[Arry]

When the four lads and Falco returned to the little stage area, they gathered some stools near each other and sat playing a few soft strains of some old familiar ballads, each of them taking a few bars and expanding on them with their instruments. They were playing more for themselves now, than for the others in the room, feeding off each others’ energy and innovation. Tomlin’s toes began to tap faster as he took them through a lively reel and Falco moved them at an even quicker pace with a trio of jigs.

Gil brought them back to a slower beat with a song he’d learned from a traveler from the Misty Mountains . . . The Mist Covered Mountains the traveler had named the tune, and what words there were, were of longing to be back among those misty peaks.

When they were done with that melancholy piece, Fallon played a more lively set of notes on his fiddle. ‘I was wondering if you’d heard this one before. I got it from an old Brandybuck fiddler, from around the eastern end of the Green Hills. It’s a fun song . . . gets your feet moving, and even the littlest ones like to sing along with it.’ He played the song through, then began once again as the others took it up on their instruments. Once they had it down, he began to sing the words:

Oh many years ago near old Woodhall--
A stranger told this story to my ma--
And often was the time she said to me--
I know it is the truth certain as can be.

There was once in the hills quite a music makin' man--
known far and wide as fiddlin' Dan--
He could fiddle every tune, He could holler every call--
For circle, square or reel, he could fiddle them all---

One night as Dan was walking out to play--
He met a bear a’standin' in the way--
He couldn’t climb a tree, he had no club
He was sure that he was grizzly grub.

Said the bear with a roar as he shook a mighty paw--
Your fiddlin' Dan from old Woodhall--
I will let you alone if you'll play a little tune--
And organize a dance by the light of the moon--

Ol’ Dan he tucked his fiddle under chin--
He drew the bow his music to begin--
From all the country 'round the critters ran--
To join the party made by old fiddlin' Dan.

Prancin' out went the coon with the little porcupine--
The bear and bobcat stepped her fine--
They danced all the night every reel and every set--
And somewhere in the hills they are dancin' yet.

And somewhere in the hills they are dancin’ yet . . .

Fallon finished with a quick-time rendering of the last few bars. The children who’d gathered round to clap and dance shouted out for him to sing it one more time. ‘Learn us the words . . . go slow, won’t you . . .’ they prompted him. He placed his fiddle under his chin and began to teach them, line by line . . . And once, as he glanced up from where they were gathered, he noted that the rather large man who was sitting with a table of Hobbits was looking at him curiously . . .