Middle-earth seen by the barbarians: The complete collection including a previously unpublished essay (25 page)

The integration of the territory into Gondor would hardly have been possible if an Elvish colony had been present in Dorwinion then; and if a diplomatic arrangement had been made between the Dúnedain and any Sindar, we would have heard about it. It may be conceivable that a previous Sindarin settlement had vanished long before the Dúnedain arrived, during the War of the Last Alliance or even sooner. But in that case it was unreasonable to assume that traditional vintage would have been continued from Elf to Man without interruption.

We have to conclude that wine-growing was introduced to Dorwinion by Dúnedain of the Third Age.

Its exposed and rather isolated location left it in a precarious position. Gondorian historians soberly state that ‘
the wide lands between Anduin and the Sea of Rhûn were however never effectively settled or occupied
.’
(
DM
)
Thus failing to kindle interest among the southern Dúnedain, Turambar and his successors finally won Northmen settlers who ‘
had increased greatly in the peace brought by the power of Gondor. The kings showed them favour, since they were the nearest in kin of lesser Men to the Dúnedain (being for the most part descendants of those peoples from whom the Edain of old had come
[i.e. the Northern Atani]
); and they gave them wide lands beyond Anduin south of Greenwood the Great, to be a defence against men of the East. For in the past the attacks of the Easterlings had come mostly over the plain between the Inland Sea and the Ash Mountains
.’

It was probably then that regular trade with the Northmen between Erebor and the Long Lake was first established, perhaps including even the route to the Wood-elves, and from that period may the unusual isolated Sindarin town name in the North derive, Esgaroth, otherwise known as Lake-town. But when the defence faded, no doubt, Dorwinion bore the first brunt of the Easterling attacks in the 13
^th
century that led to a major crisis.

‘
In the days of Narmacil I their attacks began again, though at first with little force; but it was learned by the regent that the Northmen did not always remain true to Gondor, and some would join forces with the Easterlings, either out of greed for spoil, or in the furtherance of feuds among their princes. Minalcar therefore in 1248 led out a great force, and between Rhovanion and the Inland Sea he defeated a large army of the Easterlings and destroyed all their camps and settlements east
[read: west]
of the Sea. He then took the name of Rómendacil
.’
(
KR
)

At that time, many northerners were already living in Gondor beyond Anduin and even in its main provinces, and ‘
the high men of Gondor already looked askance at the Northmen among them
’.
(
KR
)
The inhabitants of Dorwinion, however, are explicitly not reckoned as Northmen, nor were they Easterlings. On the contrary, it is recorded that other forces from Rhún, the Wainriders and later ‘
the Balchoth were destroying the last of their kin in the South
’ of Greenwood 
(
CE
)
and the Northmen ‘
never returned to their former homes
’. 
(
CE
)
Dorwinion only survived and remained inhabited, which would conflict with the above claims if its population comprised lots of Northmen. We have to conclude that the people of the east-march constituted a nation apart, mostly made of Dúnedain.

Men from Dorwinion actively supported the dispossessed Gondorian king Eldacar after he had fled ‘
to the North, to his kinsfolk in Rhovanion. Many gathered to him there, both of the Northmen in the service of Gondor, and of the Dúnedain of the northern parts of the realm
.’
(
KR
)
The reference to these Dúnedain supports the notion that the ‘northern parts’ refers mainly to Dorwinion! Their losses, too, were probably compensated ‘
by great numbers that came from Rhovanion. This mingling did not at first hasten the waning of the Dúnedain, as had been feared; but the waning still proceeded, little by little, as it had before.
’
(
KR
)
.

Dorwinion remained the east-march of Gondor for more than a millenium, until 1856 TA,
(
TY
)
when the Wainrider empire, stirred by the power of Dol Guldur, expanded to cut it effectively off from its mainland (see chapter
III.3.3
). ‘
The people of eastern and southern Rhovanion were enslaved; and the frontiers of Gondor were for that time withdrawn to the Anduin and the Emyn Muil
.’
(
KR
)
Not only ‘for that time’: They never returned to the Sea of Rhún.

Lost by Osgiliath, the exclave of Dorwinion will have decided to autonomously sustain itself. The then vacant throne may have been claimed by local nobility, still of mingled Dúnedain descent, who continued the traditions of their old lords like choosing ascension names from Elvish languages (unless this was a specific honour to their trading partners, ‘
the Sindarin Princes of the Silvan Elves’
, see
GC
). This tradition continued unbroken till the reign of Bladorthin in 2770 or even after, and Dorwinion was never subdued nor was its aristocracy routed or expelled by the Wainriders, the Balchoth or other subsequent Easterling invasions.

The survival of the little Dúnedainic exclave that vanished, unheeded, from Gondorian records may have been supported by the particularities of its territory. The military forces of Rhún, like the Wainriders, relied on chariots (as their name implies) or, more rarely, on cavalry units. This strategy is suited for level battlefields where such forces can take advantage of their mobility. But on sloped or elevated territory, both chariots and riders are in a disadvantage against resolute defending partisans. The hill range of southern Dorwinion was almost inaccessible to troops of this kind. There the defenders were able to hold out by guerilla warfare for a long time. No wonder then that the people of Dorwinion survived the turmoil of the late Third Age unscathed, enjoying long periods of peace and safe commerce. Even after they had gained sovereignty - welcome or not -, their land stayed so much westernised that, the only one among the states and realms between the Withered Heath and the Ash Mountains, it was still known by its Sindarin name.

Bladorthin, therefore, was most likely one of the most recent kings of Dorwinion, a man of mixed Dúnedain and Northmen descent. What did he do to earn particular honours as ‘the great king’?

Since he was attestedly alive in 2770, it is plausible to assume that he was on the throne already in 2758, that fatal year when Gondor and Rohan were under simultaneous attack by Easterlings and Southrons, when the Long Winter held Middle-earth in its grasp and when there was certainly need for the skills of a great king East of Anduin. Bladorthin may have gained his merits by defending Dorwinion against the Easterlings and by coping with the effects of the Long Winter: a feat that was certainly worth to be recalled in ballads and memories. When this had been achieved, around the year 2769, Bladorthin saw the need to replenish his armories with the skills of Dwarvish smiths so that he could further defend Dorwinion’s sovereignty against the persistent menace from Rhûn - a project that, owing to unforeseen circumstances, would remain unfinished.

If all that is true, then one question will remain unanswered. When in the Fourth Age king Elessar reclaimed Dorwinion as the east-march of Gondor, was he welcome there?

Of course it cannot be known whether J.R.R. Tolkien, had he ever thought about Bladorthin again after his brief mentioning in
H
, would have made him king of Dorwinion. But this is definitely the most plausible space where to integrate him into the history of the Third Age.

Appendix A: The meaning of the name Bladorthin

It is a common assumption that the name of king Bladorthin was related to that of
Bladorwen
, a rejected ‘Gnomish’ name of the Vala Yavanna in the very early wordlist of
GL
. Since
Bladorwen
is translated there as ‘
the wide earth
’, some people have simply added Gnomish and Sindarin,
blador + thin
(as in
Thingol
, ‘Grey-cloak’,
HH1
chooses to point out), and get ‘Earth-grey’ as a result. That does not make much sense as the throne-name of a king, does it?

Considering that in the early drafts of
H
, Bladorthin was not yet an ominous king but the very wizard who would later become Gandalf, ‘
the name could even be interpreted as “Grey Wanderer” …, thus becoming an early precursor of Gandalf’s … elven name, Mithrandir.
’ (
HH1
) Which is, of course, actually translated as ‘the Grey Pilgrim’.

But this assumption fails on several grounds. First, the main Elvish languages in use when
H
was written (that is, in 1937/38) were
Q(u)enya
and
Noldorin
, the latter had developed from the early vocabulary of
Goldogrin/Gnomish
established in
GL
while early
Qenya
is found in
QL
and
Early Noldorin
in
NW
. It is there that we should look for the proper meaning of the great king’s name.

BLAD

GL
contains several very suggestive entries. They are rearranged here for purposes of clarity:

blath
a floor.

blant
flat, open. expansive. candid, blunt (of words, etc.).

bladwen
a plain.

Bladorwen
the wid
e earth. The world and all its plants and fruit. Mother Earth.

GL
includes a few further derivations that discussions of the word-group
PAL
usually ignore:

‘
blantos
(=
mavlantos
) sycamore.’ - ‘
mavlantos
sycamore’.

‘
mavlant
=
mablod
.’ - ‘
mablod
palm (of hand).’

These words are obviously compounds of
mô
‘hand’ and
blant
‘flat, open’. They are mostly ignored because readers do not understand the implications, it seems. The sycamore referred to in the above is not what Americans think it is. Europeans mean
acer pseudoplatanus
by that, a common alpine tree whose leaves feature five vaguely finger-like protrusions. That observation is why the Gnomes dubbed it *
flat-hand tree
or, more literally. *
palm-tree
!

There are certain evident regularities. The basic structure is this: a base *
blada
- that produces an adjective
blant
and the nouns
blath, blador, bladwen
.
HH
1
goes wrong in the assumption that the final -
wen
was a female suffix. Gnomish has various complements to the
blath/bladwen
pair that do not imply gender:

faith/faidwen
,
‘liberty/freedom’, respectively;

flad/fladwen
(
and
fladweth)
‘sward, grass’ vs. ‘meadow, grassland’;

gados
(<
gador
)/
gadorwen
‘union, association, fellowship’ vs- ‘society’ (and
gadweth
‘union, joining’) from a base *
gada
- ‘join, connect, unite’ etc.

In general, Gnomish -
wen
seems to imply a larger or even all-encompassing dimension than the plain word without this suffix.

QL
adds a few corresponding words under the entry
PALA
:

palanta
even, flat, level.

palo
(
u
) plane surface, plain, the flat.

Palurin, Palurien
the wide world.

palapapte
=
mapalin
. (
Mapalin
is not glossed but seems to be the
Q
equivalent of
mavlant
, the sycamore).

But the most remarkable entries are these:

palwa
- make wander.
palava
wandering.
palava
- to stray, wander.

May
HH
1
yet be right about the ‘Wanderer’? This elaborate vocabulary is supplemented by a single entry made to the next stage of linguistic development, Early Noldorin:

blador
world
(
NW
)
.

No doubt that this element was also present in Gnomish, though it is not listed in
GL
. The difference to
Bladorwen
is probably gradual: The suffix -
wen
suggests the entire cosmos, ‘
the wide earth’,
while the basic
blador
is, apparently, just ‘*the world around us’