Bree (Middle-earth)

Bree is a fictional village in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, east of the Shire. Bree-land, which contains Bree and a few other villages, is the only place where Hobbits and Men lived side by side. It was inspired by the name of the Buckinghamshire village of Brill, meaning "hill-hill", which Tolkien visited regularly in his early years at the University of Oxford, and informed by his passion for linguistics.

In Bree is The Prancing Pony inn, where the wizard Gandalf meets the Dwarf Thorin Oakenshield, setting off the quest to Erebor described in The Hobbit, and where Frodo Baggins puts on the One Ring, attracting the attention of the Dark Lord Sauron's spies and an attack by the Black Riders.

Scholars have stated that Tolkien chose the placenames of Bree-land carefully, incorporating Celtic elements into the names to indicate that Bree was older than the Shire, whose placenames are English with Old English elements. Others have commented that Bree functions as a place of transition from the comfort and safety of home to the dangers of the journey that lies ahead.