The Men and Hobbits who inhabited the village of Bree and its surrounding lands.
Bree-hobbits :
The Hobbits native to Bree and the lands around;their interaction with Men (who also lived in the Bree-land),made them more open to the outside world than their parochial cousins in the Shire.Bree itself was a very ancient township of Men.The first Hobbits came there from the east in about the year 1300 of the Third Age,making Bree the only place in the world where Hobbits and Men lived together side by side. Most of the Hobbits of the Bree-land lived in Staddle,a village on the southeastern slopes of the Bree-hill but some also dwelt in Bree itself, living on the hill above the houses of Men.It was three hundred years after Hobbits first arrived in Bree that two Fallohides,Marcho and Blanco,led a group of colonists west ward to found the Shire.The Bree-hobbits,therefore,tended to look down somewhat on their cousins in the Shire,referring to them as 'Colonists' and 'Outsiders'.The Hobbits of Bree claimed to have originated most Hobbit customs and certainly it was thought that they were the ones who first discovered the properties of pipe-weed.At the end of the Third Age,the Bree-hobbits still occasionally travelled west to the Shire but they rarely ventured further than Buckland or the Eastfarthing,those parts of the Shire that were closest to their home.
Bree-landers :
In the Bree-land,Men and Hobbits lived peaceably side by side.These two races,identified individually as the Bree-hobbits and the Bree-men(or less formally as the Big Folk and the Little Folk)were collectively described as the Bree-landers.They lived in four communities scattered around the Bree-hill: Bree itself, Staddle,Combe and Archet.They were a generally friendly folk,at least until the upheavals brought about by the War of the Ring.They had some dealings with the Shire-hobbits,though the road between Bree and their ancient 'colony' of the Shire was less travelled in the late Third Age than it had once been.The Bree-landers maintained their own dialect and customs,including their own unique calendar.
Bucklanders :
The inhabitants of Buckland on the eastern borders of the Shire,the Bucklanders acknowledged the Master of Buckland as their leader.The Brandybucks,descendants of Gorhendad Oldbuck who founded Buckland,were considered the most important family of the Bucklanders.The Brandybucks had a strong Fallohidish strain in their blood,it is said and this made them more adventurous than many of their more conservative neighbours in the Shire.They did not share the Shire-hobbits' fear of water,for example and the Bucklanders' boats where often seen on the Brandywine River that bordered their land.On the eastern border of Buckland lay the dangerous Old Forest and the constant threat of the dark trees made the Bucklanders somewhat hardier than typical hobbits.
Hobbits of Bree :
The Hobbits who settled in Bree in the middle of the Third Age and their descendants.Also known as Bree-hobbits.
Hobbits of the Shire :
The hobbits who lived in the Shire,the land between the White Downs and the River Brandywine.They are more often referred to as the Shire-hobbits or,especially,the Shire-folk.
Shire-hobbits :
The Hobbits of the Shire;the descendants and followers of Marcho and Blanco,the two Bree-hobbits who founded the Shire.Among the Shire-hobbits were representatives of each of the three main types of Hobbit,the Stoors,Harfoots and Fallohides.Shire-hobbits were considered the most rustic and pastoral of their kind,even by other Hobbits (such as those of Bree or Buckland).The most important family among the Shire-hobbits were the Tooks of the Westfarthing,who had held the hereditary and largely honorary, title of Thain from III 2340.
