Q: How Many Roads Led Into the Shire?
ANSWER: At the end of the Third Age it would appear there were at least three ways into the Shire: the first entrance was the Brandywine Bridge, which the Shire-folk used as well as the Dwarves traveling on the East-West road; the second entrance was on the west side of the Shire, apparently on the southern side of the White Downs, where a road ran toward the Tower Hills and Mithlond; and the third entrance was the road that passed south from Waymoot in the West Farthing through the South Farthing and down to Sarn Ford.
The road from Sarn Ford ran toward the southeast where it joined the Greenway in Minhiriath. And though the texts don’t mention one, there must have been a road leading either from the West Farthing toward the southern Ered Luin, where many Dwarves lived, or else such a road branched off from the road that led by the Tower Hills to Mithlond. The most detailed description of the road joining the West Farthing with Lindon/Mithlond is given in the final chapter of The Lord of the Rings, where Tolkien writes:
Though they rode through the midst of the Shire all the evening and all the night, none saw them pass, save the wild creatures; or here and there some wanderer in the dark who saw a swift shimmer under the trees, or a light and shadow flowing through the grass as the Moon went westward. And when they had passed from the Shire, going about the south skirts of the White Downs, they came to the Far Downs, and to the Towers, and looked on the distant Sea; and so they rode down at last to Mithlond, to the Grey Havens in the long firth of Lune.
We know that the Far Downs were added to the Shire by Aragorn’s royal decree in Shire year 1452, when he created the Westmarch from the lands between the Far Downs and the Tower Hills.
At other times there may have been other passages into and out of the Shire, or the lands from which the Shire of the Hobbits was formed. For the North Farthing abutted the southern face of the Emyn Uial, the Hills of Evendim, where on the northern side Elendil had built the city of Annúminas. The lands that Argeleb II granted to the Hobbits when they colonized the Shire had formerly been part of the royal demesne of the Kings of Arthedain. It thus seems reasonable to infer there must have been at least one, and possibly more than one, road leading north into Emyn Uial.
For example, when Arthedain was overthrown and its people fled into hiding or sought refuge with the Elves of Lindon, the survivors joined forces with the Elves and Dwarves and an army Gondor had sent to Arthedain’s aid. A part of this force (the cavalry, perhaps led by Eärnur) passed north around the Emyn Uial. Cirdan had led the main force east through the Emyn Uial toward Fornost Erain — a tactical movement no army would be able to accomplish without the use of roads (unless they simply made a road through the hills, but that would be impractical). Of course, any roads that existed in the Emyn Uial in Third Age year 1974 most likely had long since fallen into disuse by the end of the Third Age, as no one lived in the area.
One other possibility is that there was a passage out of the Shire somewhere near Haysend. Some readers have inferred that Haysend was the southernmost village of the Buckland, situated at the south end of the High Hay. In The Return of the Shadow, however, Christopher Tolkien writes:
The main road within Buckland is described (on a rejected page only) as running ‘from the Bridge to Standelf and Haysend.’ Standelf is never mentioned in the text of LR, though marked on my father’s map of the Shire and on both of mine; on all three the road stops there and does not continue to Haysend, which is not shown as a village or any sort of habitation.
Haysend faced the Shire town of Deephallow across the river. It’s conceivable there may have been a ferry across the river at this point. In fact, in the poem “Bombadil Goes Boating” Tolkien mentions a hythe (protected by the Grindwall) on the Withywindle just outside the High Hay where Bombadil draws up his boat. He is greeted by Hobbit wardens who shoot three arrows into his hat, but Tom asks for passage across the Brandywine river from the nearby town of Breredon.
Breredon is not placed on the Shire map but it would logically have been situated where the Withywindle joined the Brandywine river, just across from Deephallow. The ferry there would have serviced Hobbits but could conceivably also have provided a pathway out for the Elves of Lindon, if they had no desire to travel through the more populated lands to the north. Gildor’s people had spoken with Tom Bombadil, asking him to look out for Frodo and his friends. They could have used the path along the north/west bank of the Withywindle river (which Frodo and his companions found) to travel toward Bree, where they would have met Aragorn and also told him about Frodo.
Hence, while Tolkien doesn’t say this is how Gildor and his companions left the Shire, there is certainly textual evidence to support the hypothesis. The Elves would not have been intimidated by the trees of the Old Forest (and the trees probably would have respected the Elves enough to leave them alone). The Withywindle flowed into the Old Forest at a point in the north near the Great Road, thus avoiding the Barrowdowns.
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See also:
- Why Did Sauron Need a Road from Barad-dur to Sammath Naur?
- Why Did the Fellowship Not Take any Maps with Them?
- Where Did the Old Forest Road in Mirkwood Lead To?
- Where Did Boromir Die in The Lord of the Rings?
- Why are There So Few Roads in Middle-earth?
- Do the Rohirrim of Rohan Use Boats?
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