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Джон Рональд Руэл Толкиен. The Fellownship of a Ring
Contents
Foreword 1
Prologue 1
1. Concerning Hobbits 1
2. Concerning Pipe-weed 1
3. Of the Ordering of the Shire 1
4. Of the Finding of the Ring 1
note on the shire records 1
Book I 1
Chapter 1 A Long-expected Party 1
Chapter 2 The Shadow of the Past 1
Chapter 3 Three is Company 1
Chapter 4 A Short Cut to Mushrooms 1
Chapter 5 A Conspiracy Unmasked 1
Chapter 6 The Old Forest 1
Chapter 7 In the House of Tom Bombadil 1
Chapter 8 Fog on the Barrow-Downs 1
Chapter 9 At the Sign of The Prancing Pony 1
Chapter 10 Strider 1
Chapter 11 A Knife in the Dark 1
Chapter 12 Flight to the Ford 1
Book II 1
Chapter 1 Many Meetings 1
Chapter 2 The Council of Elrond 1
Chapter 3 The Ring Goes South 1
Chapter 4 A Journey in the Dark 1
Chapter 5 The Bridge of Khazad-dыm 1
Chapter 6 Lothlуrien 1
Chapter 7 The Mirror of Galadriel 1
Chapter 8 Farewell to Lуrien 1
Chapter 9 The Great River 1
Chapter 10 The Breaking of the Fellowship 1
Book III 1
Chapter 1 The Departure of Boromir 1
Chapter 2 The Riders of Rohan 1
Chapter 3 The Uruk-Hai 1
Chapter 4 Treebeard 1
Chapter 5 The White Rider 1
Chapter 6 The King of the Golden Hall 1
Chapter 7 Helm's Deep 1
Chapter 8 The Road to Isengard 1
Chapter 9 Flotsam and Jetsam 1
Chapter 10 The Voice of Saruman 1
Chapter 11 The Palantнr 1
Book IV 1
Chapter 1 The Taming of Smйagol 1
Chapter 2 The Passage of the Marshes 1
Chapter 3 The Black Gate is Closed 1
Chapter 4 Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit 1
Chapter 5 The Window on the West 1
Chapter 6 The Forbidden Pool 1
Chapter 7 Journey to the Cross-roads 1
Chapter 8 The Stairs of Cirith Ungol 1
Chapter 9 Shelob's Lair 1
Chapter 10 The Choices of Master Samwise 1
Book V 1
Chapter 1 Minas Tirith 1
Chapter 2 The Passing of the Grey Company 1
Chapter 3 The Muster of Rohan 1
Chapter 4 The Siege of Gondor 1
Chapter 5 The Ride of the Rohirrim 1
Chapter 6 The Battle of the Pelennor Fields 1
Chapter 7 The Pyre of Denethor 1
Chapter 8 The Houses of Healing 1
Chapter 9 The Last Debate 1
Chapter 10 The Black Gate Opens 1
Book VI 1
Chapter 1 The Tower of Cirith Ungol 1
Chapter 2 The Land of Shadow 1
Chapter 3 Mount Doom 1
Chapter 4 The Field of Cormallen 1
Chapter 5 The Steward and the King 1
Chapter 6 Many Partings 1
Chapter 7 Homeward Bound 1
Chapter 8 The Scouring of the Shire 1
Chapter 9 The Grey Havens 1
Foreword
This tale grew in the telling, until it became a history of the Great
War of the Ring and included many glimpses of the yet more ancient history
that preceded it. It was begun soon after The Hobbit was written and before
its publication in 1937; but I did not go on with this sequel, for I wished
first to complete and set in order the mythology and legends of the Elder
Days, which had then been taking shape for some years. I desired to do this
for my own satisfaction, and I had little hope that other people would be
interested in this work, especially since it was primarily linguistic in
inspiration and was begun in order to provide the necessary background of
'history' for Elvish tongues.
When those whose advice and opinion I sought corrected little hope to
no hope, I went back to the sequel, encouraged by requests from readers for
more information concerning hobbits and their adventures. But the story was
drawn irresistibly towards the older world, and became an account, as it
were, of its end and passing away before its beginning and middle had been
told. The process had begun in the writing of The Hobbit, in which there
were already some references to the older matter: Elrond, Gondolin, the
High-elves, and the orcs, as well as glimpses that had arisen unbidden of
things higher or deeper or darker than its surface: Durin, Moria, Gandalf,
the Necromancer, the Ring. The discovery of the significance of these
glimpses and of their relation to the ancient histories revealed the Third
Age and its culmination in the War of the Ring.
Those who had asked for more information about hobbits eventually got
it, but they had to wait a long time; for the composition of The Lord of the
Rings went on at intervals during the years 1936 to 1949, a period in which
I had many duties that I did not neglect, and many other interests as a
learner and teacher that often absorbed me. The delay was, of course, also
increased by the outbreak of war in 1939, by the end of which year the tale
had not yet reached the end of Book One. In spite of the darkness of the
next five years I found that the story could not now be wholly abandoned,
and I plodded on, mostly by night, till I stood by Balin's tomb in Moria.
There I halted for a long while. It was almost a year later when I went on
and so came to Lothlуrien and the Great River late in 1941. In the next year
I wrote the first drafts of the matter that now stands as Book Three, and
the beginnings of chapters I and III of Book Five; and there as the beacons
flared in Anуrien and Thйoden came to Harrowdale I stopped. Foresight had
failed and there was no time for thought.
It was during 1944 that, leaving the loose ends and perplexities of a
war which it was my task to conduct, or at least to report, 1 forced myself
to tackle the journey of Frodo to Mordor. These chapters, eventually to
become Book Four, were written and sent out as a serial to my son,
Christopher, then in South Africa with the RAF. Nonetheless it took another
five years before the tale was brought to its present end; in that time I
changed my house, my chair, and my college, and the days though less dark
were no less laborious. Then when the 'end' had at last been reached the
whole story had to be revised, and indeed largely re-written backwards. And
it had to be typed, and re-typed: by me; the cost of professional typing by
the ten-fingered was beyond my means.
The Lord of the Rings has been read by many people since it finally
appeared in print; and I should like to say something here with reference to
the many opinions or guesses that I have received or have read concerning
the motives and meaning of the tale. The prime motive was the desire of a
tale-teller to try his hand at a really long story that would hold the
attention of readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite
them or deeply move them. As a guide I had only my own feelings for what is
appealing or moving, and for many the guide was inevitably often at fault.
Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it
boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I
have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they
evidently prefer. But even from the points of view of many who have enjoyed
my story there is much that fails to please. It is perhaps not possible in a
long tale to please everybody at all points, nor to displease everybody at
the same points; for I find from the letters that I have received that the
passages or chapters that are to some a blemish are all by others specially
approved. The most critical reader of all, myself, now finds many defects,
minor and major, but being fortunately under no obligation either to review
the book or to write it again, he will pass over these in silence, except
one that has been noted by others: the book is too short.
As for any inner meaning or 'message', it has in the intention of the
author none. It is neither allegorical nor topical. As the story grew it put
down roots (into the past) and threw out unexpected branches: but its main
theme was settled from the outset by the inevitable choice of the Ring as
the link between it and The Hobbit. The crucial chapter, "The Shadow of the
Past', is one of the oldest parts of the tale. It was written long before
the foreshadow of 1939 had yet become a threat of inevitable disaster, and
from that point the story would have developed along essentially the same
lines, if that disaster had been averted. Its sources are things long before
in mind, or in some cases already written, and little or nothing in it was
modified by the war that began in 1939 or its sequels.
The real war does not resemble the legendary war in its process or its
conclusion. If it had inspired or directed the development of the legend,
then certainly the Ring would have been seized and used against Sauron; he
would not have been annihilated but enslaved, and Barad-dыr would not have
been destroyed but occupied. Saruman, failing to get possession of the Ring,
would m the confusion and treacheries of the time have found in Mordor the
missing links in his own researches into Ring-lore, and before long he would
have made a Great Ring of his own with which to challenge the self-styled
Ruler of Middle-earth. In that conflict both sides would have held hobbits
in hatred and contempt: they would not long have survived even as slaves.
Other arrangements could be devised according to the tastes or views of
those who like allegory or topical reference. But I cordially dislike
allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old
and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history, true or
feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of
readers. I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the
one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed
domination of the author.
An author cannot of course remain wholly unaffected by his experience,
but the ways in which a story-germ uses the soil of experience are extremely
complex, and attempts to define the process are at best guesses from
evidence that is inadequate and ambiguous. It is also false, though
naturally attractive, when the lives of an author and critic have
overlapped, to suppose that the movements of thought or the events of times
common to both were necessarily the most powerful influences. One has indeed
personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but
as the years go by it seems now often forgotten that to be caught in youth
by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and
the following years. By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead. Or
to take a less grievous matter: it has been supposed by some that 'The
Scouring of the Shire' reflects the situation in England at the time when I
was finishing my tale. It does not. It is an essential part of the plot,
foreseen from the outset, though in the event modified by the character of
Saruman as developed in the story without, need I say, any allegorical
significance or contemporary political reference whatsoever. It has indeed
some basis in experience, though slender (for the economic situation was
entirely different), and much further back. The country in which I lived in
childhood was being shabbily destroyed before I was ten, in days when
motor-cars were rare objects (I had never seen one) and men were still
building suburban railways. Recently I saw in a paper a picture of the last
decrepitude of the once thriving corn-mill beside its pool that long ago
seemed to me so important. I never liked the looks of the Young miller, but
his father, the Old miller, had a black beard, and he was not named
Sandyman.
The Lord of the Rings is now issued in a new edition, and the
opportunity has been taken of revising it. A number of errors and
inconsistencies that still remained in the text have been corrected, and an
attempt has been made to provide information on a few points which attentive
readers have raised. I have considered all their comments and enquiries, and
if some seem to have been passed over that may be because I have failed to
keep my notes in order; but many enquiries could only be answered by
additional appendices, or indeed by the production of an accessory volume
containing much of the material that I did not include in the original
edition, in particular more detailed linguistic information. In the meantime
this edition offers this Foreword, an addition to the Prologue, some notes,
and an index of the names of persons and places. This index is in intention
complete in items but not in references, since for the present purpose it
has been necessary to reduce its bulk. A complete index, making full use of
the material prepared for me by Mrs. N. Smith, belongs rather to the
accessory volume.
PROLOGUE
1. Concerning Hobbits
This book is largely concerned with Hobbits, and from its pages a
reader may discover much of their character and a little of their history.
Further information will also be found in the selection from the Red Book of
Westmarch that has already been published, under the title of The Hobbit.
That story was derived from the earlier chapters of the Red Book, composed
by Bilbo himself, the first Hobbit to become famous in the world at large,
and called by him There and Back Again, since they told of his journey into
the East and his return: an adventure which later involved all the Hobbits
in the great events of that Age that are here related.
Many, however, may wish to know more about this remarkable people from
the outset, while some may not possess the earlier book. For such readers a
few notes on the more important points are here collected from Hobbit-lore,
and the first adventure is briefly recalled.
Hobbits are an unobtrusive but very ancient people, more numerous
formerly than they are today; for they love peace and quiet and good tilled
earth: a well-ordered and well-farmed countryside was their favourite haunt.
They do not and did not understand or like machines more complicated than a
forge-bellows, a water-mill, or a hand-loom, though they were skilful with
tools. Even in ancient days they were, as a rule, shy of 'the Big Folk', as
they call us, and now they avoid us with dismay and are becoming hard to
find. They are quick of hearing and sharp-eyed, and though they are inclined
to be fat and do not hurry unnecessarily, they are nonetheless nimble and
deft in their movements. They possessed from the first the art of
disappearing swiftly and silently, when large folk whom they do not wish to
meet come blundering by; and this an they have developed until to Men it may
seem magical. But Hobbits have never, in fact, studied magic of any kind,
and their elusiveness is due solely to a professional skill that heredity
and practice, and a close friendship with the earth, have rendered
inimitable by bigger and clumsier races.
For they are a little people, smaller than Dwarves: less tout and
stocky, that is, even when they are not actually much shorter. Their height
is variable, ranging between two and four feet of our measure. They seldom
now reach three feet; but they hive dwindled, they say, and in ancient days
they were taller. According to the Red Book, Bandobras Took (Bullroarer),
son of Isengrim the Second, was four foot five and able to ride a horse. He
was surpassed in all Hobbit records only by two famous characters of old;
but that curious matter is dealt with in this book.
As for the Hobbits of the Shire, with whom these tales are concerned,
in the days of their peace and prosperity they were a merry folk. They
dressed in bright colours, being notably fond of yellow and green; but they
seldom wore shoes, since their feet had tough leathery soles and were clad
in a thick curling hair, much like the hair of their heads, which was
commonly brown. Thus, the only craft little practised among them was
shoe-making; but they had long and skilful fingers and could make many other
useful and comely things. Their faces were as a rule good-natured rather
than beautiful, broad, bright-eyed, red-cheeked, with mouths apt to
laughter, and to eating and drinking. And laugh they did, and eat, and
drink, often and heartily, being fond of simple jests at all times, and of
six meals a day (when they could get them). They were hospitable and
delighted in parties, and in presents, which they gave away freely and
eagerly accepted.
It is plain indeed that in spite of later estrangement Hobbits are
relatives of ours: far nearer to us than Elves, or even than Dwarves. Of old
they spoke the languages of Men, after their own fashion, and liked and
disliked much the same things as Men did. But what exactly our relationship
is can no longer be discovered. The beginning of Hobbits lies far back in
the Elder Days that are now lost and forgotten. Only the Elves still
preserve any records of that vanished time, and their traditions are
concerned almost entirely with their own history, in which Men appear seldom
and Hobbits are not mentioned at all. Yet it is clear that Hobbits had, in
fact, lived quietly in Middle-earth for many long years before other folk
became even aware of them. And the world being after all full of strange
creatures beyond count, these little people seemed of very little
importance. But in the days of Bilbo, and of Frodo his heir, they suddenly
became, by no wish of their own, both important and renowned, and troubled
the counsels of the Wise and the Great.
Those days, the Third Age of Middle-earth, are now long past, and the
shape of all lands has been changed; but the regions in which Hobbits then
lived were doubtless the same as those in which they still linger: the
North-West of the Old World, east of the Sea. Of their original home the
Hobbits in Bilbo's time preserved no knowledge. A love of learning (other
than genealogical lore) was far from general among them, but there remained
still a few in the older families who studied their own books, and even
gathered reports of old times and distant lands from Elves, Dwarves, and
Men. Their own records began only after the settlement of the Shire, and
their most ancient legends hardly looked further back than their Wandering
Days. It is clear, nonetheless, from these legends, and from the evidence of
their peculiar words and customs, that like many other folk Hobbits had in
the distant past moved westward. Their earliest tales seem to glimpse a time
when they dwelt in the upper vales of Anduin, between the eaves of Greenwood
the Great and the Misty Mountains. Why they later undertook the hard and
perilous crossing of the mountains into Eriador is no longer certain. Their
own accounts speak of the multiplying of Men in the land, and of a shadow
that fell on the forest, so that it became darkened and its new name was
Mirkwood.
Before the crossing of the mountains the Hobbits had already become
divided into three somewhat different breeds: Harfoots, Stoors, and
Fallohides. The Harfoots were browner of skin, smaller, and shorter, and
they were beardless and bootless; their hands and feet were neat and nimble;
and they preferred highlands and hillsides. The Stoors were broader, heavier
in build; their feet and hands were larger, and they preferred flat lands
and riversides. The Fallohides were fairer of skin and also of hair, and
they were taller and slimmer than the others; they were lovers of trees and
of woodlands.
The Harfoots had much to do with Dwarves in ancient times, and long
lived in the foothills of the mountains. They moved westward early, and
roamed over Eriador as far as Weathertop while the others were still in the
Wilderland. They were the most normal and representative variety of Hobbit,
and far the most numerous. They were the most inclined to settle in one
place, and longest preserved their ancestral habit of living in tunnels and
holes.
The Stoors lingered long by the banks of the Great River Anduin, and
were less shy of Men. They came west after the Harfoots and followed the
course of the Loudwater southwards; and there many of them long dwelt
between Tharbad and the borders of Dunland before they moved north again.
The Fallohides, the least numerous, were a northerly branch. They were
more friendly with Elves than the other Hobbits were, and had more skill in
language and song than in handicrafts; and of old they preferred hunting to
tilling. They crossed the mountains north of Rivendell and came down the
River Hoarwell. In Eriador they soon mingled with the other kinds that had
preceded them, but being somewhat bolder and more adventurous, they were
often found as leaders or chieftains among clans of Harfoots or Stoors. Even
in Bilbo's time the strong Fallohidish strain could still be noted among the
greater families, such as the Tooks and the Masters of Buckland.
In the westlands of Eriador, between the Misty Mountains and the
Mountains of Lune, the Hobbits found both Men and Elves. Indeed, a remnant
still dwelt there of the Dъnedain, the kings of Men that came over the Sea
out of Westernesse; but they were dwindling fast and the lands of their
North Kingdom were falling far and wide into waste. There was room and to
spare for incomers, and ere long the Hobbits began to settle in ordered
communities. Most of their earlier settlements had long disappeared and been
forgotten in Bilbo's time; but one of the first to become important still
endured, though reduced in size; this was at Bree and in the Chetwood that
lay round about, some forty miles east of the Shire.
It was in these early days, doubtless, that the Hobbits learned their
letters and began to write after the manner of the Dъnedain, who had in
their turn long before learned the art from the Elves. And in those days
also they forgot whatever languages they had used before, and spoke ever
after the Common Speech, the Westron as it was named, that was current
through all the lands of the kings from Arnor to Gondor, and about all the
coasts of the Sea from Belfalas to Lune. Yet they kept a few words of their
own, as well as their own names of months and days, and a great store of
personal names out of the past.
About this time legend among the Hobbits first becomes history with a
reckoning of years. For it was in the one thousand six hundred and first
year of the Third Age that the Fallohide brothers, Marcho and Blanco, set
out from Bree; and having obtained permission from the high king at
Fornost1, they crossed the brown river Baranduin with a great following of
Hobbits. They passed over the Bridge of Stonebows, that had been built in
the days of the power of the North Kingdom, and they took ail the land
beyond to dwell in, between the river and the Far Downs. All that was
demanded of them was that they should keep the Great Bridge in repair, and
all other bridges and roads, speed the king's messengers, and acknowledge
his lordship.
Thus began the Shire-reckoning, for the year of the crossing of the
Brandywine (as the Hobbits turned the name) became Year One of the Shire,
and all later dates were reckoned from it.2 At once the western Hobbits fell
in love with their new land, and they remained there, and soon passed once
more out of the history of Men and of Elves. While there was still a king
they were in name his subjects, but they were, in fact, ruled by their own
chieftains and meddled not at all with events in the world outside. To the
last battle at Fornost with the Witch-lord of Angmar they sent some bowmen
to the aid of the king, or so they maintained, though no tales of Men record
it. But in that war the North Kingdom ended; and then the Hobbits took the
land for their own, and they chose from their own chiefs a Thain to hold the
authority of the king that was gone. There for a thousand years they were
little troubled by wars, and they prospered and multiplied after the Dark
Plague (S.R. 37) until the disaster of the Long Winter and the famine that
followed it. Many thousands then perished, but the Days of Dearth (1158-60)
were at the time of this tale long past and the Hobbits had again become
accustomed to plenty. The land was rich and kindly, and though it had long
been deserted when they entered it, it had before been well tilled, and
there the king had once had many farms, cornlands, vineyards, and woods.
Forty leagues it stretched from the Far Downs to the Brandywine Bridge,
and fifty from the northern moors to the marshes in the south. The Hobbits
named it the Shire, as the region of the authority of their Thain, and a
district of well-ordered business; and there in that pleasant comer of the
world they plied their well-ordered business of living, and they heeded less
and less the world outside where dark things moved, until they came to think
that peace and plenty were the rule in Middle-earth and the right of all
sensible folk. They forgot or ignored what little they had ever known of the
Guardians, and of the labours of those that made possible the long peace of
the Shire. They were, in fact, sheltered, but they had ceased to remember
it.
At no time had Hobbits of any kind been warlike, and they had never
fought among themselves. In olden days they had, of course, been often
obliged to fight to maintain themselves in a hard world; but in Bilbo's time
that was very ancient history. The last battle, before this story opens, and
indeed the only one that had ever been fought within the borders of the
Shire, was beyond living memory: the Battle of Greenfields, S.R. 1147, in
which Bandobras Took routed an invasion of Orcs. Even the weathers had grown
milder, and the wolves that had once come ravening out of the North in
bitter white winters were now only a grandfather's tale. So, though there
was still some store of weapons in the Shire, these were used mostly as
trophies, hanging above hearths or on walls, or gathered into the museum at
Michel Delving. The Mathom-house it was called; for anything that Hobbits
had no immediate use for, but were unwilling to throw away, they called a
mathom. Their dwellings were apt to become rather crowded with mathoms, and
many of the presents that passed from hand to hand were of that son.
Nonetheless, ease and peace had left this people still curiously tough.
They were, if it came to it, difficult to daunt or to kill; and they were,
perhaps, so unwearyingly fond of good things not least because they could,
when put to it, do without them, and could survive rough handling by grief,
foe, or weather in a way that astonished those who did not know them well
and looked no further than their bellies and their well-fed faces. Though
slow to quarrel, and for sport killing nothing that lived, they were doughty
at bay, and at need could still handle arms. They shot well with the bow,
for they were keen-eyed and sure at the mark. Not only with bows and arrows.
If any Hobbit stooped for a stone, it was well to get quickly under cover,
as all trespassing beasts knew very well.
All Hobbits had originally lived in holes in the ground, or so they
believed, and in such dwellings they still felt most at home; but in the
course of time they had been obliged to adopt other forms of abode. Actually
in the Shire in Bilbo's days it was, as a rule, only the richest and the
poorest Hobbits that maintained the old custom. The poorest went on living
in burrows of the most primitive kind, mere holes indeed, with only one
window or none; while the well-to-do still constructed more luxurious
versions of the simple diggings of old. But suitable sites for these large
and ramifying tunnels (or smials as they called them) were not everywhere to
be found; and in the flats and the low-lying districts the Hobbits, as they
multiplied, began to build above ground. Indeed, even in the hilly regions
and the older villages, such as Hobbiton or Tuckborough, or in the chief
township of the Shire, Michel Delving on the White Downs, there were now
many houses of wood, brick, or stone. These were specially favoured by
millers, smiths, ropers, and cartwrights, and others of that sort; for even
when they had holes to live in. Hobbits had long been accustomed to build
sheds and workshops.
The habit of building farmhouses and barns was said to have begun among
the inhabitants of the Marish down by the Brandywine. The Hobbits of that
quarter, the Eastfarthing, were rather large and heavy-legged, and they wore
dwarf-boots in muddy weather. But they were well known to be Stoors in a
large part of their blood, as indeed was shown by the down that many grew on
their chins. No Harfoot or Fallohide had any trace of a beard. Indeed, the
folk of the Marish, and of Buckland, east of the River, which they
afterwards occupied, came for the most part later into the Shire up from
south-away; and they still had many peculiar names and strange words not
found elsewhere in the Shire.
It is probable that the craft of building, as many other crafts beside,
was derived from the Dъnedain. But the Hobbits may have learned it direct
from the Elves, the teachers of Men in their youth. For the Elves of the
High Kindred had not yet forsaken Middle-earth, and they dwelt still at that
time at the Grey Havens away to the west, and in other places within reach
of the Shire. Three Elf-towers of immemorial age were still to be seen on
the Tower Hills beyond the western marches. They shone far off in the
moonlight. The tallest was furthest away, standing alone upon a green mound.
The Hobbits of the Westfarthing said that one could see the Sea from the lop
of that tower; but no Hobbit had ever been known to climb it. Indeed, few
Hobbits had ever seen or sailed upon the Sea, and fewer still had ever
returned to report it. Most Hobbits regarded even rivers and small boats
with deep misgivings, and not many of them could swim. And as the days of
the Shire lengthened they spoke less and less with the Elves, and grew
afraid of them, and distrustful of those that had dealings with them; and
the Sea became a word of fear among them, and a token of death, and they
turned their faces away from the hills in the west.
The craft of building may have come from Elves or Men, but the Hobbits
used it in their own fashion. They did not go in for towers. Their houses
were usually long, low, and comfortable. The oldest kind were, indeed, no
more than built imitations of smials, thatched with dry grass or straw, or
roofed with turves, and having walls somewhat bulged. That stage, however,
belonged to the early days of the Shire, and hobbit-building had long since
been altered, improved by devices, learned from Dwarves, or discovered by
themselves. A preference for round windows, and even round doors, was the
chief remaining peculiarity of hobbit-architecture.
The houses and the holes of Shire-hobbits were often large, and
inhabited by large families. (Bilbo and Frodo Baggins were as bachelors very
exceptional, as they were also in many other ways, such as their friendship
with the Elves.) Sometimes, as in the case of the Tooks of Great Smials, or
the Brandybucks of Brandy Hall, many generations of relatives lived in
(comparative) peace together in one ancestral and many-tunnelled mansion.
All Hobbits were, in any case, clannish and reckoned up their relationships
with great care. They drew long and elaborate family-trees with innumerable
branches. In dealing with Hobbits it is important to remember who is related
to whom, and in what degree. It would be impossible in this book to set out
a family-tree that included even the more important members of the more
important families at the time which these tales tell of. The genealogical
trees at the end of the Red Book of Westmarch are a small book in
themselves, and all but Hobbits would find them exceedingly dull. Hobbits
delighted in such things, if they were accurate: they liked to have books
filled with things that they already knew, set out fair and square with no
contradictions.
2. Concerning Pipe-weed
There is another astonishing thing about Hobbits of old that must be
mentioned, an astonishing habit: they imbibed or inhaled, through pipes of
clay or wood, the smoke of the burning leaves of a herb, which they called
pipe-weed or leaf, a variety probably of Nicotiana. A great deal of mystery
surrounds the origin of this peculiar custom, or 'art' as the Hobbits
preferred to call it. All that could be discovered about it in antiquity was
put together by Meriadoc Brandybuck (later Master of Buckland), and since he
and the tobacco of the Southfarthing play a part in the history that
follows, his remarks in the introduction to his Herblore of the Shire may be
quoted.
'This,' he says, 'is the one art that we can certainly claim to be our
own invention. When Hobbits first began to smoke is not known, all the
legends and family histories take it for granted; for ages folk in the Shire
smoked various herbs, some fouler, some sweeter. But all accounts agree that
Tobold Hornblower of Longbottom in the Southfarthing first grew the true
pipe-weed in his gardens in the days of Isengrim the Second, about the year
1070 of Shire-reckoning. The best home-grown still comes from that district,
especially the varieties now known as Longbottom Leaf, Old Toby, and
Southern Star.
'How Old Toby came by the plant is not recorded, for to his dying day
he would not tell. He knew much about herbs, but he was no traveller. It is
said that in his youth he went often to Bree, though he certainly never went
further from the Shire than that. It is thus quite possible that he learned
of this plant in Bree, where now, at any rate, it grows well on the south
slopes of the hill. The Bree-hobbits claim to have been the first actual
smokers of the pipe-weed. They claim, of course, to have done everything
before the people of the Shire, whom they refer to as "colonists"; but in
this case their claim is, I think, likely to be true. And certainly it was
from Bree that the art of smoking the genuine weed spread in the recent
centuries among Dwarves and such other folk, Rangers, Wizards, or wanderers,
as still passed to and fro through that ancient road-meeting. The home and
centre of the an is thus to be found in the old inn of Bree, The Prancing
Pony, that has been kept by the family of Butterbur from time beyond record.
'All the same, observations that I have made on my own many journeys
south have convinced me that the weed itself is not native to our parts of
the world, but came northward from the lower Anduin, whither it was, I
suspect, originally brought over Sea by the Men of Westernesse. It grows
abundantly in Gondor, and there is richer and larger than in the North,
where it is never found wild, and flourishes only in warm sheltered places
like Longbottom. The Men of Gondor call it sweet galenas, and esteem it only
for the fragrance of its flowers. From that land it must have been carried
up the Greenway during the long centuries between the coming of Elendil and
our own day. But even the Dъnedain of Gondor allow us this credit: Hobbits
first put it into pipes. Not even the Wizards first thought of that before
we did. Though one Wizard that I knew took up the art long ago, and became
as skilful in it as in all other things that he put his mind to.'
3. Of the Ordering of the Shire
The Shire was divided into four quarters, the Farthings already
referred to. North, South, East, and West; and these again each into a
number of folklands, which still bore the names of some of the old leading
families, although by the time of this history these names were no longer
found only in their proper folklands. Nearly all Tooks still lived in the
Tookland, but that was not true of many other families, such as the
Bagginses or the Boffins. Outside the Farthings were the East and West
Marches: the Buckland (see beginning of Chapter V, Book I); and the
Westmarch added to the Shire in S.R. 1462.
The Shire at this time had hardly any 'government'. Families for the
most part managed their own affairs. Growing food and eating it occupied
most of their time. In other matters they were, as a rule, generous and not
greedy, but contented and moderate, so that estates, farms, workshops, and
small trades tended to remain unchanged for generations.
There remained, of course, the ancient tradition concerning the high
king at Fornost, or Norbury as they called it, away north of the Shire. But
there had been no king for nearly a thousand years, and even the ruins of
Kings' Norbury were covered with grass. Yet the Hobbits still said of wild
folk and wicked things (such as trolls) that they had not heard of the king.
For they attributed to the king of old all their essential laws; and usually
they kept the laws of free will, because they were The Rules (as they said),
both ancient and just.
It is true that the Took family had long been pre-eminent; for the
office of Thain had passed to them (from the Oldbucks) some centuries
before, and the chief Took had borne that title ever since. The Thain was
the master of the Shire-moot, and captain of the Shire-muster and the
Hobbitry-in-arms, but as muster and moot were only held in times of
emergency, which no longer occurred, the Thainship had ceased to be more
than a nominal dignity. The Took family was still, indeed, accorded a
special respect, for it remained both numerous and exceedingly wealthy, and
was liable to produce in every generation strong characters of peculiar
habits and even adventurous temperament. The latter qualities, however, were
now rather tolerated (in the rich) than generally approved. The custom
endured, nonetheless, of referring to the head of the family as The Took,
and of adding to his name, if required, a number: such as Isengrim the
Second, for instance.
The only real official in the Shire at this date was the Mayor of
Michel Delving (or of the Shire), who was elected every seven years at the
Free Fair on the White Downs at the Lithe, that is at Midsummer. As mayor
almost his only duty was to preside at banquets, given on the
Shire-holidays, which occurred at frequent intervals. But the offices of
Postmaster and First Shirriff were attached to the mayoralty, so that he
managed both the Messenger Service and the Watch. These were the only
Shire-services, and the Messengers were the most numerous, and much the
busier of the two. By no means all Hobbits were lettered, but those who were
wrote constantly to all their friends (and a selection of their relations)
who lived further off than an afternoon's walk.
The Shirriffs was the name that the Hobbits gave to their police, or
the nearest equivalent that they possessed. They had, of course, no uniforms
(such things being quite unknown), only a feather in their caps; and they
were in practice rather haywards than policemen, more concerned with the
strayings of beasts than of people. There were in all the Shire only twelve
of them, three in each Farthing, for Inside Work. A rather larger body,
varying at need, was employed to 'beat the bounds', and to see that
Outsiders of any kind, great or small, did not make themselves a nuisance.
At the time when this story begins the Bounders, as they were called,
had been greatly increased. There were many reports and complaints of
strange persons and creatures prowling about the borders, or over them: the
first sign that all was not quite as it should be, and always had been
except in tales and legends of long ago. Few heeded the sign, and not even
Bilbo yet had any notion of what it portended. Sixty years had passed since
he set out on his memorable journey, and he was old even for Hobbits, who
reached a hundred as often as not; but much evidently still remained of the
considerable wealth that he had brought back. How much or how little he
revealed to no one, not even to Frodo his favourite 'nephew'. And he still
kept secret the ring that he bad found.
4. Of the Finding of the Ring
As is told in The Hobbit, there came one day to Bilbo's door the great
Wizard, Gandalf the Grey, and thirteen dwarves with him: none other, indeed,
than Thorin Oakenshield, descendant of kings, and his twelve companions in
exile. With them he set out, to his own lasting astonishment, on a morning
of April, it being then the year 1341 Shire-reckoning, on a quest of great
treasure, the dwarf-hoards of the Kings under the Mountain, beneath Erebor
in Dale, far off in the East. The quest was successful, and the Dragon that
guarded the hoard was destroyed. Yet, though before all was won the Battle
of Five Armies was fought, and Thorin was slain, and many deeds of renown
were done, the matter would scarcely have concerned later history, or earned
more than a note in the long annals of the Third Age, but for an 'accident'
by the way. The party was assailed by Orcs in a high pass of the Misty
Mountains as they went towards Wilderland; and so it happened that Bilbo was
lost for a while in the black orc-mines deep under the mountains, and there,
as he groped in vain in the dark, he put his hand on a ring, lying on the
floor of a tunnel. He put it in his pocket. It seemed then like mere luck.
Trying to find his way out. Bilbo went on down to the roots of the
mountains, until he could go no further. At the bottom of the tunnel lay a
cold lake far from the light, and on an island of rock in the water lived
Gollum. He was a loathsome little creature: he paddled a small boat with his
large flat feet, peering with pale luminous eyes and catching blind fish
with his long fingers, and eating them raw. He ate any living thing, even
orc, if he could catch it and strangle it without a struggle. He possessed a
secret treasure that had come to him long ages ago, when he still lived in
the light: a ring of gold that made its wearer invisible. It was the one
thing he loved, his 'precious', and he talked to it, even when it was not
with him. For he kept it hidden safe in a hole on his island, except when he
was hunting or spying on the ores of the mines.
Maybe he would have attacked Bilbo at once, if the ring had been on him
when they met; but it was not, and the hobbit held in his hand an Elvish
knife, which served him as a sword. So to gain time Gollum challenged Bilbo
to the Riddle-game, saying that if he asked a riddle which Bilbo could not
guess, then he would kill him and eat him; but if Bilbo defeated him, then
he would do as Bilbo wished: he would lead him to a way out of the tunnels.
Since he was lost in the dark without hope, and could neither go on nor
back. Bilbo accepted the challenge; and they asked one another many riddles.
In the end Bilbo won the game, more by luck (as it seemed) than by wits; for
he was stumped at last for a riddle to ask, and cried out, as his hand came
upon the ring he lad picked up and forgotten: What haw I got in my pocket?
This Gollum failed to answer, though he demanded three guesses.
The Authorities, it is true, differ whether this last question was a
mere 'question' and not a 'riddle' according to the strict rules of the
Game; but all agree that, after accepting it and trying to guess the answer,
Gollum was bound by his promise. And Bilbo pressed him to keep his word; for
the thought came to him that this slimy creature might prove false, even
though such promises were held sacred, and of old all but the wickedest
things feared to break them. But after ages alone in the dark Gollum's heart
was black, and treachery was in it. He slipped away, and returned to the
island, of which Bilbo knew nothing, not far off in the dark water. There,
he thought, lay his ring. He was hungry now, and angry, and once his
'precious' was with him he would not fear any weapon at all.
But the ring was not on the island; he had lost it, it was gone. His
screech sent a shiver down Bilbo's back, though he did not yet understand
what had happened. But Gollum had at last leaped to a guess, too late. What
has it got in its pocketses? he cried. The light in his eyes was like a
green flame as he sped back to murder the hobbit and recover his 'precious'.
Just in time Bilbo saw his peril, and he fled blindly up the passage away
from the water; and once more he was saved by his luck. For just as he ran
he put his hand in his pocket, and the ring slipped quietly on to his
finger. So it was that Gollum passed him without seeing him, and went to
guard the way out, lest the 'thief' should escape. Warily Bilbo followed
him, as he went along, cursing, and talking to himself about his 'precious';
from which talk at last even Bilbo guessed the truth, and hope came to him
in the darkness: he himself had found the marvellous ring and a chance of
escape from the orcs and from Gollum.
At length they came to a halt before an unseen opening that led to the
lower gates of the mines, on the eastward side of the mountains. There
Gollum crouched at bay, smelling and listening; and Bilbo was tempted to
slay him with his sword. But pity stayed him, and though he kept the ring,
in which his only hope lay, he would not use it to help him kill the
wretched creature at a disadvantage. In the end, gathering his courage, he
leaped over Gollum in the dark, and fled away down the passage, pursued by
his enemy's cries of hate and despair: Thief, thief! Baggins! We hates it
for ever!
Now it is a curious fact that this is not the story as Bilbo first told
it to his companions. To them his account was that Gollum had promised to
give him a present, if he won the game; but when Gollum went to fetch it
from his island he found the treasure was gone: a magic ring, which had been
given to him long ago on his birthday. Bilbo guessed that this was the very
ring that he had found, and as he had won the game, it was already his by
right. But being in a tight place, he said nothing about it, and made Gollum
show him the way out, as a reward instead of a present. This account Bilbo
set down in his memoirs, and he seems never to have altered it himself, not
even after the Council of Elrond. Evidently it still appeared in the
original Red Book, as it did in several of the copies and abstracts. But
many copies contain the true account (as an alternative), derived no doubt
from notes by Frodo or Samwise, both of whom learned the truth, though they
seem to have been unwilling to delete anything actually written by the old
hobbit himself.
Gandalf, however, disbelieved Bilbo's first story, as soon as he heard
it, and he continued to be very curious about the ring. Eventually he got
the true tale out of Bilbo after much questioning, which for a while
strained their friendship; but the wizard seemed to think the truth
important. Though he did not say so to Bilbo, he also thought it important,
and disturbing, to find that the good hobbit had not told the truth from the
first: quite contrary to his habit. The idea of a 'present' was not mere
hobbitlike invention, all the same. It was suggested to Bilbo, as he
confessed, by Gollum's talk that he overheard; for Gollum did, in fact, call
the ring his 'birthday present', many times. That also Gandalf thought
strange and suspicious; but he did not discover the truth in this point for
many more years, as will be seen in this book.
Of Bilbo's later adventures little more need be said here. With the
help of the ring he escaped from the orc-guards at the gate and rejoined his
companions. He used the ring many times on his quest, chiefly for the help
of his friends; but he kept it secret from them as long as he could. After
his return to his home he never spoke of it again to anyone, save Gandalf
and Frodo; and no one else in the Shire knew of its existence, or so he
believed. Only to Frodo did he show the account of his Journey that he was
writing.
His sword, Sting, Bilbo hung over his fireplace, and his coat of
marvellous mail, the gift of the Dwarves from the Dragon-hoard, he lent to a
museum, to the Michel Delving Mathom-house in fact. But he kept in a drawer
at Bag End the old cloak and hood that he had worn on his travels; and the
ring, secured by a fine chain, remained in his pocket.
He returned to his home at Bag End on June the 22nd in his fifty-second
year (S.R. 1342), and nothing very notable occurred in the Shire until Mr.
Baggins began the preparations for the celebration of his
hundred-and-eleventh birthday (S.R. 1401). At this point this History
begins.
NOTE ON THE SHIRE RECORDS
At the end of the Third Age the part played by the Hobbits in the great
events that led to the inclusion of the Shire in the Reunited Kingdom
awakened among them a more widespread interest in their own history; and
many of their traditions, up to that time still mainly oral, were collected
and Written down. The greater fam...
