The last recorded Thain was his son, Faramir Took I, the thirty-fourth to hold the title of Shire-thain. įrom Isumbras I, the line of the Took Shire-thains continued unbroken to the time of the War of the Ring and beyond with Peregrin I when thainship became also a Counsellor office of the North Kingdom. Indeed, there was no "government" in the Shire as the clans managed their own affairs. 2912), the title ended up as nothing more than nominal. īut as the times of emergency in the Shire were rare, as the need for the muster and the moot (the only battle was fought in T.A. Īs a rule, the Thain was also the head of the Took clan (known as "The Took") and the Great Smials, but the two offices were not identical one example illustrating the difference was the case of Thain Ferumbras III: He inherited the Thainship from his father, Fortinbras II, but his mother Lalia Clayhanger remained the head of the Tooks. With his departure, the Thainship passed to a new line, the preeminent Tooks, and specifically to Isumbras Took I. The twelfth Thain, one Gorhendad Oldbuck, left the Shire and crossed the River Brandywine to found Buckland. īucca and his descendants, a family known as the Oldbucks, served as Shire-thain for twelve generations. In origin a military office, Thainship passed strictly through the male line. They remedied this by choosing a new leader from among themselves, Bucca of the Marish, who was given the title thain, a word simply meaning "chief" in their dialect. 1975, leaving the Shire-hobbits without a ruler. Ultimately, Arthedain fell to the forces of Angmar, and its last King, Arvedui, was lost in T.A. The spelling "thane" appears in the verse from “The Muster of Rohan” which begins "From dark Dunharrow in the dim morning/with thane and captain rode Thengel’s son."įor nearly four hundred years after its foundation, the Shire had been part of the lands of Arthedain, and under the rule of that land's King. The word is derived from Old English þegn, which meant a person holding lands from the king in exchange for military service. Thain is an alternative spelling, found in Middle English texts, of the Early Modern English word thane.
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