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Museum-Quality Matte Paper Print available in two sizes:
12" x 16" (30cm x 40cm): $35.00 
24" x 32" (60cm x 80cm): $48.00
 
“One evening in the March of 1436 Master Samwise Gamgee was in his study at Bag End. He was sitting at the old well-worn desk, and with many pauses for thought he was writing in his slow round hand on sheets of loose paper. Propped up on a stand at his side was a large red book in manuscript…Now Sam was having a bit of quiet. Supper was over. Only Elanor was with him, still up because it was her birthday.” - The End of the Third Age, Second Unpublished Epilogue to The Lord of the Rings; JRR Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien
 
Party lanterns are gleaming in the garden at Bag End and all the rooms are filled with flowers because the Gamgees have been celebrating the 15th birthday of their eldest lass, Elanor. Doubtless it’s been a day of feasting and giving gifts to loved ones and guests. Sam has spent the evening reading aloud to his prodigious family from one of the Three Books of Lore which have descended to him from Bilbo, and now Elanor sits companionably in the study windowseat, still wearing her flower-trimmed party gown of golden homespun.
 
We first meet little Elanor as a baby at the traditional end of The Lord of the Rings, and it’s impossible to imagine a more perfect conclusion to the long tale than Sam returning from his journey to the Grey Havens and to hearth and home with the last line, “Well, I’m back.” It’s such a satisfying closure that J.R.R. Tolkien’s contemporaries persuaded him not to add on either of the two epilogues he attempted. But I can never have enough of the hobbits and, thanks to Christopher Tolkien, readers have been able to enjoy both versions of this postscript in which the Gamgee children ask all kinds of questions and receive answers from their Sam-Dad. Access to these writings have given us so many wonderful hints about the fates of various characters, some fifteen years after the customary ending of the book. In the second epilogue, for example, we hear:
 
“You came at the end of a Great Age, Elanorelle; but though it’s over, as we say, things don’t really end sharp like that. It’s more like a winter sunset. The High Elves have nearly all gone now with Elrond, but not quite all; and those that didn’t go will wait now for a while. And the other, the ones that belong here, will last even longer. There are still things for you to see, and maybe you’ll see them sooner than you hope.”
 
The things the hobbit lass will soon see include a visit from the king, and her long life will be full of interest and happiness.
 
I have always been especially interested in the story of Elanor Gamgee as the progenitor of the Fairbairns of Westmarch who will come to keep the lore books in the Tower Hills west of Hobbiton, and in this this original, hand-done painting, I have attempted to show the special relationship she has with her father. In some ways, it is very like Christopher’s relationship to John Ronald, as beloved lore-inheritor, and for me personally, it is also a tribute to my own father, Stephen, who first read me Tolkien’s books. Good fathers explain the doings of the wide world to their little daughters, and it is lovely to think of Samwise Gamgee, now a wondrously prosperous hobbit, Mayor and master of Bag End, taking such care to ensure that his children have the benefit of his wisdom and his love.
 
Hanging this museum quality print in your home will help you feel like a guest at Elanor’s birthday party . Perhaps you will get to listen to lore and look at the little wooden box from The Golden Wood. Perhaps you’ll even be invited to go with the Gamgees to meet King Elf-stone and Queen Evenstar! May such delightful possibilities fill your home with hobbit happiness.