Tonight in The Shire.

There were strange sounds abroad in The Shire tonight. I’m not going to attempt any description; they were foreign and verging on the indescribable. Houses that are always lit were in darkness, and I looked through the pub windows to see that it was empty. On a Saturday night. It was uncommonly dark, too, because the sky was clear but there was no moon, and that’s usually the best combination to produce deep darkness.

There were, of course, millions upon millions of bright specks decorating the firmament, and lots of silent planes among them, slow-moving and betrayed only by the regular flashing of white, green and red lights. They appeared uncommonly low in spite of their silence, and that seemed furtive.

It was that kind of night in The Shire. It felt unfamiliar.