Letters From Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien

Author:J.R.R. Tolkien [Tolkien, J.R.R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2004-09-19T04:00:00+00:00

Cliff House, near the North Pole

December 21st 1933

My dears

Another Christmas! and I almost thought at one time (in November) that there would not be one this year. There would be the 25th of December, of course, but nothing from your old great-great-etc. grandfather at the North Pole.

Goblins. The worst attack we have had for centuries. They have been fearfully wild and angry ever since we took all their stolen toys off them last year and dosed them with green smoke. You remember the Red Gnomes promised to clear all of them out. There was not one to be found in any hole or cave by New Year’s day. But I said they would crop up again—in a century or so.

They have not waited so long! They must have gathered their nasty friends from mountains all over the world, and been busy all the summer while we were at our sleepiest. This time we had very little warning.

Soon after All Saints’ Day, Polar Bear got very restless. He now says he smelt nasty smells—but as usual he did not say anything: he says he did not want to trouble me. He really is a nice old thing, and this time he absolutely saved Christmas. He took to sleeping in the kitchen with his nose towards the cellar-door, opening on the main-stairway down into my big stores.

One night, just about Christopher’s birthday, I woke up suddenly. There was squeaking and spluttering in the room and a nasty smell—in my own best green and purple room that I had just had done up most beautifully. I caught sight of a wicked little face at the window. Then I really was upset, for my window is high up above the cliff, and that meant there were bat-riding goblins about—which we haven’t seen since the goblin-war in 1453, that I told you about.

I was only just quite awake, when a terrific din began far downstairs—in the store-cellars. It would take too long to describe, so I have tried to draw a picture of what I saw when I got down—after treading on a goblin on the mat.

Only ther was more like 1000 goblins than 15.

(But you could hardly expect me to draw 1000). Polar Bear was squeezing, squashing, trampling, boxing and kicking goblins skyhigh, and roaring like a zoo, and the goblins were yelling like engine whistles. He was splendid.

Say no more—I enjoyed it immensely!

Well, it is a long story. The trouble lasted for over a fortnight, and it began to look as if I should never be able to get my sleigh out this year. The goblins had set part of the stores on fire and captured several gnomes, who sleep down there on guard, before Polar Bear and some more gnomes came in—and killed 100 before I arrived.

Even when we had put the fire out and cleared the cellars and house (I can’t think what they were doing in my room, unless they were trying to set fire to my bed) the trouble went on.

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