This sounds like a snippet from Tolkien's book "The Lord of the Rings". I think that this was spoken by an innkeeper when the group from the Shire took lodgings for the night. The innkeeper was busy and gossiping to the group. The sentence set the scene for the group to encounter Aragorn. The unusual nature of the sentence made them uneasy by its non-specific nature. The sentence basically means that there are strangers being seen in the area, but no one has more complete details about the strangers.

It basically means "people are talking about strange people living in different countries." Though to be honest I've never really heard that used normally.