Battle of the Green Fields

The Battle of the Green Fields, or Battle of Greenfields, was a battle that took place at the Green Fields district in the Northfarthing of the Shire during the latter half of the Third Age. It was the only time that the Shire was ever attacked by the Orcs of Mount Gram.^[1]

History[]

In TA 2740, multiple bands of Orcs from the Misty Mountains invaded various parts of Eriador.^[2]

By TA 2747, many of the Orc-bands were pushed back by the Rangers of the North,^[2] but the very last^[3] band of Orcs, one from Mount Gram which was led by Golfimbul, managed to avoid the Rangers and invade the Northfarthing of the Shire. The hobbits were prepared and crossed the Norbourn with a force to meet them in the Green Fields district. Bandobras Took, known as the Bullroarer, led^[4] the charge on horseback and armed with a wooden club.^[1] He knocked Golfimbul's head clean off at the helm of the Orc-band, sending it sailing a hundred yards through the air and down a rabbit-hole, thus winning the battle and simultaneously inventing the game of Golf.^[1] The other Orcs fled after Golfimbul's death,^[4] causing a decline in their attacks in Eriador until they stopped completely.^[3]

No other battle occurred within the borders of the Shire until the Battle of Bywater^[5][6] at the end of the Great War of the Ring on November 1, 3019, over two-hundred years later.^[2]

Development[]

In the very first draft of The Hobbit, Tolkien called this event "’the Battle of the’ followed by a cancelled, illegible word of four or five letters that ended in -ll (possibly ‘Bull-’?)".^[7] This was immediately changed to the battle of the Green Fields of Fellin,^[8] before swiftly changing Fellin to Fao which in turn was changed, likely at once, to Merria before the word was fully written.^[7] John D. Rateliff notes that while these names never appear again, Merria bears a resemblance to the Merrill, a stream in Rivendell.^[7][9] While Rateliff stated that he could not decipher the meanings of the names nor figure out what languages they are from, he noted that his friend, Taum Santoski, had suggested in a linguistic note that Fellin may be connected with the Ñoldorin word fela ("cave") and that Merria may be connected with the Quenya word merka ("wild").^[7] Rateliff concluded that regardless of the names had actually meant, he is certain that they were not direct translations of "Green Field".^[7] Tolkien also wrote that chess, in addition to golf, was invented because the battle was won due to a "checkmate",^[8] though it is possible that the chess reference was removed due to an obscure philologist's joke on how the word "checkmate" comes from Persian shah mat, "the King is Dead".^[10]

The name was then soon changed to the published form as well as the reference to chess.^[11]

In early versions of the Prologue to The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien gave the date of the battle as 1137,^[12] before changing it to SR 1347 and then SR 1147.^[12] It was changed to the published form in an early version of the Appendices.^[13]

In adaptations[]

The Hobbit video game[]

In the 2003 video game, A hobbit outside Bag-End makes accusations that young hobbits know nothing about the Battle of the Green Fields and history in general.^[14]

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II[]

It is revealed in the "Evil Campaign" of the game that the Goblins have not forgotten their defeat and thus they lay siege and conquer the Shire in revenge.^[15]

The Lord of the Rings Online[]

In the Hobbit prologue quests^[16] in The Lord of the Rings Online, a group of Goblins led by Lubach,^[17] were convinced by Éogan^[18] to invade the Shire by claiming that Lubach was the heir of Golfimbul.^[19]

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey[]

In the first film of The Hobbit film trilogy, the Battle of the Green Fields is recounted by Gandalf during the Unexpected Party at Bag-End, though the tone implies that some embellishment is at work.

Translations[]

References[]