Through all the wood the sound did thrill,
and all the wild beasts that there are
in joy approached him from afar;
and all the birds that might be found
there perched on bough and bramble round
to hear his harping to the end,
such melodies he there did blend;
and when he laid his harp aside,
no bird or beast would near him bide.

—Sir Orfeo, trans. J.R.R. Tolkien

Bree-landers know of this ‘Totter’ as a suspicious character, one of the dissolute Ranger sorts who tracks mud into the Inn of the Prancing Pony and then leaves as quickly as they came, never stating their purpose—though an excellent teller of the old stories little remembered by the Men of Bree. Some think him a cheapjack for his great interest in trinkets and ancient refuse fished out of rivers, thus the epithet he has been given.

His Dúnedain kinsmen know him as Bronnardh, a man of high degree whose folk are thought to be more mingled with the House of Haleth than most; anciently, they were high lords of Arthedain and, before the sinking of Westernesse, loyal vassals of the Lords of Andúnië, though conservative to their Halethian ways. Raised in the Angle and then fostered in Imladris, Bronnardh was known as a fine scholar and competent swordsman who took interest in the histories of Arnor’s three successor kingdoms and the defense of that heritage, felling would-be tomb robbers and studying the craftsmanship, philosophy, and literature of the Dúnedain. It was a result of this scholarly nature that he often preferred solitude in the wilderness with a book of lore over the company of his kin. But when roused to entertain, he too was known for his harping, his style marked by much ornamentation and his evident preference for ballads of the Sea and of Westernesse’s fallen glory. 

Within the past decade, however, tragedies have befallen him—his closest kinsmen perished in a fire; the woman he was to wed broke off their engagement; and a disastrous mission left many of his friends dead at the hands of brigands, himself captured for a span of a year. He remains committed to his duty of protecting Númenórean patrimony, but those who once knew him recognise well the shift in his behavior: he has grown doubtful of the worth of their aims, questioning the role of the Dúnedain and the hopelessness of their struggle. Though once he delighted in the songs of the past, they seem now to bring him less joy, and when he sings, ever does his mind seem to turn to songs of ancient catastrophes—of petty conflict between Cardolan and Rhudaur, of the downfall of Númenor, and of the doom of the children of Húrin.