Bucklanders
- "And no wonder they're queer, if they live on the wrong side of the Brandywine River, and right agin the Old Forest. That's a dark bad place, if half the tales be true."
"You're right, Dad! Not that the Brandybucks of Buckland live in the Old Forest; but they're a queer breed, seemingly. They fool about with boats on that big river-and that isn't natural." - ― Daddy Twofoot and Gaffer Gamgee[1]
The inhabitants of Buckland on the eastern borders of the Shire, derive from the folk of the Eastfarthing who followed Gorhendad Oldbuck across the Brandywine, and were mainly Stoors.[2]
The Bucklanders acknowledged the Master of Buckland as their leader. The Brandybucks, descendants of Gorhendad who founded Buckland, were considered the most important family of the Bucklanders; the Masters had a strong Fallohidish strain in their blood, it is said, and this made them more adventurous than other Bucklanders.[2]
While Hobbits are known to be afraid of rivers and boats, and few could swim (let alone of the Sea, a token of fear and death for them, and very few had ever saw it) the Bucklanders's boats were often seen on the Brandywine River that bordered their land.[1]
On the eastern border of Buckland lay the dangerous Old Forest, and the constant threat of the dark trees made the Bucklanders somewhat hardier than typical hobbits.
