Archmaesterjimmie: House/group/event article, book-canon (Corvus)

2026-06-14T12:18:58Z

House/group/event article, book-canon (Corvus)

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The '''Scouring of the Shire''' was the final conflict of the [[War of the Ring]], fought not in the great kingdoms of the South but in the homely land of the [[Shire]] itself, when the four hobbits of the [[Fellowship of the Ring]] returned home to find their country fallen under a petty tyranny. It is the last battle of the War, and the one in which the hobbits, grown in courage and hardened by their travels, freed their own people with their own hands.

== Background ==
While [[Frodo Baggins|Frodo]], [[Samwise Gamgee|Sam]], [[Merry]], and [[Pippin]] were abroad on the great errands of the war, the [[Shire]] had been seized and despoiled in their absence. The author of its ruin was [[Saruman]] -- the fallen wizard, now called Sharkey -- who, cast down from [[Isengard]] and stripped of his power but not his malice, had come to the Shire with his ruffians to take a mean revenge upon the hobbits whose kinsmen had been part of his downfall.

Under Saruman's hand and that of his servant [[Wormtongue|Gríma]], the Shire had been reduced to a grim and joyless place: trees felled, mills and ugly new buildings raised, food and goods hoarded and rationed, and the people cowed by ruffians and a regime of petty rules enforced by bullies and gatherers.

== The Uprising ==
The returning hobbits refused to bow. [[Merry]] and [[Pippin]], now seasoned warriors who had fought at [[Isengard]] and on the [[Battle of the Pelennor Fields|Pelennor]], roused the hobbits of the Shire to arms. At the [[Battle of Bywater]] the gathered hobbits routed and destroyed the ruffians who had oppressed them -- the last battle fought in the Shire and a decisive one.

[[Frodo Baggins|Frodo]], who had returned changed and weary of violence, sought to spare lives and showed mercy even to [[Saruman]], offering him the chance to depart. But Saruman, scorning the mercy, was slain at the door of [[Bag End]] by his own wretched servant [[Wormtongue|Gríma]], whom he had abused once too often -- and Gríma in turn was shot down by the hobbits.

== Aftermath ==
With the ruffians defeated and Saruman dead, the hobbits set about healing their wounded land. [[Samwise Gamgee|Sam]] used the gift given him by the Lady [[Galadriel]] -- a box of earth from her garden and a single silver seed -- to restore the Shire, and the following year brought a harvest and a beauty unmatched in memory, the mallorn tree of Galadriel's gift blooming in the [[Party Field]].

== Significance ==
The Scouring of the Shire shows that the great evil of the age reached even into the smallest and most sheltered of lands, and that no place could remain wholly untouched by the war. It is also the proving of the hobbits, who return as leaders and deliverers of their own people, and a meditation on the cost of war and the labor of healing that follows victory.

[[Category:Lord of the Rings]]
[[Category:Events]]

Scouring of the Shire - Revision history

Archmaesterjimmie: House/group/event article, book-canon (Corvus)