PROLOGUE 1. Concerning Hobbits This book is largely concerned with Hobbits, and from its pages a reader maydiscover much of their character and a little of their history. Further informationwill also be found in the selection from the Red Book of Westmarch that hasalready been published, under the title of The Hobbit. That story was derivedfrom the earlier chapters of the Red Book, composed by Bilbo himself, the firstHobbit to become famous in the world at large, and called by him There andBack Again, since they told of his journey into the East and his return: anadventure 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 fromthe outset, while some may not possess the earlier book. For such readers a fewnotes on the more important points are here collected from Hobbit-lore, and thefirst adventure is briefly recalled. Hobbits are an unobtrusive but very ancient people, more numerous formerlythan 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 anddid not understand or like machines more complicated than a forge-bellows, awater-mill, or a hand-loom, though they were skilful with tools. Even in ancientdays they were, as a rule, shy of ‘the Big Folk’, as they call us, and now theyavoid us with dismay and are becoming hard to find. They are quick of hearingand sharp-eyed, and though they are inclined to be fat and do not hurryunnecessarily, they are nonetheless nimble and deft in their movements. Theypossessed from the first the art of disappearing swiftly and silently, when largefolk whom they do not wish to meet come blundering by; and this an they havedeveloped 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 professionalskill that heredity and practice, and a close friendship with the earth, haverendered 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, rangingbetween 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. Accordingto the Red Book, Bandobras Took (Bullroarer), son of Isengrim the Second, wasfour foot five and able to ride a horse. He was surpassed in all Hobbit recordsonly by two famous characters of old; but that curious matter is dealt with in thisbook. As for the Hobbits of the Shire, with whom these tales are concerned, in thedays of their peace and prosperity they were a merry folk. They dressed in brightcolours, 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 onlycraft little practised among them was shoe-making; but they had long and skilfulfingers 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, andeat, and drink, often and heartily, being fond of simple jests at all times, and ofsix meals a day (when they could get them). They were hospitable and delightedin 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 ofours: far nearer to us than Elves, or even than Dwarves. Of old they spoke thelanguages of Men, after their own fashion, and liked and disliked much the samethings as Men did. But what exactly our relationship is can no longer bediscovered. The beginning of Hobbits lies far back in the Elder Days that arenow lost and forgotten. Only the Elves still preserve any records of that vanishedtime, and their traditions are concerned almost entirely with their own history, inwhich Men appear seldom and Hobbits are not mentioned at all. Yet it is clearthat Hobbits had, in fact, lived quietly in Middle-earth for many long yearsbefore other folk became even aware of them. And the world being after all fullof strange creatures beyond count, these little people seemed of very littleimportance. But in the days of Bilbo, and of Frodo his heir, they suddenlybecame, by no wish of their own, both important and renowned, and troubled thecounsels of the Wise and the Great. Those days, the Third Age of Middle-earth, are now long past, and the shapeof all lands has been changed; but the regions in which Hobbits then lived weredoubtless the same as those in which they still linger: the North-West of the OldWorld, east of the Sea. Of their original home the Hobbits in Bilbo’s timepreserved no knowledge. A love of learning (other than genealogical lore) wasfar from general among them, but there remained still a few in the older familieswho studied their own books, and even gathered reports of old times and distantlands from Elves, Dwarves, and Men. Their own records began only after thesettlement of the Shire, and their most ancient legends hardly looked furtherback than their Wandering Days. It is clear, nonetheless, from these legends, andfrom the evidence of their peculiar words and customs, that like many other folkHobbits had in the distant past moved westward. Their earliest tales seem toglimpse a time when they dwelt in the upper vales of Anduin, between the eavesof Greenwood the Great and the Misty Mountains. Why they later undertook thehard 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 ashadow that fell on the forest, so that it became darkened and its new name wasMirkwood.

Before the crossing of the mountains the Hobbits had already become dividedinto three somewhat different breeds: Harfoots, Stoors, and Fallohides. TheHarfoots were browner of skin, smaller, and shorter, and they were beardless andbootless; their hands and feet were neat and nimble; and they preferred highlandsand hillsides. The Stoors were broader, heavier in build; their feet and handswere larger, and they preferred flat lands and riversides. The Fallohides werefairer 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 inthe foothills of the mountains. They moved westward early, and roamed overEriador as far as Weathertop while the others were still in the Wilderland. Theywere the most normal and representative variety of Hobbit, and far the mostnumerous. They were the most inclined to settle in one place, and longestpreserved their ancestral habit of living in tunnels and holes. The Stoors lingered long by the banks of the Great River Anduin, and wereless shy of Men. They came west after the Harfoots and followed the course ofthe Loudwater southwards; and there many of them long dwelt between Tharbadand the borders of Dunland before they moved north again. The Fallohides, the least numerous, were a northerly branch. They were morefriendly with Elves than the other Hobbits were, and had more skill in languageand song than in handicrafts; and of old they preferred hunting to tilling. Theycrossed the mountains north of Rivendell and came down the River Hoarwell. InEriador they soon mingled with the other kinds that had preceded them, butbeing somewhat bolder and more adventurous, they were often found as leadersor chieftains among clans of Harfoots or Stoors. Even in Bilbo’s time the strongFallohidish strain could still be noted among the greater families, such as theTooks and the Masters of Buckland. In the westlands of Eriador, between the Misty Mountains and the Mountainsof Lune, the Hobbits found both Men and Elves. Indeed, a remnant still dweltthere of the D𐀀nedain, the kings of Men that came over the Sea out ofWesternesse; but they were dwindling fast and the lands of their North Kingdomwere 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 theirearlier settlements had long disappeared and been forgotten in Bilbo’s time; butone of the first to become important still endured, though reduced in size; this

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was at Bree and in the Chetwood that lay round about, some forty miles east ofthe Shire. It was in these early days, doubtless, that the Hobbits learned their letters andbegan to write after the manner of the D𐀀nedain, who had in their turn longbefore learned the art from the Elves. And in those days also they forgotwhatever languages they had used before, and spoke ever after the CommonSpeech, the Westron as it was named, that was current through all the lands ofthe kings from Arnor to Gondor, and about all the coasts of the Sea fromBelfalas to Lune. Yet they kept a few words of their own, as well as their ownnames 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 areckoning of years. For it was in the one thousand six hundred and first year ofthe Third Age that the Fallohide brothers, Marcho and Blanco, set out fromBree; and having obtained permission from the high king at Fornost1, theycrossed the brown river Baranduin with a great following of Hobbits. Theypassed over the Bridge of Stonebows, that had been built in the days of thepower 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 thatthey 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 theBrandywine (as the Hobbits turned the name) became Year One of the Shire, andall later dates were reckoned from it.2 At once the western Hobbits fell in lovewith their new land, and they remained there, and soon passed once more out ofthe history of Men and of Elves. While there was still a king they were in namehis subjects, but they were, in fact, ruled by their own chieftains and meddlednot at all with events in the world outside. To the last battle at Fornost with theWitch-lord of Angmar they sent some bowmen to the aid of the king, or so theymaintained, though no tales of Men record it. But in that war the North Kingdomended; and then the Hobbits took the land for their own, and they chose fromtheir own chiefs a Thain to hold the authority of the king that was gone. Therefor a thousand years they were little troubled by wars, and they prospered andmultiplied after the Dark Plague (S.R. 37) until the disaster of the Long Winterand the famine that followed it. Many thousands then perished, but the Days ofDearth (1158-60) were at the time of this tale long past and the Hobbits hadagain become accustomed to plenty. The land was rich and kindly, and though it

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had long been deserted when they entered it, it had before been well tilled, andthere the king had once had many farms, cornlands, vineyards, and woods. Forty leagues it stretched from the Far Downs to the Brandywine Bridge, andfifty from the northern moors to the marshes in the south. The Hobbits named itthe 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 theirwell-ordered business of living, and they heeded less and less the world outsidewhere dark things moved, until they came to think that peace and plenty werethe rule in Middle-earth and the right of all sensible folk. They forgot or ignoredwhat little they had ever known of the Guardians, and of the labours of those thatmade possible the long peace of the Shire. They were, in fact, sheltered, but theyhad ceased to remember it. At no time had Hobbits of any kind been warlike, and they had never foughtamong themselves. In olden days they had, of course, been often obliged to fightto maintain themselves in a hard world; but in Bilbo’s time that was very ancienthistory. The last battle, before this story opens, and indeed the only one that hadever been fought within the borders of the Shire, was beyond living memory: theBattle of Greenfields, S.R. 1147, in which Bandobras Took routed an invasion ofOrcs. Even the weathers had grown milder, and the wolves that had once comeravening out of the North in bitter white winters were now only a grandfather’stale. So, though there was still some store of weapons in the Shire, these wereused mostly as trophies, hanging above hearths or on walls, or gathered into themuseum at Michel Delving. The Mathom-house it was called; for anything thatHobbits had no immediate use for, but were unwilling to throw away, they calleda 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 sort. Nonetheless, ease and peace had left this people still curiously tough. Theywere, if it came to it, difficult to daunt or to kill; and they were, perhaps, sounwearyingly 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 away that astonished those who did not know them well and looked no furtherthan their bellies and their wellfed faces. Though slow to quarrel, and for sportkilling nothing that lived, they were doughty at bay, and at need could stillhandle arms. They shot well with the bow, for they were keen-eyed and sure atthe mark. Not only with bows and arrows. If any Hobbit stooped for a stone, itwas well to get quickly under cover, as all trespassing beasts knew very well.

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