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Book Review - Farmer Giles of Ham - submitted by Aragorn_Elissar (a.k.a. Tony Hedges)

Farmer Giles of Ham. I read this first when I was about 10 years old and I loved it. I was on my first "Tolkien kick" and had read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings prior to this story and couldn't get enough of Tolkien. In my later years I am building up my own Tolkien Library and bought, "Tales From A Perillous Realm" which is a collection of short stories, including the now famous farmer.

The story lasts just 59 pages but in tone they are somewhere between The Hobbit and LOTR. This story is set in England (not in Middle Earth), but it is a fantasy England (somewhere between Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire), where we have "little kingdoms" with Kings, but Farmer Giles has a blunderbus (primitive gun)!

His firearm is central to the story, as he finds to his cost, as he comes face to face with a rather stupid short-sighted giant and due to his actions he starts to earn himself an enhanced position in the small village of Ham. Whilst he likes this new "cult status" it draws him into (unwanted) further strife. It is interesting to note, that the sort of heroism that is forced on Farmer Giles (with protestations) is a similar "heroism in the face of fight or flight" that we see in Frodo Baggins and the Hobbits in The Lord of the Rings.

I don't want to give away too much of the story, because I don't believe many people have read it, but I can say that it is very charming and worth seeking out (if you've read almost everything else Tolkien has written, then this will be worth it).

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