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101-615: Bree is a fictional village in J. R. R. Tolkien 's Middle-earth , east of the Shire . Bree-land, which contains Bree and a few other villages, is the only place where Hobbits and Men lived side by side. It was inspired by the name of the Buckinghamshire village of Brill , meaning "hill-hill", which Tolkien visited regularly in his early years at the University of Oxford , and informed by his passion for linguistics. In Bree

202-465: A Catholic , realised he had created a dilemma for himself , as if these beings were sentient and had a sense of right and wrong, then they must have souls and could not have been created wholly evil. Dragons (or "worms") appear in several varieties, distinguished by whether they have wings and whether they breathe fire (cold-drakes versus fire-drakes). The first of the fire-drakes ( Urulóki in Quenya)

303-542: A Maia . The Valar withdrew from direct involvement in the affairs of Middle-earth after the defeat of Morgoth, but in later years they sent the wizards or Istari to help in the struggle against Sauron. The most important wizards were Gandalf the Grey and Saruman the White . Gandalf remained true to his mission and proved crucial in the fight against Sauron. Saruman, however, became corrupted and sought to establish himself as

404-762: A tightrope unaided. Their eyesight is keen. Elves are immortal, unless killed in battle. They are re-embodied in Valinor if killed. Men were "the Secondborn" of the Children of Ilúvatar: they awoke in Middle-earth much later than the Elves. Men (and Hobbits) were the last humanoid race to appear in Middle-earth: Dwarves, Ents and Orcs also preceded them. The capitalized term "Man" (plural "Men")

505-793: A catastrophic transition from a flat to a spherical world, known as the Akallabeth, in which Aman became inaccessible to mortal Men. Tolkien described the region in which the Hobbits lived as "the North-West of the Old World, east of the Sea", and the north-west of the Old World is essentially Europe , especially Britain . However, as he noted in private letters, the geographies do not match, and he did not consciously make them match when he

606-467: A centre of trade and a stopping place for travellers. When Arnor in the north waned, Bree's prosperity and size declined. Pipe-weed flourishes on the south-facing side of Bree-hill, and the Hobbits of Bree claim to have been the first to smoke it; travellers on the road including Dwarves , Rangers , and Wizards took up the habit when they visited the village on their journeys. Directly west of Bree are

707-743: A high hedge, to deter the seemingly mobile trees from invading Buckland". The forest appears in the video game The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring . In the MMORPG Lord of the Rings Online , a quest to gather lilies for Goldberry at the foot of Old Man Willow is given to the player by Bombadil, who warns that the tree will "sing you right to sleep". Along with the adventure in Crickhollow, Tom Bombadil, and

808-515: A hundred leagues of the Shire. Tom Bombadil knows of Bree, saying in his metrical speech "four miles along the road / you'll come upon a village, / Bree under Bree-hill, / with doors looking westward." Tolkien wrote of two different origins for the people of Bree. One was that Bree had been founded and populated by men of the Edain who did not reach Beleriand in the First Age, remaining east of

909-780: A large willow tree beside the River Withywindle, but spreading his influence throughout the forest. He casts a spell on the hobbits , trapping two of them; they are rescued by Tom Bombadil . Bombadil explains that the tree was wholly evil, and had grown to control most of the Old Forest. Tolkien made a drawing of Old Man Willow, from an unpollarded tree by the river in Oxford, to support his writing. The evil tree has puzzled critics, as it does not fit with Tolkien's image as an environmentalist "tree-hugger"; others have noted that trees too are seen by Christians as affected by

1010-558: A letter from Gandalf which he had forgotten to deliver months earlier. Bree is an ancient settlement of men in Eriador , some 40 miles (64 km) east of the Shire. After the collapse of the kingdom of Arnor , Bree continued to thrive without any central authority for many centuries. As Bree lies at the meeting of two large roadways, the Great East Road and the long disused Greenway or Great North Road, it has for centuries been

1111-424: A little glorified by enchantment of distance in time. ...if it were 'history', it would be difficult to fit the lands and events (or 'cultures') into such evidence as we possess, archaeological or geological, concerning the nearer or remoter part of what is now called Europe; though the Shire , for instance, is expressly stated to have been in this region...I hope the, evidently long but undefined gap in time between

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1212-661: A night. After singing The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late , Frodo accidentally slips the One Ring on his finger, and becomes invisible. The minor villain Bill Ferny and a squint-eyed "Southerner", a person from some land far to the south, see him vanish, and inform the Black Riders, who attack the inn. Aragorn saves him and leads the party away, after the innkeeper Barliman Butterbur delivers

1313-648: A rival to Sauron for absolute power in Middle-earth. Other races involved in the struggle against evil were Dwarves , Ents and most famously Hobbits . The early stages of the conflict are chronicled in The Silmarillion , while the final stages of the struggle to defeat Sauron are told in The Hobbit and in The Lord of the Rings . Conflict over the possession and control of precious or magical objects

1414-735: A space some way inside the forest; this later became known as the Bonfire Glade . The ruling family of Buckland, the Brandybucks, owned a private gate in the Hedge, through which they occasionally dared the threshold of the Old Forest. They also went in to maintain the cleared strip, which was still in existence during the War of the Ring . At least one non-Brandybuck visited the Old Forest: Farmer Maggot . The heir of

1515-628: Is The Prancing Pony inn , where the wizard Gandalf meets the Dwarf Thorin Oakenshield , setting off the quest to Erebor described in The Hobbit , and where Frodo Baggins puts on the One Ring , attracting the attention of the Dark Lord Sauron 's spies and an attack by the Black Riders . Scholars have stated that Tolkien chose the placenames of Bree-land carefully, incorporating Celtic elements into

1616-469: Is "mannish" but it welcomes Hobbits with rooms "built into the hill, thus imitating traditional hobbit-architecture." This made it one of Frodo's five Homely Houses . Bo Walther, in Tolkien Studies , writes that Bree, with The Prancing Pony inn, is "creepy but also familiar", a place where the Hobbits can begin to face their fear of the unknown, "cheered up by the recognizable bouquet of beer and

1717-522: Is a recurring theme in the stories. The First Age is dominated by the doomed quest of the elf Fëanor and most of his Noldorin clan to recover three precious jewels called the Silmarils that Morgoth stole from them (hence the title The Silmarillion ). The Second and Third Age are dominated by the forging of the Rings of Power , and the fate of the One Ring forged by Sauron, which gives its wearer

1818-533: Is called Khuzdul , and was kept largely as a secret language for their own use. Like Hobbits, Dwarves live exclusively in Middle-earth. They generally reside under mountains, where they are specialists in mining and metalwork. Tolkien identified Hobbits as an offshoot of the race of Men. Another name for Hobbit is 'Halfling', as they were generally only half the size of Men. In their lifestyle and habits they closely resemble Men, and in particular Englishmen, except for their preference for living in holes underground. By

1919-517: Is enhanced by the ominous crowding that herds the hobbits 'eastwards and southwards, into the heart of the forest'", exactly where they do not wish to go. Tolkien wrote that all inhabitants of Ea can be corrupted, and even "trees may 'go bad'". Matthew Dickerson notes in the J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia that Old Man Willow is a prime example. Tolkien's Old Forest has been compared to "Old England" in John Buchan 's 1931 The Blanket of

2020-540: Is portrayed as a sentient and evil willow tree with powers including hypnosis and the ability to move his roots and trunk. Some characters of the story speculate that he may have been related to the Ents , or possibly the Huorns . However, unlike Ents or Huorns, he is portrayed more like a tree, with roots in the ground, and without the ability to move from place to place. Tom Bombadil had power over Old Man Willow, and checked

2121-475: Is the oecumene (i.e. the human-inhabited world, or the central continent of Earth ) in Tolkien's imagined mythological past . Tolkien's most widely read works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings , are set entirely in Middle-earth. "Middle-earth" has also become a short-hand term for Tolkien's legendarium , his large body of fantasy writings, and for the entirety of his fictional world. Middle-earth

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2222-476: Is the known world, "recalling the Norse Midgard and the equivalent words in early English", noting that Tolkien made it clear that this was " our world ... in a purely imaginary ... period of antiquity". Tolkien explained in a letter to his publisher that it "is just a use of Middle English middle-erde (or erthe ), altered from Old English Middangeard : the name for the inhabited lands of men 'between

2323-497: Is the main continent of Earth (Arda) in an imaginary period of the past, ending with Tolkien's Third Age , about 6,000 years ago. Tolkien's tales of Middle-earth mostly focus on the north-west of the continent. This region is suggestive of Europe, the north-west of the Old World , with the environs of the Shire reminiscent of England , but, more specifically, the West Midlands , with the town at its centre, Hobbiton , at

2424-543: Is used as a gender-neutral racial description, to distinguish humans from the other human-like races of Middle-earth. In appearance they are much like Elves, but on average less beautiful. Unlike Elves, Men are mortal, ageing and dying quickly, usually living 40–80 years. However the Númenóreans could live several centuries, and their descendants the Dúnedain also tended to live longer than regular humans. This tendency

2525-742: The Ainur entered Arda, following the creation events in the Ainulindalë and long ages of labour throughout Eä , the fictional universe . Time from that point was measured using Valian Years , though the subsequent history of Arda was divided into three time periods using different years, known as the Years of the Lamps , the Years of the Trees and the Years of the Sun . A separate, overlapping chronology divides

2626-520: The Barrow-downs and the Old Forest . Bree is the chief village of Bree-land, and the only place in Middle-earth where men and hobbits live side by side. The hobbit community is older than that of the Shire, which was originally colonized from Bree. By the time of The Lord of the Rings , Bree is the westernmost settlement of men in Middle-earth, and there is no other settlement of men within

2727-710: The Black Speech (Burzum) for his slaves (such as Orcs ) to speak. In the Third Age , five of the Maiar were embodied and sent to Middle-earth to help the free peoples to overthrow Sauron. These are the Istari or Wizards , including Gandalf , Saruman , and Radagast . The Elves are known as "the Firstborn" of Ilúvatar: intelligent beings created by Ilúvatar alone, with many different clans . Originally Elves all spoke

2828-623: The Brandywine river. The Withywindle , a tributary of the Brandywine, ran through the heart of the forest, which covered most of the Withywindle's drainage basin . This was also a 'catchment area' in another sense. The landscape, trees and bushes were aligned so that if any strangers attempted to traverse the forest, then they were funnelled towards the Withywindle, and into the clutches of Old Man Willow in particular. The valley of

2929-588: The Years of the Trees , Elves skirted the forest on their primeval migration to Beleriand and the West ; they were observed by Bombadil. By the time Sauron had been defeated and driven from Eriador, most of its old forests had already been destroyed, leaving remnants such as the Old Forest. (Other vestiges included Woody End in the Shire, Chetwood in Bree-land , and Eryn Vorn in Minhiriath.) The Old Forest

3030-435: The "Willow" tree and the "Old Man" character had not yet become a single "indivisible being". Instead, Tolkien writes of "how that grey thirsty earth-bound spirit had become imprisoned in the greatest Willow of the [Old] Forest." Flieger writes that in this draft and in the 1943 "Manuscript B", Tolkien links "a tree and a spirit, a 'non-incarnate mind'" which is "imprisoned" in an individual tree. She comments that Tolkien solved

3131-853: The Ainur entered Eä, and the greatest of these were called the Valar . Melkor , the chief agent of evil in Eä, and later called Morgoth , was initially one of the Valar. With the Valar came lesser spirits of the Ainur, called the Maiar . Melian, the wife of the Elven King Thingol in the First Age , was a Maia. There were also evil Maiar, including the Balrogs and the second Dark Lord, Sauron . Sauron devised

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3232-469: The Biblical Fall of Man . The Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger has observed that the Old Forest contradicts Tolkien's protective stance for wild nature and his positive views of trees in particular. Indeed, although the Hobbits in The Lord of the Rings had close shaves with the Black Riders , the first real antagonist which they encountered directly is Old Man Willow. She writes also that

3333-634: The Brandybucks during the War of the Ring was Merry Brandybuck : a member of the Fellowship of the Ring . He had been into the Old Forest "several times", and had a key to the gate. On Merry's advice, Frodo Baggins (the bearer of the One Ring ) decided to attempt a traversal of the dreadful forest in order to evade the pursuit of Black Riders . Old Man Willow is a malign tree-spirit of great age in Tom Bombadil 's Old Forest, appearing physically as

3434-571: The Bree-hill. The Prancing Pony was frequented by Men, Hobbits and Dwarves . Bucklanders from the Shire occasionally travelled to the inn. The art of smoking pipe-weed was said to have begun in Bree, and from The Prancing Pony it spread among the races of Middle-earth. The inn was noted for its fine beer, once sampled by Gandalf. The building is described in The Lord of the Rings : "Even from

3535-621: The Bucklanders cutting and burning of hundreds of trees along the Hedge is not different from the destruction caused by Saruman 's orcs in the woods around Orthanc . She notes further that Old Man Willow first appears as "a predatory tree" in the 1934 poem " The Adventures of Tom Bombadil ", and that the character is developed in The Lord of the Rings , as documented in The Return of the Shadow . In an early draft from 1938, she writes,

3636-619: The Crebain, evil crows who become spies for Saruman , and the Ravens of Erebor , who brought news to the Dwarves. The horse-line of the Mearas of Rohan, especially Gandalf's mount, Shadowfax, also appear to be intelligent and understand human speech. The bear-man Beorn had a number of animal friends about his house. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings , both set in Middle-earth, have been

3737-605: The Dark , where the protagonist Peter Bohun disappears in the English Midlands around Evesham . The West Midlands were beloved by Tolkien because the maternal part of his family, the Suffields, were from this area. Tom Shippey has proposed that the Old Forest contains a more fundamental symbolism. Frodo , the central protagonist of The Lord of the Rings , describes the forest as "the shadowed land"; Shippey draws on

3838-433: The Fall of Barad-dûr and our Days is sufficient for 'literary credibility', even for readers acquainted with what is known as 'pre-history'. I have, I suppose, constructed an imaginary time, but kept my feet on my own mother-earth for place. I prefer that to the contemporary mode of seeking remote globes in 'space'. In another letter, Tolkien made correspondences in latitude between Europe and Middle-earth: The action of

3939-455: The Rangers and the Shire-folk, begging your pardon", provides both a comic element and "fix[es] the geographical contact-but-distance between the two communities." Butterbur appears in both Ralph Bakshi 's animated 1978 adaptation of The Lord of the Rings and Peter Jackson 's epic live-action 2001 film The Fellowship of the Ring , but in both adaptations most of his scenes are cut. Alan Tilvern voiced Butterbur (credited as "Innkeeper") in

4040-514: The Rings , Tolkien writes: "Those days, the Third Age of Middle-earth, are now long past, and the shape of all lands has been changed..." The Appendices make several references in both history and etymology of topics "now" (in modern English languages) and "then" (ancient languages); The year no doubt was of the same length,¹ [ the footnote here reads : 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 46 seconds.] for long ago as those times are now reckoned in years and lives of men, they were not very remote according to

4141-1008: The Rings: The Return of the King received 11 Academy Award nominations and won all of them, matching the totals awarded to Ben-Hur and Titanic . Two well-made fan films of Middle-earth, The Hunt for Gollum and Born of Hope , were uploaded to YouTube on 8 May 2009 and 11 December 2009 respectively. Numerous computer and video games have been inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien 's works set in Middle-earth. Titles have been produced by studios such as Electronic Arts , Vivendi Games , Melbourne House , and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment . Aside from officially licensed games, many Tolkien-inspired mods , custom maps and total conversions have been made for many games, such as Warcraft III , Minecraft , Rome: Total War , Medieval II: Total War , The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim . In addition, there are many text-based MMORPGs (known as MU*s ) based on Middle-earth. The oldest of these dates back to 1991, and

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4242-422: The Shire. There are queer folk about. Though I say it as shouldn't, you may think', he added with a wry smile, seeing Frodo's glance. 'And there have been even stranger travellers through Bree lately', he went on, watching Frodo's face. Bree was the starting point for the Fallohide brothers and leaders, Marcho and Blanco, when they travelled west in the year 1601 of the Third Age . They led their Hobbits across

4343-431: The Withywindle within the Old Forest was known as the Dingle . The Old Forest was a type of woodland nowadays described as temperate broadleaf and mixed forest . The west and south of the forest was dominated by " oaks and ashes and other strange trees", which were generally replaced by pines and firs in the north. Beeches and alders were found here and there in the forest, and willows were dominant along

4444-428: The Withywindle. Many of the trees were covered "with moss and slimy, shaggy growths". The understorey was congested with bushes and other undergrowth, including brambles . A variety of plants grew in the forest's occasional glades: grass, hemlocks , wood-parsley , fire-weed , nettles and thistles . In one of his letters, Tolkien explained that "the Old Forest was hostile to two-legged creatures because of

4545-540: The ability to give conscious life to things. The precise origins of Orcs and Trolls are unclear, as Tolkien considered various possibilities and sometimes changed his mind, leaving several inconsistent accounts. Late in the Third Age, the Uruks or Uruk-hai appeared: a race of Orcs of great size and strength that tolerate sunlight better than ordinary Orcs. Tolkien also mentions "Men-orcs" and "Orc-men"; or "half-orcs" or "goblin-men". They share some characteristics with Orcs (like "slanty eyes") but look more like men. Tolkien,

4646-461: The animated film, while David Weatherley played him in Jackson's epic. James Grout played Butterbur in BBC Radio 's 1981 serialization of The Lord of the Rings . In the 1991 low-budget Russian adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring , Khraniteli , he appears as "Lavr Narkiss", played by Nikolay Burov. In the 1993 television miniseries Hobitit by Finnish broadcaster Yle, Butterbur ("Viljami Voivalvatti" in Finnish, meaning "William Butter")

4747-453: The arch there was a lamp, and beneath it swung a large signboard : a fat white pony reared up on its hind legs. Over the door was painted in white letters: THE PRANCING PONY by BARLIMAN BUTTERBUR." The philologist J. Wust considers what script the writing over the door was in. He notes that the Hobbits had learnt to write from the Dunedain of the Northern kingdom, and could read the Prancing Pony inscription but that Pippin could not read

4848-418: The book for the benefit of readers, despite the expense involved. The definitive and iconic map of Middle-earth was published in The Lord of the Rings . It was refined with Tolkien's approval by the illustrator Pauline Baynes , using Tolkien's detailed annotations, with vignette images and larger paintings at top and bottom, into a stand-alone poster, " A Map of Middle-earth ". In Tolkien's conception, Arda

4949-476: The character Bill Ferny. Barliman Butterbur's surname is the name of the herbaceous perennial Petasites hybridus . Tolkien described the butterbur as "a fleshy plant with a heavy flower-head on a thick stalk, and very large leaves." He evidently chose this name as appropriate to a fat man; he suggested that translators use the name of some plant with "butter" in the name if possible, but in any event "a fat thick plant". The Tolkien scholar Ralph C. Wood writes that

5050-425: The context to suggest that the forest could be an allusion to Death. John Garth writes that the name "Old Forest" seems plain, but is "pregnant" with meaning: "Forest" derives from medieval Latin forestem silvam , "the outside wood", in turn from Latin foris , "out of doors". He glosses this as meaning unfenced woodland, noting that the Old Forest is "very emphatically fenced out by a strip of scorched earth and

5151-440: The edge of the forest. This had occurred "many generations" before the War of the Ring. However at length (but still "long ago" before the War of the Ring), the Bucklanders found that the Hedge was under "attack" by the forest. Trees began to plant themselves against the Hedge and lean over it. To counter this attack, the hobbits cleared a narrow strip of land on the outside of the Hedge, felling and burning many trees. They cleared

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5252-515: The events in Tolkien's stories take place in the north-west of Middle-earth. In the First Age , further to the north-west was the subcontinent Beleriand ; it was engulfed by the ocean at the end of the First Age. Tolkien prepared several maps of Middle-earth. Some were published in his lifetime. The main maps are those published in The Hobbit , The Lord of the Rings , The Silmarillion , and Unfinished Tales , and appear as foldouts or illustrations. Tolkien insisted that maps be included in

5353-417: The evil as much as he could, or was willing. According to Tom Bombadil, at the dawn of time, long before even the Awakening of the Elves , trees were the only inhabitants of vast stretches of the world. Because the Elves awoke far in the East, it was still a considerable time before any other beings spread into the vast primeval forests of western Middle-earth. A handful of trees survived from this time until

5454-418: The first big screen adaptation of the fictional setting was introduced in Ralph Bakshi 's animated The Lord of the Rings . New Line Cinema released the first part of director Peter Jackson 's The Lord of the Rings film series in 2001 as part of a trilogy; it was followed by a prequel trilogy in The Hobbit film series with several of the same actors playing their old roles. In 2003, The Lord of

5555-668: The first is Brythonic (Celtic) and the second Old English . The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey writes that the name Brill 's construction, "hill-hill", is "therefore in a way nonsense, exactly parallel with Chetwode (or 'wood-wood') in Berkshire close by." The first element "Chet" in "Chetwode" derives from the Brythonic ced , meaning "wood". Shippey notes further that Tolkien stated that he had selected Bree-land placenames – Archet, Bree, Chetwood, and Combe – because they "contained non-English elements", which would make them "sound 'queer', to imitate 'a style that we should perhaps vaguely feel to be “Celtic”'." Shippey comments that this

5656-464: The forename "Barliman" too is descriptive, hinting at "the hops that he brews" for his inn, barley being the grain used to make beer. The Tolkien scholar Thomas Honegger writes that Bree functions "as a point of transition between the hobbit-homeland and the wide expanse of Eriador", with its mixed population of hobbits and Men. It is clearly separate from the Shire, but its architecture retains "some degree of Shire homeliness and comfort." The inn

5757-406: The gift of life but under the condition that they be taken and put to sleep in widely separated locations in Middle-earth and not to awaken until after the Firstborn were upon the Earth. They are mortal like Men, but live much longer, usually several hundred years. A peculiarity of Dwarves is that both males and females are bearded, and thus appear identical to outsiders. The language spoken by Dwarves

5858-425: The history into 'Ages of the Children of Ilúvatar'. The first such Age began with the Awakening of the Elves during the Years of the Trees (by which time the Ainur had already long inhabited Arda) and continued for the first six centuries of the Years of the Sun. All the subsequent Ages took place during the Years of the Sun. Arda is, as critics have noted, "our own green and solid Earth at some quite remote epoch in

5959-429: The inscriptions on the houses in Minas Tirith , the city in the Southern land of Gondor. Wust suggests that in the North, a "full writing mode" was used for the Tengwar inscriptions, whereas in Gondor, the abbreviated tehta mode (with dots and marks above or below the consonants to indicate vowel sounds) was employed, presenting the text quite differently. Tolkien stated that the name "Bree" means "hill"; he justified

6060-418: The latitude of ancient Troy . In another letter he stated: ...Thank you very much for your letter. ... It came while I was away, in Gondor ( sc. Venice ), as a change from the North Kingdom, or I would have answered before. He did confirm, however, that the Shire , the land of his Hobbit heroes, was based on England , in particular the West Midlands of his childhood. In the Prologue to The Lord of

6161-509: The little-travelled and socially-deferential Sam (Frodo's servant) feels an anxiety from which the others are relatively free." He states that Tolkien sets "both comforting and terrifying events" in The Prancing Pony , insisting that "it remains resolutely unallegorical": it is "neither a symbol of comfort, nor the abode of giants which it half-appears to Sam". Rosebury adds that the use of proverbs specific to Bree, like Butterbur's "there's no accounting for East and West as we say in Bree, meaning

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6262-410: The memory of many injuries." When Gorhendad Oldbuck and his clan of Hobbits settled Buckland , they began to encroach upon the Old Forest, thus re-awakening the hostility that had first been aroused back in the Second Age . The settlers soon found themselves under threat from the forest. They felt that the trees of the Old Forest were in some manner 'awake', and were hostile. The trees swayed when there

6363-544: The memory of the Earth. Both the Appendices and The Silmarillion mention constellations, stars and planets that correspond to those seen in the northern hemisphere of Earth, including the Sun, the Moon, Orion (and his belt), Ursa Major and Mars . A map annotated by Tolkien places Hobbiton on the same latitude as Oxford , and Minas Tirith at the latitude of Ravenna , Italy. He used Belgrade , Cyprus , and Jerusalem as further reference points. The history of Middle-earth, as described in The Silmarillion , began when

6464-445: The middle-earth sent unto men. This is from the Crist 1 poem by Cynewulf . The name Éarendel was the inspiration for Tolkien's mariner Eärendil , who set sail from the lands of Middle-earth to ask for aid from the angelic powers, the Valar . Tolkien's earliest poem about Eärendil, from 1914, the same year he read the Crist poem, refers to "the mid-world's rim". Tolkien considered middangeard to be "the abiding place of men",

6565-407: The mountains in Eriador. The other was that they came from the same stock as the Dunlendings . The Prancing Pony was Bree's inn. It served beer to locals, and provided accommodation and food to travellers. One of Eriador 's major cross-roads was just outside the village: the meeting of the Great East Road and the Greenway. The inn was at a road junction in the centre of the village, at the base of

6666-403: The name by arranging the village and the surrounding Bree-land around a large hill, named Bree-hill. The name of the village of Brill , in Buckinghamshire , which Tolkien visited when he was at the University of Oxford and which inspired him to create Bree, is constructed exactly the same way: Brill is a modern contraction of Breʒ-hyll . Both syllables are words for the same thing , "hill" –

6767-457: The names to indicate that Bree was older than the Shire, whose placenames are English with Old English elements. Others have commented that Bree functions as a place of transition from the comfort and safety of home to the dangers of the journey that lies ahead. 'Well, Master Underhill', said Strider , 'if I were you, I should stop your young friends from talking too much. Drink, fire, and chance-meeting are pleasant enough, but, well – this isn't

6868-410: The outside the inn looked a pleasant house to familiar eyes. It had a front on the Road, and two wings running back on land partly cut out of the lower slopes of the hill, so that at the rear the second-floor windows were level with the ground. There was a wide arch leading to a courtyard between the two wings, and on the left under the arch there was a large doorway reached by a few broad steps. ... Above

6969-410: The past." As such, it has not only an immediate story but a history, and the whole thing is an "imagined prehistory" of the Earth as it is now. The Ainur were angelic beings created by the one god of Eä, Eru Ilúvatar . The cosmological myth called the Ainulindalë , or "Music of the Ainur", describes how the Ainur sang for Ilúvatar, who then created Eä to give material form to their music. Many of

7070-490: The physical reality of creation as a whole. In careful geographical terms, Middle-earth is a continent on Arda, excluding regions such as Aman and the isle of Númenor. The alternative wider use is reflected in book titles such as The Complete Guide to Middle-earth , The Road to Middle-earth , The Atlas of Middle-earth , and Christopher Tolkien 's 12-volume series The History of Middle-earth . Tolkien's biographer Humphrey Carpenter states that Tolkien's Middle-earth

7171-428: The physical world in which Man lives out his life and destiny, as opposed to the unseen worlds above and below it, namely Heaven and Hell . He states that it is "my own mother-earth for place ", but in an imaginary past time, not some other planet. He began to use the term "Middle-earth" in the late 1930s, in place of the earlier terms "Great Lands", "Outer Lands", and "Hither Lands". The first published appearance of

7272-416: The place names of England" – like bree and chet – to mark them as older than the Shire placenames which embody "a hint of the past" with their English and Old English elements. All of this indicates the "remarkable care and sophistication" with which Tolkien constructed the "feigned history and translation from Westron personal and placenames". Men of Bree often used plant names as surnames, as with

7373-498: The power to control or influence those wearing the other Rings of Power. In ancient Germanic mythology , the world of Men is known by several names. The Old English middangeard descends from an earlier Germanic word and so has cognates such as the Old Norse Miðgarðr from Norse mythology , transliterated to modern English as Midgard . The original meaning of the second element, from proto-Germanic gardaz ,

7474-506: The present day, who are angered at the encroachment of Elves and Men and their dominion over the earth; trees who bitterly remember a time long ago when they were as Lords of vast regions of the world. Bombadil relates that of the corrupted trees of the Old Forest, "none were more dangerous than the Great Willow; his heart was rotten, but his strength was green; and he was cunning, and a master of winds, and his song and thought ran through

7575-399: The problem of how a spirit might become trapped in this way by turning them into a single being, at once a tree and a malevolent spirit. Old Man Willow is accompanied in the Old Forest, she writes, by "trees" that do what ordinary trees do – "dropping branches, sticking up roots", but which appear to be reacting to the presence of the hobbits, "giving an impression of motivation and intent that

7676-719: The prologue of Jackson's 2013 The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug , portrayed by Richard Whiteside. Bree and Bree-land are featured prominently in the PC game The Lord of the Rings Online , which allows the player to explore the town. Middle-earth Middle-earth is the setting of much of the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien 's fantasy. The term is equivalent to the Miðgarðr of Norse mythology and Middangeard in Old English works, including Beowulf . Middle-earth

7777-477: The protagonist Frodo Baggins calls it "the shadowed land", to Death. The Old Forest lay near the centre of Eriador , a large region of north-west Middle-earth. It was one of the few survivors of the primordial forests which had covered much of Eriador before the Second Age . Indeed, it had once been but the northern edge of one immense forest which reached all the way to Fangorn forest, hundreds of miles to

7878-646: The rest of the physical world), which itself was part of the wider creation he called Eä. Aman and Middle-earth are separated from each other by the Great Sea Belegaer , though they make contact in the far north at the Grinding Ice or Helcaraxë. The western continent, Aman, was the home of the Valar , and the Elves called the Eldar . On the eastern side of Middle-earth was the Eastern Sea. Most of

7979-566: The river Baranduin and took the land there to found the Shire . Two important events leading up to the War of the Ring take place at The Prancing Pony . The first is "a chance-meeting" of the Wizard Gandalf and the exiled Dwarf Thorin Oakenshield ; this meeting leads to the destruction of Smaug . The second occurs during the journey of Frodo Baggins to Rivendell , when he and his companions stay at The Prancing Pony for

8080-562: The road / And flung his cobweb cloak on me..." C. S. Lewis 's 1938–1945 Space Trilogy calls the home planet "Middle-earth" and specifically references Tolkien's unpublished legendarium; both men were members of the Inklings literary discussion group. Within the overall context of his legendarium , Tolkien's Middle-earth was part of his created world of Arda (which includes the Undying Lands of Aman and Eressëa , removed from

8181-593: The same Common Eldarin ancestral tongue, but over thousands of years it diverged into different languages. The two main Elven languages were Quenya , spoken by the Light Elves, and Sindarin , spoken by the Dark Elves. Physically the Elves resemble humans; indeed, they can marry and have children with them, as shown by the few Half-elven in the legendarium. The Elves are agile and quick footed, being able to walk

8282-410: The same latitude as Oxford . Tolkien's Middle-earth is peopled not only by Men , but by Elves , Dwarves , Ents , and Hobbits , and by monsters including Dragons, Trolls , and Orcs . Through the imagined history, the peoples other than Men dwindle, leave or fade, until, after the period described in the books, only Men are left on the planet. Tolkien's stories chronicle the struggle to control

8383-525: The seas'." There are allusions to a similarly- or identically-named world in the work of other writers both before and after him. William Morris 's 1870 translation of the Volsung Saga calls the world "Midgard". Margaret Widdemer 's 1918 poem "The Gray Magician" contains the lines: "I was living very merrily on Middle Earth / As merry as a maid may be / Till the Gray Magician came down along

8484-449: The sight of jovial hobbit faces." The scholar of humanities Brian Rosebury quotes at length from the Hobbits' approach to Bree and their arrival at The Prancing Pony , "to bring out the leisurely pace, and the patient attention to sensory impressions, typical of the narrative". He comments that there is much more detail than would be found in an allegory , and that it describes the "emotional experience of arriving at an unfamiliar place:

8585-515: The south-east. The vicinity of the Old Forest was the domain of three nature-spirits: Tom Bombadil , Goldberry , and Old Man Willow . The powers of these beings doubtless contributed to its survival when other forests were destroyed. Old Man Willow, along with the Barrow-wight and Tom Bombadil himself, first appeared in Tolkien's narrative poem The Adventures of Tom Bombadil , where Old Man Willow trapped Bombadil himself briefly. Willow

8686-522: The story takes place in the North-west of 'Middle-earth', equivalent in latitude to the coastlands of Europe and the north shores of the Mediterranean. ... If Hobbiton and Rivendell are taken (as intended) to be at about the latitude of Oxford , then Minas Tirith , 600 miles south, is at about the latitude of Florence . The Mouths of Anduin and the ancient city of Pelargir are at about

8787-493: The subject of a variety of film adaptations. There were many early failed attempts to bring the fictional universe to life on screen, some even rejected by the author himself, who was skeptical of the prospects of an adaptation. While animated and live-action shorts were made of Tolkien's books in 1967 and 1971, the first commercial depiction of The Hobbit onscreen was the Rankin/Bass animated TV special in 1977 . In 1978

8888-440: The time of The Hobbit , most of them lived in the Shire , a region of the northwest of Middle-earth, having migrated there from further east. The Ents were treelike shepherds of trees, their name coming from an Old English word for giant. Orcs and Trolls (made of stone) were evil creatures bred by Morgoth . They were not original creations but rather "mockeries" of the Children of Ilúvatar and Ents, since only Ilúvatar has

8989-594: The woods on both sides of the river. His grey thirsty spirit drew power out of the earth and spread like fine root-threads in the ground, and invisible twig-fingers in the air, till it had under its dominion nearly all the trees of the Forest from the Hedge to the Downs." In the First Age , Tom Bombadil "was here before the river and the trees". In the Spring of Arda , plants emerge, possibly including Old Man Willow. In

9090-428: The word "Middle-earth" in Tolkien's works is in the prologue to The Lord of the Rings : "Hobbits had, in fact, lived quietly in Middle-earth for many long years before other folk even became aware of them". The term Middle-earth has come to be applied as a short-hand for the entirety of Tolkien's legendarium, instead of the technically more appropriate, but lesser known terms "Arda" for the physical world and " Eä " for

9191-464: The world (called Arda ) and the continent of Middle-earth between, on one side, the angelic Valar , the Elves and their allies among Men ; and, on the other, the demonic Melkor or Morgoth (a Vala fallen into evil), his followers, and their subjects, mostly Orcs , Dragons and enslaved Men. In later ages, after Morgoth's defeat and expulsion from Arda, his place is taken by his lieutenant Sauron ,

9292-578: Was "enclosure", cognate with English "yard"; middangeard was assimilated by folk etymology to "middle earth". Middle-earth was at the centre of nine worlds in Norse mythology, and of three worlds (with heaven above, hell below) in some later Christian versions . Tolkien's first encounter with the term middangeard , as he stated in a letter, was in an Old English fragment he studied in 1913–1914: Éala éarendel engla beorhtast / ofer middangeard monnum sended. Hail Earendel, brightest of angels / above

9393-663: Was Glaurung the Golden, bred by Morgoth in Angband , and called "The Great Worm", "The Worm of Morgoth", and "The Father of Dragons". Middle-earth contains sapient animals including the Eagles , Huan the Great Hound from Valinor and the wolf-like Wargs . In general the origins and nature of these animals are unclear. Giant spiders such as Shelob descended from Ungoliant , of unknown origin. Other sapient species include

9494-517: Was created specifically as "the Habitation" ( Imbar or Ambar ) for the Children of Ilúvatar ( Elves and Men ). It is envisaged in a flat Earth cosmology, with the stars, and later also the sun and moon, revolving around it. Tolkien's sketches show a disc-like face for the world which looked up to the stars. However, Tolkien's legendarium addresses the spherical Earth paradigm by depicting

9595-500: Was known as Middle-earth MUD , run by using LPMUD . After the Middle-earth MUD ended in 1992, it was followed by Elendor and MUME . Old Forest The scholar Verlyn Flieger has observed that the hostility of the Old Forest and of Old Man Willow contradicts Tolkien's otherwise protective stance for wild nature. Scholars have discussed the symbolism of the Old Forest, likening it to "Old England", and, given that

9696-582: Was no wind and whispered at night, and they daunted intruding hobbits by tripping them, dropping branches, and driving them deeper into the forest. Deep within the Old Forest was the Withywindle Valley, the root of all the terrors of the forest; it could be a dark, evil and malevolent place. The Bucklanders therefore planted and maintained a great Hedge (also known as the High Hay ) all the way along Buckland's eastern border, which ran right along

9797-404: Was now "hostile to two legged creatures because of the memory of many injuries." The Old Forest was about 1,000 square miles in area (some 2,600 km ). It was bordered on the east by the Barrow-downs , a hilly area dotted with ancient burial mounds , where Frodo's party encountered the Barrow-wight . In the north it reached towards the Great East Road, and in the west and south it approached

9898-454: Was part of Tolkien's "linguistic heresy ", his theory that the sound of words conveyed both meaning and beauty . The philologist Christopher Robinson writes that Tolkien chose a name to "fit not only its designee, but also the phonological and morphological style of the nomenclature to which it belongs, as well as the linguistic scheme of his invented world." In Robinson's view, Tolkien intentionally selected "Celtic elements that have survived in

9999-527: Was portrayed by Mikko Kivinen. In Jackson's film, far from being a friendly place as in the book, Bree is constantly unpleasant and threatening; and whereas in the book the Ring just makes Frodo disappear when he puts it on in The Prancing Pony , in the film there are special effects with a strong wind, blue light, and the Eye of Sauron . A character credited as "Butterbur, Sr" appears briefly during

10100-477: Was weakened both by time and by intermingling with lesser peoples. The Dwarves are a race of humanoids who are shorter than Men but larger than Hobbits. The Dwarves were created by the Vala Aulë, before the Firstborn awoke due to his impatience for the arrival of the children of Ilúvatar to teach and to cherish. When confronted and shamed for his presumption by Ilúvatar, Eru took pity on Aulë and gave his creation

10201-478: Was writing: As for the shape of the world of the Third Age , I am afraid that was devised 'dramatically' rather than geologically , or paleontologically . I am historically minded. Middle-earth is not an imaginary world. ... The theatre of my tale is this earth, the one in which we now live, but the historical period is imaginary. The essentials of that abiding place are all there (at any rate for inhabitants of N.W. Europe), so naturally it feels familiar, even if

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