frolicking

We continued down the path until we stood beneath a towering pine tree on the edge of a small pond. The tree, tall and old with branches placed just right to form a rounded outline, commanded our full attention. Its needles rustled faintly as a particularly cold blast of wind whipped against our cheeks and foreheads.

“I probably don’t have to tell you where you are right now, eh?” Alec said as he gestured to the scene before us. And, indeed, he didn’t.

“The Party Field!” four of us said at once.

Before Alec could rattle off how many hobbit ears or bottles of specially-brewed hobbit ale were used to film the party scene in “Fellowship of the Ring,” the six of us were grasping hands in a circle on the field beneath the Party Tree. The tree, a non-native pine, is roughly 120 years old, and was standing at its post beside the pond long before the Alexanders bought the farm in 1978, and longer still before it became famous in Tolkien circles as the Party Tree. But, regardless of where it came from and when, it will have only one identity from now on: the centerpiece of New Zealand’s Shire.

“Are you ready?” Josh asked the group as a whole with a toss of his hair. We nodded, bending our knees and shifting our weight in preparation.

“One, two, three, frolic!” Jen called out, tugging us all in a clockwise direction.

There were no further words or dancing instructions – just broad smiles and gleeful laughter. We spun until we were dizzy and out of breath, then took a break and did it again. We frolicked into a soggy patch of field, splashing cool mud up our jeans, and, in Josh’s case, legs. But it didn’t really seem to matter. In that moment, we weren’t exchange students; we weren’t tourists; we weren’t even strangers. We were simply frolicking.

A brief rain shower, borne in on the brisk wind, interrupted us, and we took refuge under the large, gnarled boughs of the Party Tree. The tree’s long needles were fairly unsuccessful in protecting us from the cold, stinging rain, but we didn’t care.

“My face hurts from smiling so much,” Jen whispered to me as we all caught our breaths.

“Are you sure it’s not the wind?” I joked, knowing full well that it wasn’t – at least not entirely.

“Yeah, I’d say I’m about 99 percent sure.” She shot me a full-toothed grin before recruiting Josh to take a picture of her hanging off one of the tree’s thick branches.

Once the shower passed, the clouds parted to allow an unhindered sun to illuminate the close-cropped grass and white hobbit holes once more. The bright sun lent the whole area an after-rain sheen that made it even more breathtaking than before. The grass was somehow greener, and the air somehow fresher. Even the blue of the sky seemed half a shade brighter. Despite it being my second trip to Hobbiton, it was like I was seeing it for the first time. I wondered if that feeling had worn off yet for Vic, who makes this day-trip to Hobbiton three or four times a week.

“You know,” he said as we climbed up the hill to Bag End, “this is one of the sites I never tire of visiting, no matter how many times I’m here.” Looking out over the lush green fields of Middle-Earth, it wasn’t hard to understand why.