Inn of the Prancing Pony

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In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional universe of Middle-earth, the Inn of the Prancing Pony was an inn where Frodo Baggins met Aragorn.

The Inn of the Prancing Pony was built along the old Great East Road, and was the chief building within the village of Bree, near where the Greenway went north to Fornost. Only one other hostelry outside the Shire is ever named in Middle-earth, The Forsaken Inn, which lay a day's ride east of Bree (at least two inns, The Green Dragon and The Golden Perch, were situated in the Shire).

By the time of the War of the Ring, it was owned and managed by Barliman Butterbur, a Man who was somewhat absent-minded at times.

The inn had rooms for Men as well as Hobbits, and in the meeting room Frodo Baggins and his companions Samwise Gamgee, Peregrin Took, and Meriadoc Brandybuck met the Ranger Strider, who would turn out to be Aragorn, son of Arathorn, a friend of Gandalf who waited there for them.

There were also spies of Sauron present in the inn, and it was attacked before the party of Hobbits left.

[edit] Trivia

In Middle Earth Roleplaying (MERP) the inn in Bree is "The King's Rest Inn". It can be assumed that the building was purchased by the Butterburs and renamed the Prancing Pony sometime in the Third Age.

In the movie Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of The Ring, Peter Jackson, the director of the film can be glimpsed outside the inn eating a pickled carrot in the rain.