Bill the Pony

Bought at Bree

When the ponies of Frodo's party were driven off in the night at Bree, the only beast that could be bought in the whole village was a bony, ill-used pony belonging to Bill Ferny. Ferny demanded twelve silver pennies for him, three times his worth, and Barliman Butterbur paid it out of his own pocket in apology for the hobbits' loss. The pony was not expected to survive the journey. Sam took charge of him at once, and the hobbits named him Bill, after the man who had starved him. By the time they reached Weathertop he had already improved, and by Rivendell he had become a different animal, and was Sam's devoted friend.

The Fellowship's pony

In Rivendell Bill grew fat and glossy in Elrond's stables. When the Company set out southward at midwinter, Gandalf allowed Sam to bring him as the baggage-beast, over some doubts, and Bill carried the Fellowship's gear across Hollin, up the shoulders of Caradhras in the snow, and back down again. He was the only member of the Company who did not need to be argued into the road.

At the West-gate of Moria, on January 13, T.A. 3019, Gandalf ruled that the pony could not go into the mines. Sam was inconsolable, and Gandalf laid on Bill a few words of guard and guiding that he said would help him find his way. Then the Watcher in the Water came out of the pool. Bill screamed and bolted along the shore, and the Company fled into the gate without him.

The road home

Bill did find his way. He went north through the wild and came at last to Bree, where Butterbur took him in and kept him. When the four hobbits came back through Bree in the autumn of T.A. 3019, Sam found him in the stable, and Bill was as pleased as Sam. He carried Sam's baggage back into the Shire, and at the Brandywine Bridge, when Bill Ferny, now a ruffian of Sharkey's, tried to face down the returning travellers, the pony lashed out and kicked him, sending him running. Sam kept him ever after, and he lived out his days at Hobbiton.

In the tale

Bill is one of the small mercies of the story. He is the only animal in the Fellowship, and his bond with Sam is the first thing that shows what sort of person Sam is: someone who cannot see a creature mistreated and not put it right. His safe return is one of the details that make the ending of the book feel like a homecoming.

Returned to Bree on his own after the West-gate, recovered by Sam in the autumn of T.A. 3019, and lived in the Shire.