Генри Берд - Bored of the rings

Copyright The Harvard Lampoon, Inc., 1969

Map by William S. Donnell

“Do you like what you doth see... ?” said the voluptuous elf-maiden as she provocatively parted the folds of her robe to reveal the rounded, shadowy glories within. Frito’s throat was dry, though his head reeled with desire and ale.

She slipped off the flimsy garment and strode toward the fascinated boggie unashamed of her nakedness. She ran a perfect hand along his hairy toes, and he helplessly watched them curl with the fierce insistent wanting of her.

“Let me make thee more comfortable,” she whispered hoarsely, fiddling with the clasps of his jerkin, loosening his sword belt with a laugh. “Touch me, oh touch me ,” she crooned.

Frito’s hand, as though of its own will, reached out and traced the delicate swelling of her elf-breast, while the other slowly crept around her tiny, flawless waist, crushing her to his barrel chest.

“Toes, I love hairy toes,” she moaned, forcing him down on the silvered carpet. Her tiny, pink toes caressed the luxuriant fur of his instep while Frito’s nose sought out the warmth of her precious elf-navel.

“But I’m so small and hairy, and... and you’re so beautiful ,” Frito whimpered, slipping clumsily out of his crossed garters.

The elf-maiden said nothing, but only sighed deep in her throat and held him more firmly to her faunlike body. “There is one thing you must do for me first,” she whispered into one tufted ear.

“Anything,” sobbed Frito, growing frantic with his need. “Anything!”

She closed her eyes and then opened them to the ceiling. “The Ring,” she said. “I must have your Ring.”

Frito’s whole body tensed. “Oh no,” he cried, “not that! Anything but... that.”

“I must have it,” she said both tenderly and fiercely. “I must have the Ring! ”

Frito’s eyes blurred with tears and confusion. “I can’t,” he said. “I mustn’t!”

But he knew resolve was no longer strong in him. Slowly, the elf-maiden’s hand inched toward the chain in his vest pocket, closer and closer it came to the Ring Frito had guarded so faithfully...

Though we cannot with complete candor state, as does Professor T., that “the tale grew in the telling,” we can allow that this tale (or rather the necessity of hawking it at a bean a copy) grew in direct proportion to the ominous dwindling of our bank accounts at the Harvard Trust in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This loss of turgor in our already emaciated portfolio was not, in itself, cause for alarm (or “alarum” as Professor T. might aptly put it), but the resultant threats and cuffed ears received at the hands of creditors were . Thinking long on this, we retired to the reading lounge of our club to meditate on this vicissitude.

The following autumn found us still in our leather chairs, plagued with bedsores and appreciably thinner, but still without a puppy biscuit for the lupine pest lolling around the front door. It was at this point that our palsied hands came to rest on a dog-eared nineteenth printing of kindly old Prof. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings . Dollar signs in our guileless eyes, we quickly ascertained that it was still selling like you-know-whats. Armed to the bicuspids with thesauri and reprints of international libel laws, we locked ourselves in the Lampoon squash court with enough Fritos and Dr. Pepper to choke a horse. (Eventually the production of this turkey actually required the choking of a small horse, but that’s another story entirely.)

Spring found us with decayed teeth and several pounds of foolscap covered with inky, illegible scrawls. A quick rereading proved it to be a surprisingly brilliant satire on Tolkien’s linguistic and mythic structures, filled with little takeoffs on his use of Norse tales and wicked phoneme fricatives. A cursory assessment of the manuscript’s sales appeal, however, convinced us that dollarwise the thing would be better employed as tinder for the library fireplace. The next day, handicapped by near-fatal hangovers and the loss of all our bodily hair (but that’s another story), we sat down at two supercharged, fuel-injected, 345-hp Smith Coronas and knocked off the opus you’re about to read before tiffin. (And we take tiffin pretty durn early in these parts, buckaroo.) The result, as you are about to see for yourself, was a book as readable as Linear A and of about the same literary value as an autographed gatefold of St. Simon Stylites.

“As for any inner meanings or ‘message,’” as Professor T. said in his foreword, there is none herein except that which you may read into it yourself. (Hint: What did P. T. Barnum say was “born every minute”?) Through this book, we hope, the reader may find deeper insights not only into the nature of literary piracy, but into his own character as well. (Hint: What is missing from this famous quotation? “A — and his — soon are —.” You have three minutes. Ready, set, go!)

Bored of the Rings has been issued in this form as a parody. This is very important. It is an attempt to satirize the other books, not simply to be mistaken for them. Thus, we must strongly remind you that this is not the real thing! So if you’re about to purchase this copy thinking it’s about the Lord of the Rings, then you’d better put it right back onto that big pile of remainders where you found it. Oh, but you’ve already read this far, so that must mean that—that you’ve already bought ... oh dear... oh my... (Tote up another one on the register, Jocko. “ Ching! ”)

Lastly, we hope that those of you who have read Prof. Tolkien’s remarkable trilogy already will not be offended by our little spoof of it. All fooling aside, we consider ourselves honored to be able to make fun of such an impressive, truly masterful work of genius and imagination. After all, that is the most important service a book can render, the rendering of enjoyment, in this case, enjoyment through laughter. And don’t trouble yourself too much if you don’t laugh at what you are about to read, for if you perk up your pink little ears, you may hear the silvery tinkling of merriment in the air, far, far away....

It’s us, buster. Ching!

This book is predominantly concerned with making money, and from its pages a reader may learn much about the character and the literary integrity of the authors. Of boggies, however, he will discover next to nothing, since anyone in the possession of a mere moiety of his marbles will readily concede that such creatures could exist only in the minds of children of the sort whose childhoods are spent in wicker baskets, and who grow up to be muggers, dog thieves, and insurance salesmen. Nonetheless, judging from the sales of Prof. Tolkien’s interesting books, this is a rather sizable group, sporting the kind of scorchmarks on their pockets that only the spontaneous combustion of heavy wads of crumpled money can produce. For such readers we have collected here a few bits of racial slander concerning boggies, culled by placing Prof. Tolkien’s books on the floor in a neat pile and going over them countless times in a series of skips and short hops. For them we also include a brief description of the soon-to-be-published-if-this-incredible-dog-sells account of Dildo Bugger’s earlier adventures, called by him Travels with Goddam in Search of Lower Middle Earth , but wisely renamed by the publisher Valley of the Trolls .