Editing Old Forest (section)

===Hobbits and the Old Forest===

In one of his letters, Tolkien explained that "the Old Forest was hostile to two-legged creatures because of the memory of many injuries."<ref name="Letter 339" group=T/> When Gorhendad Oldbuck and his clan of Hobbits settled [[Buckland (Middle-earth)|Buckland]], they began to encroach upon the Old Forest, thus re-awakening the hostility that had first been aroused back in the [[Second Age]]. The settlers soon found themselves under threat from the forest. They felt that the trees of the Old Forest were in some manner 'awake', and were hostile. The trees swayed when there was no wind and whispered at night, and they daunted intruding hobbits by tripping them, dropping branches, and driving them deeper into the forest. Deep within the Old Forest was the [[Withywindle]] Valley, the root of all the terrors of the forest; it could be a dark, evil and malevolent place.<ref name="Old Forest" group=T/>

The Bucklanders therefore planted and maintained a great Hedge (also known as the [[High Hay]]) all the way along Buckland's eastern border, which ran right along the edge of the forest. This had occurred "many generations" before the War of the Ring.<ref name="Conspiracy Unmasked" group=T>{{harvnb|Tolkien|1954a}}, book 1, ch. 5 "A Conspiracy Unmasked"</ref>

However at length (but still "long ago" before the War of the Ring), the Bucklanders found that the Hedge was under "attack" by the forest. Trees began to plant themselves against the Hedge and lean over it. To counter this attack, the hobbits cleared a narrow strip of land on the outside of the Hedge, felling and burning many trees. They cleared a space some way inside the forest; this later became known as the '''Bonfire Glade'''.<ref name="Old Forest" group=T/>

The ruling family of Buckland, the Brandybucks, owned a private gate in the Hedge, through which they occasionally dared the threshold of the Old Forest.<ref name="Conspiracy Unmasked" group=T/><ref group=T>{{harvnb|Tolkien|1954a}}, Prologue §1</ref> They also went in to maintain the cleared strip, which was still in existence during the [[War of the Ring]]. At least one non-Brandybuck visited the Old Forest: [[Farmer Maggot]].<ref name="Conspiracy Unmasked" group=T/>

The heir of the Brandybucks during the War of the Ring was [[Merry Brandybuck]]: a member of the [[Fellowship of the Ring (characters)|Fellowship of the Ring]]. He had been into the Old Forest "several times", and had a key to the gate. On Merry's advice, [[Frodo Baggins]] (the bearer of the [[One Ring]]) decided to attempt a traversal of the dreadful forest in order to evade the pursuit of [[Nazgûl|Black Riders]].<ref name="Conspiracy Unmasked" group=T/><ref name="Old Forest" group=T/>