The Lord of the Rings Nazgûl, to seize it. The story begins in the Shire, where the hobbit Frodo Baggins inherits the Ring from Bilbo Baggins, his cousin and guardian. Neither hobbit is aware of the Ring's nature, but Gandalf the Grey, a wizard and an old friend of Bilbo, suspects it to be Sauron's Ring. Seventeen years later, after Gandalf confirms his guess, he tells Frodo the history of the Ring and counsels him to take it away from the Shire. Frodo sets out, accompanied by his gardener, servant and friend, Samwise "Sam" Gamgee, and two cousins, Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck and Peregrin "Pippin" Took.
Meriadoc Brandybuck "faithful" and "friend". Tolkien used Old English to represent Rohirric, another of his fictional languages, so "Holdwine", like "Meriadoc Brandybuck", is not what the character was actually called. Tolkien does not give Merry's real Rohirric name. It has been asserted that the name "Meriadoc" could be in itself an allusion to the British nobleman Conan Meriadoc, legendary founder of the House of Rohan in Brittany, since the character Meriadoc is closely associated with Tolkien's kingdom of Rohan. But Tolkien, in response to a reader's inquiry, denied that the Breton name inspired the name of his fictional kingdom. Meriadoc Brandybuck Meriadoc