lewrockwell | The Shire had changed dramatically for the worse when Frodo, Sam, and their companions returned from Mordor.
The hobbit-folk had previously enjoyed a society largely free of the
affliction called “government.” Frodo and his friends were mortified to
encounter a regimented dystopia in which the shire-riffs –who had been
peripheral under the old order – were enforcing an ever-growing list of
rules handed down by an unseen “Chief.” The shire-riffs themselves
weren’t intimidating, but behind them lurked a band of “Ruffians” who
looked upon the inhabitants of the Shire with disdain and were prepared
to inflict mortal harm on anybody who resisted the Chief’s decrees.
Farms and homes, once self-sufficient, had been ravaged by officials
called “Gatherers” and “Sharers,” although the bounty that was gathered
in the Chief’s name was never shared with the populace. The verdant
countryside, which once thrived under the husbandry of private
landowners, had been despoiled by those acting on the “authority” of the
new government. Any residents of the Shire who resisted that
“authority” were hauled away to “lock holes.”
Furious over what had been done to their home and steeled by their experience in battle, Frodo and his companions sounded the tocsin
and organized the Hobbit-folk to “scour the Shire.” This meant driving
the Ruffians and their adherents from the land, including any
shire-riffs who remained loyal to the usurpers. Frodo gave strict
instructions to avoid bloodshed where possible. The Chief – as it
happens, Saruman in disguise – would not relinquish power without
extracting a price in blood.
The “scouring,” as portrayed by Tolkien in “Return of the King,” is distant kindred to Homer’s account of Odysseus dealing with the interlopers who had plundered his home and sought to seize control of Ithaca
during his lengthy absence. “I will not stay my hand till I have paid
all of you in full,” Odysseus told the men who had sought to steal
everything he cherished, including Penelope. “You must fight, or flee
for your lives.”
In dealing with the shire-riffs – or, to use the more familiar term,
sheriffs – who had become oppressors, Frodo, and his friends were more
merciful than Odysseus and Telemachus had been. As Sauron had expected,
many of those who had been public servants found it intoxicating to
exercise power over the “little folk.” Others, disgusted by what they
had become, threw away their badges of authority and were welcomed into
the righteous rebellion against the Chief and his enforcers.
