Farmer Giles of Ham/The Adventures of Tom Bombadil

Farmer Giles of Ham is fat, unheroic and red-bearded. But he is also fortunate and shrewd. When a very large and stupid giant blunders into his fields it begins a surprising chain of events. Before long Giles is setting off with his dog Garm, his grey mare and his sword Tailbiter to tame the dragon Chrysophylax; a dragon less terrible perhaps than Smaug, but no less wealthy or cunning. The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and other verses from The Red Book which are also included here is something no devotee of the Hobbit epic can afford to miss. The verses are by turns ‘gay, prattling, melancholy, nonsensical and mysterious’.