Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road?

Reprinted from October 2006.  I found my posts from that month generally fascinating, actually. A few made me wince, but I think I was smarter then.

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Presently to the great Road they again came. Broad it was, and paved also, and in dust covered; and upon the dust could be seen tracks of feet, many of them.

"Ho!" said Gimli. "Whether these marks be left by Man or Dwarf, Elf or Halfling, beast or fowl, I know not. Yet this much will I warrant; it was no fell beast. For many servants has the Dark Lord; yet the Road they do not cross."

"Can you discern not more amidst these signs?" answered him Legolas. "These marks are as of the feet of a certain bird, one bred unto the farmyard, him that is named among us Círnol Sândas. Have you none such fowl in the Shire also?"

"Yes, but to-day we call them chickens ," replied Frodo, shivering miserably. "O! How I should love to sup again upon some nice roast chicken! But why did it cross the Road, here?"

"Of such things we do not speak," Aragorn told him sternly.

(Not original to AVI)