Woggy’s name was cursed. Scratch that, his name was the curse. The average person’s name was little more than a label to distinguish them from every other hobbit that inhabited The Shire. This is where Woggy faces his first of many dilemmas; how is he expected to distinguish himself from every other Tom, Pip, or Thalli? His name is unknown, his label bereft of him. That was how he was born, and that is how he is today. His unexplained existence so far has been little more than nothingness, for he knew neither his name nor his family, and the parts in between that make up his life could only be described as a myriad of cryptic riddles pointing him every which way but the direction he wanted to face. Little did he realise that there was no direction to follow, but the winding path disappearing behind his footsteps was fate and the trail that had been trodden by his feet necessary.
The Shire, oh how he loved it dearly, but he was never satisfied with calling it home. It was not home for this misplaced little faceless hobbit. It was not his birthplace, despite how much he tried to convince everyone (including himself) that it was. What would people think of him if they knew he was born amongst the Men of Dale? Their opinion of him would continue to deteriorate if the truth of his birth continued to surface; he was born parentless. Not literally of course, but soon after birth his parents had banished him to be alone in this cruel world. They had abandoned him, left him to impact the vast world of Middle-earth with no guidance and no assistance – and for what? A life of mystery, a journey to the unknown. His mother died in childbirth, and his father was overcome with grief. The sorrow fell about him and lingered as a dark shadow and weighed heavily on his shoulders. The weight he bore was too great, and no more than a week had passed since his wife’s death before he went and drowned himself in the lake below the town Esgaroth.
That alone Woggy knew of his parents, for that is all anyone knew of the hapless couple. The common belief was that they were both Tooks either wholly or at least partly possessing the strong ‘adventurous’ gene that was a common Tookish trait. Perhaps they left The Shire whilst they were still young and newly married and not much out of their tweens, for no recollection of a missing couple were ever mentioned. It was rather odd, Woggy thought, that both his parents were able to escape from the confines of family life in The Shire without so much of a whisper by anyone else. He had searched long and hard, quizzed numerous hobbits and even hired a Gondorian ranger to perform detective work, and not one person recalled the disappearance of the married duo so many years ago.
The men and women of Esgaroth were compassionate and kind-hearted towards Woggy, and cared for him as one of their own. No family officially adopted him as none were willing to fully adapt their lifestyle to accommodate a pet hobbit. They were kind enough, however, to share the added burden amongst all the families. This kept him alive, but also at an arms length to anyone. This was his childhood in a nutshell – never fixed and always distanced from love, affection and stability. He was robbed of the loving warmth all children deserve, and all children need. This resulted in a solemn and unemotional hobbit whose heart is borrowed to few, and given to naught.
This doesn’t mean that poor, unloved Woggy didn’t know how to disengage his brain and run completely rampant in the realms of insanity and show general disregard for the sensible and quite unobtrusive nature of the common hobbit. He was far from fitting the criteria of ‘common’ and illustrated this on a daily basis. In fact, of one was to travel to the archives of Minas Tirith and look up the definition for “a hobbit that does not fit the criteria of being a ‘common hobbit’” one would find a portrait of Woggy. That was his claim to fame.
On a fateful September day Woggy was feeling the full force of his uncommonness. His deep seeded angst began to surface on this day, and despite his best comical efforts to drown this, the emotion would not subside. It was brought forward because of a conversation he had with a woman by the name of Brittania, whom he had been in the care of for the past few weeks. Care is perhaps an incorrect term to call it, because Woggy was currently twenty-eight and fully independent. Nevertheless he still needed a roof over his head, and Brittania was kind enough to provide this for him. On this day the sun was shining bright and the birds were singing merrily by the window, but the mood inside was far from cheerful. Fear lingered around their heads and their hearts, and an emotional sadness was inescapable. The birds outside sang of red berries on tall trees, of juicy worms hiding in the green grass, and of drops of sunshine’s floating gently down to the ground. The conversation inside was quite the opposite; of perilous journeys, grievous partings and venturing into the unknown. This was the conversation that saw Woggy outline his intentions to journey to The Shire.
This decision was not made on a whim, but he had never regretted it for even a second. It was incredibly difficult to move away from the comfort and the warmth of the Men, but Woggy needed more from life. He was devoid of all interaction with any other hobbit, robbed of love a family could provide, and craved to live somewhere where he would belong – a place he could truly call home. He packed up all the belongings he could carry and set off before September had expired, still only twenty-eight.
The trip from Dale to Tuckburough was largely uneventful, with the exception of a couple of drunken dwarves he encountered during his stay at the Prancing Pony. He headed straight for Tuckburough because he assumed that is where his heritage lay and wanted to find the truth, to find his family. He had to stay at the local Inn for the first few nights of his arrival because he knew not a soul and had made no plans for accommodations. To his delight a hobbit home was placed on the market for sale within three days of his arrival, which he soon snatched up and bought with the money his friends from the Dale had lent him to first get him on his own two feet and independent. He moved in to his new address 11 Witts End, Tuckbuough the very day the deed was signed and has lived there ever since.
In an unexpected, but yet pleasing turn of events, Woggy’s life became normal. Despite finding naught of his lineage or of his parents, he settled in to the quite Shire life and grew quite accustomed to it; but he could never deny the emptiness his heart felt. His shady past made his susceptible for false judgements and made him the subject of many a queer rumour. However he did not mind, he was just pleased to be with other hobbits.
He was slow to make friends, but once he became an established member of society he was soon to discover the many wonderful hobbits of The Shire, and more importantly they too discovered him. He surrounded himself with his friends as best he could in a vain effort to rid his heart of the forbearing and the emptiness, but needless to say it did not work. He had no idea how to fill the hole in his heart.
He spent a good long while brooding on this, leaving his home for nothing but to attain the essentials for living. He came to the realisation that he had not found a kindred spirit, someone to share life with, someone to share everything with, someone to share love with. He needed some to appreciate and to worship, and someone to appreciate and worship him.
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