Chapter Text
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole (nasty, dirty, and often wet, was more descriptive of the hobbit who lived there), nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat (sitting and eating were the hobbit’s favorite pastimes): it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall, wide and round like the hobbit: with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with very wide chairs, and lots and lots of places to eat - the hobbit was fond of meals. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill - The Hill, as all the people for many miles around called it - and many wide round doors opened out of it, first on one side then on the other. No going upstairs for the hobbit (she couldn’t have managed the climb): bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, wardrobes (lots of these), pantries (she had a whole wing devoted to food), kitchens, dining-rooms, all were on the same floor, indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left-hand side (going in), for these were the very closest to the food storage wing.
This hobbit was a very well-to-do, very fat, hobbit, and her name was Big’uns. The Big’unses had lived in the neighborhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were very rich, but also because they were, to the last, extremely fat and well-endowed. You could tell a Big’uns was coming (by the ground shaking under her weight) without actually seeing her. This is a story of how a Big’uns went and had an adventure, found herself doing and eating things altogether unexpected. She may have lost the neighbors’ respect (probably not; she came back much much fatter), but she gained -- well, you will see how much she gained in the end.
The mother of our particular hobbit ... what is a hobbit? I suppose hobbits need some description nowadays, since they have become rare and shy of the Skinny People, as they call us. They are (or were) a short people, about half our height, and fatter than the bearded Dwarves. Hobbits tend to be fatter than anyone. There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which helps them gain incredible weight from the smallest meal (which they never have, if they can help it; excessive meals were more their style). They are inclined to be fat in the stomach, indeed all over; they dress in bright colors (chiefly green and yellow-when they can get clothes to fit them); have long clever brown fingers which are adept at finding food and stuffing it in their mouths, good-natured faces, and laugh deep fruity laughs (especially after dinner, which they have twice a day, and more if they can get it). Now you know enough to go on with. As I was saying, the mother of this hobbit -- of Belly-donna Big’uns, that is -- was the fabulous Belly-donna Cook, one of the three remarkably fat daughters of the Old Cook, the greatest chef among the hobbits who lived across The Water, the small river that ran at the foot of the Hill. It was often said (in other families) that long ago, one of the Cook ancestors must have eaten his way across Middle-Earth, consuming everything he could find. That was, of course, absurd, but certainly there was still something excessive about them, and once in a while members of the Cook-clan would disappear for some long time and return stuffed beyond capacity and immensely fat. This was impressive, but the fact remained that the Cooks were not as respectable as the Big’unses, though they were undoubtedly fatter. Not that Belly-donna Cook ever had any unaccounted feastings after she became Mrs. Bigguy Big’uns. Bigguy, that was Belly-donna (Jr)’s father, built the most luxurious hobbit-hole for her (and partly with her money) that was to be found either under the Hill or over the Hill or across the Water, and filled it with the most fattening foods to be found anywhere, and she ate well, quickly growing so fat that she was immobile and bed-ridden. Her dear husband was only too pleased with this development, and spent the rest of his days feeding and fucking her every day, and most often eight hours or more each day. Still, it is probable that Belly-donna, although she looked and behaved exactly like a second edition of her immense and well-fed mother, got something a bit weird from the Big’uns side, maybe a fetish or two, that only waited for a chance to come out. The chance never arrived, until Belly-Donna Big’uns was grown up, being about twenty-five years old or so, and living in the beautiful hobbit-hole built by her father, which I have just described to you, until she had in fact apparently settled down, immobile.
By some curious chance one morning long ago in the quiet of the world when there was less noise and more food, and the hobbits were still numerous and hugely fat, and Belly-donna Big’uns was sitting outside her door after breakfast eating an after-breakfast snack that covered all the way to the other side of the outdoor table - Lardass came by. Lardass! If you had heard only a quarter of what I have heard about her, and I have only heard very little of all there is to hear, you would be prepared for any sort of remarkable tale. Giant bellies and massive bosoms sprouted up all over the place wherever she went, in the most extraordinary fashion. She had not been down that way under The Hill for ages and ages, not since her friend the Old Cook died, in fact, and the hobbits had almost forgotten what she looked like. She had been away over The Hill and across The Water on feasts of her own since they were small (but still incredibly fat) hobbit-boys and hobbit-girls.
All that the unsuspecting Belly-donna saw that morning was a hugely buxom woman with a staff. She had a tall pointed blue hat, a long grey cloak, straining to cover her vast bosom and swollen rear, a silver scarf sadly covering her massive cleavage, and immense black boots.
“Good morning!” mumbled Belly-dona around her massive mouthful, and she meant it. The sun was shining, and the food was plentiful and succulent. But Lardass looked at her from over her massive breasts that stuck out farther than the reach of her arms. “What do you mean?” she said. “Do you wish me a good morning; or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?”
“All of them at once,” said Belly-donna. “And a very fine morning for a snack after breakfast out of doors, into the bargain. If you like, sit down had have your fill of some of mine! There’s no hurry, we have all the day before us to eat, or other things!” she added, ogling the woman’s massive bosom, straining her shirt. Then Belly-donna leaned forward in her seat, grabbed a great double-handful of sugar-coated pastries, and crammed the whole thing in her mouth, chewing and swallowing the massive mouthful gleefully.
“Very impressive!” said Lardass. “But I have no time for stuffing myself this morning. I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it’s very difficult to find anyone.”
“I should think so - in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! Or after-dinner snacks! Or all-night orgies! I can’t think what anybody sees in them,” said our Ms. Big’uns, and grabbed another handful of food to feed herself. She dove into the remains of her after-breakfast snack with intense attention, pretending to take no more notice of the buxom woman. She had decided that she was not quite her sort, and wanted her to go away. But the hugely-endowed woman did not move. She stood leaning on her stick (holding up that massive bosom wasn’t easy) and gazing at the hobbit without saying anything, till Belly-donna got quite uncomfortable and even a little cross.
“Good morning!” she said at last. “We don’t want any adventures here, thank you! You might try over The Hill or across The Water.” By this she meant that the conversation was at an end.
“What a lot of things you do use ‘good morning’ for!” said Lardass. “Now you mean that you want to get rid of me, and that it won’t be good till I move off.”
“Not at all, not at all, my dear lady! Let me see, I don’t think I know your name?”
“Yes, yes, my dear lady - and I do know your name, Ms. Belly-donna Big’uns. And you do know my name, though you don’t remember that I belong to it. I am Lardass, and Lardass means this!” she continued, turning round to show off her titanic rear end. “To think that I should have lived to be good-morninged by Belly-donna Cook’s daughter, as if I was selling replacement buttons at the door!”
“Lardass, Lardass! Good gracious me! Not the wandering wizard that gave Old Cook a set of magical saucepans that cooked by themselves, and never stopped making food till ordered? Not the one who used to tell such wonderful tales at parties, about food and feasts and delicacies and the feeding of princesses and the unexpected capacity of women’s bellies? Not the woman that used to make such particularly excellent desserts! I remember those! Old Cook used to have them on Midsummer’s Eve. Splendid! They used to go down easy; doughnuts, and puddings and great cakes and last the whole night long, no matter how many ate them or how fast!” You will notice already that Ms. Big’uns was not quite so prosy as she liked to believe. “Dear me!” she went on. “Not the Lardass who was responsible for so many quiet lads and lasses going off into the Blue for mad adventures. Anything from eating all the fruit from an entire orchard to eating a whole boat-sized layer cake - or gigantic sex-fests with food and cum flowing wildly! Bless me, people used to get quite bloat-- I mean, you used to overfeed people quite badly in these parts once upon a time. I beg your pardon, but I had no idea you were still in business.”
“Where else should I be?” asked the wizardess. “All the same I am pleased to find you remember something about me. You seem to remember my confections kindly, at any rate, and that is not without hope. Indeed for your grand-mother Cook’s sake, and for the sake of your poor mother Belly-donna, I will give what you asked for.”
“I beg your pardon, I haven’t asked for anything!”
“Yes, you have! Twice now. My pardon. I give it you. In fact, I will go so far as to send you on this adventure. Very amusing for me, very good for you and very filling too, very likely, if you ever get over it.”
“Sorry! I don’t want any adventures, thank you. Not today. Good morning! But please come to lunch - any time you like! Why not tomorrow? Come tomorrow! Good-bye!”
With that the hobbit turned and waddled inside her round green door, her sides nearly scraping the edges, and shut it as quickly as she dared, not to seem rude. Wizards after all are wizards.
“What on earth did I ask her to lunch for!” she said to herself, as she went to the pantry. She had finished her after-breakfast snack, but she thought a cake or two and a drink of something would do her good after her fright. She never wasted an excuse for eating. Lardass in the meantime was still standing outside the door, and laughing long but quietly. After a while, she stepped up and with the spike of her staff, scratched a sign on the hobbit’s beautiful green front-door. Then she strode away, just about the time when Belly-donna was finishing her second cake and beginning to think she should have another one. Or two.
The next day, she had almost forgotten about Lardass. She did not remember things very well, except for recipes and mealtimes, unless she put them down on her Engagement Tablet: like this: Lardass Lunch Wednesday. Yesterday she had been too flustered to do anything of the kind. Just before lunch was over, there came a tremendous ring on the front-doorbell, and then she remembered! She rushed and restocked the table with massive amounts of food, and put out several extra cakes, and ran to the door.
“I am sorry to keep you waiting!” she was going to say, when she saw that it was not Lardass at all. It was a dwarf-maid, wider than the door, with her belly overflowing a golden belt, and very bright eyes under a dark-green hood. As soon as the door was opened, she squeezed inside, just as if she had been expected.
She hung her hooded cloak on the nearest peg, and “D’widen at your service!” she said, bowing as low as she could over her bloated belly.
“Belly-donna Big’uns at yours!” said the hobbit, too surprised to ask any questions for the moment. When the silence that followed had become uncomfortable, she added: “I am just about to have lunch; pray come and eat with me.” A little stiff perhaps, but she meant it kindly. And what would you do, if an uninvited dwarf came and hung her things up in your hall without a word of explanation?
They had not been at table long, though they had reached the fifth cake each, when there came another even louder ring at the bell.
“Excuse me!” said the hobbit, and off she went to the door.
“So you have got here at last!” was what she was going to say to Lardass this time. But it was not Lardass. Instead there was a very bloated-looking dwarf with a scarlet hood; and she too bounced inside as soon as the door was open, just as if she had been invited.
“I see they have begun to arrive already,” she said in a squeaky voice when she caught sight of D’widen’s green hood hanging up. She hung her red one next to it, and “Balloon at your service!” she said with her hands cradling her round belly.
“Thank you!” said Belly-donna with a gasp. It was not the correct thing to say, but they have begun to arrive had flustered her badly. She liked visitors (as good an excuse to eat as any), but she liked to know them before they arrived, and she preferred to ask them herself. She had a horrible thought that even her extensive store of cakes might run short, and then she -- as hostess: she knew her duty and stuck to it however painful -- she might have to only have three or four more.
“Come along in, and have some lunch!” she managed to say after taking a deep breath.
“A little beer would suit me, if it is all the same to you, my good lady,” said Balloon with the ballooning belly. “But I don’t mind some cake - seed-cake, if you have any.”
“Lots, of course!” Belly-donna found herself answering, to her own surprise; and she found herself waddling off, too, to the cellar to fill up a beer pitcher, and to the pantry to fetch a table’s full of large beautiful seed-cakes which she had baked that afternoon for her after-lunch snack, dessert for dinner, and after-dinner morsel.
When she got back Balloon and D’widen were talking at the table like old friends (as a matter of fact they were sisters). Belly-donna plumped down the beer and the cakes in front of them, when loud came a ring at the bell again, and then another ring.
“Lardass for certain this time,” she thought as she puffed along the passage. But it was not. It was two more dwarves, both with blue hoods, silver belts over which hung massive bellies; and each of them carried a bag of kitchen tools and a frying pan. In they waddled, as soon as the door began to open -- Belly-donna was hardly surprised at all.
“What can I do for you, my dwarves?” she said. “Feedee at your service!” said the one. “And Foodie!” added the other.
“At yours and your family’s!” replied Belly-donna, remembering her manners this time.
“D’widen and Balloon here already, I see,” said Foodie. “ Let us join the throng!”
“Throng!” thought Ms. Big’uns. “I don’t like the sound of that. I really must sit down for a minute and collect my wits, and have something to eat.” She had only just had a (cheek-stretchingly huge) mouthful -- in the corner, while the four dwarves sat around the table, and talked about mutton and roast goose, and the trouble with goblins, and appetites of dragons, and lots of other things which she did not understand, and did not want to, for they sounded much too adventurous - when, ding-dong-a-ling-dang, her bell rang again, as if some naughty little hobbit-boy was trying to pull the handle off. “Someone at the door!” she said, blinking. “Some four, I should say by the sound,” said Feedee. “Besides, we saw them coming along behind us in the distance.”
The poor little hobbit sat down in the hall and put her head in her hands, and wondered what had happened, and what was going to happen, and whether they would all stay to supper. Then the bell rang again louder than ever, and she had to run to the door. It was not four after all, it was FIVE. Another dwarf had come along while she was wondering in the hall. She had hardly turned the knob, before they were all inside, bowing over the massive bellies and endowments and saying “at your service” one after another. Feeder, Eater, Treater, Gut, and Glut were their names; and very soon two purple hoods, a grey hood, a brown hood, and a white hood were hanging on the pegs, and off they marched with wide bellies swinging over their gold and silver belts to join the others. Already, it had almost become a throng. Some called for ale, and some for porter, and one for coffee, and all of them for cakes; and so the hobbit was kept very busy for a while.
A big jug of coffee had just been set in the hearth, the seed-cakes were gone, and the dwarves were starting on a round of huge iced scones when there came a loud knock. Not a ring, but a hard rat-tat on the hobbit’s beautiful green door. Somebody was banging with a stick!
Belly-donna rushed along the passage, as fast as she could with her fat body, very angry, and altogether bewildered and bewuthered - this was the most awkward Wednesday she ever remembered, including that one time where her neighbor caught her naked in her front yard, stuffed so much that she couldn’t move, with the remains of her massive intake, and her shredded clothes, strewn all around her. She pulled open the door with a jerk, and they all fell in, one on top of the other. More dwarves, four more! And there was Lardass behind, leaning on her staff and laughing. She had quite a dent on the beautiful door; she had also, by the way, knocked out the secret mark that she had put there the morning before.
“Carefully! Carefully!” she said. “It is not like you, Belly-donna, to keep friends waiting on the mat, and then open the door like a pop-over exploding!” Let me introduce, Bigger, Blogger, Bom-berry, and especially, More-in!”
“At your service!” said Bigger, Blogger, and Bom-berry standing in a row. “I’m posting this on-line,” added Blogger, pulling out a smart-phone. Then they hung up two yellow hoods and a pale green one; and also a sky-blue one with a silver tassel. This last belonged to More-in, an enormously important (and enormously endowed) dwarf, in fact no other than the great More-in Oakenbowl herself, who was not at all pleased at falling flat on Belly-donna’s mat with Bigger, Blogger, and Bom-berry on top of her. For one thing, Bom-berry was immensely fat and heavy, even more than the average dwarf; she was also tinted blue, and sloshed when she moved. More-in indeed was very haughty, and said nothing about service; but poor Ms. Big’uns said she was sorry so many times, that at last she grunted “pray don’t mention it,” and stopped frowning.
“Now we are all here!” said Lardass, looking at the row of thirteen hoods -- the best detachable party hoods -- and her own hat hanging on the pegs. “Quite a merry gathering!
“I hope there is something left for the late-comers to eat and drink! What’s that? Tea? No thank you! Red wine, I think, for me.” “And for me,” said More-in, “and keep it coming, till I say so.” “And raspberry jam and apple-tarts,” said Bigger. “And mince-pies and cheese,” said Blogger. “And pork-pie and salad, drowning in dressing,” said Bom-berry. “and more cakes -- and ale -- and coffee if you don’t mind,” called the other dwarves through the door.
“Put on eggs, there’s a good girl!” Lardass called after her, as the hobbit stumped off to the food wing. “And just bring out the cold chicken and pickles! And the ham steaks! And the chocolate cake! And the piles of sugar cookies!”
“Seems to know as much about the inside of my larders as I do myself!” thought Ms. Big’uns, who was feeling positively flummoxed, and was beginning to wonder whether a most wretched adventure had not come right into her house. By the time she had got all the bottles and dishes and knives and forks and glasses and plates and spoons and things piled up on big trays, she was getting very hot, and red in the face, and annoyed.
“Confusticate and bebother these dwarves!” she said aloud. “Why don’t they come and lend a hand?” Lo and behold! there stood Balloon and D’widen at the door of the kitchen, and Feedee and Foodie behind them, and before she could say knife, with many pats of her ass, and a few gropes of her bulging bosom, they had whisked the trays and a couple of small tables into the parlor and set out everything afresh.
Lardass sat at the head of the party with the thirteen dwarves all round: and Belly-donna sat on a stool at the fireside, cramming biscuit after biscuit in her mouth (only a dozen or so; her appetite was quite taken away), and trying to look as if this was all perfectly ordinary and not in the least an adventure. The dwarves ate and ate, and talked and talked, and ate and ate some more, and time got on. At last they pushed their chairs back, and most of the dwarves opened their belts to release their newly stuffed and much fatter bellies. Some of their shirts had given up the ghost and showed glimpses of their large bosoms through tears in the fabric. Belly-donna made a move to collect the plates and glasses.
“I suppose you will all stay to supper?” she said in her politest unpressing tones. “Of course!” said More-in, never one to miss a free meal, especially a hobbit-sized one. “And after. We shan’t get through the business until late, and we must have some fun first. Now to clear the slates. We dwarves have a tradition: when we have partaken of a host’s food and drink, we return the favor to the host. Ms. Big’uns, come to the table please.”
Belly-donna rose shakily and crossed to the table. She sat, looking quizzically around at the dwarves.
Thereupon, the twelve dwarves -- not More-in, she was too important, and stayed talking to Lardass -- jumped to their feet and made tall piles of the remaining food. Off they went, not waiting for trays, and formed columns along both sides of the table, with Feeder and Treater by Belly-donna’s head. The rest of the dwarves took their piles of food, one by one, and passed them up the table to be fed to Belly-donna.
One pile after another, the dwarves crammed all the remaining food into Belly-donna. She quickly got over her surprise (not knowing the dwarf-custom before-hand), and eagerly opened her mouth wide for the dwarves.
Only too happy to oblige, the dwarves worked hard to feed Belly-donna, cramming the huge piles into her gaping maw, pushing the last pile right down her throat by main force. They started to sing:
Feed the hobbit and stuff her well!
Cram her mouth with everything!
Let’s make Belly’ Big’uns full --
Pack her full with each last wing!
Cut the cake and shove it down!
Pour the milk right down her throat!
Carve the meat, enough for the town!
Flood her mouth with wine for a moat!
Dump it all into her craw!
Push them down; don’t let her gnaw!
Get her huge, to snap her bra;
Feed too fast to work her jaw!
That’s what Belly’ Big’uns needs!
So hurry up, hurry up, make her feed!
Steadily, the dwarves kept stuffing Belly-donna, keeping time with their song; her already-bulging belly grew steadily larger and wider as all the food left by the dwarves flowed into her. Our Ms. Big’uns reached out and cradled her growing belly between her hands, moaning in pleasure around the massive deluge of food. Feeder and Treater answered her moans by groping and rubbing all over her body, drawing more pleasurable moans from Belly-donna around the food packing her mouth.
Quickly, Belly-donna’s stomach reached its capacity, growing taut against her shirt. But the dwarves still had much more food left, and they kept going. Soon, Belly-donna was completely stuffed, every stitch of her clothing completely shredded (showing her massive bosom and her vast belly), the belly itself trembling in time with her pulse, and the food even filling up her throat to the very top. Still the dwarves stuffed her, pushing more food in, stretching her cheeks as they strove to get all the food into her. Belly-donna herself, eagerly helping, forced her lips closed (between those times when the dwarves’ food was actively pushing inside), to keep hold of the food already inside her.
There was still a goodly amount of food left to cram into the hobbit when her mouth finally reached capacity. Belly-donna’s mouth was stretched wide, more than three times its normal span with the massive load (and she couldn’t close her mouth anymore; she had to lean back to keep the food from falling out), her throat was bloated visibly, and her belly had grown, just in the minutes of the extensive feeding, to five times its prior girth.
The dwarves left their stuffing for a while, and all gathered round the immobile hobbit. Treater and Blogger leaned in and grabbed hold of Belly-donna’s now-gigantic breasts, caressing and rubbing them, and locked their lips around Belly-donna’s bloated nipples, suckling at them and pulling even more moans of pleasure from her stuffed mouth. Gut and Glut went to her belly, stroking it to ease the overstuffed discomfort of it, and tickling gently at her taut skin. Feedee and Foodie crawled under Ms. Big’uns’s gargantuan belly, questing for her pussy. Finding it easily, pushing her burst pants out of their way, one shoved her whole hand inside, while the other lapped at Belly-donna’s juices, gushing now with her indescribable pleasure at being so vastly stuffed.
Watching the dwarves minstering to their hostess, Lardass rose and crossed to stand over the immobile hobbit, gazing down at her. “Well, Ms. Big’uns, are you content? Or do you want yet more food stuffed down your greedy gullet?” Her mouth, indeed her whole body, filled to its absolute limit, Belly-donna looked up at Lardass blearily and nodded weakly. Lardass smiled wrily. “You want still more, do you? Very well.”
Lardass raised her staff and gently put its head at Belly-donna’s lips. Muttering softly a spell, she pushed the staff into the hobbit’s mouth, and the food in her mouth and throat was pushed down into her belly, blowing it up even bigger. Now that her mouth was free, the idle dwarves descended again, stuffing Belly-donna even faster than before. The six pleasuring her directly kept up their work, keeping her cumming over and over as the downed the rest of the massive feast. The spell Lardass had put on her did its work, and the dwarves had no trouble at all cramming the last of the food inside her.
With every bite of food left from the party packed inside her, Belly-donna was wedged in the chair, her body squeezed between the arms, and stuck tight. Her belly, bloated up larger than her the rest of her body, rose majestically above her, reaching higher than her head and billowing out, propped up on the table, and covering more than half its surface. Her throat even more distended, and again a massive mouthful that couldn’t be forced down bulging her cheeks even wider than ever. Belly-donna herself was barely conscious, in a food-coma, fed to absolute capacity and beyond.
Lardass, thinking she deserved something for her efforts, pulled down her shirt, revealing her enormous breasts in all their magnificence, and pushed one of them right in Belly-donna’s mouth, pushing the food in deeper. Even semi-conscious, the hobbit instinctively started sucking on the erect nipple. Lardass herself dropped her staff and putting one hand between her legs, and rubbing her bloated ass with the other, got herself off as Belly-donna licked her breasts.
The dwarves finally looked up, panting with the effort of feeding and pleasuring the insatiable hobbit. Feedee and Foodie crawled out from under her massive belly, and both fairly drenched in Ms. Big’uns’s juices, took a moment to lick each other clean.
“Now for some music!” said More-in. “bring out the instruments, while our esteemed Ms. Big’uns sleeps off our payment!”
Feedee and Foodie waddled for their bags and brought back little fiddles; Feeder, Eater, and Treater brought out flutes from somewhere inside their coats; Bom-berry produced a drum from the hall; Bigger and Blogger went out too, and came back with clarinets that they had left among the walking-sticks. D’widen and Balloon said: “Excuse me, I left mine of the porch!” “Just bring mine in with you,” said More-in. They came back with viols as big as themselves, and with More-in’s harp wrapped in a green cloth. It was a beautiful golden harp, and when More-in struck it the music began all at once, so sudden and sweet that Belly-donna awoke instantly, gulping the last of her stuffing session down instinctively, forgot everything else, and was swept away into dark lands under strange moons, far over The Water and very far from her hobbit-hole under The Hill, piled with strange and wonderful foods in endless quantity.
The dark came into the room from the little window that opened in the side of The Hill; the firelight flickered -- it was April -- and still they played on, while the shadow of Lardass’s bosom billowed against the wall.
The dark filled all the room, and the fire died down, and the shadows were lost, and still they played on. And suddenly, first one and then another began to sing as they played, deep-throated singing of the dwarves in the deep places of their ancient homes; and this is like a fragment of their song, if it can be like their song without their music.
Far over the meaty mountains cold
To pantries deep and kitchens old
We must away ere break of day
To seek the pastries brushed with goldThe dwarves of yore made mighty meals
While pots and pans rang like bells’ peals
In storerooms deep, where food did keep
In well-stocked halls beneath the hills.For ancient king and elvish lord
There many a tasty, fattened hoard
They cooked and baked, and thirst they slaked
With deep rich ale and laden board.On silver platters well they laid
The massive feasts, on plates they made
The spicy fire, of cinnamon spire
They meshed with pastries wound in plaits.Far over the meaty mountains cold
To pantries deep and kitchens old
We must away, ere break of day,
To claim our pastries brushed with gold.Gourmet feasts, made for themselves
And ales of gold; where no man delves
They dined apace, and many a taste
Was untasted by men or elves.The pines were roaring on the height,
Well-fed guts moaning in the night.
The fire was red, it flaming spread;
The trees like torches blazed with light.The bells were ringing in the dale
And men looked up with faces pale;
The dragon’s desire more fierce than fire
Laid low their stores and kitchens frail.The mountain smoked beneath the moon;
The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom.
They fled their hall to dying fall
In her gullet, beneath the moon.Over the meaty mountains far.
To caverns deep where kitchens are
We must away, ere break of day,
To win our confections from her!
As they sang the hobbit felt the love of epicurean things made by hands and cunning and by magic moving through her, a fierce and jealous love, the desire in the stomachs of dwarves. Then something Cookish woke up inside her, and she wished to go and see the great mountains of pastries, and hear the chewing and the swallowing, and explore the pantries, and bear a spoon instead of a walking-stick. She looked out of the window. The stars were out in a dark sky about the trees. She thought of the confections of dwarves glistening on laden tables. Suddenly in the wood beyond The Water a flame leapt up -- probably somebody lighting a cooking-fire -- and she thought of plundering dragons settling on her quiet Hill and eating all and sundry. She shuddered; and very quickly was plain Ms. Big’uns of Big-End, Under-Hill, again.
She got up trembling. She had less than half a mind to fetch more food, and more than half a mind to pretend to, and go and hide behind the beer barrels in the cellar, drinking unendingly, and not come out again until all the dwarves had gone away. Suddenly she found that the music and the singing had stopped, and they were all looking at her with eyes shining in the dark.
“Where are you going?” asked More-in, in a tone that seemed to show that she guessed both halves of the hobbit’s mind.
“What about a little snack?” said Belly-donna apologetically.
“Not just now, thank you,” said the dwarves. “We need our wits for this business! There are many hours before dawn.”
“Of course!” said Belly-donna, and sat down in a hurry. She missed the stool and sat in the fender, knocking over the poker and shovel with a crash.
“Hush!” said Lardass. “Let More-in speak!” And this is how More-in began.
“Lardass, dwarves, and Ms. Big’uns! We are not together in the house of our friend and fellow conspirator, this most excellent and audacious hobbit - may her belly and bosom never grow less! all praise to her food and drink! --” She paused for breath and for a polite remark from the hobbit, but the compliments were quite lost on poor Belly-donna Big’uns, who was wagging her mouth in protest at being called audacious and worst of all fellow conspirator, though no noise came out, she was so flummoxed. So More-in went on:
“We are met to discuss our plans, our ways, means, policy and devices. We shall soon before the break of day start on our long journey, a journey from which some of us, or perhaps all of us (except our friend and counsellor, the curvaceous wizard Lardass) may never return. It is a solemn moment. Our object is, I take it, well known to us all. To the hugely-proportioned Ms. Big’uns, and perhaps to one or two of the younger dwarves (I think I should be right in naming Feedee and Foodie, for instance), the exact situation at the moment may require a brief explanation -”
This was More-in’s style. She was an important dwarf. If she had been allowed, she would probably have gone on like this until she was out of breath, without telling any one there anything that was not known already. But she was rudely interrupted. Poor Belly-donna couldn’t bear it any longer. At may never return, she began to feel a shriek coming up inside, and very soon it burst out like the whistle of a tea-pot bubbling with sweet tea. All the dwarves sprang up, bellies flopping everywhere and knocking over the table. Lardass struck a blue light on the end of her magic staff, and in its firework glare the poor hobbit could be seen kneeling on the hearth-rug, shaking like a Jell-o mold. Then she fell flat on her belly, rolling around on top of it, and kept calling out “struck by lightning, struck by lightning!” over and over again; and that was all they could get out of her for a long time. So they took her and laid her out of the way by the drawing-room table with piles and piles of food at her elbow, and they went back to their dark business.
“Excitable little lady,” said Lardass, as they sat down again. “Gets funny queer fits, but she is one of the best, one of the best -- as fierce as a dragon in a pinch.”
If you have ever seen a dragon in a pinch, you will realize that this was only a poetical exaggeration applied to any hobbit, even to Old Cook’s great-grandaunt Bellystuffer, who was so huge (even for a hobbit) that she could eat a whole banquet table by herself. She charged the ranks of the goblins of Mount Gram in the battle of Green Fields, and ate their king Gut-biggest in one bite, and in this way the battle was won, and the fetish of “voraphilia” invented at the same moment.
In the meanwhile, however, Bellystuffer’s gentler descendant was stuffing her own already-massive belly in the drawing-room. After a while (doubling her belly’s girth), she crept nervously to the door of the parlor. This is what she heard, Glut speaking: “Humph!” (or some snort more or less like that). “Will she do, do you think? It is all very well for Lardass to talk about this hobbit being fierce, but one shriek like that in a moment of excitement would be enough to wake the dragon and all her relatives, and eat the lot of us. I think it sounded more like fright than excitement! In fact, if it had not been for the sign on the door, I should have been sure we had come to the wrong house. As soon as I clapped eyes on the fat girl bobbing and puffing on the mat, I had my doubts. She looks more like a grocer than a burglar!”
Then Ms. Big’uns turned the handle and went in. The Cook side had won. She suddenly felt that she would go with no bed and little breakfast (only a dozen or so donuts and scones each) to be thought fierce. As for fat girl bobbing on the mat it almost made her really fierce. Many a time afterwards the Big’uns part regretted what she did now, and she said to herself: “Belly’, you were a fool; you waddled right in and put your foot in it.”
“Pardon me,” she said, “if I have overheard words that you were saying. I don’t pretend to understand what you are talking about, or your reference to burglars, but I think I am right in believing” (this is what she called being on her dignity) “that you think I am no good. I will show you. I have no signs on my door -- it was painted a week ago -- and I am quite sure you have come to the wrong house. As soon as I saw your big bellies on the door-step, I had my doubts. But treat it as the right one. Tell me what you want done, and I will try it, if I have to walk from here to the East of East and starve in short commons in the Last Desert. I had a great-great-great-grandaunt once, Bellystuffer Cook, and --”
“Yes, yes, but that was long ago,” said Glut. “I was talking about you. And I assure you there is a mark on this door -- the usual one in the trade, or it used to be. Burglar wants a good job, plenty of Nourishment and reasonable Fucking, that’s how it is usually read. You can say Expert Edibles-hunter instead of Burglar if you like. Some of them do. It’s all the same to us. Lardass told us that there was a woman of the sort in these parts looking for a job at once, and that she had arranged for a meeting here this Wednesday lunch-time.”
“Of course there is a mark,” said Lardass. “I put it there myself. For very good reasons. You asked me to find the fourteenth woman for your expedition, and I chose Ms. Big’uns. Just let anyone say I chose the wrong woman or the wrong house, and you can stop at thirteen and have all the bad luck you like, or go back to catering for others.”
She scowled so angrily at Glut that the dwarf huddled back in her chair; and when Belly-donna tried to open her mouth to ask a question, she turned and frowned at her and stuck out her massive bosom, till Belly-donna shut her mouth tight with a snap. “That’s right,” said Lardass. “Let’s have no more argument. I have chosen Ms. Big’uns and that ought to be enough for all of you. If I say she is a Burglar, a Burglar she is, or will be when the time comes. There is a lot more in her that you guess, and a deal more than she has any idea of herself. You may (possibly) all live to thank me yet. Now, Belly-donna, my dear, fetch the lamp, and let’s have a little light on this!”
On the table in the light of a big lamp with a red shade she spread a piece of parchment rather like a map.
“This was made by Forker, your grandmother, More-in,” she said in answer to the dwarves’ excited questions. “It is a plan of the Mountain.”
“I don’t see that this will help us much,” said More-in disappointedly after a glance. “I remember the Mountain well enough and the lands about it. And I know where Gorge-wood is, and the Withered Heath where the great dragons bred.”
“There is a dragon marked in red on the Mountain,” said Balloon, “but it will be easy enough to find her without that, if ever we arrive there.”
“There is one point that you haven’t noticed,” said the wizard, “and that is the secret entrance. You see that rune on the West side, and the hand pointing to it from the other Runes? That marks a hidden passage to the Lower Kitchens.”
“It may have been secret once,” said More-in, “but how do we know that it is secret any longer? Old Scarf-down has lived there long enough now to find out anything there is to know about those caves.”
“She may--but she can’t have used it for years and years.”
“Why?”
“Because it is too small. ‘Five feet high the door and three may walk abreast’ say the runes, but Scarf-down could not creep in a hole that size, not even when she was a young dragon, certainly not after devouring so many of the dwarves and men of Dale, and all their food.”
“It seems a great big hole to me,” squeaked Belly-donna (who had no experience of dragons and only of hobbit-holes). She was getting excited and interested again, so that she forgot to keep her mouth shut. She loved maps (almost as much as eating), and in her hall there hung a large one of the Country Round with all her favorite walks, and the food stores, and willing lovers, of both sexes, on each one, marked on it in red ink. “How could such a large door be kept secret from everybody outside, apart from the dragon?” she asked. She was only a young hobbit, you must remember.
“In lots of ways,” said Lardass. “But in what way this one has been hidden we don’t know without going to see. From what it says on the map I should guess there is a closed door which has been made to look exactly like the side of the Mountain. That is the usual dwarves’ method - I think that is right, isn’t it?” “Quite right, when we have food supplies to hide,” said More-in.
“Also,” went on Lardass, “I forgot to mention that with the map went a key, a small and curious key. Here it is!” she said, and handed to More-in a key with a long barrel and intricate wards, made of silver, which she drew from her voluminous bosom. “Keep it safe!”
“Indeed I will,” said More-in, and she slipped it into her own large bosom (not so large as Lardass’s). “Now things begin to look more hopeful. This news alters them much for the better. So far we have had no clear idea what to do. We thought of going East, as quiet and careful as we could, as far as the Long Lake. After that the trouble would begin.”
“A long time before that, if I know anything about the roads East,” interrupted Lardass.
“We might go from there up along the River Running,” went on More-in, taking no notice, “and so to the ruins of Dale, the old town in the valley there, under the shadow of the Mountain. But we none of us like the idea of the Front Gate. The river runs right out of it through the great cliff at the South of the Mountain, and out of it comes the dragon too -- far too often, unless she has changed.”
“That would be no good,” said the wizard, “not without a mighty Warrior, even a Hero. I tried to find one; but warriors are busy fucking and feasting in distant lands, and in this neighborhood heroes are scarce, or simply not to be found. Swords in these parts are mostly carving-knives, and axes for trees, and shields as dish-covers; and dragons are comfortably far-off (and therefore legendary). That is why I settled on burglary -- especially when I remembered the existence of a Side-door. And here is our pudgy Belly-donna Big’uns, the burglar, the chosen and selected burglar. So now let’s get on and make some plans.”
“Very well then,” said More-in, “supposing the burglar-expert gives us some ideas or suggestions.” She turned with mock-politeness to Belly-donna.
“First I should like to know a bit more about things,” said she, feeling all confused and a bit shaky inside, but so far still Cookishly determined to go on with things. “I mean about the food and the dragon and all that, and how it got there, and who it belongs to, and so on and further.”
“Bless me!” Said More-in, “haven’t you got a map? and didn’t you hear our song? and haven’t we been talking about this for hours?”
“All the same, I should like it all plain and clear,” said she obstinately, putting on her business manner (usually reserved for people who tried to borrow food off her), and doing her best to appear wise and prudent and professional and live up to Lardass’s recommendation. “Also I should like to know about risks, out-of-pocket expenses, time required and remuneration, provisions, and so forth” -- by which she meant: “what am I going to get out of it? how much can I eat on the way? and am I going to come back alive?”
“O very well,” said More-in. “Long ago in my grandmother Forker’s time our family was driven out of the far North, and came back with all their confections and cooking gear to this Mountain on the map. It had been discovered by my far ancestor, Gain the Large, but now they cooked and they brewed and they made huger cakes and greater kitchens -- and in addition I believe they found a good deal of money and a great many food sources too. Anyway they grew immensely fat and famous, and my grandmother was Queen Under the Mountain again and treated with great reverence by the mortal men who lived in the South and were gradually spreading up the Running River as far as the valley overshadowed by the Mountain. They built the merry town of Dale there in those days. Kings used to send for our chefs, and rewarded even the least skillful most richly. Mothers would beg us to take their daughters and feed them up and bed them, and pay us handsomely for each pound they put on, and each climax they had. Altogether those were good days for us, and the hungriest of us had food to stuff in themselves and others, and leisure to eat massive feasts just for the fun of it, not to speak of the most marvellous and magical desserts, the like of which is not to be found in the world now-a-days. So my grandmother’s halls became full of food and drink and obesity and sexual games, and the food-market of Dale was the wonder of the North.
“Undoubtedly, that was what brought the dragon. Dragons steal food and drink, you know, from men and elves and dwarves, wherever they can find them; and they guard their plunder as long as they live (which is practically forever, unless they are killed), and never eat a morsel of it. Indeed they hardly know gourmet from slop, though they usually have a good notion of the flavor profile (sweet, savory, sour, and so on); and they can’t cook a thing for themselves, not even a salad. There were lots of dragons in the North in those days, and free food was probably getting scarce up there, with the dwarves flying south or getting eaten, and all the general waste and food-hoarding that dragons make going from bad to worse. There was a most specially greedy, strong and ravenous worm called Scarf-down. One day she flew up into the air and came south. The first we heard of it was a noise like a hurricane coming from the North, and the pine-trees on the Mountain creaking and cracking in the wind. Some of the dwarves who happened to be outside (I was one luckily -- a fine hungry lass I was in those days, always outside for picnics, and it saved my life that day) -- well, from a good way off we saw the dragon settle on our mountain in a spout of flame. Then she came down the slopes and when she reached the woods most went down her gullet. The rest, the dragon used for her own pleasure, stuffing them inside her pussy and getting off on their writhing. By that time all the bells were ringing in Dale and the warriors were arming. The dwarves rushed out of their great gate; but there was the dragon waiting open-mouthed for them. None escaped her maw. The river rushed up in steam and a fog fell on Dale, and in the fog the dragon cam on them and ate most of the warriors -- the usual unhappy story, it was only too common in those days. Then she went back and crept through the Front Gate and rooted through all the halls, and lanes, and tunnels, alleys, cellars, mansions and passages, eating everything as she went. After that there were no dwarves left alive inside, and she took all their provender for herself. Probably, for that is the dragons’ way, she has piled it all up in a great heap far inside, and sleeps on it for a bed; dragons can preserve food indefinitely that way. Later she used to crawl out of the great gate and come by night to Dale and carry away people, especially maidens, to eat, until Dale was ruined, and all the people dead or gone. What goes on there now I don’t know for certain, but I don’t suppose anyone lives nearer to the Mountain than the far edge of the Long Lake now-a-days.
“The few of us that were eating outside sat and wept in hiding, consoling ourselves with food, and cursed Scarf-down; and there we were unexpectedly joined by my mother and my grandmother, dripping with icing. They looked very grim but they said very little. When I asked how they had got away, they told me to stuff my mouth and be silent, and said that in the proper time I should know. After that we went away, and we had to earn our livings as best we could up and down the lands, often enough sinking as low as catering-work or even waitressing. But we have never forgotten our stolen foodstuffs. And even now, when I will allow we have a good bit of food available to us, and are not so hungry” -- here More-in stroked her huge belly, reaching far in front of her-- “we still mean to get it back, and to bring our curses home to Scarf-down -- if we can.
“I have often wondered about my mother’s and my grandmother’s escape. I see now that they must have had a private Side-door which only they knew about. But apparently they made a map, and I should like to know how Lardass got hold of it, and why it did not come down to me, the rightful heir.”
“I did not ‘get hold of it,’ I was given it,” said the wizard. “Your grandmother Forker was stuffed so much by the goblins that she popped, you remember, in the pantries of Moria by Azog the Goblin--”
“Curse her name, yes” said More-in.
“And Gain your mother went away on the twentieth of April, a hundred years ago last Thursday, and has never been seen by you since--”
“True, true,” said More-in.
“Well, your mother gave me this to give to you; and if I have chosen my own time and way of handing it over, you can hardly blame me, considering the trouble I had to find you. Your mother could not remember her own name when she gave me the paper, and she never told me yours; so on the whole I think I ought to be praised and thanked. Here it is,” said she, handing the map to More-in.
“I don’t understand,” said More-in, and Belly-donna felt she would have liked to say the same. The explanation did not seem to explain.
“Your grandmother,” said the wizard slowly and grimly, “gave the map to her daughter for safety before she went to the pantries of Moria. Your mother went away to try her luck with the map after your grandmother was killed; and lots of adventures and feasts she had, but she never got near the Mountain. How she got there I don’t know, but I found her a prisoner in the kitchens of the Gastronomist.”
“Whatever were you doing there?” asked More-in with a shudder, and all the dwarves shivered.
“Never you mind. I was finding things out, as usual; and a nasty dangerous business it was. Even I, Lardass, only just managed to eat my way out. I tried to save your mother, but it was too late. She was stuffed into immobility and witlessness, and had forgotten almost everything except the map and the key. And her next meal. I could barely get her to stop stuffing herself even to tell me about the map and the key. Though I don’t know for sure, I believe that she must have ended up a willing participant, and that the Gastronomist just kept on stuffing her till one day, she filled up so fast she exploded.” “We have long ago paid the goblins of Moria,” said More-in; “we must give a thought to the Gastronomist.” “Don’t be absurd! She is a feeder quite beyond the powers of all the dwarves put together, if they could be all be collected again from the four corners of the world. She would stuff the lot of you so gigantically fat, so impossibly full, that you would never move again. The one thing your mother wished was for her daughter to read the map and use the key. The dragon and Mountain are more than big enough tasks for you!”
“Hear, hear!” said Belly-donna, and accidentally said it aloud. “Hear what?” they all said, turning suddenly towards her, and she was so flustered that she answered “hear what I have got to say!” “What’s that?” they asked.
“Well, I should say that you ought to go East and have a look round. After all there is the Side-door, and dragons must sleep sometimes, I suppose. If you sit on the doorstep long enough, I daresay you will think of something. And well, don’t you know, I think we have talked long enough for one night, if you see what I mean. What about a late-night snack, and bed, and an early start, and all that? I will give you a good breakfast before you go, too.”
“Before we go, I suppose you mean,” said More-in. “Aren’t you the burglar? And isn’t sitting on the door-step your job, not to speak of getting inside the door? But I agree about snacks and bed, and breakfast. For our snack, let’s just finish the pantry we started. I like eggs with my ham for breakfast, when starting on a journey; fried not poached, and mind you don’t stint on ‘em.”
After all the others had stuffed themselves even fatter with the entire contents of her fourth pantry, and had ordered their breakfasts without so much as a please (which annoyed Belly-donna very much, even if she did keep up with the lot of them, eating her midnight snack), they all finally levered their massive bellies up. The hobbit had to find room for them all, and filled all her spare-rooms as the dwarves went to bed in pairs (or more) for some more pleasure during the night, before she got them all stowed and went to her own bed very tired and not altogether happy (though very well stuffed). One thing she did make up her mind about was not to bother to get up very early and cook everybody else’s wretched breakfast. She was going to eat it all herself; that would show them. The Cookishness was wearing off, and she was not now quite so sure that she was going on any journey in the morning. As she lay in bed she could hear More-in still humming as she likely ate out Balloon in the best bedroom next to her:
Belly-donna, with that in her ears, dropped one hand between her legs and rubbed the other over her still-enormous belly and up to her breasts, squeezing each nipple in return, and finally fell alseep to dreams filled with massive feedings and drunken binges, as well as much fucking of the dwarves, singly and in groups. It was long after the break of day, when she woke up.