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Hamfast Gamgee
Dor-Lomin
Apr 10 2025, 8:37am
Post #1 of 9
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The Shire v Bree
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One post down below was similar to thoughts I have had comparing life in the Shire against that of Bree. The Shire seems very twee and quiet, country inns, Hobbits tending there gardens quietly lanes and fields. by contrast Bree is a bit noisier but more cosmopoliton, Man and Hobbits and even Dwarves living side by side.
But is Bree a bit scruffier and unkempt by comparison. We do have examples of dirtier buildings. Now all right I know there was now industry in Middle-Earth, but maybe there was the odd warehouse in Bree? Possibly the slight beginnings of a factory? Some of hose nice little devices they had in the Shire has to be build somewhere! I wonder if people would prefer the Shire or Bree? Just some thoughts!
(This post was edited by Hamfast Gamgee on Apr 10 2025, 8:37am)
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noWizardme
Gondolin
Apr 10 2025, 7:02pm
Post #2 of 9
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I suppose a major difference between the Shire and Bree is that Bree is a meeting point. By the time Frodo arrives nobody has used the North-South road much for a while, but it was once a substantial road, and Bree was where it met the East-West road.
The story is about a society without telecommunications (for most people - ignoring palantirs, foresight etc.) So you can't schedule meetings exactly, and Bree is probably a good place for someone coming from Fornost or up from down South to meet someone coming East or West. If you might have to hang around a while an Inn is handy (and of course it's a good site for such a thing as it can host people from two roads).
Timbuktu 'where the camel met the canoe' might be a real-world parallel.
But Middle-earth doesn't seem to have much long-distance trade, so maybe Bree does not function as a trade depot and market place, as Timbuktu did from early times.
Certainly Bree's multicultural and cosmopolitan society seems more like places of trade and meetings than places of resource production (like The Shire).
The Shire seems pretty autarkic, and travelling is considered odd. So The Shire doesn't have settlements based on trade and travel that we hear of. Some travellers stop by, but nobody much seems to be making that a business opportunity.
Maybe more trade would be more 'realistic', or The Shire should be importing lots of goods from somewhere (including Breeland as you suggest).
But that's not the fantasy Tolkien is serving up.
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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Silvered-glass
Nargothrond
Apr 10 2025, 8:00pm
Post #3 of 9
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I get the impression that Bree has been on the decline for a long time and is far from its glory days. Before the current disturbances there would have been very few travelers on the North-South roads and not all that many on the East-West roads either. The merry old Prancing Pony has great many rooms, but how many are occupied at any given time?
The Shire, on the other hand, is expanding to neighboring lands and appears to have a much bigger population than Bree. In the Shire we also have characters like Lotho Sackville-Baggins and Ted Sandyman that are interested in developing new technology. They probably aren't the only ones. It's worth mentioned that we haven't seen a glimpse of Michel Delving, the capital of the Shire, but we know that it has a museum. The Shire also has a capitalist system of ownership and The Hobbit mentions the existence of lawyers. The Shire has a post office and presumably also knows about paper mills and printing presses based on how common books and paper are. I can well see clock-smiths and more in a setting like this.
So I think the Shire is the dynamic center while Bree is the rural settlement where not much would have changed except for the sudden burst in visitors looking for a place to settle or gathering information. And the Shire is at a crossroads too, it must be said. The roads from the Shire only go to three directions, but at the time of the story Fornost is an abandoned ruin with no trade.
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uncle Iorlas
Nargothrond
Apr 10 2025, 8:24pm
Post #4 of 9
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Aragorn seems bowled over by the notion of long-distance trade, when he sees it. Although there is a sense that people travel far for horses from Rohan (and used to travel very far for mithril).
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uncle Iorlas
Nargothrond
Apr 10 2025, 8:29pm
Post #5 of 9
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I think that may be a fair read overall. Michel Delving, I will say, is I think a capitol not a capital: one building rather than a town. I assumed it was in Hobbiton.
There is a sort of back country around Bree, though, of which the Pony in Bree proper is just the front door. There may be some industry there.
The Shire industry seems mostly to serve the Shire though, same as Bree. Dwarves may pass through in the road, and elves pass through the back woods, and maybe a few entwives are the woods, but mostly the only foreign person who seems to come to Shire to do any actual business there is Gandalf.
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Otaku-sempai
Elvenhome
Apr 10 2025, 11:17pm
Post #6 of 9
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I think that may be a fair read overall. Michel Delving, I will say, is I think a capitol not a capital: one building rather than a town. I assumed it was in Hobbiton.
There is a sort of back country around Bree, though, of which the Pony in Bree proper is just the front door. There may be some industry there.
The Shire industry seems mostly to serve the Shire though, same as Bree. Dwarves may pass through in the road, and elves pass through the back woods, and maybe a few entwives are the woods, but mostly the only foreign person who seems to come to Shire to do any actual business there is Gandalf.
Michel Delving is a community some 14 leagues west of Bywater. It is the chief town of the Shire, being (as you know) the seat of the local government.
Bree is the largest community of Bree-land, the other villages being: Archet; Staddle; and Combe. Presumably there were farmsteads scattered throughout the rest of Bree-land, possibly as far as a day's travel or more from Bree.
“Hell hath no fury like that of the uninvolved.” - Tony Isabella
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CuriousG
Gondolin
Apr 11 2025, 4:23am
Post #7 of 9
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The traveler from Michel Delving
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I think he's the exception and not the rule, but he sounds like a traveling salesman or a government official, and it seems normal that he travels about the Shire: (1st chapter of LOTR)
‘There’s a tidy bit of money tucked away up there, I hear tell,’ said a stranger, a visitor on business from Michel Delving in the Westfarthing.
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uncle Iorlas
Nargothrond
Apr 11 2025, 4:41am
Post #8 of 9
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Selling buttons at the door most likely
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Brass buttons of the sort that don’t get caught in a door so easily. I hope.
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CuriousG
Gondolin
Apr 11 2025, 2:31pm
Post #9 of 9
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Or maybe one-of-a-kind One Rings, only 300 in stock. Buy now! //
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