by Codex Regius
In the eyes of the West, Rhún seemed to consist of ‘wide uncharted lands, nameless plains, and forests unexplored’ (FR) - so much unexplored that mythmakers found a lot of space to fill: ‘The wild white kine that were still to be found near the Sea of Rhún were said in legend to be descended from the Kine of Araw, the huntsman of the Valar, who alone of the Valar came often to Middle-earth in the Elder Days. Orome is the High-elven form of his name.’ (KR) Especially Steward Vorondil (2029-2080 TA) gained lasting reputation as “the hunter” by pursuing the ‘wild kine of Araw in the far fields of Rhún.’ (RK)
Latitudes and longitudes on the LR map
North-western Middle-earth projected on the map of Europe
The mapped North (or West) obviously comprises only the smaller part of the landmass of Middle-earth, both by territory and by population. In the first millenium of the Third Age, the Men of the West were ‘greatly outnumbered by those of the East and South.’ (TI) Harad was described as a land ‘where the stars are strange’ (FR, TI), signifying that it stretched, like the African continent, into the Southern hemisphere. How far Rhún extended into the east is not known because it cannot be told how profoundly the transition from a flat to a round earth in the late SA affected the landmass. It may, however, be possible to draw some indirect conclusions on the geographical area outside the West.
Twice, Tolkien confirmed that ‘Hobbiton and Rivendell are taken … to be at about the latitude of Oxford’, that is, at 51°45′N. (L294, PBD) Applying this statement to the original, ‘large Middle-earth map’ of LR reveals that the port of Umbar, the southernmost specified location of the charted lands, is located at 35°30’N. This corresponds more or less to the latitude of Tanger in Morocco and matches occasional comparisons of the Corsairs of Umbar with the corsairs of the medieval Mediterranean Sea[1]. If Tolkien’s argument may be extended to the assumption that Hobbiton was also near the longitude of Oxford, 1°15′W, then the charted territory of Middle-earth extends east to about the longitude of modern Kiev, 30°34’E.
Hence, it does not seem too bold to identify Near and Far Harad with early precursors of White and Black Africa while Rhún geographically corresponds to Eastern Europe and Asia.
Almost no information on their morphological structure has been recorded. The lands known from the Dawn of Ages had vanished long ago, ‘and to [Lake] Cuivienen there is no returning’. (S) The primordial Sea of Helcar was gone as well, perhaps it had ‘vastly shrunken’ (QS) and may have been reduced to the later Sea of Rhún. The Orocarni, or Mountains of the East, that the Elves had seen were probably lost. Only Hildorien, where the fathers of Men came from, (S) seems to have been preserved in a way, though it was probably changed beyond recognition. Some sources claim that ‘Men awoke in Mesopotamia’, (DA) and this would place Hildorien far to the southeast, even beyond Mordor and Khand.
A guardsman from Near Harad
Gondorian writers seem to have vaguely, and probably incorrectly, concluded that the plain grasslands prevalent to the south and east of the Sea of Rhún virtually extended into the infinite. One early draft of a map suggests that there may have been a desert east of Umbar. Beyond this doubtful information, no details of the geography of either Rhún or Harad are available. Save for one.
It is frequently overlooked that Sauron (and the Nazgûl) maintained a third fortress in Rhún which was never located and destroyed by Western forces.
Various sources explicitly state that Mordor was not the original domain of the Dark Lord after he had escaped from the fall of Angband, and that this country was only later ‘occupied by Sauron, though outside his original realms “in the East”, as a deliberate threat against the West and the Númenóreans.’ (TI) That happened only after the first millenium SA. Another source adds that ‘he surrounded his abode with fire’, (RP) and this description cannot be reconciled with Barad-dûr, despite its proximity to Orodruin.
This third and eastern stronghold of the Dark Lord apparently continued to exist throughout the Third Age. For, when Dol Guldur is under attack in 2063 TA, ‘Sauron retreats and hides in the East’ (TY); and he stays there for almost 300 years before he returns to the West ‘with increased strength’ (TY). His refuge in the ‘East’ cannot be located in Mordor because the Land of Shadow was at that time closely under Gondor’s supervision. And at a place that provided to Sauron a base which lasted three centuries, he certainly had more profound business than just to wash his black feet in the Sea of Rhún.
[1] For a detailed discussion of how to apply a meridional grid on the map of LR, see “Appendix B Latitudes and longitudes of Middle-earth”
CULTURAL FEATURES The Swarthy Men
The tribes of men who latest immigrated into Beleriand became collectively known as Rhúnedain, Easterlings and Eastrons. The terms were geographically misleading because, of course, they all ultimately came from Hildorien, just like the ‘Western’ Edain. ‘East’ seems to have simply referred to those who had fallen behind on the long trail west.
Their physical characteristics gave them another epithet that distinguished First Age Rhúnedain from Dúnedain. They were also referred to as Swarthy Men, for they ‘were short and broad, long and strong in the arm; their skins were swart or sallow, and their hair was as dark as their eyes. Their houses were many, and some had greater liking for the Dwarves of the mountains than for the Elves.’ (S) Note that by far not all of them were subjects of Morgoth! However, though some would adopt traces of Edainic culture, that was in turn influenced by the Noldor, the Swarthy Men never got really comfortable with the Edain.
Rhúnedainic women were described as strong as those of the Haladin, ‘proud and barbaric’. (TG) Like the Bëorians, they used to alliterate names of fathers and sons; some of them are strikingly similar to Bëorian counterparts: notably Bór. Others, like Ulfang, Ulwarth etc., seem to have been taken from a tongue that had a superficial similarity to Germanic or proto-Germanic. The Easterling name Brodda actually is a modern German surname. And there is another common denominator of Dúnedain and Rhúnedain tongues: both reveal distinct influences of Khûzdul because, also, ‘of the tongues of the Easterlings many show kinship with Dwarf-speech rather than with the speeches of the Elves.’[1] (NE)
Two distinct groups of Swarthy Men developed in Beleriand: On the one side were the followers of Bór, ‘who were worthy folk and tillers of the earth’ (GA), and on the other, those of Ulfang the Black who apparently were hunters and gatherers. Both groups had attracted many recruits before the Battle of Unnumbered Tears but it seems that few people of Bór, if any at all, survived this fight, for they are no longer mentioned afterwards. Ulfang and his sons were slain, but his kinsmen would rule Hithlum as vassals of Morgoth, and they did not learn about civilisation.
At the end of the First Age, they were all lost from recorded history though some of them escaped from foundering Beleriand. We do not hear about the Swarthy Men any further until the King’s Men from Númenór colonised them in the late Second Age and they progressed to the extent that they ‘armed with iron’ (RP) and the Númenóreans found, to their irritation, ‘that iron was used against them by those to whom they had revealed it’. (DN)
The Third Age found their remote descendants and relatives in Near Harad where they had grown into ‘a great and cruel people that dwelt in the wide lands south of Mordor beyond the mouths of Anduin’ (RP), ‘bold men and grim, and fierce in despair’ (RK). They were still called Swarthy Men or (by the Hobbits) Swertings: the latter word is ‘evidently a derivative of swart, which is still in use (= swarthy)’. (GN) In Gondor they were better known as Haradrim, Southrons or Southerners.
Gollum had seen a few of their warriors and described them like medieval oriental men of sorts: with ‘dark faces. … They are fierce. They have black eyes, and long black hair, and gold rings in their ears, yes, lots of beautiful gold. And some have red paint on their cheeks, and red cloaks; and their flags are red, and the tips of their spears; and they have round shields, yellow and
black with big spikes. Not nice; very cruel wicked Men they look. Almost as bad as Orcs, and much bigger.’ (TT) One of those ‘swarthy men in red’, with whom Sam Gamgee had an unpleasant encounter in Ithilien, had ‘a golden collar. … scarlet robes … [a] corslet of overlapping brazen plates … black plaits of hair braided with gold … brown hand.’ (TT) This is still the same phenotype that marked the Swarthy Men of Beleriand.
But their culture had changed much till the late Third Age. Their languages had developed into strange ways and sounded completely alien and incomprehensible to the Dúnedain of Gondor who had no mind for delving into the linguistics but, with a few ugly words, dismissed the Harad languages as ‘crying with harsh voices like beasts and carrion-birds.’ (RK)
Luckily for Gondor, their arms technology had deteriorated. Note the reference to the ‘brazen plates’ of the armour. This suggests a relapse of the technological level into the bronze age. The Númenórean art of refining iron had been lost. Also, for the first time, the Swarthy Men used scimitars: a cultural ‘legacy’ from the orcs?
The best known – and most feared – feat of the Swarthy Men was the taming of the mûmakil. These ancient elephantoids from Harad were used in battle as mobile war bases. During the War of the Ring, a mûmak’s ‘tusks were bound with bands of gold’, it was decorated with ‘trappings of scarlet and gold’, and the voluminous body was protected by a ‘triple hide of his flanks.’ A battle mûmak was actually strong enough to carry a veritable ‘war tower’ on its back which was able to provide space for several warriors, probably spear-throwers (TT).
Contrary to the development in Rhún, it seems that the Swarthy Men never acquired a centralised realm unless they were subjugated by alien powers like Gondor or Umbar. Otherwise they stayed restricted to tribal territories and petty kingdoms that were frequently in conflict with each other. Yet, during the War of the Ring their troops appeared remarkably standardised, and it seems that Sauron had finally established a central authority to govern and oppress them all. For uniformly, their dresses and banners were described as dark red: ‘wild Southron men with red banners, shouting with harsh tongues ‘ (RK) - ‘Southrons in scarlet’ (RK) - ‘swarthy men in red’ with ‘scarlet robes’ (TT). At least one chieftain of a cavalry unit used a ‘black serpent upon scarlet’ (RK) as his emblem. Even the tents were ‘black or sombre red.’ (RK)
[1] See also Codex Regius, ‘Words of Westernesse’, 2015..
Not nice, very cruel wicked Men
Black Númenóreans and Corsairs
‘The King’s Men, who were afterwards called the Black Númenóreans, corrupted by Sauron’ (KR) were of Dúnedain genome and cannot really be called Southrons, neither by culture nor by phenotype. But ‘after the fall of Sauron [in the War of the Last Alliance] their race swiftly dwindled or became merged with the Men of Middle-earth’. (KR) This merger provoked Gondorian historians to reckon their Númenórean kinsmen among the Haradrim.
The barbary Corsairs, chiefly but not exclusively residing in Umbar, ought to be distinguished from the Black Númenóreans. They were late heirs and successors of the King’s Men, a remarkable multi-cultural blend that did not give much on Dúnedainic ideas of ethnic purity. Recognisable historical and biological influences are the Swarthy Men of Harad, Gondorian dissidents and also some late and ‘dwindled’ Black Númenóreans. Gondor claimed that the - politically unpleasant - Dúnedainic element had been eliminated from Umbar long before the War of the Ring.
More about them is found in chapter IV.
‘The Wainriders were a people, or a confederacy of many peoples, that came from the East; but they were stronger and better armed than any that had appeared before. They journeyed in great wains, and their chieftains fought in chariots.’ (KR)[1]
The political structure of their vast realm is unknown. But the surprising efficiency by which they ‘sapped the waning strength of Gondor in wars that lasted for almost a hundred years’ (KR) since the 19th century TA indicate a powerful central organisation, a kingdom or ‘khanate’ that coordinated communication and strategy.
The Wainriders were originally semi-nomadic, and their defence relied upon ‘fortified camps of wagons.’ (CE) When they acquired contact with the West, especially after they had conquered much of Rhovanion, they quickly adopted the lifestyle of the Northmen and Dúnedain.
Another noteworthy feature of their society, alien to the Dúnedain except perhaps for the Haladin, was that their women received combat training. This provided a distinct advantage: While the male Wainriders were out on their campaigns, they did, hence, not leave ‘their homes undefended: their youths and old men were aided by the younger women, who in that people were also trained in arms and fought fiercely in defence of their homes and their children.’ (CE) Maybe some Northmen learnt from them the habit to train those women whom the Rohirrim would later call ‘shield maidens’: (RK) female warriors who joined them in battle or defended the home front.
[1] This passage seems to be inspired by references to ancient people who in Greek were referred to as Amaxoluoi or ‘Wainmen’. Some researchers have tried to identify them with the Goths. Cf. Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Satiric Odes, c. 3,24): ‘Campestres melius Scythae/quorum plaustra vagas rite trahunt domos/vivunt’ - ‘Better live the nomadic Scythians whose wains by tradition carry on their wandering houses.’
The Wainriders
While the Wainrider empire may not have lasted long, their culture survived to the end of the TA. As late as the 31st century, the familiar vehicles were seen on the plains of Rhún. ‘Out of the East Men were moving endlessly: swordsmen, spearmen, bowmen upon horses, chariots of chieftains and laden wains.’ (FR)
Their chieftains fought in chariots
The Balchoth were an Easterling nation that ruled a vassal state of Dol Guldur in eastern and, later, southern Rhovanion. Balchoth was not a name they used for themselves, but ‘so these people were then called in Gondor: a mixed word of popular speech, from Westron balc “horrible” and Sindarin hoth “horde”, applied to such peoples as the Orcs.’ (CE)
‘They were only rudely armed, and had no great number of horses for riding, using horses mainly for draught, since they had many large wains, as had the Wainriders (to whom they were no doubt akin)’ (CE), and with whom they may have shared many other cultural traits.
It was not reported that the Wainrider empire had ever left its grip of eastern Rhovanion; therefore there is a chance that the realm of the Horrible Horde was its direct descendant: a diadoch state, split off when the political centre had faltered.
The Balchoth
They had many large wains, as had the Wainriders
The slaves of Nurn
Under the impression that Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee had had of the plain of Gorgoroth, some commentators have claimed that all of Mordor was desolate and barren, inhabited only by orcs and other fell creatures. But there is evidence in the sources that it was not so. Matter of fact, the southern part of Mordor featured comparatively rich pastures, sufficient and required to feed Sauron’s huge armies.
Until the end of TA, the region of Nurn in south Mordor maintained a considerable Mannish population that laboured on ‘the great slave-worked fields far away south in this wide realm [of Mordor] … by the sad waters of Lake Nurnen’. (RK) Their life was grievous, losses must have been high. Hence, throughout Mordor were running ‘great roads that ran away east and south to tributary lands, from which the soldiers of the [Dark] Tower brought long waggon-trains of goods and booty and fresh slaves.’ (RK)
Surprisingly when ‘the slaves of Mordor [were] released’ after the fall of Barad-dûr, many of them did not leave to return to their ancient homesteads, but they received ‘all the lands about Lake Nurnen to be their own’, (RK) apparently because they were considering them their home. This may indicate that at least some of those slaves were not imports from Rhún or Harad but native to Nurn. An early Mannish culture may have survived there that predated Sauron’s return to Mordor. Perhap
s they were late descendants of the Black Númenóreans or even of Gondor’s previous occupation forces.
There is no evidence why Gondorian mapmakers would refer to Khand as the only land South of Mordor - except for Umbar - by its proper name, for it seems to have not assumed a position that made it outstanding among its neighbours. On the contrary, its strategic location made it sometimes victim, sometimes ally of the neighbouring powers in Rhún or Harad to neither of which it properly belonged. And its proximity to Mordor made it particularly vulnerable to its dreadful neighbour.
Hence, Khand certainly accounted for many of the ‘fresh slaves’ imported to Nurn. Otherwise, nothing is known of this land save for the fact that some of its inhabitants called themselves Variags. This odd name is said to be of alien, Haradric origin (AL), Why they would be called like that, and with no further explanation, is a mystery.
Variag/varyag is a Slavic rendering of Varingar, Varangian, an Old Norse word that refers to Viking traders and mercenaries who dwelt from Novgorod to Byzantium. This notion has caused many to think that the Variags of Khand were something like the Varangian Guard of the Byzantine emperors: a kind of elite mercenaries in service of Mordor, perhaps scattered Northmen or Black Númenóreans. But the real answer may be much easier: