So here's what's going on, my ducks! This series (alternately titled Faramir Investigates) will serve to show alternate viewpoints of the Sons of Durin before, during, and after their trials. Please note, I am not a journalist in any way, nor am I intimately familiar with Scottish politics or legalities, so I hope you will overlook any inaccuracies.

This project will also serve as a bridge between The Sons of Durin/Children of the Lonely Mountain and the, umm, sequel. Yeah. We're going there. Expect about 5-7 parts in this series, as I also finish up some of my other projects, and then we're heading into sequel territory properly. Yikes.

Seriously, I'm so excited to be diving back into this! I love this 'verse so much, and love getting to share it with you, and I can't wait!

Durin's Sons: How greed and secrecy bred the most dangerous family in Scotland.

By Faramir Stewart

Published March 2013. Read by Bilbo Baggins in the weeks before his first personal encounter with Gandalf and the Sons of Durin.

In the hills of Sterlingshire, much has changed in the last few hundred years. The land, the livestock, even the people themselves have suffered upheavals, by fire and sword and the whims of the politically strong. The mountains seem one of the few constants - hard and unshifting rock, still holding fast.

The legends of the locals have not changed, either. In tired little Tyndrum, at the foot of the most infamous mountain in these parts of Scotland, one mention of the name Durin will bring more attention than I could have expected.

'Durin comes back to look after us,' Tilda Bowman tells me. She is seven years old, and has lived in Tyndrum all her life. The stories of the mountains are in her bones. 'He was made out of our mountains, and he comes when we need him.'

I had hoped to speak to her father, Bard Bowman, who is something of a notable figure in the town, but he muttered about things he had to do elsewhere, and told his children not to speak to me. They do not seem perturbed.

The people of Tyndrum do not shudder at the name of Durin, or look over their shoulders, expecting silent menace from the shadows. They look up to the mountains and wait.

The Lonely Mountain

In Edinburgh, the name Durin has an entirely different connotation.

I had never given the Sons of Durin more thought than any other gang of thugs, until a private detective contacted me personally. His name must be withheld for reasons of security, but he advised me to look into the gang that has held the major cities of Scotland in fear these past years. For the past eight months, I have spoken to as many individuals connected with the case as I could locate, and have done my best to locate the actual documents and evidence that underlies the threat the Sons of Durin pose to polite society. In this three-part series, I will investigate the origins of this mysterious group, trace the story of their descent into crime and terror, and explore the reality of the threat they pose.

The story begins with a mountain. They often seem to, here in Scotland. Beinn Chuirn is an unimposing sight, one of many small mountains in the Sterlingshire landscape, and it seems far too peaceful and silent to be the source of the most frightening domestic terror group in recent history.

The residents of Tyndrum tell me that there have always been miners on Beinn Chuirn, though that is more poetry than fact. As it happens, the mountain was once the home of lead miners who made their homes near their mines, and who brought trade and livelihood to Tyndrum for nearly two centuries.

The people of Tyndrum don't talk much about the fact that the lead miners upset the wrong side of a political struggle, and watched their homes burn to the ground.

My particular interest in the mountain lies a bit later in history, though. I spoke with an older gentleman in the best pub in Tyndrum, hoping he would recall something of the beginnings of our story. He is an intelligent and charismatic man, with a canny eye for a business deal, as I discovered to the lightening of my wallet. He squinted up in the direction of the mountain as he reminisced.

'It would have been '87, I suppose, when it all started. It was old Thrain dying that started it, though I say it as shouldn't, as he was younger then than I am now, God save me.' He chuckles darkly. '1987, and he was dead of a bad heart, and young Thorin left to manage the whole lot, with the lead mines played out. Thought he was like to lose it all.'

He pauses then, and waited for me to order another round of drinks. I urge him to continue, and there is as much sorrow as anger in his face when he goes on.

'They found gold in '87, and that was the beginning of the end. Not that Thorin told anyone, mind - not but old Girion Bowman, and he kept it quiet until long after.'

This isn't the first rumour I have heard about gold or buried treasure. Some say the Sons of Durin are a money-laundering organisation, or involved in black-market operations with stolen gems. It's a different take on the nature of the mountain itself, though, and it gives me a new direction to explore.

The mountain is a lonely place, now. The Master of the town (or so he styles himself) points me in the direction of the clearest walking-path, up through Cononish Glen, and I find myself walking with the ghosts of the mountain. On an autumn day when the leaves are burning in shades of auburn and gold, the empty mines and abandoned ruins of the houses that once stood together in a quiet glen are unnaturally silent.

I snap pictures of the old houses from behind the high fence that is meant to keep the public out of the dangerous ruins. It feels a bit like desecration. If there was ever gold here, there is none now.

There is little to be found about gold in the official records. If what the people of Tyndrum say is true, Thorin and his kin would have applied for mining rights. There is no record of any such application, nor of test drillings or mineral exploration concessions. However, there is a perplexing note buried within a publication from the Minister of the Environment, and I spend a week buried in parliamentary history.

In 1992, under circumstances that are clearly billed as entirely unsuspicious, the Minister for the Environment died without warning, and was summarily replaced by a upcoming young politician known only by his surname. Smaug was well regarded in political circles and a popular figure in society when he took up the position. No-one had anything bad to say about him.

This is not generally a good thing, in politics.

Less than a week after taking his position, Smaug made history by dedicating the first national park in Scotland, encompassing the entirety of Thorin Oakenshield's mountain. (These lands were later incorporated into the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park upon it's institution in 2002.) According to the records, Thorin was offered compensation for the land, but refused the money.

July 27th, 1992. The police record submitted by two officers identified only as Thranduil and Elrond was entered into the official documentation for this date, but significant portions were redacted. From what is remaining, the picture is only slightly clarified.

'Proceeded upon orders from (redacted) to remove trespassers from Crown Estate lands….Encountered resistance from Oakenshield and (redacted). Upon orders, we-'

The rest is a morass of black lines and omissions. A Fatal Accident Injuries report from the local Sheriff is attached, but with all the identifying information removed. There were deaths on Beinn Chuirn the night of July 27th, and no way to know who was killed.

Curiousity has always been one of my fatal flaws, and I pull up the photos I had snapped on the mountain and examine them in detail. The abandoned ruins of houses on the mountain look like they have lain open to the elements for long decades or centuries, rather than the bare twenty years since the removal of the inhabitants. As I look more closely, it becomes clear.

The tiny cottages of Beinn Chuirn did not fall to the elements. They were burned.

I call the office of the Minister of the Environment and ask for an interview.