Rough time-line of events in Bree,
September 29, SR 1418
This
research arose from a thread in Entmoot,
“Why did the Nazgűl drop
Merry in Bree?”
In this
document:
Explanation
Please
understand that this is a rough time-line of events in Bree,
Thursday, September 29, SR 1418.
In the
thread, I posted
that Bree “is where the Black Riders finally discover the Ring, and this is
where the real Hunt for the Ring begins.
From Bree to Rivendell, Frodo is
never safe again, and he’s in the hands of this strange man whom he doesn’t
entirely trust, Strider.”
Everything
that happens to Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Merry that evening takes place in about
five hours. The Bree story-line is extremely
complex: that’s why I built this rough time-line. I have read The Lord of the
Rings (many) more than 35 times, and until now, I never completely
understood how all the pieces of the events in Bree fit together. After finishing this rough time-line, I have
come to believe that the scene at Bree is possibly the most underappreciated
jewel in Tolkien’s masterpiece. Because
readers do not see the off-stage activities, they do not appreciate how intricately,
carefully, and artfully it has been assembled.
There are scenes that are more moving, more evocative, and that reach
deeper into the hearts and souls of their readers: but simply considering technical expertise, this one is hard to
beat. And at its conclusion, readers
must believe it plausible when Frodo willingly leaves the next morning with
this strange new character, Strider, for whom he has only (what he hopes is)
Gandalf’s letter, little logic, and his own hunch to vouch.*
Since
Hobbiton in The Shire is supposed to be about even longitudinally with
|
17:43 |
Sunset |
|
18:16 |
Civil
Twilight End (“Dusk”) |
|
18:55 |
Nautical
Twilight End |
|
19:34 |
Astronomical
Twilight End |
The times
are established from JRR Tolkien’s Fellowship
of the Ring, chapters “The Sign of the Prancing Pony”, “Strider”, and
“Knife in the Dark”; from the essay, “The Hunt for the Ring”, published in Unfinished
Tales; and from references to and citations from Tolkien’s original
manuscript for “The Hunt for the Ring” published by Wayne G. Hammond and
Christina Scull in The
Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion.†
Specific references to the events can be found and verified in the Entmoot thread, “Why did the Nazgűl drop
Merry in Bree?”
Again,
these times are rough: they should
not be considered exact. There may still be (and likely are) errors
in the time-line. If you want to offer
emendations or corrections, please post to the thread.
I want to
thank the members of the Entmoot community for helping me with this. People who posted in the thread with me
include Gordis, The Dread Pirate Roberts, Attalus,
Coffeehouse, CAB, Galin, Valandil, and Olmer. My thanks to all of you, because without you, this
would not have been possible. In
particular, Gordis, The Dread Pirate Roberts, Coffeehouse, and CAB posed particularly difficult or insightful questions and made
comments that led me into this direction.
Gordis, you always push back
hard, and I appreciate it!
For
anyone who is interested, I began the thread because,
although I have read The Lord of the
Rings (many) more than 35 times, I
never understood why the Nazgűl dropped Merry at Bill Ferny’s house when
they could simply have kidnapped him and foiled Frodo’s escape. The answer is that while the Black Riders
were preparing to take Merry, Nob, the hobbit who worked for Barliman Butterbur
at the Prancing Pony, began to shout at them while he was still too far away
for them to silence him. Had they
continued, Nob could raise an alarm and rouse the town, and in the confusion,
the Ringbearer might elude them yet again.
So they dropped Merry where he was.
Rough Time-line
Remember:
it’s not exact, it’s rough.
|
|
|
bad
guys |
|||||||
|
hobbits |
Strider |
Black
Riders |
Ferny,
Harry, Isengarder |
||||||
|
Merry |
Frodo,
Sam, Pippin |
||||||||
|
7:45
PM |
still
west of Bree |
follows
hobbits |
arrive
in Bree |
Harry
at West Gate |
|||||
|
8:30
PM |
arrive
in Bree |
climbs
over gate behind hobbits |
3
Black Riders learn 4 Shire-hobbits have entered Bree through West Gate |
||||||
|
8:45
PM |
Butterbur
takes them to parlor |
Butterbur
won't let him see Frodo; goes to Commons room |
in
Commons room at Prancing Pony |
||||||
|
9:00
PM |
hobbits
eat dinner |
||||||||
|
9:45
PM |
stays
in parlor |
go to
Commons room |
|||||||
|
10:45
PM |
goes
for walk |
Pippin
gets "warm", talks too much |
Frodo
and Strider speak in corner |
||||||
|
11:15
PM |
sees
Black Rider outside Inn; follows |
Frodo has "accident" |
watches |
one
Black Rider outside Inn |
see
"accident", leave Inn, walk home |
||||
|
11:30
PM |
reaches
Ferny's house. |
Aragorn
meets hobbits in parlor |
Black
Rider speaks with someone on other side of Ferny's hedge |
Tell
Black Riders about "accident" |
|||||
|
11:45
PM |
overcome
by Black breath, faints |
Butterbur
shows up with Gandalf's letter; sends Nob to find Merry |
one Black
Rider leaves to tell Witch-king Ringbearer is in Bree; other 2 decide to take
Merry |
recognize
Merry as Shire-hobbit |
|||||
|
12:00
AM |
Nob
yells at people lifting Merry. Merry
wakes, bolts to Inn |
hobbits
read Gandalf's letter |
They
drop Merry |
||||||
|
12:15
AM |
Merry
bursts into parlor |
Using information provided by
Ferny, Black Riders plan an attack on hobbit-rooms on north side of Inn |
|||||||
|
12:30
AM |
Frodo
tells Merry what has happened |
Strider
and Nob fix hobbits' beds to look occupied. |
|||||||
|
12:45
AM |
Strider
barricades parlor; keeps watch all night |
||||||||
|
… |
|||||||||
|
? |
attack
Inn |
|
|||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||
If you want to
insert this chart into a Tolkien forum post:
You probably cannot copy-and-paste this chart into your
favorite Tolkien website. Most Tolkien
forums run using a program called vBulletin. I know that Entmoot, The Tolkien Forum (TTF), SF-Fandom, Minas Tirith, and Barrow-Downs all do, for instance;
however the [HTML] extension in vB Code is typically
disabled for security purposes.
If you want to paste or insert a graphic version of the
chart, use this line of code:
[IMG]http://www.zarkanya.net/Tolkien/breeEvents-work.gif[/IMG]
If there are any updates to the time-line, I’ll try to
remember to put them into that file, too.
Disclaimers
The family and heirs of
J.R.R. Tolkien retain his copyright and legal rights through the Tolkien
Estate, and Tolkien Enterprises owns certain other rights. This website is not
affiliated with those organizations. It
is a scholarly pursuit of the existing corpus of J.R.R. Tolkien. I acknowledge their rights. All
reference to published material is what I honestly believe to be fair use for
scholarly pursuit. Here is a
page of the principal owners of rights to the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, as far
as I am aware.
Entmoot is part of the Tolkien Trail. It maintains its own disclaimers.
Please do not simply plagiarize this chart.
I would be delighted for you to cite it, quote it, criticize it, and
dissect it. That's why it's posted
here! Just don't copy it and put your
name on it. For citations, please give
credit to Entmoot:
If you are quoting or posting this
chart in any Tolkien forum, just offer a link back to Entmoot at http://www.entmoot.com/showthread.php?t=15029.
If you
publishing a book or magazine article, I suggest you cite this as
Entmoot,
from the thread “Why
did the Nazgűl drop Merry in Bree?”
If you
want to comment on, amend, criticize, correct, or alter the rough time-line,
please comment on it in the thread “Why did the Nazgűl drop
Merry in Bree?” If you are not a
member of Entmoot, I am sure
they would be delighted for you to join.
If you
wonder why I spent so much time on this and seem so intensely interested in it,
there are three reasons.
- I’ve wondered why the Black
Riders dropped Merry in Bree since I first read the Fellowship of the Ring.
I just found out, and in addition, encouraged by my friends at Entmoot, I figured out what
happened at Bree and how intricate it was.
- I worked very hard on this.
- It’s been therapeutic. Now stop asking.
Footnotes – I never write anything without footnotes, it seems.
* One
of these days, English professors will discover what a remarkable, thoroughly
professional job Tolkien did putting together the scene at Bree. When they do, they’ll make undergraduates
pull it apart. After a while, other
writers will begin to copy this technique, and studying the assembly of the
scene at Bree will become a typical college exercise. Some undergraduates, who might have loved Tolkien, will remember
only the torture they underwent, and hate his work. After a longer while, a few of the undergraduates will become
high school English teachers, and they’ll make their high school students pull
the scene apart. Then high school
students who would otherwise have loved Tolkien will come to dread studying
him, rather than reading and enjoying his works.
† The
source documents
‡ The Dread Pirate Roberts at Entmoot has reminded me, and I pass
along to all you who read this, that the times for sunrise, sunset, and
twilight should be in standard time
(i.e., noon is when the sun it at its zenith) rather than daylight savings time. Dusk
at 6:16 PM on September 29, 2009, is for Greenwich Mean Time. Tolkien used the phases of the moon for
1941–42 to write The Lord of the Rings. (
This
document was prepared by Alcuin,
http://www.zarkanya.net/TolkienNotes.htm
Last
updated on Monday
14 September 2009
Previous update
on Saturday 14 February 2009