It is said that our people once lived deep within the mountains. The cold mist gave us secrecy. The snow capped passes gave us safety as the Wildermen guarded fiercely the homes under the ice capped peaks.
It was long before my time when we made our home in the rugged cold, it was when the goblins did not feast on bones deep beneath the Earth and the Wolfmen did not dare to rally their packs. It was before we were known as Beornings. It was in the old days and none save the strange Elves in the wood remember it.
We do not live there now. Such a rugged cold only grows to bite harsher in these times. Now the Goblins drum in their dark homes deep beneath rock and stone, now the Wolfmen rally their howls unchallenged in the cold mists. Even now the even proud mountains tremble as giants stomp across the very passes our ancestors guarded once with axe and claw.
But we live in a more comfortable place now, and it keeps us safe. It is The Vales of Anduin that we call home, beneath the great oaks and pines, over hill, and heath do we roam. Our territory spans from the fen where a king once fell and stretches as far North as other kings once lived. And the great Anduin flows through it all. But the homes of old kings are ruins now and their history is for others to study. We care only for our home, our land. Standing under the long shadows of the Misty Mountains, at the borders of the vast Greenwood where the Elves live. That is our home, that is what we have etched into the world.
We are a reserved people, it is through a deep bond to family and friends that we carve out our survival in lands wild and untamed. And to the Carrock and beauty of our lands we owe our survival. For we protect them and we alone.
So why is it that we few have come down from the mountains, passed through Elven forests and desolate moors and have come to stay in an unlikely place. A place tamed with farming fields with people short and simple?
Family.
Every one of us matters.
