Pogodoc Spudplucker is a firm believer in the old adage "Don't knock it 'til you've tried it." and at 73 years of age he has earned the right to knock a great many things. Pogo spent much of his adult life serving as a Bounder around the Eastfarthing, and latterly as a Captain in Buckland teaching bushcraft and archery to the younger hobbits in his charge.

It was as a young Bounder that Pogo met his wife Lily (of the Budgeford Bolgers). She was a happy-go-lucky lass, known for taking long walks through the Bridgefields collecting herbs or going fishing in the Brandywine. One day however she found herself cornered by a pack of angry badgers, whose sett she had inadvertently stumbled upon hurrying to get home before dark. Literally. Her left foot had gone right down a hole and she fell, badly spraining her ankle. With daylight rapidly fading and the badgers closing in poor Lily thought she was done for ... and then suddenly a heroic Bounder appeared, shooting arrows and yelling to scare off the monotone monsters!

Pogo and Lily were wed soon after and lived in a comfortable cottage with a bright red door in the lee of Brandy Hall. There they grew prize vegetables and three healthy children, two lasses and a bouncing baby boy. Life was grand. For a while...

Life took a tragic turn when Pogo returned home after work one day to find a hastily scribbled note from his wife. While Lily had taken some potatoes over to the craft-faire that morning, the girls had decided to go for a picnic on Bald Hill with their baby brother, and Lily was going into the Old Forest to fetch them. But it was now evening and they were not back. A frantic Pogo grabbed his bow and ran into the woods. He soon found their tracks but they had gone the wrong way, down to Old Muddyfoot's Hill. When he found them he was utterly distraught.

This time Pogodoc was too late to save Lily, her mauled body lay near a barkless tree covered with claw marks; this was bear country. Of their daughters there was no sign, but as Pogo eventually found the will to carry Lily's body back home he found a miracle cradled safely in her bloodied and torn arms. Their young lad Everbrock was safe and sound, protected to the end by his mother.

It is said that Pogodoc Spudplucker has not smiled since that day, and that for years after he would search the Old Forest for evidence of his daughters' fate. He has now retired from the Bounders after 40 years of service, to take up his father's old post as a Shirriff of the Southfarthing.