areyousuretonightsadangernight:
He loved elves, though he seldom met them. ~ The Hobbit
Key makes the best gifs ever.
One of the cool things about The Hobbit and LOTR is how many types of people pass through the Shire. In most fantasy, places like that are way isolated and tucked into some forgotten corner of the world. In Tolkien, you have elves passing through on their way to the West, Entwives lurking in the woods, Rangers periodically coming by to make sure everybody’s in one piece, and dwarves tromping in and out on their way to and from the Blue Mountains. And Gandalf.
Positively cosmopolitan, really.
(Tolkienian history lesson: the kingdom of Gondor’s actually the the last remaining portion of the full kingdom of Arnor. When it was intact, before the Witch King of Angmar fucked it up, Arnor encompassed nearly the entire western half of Middle Earth, including the Shire smack-dab in the middle of it. The hobbits were warriors and allies of Aragorn’s people in the wars against Sauron’s forces, and nobody besides the hobbits themselves have forgotten how tough and ferocious these little buggers are when you get them riled.)