Roverandom

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ROVERANDOM

J. R. R. Tolkien

ONCE UPON A TIME there was a little dog, and his name was Rover. He was very small, and very

young, or he would have known better; and he was very happy playing in the garden in the

sunshine with a yellow ball, or he would never have done what he did.

Not every old man with ragged trousers is a bad old man: some are bone-and-bottle men, and

have little dogs of their own; and some are gardeners; and a few, a very few, are wizards prowling

round on a holiday looking for something to do. This one was a wizard, the one that now walked

into the story. He came wandering up the garden-path in a ragged old coat, with an old pipe in his

mouth, and an old green hat on his head. If Rover had not been so busy barking at the ball, he might

have noticed the blue feather stuck in the back of the green hat, and then he would have suspected

that the man was a wizard, as any other sensible little dog would; but he never saw the feather at

all.

When the old man stooped down and picked up the ball — he was thinking of turning it into an

orange, or even a bone or a piece of meat for Rover — Rover growled, and said:

'Put it down! ' Without ever a 'please'.

Of course the wizard, being a wizard, understood perfectly, and he answered back again:

'Be quiet, silly!' Without ever a 'please'.

Then he put the ball in his pocket, just to tease the dog, and turned away. I am sorry to say that

Rover immediately bit his trousers, and tore out quite a piece. Perhaps he also tore out a piece of

the wizard. Anyway the old man suddenly turned round very angry and shouted:

'Idiot! Go and be a toy!'

After that the most peculiar things began to happen. Rover was only a little dog to begin with,

but he suddenly felt very much smaller. The grass seemed to grow monstrously tall and wave far

above his head; and a long way away through the grass, like the sun rising through the trees of a

forest, he could see the huge yellow ball, where the wizard had thrown it down again. He heard the

gate click as the old man went out, but he could not see him. He tried to bark, but only a little tiny

noise came out, too small for ordinary people to hear; and I don't suppose even a dog would have

noticed it.

So small had he become that I am sure, if a cat had come along just then, she would have

thought Rover was a mouse, and would have eaten him. Tinker would. Tinker was the large black

cat that lived in the same house.

At the very thought of Tinker, Rover began to feel thoroughly frightened; but cats were soon put

right out of his mind. The garden about him suddenly vanished, and Rover felt himself whisked off,

he didn't know where. When the rush was over, he found he was in the dark, lying against a lot of

hard things; and there he lay, in a stuffy box by the feel of it, very uncomfortably for a long while.

He had nothing to eat or drink; but worst of all, he found he could not move. At first he thought this

was because he was packed so tight, but afterwards he discovered that in the daytime he could only

move very little, and with a great effort, and then only when no one was looking. Only after

midnight could he walk and wag his tail, and a bit stiffly at that. He had become a toy. And because

he had not said 'please' to the wizard, now all day long he had to sit up and beg. He was fixed like

that.

After what seemed a very long, dark time he tried once more to bark loud enough to make

people hear. Then he tried to bite the other things in the box with him, stupid little toy animals,

really only made of wood or lead, not enchanted real dogs like Rover. But it was no good; he could

not bark or bite.

Suddenly someone came and took off the lid of the box, and let in the light.

'We had better put a few of these animals in the window this morning, Harry,' said a voice, and a

hand came into the box. 'Where did this one come from?' said the voice, as the hand took hold of

Rover. 'I don't remember seeing this one before. It's no business in the threepenny box, I'm sure.

Did you ever see anything so real-looking? Look at its fur and its eyes! '

'Mark him sixpence,' said Harry, 'and put him in the front of the window! '

There in the front of the window in the hot sun poor little Rover had to sit all the morning, and

all the afternoon, till nearly tea-time; and all the while he had to sit up and pretend to beg, though

really in his inside he was very angry indeed.

'I'll run away from the very first people that buy me,' he said to the other toys. 'I'm real. I'm not a

toy, and I won't be a toy! But I wish someone would come and buy me quick. I hate this shop, and I

can't move all stuck up in the window like this.'

'What do you want to move for?' said the other toys. 'We don't. It's more comfortable standing

still thinking of nothing. The more you rest, the longer you live. So just shut up! We can't sleep

while you're talking, and there are hard times in rough nurseries in front of some of us.'

They would not say any more, so poor Rover had no one at all to talk to, and he was very

miserable, and very sorry he had bitten the wizard's trousers.

I could not say whether it was the wizard or not who sent the mother to take the little dog away

from the shop. Anyway, just when Rover was feeling his miserablest, into the shop she walked with

a shopping-basket. She had seen Rover through the window, and thought what a nice little dog he

would be for her boy. She had three boys, and one was particularly fond of little dogs, especially of

little black and white dogs. So she bought Rover, and he was screwed up in paper and put in her

basket among the things she had been buying for tea.

Rover soon managed to wriggle his head out of the paper. He smelt cake. But he found he could

not get at it; and right down there among the paper bags he growled a little toy growl. Only the

shrimps heard him, and they asked him what was the matter. He told them all about it, and expected

them to be very sorry for him, but they only said:

'How would you like to be boiled? Have you ever been boiled? '

'No! I have never been boiled, as far as I remember,' said Rover, 'though I have sometimes been

bathed, and that is not particularly nice. But I expect boiling isn't half as bad as being bewitched.'

'Then you have certainly never been boiled,' they answered. 'You know nothing about it. It's the

very worst thing that could happen to anyone — we are still red with rage at the very idea.'

Rover did not like the shrimps, so he said: 'Never mind, they will soon eat you up, and I shall sit

and watch them! '

After that the shrimps had no more to say to him, and he was left to lie and wonder what sort of

people had bought him.

He soon found out. He was carried to a house, and the basket was set down on a table, and all

the parcels were taken out. The shrimps were taken off to the larder, but Rover was given straight

away to the little boy he had been bought for, who took him into the nursery and talked to him.

Rover would have liked the little boy, if he had not been too angry to listen to what he was

saying to him. The little boy barked at him in the best dog-language he could manage (he was

rather good at it), but Rover never tried to answer. All the time he was thinking he had said he

would run away from the first people that bought him, and he was wondering how he could do it;

and all the time he had to sit up and pretend to beg, while the little boy patted him and pushed him

about, over the table and along the floor.

At last night came, and the little boy went to bed; and Rover was put on a chair by the bedside,

still begging until it was quite dark. The blind was down; but outside the moon rose up out of the

sea, and laid the silver path across the waters that is the way to places at the edge of the world and

beyond, for those that can walk on it. The father and mother and the three little boys lived close by

the sea in a white house that looked right out over the waves to nowhere.

When the little boys were asleep, Rover stretched his tired, stiff legs and gave a little bark that

nobody heard except an old wicked spider up a corner. Then he jumped from the chair to the bed,

and from the bed he tumbled off onto the carpet; and then he ran away out of the room and down

the stairs and all over the house.

Although he was very pleased to be able to move again, and having once been real and properly

alive he could jump and run a good deal better than most toys at night, he found it very difficult and

dangerous getting about. He was now so small that going downstairs was almost like jumping off

walls; and getting upstairs again was very tiring and awkward indeed. And it was all no use. He

found all the doors shut and locked, of course; and there was not a crack or a hole by which he

could creep out. So poor Rover could not run away that night, and morning found a very tired little

dog sitting up and pretending to beg on the chair, just where he had been left.

The two older boys used to get up, when it was fine, and run along the sands before their

breakfast. That morning when they woke and pulled up the blind, they saw the sun jumping out of

the sea, all fiery-red with clouds about his head, as if he had a cold bathe and was drying himself

with towels. They were soon up and dressed; and off they went down the cliff and onto the shore

for a walk — and Rover went with them.

Just as little boy Two (to whom Rover belonged) was leaving the bedroom, he saw Rover sitting

on the chest-of-drawers where he had put him while he was dressing.

'He is begging to go out!' he said, and put him in his trouser-pocket.

But Rover was not begging to go out, and certainly not in a trouser-pocket. He wanted to rest

and get ready for the night again; for he thought that this time he might find a way out and escape,

and wander away and away, until he came back to his home and his garden and his yellow ball on

the lawn. He had a sort of idea that if once he could get back to the lawn, it might come all right:

the enchantment might break, or he might wake up and find it had all been a dream. So, as the little

boys scrambled down the cliff-path and galloped along the sands, he tried to bark and struggle and

wriggle in the pocket. Try how he would, he could only move a very little, even though he was

hidden and no one could see him. Still he did what he could, and luck helped him. There was a

handkerchief in the pocket, all crumpled and bundled up, so that Rover was not very deep down,

and what with his efforts and the galloping of his master, before long he had managed to poke out

his nose and have a sniff round.

Very surprised he was, too, at what he smelt and what he saw. He had never either seen or smelt

the sea before, and the country village where he had been born was miles and miles from sound or

snuff of it.

Suddenly, as he was leaning out, a great big bird, all white and grey, went sweeping by just over

the heads of the boys, making a noise like a great cat on wings. Rover was so startled that he fell

right out of the pocket onto the soft sand, and no one heard him. The great bird flew on and away,

never noticing his tiny barks, and the little boys walked on and on along the sands, and never

thought about him at all.

At first Rover was very pleased with himself.

'I've run away! I've run away!' he barked, toy barking that only other toys could have heard, and

there were none to listen. Then he rolled over and lay in the clean dry sand that was still cool from

lying out all night under the stars.

But when the little boys went by on their way home, and never noticed him, and he was left all

alone on the empty shore, he was not quite so pleased. The shore was deserted except by the gulls.

Beside the marks of their claws on the sand the only other footprints to be seen were the tracks of

the little boys' feet. That morning they had gone for their walk on a very lonely part of the beach

that they seldom visited. Indeed it was not often that anyone went there; for though the sand was

clean and yellow, and the shingle white, and the sea blue with silver foam in a little cove under the

grey cliffs, there was a queer feeling there, except just at early morning when the sun was new.

People said that strange things came there, sometimes even in the afternoon; and by the evening the

place was full of mermen and mermaidens, not to speak of the smaller sea-goblins that rode their

small sea-horses with bridles of green weed right up to the cliffs and left them lying in the foam at

the edge of the water.

Now the reason of all this queerness was simple: the oldest of all the sand-sorcerers lived in that

cove, Psamathists as the sea-people call them in their splashing language. Psamathos Psamathides

was this one's name, or so he said, and a great fuss he made about the proper pronunciation. But he

was a wise old thing, and all sorts of strange folk came to see him; for he was an excellent

magician, and very kindly (to the right people) into the bargain, if a bit crusty on the surface. The

mer-folk used to laugh over his jokes for weeks after one of his midnight parties. But it was not

easy to find him in the daytime. He liked to lie buried in the warm sand when the sun was shining,

so that not more than the tip of one of his long ears stuck out; and even if both of his ears were

showing, most people like you and me would have taken them for bits of stick.

It is possible that old Psamathos knew all about Rover. He certainly knew the old wizard who

had enchanted him; for magicians and wizards are few and far between, and they know one another

very well, and keep an eye on one another's doings too, not always being the best of friends in

private life. At any rate there was Rover lying in the soft sand and beginning to feel very lonely and

rather queer, and there was Psamathos, though Rover did not see him, peeping at him out of a pile

of sand that the mermaids had made for him the night before.

But the sand-sorcerer said nothing. And Rover said nothing. And breakfast-time went by, and

the sun got high and hot. Rover looked at the sea, which sounded cool, and then he got a horrible

fright. At first he thought that the sand must have got into his eyes, but soon he saw that there could

be no mistake: the sea was moving nearer and nearer, and swallowing up more and more sand; and

the waves were getting bigger and bigger and more foamy all the time.

The tide was coming in, and Rover was lying just below the high-water mark, but he did not

know anything about that. He grew more and more terrified as he watched, and thought of the

splashing waves coming right up to the cliffs and washing him away into the foaming sea (far

worse than any soapy bathing-tub), still miserably begging.

That is indeed what might have happened. to him; but it did not. I dare say Psamathos had

something to do with it; at any rate I imagine that the wizard's spell was not so strong in that queer

cove, so close to the residence of another magician. Certainly when the sea had come very near,

and Rover was nearly bursting with fright as he struggled to roll a bit further up the beach, he

suddenly found he could move.

His size was not changed, but he was no longer a toy. He could move quickly and properly with

all his legs, daytime though it still was. He need not beg any more, and he could run over the sands

where they were harder; and he could bark — not toy barks, but real sharp little fairy-dog barks

equal to his fairy-dog size. He was so delighted, and he barked so loud, that if you had been there,

you would have heard him then, clear and far-away-like, like the echo of a sheep-dog coming down

the wind in the hills.

And then the sand-sorcerer suddenly stuck his head out of the sand. He certainly was ugly, and

about as big as a very large dog; but to Rover in his enchanted size he looked hideous and

monstrous. Rover sat down and stopped barking at once.

'What are you making such a noise about, little dog?' said Psamathos Psamathides. 'This is my

time for sleep!'

As a matter of fact all times were times for him to go to sleep, unless something was going on

which amused him, such as a dance of the mermaids in the cove (at his invitation). In that case he

got out of the sand and sat on a rock to see the fun. Mermaids may be very graceful in the water,

but when they tried to dance on their tails on the shore, Psamathos thought them comical.

'This is my time for sleep! ' he said again, when Rover did not answer. Still Rover said nothing,

and only wagged his tail apologetically.

'Do you know who I am?' he asked. 'I am Psamathos Psamathides, the chief of all the

Psamathists!' He said this several times very proudly, pronouncing every letter, and with every P he

blew a cloud of sand down his nose.

Rover was nearly buried in it, and he sat there looking so frightened and so unhappy that the

sand-sorcerer took pity on him. In fact he suddenly stopped looking fierce and burst out laughing:

'You are a funny little dog, Little Dog! Indeed I don't remember ever having seen another little

dog that was quite such a little dog, Little Dog! '

And then he laughed again, and after that he suddenly looked solemn.

'Have you been having any quarrels with wizards lately?' he asked almost in a whisper; and he

shut one eye, and looked so friendly and so knowing out of the other one that Rover told him all

about it. It was probably quite unnecessary, for Psamathos, as I told you, probably knew about it

before hand; still Rover felt all the better for talking to someone who appeared to understand and

had more sense than mere toys.

'It was a wizard all right,' said the sorcerer, when Rover had finished his tale. 'Old Artaxerxes, I

should think from your description. He comes from Persia. But he lost his way one day, as even the

best wizards sometimes do (unless they always stay at home like me), and the first person he met

on the road went and put him on the way to Pershore instead. He has lived in those parts, except on

holidays, ever since. They say he is a nimble plum-gatherer for an old man — two thousand, if he is

a day — and extremely fond of cider. But that's neither here nor there.' By which Psamathos meant

that he was getting away from what he wanted to say. 'The point is, what can I do for you? '

'I don't know,' said Rover.

'Do you want to go home? I am afraid I can't make you your proper size, at least not without

asking Artaxerxes' permission first, as I don't want to quarrel with him at the moment. But I think I

might venture to send you home. After all, Artaxerxes can always send you back again, if he wants

to. Though of course he might send you somewhere much worse than a toyshop next time, if he

was really annoyed.'

Rover did not like the sound of this at ail, and he ventured to say that if he went back home so

small, he might not be recognized, except by Tinker the cat; and he did not very much want to be

recognized by Tinker in his present state.

'Very well!' said Psamathos. 'We must think of something else. In the meantime, as you are real

again, would you like something to eat?'

Before Rover had time to say 'Yes, please! YES! PLEASE!' there appeared on the sands in front

of him a little plate with bread and gravy and two tiny bones of just the right size, and a little

drinking-bowl full of water with DRINK PUPPY DRINK written round it in small blue letters. He

ate and drank all there was before he asked: 'How did you do that? — Thank you! '

He suddenly thought of adding the 'thank you', as wizards and people of that sort seemed rather

touchy folk. Psamathos only smiled; so Rover lay down on the hot sand and went to sleep, and

dreamed of bones, and of chasing cats up plum-trees only to see them change into wizards with

green hats who threw enormous plums like marrows at him. And the wind blew gently all the time,

and buried him almost over his head in blown sand.

That is why the little boys never found him, although they came down into the cove specially to

look for him, as soon as little boy Two found he was lost. Their father was with them this time; and

when they had looked and looked till the sun began to get low and tea-timish, he took them back

home and would not stay any longer: he knew too many queer things about that place. Little boy

Two had to be content for some time after that with an ordinary threepenny toy dog {from the same

shop); but somehow, though he had only had him such a short while, he did not forget his little

begging-dog.

At the moment, however, you can think of him sitting down very mournful to his tea, without

any dog at all; while far away inland the old lady who had kept Rover and spoiled him, when he

was an ordinary, proper-sized animal, was just writing out an advertisement for a lost puppy —

'white with black ears, and answers to the name of Rover'; and while Rover himself slept away on

the sands, and Psamathos dozed close by with his short arms folded on his fat tummy.

WHEN ROVER WOKE UP, the sun was very low; the shadow of the cliffs was right across the

sands, and Psamathos was nowhere to be seen. A large seagull was standing close by looking at

him, and for a moment Rover was afraid that he might be going to eat him.

But the seagull said: 'Good evening! I have waited a long time for you to wake up. Psamathos

said that you would wake about tea-time, but it is long past that now.'

'Please, what are you waiting for me for, Mr. Bird?' asked Rover very politely.

'My name is Mew,' said the seagull, 'and I'm waiting to take you away, as soon as the moon

rises, along the moon's path. But me have one or two things to do before that. Get up on my back

and see how you like flying! '

Rover did not like it at all at first. It was all right while Mew was close to the ground gliding

smoothly along with his wings stretched out stiff and still; but when he shot up into the air, or

turned sharp from side to side, sloping a different way each time, or stooped sudden and steep, as if

he was going to dive into the sea, then the little dog, with the wind whistling in his ears, wished he

was safe down on the earth again.

He said so several times, but all that Mew would answer was: 'Hold on! We haven't begun yet! '

They had been flying about like this for a little, and Rover had just begun to get used to it, and

rather tired of it, when suddenly 'We're off! ' cried Mew, and Rover very nearly was off. For Mew

nose like a rocket steeply into the air, and then set off at a great pace straight down the wind. Soon

they were so high that Rover could see, far away and right over the land, the sun going down

behind dark hills. They were making for some very tall black cliffs of sheer rock, too sheer for

anyone to climb. At the bottom the sea was splashing and sucking at their feet, and nothing grew on

their faces, yet they were covered with white things, pale in the dusk. Hundreds of sea-birds were

sitting there on narrow ledges, sometimes talking mournfully together, sometimes saying nothing,

and sometimes slipping suddenly from their perches to swoop and curve in the air, before diving

down to the sea far below where the waves looked like little wrinkles.

This was where Mew lived, and he had several people to see, including the oldest and most

important of all the Blackbacked Gulls, and messages to collect before he set out. So he set Rover

down on one of the narrow ledges, much narrower than a doorstep, and told him to wait there and

not to fall off.

You may be sure that Rover took care not to fall off, and that with a stiff sideways wind blowing

he did not like the feeling of it at all, crouching as close as he could against the face of the cliff, and

whimpering. It was altogether a very nasty place for a bewitched and worried little dog to be in.

At last the sunlight faded out of the sky entirely, and a mist was on the sea, and the first stars

showed in the gathering dark. Then above the mist, far out across the sea, the moon rose round and

yellow and began to lay its shining path on the water.

Soon after, Mew came back and picked up Rover, who had begun to shiver miserably. The bird's

feathers seemed warm and comfortable after the cold ledge on the cliff, and he snuggled in as close

as he could. Then Mew leapt into the air far above the sea, and all the other gulls sprang off their

ledges, and cried and wailed good-bye to them, as off they sped along the moon's path that now

stretched straight from the shore to the dark edge of nowhere.

Rover did not know in the least where the moon's path led to, and at present he was much too

frightened and excited to ask, and anyway he was beginning to get used to extraordinary things

happening to him.

As they flew along above the silver shimmer on the sea, the moon rose higher and grew whiter

and more bright, till no stars dared stay anywhere near it, and it was left shining all alone in the

eastern sky. No doubt Mew was going by Psamathos' orders to where Psamathos wanted him to go,

and no doubt Psamathos helped Mew with magic, for he certainly flew faster and straighter than

even the great gulls ordinarily fly, even straight down the wind when they are in a hurry. Yet it was

ages before Rover saw anything except the moonlight and the sea below; and all the time the moon

got bigger and bigger, and the air got colder and colder.

Suddenly on the edge of the sea he saw a dark thing, and it grew as they flew towards it, until he

could see that it was an island. Over the water and up to them came the sound of a tremendous

barking, a noise made up of all the different kinds and sizes of barks there are: yaps and yelps, and

yammers and yowls, growling and grizzling, whickering and whining, snickering and snarling,

mumping and moaning, and the most enormous baying, like a giant bloodhound in the backyard of

an ogre. All Rover's fur round his neck suddenly became very real again, and stood up stiff as

bristles; and he thought he would like to go down and quarrel with all the dogs there at once —

until he remembered how small he was.

'That's the Isle of Dogs,' said Mew, 'or rather the Isle of Lost Dogs, where all the lost dogs go

that are deserving or lucky. It isn't a bad place, I'm told, for dogs; and they can make as much noise

as they like without anyone telling them to be quiet or throwing anything at them. They have a

beautiful concert, all barking together their favourite noises, whenever the moon shines bright.

They tell me there are bone-trees there, too, with fruit like juicy meat-bones that drops off the trees

when it's ripe. No! We are not going there just now! You see, you can't be called exactly a dog,

though you are no longer quite a toy. In fact Psamathos was rather puzzled, I believe, to know what

to do with you, when you said you didn't want to go home.'

"Where are we going to, then?' asked Rover. He was disappointed at not having a closer look at

the Isle of Dogs, after he heard of the bone-trees.

'Straight up the moon's path to the edge of the world, and then over the edge and onto the moon.

That's what old Psamathos said.'

Rover did not like the idea of going over the edge of the world at all, and the moon looked a cold

sort of place. 'Why to the moon?' he asked. 'There are lots of places on the world I have never been

to. I never heard of there being bones in the moon, or even dogs.'

'There is at least one dog, for the Man-in-the-Moon keeps one; and since he is a decent old

fellow, as well as the greatest of all the magicians, there are sure to be bones for the dog, and

probably for visitors. As for why you are being sent there, I dare say you will find that out in good

time, if you keep your wits about you and don't waste time grumbling. I think it is very kind of

Psamathos to bother about you at all; in fact I don't understand why he does. It isn't like him to do

things without a good big reason — and you don't seem good or big.'

"Thank you,' said Rover, feeling crushed. 'It is very kind of all these wizards to trouble

themselves about me, I am sure, though it is rather upsetting. You never know what will happen

next, when once you get mixed up with wizards and their friends.'

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ROVERANDOMJ.R.R.TolkienIONCEUPONATIMEtherewasalittledog,andhisnamewasRover.Hewasverysmall,andveryyoung,orhewouldhaveknownbetter;andhewasveryhappyplayinginthegardeninthesunshinewithayellowball,orhewouldneverhavedonewhathedid.Noteveryoldmanwithraggedtrousersisabadoldman:somearebone-and-bottlemen,andha...

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