Bored of the Rings a Parody FOREWORD
Though we cannot with complete candor state, as does Professor T., that “the tale grew in the telling,” we can allow that this tale (or rather the necessity of hawking it at a bean a copy) grew in direct proportion to the ominous dwindling of our bank accounts at the Harvard Trust in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This loss of turgor in our already emaciated portfolio was not, in itself, cause for alarm (or “alarum” as Professor T. might aptly put it), but the resultant threats and cuffed ears received at the hands of creditors were. Thinking long on this, we retired to the reading lounge of our club to meditate on this vicissitude.
The following autumn found us still in our leather chairs, plagued with bedsores and appreciably thinner, but still without a puppy biscuit for the lupine pest lolling around the front door. It was at this point that our palsied hands came to rest on a dog-eared nineteenth printing of kindly old Prof. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Dollar signs in our guileless eyes, we quickly ascertained that it was still selling like you know whats. Armed to the bicuspids with thesauri and reprints of international libel laws, we locked ourselves in the Lampoon squash court with enough Fritos and Dr Pepper to choke a horse. (Eventually the production of this turkey actually required the choking of a small horse, but that’s another story entirely.)
Spring found us with decayed teeth and several pounds of foolscap covered with inky, illegible scrawls. A quick rereading proved it to be a surprisingly brilliant satire on Tolkien’s linguistic and mythic structures, filled with little takeoffs on his use of Norse tales and wicked phoneme fricatives. A cursory assessment of the manuscript’s sales appeal, however, convinced us that dollarwise the thing would be better employed as tinder for the library fireplace. The next day, handicapped by near-fatal hangovers and the loss of all our bodily hair (but that’s another story), we sat down at two supercharged, fuel-injected, 345-hp Smith-Coronas and knocked off the opus you’re about to read before tiffin. (And we take tiffin pretty durn early in these parts, buckaroo.) The result, as you are about to see for yourself, was a book as readable as Linear A and of about the same literary value as an autographed gatefold of St. Simon Stylites.
“As for any inner meanings or ‘message,’” as Professor T. said in his foreword, there is none herein except that which you may read into it yourself. (Hint: What did P. T. Barnum say was “born every minute”?) Through this book, we hope, the reader may find deeper insights not only into the nature of literary piracy but into his own character as well. (Hint: What is missing from this famous quotation? “A ______ and his ______ soon are ______.” You have three minutes. Ready, set, go!)
Bored of the Rings has been issued in this form as a parody. This is very important. It is an attempt to satirize the other books, not simply to be mistaken for them. Thus, we must strongly remind you that this is not the real thing! So if you’re about to purchase this copy thinking it’s about the Lord of the Rings, then you’d better put it right back onto that big pile of remainders where you found it. Oh, but you’ve already read this far, so that must mean that—that you’ve already bought . . . oh dear . . . oh my . . . (Tote up another one on the register, Jocko. “Ching!”)
Lastly, we hope that those of you who have read Prof. Tolkien’s remarkable trilogy already will not be offended by our little spoof of it. All fooling aside, we consider ourselves honored to be able to make fun of such an impressive, truly masterful work of genius and imagination. After all, that is the most important service a book can render, the rendering of enjoyment, in this case, enjoyment through laughter. And don’t trouble yourself too much if you don’t laugh at what you are about to read, for if you perk up your pink little ears, you may hear the silvery tinkling of merriment in the air, far, far away. . . .
It’s us, buster. Ching!|Bored of the Rings a Parody I
It’s My Party and I’ll Snub Who I Want To
When Mr. Dildo Bugger of Bug End grudgingly announced his intention of throwing a free feed for all the boggies in his part of the Sty, the reaction in Boggietown was immediate—all through the messy little slum could be heard squeals of “Swell!” and “Hot puppies, grub!” Slavering with anticipation, several recipients of the invitations devoured their little engraved scrolls, temporarily deranged by transports of gluttony. After the initial hysteria, however, the boggies returned to their daily routines and, as is their wont, lapsed back into a coma.
Nevertheless, jabbering rumors spread through the tatty lean-tos of recent shipments of whole, bewildered oxen, great barrels of foamy suds, fireworks, tons of potato greens, and gigantic hogsheads of hogs’ heads. Even huge bales of freshly harvested stingwort, a popular and remarkably powerful emetic, were carted into town. News of the fête reached even unto the Gallowine, and the outlying residents of the Sty began to drift into town like peripatetic leeches, each intent on an orgy of freeloading that would make a lamprey look like a piker.
No one in the Sty had a more bottomless gullet than that drooling and senile old gossip Haf Gangree. Haf had spent his life as the town’s faithful beadle, and had long since retired on the proceeds of his thriving blackmail racket.
Tonight, Fatlip, as he was called, was holding forth at the Bag Eye, a sleazy dive more than once closed down by Mayor Fastbuck for the dubious behavior of the establishment’s buxom “B-boggies,” who were said to be able to roll a troll before you could say “Rumpelstiltskin.” The usual collection of sodden oafs were there, including Fatlip’s son, Spam Gangree,1 who was presently celebrating his suspended sentence for the performing of an unnatural act with an underage female dragon of the opposite sex.
“The whole thing smells pretty queer to me,” said Fatlip, as he inhaled the acrid fumes of his nose-pipe. “I’m meaning the way Mr. Bugger is throwing this big bash when for years he’s not so much as offered a piece o’ moldy cheese to his neighbors.” The listeners nodded silently, for this was certainly the case. Even before Dildo’s “strange disappearance” he had kept his burrow at Bug End guarded by fierce wolverines, and in no one’s memory had he ever contributed a farthing to the Boggietown Annual Mithril Drive for Homeless Banshees. The fact that no one else ever had either did not excuse Dildo’s famed stinginess. He kept to himself, nurturing only his nephew and a mania for dirty Scrabble.
“And that boy of his, Frito,” added bleary-eyed Nat Clubfoot, “as crazy as a woodpecker, that one is.” This was verified by Old Poop of Backwater, among others. For who hadn’t seen young Frito walking aimlessly through the crooked streets of Boggietown, carrying little clumps of flowers and muttering about “truth and beauty” and blurting out silly nonsense like “Cogito ergo boggum”?
“He’s an odd one, all right,” said Fatlip, “and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there weren’t something in that talk of his having dwarfish sympathies.” At this point there was an embarrassed silence, particularly from young Spam, who had never believed the unproved charges that the Buggers were “scroll-carrying dwarves.” As Spam pointed out, real dwarves were shorter and smelled much worse than boggies.
“That’s pretty stout talk,” laughed Fatlip, wagging his right foreleg, “about a body what’s only borrowed the name of Bugger!”
“Aye,” chimed Clotty Peristalt. “If that Frito weren’t the seed of a crossbow wedding, then I don’t know lunch from din-din!” The roisterers all laughed aloud as they remembered Frito’s mother, Dildo’s sister, who rashly plighted her troth to someone from the wrong side of the Gallowine (someone known to be a hafling, i.e., part boggie, part opossum). Several of the members took this up and there followed a series of coarse2 and rather simpleminded jests at the expense of the Buggers.
“What’s more,” said Fatlip, “Dildo’s always acting . . . mysterious, if you know what I mean.”
“There are those that say he acts like he’s got something to hide, they say,” came a strange voice from the corner shadows. The voice belonged to a man, a stranger to the boggies of the Bag Eye, a stranger they had understandably overlooked because of his rather ordinary black cape, black chain mail, black mace, black dirk, and perfectly normal red glowing fires where his eyes should have been.
“Them what say that may be right,” agreed Fatlip, winking at his cronies to tell them a punch line was coming. “But them that say such may be wrong, too.” After the general hilarity resulting from the typical Gangree gaff died down, few had noticed that the stranger had disappeared, leaving only a strange, barnyard odor behind him.
“But,” insisted little Spam, “it will be a good party!”
To this they all agreed, for there was nothing a boggie loved more than an opportunity to stuff himself until he was violently ill.
· · ·
The season was cool, early autumn, heralding the annual change in the boggie dessert from whole watermelons to whole pumpkins. But the younger boggies who were not yet too obese to trundle their hulkish selves through the thoroughfares of the town saw evidence of a future treat at the forthcoming celebration: fireworks!
As the day of the party drew nearer, carts drawn by sturdy plow-goats rolled through the bullrush gates of Boggietown, laden with boxes and crates, each bearing the X-rune of Goodgulf the Wizard and various elvish brand names.
The crates were unloaded and opened at Dildo’s door, and the mewling boggies wagged their vestigial tails with wonder at the marvelous contents. There were clusters of tubes mounted on tripods to shoot rather outsized roman candles; fat, finned skyrockets, with odd little buttons at the front end, weighing hundreds of pounds; a revolving cylinder of tubes with a crank to turn them; and large “cherry bombs” that looked to the children more like little green pineapples with a ring inserted at the top. Each crate was labeled with an olive-drab elf-rune signifying that these toys had been made in the elf-shops of a fairy whose name was something very much like “Amy Surplus.”
Dildo watched the unpacking with a broad grin and sent the young ones scampering with a vicious swipe of a well-honed toenail. “G’wan, beat it, scram!” he called merrily after them as they disappeared. He then laughed and turned back to his boggie-hole, to talk to his guest within.
· · ·
“This’ll be one fireworks display they won’t forget,” cackled the ageing boggie to Goodgulf, who was puffing his cigar rather uncomfortably in a chair of tasteless elvish-modern. The floor around it was littered with four-letter Scrabble arrangements.
“I am afraid that you must alter your plans for them,” said the Wizard, unsnaggling a clot of tangled hair in his long, dirty gray beard. “You cannot use extermination as a method for settling your petty grudges with the townspeople.”
Dildo studied his old friend with shrewd appraisal. The old Wizard was robed in a threadbare magician’s cloak long out of fashion, with a few spangles and sequins hanging precariously at the ragged hem. On his head was a tall, battered conical hat sloppily covered with glow-in-the-dark cabalistic signs, alchemical symbols, and some off-color dwarfish graffiti, and in his gnarled, nail-bitten hands was a bent length of silvered maggotwood that served doubly as a “magic” wand and back scratcher. At this moment Goodgulf was using it in its second office as he studied the worn toes of what in these days would be taken for black basketball sneakers. High-tops.
“Looking a little down-at-the-heels, Gulfie,” chuckled Dildo. “Slump in the old Wizard racket, eh?”
Goodgulf looked pained at the use of his old school nickname, but adjusted his robes with dignity. “It is no fault of mine that unbelievers ridicule my powers,” he said. “My wonders will yet again make all gape and quail!” Suddenly he made a pass with his scratcher and the room was plunged into darkness. Through the blackness Dildo saw that Goodgulf’s robes had become radiant and bright. Odd letters appeared mysteriously on the front of his robe, reading in elvish, Will Thee Kiss Me in the Dark, Baby?
Just as suddenly the light returned to the comfortable burrow, and the inscription faded from the conjurer’s breast. Dildo rolled his eyes upward in his head and shrugged.
“Really now, Gulfie,” said Dildo, “that kind of stuff went out with high-button greaves. No wonder you’ve got to moonlight card sharking at hick carny shows.”
Goodgulf was unperturbed by his friend’s sarcasm. “Do not mock powers beyond your knowledge, impudent hairfoot,” he said, as five aces materialized in his hand, “for you see the efficacy of my enchantments!”
“All I see is that you’ve finally got the hang of that silly sleeve-spring,” chuckled the boggie as he poured a bowl of ale for his old companion. “So why don’t you leave off with your white-mice-and-pixie-dust routine and tell me why you’ve honored me with your presence? And appetite.”
The Wizard paused a moment before speaking to focus his eyes, which had recently developed a tendency to cross, and looked gravely at Dildo.
“It is time to talk of the Ring,” he said.
“Ring, ring? What ring?” said Dildo.
“Thee knows only too well what Ring,” said Goodgulf. “The Ring in thy pocket, Master Bugger.”
“Oooooh, that Ring,” said Dildo with a show of innocence, “I thought you meant the ring you leave in my tub after your séances with your rubber duck.”
“This is not the time for the making of jests,” said Goodgulf, “for Evil Ones are afoot in the lands, and danger is abroad.”
“But—” began Dildo.
“Strange things are stirring in the East . . .”
“But—”
“Doom is walking the High Road . . .”
“But—”
“There is a dog in the manger . . .”
“But—”
“A fly in the ointment . . .”
Dildo clapped his paw frantically over the working mouth of the Wizard.
“You mean . . . you mean,” he whispered, “there’s a Balrog in the woodpile?”
“Mmummffleflug!” affirmed the gagged magician.
Dildo’s worst fears had come to pass. After the party, he thought, there would be much to be decided.
· · ·
Although only two hundred invitations had been sent, Frito Bugger should not have been surprised to see several times that number sitting at the huge troughlike tables under the great pavilion in the Bugger meadows. His young eyes widened as he moped about, observing legions of ravenous muzzles tearing and snatching at their roasts and joints, oblivious to all else. Few faces were familiar to him in the grunting, belching press that lined the gorging-tables, but fewer still were not already completely disgu...
