Bree - Middle-earth's Oldest Town?
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- Опубликовано: 6 июн 2024
- In this video, we're talking about the town of Bree - it's long history, how it survived the upheavals of the ages, and what life was like in what was possibly the oldest town in the Westlands of Middle-earth.
/ darthgandalf 
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Maybe Bree survived so long because of it's proximity to Tom Bombadil
There were also a few farmers living outside the 4 villages, for it is writen in the book:"there was a country of fields, only a few miles broad".
Good point. It's something I should've mentioned. The food needed to come from somewhere.
It is remarkable.
The fact that outside the shire, it was the only place you could see Hobbits.
Dwarves visited too so it wouldn't surprise me with the restoration of the reunited kingdom, bree would grow..
Brilliant. One can imagine as the center point of the East-West road and the North to South Greenway that the former Bree under Arnor was majorly substantial with large mansions and huge commercial hubs dotting the landscape. Considering the hints that Numenorean Lords, even royalty, used the Barrow Downs as a final resting place the area had to be some kind of Hotspot for a period of its history and is still eking out an existence for that same reason. It'll get lively again under Aragorn if he can just drive my future ex mother in law and her ghoul friends out of the Barrow Downs.
Hey don't be doing the Barrow-wights dirty by comparing them to mother-in-laws.
@@DarthGandalfYT 😄
There used to be an actual fiefdom by the name of Bree on earth. It was situated in the Netherlands, in the province of Limburg. Nowadays, there's a village called Maasbree, near the city of Venlo.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maasbree
Bree is still a town in Belgian Limburg as well...
@@Grunt_007is it where the cheese comes from?
@@amh9494 Not that I know of... do you mean the cheese 'Brie'? That's french.
@@Grunt_007 well what good is it then!? And now I've got a craving for brie
I just thought of something the seven dwarven rings are believed to be given to the leaders of the seven dwarven tribes but the kingdom of the firebeards and broadbeams are destroyed and most of them move to moria, leaving a small amount in the blue mountains that never take part in affairs of middle-earth and have no kings as far as I am aware. So, if sauron gave two rings to the firebeards/broadbeams did he give them to the reduced blue mountains chieftains or important figures in moria that acted as the representative of their tribes in the kingdom of the longbeards? Meaning potentially moria had three rings of power and two of the dwarven rings of power lost to dragons could potentially be the firebeard and broadbeam rings lost in the war of dragons and dwarves in the grey mountains after their people flee moria from the balrog?
What happened after the 1st Age to the Firebeard and Broadbeam clans is a very interesting question. Did they completely cease to exist as independent clans? Did they still have a degree of independence to rule themselves after they went to Khazad-dûm? Perhaps they eventually settled elsewhere to re-establish their kingdoms or even went back to their original homes once the elves mostly left Lindon? There were 7 dwarven clans and 7 rings of power given to dwarf lords. It's not conclusive but it does hint at their still being 7 independent clans when Sauron handed the rings out.
Firstly, great comment. The unfortunate reality about the other Dwarven rings is that we don't know who ended up receiving them. It's possible the Broadbeams and Firebeards never actually received Rings of Power, and those rings were instead given to sub-clans of the eastern Dwarves. If the Broadbeams and Firebeards did receive them, I believe they would've stayed in the Blue Mountains. I'm doubtful of their being a possible three Rings of Power in Khazad-dum at one point, because I feel like that would've led to conflict between the three peoples.
@@istari0 I think some of them remained independent at the very least. The Unfinished Tales tells us that Dwarves remained in Ered Luin even after Nogrod and Belegost were destroyed. I find it hard to imagine they were ruled from Khazad-dum when Khazad-dum largely cut contact with the outside world following the War of the Elves and Sauron.
I absolutely LOVE Bree
It is only *possibly* oldest, *possibly.* The Bree-men said that *they* were there *before* the kings came back over the seas, which implies at latest the start of the third age. JRR Tolkien alludes that they indeed were related to the oldest men that went into the West (Beleriand?), so that we may think that *they* were related to the Edain, and the Beorningas. It says nothing about the town Bree.
Good video, as usual. I wanted to ask, is there any possibility of you making a video about Dorwininon? Though, given how there's only a line, or two about it in The Hobbit, i can see why you wouldn't want to do it.
A video on Dorwinion is definitely a top contender in the Middle-earth Mysteries. It will happen, just not sure when.
@@DarthGandalfYT Oh, that would be nice, and thanks for the reply.
Idk if Bree would hold for that long, maybe they were taken by Angmar and lasted under it's controll for a period and after their retreat from the lands of Arnor the Bree would slowly recover
Also a possibility.
MERP (Middle-Earth Roleplaying) had a scenario where the people of the Bree evacuated the town and went to future Buckland until the Angmarim were driven off in the 1400´s TA. Propably same thing happened during the later big invasions.
I've been binge watching your videos. Thank you, I needed something positive in my life.
I love it man keep up the good work. And congrats on the 9k barrier! You gotta do a 10k subscriber special, that is a true milestone
Great video it was really entertaining. I especially like the in game format.
I very much enjoyed the video. I am looking forward to more videos in the series. I did not like the way Bree was portrayed in the Peter Jackson movies. I much prefer the portrayal that you see in Lord of the Rings Online.
Nice video! The art is really good, love it!
Cracking video, content is always top quality, keep it up 👌
Do you think Tolkien chose the name Bree to suggest that this was the forerunner of the Brie region of France? It's basically the same area if you map it to Europe.
Not at all. Bree is simply the Brythonic (Old Welsh) word for a hill.
In other words the town was named for the hill under which it stood.
Having read both Tolkien and CS Lewis, I must say that they used similar naming conventions. Bree and Ettenmoors / Ettinsmoor being two examples.
As mentioned already, Bree's representation in Lord of the Rings Online is top-notch!
Depending on who was writing what at the time, I wonder if Middle Earth's Bree and its Prancing Pony influenced the Bree in C.S. Lewis' "A Horse and His Boy," or vice versa.
Hey Darth Gandalf, can you do a video explaining what would happen if Sauron wore the other rings of power, both the ones he had had a hand in creating and the elven ones, and why, especially for the Dwarven ones he'd recaptured, he didn't wear them to boost his power, without him having his one ring? Please and thank you!
Great video
Appreciate this one greatly, always love for the D.G army
Wow, i never knew a random city could be so intresting.
Another 1st rate video. We clearly need to fund an archaeological expedition to Bree to do some serious digging and figure out how long it has been inhabited!
You mean the Brie region of France? It's pretty much the same spot.
@@Vandervecken The maps I have seen of Middle-Earth overlayed on modern Europe have had Bree in the English Channel.
great video bro, nice interesting lore thanks!
still waiting for a video on the story of Middle Men in ME :) now thats a mistery
cheers
I wonder if the proximity to the Old Forest partially protected the Bree-landers? Not just for the power of Bombadil but its possible Ents also lived in the area.
The Rangers were very active in the region.
wow this video just made me realized i never went to bree in Lord of the rings online skipped it wanted to get as far as i could so went from the blue mountains to Rivendell even missed the shire
Big mistake to power through and skip content, it's such a richly detailed world. Our group runs weekly and we all use Tortoise stones to prevent out levelling regions before we explore all the content. We call it SLowtRO and we've enjoyed the huge breadth and depth of content in all the regions.
Nearly as old as Camembert, but with twice the smell.
I don't think this is any accident, the names. Bree is approximately where Brie is in northern France.
@@Vandervecken Like Lebanin. And wait, does that mean the Gray Havens is Liverpool?
Is the sound muffled for anyone else? CAn barely hear and speakers up FULL.
What game footage is that used in the background? It doesn't look bad enough to be LOTRO.... Whatever it is, I wonder as I would be interested in loading it up
It's LOTRO. The character models are very dated, but I think the environments are still amazing as far as MMOs go.
@@DarthGandalfYT thank you, I expected it to be something else. I thought lotro looked worse than that. I might have to install it now
what do you think of yondershire in lotro ?
I've ridden through it, but haven't done any of the content there yet
@@DarthGandalfYT im making an alt to run through it soon :).
I loved your videos but I think you made a small mistake when😢you said that Bree was the only town for hundreds of miles. Tolkien speak of other around bree that Breeland. Staddle, Comb, and Archet.. Bree is the biggest but not by much.
I believe I mentioned Staddle, Combe, and Archet as Bree's satellite villages.
@@DarthGandalfYT I see also wrote the comments before finishing the video and then one of the map showed them. Next time I ll watched the entire video before writing a comment.
No notable people in Bree!??!
Peter Jackson's ancestor lived there!
Bree 🥰
nation video about Angmar
I want to say I read somewhere that Bree, or at least a city in the location where Bree would be founded, was established in the SA by the ancestors of the Dunlendings at their most widespread, before they were reduced to semi-nomadic hill men and their settlements were taken over and built upon by Northmen and later Dunedain. Let me know if anyone else has heard anything similar.
Wouldn’t Esgaroth be older seeing as men came from the East?
It's definitely a possibility.
I think thar bad has big history
what if the letter candalf wrote to Frodo was delivered in the shire by nob the hobbit and barliman buterbur didn't forget
What if the hobbits went to cirdan instead of elrond
"No notable people"? What of Sir Butterbur the Fat hmm? >:[
He was most likely a Maia, who taught Men the subtle arts of making (and drinking) beer. So mighty was he that he single-handedly defended the city against the attacks of Angmar.
Barliman Butterbur is an emanation of Eru Ilúvatar.
Good point. Barliman was almost certainly a Maia, but the issue was that he forgot about it, and didn't end up telling anyone.
@@DarthGandalfYT It makes too much sense NOT to be canon! ^^
Umbar is older
That is one of the worst things about Tolkien's creations (and there are very few), not far behind Middle-Earth's overall decline - its politico-economy.
Bree feels like a town put there for no reason, in which exist only locations needed for the story, like it was from a story-based game. In whole Arnor we must assume thousands of similar towns unnamed and unmarked on maps, necessary to support Annúminas and Fornost and the society overall. Humans need food, and food is grown on fields. The only ones having fields in whole Eriador(btw thanks for reminding me of its proper pronunciation) are Hobbits, and they do not seem to trade it very much.
I have ranted about economy, now lets move on to politics. Bree, like Dale/Esgaroth, are sequestered separate settlements, and however the latter has a ruling body, it still lacks supporting villages around. The only case in which solitary villages exist, is at very early stages of civilization, where there is no "civilization" per se, no countries, just clans (and then they would also be numerous). That may be the case for Easterlings, Dunlendings, and especially the Drúedain, but not Arnor for Eru's sake!!!
Fair enough, but it's important to remember that by the end of the third age, Middle Earth, and especially Eriador, was slowly recovering from centuries of the major powers getting worn down by near-constant war, with Gondor blocking off several major invasions from the East, Arnor destroyed and the region depopulated, Rohan (more of a regional power than a major empire) locked in generational conflicts with the Dunlandings, the elves had been crippled after the disasters of the first age, their last war with Sauron, and a general decline as they started drifting east.
In this context, Bree's situation makes more sense than one would think. In the wake of the Witch King wars, Arnor was massively depopulated, the land was much more dangerous, and its likely that while other villages existed, the inhabitants would likely want to migrate to more civilized and safe areas, which if said village was off any major trade routes, fortresses, or cities, likely means migrating, possibly to Rohan and Gondor by way of Tharbad or even into Dunland depending on ancestry and ability to integrate. This contributes to a general decline in population, and by the time Tharbad is abandoned, the only place left with a significant population would be the one on the only road connected to a functioning area to trade with (the Shire), under some form of protection whether they know it or not (the Rangers), and a stable food supply via said trade and their own farming. This is enough to keep them alive, but without larger contact to the outside world or a source of education to improve their methods of production or create new technology, they're not going to grow except slowly...the same way post Roman Europe Western only regrew slowly after the Western Empire collapsed, hampered by lost knowledge as well as near-constant conflict from outside threats as well as each other.
It's obviously not too old, otherwise, it would've been made clear
I think that the Greater Bree Area would have been the best place to live, in the decades surrounding the war of the ring. The Shire is too Xenophobic. The Dwarves are unapologetically racist. Gondor and Rohan are under martial law, and the Elves are too impossibly wise for a mortal to ever be accepted, or even comfortable. A man can be free, in Bree.
They keep talking then knowing is making me blind(my brain from able to think nicely), what reach senses is their wish. Means if i am thinking of soulmate, they maybe talk of their soulmate then i imagine them(a man), then they imagine soulmate would have a psychic power to create "think of other man" as my thinking for soulmate "to think of other" as imagination. Means they want me in belief my soulmate not perfect like them.
I assume places with this type of rocks as wall will help me.
Godzilla had a stroke trying to read this and fucking died