Bree is available in PDF

[Stormcrow]

"The folk of Archet are skilled bowmen..."

Seriously? You put "archers" in "Archet"?

[Southron]

I must say that I did laugh when I read this:

"...the Hobbit family of Mudbanks come from Combe, and
they are so direly dull they could make an Elf-child despair
of life."

[zedturtle]

"The folk of Archet are skilled bowmen..."

Seriously? You put "archers" in "Archet"?

There's every chance that Mr. Miller's great-grandfather owned a mill.

[Jon Hodgson]

Whatever next? Hobbits in Hobbiton?

[zedturtle]

Whatever next? Hobbits in Hobbiton?

Madness!

[Stormcrow]

The word Archet comes from the Celtic-derived word chet "wood, forest." Hence the Chetwood. The ar- element is believed to come from a Celtic word meaning "nearby." Thus Archet means "by the wood," and has nothing to do with archers, which word comes from arc, the kind of curve arrows fly along.

Putting the only mentioned Bree-land bowmen in Archet because the name sounds like archer... Poor Tollers!

[Falenthal]

People that use to hunt in the woods and fine archers are usually (at least in fantasy worlds) very associated. Could be a more mundane reason behind it.

[Kirppu]

I took it as a little bit of humour and Tolkien style play-on-words type mischief, 'yes it means by the wood and wood wood etc but lets make them archers too'. I would be really surprised if they didn't know the roots of these words. There's a lot of mood suggested by this though too and links to their history in the wars against Carn Dum. I think a Men of Bree character could easily come from Archet, having a proud heritage of bowmen to the kings of Norbury and being thought a bit too friendly with Rangers and a bit weird to begin with.

[zedturtle]

There's also a bit of fun with the archaic meanings of Archet, wood/forest/orchard (I.e. what you use to make bows and arrows) and the French meaning of 'bow, but the one you use to play a violin'.

One could imagine that the naming of the villages and their etymologies occupies much time in the common room of The Pony.

[Stormcrow]

OHNOMUSTRATIONALIZE!!!

They certainly know where the name Bree comes from; they correctly say it means hill. And they clearly know what a combe is. So maayyyyyybeee they knew that Archet has nothing to do with archers but wanted to have a joke, but that sounds like a post-gotcha rationalization. Jon fell into the trap, and he's one of the writers. AND THERE ARE STILL NO STADDLES IN STADDLE!

As for Bree-landers making games of naming things: those names have apparently been around longer than the Shire. I think Tolkien gave them Celtic-derived names to make them parallel Celtic-derived place names in England, which survived the Anglo-Saxon and Norman invasions. The Shire's place-names are all newer, Anglo-Saxon and more modern English words stuck together, while Bree-land has some older words. I believe the relative ages of Bree and the Shire were brought up in the very first draft portion of The Lord of the Rings that brought the hobbits to the Bree, so the question of ancient versus modern was in Tolkien's head when he named these places.