The Prancing Pony



In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional universe of Middle-earth, the Inn of the Prancing Pony was an inn where Frodo Baggins met Aragorn.

The Inn of the Prancing Pony was built along the old Great East Road, and was the chief building within the village of Bree, near where the Greenway went north to Fornost. Only one other hostelry outside the Shire is ever named in Middle-earth, The Forsaken Inn, which lay a days ride east of Bree, but this may have been in ruins by the time of the War of the Ring, making the Prancing Pony especially unique.

By the time of the War of the Ring, it was owned and managed by Barliman Butterbur, a Man who was somewhat absent-minded at times.

The inn had rooms for Men as well as Hobbits, and in the meeting room Frodo Baggins and his companions Samwise Gamgee, Peregrin Took, and Meriadoc Brandybuck met the Ranger Strider, who would turn out to be Aragorn son of Arathorn, a friend of Gandalf who waited there for them.

There were also spies of Saruman present in the inn, and it was attacked by the Ringwraiths before the party of Hobbits left.