Here is a story about the early days of the Green Dragon. Back then, there was no Green Dragon Friday, their rug was still clean and Barmy's ale prices weren't that high either.
In those days, he wanted to encourage the folks to come and visit his inn. Even with the low prices, the guests were not causing any trouble for Barmy. That was until the infamous Inn League Member, Master Ioco Underhill became one of Barmy's customers.
“I only live once, so I might as well enjoy it then!” Ioco used to say.
Another favourite saying of his was: “Another ale, please!”
From Barmy's perspective, Master Ioco was a bit of a menace: he drank too much of everything, which always led to a mess of legendary proportion.
“I have to get rid of that drunkard,” Barmy grumbled to an old hobbit at the bar.
“Just stop serving him beer, that should do it,” the old hobbit said.
“Good idea!” Barmy thought. So he served Ioco nothing that was in a liquid state.
But as Ioco wanted to come to the Dragon and have fun without being sober, he found a solution. He smuggled some strong brandy inside a bagpipe! When he was sitting at a table and Barmy wasn't looking, he drank some brandy from the pipes. So, he kept visiting the place, drunk as ever, much to Barmy's dismay.
“Maybe a scary story would shoo him away?” the old hobbit customer suggested.
“I know a dragon story, a particularly scary one!” he added.
So, Barmy let the old hobbit go over to the fireplace and tell his scary story.
The story made most of the quests shiver, but not Ioco – he just fell asleep at his table!
Barmy was feeling desperate.
Then, a merry band of dwarves came to visit. They were feeling musical, so they started to sing. They were missing instruments though. Then, one of the dwarves noticed the bagpipe that was lying beside Ioco on the floor.
“The lad's asleep, I might just borrow his pipe for a while,” the dwarf thought.
So he took the bagpipe that still had quite a lot of brandy inside. Standing with his fellows at the fireplace, the dwarf started to play the bagpipe. But strangely, no noise... I mean, no sound was coming out. The dwarf blew harder!
BOOM!
The bagpipe exploded with all that brandy spilling out everywhere. The rug took the most of the brandy, and it extinguished the fire in the fireplace too, so suddenly it was pitch dark.
But what a noise did that make! It woke even Master Ioco up! The poor fellow had just been dreaming about the dragon story, and he thought, it was the dragon's scream!
He could see nothing in the darkness, so he decided it was safer to exit the inn immediately. The scared lad ran out of the Green Dragon and away from Bywater, never to return.
It took weeks for Barmy to clean up the mess. He never got this rug clean again though, as you can see.
“At least I got rid off that Ioco though,” he thought to himself.
“From now on, I will keep my ale prices so high that no hobbit will have the coins to drink themselves into that Ioco state!”
Some time passed, and one evening, a lass in yellow came up to speak with Barmy.
She asked if she and her friends could spend some regular evenings at the Dragon on Fridays. Barmy looked at the lass suspiciously, but then he nodded.
“You may do that, Miss, but on one condition though!”
“What would that be?” the yellow lass asked.
“Don't bring any bagpipes with you!” Barmy said.
And the rest is history, so to say.
But what happened to Ioco?
He ended up running all the way to Michel Delving, where he continues his ale-centred life happily in the cellars of the Bird and Baby.
The End.
((This story was written for the Green Dragon Anniversary in 2016.))
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