The Spriggan
by ZuiderZee  (zuiderzee@hotmail.com)
Adventures of an Amazon Hobbit: Part 1


     Most of us are dead. 
     Dead and gone. 
     Not that we ought to be. 
     I mean...given all the things we can do if we put real effort into 
it, it's difficult to accept the notion we could become extinct.  With 
the advantages of of a century long lifespan, heightened awareness 
(better than humans, anyway) fantastic reflexes, a penchant for good 
living and resistance to injury and disease, we seem superbly equipped 
to survive and by rights shouldn't fall prey to the same vile plagues 
that have hewn away at common men since the world began. 
     Outwardly, I don't seem capable of anything monstrous, or at least 
I didn't in the beginning when I grew up with pappy in Kladsch. 
     If anything, I was aberrant to the eyes of my human neighbors only 
because I was so small. 

     Now how ironic is that? 

     Not that I, Moira F. Dicklesby, (Dicks for short) am some sort of 
sage or expert on how things came to be and how they ultimately went 
out. 
     I'm not! 
     Not in any general sense, I'm not--and odd though it sounds, not as 
it involves myself. 

     The whole thing of turning into an oddity, a menace, a legend to 
put it bluntly, caught me  and everyone else completely by surprise.  
And oh, what a prickly surprise it was! 

     Now, to look at me--to give me the once-over, as anyone might do on 
the street in broad daylight--you wouldn't think that I had giants for 
ancestors, but hidden down in the laziest veins of my flesh must trickle 
a few potent drops of the blood of a mighty and uncouth race. 
     As I stated earlier, I don't know near enough about those bygone 
days when certain unions between lost and mythical apparitions 
determined my constitution--that is to say my physcial and spiritual 
make-up--I can only try to tell you what happened to me and those around 
me...and what continues to happen despite my efforts to put all the 
trouble behind me. 

     I leave the imaginings of ancient history to the scholars. 

                 *                     * 


     It had been two and twenty years since I was birthed, but like Elmo 
Dicklesby, my pappy, I was slated to live a long, long life, and no 
matter what the human-crafted calendar on the parlor wall dictated, I 
was still at a tender age.  At 22, I was just between spoon-feeding and 
paying taxes.  I dressed and bathed myself and was permitted to run 
errands and stay out after dark.  The world was generally peaceful, the 
floods, feuds and open war that reduced our lot to ruin and desperation 
were a long way off.  Elmo, bless him, had wanted a boy, but since I was 
his only child and he resolved to have no more children after mammy was 
took, he was content with me.  I was a youngster, true, but had a ways 
to go before I could be termed a "grown-up" at around age forty. 
     I stood a yard high which is a respectable stature for our kind.  
My hands, feet and head would continue to expand for a few more years, 
but all these features were still in ideal proportion. 
     I was normal. 

     Or so Elmo said. 

     Pappy and I lived alongside hundreds of human beings in Kladsch and 
no one ever had much of a quarrel with him; he was one of those types 
you feel guilty about hating.  He accomplished more with charm than a 
dozen could do with force.  I'm getting ahead of things by saying he's 
already dead and gone, but this is a story about being cut off from the 
familiar, so you might as well know now that he went to his reward 
before most of my troubles started.  It was only by dint of his firm 
niche in the community that I had few quarrels with the townsfolk 
either. 
     I was and still am entertaining in an irrepressible and noisy way.  
I didn't take to brawling until after the flood.  And by the time the 
war rolled around I was an accomplished fighter, having no peer in the 
art of the sling.  Killing I learned in due course, make no mistake.  
And when the hostilities came to a none-too-soon end, I hung up the rest 
of my weapons and never looked for bloodshed again. 


     Pappy would not have approved of my fighting, but I was a different 
creature after he died.  Little of what he set upon me to do in honor of 
him have I chosen to keep up.  One modicum he did insist upon was naming 
his heir after himself--strictly for legal purposes--thus, my given name 
is Moira.  And so, we were Mo and Mo.  The elder and the younger. 


     Elmo was a halfling; a strange breed of little people--rather on 
the mundane side--the likes of which go by various silly names in 
equally inane books written by humans.  I must say we have been grossly 
misrespresented in these publications.  The authors and artists 
responsible for these gaffes have obviously never seen a real halfling.  
If they had, our portrayals would be fair and even and there would be 
much less scoffing and scorn at the notion we could contend with the 
trails of life.  Typical of his kind, Elmo was diminuitive, mild-
mannered and had no magic at his command. 
     Neither he nor I could instantly wrest from nature (or supernature) 
the things we needed and wanted. 

     I don't have spots on my skin, horns, a tail or webbed toes--I'm 
not part animal!  I am a halfling.  This should imply I am much like a 
miniature human in appearance. 
     Where that pipe-chomping idiot from South Africa came up with the 
claim we have hairy feet and go around with no shoes must have been 
influenced by a visit to Italy, for I wore boots regularly my body hair 
stopped at a much softer place than my toes.  I was a dreamer, but 
still, I could not imagine from a glance at pappy and me and the other 
halflings that I would ever manage to sprout into a giant! 

     There, I've said it.  A giant. 

     The family tree, I was to discover much, much later, was a freakish 
one, into which many races had grafted a branch. 
     Mammy perhaps had some human blood in her, because I came into the 
world with more teeth and ribs than is customary for a halfling.  
Worries set in as I noticed Elmo and I did not have the same coloring.  
Indeed, as I paid more attention to my changing body, I noticed more and 
more differences as I played with the other children. 

     These differences which I made no attempt to hide at first, cheated 
me out of marriage, business, freedom and citizenship.  Only when I 
turned by back on all I had childishly yearned for did I discover my 
enormous talents. 
  And I do mean enormous.  Though I have reverted to a small size after 
the turbulent years, there come times when I get riled up and testy and 
I start ducking at doorways and feeling the furniture isn't quite big 
enough. 

     You've heard the tales of those other halflings--well, I never had 
it so good as that "Bildad Bangles" or whatever his name is...and I 
never needed a wizard to show me where the risks were.  I've gotten out 
of the habit of attributing my failures and successes to others.  Mine 
isn't the most delightful story of a halfling you might read, but damn 
it, I've got to tell it to someone.  There's not much time left... 


     END OF PART ONE. 

     To be continued.