I met a lot of things on the way that astonished me.
Tom Bombadil I knew already; but I had never been to Bree. Strider sitting in the corner at the inn was a shock, and I had no more idea who he was than had Frodo.
The Mines of Moria had been a mere name; and of Lothlorien no word had reached my mortal ears till I came there.
Far away I knew there were the Horselords on the confines of an ancient Kingdom of Men, but Fanghorn Forest was an unforeseen adventure. I had never heard of the House of Eorl nor of the Stewards of Gondor.
Most disquieting of all, Saruman had never been revealed to me, and I was as mystefied as Frodo at Gandalf's failure to appear on September 22.
―J.R.R. Tolkien, in a letter to W.H. Auden, June 7, 1955
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