Meriadoc Brandybuck

Lineage

Meriadoc was born in T.A. 2982 (S.R. 1382), the only child of Saradoc Brandybuck, later Master of Buckland, and Esmeralda Took, sister of Paladin. He was thus heir to Brandy Hall, the great warren of the Stoorish Brandybucks on the east bank of the Brandywine, and at the same time a grandson of the Tooks with their Fallohide streak. Frodo's mother Primula had been Saradoc's aunt, and the young Merry grew up hero-worshipping the older cousin who had once lived at Brandy Hall. He was a Bucklander through and through: he could handle a boat, knew the hedge and the edge of the Old Forest, and had none of the Hobbiton distaste for the unfamiliar.

The conspiracy

Merry was the practical genius of Frodo's departure. Years before, as a boy, he had seen Bilbo vanish with a ring and had quietly kept the knowledge. When Frodo began to talk of leaving, Merry organised a conspiracy with Pippin, Sam and Fredegar Bolger to find out what he intended and make sure he did not go alone. He bought the house at Crickhollow as a blind, packed the ponies, and when Frodo arrived there in September 3018 with the Black Riders behind him, Merry laid out the whole plan and led the party out through the Hedge into the Old Forest before dawn.

In the Forest he was swallowed by Old Man Willow and freed by Tom Bombadil. On the Barrow-downs he lay under the wight's spell and woke with a strange memory of the men of Carn Dûm; from the barrow-hoard Tom gave each hobbit a long dagger of ancient Westernesse. Merry carried his to the Pelennor. At Bree it was Merry who went out for air and saw the Black Riders in the street, and was found lying in the road, touched by the Black Breath. He went on to Rivendell and, with Pippin, insisted on a place in the Fellowship.

Fangorn and Isengard

On 26 February 3019, at Parth Galen, Merry and Pippin were seized by the Uruk-hai of Saruman and carried at a run across Rohan towards Isengard. Merry, wounded in the head, kept his wits; when Éomer's Riders surrounded the Orcs on the eaves of Fangorn, the two hobbits cut their bonds on a dropped blade and crawled into the forest. There they met Treebeard, drank the Ent-draughts that made them the tallest hobbits in history, and sat through the Entmoot. Their tale of Saruman's treachery was the spark that roused the Ents, and Merry and Pippin rode on Treebeard's shoulders to the wreck of Isengard. Sitting on the broken gate amid the flotsam of the flood, smoking Longbottom Leaf from Saruman's stores, they received Gandalf, Aragorn and Théoden with lunch.

Esquire of Rohan

Merry was taken with the old king at once. At Dunharrow he offered Théoden his sword and was received as his esquire, sitting beside him at table and told the tales of the Mark. When the Rohirrim mustered for Gondor Théoden ordered him left behind for lack of a horse that could carry him fast enough. A young rider who called himself Dernhelm took him up in secret, and Merry rode the whole way to Minas Tirith without anyone but Dernhelm knowing.

On the Pelennor Fields on 15 March the Witch-king came down on Théoden and his horse crushed him. Merry, sick with terror, saw Dernhelm stand over the king and reveal herself as Éowyn. When the Nazgûl raised his mace against her, Merry crept behind him and drove the blade of the Barrow-downs into the back of his knee, and the ancient spell in the sword broke the sinews of his will so that Éowyn's stroke could finish him. Merry's arm went numb to the shoulder and the sword burned away. He crawled to Théoden in time for the king's farewell and was found afterwards wandering the streets of the city, half dead of the Black Breath, by Pippin. Aragorn called him back with athelas in the Houses of Healing, and he woke asking for supper and a pipe.

The Scouring

Merry rode back to Rohan with Théoden's bier, and Éomer named him Holdwine of the Mark and gave him the horn of the hoard of Scatha, an heirloom of Eorl's house. In the Shire that horn, blown at Bywater, raised the countryside. Of the four travellers Merry was the soldier: he organised the hobbits, planned the ambush at the Bywater Road, and killed the leader of the ruffians with his own hand in the battle of 3 November 3019.

Master of Buckland

He married Estella Bolger, Fredegar's sister, and in S.R. 1432 succeeded his father as Master of Buckland. In 1434 the King made him a Counsellor of the North-kingdom. Merry became the scholar of the Shire, writing the Herblore of the Shire, the Reckoning of Years and Old Words and Names in the Shire, and gathering in Brandy Hall the books and records on which the Shire's later knowledge of Rohan and Eriador depended. He visited Rohan and Gondor more than once. In 1484, when he was a hundred and two, Éomer sent for him a last time; Merry gave up the Mastership to his son, rode south with Pippin, was present at the king's death, and lived out his days in Gondor. The two hobbits were laid in Rath Dínen among the great of the city, and when Aragorn died their beds were set beside his.

Died in Gondor after S.R. 1484 and was laid in Rath Dínen beside Pippin, and later beside King Elessar.