Chapter Summary
In the final volume of the story, the five travellers (Gandalf, the wizard, and Hobbits Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Meriadoc Brandybuck, and Peregrin Took) stay overnight at The Prancing Pony in Bree where they catch up on the last year's local events with proprietor Barliman Butterbur. They learn that thuggish strangers from the South have come to settle in and around Bree, much to the discomfort of the peace-loving Men and Hobbits indigenous to the region. Barliman is impressed to discover that Strider has been crowned King of Gondor.
Gandalf parts ways with the Hobbits on the way to the Shire to have a long talk with Tom Bombadil. Gandalf assures the four that their experiences in the War of the Ring will be sufficient to settle the troubles.
When they discover that the evil they had fought in Mordor had come home to roost, they rouse the Shire and are able to kill or drive off the evil-doers that infested it. With the assistance of Farmer Cotton, Merry and Pippin lead the Battle of Bywater, the last battle in the War of the Ring, in which 19 Hobbits die.
Ultimately, the returning Hobbits find that the thugs' ringleader is the fallen wizard Saruman, who has taken up residence at Frodo's former home, Bag End, along with his servant Wormtongue. Though the Hobbits decide to allow the pair to leave the Shire unharmed, Saruman meets his end shortly thereafter, when Wormtongue avenges his abuse at the hands of his master by cutting Saruman's throat; Wormtongue is in turn killed by the Hobbits, who shoot him down with arrows as he tries to flee. An eerie column of mist arises from Saruman's corpse and is blown away in the wind, a scene reminiscent of Sauron's demise. Frodo covers the suddenly shrivelled skull of Saruman and turns away.
Read more about this topic: The Scouring Of The Shire
Famous quotes containing the words chapter and/or summary:
“When one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language.”
—John Donne (c. 1572–1631)
“Product of a myriad various minds and contending tongues, compact of obscure and minute association, a language has its own abundant and often recondite laws, in the habitual and summary recognition of which scholarship consists.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)