This is not my story. I have rights to borrow it from http://www.wozupdoc.net/ring.html, otherwise known as Elf on a Shelf. The credit should go to Master Erestor, the writer of the story and the creator of Elf on a Shelf.

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Once upon a beautiful summer morning, in an enchanted forest by the river Celebrant, a little Elfling was sitting outside his parent’s talan, enjoying the sun. His elder brothers and his ada were out hunting, so the Elfling (whose name was Haldir, by the way,) would have something tasty for dinner.

For a while, he just dozed in the sun, until suddenly a beautiful scent reached his nose. He sniffed, and was immediately wide awake. How delicious! How wonderful! Where might this scent come from? He climbed down the ladder of the talan and followed the scent until he stood outside the royal talan, where the cook had just taken the cookies for the little daughter of the lord and the lady of the Golden Wood out of the oven. He had put them on the window-sill to cool, and when Haldir came closer, he could see that there were seven large chocolate chip cookies on the tray.

“How sweet they smell – oh, I am sure they will taste even better!”

Haldir’s stomach rumbled, because it had already been over an hour since breakfast, so naturally he felt very hungry. Of course he knew that one should not take anything without asking first, but on the other hand the lord and the lady of the Golden Wood certainly wouldn’t want a poor little Elfling to starve.

Haldir looked right, then left, and nobody was in sight. So he couldn’t ask, anyway. He reached out and took one of the cookies. They were still warm, and he took a big bite. Oh, how delicious! The chocolate melted in his mouth, and within moments, he had eaten the whole cookie. Oddly enough, his stomach was growling even louder, and as he didn’t want the first cookie to be lonely, he took a second one, for company.

Two is boring, three is a party, so another cookie followed. Haldir had never much liked uneven numbers, so cookie number four found its way into his stomach. The three cookies remaining on the tray looked very lost, and as Haldir felt families shouldn’t be parted, he ate them as well. And as he was an Elfling who liked to have things tidy, he licked the crumbs off the tray and left it nice and clean.

“By Elbereth – Haldir! What have you done? Not again!” his eldest brother Orophin’s angry voice could be heard, and Haldir dropped the tray. Just to be on the safe side he began to cry, knowing from experience that grown-ups tended to be much milder with crying Elflings.

Alerted by the commotion, the cook came running, inspected the crime scene and clapped his hands to his head.

“Oh you terrible Elfling! Seven at one stroke! What will Lady Galadriel say?”

The Lady Galadriel said a lot, none of it to be repeated in the presence of Elflings, and Orophin quickly carried Haldir home, to hear their ada’s verdict on Haldir’s deeds.

Amrun, this was the name of Haldir’s ada, shook his head, and looked sadly at his youngest son.

“Haldir, Haldir, how shall this end – why did you take the cookies?”

Haldir shuffled his feet and murmured: “Me was hungry.”

“No, Haldir, not ‘me’ – ‘I’ was hungry,” Amrun corrected the Elfling. Haldir looked up with big eyes.

“Oh, you are hungry, too? I did not know, or I would have brought you a cookie, too!”

His wife as well as Orophin and Rúmil were giggling madly by now, thereby completely undermining his authority, so Amrun decided to call it a day and sent the Elfling to his room.

Haldir sulked for a while, but the words of the cook still rang in his ears.

“Seven at one stroke,” he murmured, letting the words melt on his tongue like the chocolate chips in the cookies. “Me likes that.”

Then he sighed. Still two hours till lunch.

* * *
The coming-of-age ceremony was one of the most important days in every young Elf’s life, and Haldir was no exception. For the first time, he wore the grey uniform of the Galadhrim, his nana had brushed his hair and made him warrior braids, and his family was gathered in the living room to celebrate this special day.

“Here, my child,” his nana said, handing him a nicely wrapped gift. “This is for you, I made it specially.”

“For me? Oh nana – what is it?” Haldir said, and eagerly tore the paper open. His nana sniffled and secretly wiped away a tear – her baby was now all grown up.

“A muzzle, I suppose,” Orophin snickered, and Rúmil elbowed his brother, both of them breaking out in giggles. Haldir huffed and decided to ignore them.

“Nana – but my! This is beautiful!” he cried, holding up a dark red scarf. It was the kind noble Elves used to wrap around their waist – the latest fashion in Lothlórien. Embroidered on it in golden letters one could read: “Seven at one stroke”.

Haldir admired the handiwork. “This is so beautiful! Thank you, nana!”

He kissed his mother and hugged her, and while he was at it, he stuck his tongue out at his brothers who were pulling faces and mouthing ‘Nana’s pet’ behind her back.

“Let me help you, son,” Amrun said, tying the scarf around Haldir’s middle. He looked very elegant now – even Orophin had to admit that he looked more like a lord than just a mere Galadhel. Then they all sat down to drink and eat and make merry.

Much to Haldir’s delight, there was cake, too.

* * *

There were various reasons for Haldir to dislike Helm’s Deep. Beside the mortals, there was the dirt and the upcoming war, and the straw mattress on the bed he had been given had made several attempts to crawl away at night, and now he found himself surrounded by a multitude of enemies who all tried to cut his head off or slice his belly open. He stabbed to the right and swung his sword, killing enemy after enemy. Close by, Estel was fighting, covered in blood and grime, and Haldir also heard Orophin’s war cry, followed by the howl of a mortally wounded Orc.

The bodies of Orcs and Uruks began to pile to Haldir’s left and right, and he already thought he had lived through the worst when suddenly two giant cave trolls appeared in front of him, roaring and swinging their battle axes.

‘Elbereth help me,’ Haldir said to himself, ‘I am most afraid that this will be my end, for how could I, a single Elf, slay such terrible beasts?”

However, he was no coward, so he tightened his grip on his sword’s hilt and scowled at the monsters.

For a moment, the trolls studied the Elf, then they elbowed each other, and before Haldir could do anything, they turned around and ran away as fast as they could, trampling a couple of Orcs in the process.

Haldir looked rather puzzled, and in his confusion, he dropped his sword. The very moment he bent down to pick it up, seven Uruk’hai jumped at him, but as Haldir was kneeling down, they missed him, and their bodies collided in mid-air. Haldir was buried under the heavy bodies, and when he finally struggled free and stood up, the elder of the two cave trolls peeked over a wall to his right.

“William, I told you this one was not to be messed with!” he hissed, and poked his brother. “See? See? He took seven Uruks out in one go! ‘Seven at one stroke’ it said on his scarfie, yes! Seven Orcs or Uruks or even trolls!”

“You were right. It’s good we runned away.” The troll scratched his head. “You really think he slayed seven enemies at one stroke?”

William whacked him up the head. “Of course he did, stupid, or what did you think the ‘seven’ means? Cookies?”

They both giggled and stole away from the battlefield.

So Haldir did not only survive the battle, but he also became famous as the Slayer of the Seven Uruks, and if he can keep his hands off Lady Galadriel’s cookies, he will probably live happily forever after.

* * *
The End
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