Quote Originally Posted by ecarden View Post
More broadly, I'm not sure where the notion that the Harfoot's will be 'civilized' by an exterior force is coming from? My assumption is that they're going to 'earn' the Shire through some form of service/assistance, whether to our star-fallen giant, or some other power and that when they're able to settle safely in a secure location, then the need to leave people behind will fall away and with it the tradition.
Hobbits don't migrate to the Shire until the middle of the Third Age, thousands of years after this series, and for good reason, since the area is occupied for quite some time by the heirs of Elendil ruling the kingdom of Arnor until the efforts of the Nazgul bring it down. Aragorn was of the lineage of the kings of Arnor, and had claim to Gondor because Arnor had seniority as a kingdom over Gondor, as the latter was founded by Elendil's sons.

It is possible that the Harfoots could do something to earn title to land during this series though. Prior to migrating west, Tolkien's works hint that they lived in the river valley of the Anduin as this is where Smeagol/Gollum lived in his youth. This region, which corresponds to the territory the Fellowship travels through on the Anduin after leaving Lorien, lies to the north of Gondor and is hypothetically sufficiently within the writ of Isildur that he could award it to them following the victory of the Last Alliance.