by Codex Regius
These sad events provided two essential changes. One, with the assent of the Stewards of Gondor, Isengard was passed into Saruman’s control. Second, due to the aggravation of ethnic conflict in Rohan’s western march, ‘for many years the Rohirrim had to keep a strong force of Riders in the north of Westfold.’ (FI) Eventually, this guard lessened and the border was open again.
The advance of Wulf (grey) and his allies from Umbar (dark red)
Pre-Nú-menóreans (grey) and Drúedain (reddish) in the late Third Age
Once more, local traffic made many Dunlendings resettle into the west-march. This time, their residence was tolerated for a time, since Edoras was busy with defeating orc-bands that, escaping the grip of the Long Winter, tried to invade the White Mountains. But almost as soon as these were eliminated (with Gondor for once lending a helping hand once), king Folcwine (2830-2903) launched another pogrom and ‘reconquered the west-march … that Dunlendings had occupied.’ (KR)
The Rohirrim never realised that military decisions rarely improve social contacts among peoples. They had again created a condition that they would be reminded of the hard way: ‘Beyond the Gap [of Rohan] the land between Isen and Adorn was nominally part of the realm of Rohan; but though Folcwine had reclaimed it, driving out the Dunlendings that had occupied it, the people that remained were largely of mixed blood, and their loyalty to Edoras was weak.’ (FI)
There, Saruman found the ground well-prepared when he started to seek recruits and victims of his Man/Orc cross-breeding programme. The Dunlendings were easily ensnared by his cunning diplomacy, and at last they found themselves on the side of those whom they feared and despised most: the wizard’s fell orc-troops.
The awakening from his spell was terrible. It may be attributed to this traumatic experience and to King Elessar’s diplomacy that the neighbours this side and that of the river Isen, closely related by many generations of mutual marriage and procreation, were at least in parts reconciled in the Fourth Age. ‘In Éomer’s day in the Mark men had peace who wished for it’. (KR)
The books keep politely silence about the fate of those who did not.
[1] The name applied to them in Gondor is obviously related to the river names Gwathir and Gwathló, ‘gwath is a Sindarin word for “shadow,” in the sense of dim light, owing to cloud or mist, or in deep valleys.’ (GC) The proper adjective is gwathui, ‘shadowy’.
[2] This ‘old speech’ was a late survivor of the Haladin language family, represented by J.R.R.Tolkien as a Celtic substrate to the translated languages in the Red Book of Westmarch. Hence, forgoil is not at all the only recorded Dunlendish word. There is also, for example, the first name Kalimac, translated by Tolkien as Meriadoc, that is Haladin, not Westron.
[3] As were most Dúnedain. But this trivial detail seems to have escaped those Rohirrim for whom only a blond man was a good man.
[4] This scene very closely resembles the climax of the ballad ‘Ein Faustschlag’ (A Blow of a Fist) that Moritz Graf Strachwitz published in 1842. It tells of a Norwegian king, Helge, who has become a man of peace in old age. One day, a delegation of noblemen approaches him and their spokesman, Iarl Irold, claims they are tired of tilling their fields and want to raid the coasts again like their ancestors used to do. Outraged, Helge informs them, if it’s his sword that they want they might taste his fist first, and strikes Irold dead with a single blow. The other noblemen quickly drop on their knees in submission. See Franz Strassen’s 1904 illustration on the opposite page.
THE LOSSOTH AND THE FORODWAITH
peoples in the lingering cold of the Iron Mountains
When the realm of Morgoth Bauglir foundered and Beleriand sank under the waves and the Iron Mountains were no more, the coasts of Middle-earth retreated far inland, and in the North they shaped a gulf almost as large as the Bay of Belfalas. This immense body was known as the Ice-Bay of Forochel, a prosaic name supplied by some Arnorian bureaucrat, and it simply read ‘Northern Ice’ (L154).
Morgoth’s power in the North stayed unchallenged beyond his fall for many thousands of years. The unnatural cold of Dor Daedeloth and the Iron Mountains prevailed to the extent that even in the early Fourth Age they ‘linger still in that region, though they lie hardly more than a hundred leagues north of the Shire’ (KR). In the months of winter, the Bay often froze completely over and turned inaccessible to ship and boat. No wonder that even the Elves of Lindon hardly ever ventured there. Thus, little more than the course of the coastline is known of these shores: the gulf itself, rimmed in the Northwest by a giant cape and promontory that is vaguely shaped like a human head (TR): Cape Forochel.
Coastline drawn according to the ‘first LR map’ found in TI
Cape Forochel and the northern coastline of Middle-earth
THE CULTURE
And yet a tribe of Men lived there. They were known as the Lossoth or, more exactly, ‘Loss(h)oth, the unfriendly Northern folk who lived in the snow’ (WPP), also as the Snowmen of Forochel. Little is known of their culture, nothing of their language, save that they were well adapted to living in the cold climate. We have no evidence on how they found nutrition, whether they were hunter-gatherers or herded reindeer. A primitive, nature-bound people, the Lossoth did not value material riches like the jewels of Arvedui, last king of Arnor. They did not build large crafts, hence, when once a vessel from Lindon anchored off-shore, ‘the Snowmen … were amazed and afraid, for they had seen no such ship on the sea within their memories’. (KR)
On the other hand, they were capable of innovative designs. They were mobile on the Ice Bay by skaters (‘And it is said that they can run on the ice with bones on their feet’, KR) and sleds (‘carts without wheels’). They approached the Elven ship as ‘they drew the king and those that survived of his company out over the ice in their sliding carts, as far as they dared’ (KR) - a dramatic scene that is suited for illustration by artists.
But the most remarkable feature which the peoples of more southerly regions recorded was that ‘the Lossoth house in the snow’ (KR) and they built ‘snow-huts’ for Arvedui’s companions. Contrary to popular belief, this does not need to mean huts made of snow (which would be really displaced in this part of Arda) but rather huts in the snow: no igloos but structures of bones and furs.
They can run on the ice with bones on their feet
The Red Book of Westmarch states that they ‘are a strange, unfriendly people, remnant of the Forodwaith’ (KR). But this only shifts the problem around, it does not to solve it. For who were again the Forodwaith?
Their epithet is at its best a collective term, attributed by Dúnedain who did not distinguish any tribes and nations. Forodwaith means simply ‘Northern folk’ or even ‘Northern region’. The geographic term is indiscriminatingly applied to all the lands north of the Mountains of Angmar and the Ered Wethrin.
It might seem then that Forodwaith ought to be the same word that was otherwise translated as Northmen and that the Lossoth were, hence, closely related to Éothéod and Rohirrim. But this is not the case, for contrary to the Northmen of Rhovanion, their nature was of the most remarkable kind: They were ‘Men of far-off days, accustomed to the bitter colds of the realm of Morgoth.’ (KR)
This note seems to suggest that the Forodwaith were already dwelling on the slopes or in the foothills of the Ered Engrin, staying away from Angband further west. They seem to have been a distinct ethnic group that is neither Dúnedain, Rhúnedain nor Drúedain. Unless they were early Swarthy Men, ancestors and relatives of the Bórrim, which one source might suggest:
THEIR ORIGIN: THE FORODWAITH
‘Of the people of Bór, it is said, came the most ancient of the Men that dwelt in the north of Eriador in the Second Age and … after-days.’ (GA)
But there is a powerful argument against this assumption: The people of Bór were renown as ‘tillers of the earth’. (GA) If the Forodwaith had descended from them, it would mean that they had given up agriculture and resumed a semi-nomadic hunting lifestyle. Such a p
rocess is unlikely in ethnic development. We have to assume that ‘in the north of Eriador’ really means just that: The region north of the Great East Road, between Lake Evendim and, very likely, the hills of Rhúdaur and the Mountains of Angmar. And that, hence, the people of Bór bear no resemblance to the Forodwaith.
Their origin remains a mystery. And their fate must have been tragic, since the Lossoth are called their ‘remnants’. Where have the others gone? The Red Book of Westmarch only hints at the dark history of the Lossoth. It is said that they ‘lived mostly, inaccessible to their enemies, at the great Cape of Forochel that shuts off to the north-west the immense bay of that name.’ (KR) Who were these enemies?
A look at the geography reveals that the ancient North-Folk was terribly exposed to forces of Darkness. The Northern Waste, the Forodwaith, is almost dominated by Mount Gundabad, that prime stronghold of orcs, and, even worse, by the dragons of the Grey Mountains and the Withered Heath. Dragons infected all the Waste, but the Forodwaith were probably doomed when the Witch-king established the realm of Angmar in the mountains which ever after bore that name. Far and wide, the human population fell into slavery then, including the Hillmen of Rhudaur. But not the Lossoth, though they knew of the Lord of Angmar and ‘were afraid of the Witch-king, who (they said) could make frost or thaw at his will.’ (KR)
Retreating to Cape Forochel, they managed to survive in a region where few could follow them while the rest of the Forodwaith, hardly noticed by the other nations of Middle-earth, went quietly extinct. Till the middle of the Third Age, nothing was left of them east of the Ice-Bay.
The Lossoth stayed a sovereign tribe, or group of tribes, outside the influence of both Arnor and Angmar. Their name was applied to them by outsiders. It sounds derogatory because the Sindarin element -hoth conveys ‘host, horde (nearly always in a bad sense)’ (CE), and it is applied to savage, primitive and hostile individuals (cf. Glamhoth, i. e. orcs; Balchoth ‘the Horrible Horde’ etc.). Yet there is no record of any hostilities, for the Northern Kingdom had no intention to expand that far north, and the Snowmen were happiest when they were left alone. The Dúnedain may have looked down on the ‘Snow-horde’ but most of the time ignored it.
At least a few of them were able to talk Westron, however, such as the chief who hosted Arvedui Last-king. We may therefore assume that some, thinly maintained, trade connections existed. The Lossoth, it is said, crossed the Bay in winter when it was frozen over, and in the slightly milder climate and more fertile soil they would ‘often camp on the south shores of the bay at the feet of the Mountains [i. e. the Ered Luin].’ (KR) It may seem possible that merchants from Arnor had discovered that the Lossoth would exchange furs and whale-teeth or other raw materials against more sophisticated goods. Thus, when Arvedui escaped from the wreckage of Arthedain-Arnor, he and his men managed to find ‘some of these [Snowmen] in camp by the seashore.’
THE LOSSOTH AND THE DÚNEDAIN
After the collapse of the last Northern Kingdom, any such trade route was of course disrupted. Neither Hobbits nor Bree-folk travelled that far outside their territory. Only the Rangers may have kept scarce contact: ‘Long afterwards’ (KR) they learnt from the Lossoth of the shipwreck in which Arvedui had perished. ‘In this way the ring of the House of Isildur was saved, for it was afterwards ransomed by the Dúnedain.’ (KR) This was Barahir’s Ring, heirloom of the House of Isildur, which Arvedui had given to the chief of the Lossoth who had sheltered him from the fierce Morgothian winter.
What relationship the Lossoth may have maintained with the Reunited Kingdom of the Fourth Age cannot be guessed.
The Lossoth take king Arvedui to the ship from Lindon
THE LOST HISTORY OF THE MEN OF DARKNESS
in Rhún and Harad, the east and south of Middle-earth
It was not only geography that kept Rhún and Harad, the east and south of Middle-earth, out of the West’s eyes. Since the early days of their Awakening, these regions had never been of concern to the Eldar whose histories chiefly dealt with themselves, nor to the Númenóreans who were seafarers and explored all coasts but rarely advanced far inland. No written records from the east or south - if the art of writing had ever been developed there - became known to the Western peoples while those few venturers who did travel those lands rarely came to explore. A few Dark-Elves were allegedly scattered there, and Dwarves, of course, for historical reasons. Since among the sites at which the Seven Houses of the Dwarves originated, two ‘were eastward, at distances as great or greater than that between the Blue Mountains and Gundabad.’ (DM)
Politically as well, Rhún and Harad remained white spots on the map. Throughout most of the Ages of the Sun they were secretly under Sauron’s dominion - this seems to have included even the eastern Dwarves (DM) -, hence, the Free Peoples of the West used to lump them together under the epithet ‘enemy territory’. Their human inhabitants were indiscriminatingly referred to as Men of Darkness or Men of the Shadow, terms which were ‘applied to all those who were hostile to the Kingdoms [of Arnor and Gondor], and who were (or appeared in Gondor to be) moved by something more than human greed for conquest and plunder, a fanatical hatred of the High Men [i. e. the Dúnedain] and their allies as enemies of their gods. The term took no account of differences of race or culture or language.’ (DM)
It was a source to him of man-power
It is true that the mutual mistrust of the North-westerners of Middle-earth and the Men of Darkness, perpetuated for millenia and too frequently replenished by tragic events on both sides, never permitted any extensive cultural exchange. What we know of the history of the far reaches of Middle-earth may thus be glimpsed only from their scarce interactions with the West.
Note that, contrary to popular (Dúnedainic) belief expressed in sources like KR, the nations of Rhún and Harad cannot collectively be considered ‘Sauronian’ and condemned as being prone to evil. Other sources provide a more diversified view, mentioning oppositional forces among the peoples of Harad - and, it has to be assumed, even among their nobles - who rejected the overlordship of Sauron’s minions and looked for sovereignty, peace, and sometimes even support by the Southern Kingdom.
‘The southern regions in touch with Gondor … were probably both more convertible to the “Resistance”, and also places where Sauron was most busy in the Third Age, since it was a source to him of man-power most readily used against Gondor.’ (TI) Likewise, it was noted that, in Rhún, a ‘few tribes of Men … had rebelled from Melkor-worship’, which was the reason that in the Third Age, as many as three Istari were sent there ‘to stir up rebellion … and to cause [?dissension and disarray] among the dark East.’ (LW) Only one of them returned.
Rhún and Harad are not proper geographical names. They indicate general directions of the compass rose, similar to the usage of Middle or Far East in the modern world. Rhún was plainly East and Harad was South, the latter being sometimes distinguished as Near/North and Far/South Harad. ‘Harad “South” is thus a vague term.’ (TI) Some prefer to speak even more vaguely of Haradwaith, ‘South-Folk’, analogous to Forodwaith, the North-Folk, and Enedwaith, the Middle-Folk (see chapter I for details). Only three lands or states were distinct from this uncharted vastness, due to their degree of interaction with Gondor: Mordor, Umbar and Khand.
The peak of cartography was the Second Age when Númenórean mariners sailed across the (then still flat) world. Unfortunately, their precious sea maps were lost when Númenor was drowned. We only learn from later annals that they explored some ‘inner seas’, (AK) and in the last millenium SA, ‘the King’s Men sailed far away to the south; and the lordships and strongholds that they made have left many rumours in the legends of Men.’ (AK) Another continent had also been found beyond the eastern shores of Middle-earth. The Númenóreans called it the Empty Lands (AK), and it was inhabited only by birds and beasts and looked otherwise so dull that even Morgoth had never taken interest in occupying it. But when Númenor sank, the Empty Lands were ‘cast back’ by Iluvata
r (AK). Did they turn into the American continent?
GEOGRAPHY
During the Fading Years, the decaying Third Age, global mapping assumed a flavour of Ptolemy-ism, falling back on what had already been said before and centred on the ‘civilised’ lands of ‘the North’. ‘The bounds of this region were naturally vague; its eastern frontier was roughly the River Carnen to its junction with Celduin (the River Running), and so to Nurnen, and thence south to the ancient confines of South Gondor. (It did not originally exclude Mordor, which was occupied by Sauron, although outside his original realms “in the East”, as a deliberate threat to the West and the Númenóreans.) “The North” thus includes all this great area: roughly West to East from the Gulf of Lune to Nurnen, and North and South from Carn Dum to the southern bounds of ancient Gondor between it and Near Harad.’ (TI)
Near the edges of the maps sketched within those boundaries, available data rapidly petered out until they ceased entirely. Only a few, vaguely applied names of almost mythical quality show up. In Harad, south of Ithilien, ‘there are more lands, they say, but the Yellow Face [i. e. the sun] is very hot there, and there are seldom any clouds, and the men are fierce and have dark faces.’ (Gollum, TT) One of the most remarkable features, beside skin colour, seemed to be the múmakil, giant relatives of our elephants that left traces even in the poetry of Arnor and the Shire where they were called ‘oliphaunts’ (ATB).