by Codex Regius
In modern Russian and Ukrainian, варяг ‘variag’ is an ‘outsider’ or ‘newcomer’, i. e. a non-native appointed administrator of a province or a state, deriving from the perception of the Varangian Northmen as an alien ruling class. Hence, the Variags of Khand may be no more than that: high-rank officers and governors set by Sauron over the natives of Harad.
The Variags
Miscellaneous Men of Darkness
These nations or tribes, if tribes they are, were first observed during the War of the Ring, and only their descriptions are known as they were provided by Gondorian soldiers:
‘The new host that we had tidings of has come first, from over the River by way of Andros, it is said. They are strong: … countless companies of Men of a new sort we have not met before. Not tall, but broad and grim, bearded like dwarves, wielding great axes. Out of some savage land in the wide East they come, we deem.’ (RT)
In the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, these Axe-Men were among the most effective forces of the Morgul army. Nothing more than that is known about them.
Another ethnic group seen only in the War of the Ring is a proto-African phenotype from Far Harad. The Númenóreans may have met them during their voyages to the far south of Middle-earth, but any such records had been lost. These black-skinned individuals, obviously unlike the Swarthy Men, appeared to the baffled Dúnedain ‘like half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues’. (RK) They were accordingly - though erroneously - called ‘troll-men’. (RK)
The Edain of the First Age claimed that Man had been subject to a general fall under the Shadow, and only they – or their ancestors - had repented and become faithful to Eru again. But this was a very self-centred view. Matter of fact, there were many other Men as well who did not submit to Angband but stayed ‘wild and lawless, refusing alike the summons of the Valar and of Morgoth.’ (AK)
The peoples of Rhún and Harad descended from these savages. They were nomadic wanderers on a primitive level, occasionally getting into contact with random Avari or with Dwarves. ‘In ancient days the Naugrim dwelt in many mountains of Middle-earth, and there they met mortal Men (they say) long ere the Eldar knew them.’ (NE) This seems to have given rise to ‘the theory (a probable one) that in the unrecorded past some of the languages of Men - including the language of the dominant element in the Atani from which Adûnaic was derived [Hadorian] - had been influenced by Khuzdul.’ (DM)
Possibly, these contacts contributed to bringing some Easterlings under the devastating power, and fear, of Angband. ‘Alas, it seems probable that (as Men did later) the Dwarves of the far eastern mansions … came under the Shadow of Morgoth and turned to evil.’ (DM) And those were the first to appear in recorded history.
HISTORY The First Age
They followed the Haladin on their westward migration. The Drúedain noticed them, and suffered from them, because some had ‘remained in the White Mountains, in spite of their persecution by later-arrived Men, who had relapsed into the service of the Dark.’ (TD). And the wandering Edain themselves ‘were ever at war … with Men who had made him [Melkor] their God and believed that they could render him no more pleasing service than to destroy the “renegades” with every kind of cruelty.’ (DM)
This persistent pressure eventually forced the pre-Bëorrim to leave their temporary refuges in Dorwinion (see chapter I) and continue their migration westward: Only later did the pre-Marachrim, who dwelt at the opposite coast of the Sea of Rhún, discover that ‘the Lesser Folk had fled from the threat of the Servants of the Dark.’ (DM) Their contact with other Easterlings was more friendly, though. This is seen from the fact that all the Atani, but especially the pre-Bëorrim, ‘showed mingling in the past with Men of other kinds. … The language of Bëor contained many elements that were alien in character.’ (DM. For more details on the migrations of the Atani, see chapter I).
The Swarthy Men arrived in Beleriand in 463. And ‘some were already secretly under Morgoth’s will, and came at his call; but not all.’ (S) Even those who did not had a specific preference for their hosts of old: ‘Their houses were many, and some had greater liking for the Dwarves of the mountains than for the Elves. But Maedhros … made alliance with these new-come Men.’ (S) He also persuaded his brothers Maglor and Caranthir to join this alliance (which proved fatal, for the allies of the latter were those who turned against the Noldor in the end).
‘The newcomers abode long in East Beleriand’. 12 long years, to be precise. For in 472, when the armed men of the Edain of Hithlum were all but destroyed, the house of Bór ended as well while ‘Morgoth sent thither the Easterlings that had served him … and forbade them to leave it.’ (S) This was not what they had hoped for. But they made the best out of it, and they ruled and oppressed the remnants of the House of Hador.
Despite their ‘many’ houses and their original division among numerous ‘chieftains of the Easterlings’ (S), the Swarthy Men seem to have acknowledged a common overlord since. From 488 at least until 500 FA (WH), the ‘chief of the Easterlings of Hithlum’ (S) was a certain Lorgan, a man who ‘claimed to rule all Dor-Lómin as a fief under Morgoth’. (TC) It is not known when he died. The sway of the Swarthy Men prevailed until the War of Wrath when they, as well as ‘others new-come out of the East’, (S) fought on Morgoth’s side and were for the major part vanquished.
Lorgan, chief of the Easterlings of Hithlum
The Second Age
The vast majority of the Rhúnedain remained free, though Fallen (as the Dúnedain claimed). It was only in the early Second Age, however, that they were actually subjected by the powers of Darkness, represented by some of Morgoth’s swarthy subjects who escaped the inundation of Beleriand.
‘Those of the evil Men who were not destroyed fled back into the east, where many of their race were still wandering in the unharvested lands … And the evil Men came among them, and cast over them a shadow of fear, and they took them for kings. Then the Valar forsook for a time the Men of Middle-earth who had refused their summons and had taken the friends of Morgoth to be their masters; and Men dwelt in darkness and were troubled by many evil things that Morgoth had devised in the days of his dominion.’ (AK)
Worst among these evil things was Sauron the Shapeshifter. Morgoth’s fierce lieutenant was so cunningly hiding since the War of Wrath that not even the Valar were able to find him. Residing first in his never-found secret stronghold far away in Rhún and then relocating to Mordor and raising Barad-dûr as the mightiest of his fortresses, he eventually spread his power all over Middle-earth, but predominantly over Rhún and Harad. Thus, ‘in the South and in the further East Men multiplied; and most of them turned to evil, for Sauron was at work.’ As always, ‘Men he found the easiest to sway of all the peoples of the Earth. … Those who would be free took refuge in the fastnesses of wood and mountain, and ever fear pursued them.’ (AK)
The situation was slightly different in the North-west. Though Bór himself had left no heirs and his tribe in Beleriand had been routed, of his people, ‘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) This may refer to the Hillmen of Rhudaur and the Men of Angmar. They had resisted Sauron’s lure and ‘refused to join in the rebellion against the Valar.’ (DM) Yet they were left alone.
In the late first millenium SA, ‘in the east and south well nigh all Men were under [Sauron’s] dominion.’ (RP) One particularly cruel detail of their habits has been reported: the sacrifice of their own ruling class to their acclaimed ‘king and god’, as the Wise recalled. ‘Before ever a ship sailed hither from the West … the heathen kings, under the domination of the Dark Power, did thus, slaying themselves in pride and despair, murdering their kin to ease their own death.’ (RK)[1]
The tide turned when the Númenóreans began to voyage to Middle-earth.
The Guild of Venturers, the seafarers from Númenor, landed first on the north-western shores (see chapter I). Soon, they began to travel far south along the coa
sts of Harad. Wherever they came, they started to civilise the indigenous population, introducing agriculture, iron smithery and many other skills, comforting the locals and turning them away from fear of the Shadow. (AK) At lower Anduin, even a common speech, Adûni, would one day develop out of classical Adûnaic, and its relatives, confined to the continent of Middle-earth, ‘spread thence along the coasts among all those that had dealings with Westernesse.’ (AL)
Sauron realised that the backward stone-age tribes of Rhún and Harad would not be able to withstand this power, and he launched an offensive education programme of his own. Suddenly, new technologies popped up in the far reaches of Middle-earth. The inhabitants of the east and the south ‘grew strong in those days and built many towns and walls of stone, and they were numerous and fierce in war and armed with iron. To them Sauron was both king and god; and they feared him exceedingly, for he surrounded his abode with fire.’ (RP)
In the 9th century, therefore, the subjects of the second Dark Lord had gained superiority over the pre-Númenóreans (see chapter I) and Northmen in the scattered woodland communities of Eriador, Gondor and Rhovanion who had no central leadership. (GC) It was then that rumours came to King Tar-Aldarion’s ears which made evident that the Númenóreans had stirred up a power they would have to reckon with.
During the first and second millenium, they did not reportedly get into contact with any Rhúnedain, yet in those centuries they ‘explored the coasts of Middle-earth far southward’, (TI) colonising the coastal areas of Eriador, Gondor, Umbar and the shores of Harad in a long sweep south. But when Sauron declared war against the Elves in 1695, he first mobilised his forces in Rhún.
The Alliance of Dwarves and Northmen in Rhovanion was suddenly ‘involved in war not only with Orks but with alien Men of evil sort. For Sauron had acquired dominion over many savage tribes in the East (of old corrupted by Morgoth), and he now urged them to seek land and booty in the West.’ (DM) Northern Wilderland suffered severely under this assault. ‘When the storm passed, the Men of the old Alliance were diminished and scattered, and those that lingered on in their old regions were impoverished, and lived mostly in caves or in the borders of the Forest [of Greenwood, later Mirkwood]’ (DM) Fortunately, ‘Sauron was defeated by the Númenóreans and driven back into Mordor, and for long troubled the West no more, while secretly extending his dominions eastward.’ (DM) Which clearly tells that even then his rule over Rhún was still limited, and he faced significant opposition by the Easterlings whom the Dúnedain so often grotesquely caricature as hopelessly Sauronian. During a long time indeed, Sauron ‘was (as reported) wholly concerned with conquests in the East.’ (GC)
When the Shadow fell on the Númenor, its dominions expanded from the ports and landing sites into the mainland. Now the Númenóreans pressed into Middle-earth with lust for power, and they ‘made settlements on the west-shores, but these became rather strongholds and “factories” of lords seeking wealth, and the Númenóreans became tax-gatherers carrying off over the sea ever more and more goods in their great ships.’ (L131) King Tar-Calmacil (d. 2899 SA) earned himself a particularly bad reputation in that respect.
Of him it is said that ‘in his youth he was a great captain, and won wide lands along the coasts of Middle-earth’ (LE) south of Umbar. He was so powerful that Sauron deserted Mordor and withdrew once more into his undetected fortress in the East. But when he returned and the end of the Second Age drew closer, ‘many of those [Númenóreans] who sailed east in that time and made fortresses and dwellings upon the coasts were already bent to his will, and they served him still gladly in Middle-earth. … These renegades, lords both mighty and evil, for the most part took up their abodes in the southlands far away’, (AK) along the coasts of Harad.
These coastlands fell irrevocably under the sway of the King’s Men who acted as the chief executioners of Sauron’s will.[2] Umbar developed into the largest and most important among their ports. That is why, when the servants of Mordor began ‘to assail the havens and forts of the Númenóreans, and invaded the coastlands under their dominion’ (HA), ‘it was there that Ar-Pharazôn the Golden, last King of Númenor, … landed and humbled the might of Sauron.’ (KR)
Most ports of the Kings’ Men perished as a result of the inundations caused by the cataclysm of Númenor. Except for Umbar, the surviving dominions were too much reduced to outlast for long. They became absorbed into the native cultures of Harad that improved by the transfer of Númenórean technology. Especially in weapons-making.
[1] This looks like an echo of Heliodorus of Emesa’s ‘Ethiopian Story’, 1, 30: ‘And when a barbarian loses all hope of his own preservation, he will usually kill everything he loves before he dies, either in the deluded belief that he will be reunited with it beyond the grave or else to save it from the shameless clutches of his enemies.’
[2] Sauron took further advantage of them by ‘donating’ the Nine Rings to selected overlords of the dominions. Three of them ‘were great lords of Númenórean race’, it was said (AK), certainly including the later Nazgûl Lord, the chief of the Ringwraiths, and Khamûl, also known as the Shadow of the East. The other six Nazgûls probably originated from the indigenous population of Rhún and Harad.
The Third Age First Millenium: The Conquest of the Elendili
When Sauron was defeated and disembodied in the War of the Last Alliance, he fled another time to his secret abode in Rhún and was not heard of in the West for more than a millenium. This left plenty of time for the Realms in Exile to expand out of their tiny germs that stretched along the rivers Anduin and Baranduin. They became vast powers that for some time, directly or indirectly, controlled all the lands between Lindon, the Grey Mountains, the Sea of Rhún and Near Harad. In fact, ‘the dominion of the Númenórean kings of Gondor was reaching out northwards towards the borders of Lórien and the Greenwood’, as King Thranduil observed not without reservations, (GC) and the Northmen of Rhovanion became close allies and friends of Gondor.
But the Dúnedain civilisation ended beyond the Inland Sea. Dark things brooding there came to the awareness of the Southern Kingdom in the late 5th century TA.
‘More ominous were rumours from the further East: the Wild Men were restless. Former servants and worshippers of Sauron, they were released now from his tyranny, but not from the evil and darkness that he had set in their hearts. Cruel wars raged among them, from which some were withdrawing westward, with minds filled with hatred, regarding all that dwelt in the West as enemies to be slain and plundered.’ (GC) This way, partially drawn, partially driven, they first encountered the Dúnedain in 490 TA.
Arnor was not in any way troubled by similar asylum seekers. The Northern Kingdom was effectively protected against the East and the South both by its distance and by its geographical barriers. It had its own set of internal problems, though, particularly owing to the fact that its upper class was too sparse to effectively control a territory of that size. Its southern sibling, though, was now facing trouble as ‘Gondor was first attacked by wild men out of the East.’ (KR) These refugees from war and post-Sauronian ideology approached ‘mostly over the plain between the Inland Sea and the Ash Mountains’ (KR).
It is hard to tell what they might have expected there. Before they would reach the Anduin, they had to pass the Brown Lands that had once been tilled and gardened by the Entwives but were now lying scorched, and they made supplies hard to acquire. Further south, however, this area would constitute a vast and open gate into the Southern Kingdom. The Rhóvain eventually crossed the Anduin and penetrated a good way into Gondor’s territory during the next decade. King Ostoher seems to have been either undecided or helpless in dealing with those armed immigrants. It was up to his successor to resort to drastic means. ‘Tarostar, his son, defeated them and drove them out, and took the name of Rómendacil “East-victor”.’ (KR)
The Dúnedain had thus met a challenge not to be subdued. Ever since, ‘war never ceased on their borders.’ (KR) Other than the cosy and def
ensive Dúnedain of the North who preferred to engage in their own little quibbles, the Gondorians waged their bet on military power and aggressive responses. It is a sadly ironic twist that the East-victor himself was ‘slain in battle with fresh hordes of Easterlings’ in 541 TA.
War never ceased on their borders
Gondor took this loss very seriously. ‘Turambar his son avenged him, and won much territory eastwards.’ (KR) It was he who advanced the borders of the Southern Kingdom ‘east to the inland Sea of Rhún’ (KR) and established the coastal region of Dorwinion as its easternmost province (for the further history of the Gondorian east-march, see chapter V.4).
The Rhóvain found themselves caught between two fires. Driven back beyond the Sea of Rhún by the too mighty adversary in the West, they must have been forced to immerse into the ongoing feuds in Rhún again. The fate of these dispelled refugees was of course of little concern to Osgiliath. Instead, Gondor beyond Anduin attracted a population of welcome Northmen from Rhovanion who ‘had increased greatly in the peace brought by the power of Gondor. The kings showed them favour … and they gave them wide lands beyond Anduin south of Greenwood the Great, to be a defence against men of the East.’ (KR) Only a small aristocracy of Dúnedain was set over them to manage the administration. Yet the peace gained by Turambar’s strategy lasted for many centuries.
Pushing Gondor’s borders outward brought an additional benefit: its grip on deserted Mordor was profoundly tightened, and the Black Land was now effectively locked all around its Northern and Western flanks and kept under scrutiny. The natural direction of Gondor’s further expansion was, obviously, southwards.