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sador
Half-elven
Feb 2 2015, 6:30pm
Post #2 of 16
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It is a clear reference to Aragorn's contemptuous words regarding Butterbur at the Council of Elrond.
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squire
Half-elven
Feb 2 2015, 9:27pm
Post #3 of 16
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Goblins, in the more original mythological sense, I think; or else trolls.
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Several times we hear of how the northern folk have heard of the creatures of the Dark Lord in tales that make the blood run cold, to use a cliche that Tolkien is not (ahem) afraid to use.
Butterbur mentions wolves, so the shapes aren't wolves. I can't think of other "shapes" within the lore of the story at this point that would terrify without reference to existing knowledge. The trolls, we know, were already on the borders of the wild in Bilbo's time, and had gotten cleverer (according to the Prologue) by this time. But first and foremost, after learning as much as we do about orcs and the half-orcs of Isengard during the hobbits' southern adventure, and knowing that Isengard and the southerners had been interested in Bree even when Frodo first passed through, I think we are supposed to understand that Butterbur is warning us that orcs are now at the very thresholds of the small towns and villages of the northlands - because of the lack of Rangers.
I put my answer in the "mythological" sense, though, because I should think that any Breelander who saw a "dark shape in the woods" that was an orc would have seen his last dark shape ever. Why would the orcs that we've read about in the story hesitate to come forward at that point and do their nightmarish worst? So instead, I'll think of them as "goblins", the original more legendary "things that go bump in the night", and let the contradiction stand because Butterbur and Bree wouldn't still be there to receive the returnees otherwise.
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Bracegirdle
Valinor
Feb 2 2015, 9:34pm
Post #4 of 16
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Maybe old Barley saw Bigfoot or Sasquatch lurking around.
But, alas, no camera, no video; so the mystery remains. 
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Ithilisa
Rivendell
Feb 3 2015, 4:17am
Post #5 of 16
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due to Halbarad and 30 of his kin having left the North to join Aragorn (and an un-named number of them perishing in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields) or was it due to a different reason I'm missing?
"I name you Elf-friend; and may the stars shine upon the end of your road!" - Gildor
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Rembrethil
Tol Eressea
Feb 3 2015, 3:19pm
Post #7 of 16
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Half-goblins like the Southerner in the Pony, only these took more after the Goblin side? Feral beasts? Some strange animals from the Southron lands?
I think it is there to invade our sense of safety out of the Shire (Though that has been wrecked already...) and increase the implicit peril.
Call me Rem, and remember, not all who ramble are lost...Uh...where was I?
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Feb 3 2015, 5:14pm
Post #8 of 16
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Yes I think - fear of the unknown, and sometimes ruffians, and sometimes just rumour
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The worthies of Bree have seen their comfort and safety decline - enough to be a genuine trial for them no doubt, but our heroes returning from outright war might find it difficult to take such minor trials seriously.
I suppose that this contrast - " I have seen all kinds of gruesome battlefield and campaign horrors and yet I am listening politely to you going on about some minor trouble or inconvenience on the home front" - might have been a familiar situation for many people of Tolkien's generation.
I'm not of Tolkien's generation, but that was the effect for me as a reader, at least.
~~~~~~
"nowimë I am in the West, Furincurunir to the Dwarves (or at least, to their best friend) and by other names in other lands. Mostly they just say 'Oh no it's him - look busy!' "
Or "Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!"
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(This post was edited by noWizardme on Feb 3 2015, 5:14pm)
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Faramir74
Bree
Feb 3 2015, 10:27pm
Post #9 of 16
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It could have been several things:
Black Riders
Trolls
Half - goblins / corrupted Southerners / Dunlendings or Bree folk.
And don't forget the Enemy had many birds and beasts in his service.
In fact, I have often wondered how Longbottom Leaf found it's way to Isengard...
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Elizabeth
Half-elven
Feb 3 2015, 10:37pm
Post #10 of 16
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By the time the Hobbits are on their way home they've all been destroyed, as has the principal Enemy. All the others are possible, though.
I'm guessing it's "ruffians", which could include both Southerners and Dunlendings.
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nandorin elf
Bree
Feb 6 2015, 1:14am
Post #11 of 16
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A theory on where the Rangers are
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I always assumed they moved south to Gondor soon after the war ended. I imagine they would want to see their chieftain crowned if they could. By the time Gandalf and the four hobbits arrived in Bree, most of the Rangers would have been in the South for months.
Does Butternut specify when the Breelanders started seeing these dark shaped?
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squire
Half-elven
Feb 6 2015, 2:52am
Post #12 of 16
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It seems irrelevant, given that the travelers have returned and the King will soon come again, but the loquacious old bumboat innkeeper gets quite specific about the date, for some reason:
'For there’s been worse than robbers about. Wolves were howling round the fences last winter. And there’s dark shapes in the woods, dreadful things that it makes the blood run cold to think of. Natty Mistletoe, it was, as first saw one on the seventh of Afteryule, but others have since as well, they say.And it's not just old Butternut as says, "Black sheep dwell in every fold; All that glitters is not gold." It’s been very disturbing, if you understand me.’ - JRRT, LotR VI.7
squire online:
RR Discussions: The Valaquenta, A Shortcut to Mushrooms, and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
Lights! Action! Discuss on the Movie board!: 'A Journey in the Dark'. and 'Designing The Two Towers'.
Footeramas: The 3rd & 4th TORn Reading Room LotR Discussion and NOW the 1st BotR Discussion too! and "Tolkien would have LOVED it!"
squiretalk introduces the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: A Reader's Diary
= Forum has no new posts. Forum needs no new posts.
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Feb 6 2015, 3:47pm
Post #13 of 16
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The Watch on the Shire was probably called off after the Council of Elrond. Some of the shapes in the woods were doubtless agents of Saruman.
"The Great Scaly One protects us from alien invaders and ourselves with his fiery atomic love. It can be a tough love - the “folly of man” and all that - but Godzilla is a fair god.
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Darkstone
Immortal
Feb 6 2015, 5:08pm
Post #14 of 16
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"...dead faces in the water..."
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"There are dead things, dead faces in the water," he said with horror. "Dead faces! '
-The Passage of the Marshes
Odd how the two phrases echo each other. (At least to me.)
Perhaps the dark shapes were spirits liberated by Sauron's death?
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Na Vedui
Rohan
Feb 6 2015, 9:00pm
Post #15 of 16
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... were getting bolder and roaming further. In Tolkien's poem "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil", one of them actually got into Tom's house; he sent it packing, of course, but it does suggest they can leave the vicinity of their barrows if they wish.
Or perhaps they started getting edgy after Tom sorted out the one that tangled with Frodo & co, and went looking for pastures new where the neighbours were less feisty. If they fancied the idea of Deadman's Dike and the old ruins at Fornost, they would pass through the Breeland on their way there.
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dreamflower
Lorien
Feb 7 2015, 10:54pm
Post #16 of 16
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There were apparently a number of Rangers guarding Sarn Ford, who were attacked by the Black Riders on Sept. 22 (Frodo's birthday, and the day before he leaves Bag End). But the ToY in Appendix B says the Black Riders drove off a "guard of Rangers"--how many there were and how many casualties we don't know. But it's clear that even a handful of casualties depleted the Rangers. Even if most of those guards were not slain or injured, they were probably affected by the Black Breath.
Also, we are told that the Rangers who came south were "as many as could be gathered at need"; that makes me think that many Rangers were isolated and far from being able to get news.
Some people call it fanfiction. I call it story-internal literary criticism.
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