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.

History

In the year 2740 of the Third Age, during the later reign of Arassuil as Chieftain of the Dúnedain, multiple bands of Orcs from the Misty Mountains invaded various parts of Eriador.

By 2747, many of the Orc-bands were pushed back by the sons of Elrond and the Rangers of the North, but the very last band of Orcs managed to avoid the Rangers and invaded The Shire from the north while ranging west. This Orc-band was from Mount Gram and was led by the Orc-chief Golfimbul. When they invaded 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 the charge on horseback armed with a wooden club. 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 of the Green Fields and simultaneously inventing "the game of Golf". The other Orcs fled after Golfimbul's death, causing a decline in their attacks in Eriador until, in 2748, they stopped completely.

On April 26 of 2941, when Bilbo Baggins insisted to Thorin and Company during the Unexpected Party that he was fit to be the burglar on their quest, he mentioned the Bullroarer and probably would have recounted the Battle of the Green Fields had be not been cut off by Glóin. No other battle occurred within the borders of the Shire until the Battle of Bywater at the end of the Great War of the Ring on November 1, 3019, over two-hundred years later.

Development

In the very first draft of The Hobbit, J.R.R. 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-’?)". This was immediately changed to the battle of the Green Fields of Fellin, before swiftly changing Fellin to Fao which in turn was changed, likely at once, to Merria before the word was fully written. John D. Rateliff notes that while these names never appear again, the Merrill, a stream in Rivendell, bears a resemblance to Merria. 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 J.R. 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"). Rateliff concluded that, regardless of what the names had actually meant, he is certain that they were not direct translations of "Green Field". Tolkien also wrote that chess, in addition to golf, was invented because the battle was won due to a "checkmate", 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". The name was then soon changed to the published form and the reference to chess was removed.

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

In adaptations

The Hobbitvideo 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.

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

In 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.

The Lord of the Rings Online

In the 2007 video-game, The Lord of the Rings Online, Brockenborings there is a wooden statue depicting Bandobras standing in a golf pose over Golfimbul's head. During the Spring Festival, The Shire celebrates "The Feast of the Greenfields" when the Hobbits place tankards of the drink under his statue in his honor.

In the Shire epic prologue quests in The Lord of the Rings Online, a group of Goblins led by Lubach, were convinced by Éogan to invade the Shire by claiming that Lubach was the heir of Golfimbul. He dwells in a landmark in the Greenfields referred to as Golfimbul's Hole.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

In the first film of Peter Jackson's The Hobbit film trilogy in 2012, the Battle of the Green Fields is recounted during the Unexpected Party at Bag-End by Gandalf in an effort to convince Bilbo Baggins of his Tookishness. It is implied, however, that some historical embellishment may be at work.

Translations

References