The Complete Tolkien Companion (17 page)

The lame chieftain, sorrowing, made his way back to Ephel Brandir, and told his people some of what had befallen. And while they were digesting this news, Túrin himself – who was not dead as Brandir believed – came back. Then he and Brandir quarrelled. They came to blows, and Brandir was slain.

Brandybuck
– The (translated) name of one of the most prominent Hobbit-families of the Shire. After the Oldbucks had colonised the strip of land east of the river Baranduin (
c.
740 Shire Reckoning), Gorhendad Oldbuck changed the family name to
Brandybuck,
and the strip of land became known as the
Buckland.
Gorhendad also commenced the tunnelling of the great ancestral smial, Brandy Hall, into the side of Buck Hill. This mansion later grew to such an extent that most of the Brandybuck clan were eventually able to dwell there (though in somewhat crowded conditions). The chief of the clan was thereafter known as the Master of Buckland (or of the Hall), and his authority was widely respected.

Brandy Hall
–
See
BRANDYBUCK
above.

Brandywine
– A translation of the Hobbits' (jesting) name for the river
BARANDUIN
.

Brandywine Bridge
– The Hobbits' name for the ancient Bridge of Stonebows, which crossed the Baranduin north of the Buckland.

Bree
– A small inhabited region of central Eriador. Besides Bree [village] itself, there was Staddle on the other side of the hill, Combe in a deep valley a little further eastward, and Archet on the edge of the Chetwood. The Bree-land was notable for being settled by both Men and Hobbits. Men of Bree claimed that the original village was extremely ancient; at the end of the Third Age, it was certainly the oldest surviving settlement of Hobbits, far older than the Shire.

The village of Bree consisted of about one hundred proper stone houses (for Big Folk) and a smaller number of hillside smials (for Hobbits), the whole enclosed by a dike and thorny hedge. The main meeting place was
The Prancing Pony
inn, the most important hostelry of the district, where travellers and inhabitants exchanged gossip and tales over mugs of ale provided by the gregarious innkeeper. The village was situated near the crossing of two ancient highways, the East Road and the North Road. But by the end of the Third Age, few travellers came up the Greenway (as the North Road was called), and even fewer came down from the desolate north-lands. Bree's importance therefore declined steadily in these latter years.

Bree-land
– The countryside surrounding the village of Bree. Though the Men of its four villages (Bree, Archet, Staddle and Combe) maintained that the whole area was an ancient settlement dating back to the First Age, it is more likely that the original founders were Men from Dunland and from the vales of the White Mountains, fleeing north in the Second Age to escape the tyranny of Sauron (
see
ACCURSED YEARS
). But in the Third Age war swept over all of the lands of Eriador; defenceless apart from the usual dike and hedge arrangement, Bree was actually protected by the Rangers of the North throughout the last third of the Age – although the Bree-dwellers themselves were largely unaware of this until after the War of the Ring.

Bree Reckoning
– The calendar system used by the Bree-folk, not dissimilar to the Shire Reckoning. Year One corresponded to the first settlement of Hobbits in Bree (1300 Third Age).

Bregalad
‘Quick-beam' (Sind.) – The ‘short' name of an Ent of Fangorn Forest, so called because on one remote occasion he reportedly said ‘yes' to an older Ent before the latter had finished his question. Bregalad was thus noted for his (relative) speed of decision. He was much attached to rowan-trees.

Brego
– From 2545–70, the second King of Rohan; son of Eorl the Young. When he came to the kingship, Brego completed the work begun at the Battle of the Field of Celebrant by driving the last remnant of Easterlings out of that part of Rohan known as the Wold. Later, he built the great hall of Meduseld in Edoras; at the feast to celebrate the completion of that ‘Golden Hall' his elder son Baldor vowed to pass the ‘Paths of the Dead'. Baldor never came back and the grief-stricken Brego died the following year. His second son Aldor then became King. His third son Éofor (forefather of Éomer) took over the Eastmark and the fortified town of Aldburg.

Bregolas
– One of the Edain of the First House; the son of Bregor and brother of Barahir; also the father of Belegund and Baragund. He was slain, fighting beside the Elf-lords Angrod and Aegnor, in the defence of Dorthonion during the Battle of Sudden Flame. Three years later his sons were also dead, slain together with his brother Barahir in an ambush.

Bregor
– One of the Edain of the First House; the father of Bregolas and Barahir.

Breredon
– A village of Buckland in the Shire.

Brethil
‘Silver-birch' (Sind.) –
See
FOREST OF BRETHIL
.

Bridgefields
– The meadows in the Eastfarthing of the Shire which approached the Bridge of Stonebows (the Brandywine Bridge).

The Bridge Inn
– The chief hostelry of the Bridgefields district in the Shire.

Bridge of Mitheithel
– An ancient stone bridge of three great arches which crossed the river Hoarwell, or Mitheithel, some miles west of Rivendell. It was often called the Last Bridge because further south the Hoarwell grew too deep and wide to be crossed or forded.

Bridge of Stonebows
– The bridge over the Baranduin, probably built in the early years of the Kingdom of Arnor to speed communications between Lindon and the eastern lands of Eriador. After the settling of the Shire (in 1601 Third Age), the Hobbits knew it as the Brandywine Bridge, or the Great Bridge.

Brilthor
‘Glittering-torrent' (Sind.) – The name given in Ossiriand to the fourth of the six tributaries of Gelion.

Brithiach
‘Gravel-fords' (Sind.) – A ford across the upper waters of Sirion, on the northern border of the Forest of Brethil.

Brithombar
‘Dwellings of Brithon' (Sind.) – The more northerly of the two Havens founded early in the First Age by those Telerin Elves who were led by Círdan, the Falathrim (‘Coast-elves'). It stood at the mouth of the river Brithon. Its sister-haven was
EGLAREST
at the mouth of the Nenning. It was rebuilt with the aid of the Noldor, after this High-elven people had returned to Middle-earth to make war on Morgoth. Both Havens held throughout most of the War, but fell at last in the year after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. The surviving Falathrim escaped to the Isle of Balar, where they remained until the ending of the First Age.

Brithon
‘Gravelly' (Sind.) – A river of West Beleriand.

Brockenborings
– A maze of old tunnels and smials in the west of the hills of Scary in the Shire.

Brockhouse
– A fairly common Hobbit-surname, found in both the Shire and Bree.

Brodda
– An Easterling warrior in the service of Morgoth, who held lands in Dor-lómin as reward for his aid during the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. He forcibly wedded Aerin of the Edain, and was afterwards slain at his own board by Túrin Turambar.

Brown Lands
– A desolate wilderness which lay between the southern eaves of Mirkwood and the hills of the Emyn Muil, west of the Black Gate. According to Ent-tradition, these lands had once been rich and fruitful, as the homes and gardens of the Entwives, established early in the Second Age. It was in the days of the Last Alliance that war swept across the fertile gardens and fields, a ‘scorched-earth' policy of Sauron's to deny forage to the advancing allies. Nothing grew there during the Third Age.

Brownlock
– A Hobbit-family of the Shire.

Bruinen
– The river Loudwater, which ran south from the Misty Mountains, embracing the uplands of Rivendell before it fell away south-west through Eriador, to meet the Hoarwell (Mitheithel); the conjoined rivers were known as the
Gwathló
(Greyflood).

The Great East Road crossed the Loudwater at the Ford of Bruinen, close to the hidden valley of Rivendell. There, Elrond controlled the river, and it could be made to rise in flood and bar the Ford should need arise.

Brytta
– From 2798–2842 Third Age, the eleventh King of Rohan, much loved by his people, who called him
Léofa
(‘Beloved'), because of his kindness and liberality.

Bucca of the Marish
– First Thain of the Shire (appointed 1979 Third Age) and founder of the Oldbuck (later Brandybuck) family. The Thainship remained with the Oldbucks until the colonisation of the Buckland, whereupon the office passed to the chief Took.

Buck Hill
– The most prominent hill of the Buckland, near the village of Bucklebury, extensively tunnelled into one gigantic
smial
called Brandy Hall

Buckland
– A strip of wooded country, nominally part of the Shire, though it lay on the eastern banks of the Baranduin between the River and the Old Forest. The Buckland was in fact a ‘colony' of the Shire, settled in about 2340 Third Age (
c.
740 Shire Reckoning) by Gorhendad Oldbuck (who later changed his name to Brandybuck). The Bucklanders were nearly all originally Marish folk from the Eastfarthing, and, being largely of Stoorish ancestry, were familiar with rivers and boats.

Because of the uncomfortable stories associated with the Old Forest, which crouched on the eastern borders of the little land, soon after settling there the inhabitants planted a great hedge, the High Hay, to protect Buckland from the East. The Bucklanders were habitually more cautious than other Hobbits, locking the Buckland Gate (and their own front doors) at night. They were therefore regarded with some suspicion by more insular (and complacent) Shire-dwellers. The affairs of Buckland were administered from Brandy Hall, the great ancestral
smial
of the Brandybuck family. The head of the family – and chief Hobbit of the region – was known as the Master of Buckland.

Buckland Gate
– The entrance to Buckland from the north, along the Great East Road.

Bucklebury
– The chief village of Buckland, near Buck Hill. The Bucklebury Ferry plied across the Brandywine between the village and the Marish of the Eastfarthing.

Budge Ford
– A ford across The Water, linking Whitfurrows with the village of Scary in the Eastfarthing of the Shire.

‘Bullroarer'
–
See
BANDOBRAS ‘BULLROARER' TOOK
.

Bunce
– A Hobbit-family of the Shire.

Bundushathûr
– The Dwarvish (Khuzdul) name for the southernmost of the three great peaks of Moria, known to Men as Cloudyhead and to the Elves as Fanuidhol.

Bungo Baggins
– The father of Bilbo Baggins and husband of Belladonna Took, whom he wedded in 2880 Third Age (1280 Shire Reckoning). It was this well-to-do Hobbit who built the ancestral manor-hole of Bag End in the side of the hill of Hobbiton.

Burrows
– A Hobbit-family of the Shire.

Butterbur
–
See
BARLIMAN BUTTERBUR
.

Bywater
– A village in the Westfarthing of the Shire, astride the Great East Road near the Pool of Bywater and not far from Hobbiton-on-the-Hill, with which it formed a single community.

Cabed-en-Aras
‘The Deer's Leap' (Sind.) – A sheer-sided ravine of great depth, through which ran the swift river Teiglin. It lay on the marches of the Forest of Brethil. Here Túrin Turambar slew the Dragon Glaurung, by ascending the sides of the gorge and so coming up underneath the Worm's guard; here also Nienor Niniel slew herself, after which this grim place was renamed
Cabed Naeramarth,
the ‘Leap of Dreadful Doom', by the Woodmen of Brethil.