eye that ever watcheth our advanthe. And the Thellmi of Emu ith his motht preciouth pothethion, the object from which hith magical power largely deriveth – and none knowth in which guarded room or locked thafekeep he holdth it.’

  To which Belend replied, ‘Right, insofar as I understood any of that, I think you’re asking about how we’re actually going to go about grabbing this Sellmi thing, yeah?’

  And Lüthwoman nodded.

  ‘Oh,’ Belend said airily. ‘I’m sure something’ll come up.’

  And they travelled for many days, south and east and slept at night under the far off stars, lying in one another’s arms for warmth. On the third day they came to the mighty River Raver.

  Now, the River Raver is the widest and wildest of all the rivers of Upper Middle Earth. It gallops through its sharp-cut banks faster than the fleetest horses; and it is deep and cold, for its waters flow straight and hard from the frozen peaks of the Blue-joke Mountains, the Ered Loonpants. It is a league wide at its narrowest, and no bridge crosses it; and along its length are many waterfalls and stone-jagged tumbles. And no swimmer, mortal or elf, had ever gone into these waters and reached the far side.

  Here Belend and Lüthwoman stopped for a day and a night, for they could not see how to cross the foaming torrent. Belend constructed a boat from leaves, which he stitched together with strands of grass. It was just about large enough for two, and it took the shape of a hollowed-out avocado skin. But when Lüthwoman looked at it she said, ‘If you think I’m getting into that to croth the mighty river, you’re very much mithtaken.’

  And Belend did reply, ‘Hey I understood all of that! I’m definitely getting better at understanding you.’

  And looking again at his leaf/grass construction, he had to agree with her that it was pretty flimsy-looking, actually. So they did not attempt to cross the river that day, and slept on its banks that night.

  The following morning the song of dawn birds rose like flute music over the drone of rushing waters, and the sun was young and bright in a pale sky. Belend and Lüthwoman departed from their path. They made their way along the northern bank of the River Raver. After a day’s trek their ears became weary of the incessant roar of the river, which grew almost as a great weight upon them, heavier with each hour. And Belend craved silence, and the peace of a forest glade; and Lüthwoman craved warmth, and air dry with midday sunshine, for her clothes and hair were wet with the spray th
at swirled from the water like smoke at its many rapids, waterfalls and hollows. The very air was damp and cold.

  Their hearts misgave.

  And Belend did say, although he had to yell for his voice to be heard above the shout of the river, ‘Shall we return to Taur-ea-dorpants? Shall I take you back to Elftonjon and face the scorn of your mother? For I fear we shall never cross this great river.’

  And Lüthwoman did reply, speaking shrilly in her attempt to raise the volume of her words above that of the flowing water, ‘Thith ethpethial thummit of thircumthtanthes ith thuch that thlinking back to the foretht ith thtrark impothible, or tho it theemth to me.’

  Belend looked puzzled momentarily, and then he did grin exaggeratedly, and nod, and say, ‘Yes, yes, quite right’, as if he understood any of this.

  They slept another night beside the titanic growl of the river, and the sound of it insinuated into their dreams and made them uneasy; and Belend dreamt that he stood before a great crowd who jeered and yelled; and Lüthwoman dreamt that she moved amongst innumerable lowing cattle of gigantic size.

  In the morning Belend tried to catch fish with a line from one overhanging crag of the riverbank; but the fish of the River Raver are swift-moving and their thoughts are cold as the water, and few are attracted by a fisherman’s lure. And so the two went hungry and walked east, always hoping that as they moved upriver it might grow less fierce, or flow more navigably, or that they might come to shallows or a bridge. But they did not.

  And in the evening, sore and weary, and hungry, they came to a glade of conifers. And within this wood they chanced upon a house, little more than a hovel, made of whole timbers and roofed with a thatch of fir-sprigs. And they hallooed at this door, and said ‘Anybody home?’ and ‘Hello?’, which word is more usually a greeting than a question although they used it in the form of a question on this occasion. 98

  Now, inside this dwelling lived a being of great age and great wisdom; and she had many names: she was called Witch?, or Dot, or to those who were fond of her, Auntie Dot: although, in the original language of the making of the world, her name had been at first Punctus. And she came out of her hut as a crone, very aged although her eyes were bright: it was as a crone that she had been first made, for she stood at the end of things. She smiled at her visitors.