The Hobbit and the Gate of the Everlasting Valley
The Second Tale
by Fokion Triantafyllidis
at Radio Highway Pirates
Many nights and many seasons passed after the little hobbit left the wizard’s hut beneath the whispering boughs of the Black Forest.
He wandered through marsh and mountain, through meadows of mist and villages that slept with shuttered windows.
Yet the valley he sought – the Valley of Everlasting Songs – remained hidden, as though the world itself had swallowed its path.
Still, the hobbit did not abandon his hope.
He kept the wizard’s words close to his heart, like a secret ember that would not die.
On the first day of winter, when frost clung to every branch like silver claws, the hobbit came upon three ancient trees standing in a circle.
Their trunks were twisted like the spines of old men, and their roots spread across the forest floor like grasping hands.
As he stepped between them, the trees began to whisper – not with leaves, for they had none, but with voices born from wood and age.
“Turn back, little wanderer,”
the first tree groaned.
“Paths of old magic demand great sacrifice.”
“You seek a place that does not welcome the living,”
murmured the second.
“Not until their hearts are ready.”
The third tree creaked,
“Are you ready?”
The hobbit swallowed, for fear clawed at him – but he remembered the valley’s light, its music, the laughter of fairies dancing above the river.
“I am ready,”
he said.
The trees fell silent.
Then their roots pulled apart, forming a narrow path of earth worn smooth by no human foot.
The path led him to a river so still it reflected the world like a dark mirror.
When he knelt to drink, he saw not his face, but a memory – himself as a child, dancing in the fairy valley under a bridge of rainbows, laughing without fear.
A voice rose from the water:
“Why do you seek what is gone?”
The hobbit answered softly,
“Because it lives in me still.”
The river shivered – and a stepping-stone rose from its depths, glowing like moonlit bone.
Then another.
And another.
He crossed carefully, each step echoing like a heartbeat.
Beyond the river stood an arch of black stone, covered in runes older than sorrow.
It pulsed faintly with inner light, like a sleeping beast.
The hobbit touched it.
The stone grew warm beneath his hand.
And a voice – deep, distant, yet familiar as the wind in childhood – spoke behind him.
“You have grown, my little hobbit.”
He turned.
There stood the old wizard, though his beard was longer, and his eyes shone brighter – as if he, too, had traveled beyond the edges of time.
“Master… how did you know I would find it?”
the hobbit whispered.
The wizard smiled a slow, ancient smile.
“Because you no longer seek the valley to flee from life, but to understand it. Only now is your heart ripe enough to bear its truth.”
The hobbit looked at the gate, then at his old teacher.
“Will I find the fairies again? The singing? The rainbow? The place where no one grows old?”
The wizard’s voice grew soft as falling ash.
“You will find what you carry within you. The valley shows a different face to every soul.”
Then he touched the stone.
The runes blazed like captured starlight.
The ground trembled.
A wind smelling of honey and forgotten summers swept through the arch.
“Go,”
said the wizard.
“Your gate has opened.”
And So…
With a trembling heart, the hobbit stepped through the arch of stone.
Light swallowed him – warm, deep, endless.
What lay beyond, no mortal tongue can fully tell.
But the travellers who still wander the Black Forest say that sometimes, when the moon hangs low over the treetops, you can hear faint music drifting from a place that cannot be found on any map.
A song of peace.
A song of return.
A song of a hobbit who found the valley – not because he longed for youth, but because he had learned to be patient, and to believe.