[piosenniel]

The village of Bree stood just to the east of the intersection of The Great East road and the Greenway, or North road. It was an ancient settlement, lying on the southwestern foot of Bree-hill. The men who founded it had fortified it well against intrusions, digging a deep trench in a semicircle from north to south and planting just behind it a tall, thick hedge.

There were only three gates into the village, North-Gate, West-Gate, South-Gate, and they were constantly guarded. The only other way in would be the difficult way over the Hill itself, which leaned out over the village.

The good folk of Bree kept their livestock penned within its safe walls at night, it was only during the day that the flocks went out to pasture.

Not so, the other villages of Bree-land which lay outside the protection of the trench and hedge: Staddle on the gentler southeastern slopes, Combe in a valley on the eastern flanks, and Archet in Chetwood, north of Combe.

It was all ‘a small country of fields and tamed woodlands, only a few miles broad.’ (Fellowship of the Ring) This was the present hunting grounds of the Wargs and their united packs of Wolves.

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The new Wolves were hungry from their journey. They had traveled quickly, and the hunting had been poor. Carchmoroth, wishing to keep them satisfied under his command, proposed a hunting party, to be led by Dûrêl and Dúgoroth.

Pre-dawn, in the chill air of that hour just before the sun rose, they moved liked a silent mist beneath the trees of Chetwood, the two Wargs and the pack of ten Wolves. Their eyes glinted in the waning starlight, and the birds were silent at their dread passing.

Along the outer rim of the clearing where Archet stood, they found a small farm, one dog to guard the flock of twenty sleeping sheep. The dog himself was sleeping, no news of any dangers brought to the notice of his nose.

They had come upwind of him, and now they poured down into the yard where the sheep were like wraiths. The dog fought bravely, but was overcome by the two Wargs. The Wolves had leaped into the pen and set about killing sheep, dragging their carcasses beneath the posts of the pen to be taken back to safety and eaten.

Five fine, fat sheep met their deaths and had been dragged off before the Farmer could get out to drive the marauders from his small flock. His eyes met the yellow eyes of one of the Wargs as it loped off, unintimidated by his meager threats.

‘A quarter of our flock is gone!’ he cried to his wife, who had come out armed with a thick cudgel to assist him. ‘And Tomba is dead!’ He went to the body of his faithful dog, and knelt down by it.

‘I have heard,’ she said, ‘from Farmer Gilham’s wife, that there is a meeting over in Bree, at The Prancing Pony, led by Gaddy Furbarrow. They’ve lost a lot of stock over there, too, to these wolves. They’re planning some sort of organized way to get rid of them. Perhaps you and some of the other men from around here should join them.’

‘Perhaps we should.’ he said, thinking who of his neighbors might be next to lose their stock. ‘We’re only small farmers here and we have no protection for our flocks as do the farmers in Bree.’ He thought for a moment, making a list of those he might persuade to go with him.

Then they would set out to the Prancing Pony to ask for help and to give it as needed . . .