Desktop Style

The Carrock: the fang. In its description it is a rather dramatic appearing place where the Eagles have deposited Gandalf, Dwarves and Hobbit. But from its heights, the Company travels most of the day to reach Beorn's Hall.

The name Beorn has been thoroughly researched by Tolkien scholars and is Old English for bear. Indeed, it also has its roots in the Norse, Bjorn, which connects to berserkers (something that will take on relevance later in the tale). We are also told that Beorn was a skin-changer who lived by day as a big and burly man, and by night he prowled as a bear. Tolkien paints him as gruff, abrupt, and very mysterious.

"The Hobbit mentions that dragons chased most men away from the northern lands, and it implies that the great bears of the northern mountains vanished when the giants appeared some time before the story unfolds. Beorn is associated with both bears and the northern men. If the skin-changers did not originate with Beorn then they must have lived in the mountains, and Gandalf does reveal he once overheard Beorn express the hope he would one day return to the mountains." *

The Company knows they are approaching Beorn's Hall when they encounter the large flower patches and his bee-pastures. Seems a likely setting for man and bear, does it not?

* - from Beorning Questions by Michael Marinez