“The Hobbit” might not be released in cinemas yet, but Gandalf the wizard and Smaug his fire-breathing adversary are already here in Tacoma’s North End, courtesy of a 10-foot fir stump and a creative chainsaw sculptor.

Finished just two days ago, the sculpture of a bearded wizard battling a coiled, spiny dragon wreathes around the tall stump of a tree left behind in Ross Barde’s front yard at North 11th and Anderson Streets when a too-tall fir came down this summer.

“I knew I wanted something, so I asked my brother to save some (when he cut it down),” says …

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