The Trolls ate 1 1/2 Villages?

[afro-elf]

In the Hobbit it mentions that since the 3 Trolls came down from the mountains they
( or at least one) had eaten one and half villages. ( worth of people?) Where did the victims come from? He mentions man-flesh. So, are they're villages near by? Or just travelers? If travelers who could they be?

AE

[Lefty Scaevola]

No information is given on said villages, but certainly there would be many small farming communities scattered about in the arable lands between the Shire and the Misty Mountains. The closest we get to a metion of them is here and references to 'men out of the wild'.

[afro-elf]

Thanks for the reply.

AE

[GrayMouser]

IIRC The Hobbit doesn't mention Bree, though they are so complacent in LoTR that it wouldn't seem they'd been ravaged by trolls a generation before.

There were also substantial settlements of Dunedain:

"Tolkien actually made a note, now filed among his papers at Marquette University, which stated that Aragorn’s people lived in the Angle, between the Bruinen and Mitheithel rivers. The Mitheithel river, as it turns out, does lie about 100 leagues (or 300 miles) east of the Shire"

Source: Xenite.Org (http://s.tt/18N6h)

And, as Lefty suggests, there were probably scattered settlements - a single family or a few huts at most- of people related to the Men of Bree.

I think the quote is "you've et a village and a half between you" so there may be some exaggeration.

Also note they're roasting "fat valley sheep", which would seem to indicate domesticated animals.

[GrayMouser]

From Language and Peoples of the Third Age Appendix

Alien, too, or only remotely akin, was the language of the Dunlendings. These were a remnant of the peoples that had dwelt in the vales of the White Mountains in ages past. The Dead Men of Dunharrow were of their kin. But in the Dark Years others had removed to the southern dales of the Misty Mountains; and thence some had passed into the empty lands as far north as the Barrow-downs. From them came the Men of Bree; but long before these had become subjects of the North Kingdom of Arnor and had taken up the Westron tongue.

So, like the Bree folk they had been there before the Kings and were still there after.

[afro-elf]

Here is a link to the same discussion elsewhere: http://cubicle7.clicdev.com/f/index.php?trk=cubicle7&showtopic=3036&st=0&#entry26793

[Lefty Scaevola]

I suspect there are also various populations left from the Kingdom of Arnor and its sucessors, in addition to the remaining Dunedain. From somewhere in the HoME I recall that there were various human populations related to the Three Houses of the Edain before the founding of the Numenorean Kingdoms in Exile Iin addition to the Numenorean port enclaves) and these formed the bulk of the population of the Kingdoms in exile with a mixed aristocracy of Numenoreans and prexisting lordships.

[Valandil]

Part of the quote is also, "... since we came down from the mountains"

This begs the question - how long had it BEEN since they came down from the mountains? Did they just come down for a few weeks? For a season? Or maybe... a few years?

Eleven years before this - Aragorn's grandfather, Arador - was 'taken (and killed) by trolls' in this general vicinity. Although they're played up for a children's tale in this account - could the culprits in the Arador case have been William, Bert and Tom?

Of course - the statement is, I think, primarily one of hyperbole and chiding over gluttony. One wouldn't think that trolls would consider it a bad trait, but perhaps we misjudge them. ;)