Bree (Middle-earth)

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Bree is a fictional town in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, east of the Shire and south of Fornost Erain. It is sometimes said to have been inspired by the Buckinghamshire village of Brill, which Tolkien visited regularly in his early years at Oxford (supposedly Tolkien also lived in Brill for a short while).^[1]

Bree was a very ancient settlement of men in Eriador, long established by the time of the Third Age of Middle-earth. After the collapse of the kingdom of Arthedain, Bree continued to thrive without any central authority or government for many centuries. As Bree lies at the meeting of two large roadways, the Great East Road and the (now disused) Greenway, it had for centuries been a centre of trade and a stopping place for travellers, though as Arnor in the north waned its prosperity and size declined.

Bree was said to have been founded and populated by men who did not reach Beleriand in the first age, remaining east of the mountains in Eriador. The men of Bree were not closely related to the Edain, stemming instead from the same stock as the Dunlendings.^[2]

Bree was the most westerly settlement of men in all Middle-earth by the time of the War of the Ring,^{[citation needed]} and became one of only three or four inhabited settlements in all of Eriador. During the War of the Ring a day's ride east from the village along the road lay The Forsaken Inn, according to Aragorn, although nothing else is known of that place.

Gandalf and Thorin Oakenshield met by coincidence in Bree, setting in motion the events recounted in The Hobbit. Both were interested in the dragon Smaug at the Lonely Mountain, and the Quest of Erebor resulted in the death of Smaug and the finding of the One Ring by Bilbo Baggins.

[edit] Location

Directly west of Bree were the Barrow-downs and the Old Forest. Bree was the chief village of Breeland, a small wooded region near the intersection of the main north-south and east-west routes through Eriador. Breeland was the only part of Middle-earth where Men and hobbits dwelt side by side. The hobbit community was older than that of the Shire, which was originally colonized from it.

[edit] Breeland

There were four villages in Breeland:

• Bree was the largest settlement. In Tolkien's books, it was mostly populated by Men, but Hobbit servants worked at the Prancing Pony Inn and special Hobbit-sized rooms were available there. Bree lay at the confluence of the Great East Road and the Greenway (a path leading south), and had a small amount of commercial traffic as a consequence. Bree had a gate and night watchmen to keep out troublemakers from the wild lands beyond. On rare occasions, adventurous Brandybucks and Tooks from the Shire would venture as far east as Bree.

• Staddle was populated primarily by hobbits who made a living from light agriculture, mainly of pipeweed. Staddle was on the south-eastern side of Breehill, sitting south of Combe and Archet. It was the only of the villages (other than Bree itself) visible from the Great East Road.

• Combe was populated primarily by Men, with some hobbits, all of whom made a living from agriculture. Combe was situated on the borders of the Chetwood and on the edge of Breehill, between the villages of Archet and Staddle.

• Archet was the furthest north. Located in the Chetwood, it was populated primarily by Men.

[edit] Name origins

The name 'Bree' means 'hill' according to Tolkien, referring to the fact that the village of Bree and surrounding Breeland were clustered around a large hill. The name of the village Brill, which Bree may have been influenced by, means 'hill'.^[3]. Brill is a modern abbreviation of 'Bre-hyll'. Both syllables of Bre-hyll mean 'hill' – the first is Celtic and the second Anglo-Saxon."

[edit] Appearances

[edit] In The Lord of the Rings

In The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo Baggins met Strider (Aragorn) at the largest and most popular inn in Bree, The Prancing Pony, owned by Barliman Butterbur. The hobbits also returned to Bree near the end of the story, on their way home. The meeting of Gandalf and Thorin is described in "The Quest of Erebor" in Unfinished Tales.

[edit] In adaptations

In Peter Jackson's movie The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo and his companions arrive at Bree almost immediately after the scene in which they leave the Shire, giving the impression (perhaps unintentionally) that the two are much closer together than described by Tolkien. Furthermore, Jackson shows the Ringwraiths attempting to kill the hobbits in their room. Also, Gandalf later said that the Riders actually threw down the gates of the town and rode through it like a fierce wind and that all the Bree folk were left cowering and expecting the end of the world.

Bree, along with all of Breeland, is featured prominently in the PC game Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar, which allows the player to explore the town.

[edit] References