In their earliest folk tales, hobbits appear to have inhabited the Valley of Anduin, between Mirkwood and the Misty Mountains. According to "The Lord of the Rings", they had lost the genealogical details of how they are related to the Big People. While situated in the valley of the Anduin River, the hobbits lived close by the Éothéod, the ancestors of the Rohirrim, and this led to some contact between the two. As a result, many old words and names in "Hobbitish" are derivatives of words in Rohirric.