“Sometimes they tug my beard and ask why I’ve got a floor mop on my face. Or they say, ‘You’re dressed up.’ To which I say, ‘You’re dressed too.’ I’m not going to be pushed around. I’ve been through too much in life.
“Things are better now. And there’s work at last. I’m Gandalf until three in the afternoon. Then I change my clothes and I’m Małgorzata again. I jump in the car with the other girls, and we’re off to our other jobs.
“Sierakowo? My husband was sent here by the forestry commission. The first time I came here, twenty years ago, it was July, and the broom was in flower everywhere. It was all lovely and yellow. I thought we were coming to live in paradise. But in November, when we finally moved, it was cold, gray, and dismal. There was nothing left of the broom but stumps. It was enough to make you cry.
“For years and years, I sat on my butt at home. I was a fairly typical housewife, washing, cleaning, and cooking. And taking my child to the hospital. My daughter had trouble with her liver and spleen. Three times a week I had to take her to Koszalin on the bus.
“Thanks to the hobbits, the village has changed. And I’ve changed too. I used to spend all my free time sitting in front of the TV. I knew all the programs by heart. Now I can’t remember when I last watched TV—I think it was in May.
“Everyone used to ask, ‘Where is Sierakowo?’ I’d reply, ‘Sianów district, the place where they make matches. Now when I say Sierakowo, everyone says: ‘The hobbits!’
“After four years, I went on the trail through the woods for the first time for myself. As soon as I saw the trolls, I took to my heels. I ran all the way to the surfaced road before I said to myself, ‘You idiot, what are you running away for? Those trolls are your colleagues!’”
Dr. Idziak from the top of the ladder
After a few hundred yards on a surfaced road you’re at the end of the village. There’s a slight rise here, from which you can see almost the entire village spread out before you: a little church, a few dozen houses that were originally German, and a school, which any day now will stop being a school.
Wacław Idziak, promoter of themed villages, found this place while working on a strategy for the Sianów district. “The residents helped me to make maps of their areas. We were looking for attractive places. The map of Sierakowo was incredible: megalithic tombs in the woods and some stone circles. Tolkien sprang to mind immediately.”
After studying Polish philology at Poznań University, he worked at a cultural center, then lectured in sociology and philosophy. In 1989 he wanted to be as close as he could to the transformation, so he resigned from the college and took a job at a bakery. “I created new kinds of bread. Then I ran a wholesaler’s, selling organic foods, until I became manager of the Regional Development Agency in Koszalin. By then I was already trying to promote themed villages. But people had other things on their minds. And from the top of the ladder, it was hard to do anything at the bottom. So I resigned from the agency, and my wife and I went into the field.
“Our first attempts? They were at a place called Wierzbinek. We taught people how to find cultural references. Wierzba means a willow—Goethe wrote about willows, and they have associations with devils and Chopin.
“People sometimes think we only care about money, and that we want to make a fast buck out of the hobbits for ourselves. Not true. We have money from EU grants. We’ve had assistance from lots of charitable foundations. I received a grant from Ashoka, an organization that supports social entrepreneurs. I haven’t had a penny from the hobbits.
“How did it all start? We were known around here. We’d organized fetes in the local villages, events with jugglers, and arts workshops. The people from Sierakowo knew about all that. But the first time I told them about the hobbits, I thought one of them would stand up and tap himself on the forehead.”
The Witch with the Internet
“Some of them have tapped their foreheads. But how can you help it around here? I, for instance, give the children a drink that’s made from a handful of spiders, a handful of mosquitoes, and bog water,” says the Witch.
On the sign leading to her kingdom, it says: “The firehouse-and-clubroom at Sierakowo Sławieńskie was built using the PZU’s preventative fund, with contributions from the public.” (The PZU is Poland’s leading insurance company.) Behind the door there’s a small library with an Internet connection. This is where the Witch changes into Edyta, a woman with cropped fair hair and a very friendly smile.
“How did I get involved with the hobbits? One time my cousin couldn’t go and be the Witch, so I said, ‘I’ll go for you, but what do I have to say?’ So I put on a sack, painted my face black, and went off to scare the children.”
Her cousin is an Ent. We’re sitting together around the table in the clubroom. “I’ve been involved from the start of the project. Because it was all organized around the school. And under my real name, Bogusława, I work at the school. That’s to say, I used to. Because the local authority has just closed our school.
“We’ve known for ages it was closing down. I was supposed to get my diploma in 2004. But I was scared I’d be too expensive a teacher and nobody would take me on. A teacher with a diploma has to be paid more—that’s the law. So I chose to remain cheaper.
“Only this year did I finally change my mind. I’ve now done some postgraduate studies, and I’m taking more courses. What must be will be. And it has paid off. I’m going to work at the clubroom in Sianów.
“It’s a real shame for us to lose the school. This year our children won the district nativity-play contest. We had a computer room with new equipment. For Bilbo’s birthday, we put on a puppet play. There are plenty of cities where there’s less going on than at our little school.
“But there were only twelve children. The local authority calculated that it cost three hundred thousand zlotys (then about eighty-five thousand dollars) a year. We lost by one vote.”
The lady sołtys is shelling peas
Apparently the lady sołtys—the community leader—is on the warpath against the hobbits. Why? No one’s entirely sure. At first she was involved. The local mayor bought her an ostrich, and she was going to show it to the children as an attraction.
But then things took a turn. She started locking her gate and keeping the ostrich out of sight. Then it died. What was it all about? No one knows. I’m going to ask.
The sołtys is called Mariola, and she’s no-nonsense, down-to-earth, energetic, and busy. She and her sons have just been picking peas, and they have to be shelled. She doesn’t want to talk about the hobbits. “You can write that I wish them well,” she says, and tries to say good-bye. I can’t allow that. Nobody knows as much about the life of a village as the sołtys. So we agree that I’ll help with the shelling, and meanwhile we’ll have a chat about the village and its problems.
“But not a word about the hobbits!” she stresses.
We sit down. I obediently start shelling. “The people here are mainly from Operation Vistula.* They’re hardworking. There was never much hanging around outside the store with a bottle of wine.
“Problems? The main one is the road. It’s full of holes. Lately there was a fire at the farmworkers’ building—the firefighters had a very tough drive to get there. I won’t even mention the ambulance. Most of our people are old. They’re afraid that if anything happens to them, the ambulance won’t get here in time.
“A second problem is the poor phone signal. Hardly any cell phones work well here. In the twenty-first century, right near the German border. Unthinkable.
“The third is that there are fewer and fewer young people here. Fifty of the two hundred villagers were born before or during the war. The young people run off to wherever they can.”
Gollum smokes Marlboros
Gollum, also known as Zenon Pusz, runs the village store. We’re sitting on a small bench, drinking Tyskie beer and smoking Marlb
oros. We’re remembering the days when in the countryside you smoked filterless cigarettes and drank cheap wine known as “brainfuck.”
That’s ancient history now. Hardly anyone buys cheap wine at Gollum’s store. His regular customers are sitting at a small table next to us, downing beer and talking about how democracy is falling apart in Poland.
“Imagine taking away your driver’s license just for riding a bike . . . Even in Gomułka’s day they never did that . . .”
“’Cause you were riding that bike when you were wasted, Jaś,” observes a man who’s not as inebriated.
“It’s all the same. In the old days you could even drive a tractor while under the influence. You could always come to terms with the old militia. It’s a police state now.”
Let’s get back to the hobbits. “Gollum? He used to be one of them, but he went crazy. Because of the ring. He killed his brother for the ring,” Zenon starts to say, but some more customers appear, and he has to go behind the counter to serve them.
“There was a similar story in the next village,” recalls the cycling enthusiast. “But it wasn’t a ring they quarreled over—it was a girl.”
“Nooo, it was a piece of land,” the other one reminds him. “One brother killed the other. Gospel truth.”
Zenon comes back to his half-smoked cigarette and his interrupted story. “When a tour group comes I say: ‘Greetings to you, hobbits. I’m a hobbit too.’ Then they shout: ‘No you’re not!’ And they go look for the ring in the pond.”
“Tell him how you made the pond, Zenon!”
“By accident. A few years ago I planted some potatoes. The stream flooded and the potatoes went to rot. But I dragged the cultivator over that patch and dug out a small pit. That’s where they look for the ring. It’s only knee deep, but I tell them it’s ten feet.
“Last year, one woman clung to the rope with her hands and feet, though her butt was already touching the bottom. She was terrified.”
“Hey, Zenon, perhaps you could fix me up with a job?” says the cyclist.
“Would you rather be a troll or a dwarf?” asks Gollum, laughing. “You see, our parents lived entirely off the land. But now we hardly cultivate it at all. Last year I converted twelve acres into forest. The EU gives us money. If the local authority gives permission, all the land here will be converted into forest.”
The Elf Queen likes the movie
“Something’s wrong with the kids these days,” says Queen Galadriel, sharing her thoughts. “Rather than pick flowers for me, the Elf Queen, their first thought is to look for sticks to fight off the trolls. We were more peaceful than that.”
This year the queen—a.k.a. Małgorzata—plucked up the courage to take a job at Espersen, a fish-processing firm.
“Why do I say ‘I plucked up the courage’? Because if you haven’t worked for a long time, it’s hard to make that first effort. But seriously, it’s the first time I’ve had a job.”
On the website we read that Espersen’s international mission is to supply Baltic Sea fish to quality-conscious customers in Europe and the USA; their standard products include frozen fish blocks, frozen fillets, special cuts, and a range of breaded fish.
These standard products are deboned and packed by the Elf Queen. Right now she’s on a month’s leave. She’s not sure what’s going to happen next.
“I might have to resign from the hobbits. That would be a pity. But the hobbits don’t provide a pension, Espersen does.
“The kids? I’m a good character. From me, they get an artifact that’s supposed to protect them.”
“What do they get?”
“Like I said, an artifact. But if the group can’t answer my question, I keep a hostage. What sort of thing do I ask? About the characters in Tolkien. Or a riddle: ‘Yellow and red, they fall from the trees, they’re carried about by the wind and the breeze. What are they?’
“I get the riddles from the Internet. It’s hard to imagine life in the village without a computer now.
“Last year we had a very large number of tourists. I think everyone’s happy about it. Just a small village, and so many tour buses.
“When they see me, sometimes they shout, ‘Red Riding Hood!’ And then I say, ‘Sorry, friends, but that’s a different story.’
“Though sometimes you get a child who’s read Tolkien and doesn’t like it here, saying it’s not like the book. I haven’t read the book, but we did go and see the movie. You’ve got to like reading. I don’t. But I really enjoyed the movie.”
The First Troll is waiting for the local authority
“If I raise my wrist, I can’t move my fingers,” says the First Troll, showing me a hand that was badly mangled in an accident at the PGR (the state farm). “My hand was dragged between two metal rollers. The doctors only managed to save one tendon.
“But my attitude to life is that you only live once and there’s no point worrying. If things are bad today, maybe tomorrow will be better. Just like now. In April my home burned down. We were living in the old farmworkers’ building. The local authority says they’ll rebuild it by November, but they haven’t even started. I’m living at the school, with my wife and kids. So what am I to do, weep?
“Why Sierakowo? My father had an accident, and at the age of fourteen I had to run his farm myself. Later I ended up at the animal-breeding PGR at Sowno. And I found myself a wife there. She wanted to stay at the PGR, because they gave you everything there. When the PGR collapsed, we went on welfare.
“The hobbits? What I like best about it is that all the money stays in the village. If there’s a fete, our ladies do the cooking, our storekeeper sells the beer, and our teacher plays the music. Our own people get to earn something, not outsiders.
“I find it easy to communicate with the kids.”
“How could he fail to, when he’s made eleven of his own?” says the blacksmith of Middle-earth, a.k.a. Stefan, from behind his newspaper.
“I’ve only got seven!” says the First Troll indignantly. The blacksmith refuses to back off. “Come on! Every other redhead who comes on the tour is yours.”
The Troll dismissively waves a hand—the intact one.
“We had training courses too. They told us to approach the children the same way as they approach you. If the kid’s nice, be nice too. If he shouts, so do you.
“I’ve done thirty or forty courses in all. Never in my life did I expect to do so much more learning after trade school. And we travel the world! I’ve been to Austria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. And England too.
“But we also teach them about nature. The city kids don’t know what a duck looks like. And if the Witch tells them to go catch some mosquitoes, they’re off to look for them. They’ve no idea mosquitoes don’t fly around in the daytime.”
The Second Troll is counting on the hobbits
“The worst thing is not knowing what we’ve got for certain. If the local community lets us have the former school building, we can go ahead with some major development plans.”
The Second Troll—a.k.a. Józef—is the manager of Hobbits’ Village. “About thirty people earn a living from the hobbits now. We receive several thousand visitors. We’re professionals. There’s some real money starting to come in. How much? Hard to calculate. But in the season it adds up to several thousand zlotys per person.
“But if they don’t give us the school, it’s hard to say if we’ll be able to keep going. And it’d be a pity for all this to go to waste. The people have changed. Some of them were afraid to say a word to anyone. These days they’re outgoing and talkative.”
He used to work as a shipfitter. Then he went his own way. “At first it didn’t go badly. My brother and I had five stores in the local villages. We took out a lease on a vehicle. But society began to get poorer. Who’s come worst out of it? My pals! You can’t give your pals credit? Yes, you can, but unfortunately
we’ve got nothing but pals around here. So at just one store we were owed seven thousand in credit. We were the boldest, and thus among those who took the worst beating in those years. Now we’re the boldest too. People come here from all over the country to learn from us.
“You see that shed? I built it a dozen years ago. My friends and I were going to make parts for the little Fiats, but it didn’t work out. Now it’s going to be the Troll’s Inn. We’ve just set up a company. We’re going to try to live off nothing but the hobbits.”
“Is it going to work?”
“Oh yes, it’ll be great. And if not, we’ll do something else.”
Dr. Idziak does some juggling
It’s the end of the tour. Wacław Idziak is standing opposite the group of community leaders from the Lublin area. He’s holding four little balls. With his right hand, he keeps throwing one of them in the air and catching it, slowly and steadily. “For years on end it was like this in the village. You only had to master a single skill: sowing the fields, raising stock, whatever. But now times have changed.” And he starts to juggle. “Nowadays you have to try to do this,” he says, juggling three balls at once. “Or this.” And he tosses up two balls, then just one by turns.
The Lublin area community leaders shake their heads. “It’ll never catch on at our place.”
“That’s what they said here too,” replies Idziak.
The community leaders shake their heads again. “There’s poverty around here. Where we live it’s not quite so bad that we have to make hobbits of ourselves.”
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