The Lord of the Rings the other Rings of Power as the ultimate weapon in his campaign to conquer and rule all of Middle-earth. From quiet beginnings in the Shire, a hobbit land not unlike the English countryside, the story ranges across Middle-earth, following the course of the War of the Ring through the eyes of its characters, not only the hobbits Frodo Baggins, Samwise "Sam" Gamgee, Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck and Peregrin "Pippin" Took, but also the hobbits' chief allies and travelling companions: the Men, Aragorn, a Ranger of the North, and Boromir, a Captain of Gondor; Gimli, a Dwarf warrior; Legolas Greenleaf, an Elven
Meriadoc Brandybuck Black Gate, while in the book he remained in Minas Tirith to heal from the wound he received when assisting in the killing of the Witch-king of Angmar and was instrumental in the romance between Faramir and Éowyn. In the prefaces and appendices to "The Lord of the Rings", Tolkien employed the conceit that he was the modern translator of a unique manuscript, the "Red Book of Westmarch", and that his stories of Middle-earth derived from that. In this guise of translator, he maintained that the character's real name was not "Meriadoc Brandybuck" but rather "Kalimac Brandagamba". This was said