Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Rings

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J. R. R. Tolkien — The Lord Of The Rings. (1/4)
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THE LORD OF THE RINGS
by
J. R. R. TOLKIEN
Part 1: The Fellowship of the Ring
Part 2: The Two Towers
Part 3: The Return of the King
_Complete with Index and Full Appendices_
_Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie._
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
PROLOGUE
1. Concerning Hobbits
2. Concerning Pipe-weed
3. Of the Ordering of the Shire
4. Of the Finding of the Ring
Note on the Shire records
THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING
Book I
Chapter 1 A Long-expected Party
Chapter 2 The Shadow of the Past
Chapter 3 Three is Company
Chapter 4 A Short Cut to Mushrooms
Chapter 5 A Conspiracy Unmasked
Chapter 6 The Old Forest
Chapter 7 In the House of Tom Bombadil
Chapter 8 Fog on the Barrow-Downs
Chapter 9 At the Sign of The Prancing Pony
Chapter 10 Strider
Chapter 11 A Knife in the Dark
Chapter 12 Flight to the Ford
Book II
Chapter 1 Many Meetings
Chapter 2 The Council of Elrond
Chapter 3 The Ring Goes South
Chapter 4 A Journey in the Dark
Chapter 5 The Bridge of Khazad-dûm
Chapter 6 Lothlórien
Chapter 7 The Mirror of Galadriel
Chapter 8 Farewell to Lórien
Chapter 9 The Great River
Chapter 10 The Breaking of the Fellowship
THE TWO TOWERS
Book III
Chapter 1 The Departure of Boromir
Chapter 2 The Riders of Rohan
Chapter 3 The Uruk-Hai
Chapter 4 Treebeard
Chapter 5 The White Rider
Chapter 6 The King of the Golden Hall
Chapter 7 Helm's Deep
Chapter 8 The Road to Isengard
Chapter 9 Flotsam and Jetsam
Chapter 10 The Voice of Saruman
Chapter 11 The Palantýr
Book IV
Chapter 1 The Taming of Sméagol
Chapter 2 The Passage of the Marshes
Chapter 3 The Black Gate is Closed
Chapter 4 Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
Chapter 5 The Window on the West
Chapter 6 The Forbidden Pool
Chapter 7 Journey to the Cross-roads
Chapter 8 The Stairs of Cirith Ungol
Chapter 9 Shelob's Lair
Chapter 10 The Choices of Master Samwise
THE RETURN OF THE KING
Book V
Chapter 1 Minas Tirith
Chapter 2 The Passing of the Grey Company
Chapter 3 The Muster of Rohan
Chapter 4 The Siege of Gondor
Chapter 5 The Ride of the Rohirrim
Chapter 6 The Battle of the Pelennor Fields
Chapter 7 The Pyre of Denethor
Chapter 8 The Houses of Healing
Chapter 9 The Last Debate
Chapter 10 The Black Gate Opens
Book VI
Chapter 1 The Tower of Cirith Ungol
Chapter 2 The Land of Shadow
Chapter 3 Mount Doom
Chapter 4 The Field of Cormallen
Chapter 5 The Steward and the King
Chapter 6 Many Partings
Chapter 7 Homeward Bound
Chapter 8 The Scouring of the Shire
Chapter 9 The Grey Havens
APPENDICES
A ANNALS OF THE KINGS AND RULERS
I The Númenorean Kings
(I) Númenor
(II) The Realms In Exile
(III) Eriador, Arnor, and The Heirs Of Isildur
(IV) Gondor and The Heirs Of Anñrion
(V) Here Follows a Part of The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen
II THE HOUSE OF EORL
III DURIN'S FOLK
Here follows one of the last notes in the Red Book
B THE TALE OF YEARS (CHRONOLOGY OF THE WESTLANDS)
The Second Age
The Third Age
C FAMILY TREES
D CALENDARS
SHIRE CALENDAR FOR USE IN ALL YEARS
THE CALENDARS
E WRITING AND SPELLING
I Pronunciation of Words and Names
II Writing
F
I The Languages and Peoples of The Third Age
II On Translation
INDEXES
I Songs and Verses
II Persons, Beasts and Monsters
III Places
IV Things
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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
Lothlórien 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 Anórien
and Théoden 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-dûr 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
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 Dúnedain, 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 Dúnedain, 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 Fornost, 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. 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 Dúnedain. 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.
There is another astonishing thing about Hobbits of old that must be
mentioned, an astonishing habit: they imbibed or inhaled, through pipes of
摘要：

J.R.R.Tolkien—TheLordOfTheRings.(1/4)-----------------------------------------------THELORDOFTHERINGSbyJ.R.R.TOLKIENPart1:TheFellowshipoftheRingPart2:TheTwoTowersPart3:TheReturnoftheKing_CompletewithIndexandFullAppendices__ThreeRingsfortheElven-kingsunderthesky,SevenfortheDwarf-lordsintheirhallsofst...

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