The Middle Distance

Title: The Terror of Rushy Hollow
Fandom: The Lord of the Rings
author: vulgarweed
Rating: PG
Pairing: None really - Hobbit OC-centric
Summary:One dark autumn night in the Shire, a rejected suitor leaves a harvest festival with a heavy heart - and a head swimming with eerie stories. Particularly of a new terror never seen in the Shire before: the ghastly spectre the locals call the Faceless Horseman.

Those familiar with The Red Book of Westmarch will recognise this as a rustic, romanticised, and garbled hobbit-centric account of certain alarming events that occurred in the Shire in the autumn of TA 3018, on the eve of the War of the Ring.

Those familiar with more recent literature will note that this story bears such a strong resemblance to the plot of Washington Irving's story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," one realises Mr Irving must have had some passing acquaintance with Middle-earth folklore.

The Terror of Rushy Hollow at AO3


Happy Halloween, Shirelings!