Disclaimer: This bit of inspired madness is a work of derivative fiction based on the books of JRR Tolkien and the plays of William Shakespeare. I own neither and am making no money from this endeavor. This should be painfully obvious.

The Tragedye of Leaflet, Prince of Mirkwood:

[ACT FIFTH

Scene First (1)

A burying ground in Mirkwood]

[Enter two Wood-elves with spades]

FIRST ELF: Oh woeful day!

SECOND ELF: I prithee, Firdal, is she to be buried in the Grace of the Valar, that seeketh her own end?

FIRST ELF: Aye, Heledir, had she not been a gentle-elleth, close kin of our king, her end might be more closely examined. But 'tis our lot to deal with her hroa and let Mandos take her fëa as he will.

SECOND ELF: Mayhap 'twas not a witting act. 'Tis said that the fair Orofiriel despaired of e'er finding male attention here in this wood, where man look more fondly upon man than any other. Indeed, since our Prince told her that his affection for her passeth not beyond that of 'good friendshippe' the maiden's mind was quite o'erthrown.

FIRST ELF: And wandering in her madness, she betook herself to the Enchanted Stream and threw herself in. Whereupon, two ellyn trysting upon the mossy bank found her floating and bore her piteous corse hence. She is drown'd!

SECOND ELF: Aye and ai! Drown'd! What to do?

FIRST ELF: Bury her, dolt! In truth, I tell thee, thou art not the sharpest arrow in yon quiver! [falls to digging]

SECOND ELF: I know thou art, but, prithee, what am I?

FIRST ELF: [rolleth eyes]

Enter LEGOLAS and ARAGORN, afar off
FIRST ELF: This digging be thirsty toil! Make thyself useful, Heledir; fetch me a stoup of liquor!

SECOND ELF: Nay! Have I not had enough woe for the stealing of our King's good Dorwinion? 'Tis only lately I have been advanced from the digging of privies. I who was Guard Captain withal!

FIRST ELF: Thou wast not fit to guard a maidenhead at a Council of Eunuchs! I meant yon cask of our home-brew -- MD 2020.(2) Go, sirrah, and make it snappy!

Exit SECOND ELF

[FIRST ELF digs and sings

She was only the farmer's daughter
But all the horsemen knew 'er!
Tra-la-lally; come to the valley!
LEGOLAS: Look at this fellow; he sings at his work!

ARAGORN: Custom of fell deed hath choked all pity in him, I deem. For thou, my friend, livest in a rough neighbourhood.

FIRST ELF: [sings] Good things from the garden,
Garden in the valley,
Garden of the Jolly, ho-ho-ho . . . [tosses up skull]

LEGOLAS: I bid you good day, Master Elf. I would ask, how long hast thou been a gravedigger?

FIRST ELF: I came to it in the year that old Helm Hammerhand froze to death in the Long Winter. He that smote the sledded poleaxe on the ice. They say his heir, Theoden King, lies now senile, bed-rid and impotent in Rohan.

LEGOLAS: How long is that since?

FIRST ELF: Cannot you tell that? Every fool can tell that! 'Twas in the year that our young Prince Legolas was born. He that is mad and sent into Imladris!

ARAGORN: [snickering] Mad?

FIRST ELF: Aye, mad as a Gwaeron hare! He runs in the snow in light elven-shoes, sleeps with his eyes open, and removes the saddle from his horse. At wits' end, our King Thranduil sends him to Imladris, as it is supposed 'twill not be noticed there.

[LEGOLAS and ARAGORN exchaynge a look]

LEGOLAS: Dost not recognise me, Goodman Delver?

FIRST ELF: Nay. But 'tis said that when an ellon lose the ripe flow'r of his vyrginity, his countenance becometh much changed. Should I know thee, sirrah?

[LEGOLAS and ARAGORN exchaynge a nervouse look]

LEGOLAS: [hurrying on] Whose grave is this, Good Elf?

FIRST ELF: Mine, sir.

LEGOLAS: Truly, it be thine indeed for thou 'liest' in it.

[ARAGORN groaneth]

LEGOLAS: What elf dost thou dig for?

FIRST ELF: For no elf, sir.

LEGOLAS: For what elleth then?

FIRST ELF: For none neither.

LEGOLAS: Balrog's balls, sirrah! Who is to be buried in it?

FIRST ELF: One that was an elleth, sir, but Elbereth rest her, she's dead.

ARAGORN: Rough luck, old chap, for there were few enough females in your realm as it was. 'Tis said in Imladris that the Silvan elves find their elflings under fern leaves or else the males do bear them themselves. Which is, of course, a foolish fancy.

LEGOLAS [laughing nervously] Aye -- a foolish trifling fancy!

ARAGORN: Tell me, Gwador, is there much inbreeding in this realm? Lead in the pipes? Mercury in the water?

[ARAGORN receiveth ye dirtye look]

LEGOLAS: I prithee, Master Gravedigger, how long will an Elf last in the earth ere he decay?

FIRST ELF: A good six, eight week, my lord, but a Wood-elf will last twice as long.

ARAGORN: Why is that, sirrah?

FIRST ELF: For the wine we drink pickles us so good and proper that the embalmer's arts are needed not.

ARAGORN: [Aside] 'Tis no wonder your father's realm is o'errun with orcs and spiders!

LEGOLAS: [looketh daggers at ARAGORN and bends to pick up skull] Whose skull is this, Good Elf?

FIRST ELF: 'Tis the skull of our King's late butler, Galion -- a whoreson mad fellow, he was! Poured a flagon of Dorwinion over my head once (and over the head of our Monarch as well, but that is yet another tale!)

LEGOLAS: Alas, poor Galion! I knew him, Aragorn. A fellow of infinite jest and an even greater capacity for strong drink! He hath borne me on his back a thousand times. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft!

ARAGORN [softly] This is more information than I wouldst care to have.

FIRST ELF: Aye, 'twas the drink that killed old Galion!

ARAGORN: He ruin'd his liver withal?

FIRST ELF: Nay -- he was run over by a great wain from Esgaroth delivering the wine. (3) Whereupon ye back gate let loose and the weighty casks of Dorwinion rolled over him, one after another. Bump, bump, down they go! We scraped him up, slipped him under the door (4), and bore him hence. All come to the clay!

LEGOLAS: Prithee, Aragorn, tell me one thing.

ARAGORN: What's that, my friend?

LEGOLAS: Dost thou think that Gil-galad looked o' this fashion i' the earth?

ARAGORN: E'en so. Looked and smelt so!

FIRST ELF: [aside] There be some as smell worse in life. [Looks pointedly at the Ranger]

LEGOLAS: To what base uses must we all return, Aragorn! Why may not the imagination trace the noble clay of Ereinion, till he find it stopping a bunghole?

ARAGORN: [aside] Put not the image of Ereinion stopping a bunghole into my fever'd brain. Elrond is my foster father, after all!

FIRST ELF: Old Galion stopped many a bunghole in life (5) -- and eased a few, I warrant. Why should he do different when he has shuffled off this mortal coil? [sets to digging and singing]

Earendil was a mariner . . .

ARAGORN: Not that! Valar! Not that one . . . !

FIRST ELF: But soft, here comes our King.

Enter in procession , Wood-elves bearing the corpse of OROFIRIEL , GLAVRAS and Mourners, etc. followed by King THRANDUIL, SAERLINDE the former nursemaid of Prince LEGOLAS, and their trains.

LEGOLAS: The King; the courtiers, and Glavras, a most noble elf. Who is it they follow? Let us retire, Aragorn, and mark. [they hide behind a tree]

GLAVRAS: O lay her in the earth, my sweet cousin, and from her unpolluted flesh may Nephredil spring!

LEGOLAS: What? The fair Orofiriel? Oh, dear maiden, in thy prayers were all my sins remembered. How oft I have eluded thy amorous snares! And yet I would have had your end be otherwise!

ARAGORN: Unpolluted flesh?

LEGOLAS: Definitely unpolluted! Not with a ten foot battle lance would I!

SAERLINDE: [scattering flowers] Sweets to the sweet: farewell! I hoped thou would have been my Legolas's wife; I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid, and not have strewed thy grave.

THRANDUIL: Mayhap, had'st thou provided more affection in his youth, my son might have prov'd more apt unto the begetting of heirs.

SAERLINDE: Mayhap, had'st thou provided a better example in thy attentions toward the fairer sex, thy son might have been more apt unto marriage.

THRANDUIL: Harpy!

SAERLINDE: Gelding!

THRANDUIL: [aside] Ellith! Thou canst not live with them, yet thou canst not beget heirs without them!

GLAVRAS: O treble woe fall ten times treble upon that cursed blonde head whose wicked deed deprived thee of thy most ingenious sense! Hold off the earth for a while, till I have caught her once more in mine arms!
[leaps into the grave]
Now pile it on!

LEGOLAS: O, procure for me a bucket in which to deposit my latest meal! Glavras, thou art a Queene of Drama! I loved her as ever much as thou dids't!
[leaps into grave also]

GLAVRAS: Mandos take thee!
[grapples with him]

LEGOLAS: I prithee, take thy fingers from my . . . too, too solid flesh. On second thought, leave them there.

ARAGORN: Fie! That is my Elf! Unhand him, churl!
[jumps into grave]

THRANDUIL: Pluck them asunder!

SAERLINDE: O Leaflet, Leaflet!

ALL: Gentlemen -- Gentlemen . . .? Ai, Valar, will someone please kill us now?

OROFIRIEL: [extracting herself from beneath the pile of sensuously writhing males and stepping from grave] I've had it; and soundly too! I wake from deep dream brought on by the Enchanted Stream, to find that naught has changed. Ellon doth still gaze with unnat'ral fondness upon ellon, and a maiden is left alone to perish of boredom!

SAERLINDE: Sweet maid, right glad I am to see thee quick and not dead! Verily, in these woods an elleth might wait until Ambar Metta ere she catch the eye of her Elven-lord! [casts an evil glance at THRANDUIL] In matters of love, the ellyn of this realm feign as if they were dead -- unwieldy, heavy, slow and pale as lead! I' faith, they are bloody useless!

THRANDUIL: E'en so? Henceforth, trouble some other fellow with thy bootless cries when thou findest a spider in thy bathtub!

SAERLINDE: Lazy knave!

THRANDUIL: Virago!

SAERLINDE: Princox!

THRANDUIL: Shrew!

SAERLINDE: [aside] Ellyn! Thou canst not live with them, and yet thou canst not open a phial without them!

OROFIRIEL: Good Lady -- trouble not thy mind! For while through my veins did run the cold and drowsy humor of the Enchanted Stream 'twas of you I dreamt! Of thy soft lips, thy trembling thigh, and of the fair desmesnes that there adjacent lie!

SAERLINDE: Is it e'en so? I am for thee, sweet maid! I know a bank where the wild thyme blows. And there we may pass a pleasant afternoon in each other's company.

[they kiss and clasp hands. Exeunt, stage left]

THRANDUIL: [staring after them] Well, all's well that ends well! Who now doth wish to join me in an old accustom'd feast? We will make merry with much wine! [turneth to LEGOLAS, ARAGORN, and GLAVRAS] And thou three -- get thyselves a bedchamber!

[exeunt THRANDUIL, FIRST ELF, and train, stage right]

GLAVRAS: In this realm, the worde of the king is law . . .

LEGOLAS: Filial duty doth require me to obey my noble sire . . .

ARAGORN: When in Gondor, do as the Gondorians . . .

[exeunt LEGOLAS, ARAGORN & GLAVRAS, stage right]

[enter GALION, stage left. He looketh 'round]

GALION: But six months am I gone to the southern wood to visit my grand-daughter, and all goeth to Thangorodrim in an handbasket! I am wonder'd if my assistant did handle ye delivery of ye King's Dorwinion without incident? For he is a foolish knave, and I trust him not but to stand gawping in yon path and be run down.

[picks up skull and tosses it into open grave]


GALION: And mark ye -- someone might perchance to fall into yon pit and break an ankle. Or yet, one might trip upon this spade and put out an eye, withal! What ye King would do without me, I know not . . .

[falls to filling in hole and singing]

Tra-la-lally
O come to the valley . . .

[End Scene First]


Come ye hither next week to ye Globe Theatre for ye actynge of Scene Second: 'Elladan and Elrohir are Wed '

* * * * * * *

Footnotes:
(1) The gravedigger scene, for those who are Shakespeare challenged.

(2) Mirkwood Domestic 2020 TA -- said to be a very potent vintage of berries, cherries, twigs, moldy leaves and a few dead bats for zest.

(3) This joke stolen from the movie, Mrs. Doubtfire. So sue me!

(4) Joke so old it's in the Public Domain. Don't even think of suing me!

(5) This refers to the practice of corking wine casks with clay. What else did you think? Shame on you!


Author's Notes:
This 'charming bit of drama' arose from a discussion with ignoblebard in which he expressed a desire to see Hamlet redone as LOTR. Little did he know that I was insane enough to do it. My apologies to William Shakespeare and the elves of Mirkwood, both those belonging to JRR Tolkien and my own original characters, for any liberties taken. As for you, Bard -- Happy Begetting Day!

The images in the photomanip belong to Peter Jackson and the 1948 filmed version of Hamlet starring Lawrence Olivier.