| The Shire | |
|---|---|
| Middle-earth location | |
 Part of the Shire created forPeter Jackson's films ofMiddle-earth, on a farm near Matamata, New Zealand | |
| First appearance | The Hobbit |
| Created by | J. R. R. Tolkien |
| Genre | High fantasy |
| In-universe information | |
| Type | Region |
| Ruler | Thain, Mayor |
| Ethnic group(s) | Harfoots,Stoors,Fallohides |
| Race(s) | Hobbits |
| Location | Northwest ofMiddle-earth |
| Capital | Michel Delving on the White Downs |
The Shire is a region ofJ. R. R. Tolkien's fictionalMiddle-earth, described inThe Lord of the Rings and other works. The Shire is an inland area settled exclusively byhobbits, theShire-folk, largely sheltered from the goings-on in the rest of Middle-earth. It is in the northwest of the continent, in the region ofEriador and the Kingdom of Arnor.
The Shire is the scene of action at the beginning and end of Tolkien'sThe Hobbit andThe Lord of the Rings. Five of the protagonists in these stories have their homeland in the Shire:Bilbo Baggins (thetitle character ofThe Hobbit), and four members of theFellowship of the Ring:Frodo Baggins,Samwise Gamgee,Merry Brandybuck, andPippin Took. At the end ofThe Hobbit, Bilbo returns to the Shire, only to find out that he has been declared "missing and presumed dead" and thathis hobbit-hole and all its contents are up for auction. (He reclaims them, much to the spite of his cousins Otho andLobelia Sackville-Baggins.) The main action inThe Lord of the Rings returns to the Shire near the end of the book, in "The Scouring of the Shire", when the homebound hobbits find the area under the control ofSaruman's ruffians, and set things to rights.
Tolkien based the Shire's landscapes, climate, flora, fauna, and placenames onWorcestershire andWarwickshire, the rural counties inEngland where he lived. InPeter Jackson's films of bothThe Hobbit andThe Lord of the Rings, the Shire was represented by countryside and constructed hobbit-holes on a farm nearMatamata in New Zealand, which becamea tourist destination.
Tolkien took considerable trouble over the exact details of the Shire. Little of his carefully crafted[1] fictional geography, history, calendar, and constitution appeared inThe Hobbit orThe Lord of the Rings, though additional details were given in the Appendices of later editions. The Tolkien scholarTom Shippey comments that all the same, they provided the "depth", the feeling in the reader's mind that this was a real and complex place, a quality that Tolkien believed essential to a successful fantasy.[2]
In Tolkien's fiction, the Shire is described as a small but beautiful, idyllic and fruitful land, beloved by itshobbit inhabitants. They hadagriculture but were not industrialized. The landscape includeddownland and woods like the Englishcountryside. The Shire was fully inland; most hobbits fearedthe Sea.[T 1] The Shire measured 40leagues (193 km, 120 miles)[T 2] east to west and 50 leagues (241 km, 150 miles) from north to south, with an area of some 18,000 square miles (47,000 km2):[T 1][T 3] roughly that of the EnglishMidlands.The main and oldest part of the Shire was bordered to the east by the Brandywine River, on the north by uplands rising to theHills of Evendim, on the west by the Far Downs, and on the south by marshland. It expanded to the east into Buckland between the Brandywine and theOld Forest, and (much later) to the west into the Westmarch between the Far Downs and the Tower Hills.[T 1][T 4][1]
The Shire was subdivided into four Farthings ("fourth-ings", "quarterings"),[T 5]as Iceland once was;[3] similarly,Yorkshire was historically divided into three "ridings".[4] The Three-Farthing Stone marked the approximate centre of the Shire.[T 6] It was inspired by theFour Shire Stone nearMoreton-in-Marsh, where once four counties met, but since 1931 only three do.[5][b] There are several Three Shire Stones in England, such asin the Lake District,[7] and formerly some Three Shires Oaks, such asat Whitwell in Derbyshire, each marking the place where three counties once met.[8] Pippin was born in Whitwell in the Tookland.[T 7]Within the Farthings there are unofficial clan homelands: the Tooks nearly all live in or near Tuckborough in Tookland's Green Hill Country.[1][c]
Buckland, also known as the "East Marches", was just to the east of the Shire across the Brandywine River. Named for the Brandybuck family, it was settled "long ago" as "a sort of colony of the Shire." It was bounded to the east by theOld Forest, separated by a tall thick hedge called the High Hay.[10] It included Crickhollow, which serves as one ofFrodo's five Homely Houses.[11]
The Westmarch or West Marches was given to the Shire by KingElessar after the War of the Ring.[T 5][T 8]
To the east of the Shire was the isolated village ofBree, unique in having hobbits and men living side-by-side. It was served by aninn namedThe Prancing Pony,[T 9] noted for its finebeer which was sampled by hobbits, men, and the wizardGandalf.[T 10] Many inhabitants of Bree, including the inn's landlord Barliman Butterbur, had surnames taken from plants. Tolkien described thebutterbur as "a fat thick plant", evidently chosen as appropriate for a fat man.[T 11][12] Tolkien suggested two different origins for the people of Bree: either it had been founded and populated by men of theEdain who did not reachBeleriand in the First Age, remaining east of the mountains inEriador; or they came from the same stock as theDunlendings.[T 9][T 12] The nameBree means "hill"; Tolkien justified the name by arranging the village and the surrounding Bree-land around a large hill, named Bree-hill. The name of the villageBrill, inBuckinghamshire, a place that Tolkien often visited,[T 13][13] and which inspired him to create Bree,[T 13] has the same meaning:Brill is a modern contraction ofBreʒ-hyll. Both syllables are words for "hill" – the first isCeltic and the secondOld English.[14]
![The name "Bree" was inspired by the name of the village of Brill, Buckinghamshire; it contains the Celtic Breʒ and the Old English hyll, both meaning "hill".[14]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aBrill_village_from_Brill_Common_-_geograph.org.uk_-_538330.jpg)
![The Bell Inn in Moreton-in-Marsh may have inspired Tolkien to create The Prancing Pony inn at Bree.[15]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aBell_Inn_Moreton_in_Marsh_back_in_time.jpg)
The Shire was first settled by hobbits in the year 1601 of theThird Age (Year 1 in Shire Reckoning); they were led by the brothers Marcho and Blanco. The hobbits from the vale ofAnduin had migrated west over the perilousMisty Mountains, living in the wilds ofEriador before moving to the Shire.[1]
After the fall of Arnor, the Shire remained a self-governing realm; the Shire-folk chose a Thain to hold the king's powers. The first Thains were the heads of the Oldbuck clan. When the Oldbucks settled Buckland, the position of Thain was peacefully transferred to the Took clan. The Shire was covertly protected byRangers of the North, who watched the borders and kept out intruders. Generally the only strangers entering the Shire wereDwarves travelling on the Great Road from their mines in theBlue Mountains, and occasionalElves on their way to the Grey Havens. InS.R. 1147 the hobbits defeated an invasion ofOrcs at the Battle of Greenfields. InS.R. 1158–60, thousands of hobbits perished in the Long Winter and the famine that followed.[T 14] In the Fell Winter ofS.R. 1311–12,white wolves from Forodwaith invaded the Shire across the frozenBrandywine river.
The protagonists ofThe Hobbit andLord of the Rings,Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, lived atBag End,[d] a luxurioussmial or hobbit-burrow, dug into The Hill on the north side of the town of Hobbiton in the Westfarthing. It was the most comfortable hobbit-dwelling in the town; there were smaller burrows further down The Hill.[e] InS.R. 1341Bilbo Baggins left the Shire on the quest recounted inThe Hobbit. He returned the following year, secretly bearing a magic ring. This turned out to be theOne Ring. The Shire was invaded by fourRingwraiths in search of the Ring.[T 10] WhileFrodo,Sam,Merry, andPippin were away on the quest to destroy the Ring, the Shire was taken over bySaruman through his underling Lotho Sackville-Baggins. They ran the Shire in a parody of a modern state, complete with armed ruffians, destruction of trees and handsome old buildings, and ugly industrialisation.[T 15]
The Shire was liberated with the help of Frodo and his companions on their return at the Battle of Bywater (the final battle of theWar of the Ring).[T 15] The trees of the Shire were restored with soil fromGaladriel's garden inLothlórien (a gift to Sam). The yearS.R. 1420 was considered by the inhabitants of the Shire to be the most productive and prosperous year in their history.[T 16]
The hobbits of the Shire spoke Middle-earth'sWestron or Common Speech. Tolkien however rendered their language asmodern English inThe Hobbit and inLord of the Rings, just as he had usedOld Norse names for the Dwarves. To resolve this linguistic puzzle, he created thefiction that the languages of parts of Middle-earth were "translated" into different European languages, inventing the language of the Riders ofRohan,Rohirric, to be "translated" again as theMercian dialect ofOld English which he knew well.[18][T 17] This set up a relationship something like ancestry between Rohan and the Shire.[18]
The Shire had little in the way of government. The Mayor of the Shire's capital, Michel Delving, was the chief official and was treated in practice as the Mayor of the Shire.[19] There was aMessage Service for post, and the 12 "Shirriffs" (three for each Farthing) of theWatch for police; their chief duties were rounding up stray livestock. These were supplemented by a varying number of "Bounders",[f] an unofficial border force. At the time ofThe Lord of the Rings, there were many more Bounders than usual, one of the few signs for the hobbits of that troubled time. The heads of major families exerted authority over their own areas.[1]
The Master of Buckland, hereditary head of the Brandybuck clan, ruled Buckland and had some authority over the Marish, just across the Brandywine River.[1]
Similarly, the head of the Took clan, often called "The Took", ruled the ancestral Took dwelling of Great Smials, the village of Tuckborough, and the area ofThe Tookland.[1] He held the largely ceremonial office of Thain of the Shire.[19]
Tolkien devised the "Shire calendar" or "Shire Reckoning" supposedly used by the Shire's hobbits onBede's medieval calendar. In his fiction, it was created inRhovanion hundreds of years before the Shire was founded. When hobbits migrated into Eriador, they took up the Kings' Reckoning, but maintained their old names of the months. In the "King's Reckoning", the year began on thewinter solstice. After migrating further to the Shire, the hobbits created the "Shire Reckoning", in which Year 1 corresponded to the foundation of the Shire in the year 1601 of the Third Age by Marcho and Blanco.[1][T 18] The Shire's calendar year has 12 months, each of 30 days. Five non-month days are added to create a 365-day year. The twoYuledays signify the turn of the year, so each year begins on 2 Yule. TheLithedays are the three non-month days at midsummer, 1 Lithe, Mid-year's Day, and 2 Lithe. Inleap years (every fourth year except centennial years) anOverlithe day is added after Mid-year's Day. There are seven days in the Shire week. The first day of the week isSterday and the last isHighday. The Mid-year's Day and, when present,Overlithe have no weekday assignments. This causes every day to have the same weekday designation from year to year, instead of changing as in theGregorian calendar.[T 18]
For the names of the months, Tolkien reconstructedAnglo-Saxon names, his take on what the English would be if it had not adoptedLatin names for the months such as January and March. InThe Hobbit andThe Lord of the Rings, the names of months and week-days are given in modern equivalents, soAfteryule is called "January" andSterday is called "Saturday".[T 18]
| Month number | Shire Reckoning | Bede'sAnglo- Saxon calendar[21] | Meaning[22] | Approximate Gregorian dates |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2Yule | 22 December | |||
| 1 | Afteryule | Æfterra Gēola | After Christmas | 23 December to 21 January |
| 2 | Solmath | Sol-mōnaþ | [Offering of] Cakes month | 22 January to 20 February |
| 3 | Rethe | Hrēþ-mōnaþ | The goddessHretha's month | 21 February to 22 March |
| 4 | Astron | Easter-mōnaþ | Easter month | 23 March to 21 April |
| 5 | Thrimidge | Þrimilce-mōnaþ | Thrice-milking [month] | 22 April to 21 May |
| 6 | Forelithe | Ærra Līþa | Before the Solstice | 22 May to 20 June |
| 1 Lithe | 21 June | |||
| Mid-year's Day | 22 June | |||
| Overlithe | Leap day | |||
| 2 Lithe | 23 June | |||
| 7 | Afterlithe | Æftera Līþa | After the Solstice | 24 June to 23 July |
| 8 | Wedmath | Weod-mōnaþ | Weed Month | 24 July to 22 August |
| 9 | Halimath | Hālig-mōnaþ | Holy [Rites] Month | 23 August to 21 September |
| 10 | Winterfilth | Winterfylleth | Winter Fulfilment | 22 September to 21 October |
| 11 | Blotmath | Blōt-mōnaþ | Blood Month (i.e. slaughtering of livestock) or Sacrificial Month (cf. Old Norseblót) | 22 October to 20 November |
| 12 | Foreyule | Ærra Gēola | Before Christmas | 21 November to 20 December |
| 1 Yule | 21 December |
Shippey writes that not only is the Shirereminiscent of England: Tolkien carefully constructed the Shire as an element-by-elementcalque upon England.[23][g]
| Element | The Shire | England |
|---|---|---|
| Origin of people | The Angle between the Rivers Hoarwell (Mitheithel) and the Loudwater (Bruinen) from the East (acrossEriador) | The Angle betweenFlensburg Fjord and theSchlei, from the East (across theNorth Sea), hence the name "England" |
| Original three tribes | Stoors, Harfoots, Fallohides | Angles,Saxons,Jutes[h] |
| Legendary founders named "horse"[i] | Marcho and Blanco | Hengest and Horsa |
| Length of civil peace | 272 years from Battle of Greenfields to Battle of Bywater | 270 years fromBattle of Sedgemoor toLord of the Rings |
| Organisation | Mayors, moots, Shirriffs | Like "an old-fashioned and idealised England" |
| Surnames | e.g. Banks, Boffin, Bolger, Bracegirdle,Brandybuck, Brockhouse, Chubb, Cotton, Fairbairns, Grubb, Hayward, Hornblower, Noakes, Proudfoot,Took, Underhill, Whitfoot | All are real English surnames. Tolkien comments e.g. that 'Bracegirdle' is "used in the text, of course, with reference to the hobbit tendency to be fat and so to strain their belts".[T 19] |
| Placenames | e.g. "Nobottle" e.g. "Buckland" | Nobottle, Northamptonshire Buckland, Oxfordshire |
There are other connections; Tolkien equated the latitude of Hobbiton with that ofOxford (i.e., around 52° N).[T 20] The Shire corresponds roughly to theWest Midlands region of England in the remote past, extending toWarwickshire andWorcestershire (where Tolkien grew up),[26][27] forming in Shippey's words a "cultural unit with deep roots in history".[28] The name of theNorthamptonshire village ofFarthinghoe triggered the idea of dividing the Shire into Farthings.[6] Tolkien said that pipe-weed "flourishes only in warm sheltered places like Longbottom;"[T 1] in the seventeenth century, the Evesham area of Worcestershire was well known for its tobacco.[29]
Tolkien made the Shire feel homely and English in a variety of ways, from names such as Bagshot Row[j] and the Mill to country pubs with familiar names such as "The Green Dragon" in Bywater,[k] "The Ivy Bush" near Hobbiton on the Bywater Road,[l] and "The Golden Perch" inStock, famous for its fine beer.[32][33][34] Michael Stanton comments in theJ.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia that the Shire is based partly on Tolkien's childhood atSarehole, partly on English village life in general with, in Tolkien's words, "gardens, trees, and unmechanized farmland".[1][T 21] The Shire's capital, Michel Delving, embodies a philologicalpun: the name sounds much like that of anEnglish country town, but means "Much Digging" of hobbit-holes, fromOld Englishmicel, "great" anddelfan, "to dig".[35]
The industrialization of the Shire was based on Tolkien's childhood experience of the blighting of the Worcestershire and Warwickshire countryside by the spread ofheavy industry as the city ofBirmingham grew.[27][T 22] The Tolkien family's relocation fromSarehole toMoseley and Kings Heath in 1901, and then again toEdgbaston in 1902, moved them steadily closer to the industry of central Birmingham.[36]Humphrey Carpenter comments inJ. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography that the views of Moseley were a sad contrast to the Warwickshire countryside of his youth.[37]
"To have just at the age when imagination is opening out, suddenly find yourself in a quiet Warwickshire village, I think it engenders a particular love of what you might call central Midlands English countryside."[38] – J. R. R. Tolkien, BBC interview with Denys Gueroult, 1964
"The Scouring of the Shire", involving a rebellion of the hobbits and the restoration of the pre-industrial Shire, can be read as containing an element of wish-fulfilment on his part, complete with Merry's magic horn to rouse the inhabitants to action.[39]
The Shire makes an appearance in both the1977The Hobbit[40] and the1978The Lord of the Rings animated films.[41]
InPeter Jackson'sThe Lord of the Rings motion picture trilogy, the Shire appeared in bothThe Fellowship of the Ring andThe Return of the King. The Shire scenes were shot at a location nearMatamata, New Zealand. Following the shooting, the area was returned to its natural state, but even without the set from the movie the area becamea prime tourist location. Because of bad weather, 18 of 37 hobbit-holes could not immediately be bulldozed; before work could restart, they were attracting over 12,000 tourists per year to Ian Alexander's farm, where Hobbiton and Bag End had been situated.[42]
Jackson's Bree is constantly unpleasant and threatening, complete with special effects and the Eye ofSauron when Frodo puts on the Ring.[43] InRalph Bakshi's animated 1978 adaptation ofThe Lord of the Rings, Alan Tilvern voiced Bakshi's Butterbur (as "Innkeeper");[44]David Weatherley played Butterbur in Jackson's epic,[45] whileJames Grout played him inBBC Radio's 1981 serialization ofThe Lord of the Rings.[46] In the 1991 low-budget Russian adaptation ofThe Fellowship of the Ring,Khraniteli, Butterbur appears as "Lavr Narkiss", played by Nikolay Burov.[47][48] In Yle's 1993 television miniseriesHobitit, Butterbur ("Viljami Voivalvatti" in Finnish, meaning "Billy Butter") was played by Mikko Kivinen.[49] Bree and Bree-land can be explored in the PC gameThe Lord of the Rings Online.[50]
Jackson revisited the Shire for his filmsThe Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey andThe Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. The Shire scenes were shot at the same location.[51]
In the 2006real-time strategy gameThe Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth II, the Shire appears as both a level in the evil campaign where the player invades in control of a goblin army, and as a map in the game's multiplayer skirmish mode.[52]
In the 2007MMORPGThe Lord of the Rings Online, the Shire appears almost in its entirety as one of the major regions of the game. The Shire is inhabited by hundreds ofnon-player characters, and the player can get involved in hundreds of quests. The only portions of the original map by Christopher Tolkien that are missing from the game are some parts of the West Farthing and the majority of the South Farthing. A portion of the North Farthing also falls within the in-game region of Evendim for game play purposes.[53]
In the 2009action gameThe Lord of the Rings: Conquest, the Shire appears as one of the game's battlegrounds during the evil campaign, where it is razed by the forces ofMordor.[54]
Games Workshop produced a supplement in 2004 forThe Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game entitledThe Scouring of the Shire. This supplement contained rules for a large number of miniatures that depicted the Shire after the War of the Ring had concluded.[55]
translated with introduction, notes, and commentary by Faith Willis
To have just at the age when imagination is opening out, suddenly find yourself in a quiet Warwickshire village, I think it engenders a particular love of what you might call central Midlands English countryside.
If the Hobbit holes are in Gloucestershire, the spiritual home of the Shire is to the north-east, in the Warwickshire countryside of Tolkien's childhood as the 19th century folded into the 20th. Tolkien located it specifically in 1897, the year of Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, when he was just five.
We pass the Ivy Bush where old Ham Gamgee held court
Meanwhile, home life was very different from what he had known at Sarehole. His mother had rented a small house on the main road in the suburb of Moseley, and the view from the windows was a sad contrast to the Warwickshire countryside.
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