The Fellowship of the Ring Read Online Free PDF

and even gathered reports of old times and distant lands from Elves, Dwarves, and Men. Their own records began
     only after the settlement of the Shire, and their most ancient legends hardly looked further back than their Wandering Days.
     It is clear, nonetheless, from these legends, and from the evidence of their peculiar words and customs, that like many other
     folk Hobbits had in the distant past moved westward. Their earliest tales seem to glimpse a time when they dwelt in the upper
     vales of Anduin, between the eaves of Greenwood the Great and the Misty Mountains. Why they later undertook the hard and perilous
     crossing of the mountains into Eriador is no longer certain. Their own accounts speak of the multiplying of Men in the land,
     and ofa shadow that fell on the forest, so that it became darkened and its new name was Mirkwood.
    Before the crossing of the mountains the Hobbits had already become divided into three somewhat different breeds: Harfoots,
     Stoors, and Fallohides. The Harfoots were browner of skin, smaller, and shorter, and they were beardless and bootless; their
     hands and feet were neat and nimble; and they preferred highlands and hillsides. The Stoors were broader, heavier in build;
     their feet and hands were larger; and they preferred flat lands and riversides. The Fallohides were fairer of skin and also
     of hair, and they were taller and slimmer than the others; they were lovers of trees and of woodlands.
    The Harfoots had much to do with Dwarves in ancient times, and long lived in the foothills of the mountains. They moved westward
     early, and roamed over Eriador as far as Weathertop while the others were still in Wilderland. They were the most normal and
     representative variety of Hobbit, and far the most numerous. They were the most inclined to settle in one place, and longest
     preserved their ancestral habit of living in tunnels and holes.
    The Stoors lingered long by the banks of the Great River Anduin, and were less shy of Men. They came west after the Harfoots
     and followed the course of the Loudwater southwards; and there many of them long dwelt between Tharbad and the borders of
     Dunland before they moved north again.
    The Fallohides, the least numerous, were a northerly branch. They were more friendly with Elves than the other Hobbits were,
     and had more skill in language and song than in handicrafts; and of old they preferred hunting to tilling. They crossed the
     mountains north of Rivendell and came down the River Hoarwell. In Eriador they soon mingled with the other kinds that had
     preceded them, but being somewhat bolder and more adventurous, they were often found as leaders or chieftains among clans
     of Harfoots or Stoors. Even in Bilbo’s time the strong Fallohidish strain could still be noted among the greater families,
     such as the Tooks and the Masters of Buckland.
    In the westlands of Eriador, between the Misty Mountains and the Mountains of Lune, the Hobbits found both Men and Elves.
     Indeed, a remnant still dwelt there of the Dúnedain, the kings of Men that came over the Sea out of Westernesse; but they
     were dwindling fast and the lands of their North Kingdom were falling far and wide into waste. There was room and to spare
     for incomers, and ere long the Hobbits began to settle in ordered communities. Most of their earlier settlements had long
     disappeared and been forgotten in Bilbo’s time; but one of the first to become important still endured, though reduced in
     size; this was at Bree and in the Chetwood that lay round about, some forty miles east of the Shire.
    It was in these early days, doubtless, that the Hobbits learned their letters and began to write after the manner of the Dúnedain,
     who had in their turn long before learned the art from the Elves. And in those days also they forgot whatever languages they
     had used before, and spoke ever after the Common Speech, the Westron as it was named, that was current through all the lands
     of the