Middle-earth seen by the barbarians: The complete collection including a previously unpublished essay

Codex Regius

Middle-earth seen by the barbarians

3
^rd
, extended edition

Codex Regius
Middle-earth

seen by the barbarians

Non-fiction

3
^nd
, extended edition

Wiesbaden/Ljubljana 2016

Published by: © 2016 Codex RegiusOther collected essays from Lalaith’s Middle-earth Science Pages: (see lalaithmesp.blogspot.de )

  The Moon in ‘The Hobbit’ (2014)

  Words of Westernesse (2014)

  Dynasties of Middle-earth (2015)

All rights reserved.

Authors: Codex Regius (https://codex-regius.eu)Contact: [email protected]    Cover and layout: Codex RegiusAndreas Möhn/Metka Klemenćić, Mühlborngasse 1, 65199 Wiesbaden

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Preface

In no case do you get one answer which is universally accepted because it is true: in each case you get a number of totally incompatible answers, one of which is finally adopted as the result of a physical struggle. History is written by the winners.

(George Orwell, “As I Please”,

4 February 1944)

J.R.R. Tolkien has frequently been accused of racist attitudes. Some critics have argued that ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and related books put an uncomfortable emphasis on bloodline, ‘mingling’ and ‘dwindling’, ‘High Men’ and ‘lesser men’, tall white men with grey eyes on the good side and dark, ‘swarthy’ or ‘black’ men on the evil side. Not to mention the author’s notorious comment about orcs looking like the ‘most repulsive Mongol-type’.

But Tolkien was of course well aware of the consequences of racial politics, having survived both World Wars, and there is in fact much evidence found in his texts that the ethnic notions even of the ‘good’ Men of Middle-earth would often have sad consequences. Well-known examples are how the Dúnedain fight the Kin-strife over their idea of racial purity or how the Númenóreans rout the natives along the river Gwathló for no other reason than that they oppose large-scale ecological destruction.

Much more about the darker side of ethnic politics in Middle-earth may be discovered. What would the history of Arda look like if it was written by those who had lost the conflict: minor Mannish peoples whom history had passed over, dismissing them as wild and cowardly barbarians or enemies who knew not sense or reason?

‘The Lord of the Rings’, ‘The Silmarillion’ and the books that followed tell us much about the epic fight of the Elves and their human allies - the Edain, the Númenoreans, the Dúnedain and the Men of Rohan - against the Dark Lords and their subjects. But we hear little about how the lesser peoples perceived this struggle: those Mannish folks who sometimes just happened to dwell on the wrong side of the border or wisely tried to stay out of the conflicts fought during their lifetime. Their story was never compiled and only shows up in short references, spread over many different sources. Yet it is worth to do these peoples justice and to extract from the available material what can be found of their lost history.

‘Middle-earth seen by the barbarians’ developed from a series of online essays that I once published on ‘Lalaith’s Middle-earth Science Pages’. For this printed version I updated the contents and added images and illustrations, and I revised the structure of the chapters so that you may comfortably immerse into some lesser known aspects of the complex and diversified history of Man in Middle-earth. This omnibus includes Vol. 1 of the original ‘Middle-earth seen by the barbarians’ on the history of the indigenous peoples in Eriador and Gondor - the Middle Men - and Vol. 2 on the Men of Darkness in the east and south and the third Realm in Exile: the lordship of Umbar, now with full-colour maps and, for the first time, including data from the original Baynes map of Middle-earth. As a bonus, a previously unpublished essay on the Men of Angmar and the Hillmen of Rhúdaur is included in this new edition.

I shall assume that you are familiar with the main corpus of the stories of Middle-earth: ‘The Lord of the Rings’, ‘The Silmarillion’ and ‘Unfinished Tales’; some additional material is found in ‘The Peoples of Middle-earth’. Quotes from these and other sources are referenced with abbreviations that indicate the title of the source text. For some books, the quoted chapter is also included. For example,
LP
refers to ‘The Languages and Peoples of the Third Age’, otherwise known as Appendix F of ‘The Lord of the Rings’.

If you are interested in more discussions of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fictional world of Middle-earth, check out Codex Regius’ other volumes: ‘Words of Westernesse’, ’Dynasties of Middle-earth’ and ‘The Moon in “The Hobbit”’.

More essays on Tolkien’s works that have been released for free are available on ‘Lalaith’s Middle-earth Science Pages’:

http://lalaithmesp.blogspot.de/

List of Abbreviations

AA  ‘The Annals of Aman’, in: The War of the Jewels, 1994.

AD  ‘Aelfwine and Dírhaval’ in: The War of the Jewels, 1994.

AE  ‘Aldarion and Erendis’ in: Unfinished Tales, 1980.

AF  ‘Atrabeth Finrod ah Andreth’, in: Morgoth’s Ring, 1993.

AG  ‘Of Tuor and his Arrival in Gondolin’ in: Unfinished Tales, 1980.

AI  J.R.R. Tolkien - Artist and Illustrator, by W. Hammond and Chr. Scull, 1995.

AK  ‘The Akallabêth’ in: The Silmarillion, 1977.

AL  ‘The Appendix on Languages’, in: The Peoples of Middle earth, 1996.

ATB  The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, 1961

CE  ‘Cirion and Éorl’ in: Unfinished Tales, 1980.

CG  The Complete Guide to Middle-earth, by R. Foster, 1978.

Co  The Tolkien Companion, by J. E. A. Tyler, 1976.

DA  ‘The Drowning of Anadune’, in: Sauron Defeated, 1991.

DM  ‘Of Dwarves and Men’, in: The Peoples of Middle earth, 1996.

DN  ‘A Description of Númenor’ in: Unfinished Tales, 1980.

EL  ‘Tar-Elmar’ in: The Peoples of Middle earth, 1996.

FI  ‘The Battles at the Fords of Isen’ in: Unfinished Tales, 1980.

FR  The Fellowship of the Ring, 1965.

GA  ‘The Grey Annals’ in: The War of the Jewels, 1994.

GC  ‘The History of Galadriel and Celeborn’ in: Unfinished Tales, 1980.

GF  ‘The Disaster of the Gladden Fields’ in: Unfinished Tales, 1980.

GL  ‘The Grammar and Lexicon of the Gnomish Tongue’ = Gilson, Ch. et al.: Parma Eldalamberon 11

GN  ‘Guide to the Names in the Lord of the Rings’, in: A Tolkien Compass, by J. Lobdell, 1974

H  The Hobbit, 1937/1966 (chapters given in Roman numerals)

HA  ‘The History of the Akallabêth’, in: The Peoples of Middle earth, 1996.

HE  ‘The Heirs of Elendil’, in: The Peoples of Middle earth, 1996

HH  ‘Narn i Hín Húrin’ in: Unfinished Tales, 1980.

HH1  ‘The History of the Hobbit, Part 1’, by John E. Rateliff, 2007

HH2  ‘The History of the Hobbit, Part 2’, by John E. Rateliff, 2008

HoMe
  The History of Middle-earth. Vol. I to XII.

HR  ‘The Hunt for the Ring’ in: Unfinished Tales, 1980.

KR  ‘Annals of the Kings and Rulers’, Appendix A in: The Return of the King, 1965.

L#  Letter No. #, in: The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, 1981.

LE  ‘The Line of Elros’ in: Unfinished Tales, 1980.

LP  ‘The Languages and Peoples of the Third Age’, Appendix F in: The Return of the King, 1965.

LQ  ‘The Later Quenta Silmarillion’ in: The War of the Jewels, 1994.

LR  The Lord of the Rings, 1965 ff.

LW  ‘Last Writings: The Five Wizards’, in: The Peoples of Middle earth, 1996.

MR  Morgoth’s Ring, The History of Middle-earth, Vol. X, 1993.

MT  ‘Myths Transformed’, in: Morgoth’s Ring, 1993.

NC  ‘The Notion Club Papers’, in: Sauron Defeated, 1991.

NE  ‘Of the Naugrim and the Edain’, in: The War of the Jewels, 1994

NW  ‘Noldorin Word-lists’, in: Gilson, Ch. et al.: Parma Eldalamberon 13