QUESTIONS AND INFORMATION
QUESTION: What made Melilot want to become a scholar? Was it meeting some of the dúnedain, or hearing stories from Bilbo about the world outside of the Shire, or something else entirely?
ANSWER: I don’t think she’s ever met Bilbo. Heard of Mad Baggins? Sure, all hobbits heard one way or another about Bilbo’s exploits and adventures. Your first guess was the right one. It was the frequent contact with the dunedain, the wandering companies of elves and the passing dwarf merchants that had her interested in the world beyond. Oatbarton is right at the northern border of the Shire and it borders Evendim, so the dunedain frequently passed through.
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The moment that sparked her interest was when she was informed for the first time that there were hobbits who fought at the battle of Fornost. It dawned on her, what else do they not know about their own history? Hobbits do not strike me as terribly interested in chronicling, so on a lot of fronts she would have had to start from scratch. She traveled to Michel Delving to study whatever mathoms they had there for a start, followed by moving from Farthing to Farthing to inquire and collect what stories and testimonials she could. Towards her later life, together with her sister Adamanta and sometimes some of the dunedain, she would journey into Evendim to see if she could find any trace of hobbit activity there.