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everything before the people of the Shire, whom they refer to as “colonists”; but in this case their claim is,
     I think, likely to be true. And certainly it was from Bree that the art of smoking the genuine weed spread in the recent centuries
     among Dwarves and such other folk, Rangers, Wizards, or wanderers, as still passed to and fro through that ancient road-meeting.
     The home and centre of the art is thus to be found in the old inn of Bree,
The Prancing Pony
, that has been kept by the family of Butterbur from time beyond record.
    ‘All the same, observations that I have made on my own many journeys south have convinced me that the weed itself is not native
     to our parts of the world, but came northward from the lower Anduin, whither it was, I suspect, originally brought over Sea
     by the Men of Westernesse. It grows abundantly in Gondor, and there is richer and larger than in the North, where it is never
     found wild, and flourishes only in warm sheltered places like Longbottom. The Men of Gondor call it
sweet galenas
, and esteem it only for the fragrance of its flowers. From that land it must have been carried up the Greenway during the
     long centuries between the coming of Elendil and our own days. But even the Dúnedain of Gondor allow us this credit: Hobbits
     first put it into pipes. Not even the Wizards first thought of that before we did. Though one Wizard that I knew took up the
     art long ago, and became as skilful in it as in all other things that he put his mind to.’
3
Of the Ordering of the Shire
    The Shire was divided into four quarters, the Farthings already referred to, North, South, East, and West; and these again
     each into a number of folklands, which still bore the names of some of the old leading families, although by the time of this
     history these names were no longer found only in their proper folklands. Nearly all Tooks still lived in the Tookland, but
     that was not true of many other families, such as the Bagginses or the Boffins. Outside the Farthings were the East and West
     Marches: the Buckland (p. 129 ); and the Westmarch added to the Shire in S.R. 1452.
    The Shire at this time had hardly any ‘government’. Families for the most part managed their own affairs. Growing food and
     eating it occupied most of their time. In other matters they were, as a rule, generous and not greedy, but contented and moderate,
     so that estates, farms, workshops, and small trades tended to remain unchanged for generations.
    There remained, of course, the ancient tradition concerning the high king at Fornost, or Norbury as they called it, away north
     of the Shire. But there had been no king for nearly a thousand years, and even the ruins of Kings’ Norbury were covered with
     grass. Yet the Hobbits still said of wild folk and wicked things (such as trolls) that they had not heard of the king. For
     they attributed to the king of old all their essential laws; and usually they kept the laws of free will, because they were
     The Rules (as they said), both ancient and just.
    It is true that the Took family had long been pre-eminent; for the office of Thain had passed to them (from the Old-bucks)
     some centuries before, and the chief Took had borne that title ever since. The Thain was the master of the Shire-moot, and
     captain of the Shire-muster and the Hobbitry-in-arms; but as muster and moot were only held in times of emergency, which no
     longer occurred, the Thainship had ceased to be more than a nominal dignity. The Took familywas still, indeed, accorded a special respect, for it remained both numerous and exceedingly wealthy, and was liable to produce
     in every generation strong characters of peculiar habits and even adventurous temperament. The latter qualities, however,
     were now rather tolerated (in the rich) than generally approved. The custom endured, nonetheless, of referring to the head
     of the family as The Took, and of adding to his name, if required, a number: such as