DISCLAIMER: This is a not-for-profit story, and is in no way meant for publication; therefore, both the Tolkien Estate and the members of Monty Python can rest assured, there will be no royalties due and nothing forthcoming in the way of monetary remuneration for the meager author of this farcical romp through Middle-earth.

PROLOGUE

In a hole in a hill lived a Halfling. Not a slimy, phosphorescent hole full of fertilizer run-off from a local golf course or corporate farm, nor a dank, musty catacomb with decaying corpses strewn about in Byzantine stratification. This was a Hobbit hole, and…well…ummm…my, that's not nearly as endearing as the original, is it? I mean, really, how does one improve on a classic? One can't, can one?

The narrator nervously drummed his fingers on the top of a worn oaken desk, an intriguing art-deco affair with shelf space and a shallow cupboard around the front for books and papers and whatever could not be crammed into the overstuffed drawers on the business end of the substantive piece of decrepit office furniture. The word-wraith, a literary grave ghoul rummaging about in the subcreative vault of someone else's imagination, absentmindedly took a drag off his cigarette, stared blankly at the jumble of words he had just typed, and shrugged with the casual air of a man who had given up before he even started. But having utterly failed in an endeavor he had barely begun, the narrator kept typing anyway; after all, he typed beautifully, and had a great grasp of grammar and polysyllabification.

Now, where were we? Ah yes, Hobbits, or, rather, a particular Hobbit -- and Python, a Monty Python. In the next several hundred pages of beautifully typed and grammatically superb exposition, I will attempt to merge Tolkienesque and Pythonesque material into an 'esque' of monumentally satiric proportions: a statuesque burlesque, as it were. Not being averse to lifting wholesale the life's work of famous folk for the sake of indulgently affixing my stamp on their stories (and using the term 'fan-fiction' as a crucifix to ward off vampiric attorneys), I thought I'd give it a go.

Oh, and I almost forgot, I shan't be plundering old Python bits and just rabbiting off Monty skits wholesale, plopping them indecorously into Tolkien's plot (Bilbo: 'This parrot's dead.' Gandalf: 'No, it's just pinin' for the fjord.') -- no, nay, never! Rather, I shall attempt a bold-faced mimicry of the brazen British troop's comedic stylings as they rewrite the quintessential fantasy story (allegorical only on a subsumed basis) which contains elements of pre-existing mythology and a faint veneer of Catholicity (okay, that's more Lord of the Rings than The Hobbit, but it plays well to the masses).

Other than that, there should be nothing derivative whatsoever. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

CHAPTER 1: Gandalf Arrives

One morning long ago in the quiet of the world, when there was less noise and more green, the inestimable wizard Gandalf found himself once again at the brightly painted, round door of the hobbit-hole at Bag-end. Smiling, he rapped lightly at the door with his great staff. At first, there was no answer, and so he rapped once more. There was much rummaging about inside, and then the flap, flap, flap of bare feet on stone floor. Eventually, a voice came reluctantly from behind the door. "'Ooo is it?" was all it said.

"It is I, Gandalf," the wizard cheerfully answered.

"Ooo?" the voice replied in turn.

Gandalf cleared his throat and said again, "Gandalf, it is Gandalf."

"Go 'way, there's nobody 'ome," the voice said rather unconvincingly.

"Nonsense, I can hear you as plain as day!" Gandalf growled in growing irritation, but there followed naught but a brooding silence. Not to be so easily defeated, the gray wizard began knocking more persistently, and shouted, "Open up this instant!" But the voice from behind the door became vexed and shrieked, "We don't want any!"

"I'm not here to give anyone anything, dash it all!" Gandalf bellowed. "Open up, I wish to speak with Bilbo Baggins!"

The silence that followed was punctuated occasionally by mutterings and whispers. Finally, the voice from behind the door retorted, "'Ees away on Holiday. Coom back next spring."

Gandalf heaved an exasperated sigh. "This is preposterous! Open up, I say! Open up or I shall turn you into something unpleasant!"

There was more muttering and whispers, but Gandalf's threat had its desired effect. The door opened to reveal an old hobbit-hag.

"Good morning…old hobbit-hag," Gandalf said hesitantly.

"Good mornin'? And what's good about it, I should like to know?" The old hobbit-hag grumbled. "What with strange old geezers with big, nasty sticks lurkin' about, threatenin' poor innocent folk. I told my 'usband the Shire was goin' to 'ell in a 'andbasket, but did 'ee listen...no!"

Gandalf was growing increasingly perturbed by the whole affair, but he managed to maintain an air of forced politeness. "By 'good morning' I merely meant to offer you a suitable greeting. I could just as well have said 'hello'."

The old hag spat and scowled. "Better to 'ave said goodbye and be done with it. Goodbye!"

Gandalf forcibly kept the door ajar with his staff as it was swinging shut, and growled, "Now wait just a moment! Where is Bilbo Baggins? I demand to see him!"

The old hobbit-hag looked the wizard up and down indignantly. "You...demand? Well aint that just like a filthy beggar, puttin' on airs! All high and mighty, and not a farthing to clean up those dirty gray rags! We'll just see about this...OTHO! O-T-H-O!"

There were mumbled curses further down the hobbit hole, and then more flap, flap, flap of bare feet on stone. A distinguished Hobbit suddenly appeared at the door. He was wearing a green velvet smoking jacket and had a red fez angled jauntily on his round head. Clearly agitated, he puffed on his clay meerschaum with the force of a locomotive engine. "See here, Lobelia, what's all this caterwauling about?" the gentle-hobbit barked. "You've interrupted my tea."

"I'll interrupt more than your tea, you great lummox," the hobbit hag (named Lobelia, of course, and evidently the hobbit's wife) barked right back. "This smelly old bugger won't leave. Says 'ee's 'ere to see Bilbo Baggins. Demandin' to do so, 'ee is!"

The distinguished hobbit (one Otho Sackville-Baggins by name) looked the wizard up and down in the same manner his wife had earlier, and huffed as he puffed, "Preposterous! Look here, my good man, what are you on about? It seems you've gone and confusticated and bebothered my good wife. The last time she was in such a state, she ended up burnin' the scones."

Lobelia upper lip began to quaver and she cried, "Scones, scones, scones! If it aint the tea, it's the scones. I get no appreciation 'round 'ere." Here sobbing became more pronounced and she loudly blew her nose on the hem of her dress.

Otho, realizing he had crossed some husbandly boundary and stricken his wife to the bottom of her hairy toes, became more gentle and crooned, "There, there, my dear, the last batch of scones was absolutely lovely. They were a triumph."

"You...you think so?" Lobelia whimpered.

"A delight, my dear," Otho replied with a loving pat, "every bit as good as Beladonna Took's."

Gandalf had been watching the affectionate interplay between Otho and Lobelia with a mix of disinterest and disgust. "Excuse me..." he interrupted.

Otho's head snapped upward and he glared at Gandalf. "What, are you still here? Be off with you, rapscallion, or I shall be forced to call the Shiriffs! There are laws against loitering I'll have you know."

Gandalf bit his lip to stifle a curse. Regaining his composure, he said in a measured tone, "Would you be so kind as to tell Bilbo Baggins that Gandalf is here. I was here only yesterday and spoke with him..."

But Lobelia cut him off with a cry: "Ah, so it was you! Look, Otho, 'ees the one as scratched up the door with those queer markings. Must've used that nasty stick."

Otho pulled the pipe from between his teeth and pointed the butt-end at the wizard. "There are laws against defacing private property, I'll have you know! You, sir, are a vagrant and a vandal!"

Lobelia joined in and scornfully hissed, "Be off with you! Be off a' fore we sic the Bounders on ye!" So saying, she hit Gandalf squarely in the nose with her bumbershoot.

And so Gandalf, abashed by such a brazen attack on his Maiaric personage -- albeit disguised in a corporeal manifestation to give him a less ethereal appearance -- staggered in uncertainty away from the quaint hobbit-hole and down the slate path that led from Bag-end. Little did he realize that the conniving Sackville-Bagginses had been granted power-of-attorney by the high court in Michel Delving, and had poor Bilbo committed for reasons of rowing boats, being seen in the company of frolicking elves, feeding dwarves out of season, and generally behaving in a manner inconsistent with accustomed upper class Hobbitish practices.