I've been away for a few years (it took me that long to figure out how to   
   post from Google Groups rather than from a news client) and on return find   
   it's too quiet! What's going on? Has most everyone moved away to the Far Downs,   
   or Facebook (which I refuse to join) or perhaps Reddit, which isn't so fussy   
   about subscribers' personal details) (and which I did join). However, the   
   Reddit   
   posting rules are so complicated that I wouldn't know where to post FF like   
   this. (Any clues appreciated, TIA) However at least I'm glad to have discovered   
   another active venue for Tolkien fans.   
      
   Anyway, here's a spoof I had fun with:   
   cc alt.fan.tolkien   
      
      
   A TALE OF ARCHET   
      
   Of the four villages in Bree-Land, Archet was the least involved in the   
   hobbits'   
   adventures. It lay in the Chetwood Forest out of sight from Aragorn's route   
   from   
   Bree and was inhabited mainly by clumsy (and rarely sober) Big Folk, there   
   being   
   little else to do around the village except visit the pub after work and drink   
   oneself into stupefaction.   
      
      
   The Archeters' first inkling of any sinister events in Bree-Land, the arrival   
   of   
   a stray (and badly frightened) pony, occurred well after Frodo &Co had departed   
   to the East.   
      
   [Note that "unusual" in this context means something different from our   
   understanding of the word; it being as routine for them to deal with dwarves,   
   trolls and pyrotechnic lizards as it is for us to be accosted by telemarketers,   
   panhandlers and scam artists.]   
      
      
   Scene 1, Archet village gates   
      
   [Enter Aragorn &Co, accosted by various villagers; one of whom acts as   
   impromptu   
   gate-keeper]   
      
   VILLAGER: Halt, Who goes there?   
      
   HERALD: Announcing His Majesty King Ellesar, who is Strider, who is Aragorn   
   son of Arathorn, King of Gondor and Arnor of the Numenorians and all   
   the Western Lands.   
      
   WOMAN: The Numa-who?   
      
   PEASANT: Perhaps he means the Numa-Numa song, Dragostia Din Tei.   
      
   ARAGORN: No, no, it's "Numenorians". We all are. We're all Numenorians,   
   and I am your king.   
      
   WOMAN: I didn't know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective.   
      
   DENNIS: You're fooling yourself. We're living in a dictatorship. A self-   
   perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes--   
      
   WOMAN: Oh there you go, bringing class into it again.   
      
   DENNIS: That's what it's all about if only people would--   
      
   ARAGORN: Please, please good people. Who is your lord?   
      
   WOMAN: We don't have a lord.   
      
   ARAGORN: What?   
      
   DENNIS: I told you. We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns   
   to act as a sort of executive officer for the week.   
      
   ARAGORN: Yes.   
      
   DENNIS: But all the decisions *OF* that officer have to be ratified at a   
   special   
   biweekly meeting.   
      
   ARAGORN: Yes, I see.   
      
   DENNIS: By a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs,--   
      
   ARAGORN: Please, my good man.   
      
   DENNIS: --but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more--   
      
   ARAGORN: [trying his best to be patient, and barely succeeding] All right!   
   All right. I get the gist of it. But now I am your king, I tell you.   
      
   WOMAN: Well, I didn't vote for you.   
      
   ARAGORN: You don't vote for kings.   
      
   WOMAN: Well, 'ow did you become king then?   
      
   ARAGORN: Well first of all, I am the descendant and heir of Isildur,   
   son of Melendil, Faithful of the Numenorians.   
      
   WOMAN: Wot, Isildur? The bloke what tried to keep the Enemy's Ring of Power for   
   'hisself and brought about all this mischief for the past three thousand years?   
   Hardly a good recommendation, I should think. What other qualifications have   
   you got?   
      
   ARAGORN: When Faramir the Ruling Steward asked the people of Minas Tirith if   
   I should be King and enter into the City and dwell there, the people replied   
   "Yea!" with one voice.   
      
   WOMAN: Minas Tirith? Why, that's far off, away South. In Gondor of all places!   
   This here isn't no Gondor, it's the Autonomous Realm Formerly Known as Arnor.   
      
   ARAGORN: But then I was crowned by Gandalf the Wizard with the ancient winged   
   crown of the Sea Kings, worn by Melendil, who said, "Out of the Great Sea   
   to Middle-earth I am come. In this place will I abide, and my heirs, unto   
   the ending of the world."   
      
   WOMAN: Well, la dee dah -- anyone can make fancy talk like that, but it don't   
   make them no king. Nor you neither, for that matter.   
      
   ARAGORN: [sighs] Thirdly, when Dame Ioreth the Wise quoted old lore, saying,   
   'The hands of the King are the hands of a healer and so the rightful King could   
   ever be known,' I was sought out and brought to the Houses of Healing to tend   
   the wounded.   
      
   DENNIS: Listen -- some crone in Gondor taking you for a medic is no basis   
   for a system of responsible government. Supreme executive power derives from   
   a mandate from the masses, not from some old wives' tale.   
      
   ARAGORN: Please!   
      
   DENNIS: Well you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because   
   some   
   geriatric city matron thinks you're a decent healer.   
      
   ARAGORN: Look, I am called Strider, who with the other Rangers guarded you   
   ceaselessly while you slept...   
      
   DENNIS: Oh, yes, we've 'eard of you all right. AND your patronizing attitude:   
   "If simple folk are free from care and fear, simple they will be, and we must   
   be secret to keep them so." Well pardon my simplicity, but---   
      
   ARAGORN: ALL RIGHT THEN, AND FOURTHLY, I have an army of 50,000 Foot and   
   10,000 Horse.   
      
   PEASANTS: [fall silent while looking nervously about]   
      
   WOMAN: Oh, well in that case why didn't you say so in the first place?   
      
   ARAGORN: ...and that's not even counting the forces of my good friend and ally   
   Eomer, King of Rohan.   
      
   PEASANTS [show surprise]   
      
   DENNIS: Rohan? As in Rohirrim?   
      
   ARAGORN: Yes, one in the same.   
      
   DENNIS: They were almost our kin folk. We got along well with them, we did.   
   That is, up until the day when they all left without so much as a by your   
   leave.   
   One day they was quietly going about tendin' their mega-Clydesdales and carving   
   Celtic knotwork, like, and by next morning they had simply vanished, lock,   
   stock   
   and barrel. Uncanny it was. Of course glad enough we'd be to 'ave 'em back   
   as good neighbors, mind you.   
      
   ARAGORN: Very well then. I hereby declare the Village of Archet to be an   
   enclave   
   territory of the Kingdom of Rohan.   
      
   DENNIS: There you go again, as 'asty as an Ent (not!). You just don't get it,   
   do you. Like some true autocrat, goin' about proclaiming this and declaring   
   that without the consent of the subjects involved. Like you were some kind of   
   Lord of Creation. Now may it please your majesty, like the sayin' goes, after   
   some proper discussion we'll seek a consensus on this proposal, as so we shall   
   regard it, and let you know the outcome in due course.   
      
      
   Scene 2: The check-in desk at Inn of The Prancing Pony, Bree   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)