Gondor and the Heirs of Anárion

[ArcusCalion]

After we decided to add in the bits from the Prologue to LotR about the Finding of the Ring, I think we should take as much of the Prologue as possible. Therefore I have tried to find the best places for all of it to fit. Here is where I placed some of it, in a replacement of GHA-SL-12:

GHA-SL-12b LotR Prologue About this time legend among the Hobbits first becomes history with a reckoning of years. For it was in the one thousand six hundred and first year of the Third Age that the Fallohide brothers, Marcho and Blanco, set out from Bree; and having obtained permission from the high king at Fornost, they crossed the brown river Baranduin with a great following of Hobbits. They passed over the Bridge of Stonebows, that had been built in the days of the power of the North Kingdom, and they took all the land beyond to dwell in, between the river and the Far Downs. All that was demanded of them was that they should keep the Great Bridge in repair, and all other bridges and roads, speed the king's messengers, and acknowledge his lordship.
Thus began the Shire-reckoning, for the year of the crossing of the Brandywine (as the Hobbits turned the name) became Year One of the Shire, and all later dates were reckoned from it. At once the western Hobbits fell in love with their new land, and they remained there, and soon passed once more out of the history of Men and of Elves. While there was still a king they were in name his subjects, but they were, in fact, ruled by their own chieftains and meddled not at all with events in the world outside.>
GHA-SL-12.1 <HoME 12: TY4 The land beyond the Brandywine, between the Baranduin and Emyn Beraid, had been a demesne of the Kings of Arnor, where they had both chases and rich farms; but they were now untended and falling into wilderness. The king Argeleb II therefore allowed the Periannath to settle there, for they were good husbandmen. {They became his subjects in name but were virtually independent and ruled by their own chieftains.} Their numbers were swelled by Stoors that came up from southern Eriador and entered the land from the south and dwelt mostly near to the Baranduin.>