Middle-earth seen by the barbarians: The complete collection including a previously unpublished essay

by Codex Regius

  The opposition met in Harondor and beyond was of a much different quality, though. The Gondorians met no trecks of semi-nomadic refugees there but well-organised diadoch states of an almost Hellenistic quality that built fortified burgs and towns of stone, the strongest and nearest among them being the harbour and fortress of Umbar that had developed into a veritable third realm in Exile (see chapter IV). Once this territory was conquered, though, its higher level of civilisation promoted the efficient control of the southern regions.

  It was inevitable that Gondor would sooner or later turn against its dark sibling, Umbar, to eliminate the lordship of its Númenórean cousins. By their defeat in 933 TA Gondor achieved its largest extension ever. The loyal kings of the Haradrim, though, accepted the Black Númenóreans among them and supplied them with manpower to launch a counter-strike that started 82 years later.

  Cyriandil continued the building of ships

  Second Millenium: Rise of the Wainriders

  Till 1015 TA, ‘Ciryandil [Eärnil’s] son continued the building of ships; but the Men of the Harad, led by the lords that had been driven from Umbar, came up with great power against that stronghold, and Ciryandil fell in battle in Haradwaith. For many years Umbar was invested, but could not be taken because of the sea-power of Gondor. Ciryaher son of Ciryandil utterly defeated the Men of the Harad, and their kings were compelled to acknowledge the overlordship of Gondor (1050). Ciryaher then took the name of Hyarmendacil “South-victor”.’ (KR)

  Ciryaher had thus assured that Gondor would stay efficiently in control of all the borders of Mordor, along the Ash Mountains, south to the River Harnen, east to Khand, maybe even including this remote land, which might explain why alone on the maps of Harad it is attributed with a proper name. The kings of Near Harad were forced to pay tribute; and they ‘did homage to Gondor, and their sons lived as hostages in the court of its King.’[1] (KR)

  This era was remembered as the golden age of the Southern Kingdom, as the Ranger Damrod reported during the War of the Ring. ‘Tis said that there were dealings of old between Gondor and the kingdoms of the Harad in the Far South; though there was never friendship. In those days our bounds were away south beyond the mouths of Anduin, and Umbar, the nearest of their realms, acknowledged our sway.’ (TT)

  In those glorious days, Sauron finally resolved to intervene. Still processing to form a new body, he perceived at last the strategic need to leave his refuge in Rhún and to return into the North-west.

  He did not relocate to Mordor, of course, which would have been too obvious, but to another place that served his schemes while keeping his identity covered. It was Greenwood the Great that he decided for, and he, ‘coming out of the wastes of the East took up his abode in the south of the forest, and slowly he grew and took shape there again.’ (RP) This abode was Amon Lanc, a barren hill overlooking the valley of the Anduin, on – or in – which he installed the fortress of Dol Guldur.

  From a strategic point of view, his stronghold was ingeniously selected. Dol Guldur pierced like a spearhead right into the weakest spot in the defence line of his antagonists, as closest as he might be to the borders of Gondor-beyond-Anduin, Lothlórien, Thranduil’s Woodelves and the Northmen communities of Rhovanion. Along the upper course of the Anduin and via Mount Gundabad he was even able to maintain communication and supply routes with his new vassal state, Angmar beyond the Misty Mountains.

  Soon, ‘a Shadow fell on Greenwood,’ (TY) and things began to change. The hobbits at the Anduin were among the first who noticed that something unusual was going on as Sauron, anonymously known as the Necromancer, summoned forces from the tribes of Rhún that poured into the local Mannish communities of Rhovanion and, slow by slow, undermined social stability.

  ‘The increase in Men was not the normal increase of those with whom they had lived in friendship, but the steady increase of invaders from the East, further south held in check by Gondor, but in the North beyond the bounds of the Kingdom harassing the older “Atanic”[2] inhabitants, and even in places occupying the Forest and coming through it into the Anduin valley. … The invasions were no doubt also in great part due to Sauron; for the “Easterlings” were mostly Men of cruel and evil kind, descendants of those who had served and worshipped Sauron before his overthrow at the end of the Second Age.’ (DM)

  Note the innocent word ‘mostly’. It indicates that there were also harmless refugees and dissidents among the immigrants from Rhún, it was not everything a collective evil sapping into Rhovanion. Indeed it was known that the Northmen of Southern Rhovanion, in Gondor-beyond-Anduin, ‘had been mingled with men of broader and heavier build’ (GC) who were obviously of Easterling origin, causing an average loss of physical height among the Northmen.

  It seems that the rising of the unidentified Necromancer alarmed even the Valar who had utterly forsaken Middle-earth since the Drowning of Númenor. Now they sent the Order of the Istari into the Mortal Lands, and at least three of them went straightforward east of the Inland Sea into the vastnesses of Rhún. Whether or not another member, Mithrandir aka. Gandalf, was sent south to Harad is a subject of discussion, for some hold that he had acquired a nickname there: Incanush, the Northern Spy (TI). Alas, the Istari did not distribute maps or ethnographic studies, and what they may have found in Rhún – or Mithrandir in Harad - has not been disclosed, for the Istari had not come as anthropologists or geographers but ‘went as emissaries to distant regions, East and South, far out of Númenórean range: missionaries to enemy-occupied lands, as it were.’ (L211)

  Of this order the number is unknown

  ’Of this Order the number is unknown; but of those that came to the North of Middle-earth … the chiefs were five. …. Of the [two] Blue little was known in the West, … for they passed into the East with Curunir [aka. Saruman], but they never returned, and whether they remained in the East, pursuing there the purposes for which they were sent; or perished; or as some hold were ensnared by Sauron and became his servants, is not now known.’ (TI) Only Saruman returned into the West, much later, when ‘he took his abode in Orthanc’. (KR)

  Historians suspect that the two Blue Istari ‘were founders or beginners of secret cults and “magic” traditions that outlasted the fall of Sauron.’ (L211) Another source, of doubtful value, attests that ‘their task was to circumvent Sauron: to bring help to the few tribes of Men that had rebelled from Melkor-worship, to stir up rebellion … and to cause [?dissension and disarray] among the dark East … They must have had very great influence on the history of the … Third Age in weakening and disarraying the forces of East … who would otherwise have … outnumbered the West.’ (LW)

  Since the Blue Istari never returned, Gondor was worse prepared in the 13th century TA than it could have hoped for, when ‘in the days of Narmacil I. [Easterling] attacks began again, though at first with little force; but it was learned by the regent [Minalcar, then not yet king] 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[3] of the Sea. He then took the name of Romendacil.’ (KR) The reference to the destruction of the settlements suggests total genocide.

  By butchering the Easterlings, Romendacil II. had temporarily saved Dorwinion and Rhovanion, and an increasingly fragile peace was retained beyond Anduin that would last well-nigh for another 600 years. Yet Gondor’s star had begun to wane. In the 15th century TA, ‘there was already rebellion in the southern provinces’. In 1448, after Gondor’s civil war known as the Kin-strife, the exiled members of Castamir’s faction became corsairs and ‘established themselves at Umbar.’ Harondor fell, and ‘the region of South Gondor became a debatable land between the Corsairs and the Kings.’ (KR) Being cut off from its own southern borders, indeed from all uncontested access to
the lands beyond the river Poros, Gondor’s ‘hold upon the Men of Harad was loosened’ (KR), and the Castamirioni instigated and supported rebellion against the throne of Osgiliath there.

  The kings of Harad willingly waived their tributary service and supplied the rebels in the port of Umbar. (HE) The crisis deteriorated to the point when in 1540 TA, ‘King Aldamir [was] slain in war with the Harad and Corsairs of Umbar’, and the conflict continued until, eleven years later, ‘Hyarmendacil II. defeat[ed] the Men of Harad.’ (TY)

  In the meantime, Rhún slowly recovered from the destruction inflicted by Romendacil II. A new power, the Wainriders, emerged from the rubble. They controlled a territory of unknown size, maybe as large as Gondor at its peak or even larger, forging an empire of hitherto unknown effectiveness.

  One may wonder how such a huge, centralised political entity could have emerged among the Men of Darkness. It was not evidently ruled by Sauron or one of the Nazgûls though Sauron tried to influence it with ‘emissaries’, matter of fact, it often acted against the Dark Lord’s interests. Some supreme authority of unprecedented quality must have established itself in Rhún despite the acclaimed ‘weakening and disarraying’ inflicted by the Blue Istari. Alas, is there a real chance – or is it too much of speculation? - that one of them or both may have succumbed to Curunir-Saruman’s dreams of power and assumed overlordship over the Wainriders?

  Gondor was both challenged and preserved when in 1636 TA ‘a deadly plague came with dark winds out of the East.’ (KR) The pestilence hit Gondor so severely that its hold of the provinces beyond Anduin loosened, owing to massive depopulation. But ‘no doubt the peoples further east had been equally afflicted’ (CE), which was why the pending catastrophe was held back for some time. Otherwise, the Wainrider empire ‘might have overwhelmed [Gondor] in its weakness; but Sauron could wait.’ (KR)

  The alliance between Umbar and the kingdoms of Near Harad had collapsed by then. ‘The peoples of Harad were at this period engaged in wars and feuds of their own’, (CE) leaving provocations against Gondor to the Castamirioni. King Telumehtar, ‘being troubled by the insolence of the Corsairs, who raided his coasts even as far as the Anfalas, gathered his forces and in 1810 took Umbar by storm.’ (KR) He ethnically cleansed the Corsairs, destroyed the port entirely and kept it desolate for the following century. ‘In that war the last descendants of Castamir perished, and Umbar was again held for a while by the kings. Telumehtar added to his name the title Umbardacil.’ (TY) Well done; but Umbardacil should have taken note of the much greater peril looming at the Sea of Rhún. For the Wainrider empire had already advanced to the very border of Dorwinion.

  In 1851 TA, ‘stirred up, as was afterwards seen, by the emissaries of Sauron, they made a sudden assault upon Gondor.’ (KR) The Northmen, still accounting for most of the population in Gondor-beyond-Anduin, ‘bore the brunt of the first assaults.’ (CE) Replenishment forces came to the rescue but could not achieve much: five years later, during the ill-fated Battle of the Plains in 1856 TA, ‘King Narmacil II was slain … beyond Anduin’ (KR) on a battlefield described as being located ‘south of Mirkwood’ (CE) and ‘north-east of the Morannon.’ (HE)

  As a result, Gondor-beyond-Anduin faltered, never to be regained. ‘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) Only the march of Dorwinion, cut off from the mainland, held out, now an exclave: an endangered island of civilisation in a raging barbarian sea (see chapter V).

  Sauron had successfully pursued an obvious strategy. The Wainrider empire now extended westward to the confines of Mirkwood, bordering at the territory of Dol Guldur. Sauron had efficiently linked his abode with his main territory, opening up much needed supply lines from the east. The Wainriders were in control of all the lands from Erebor in the North to the Ash Mountains in the South and Anduin, in the east, their territory stretched even further south, to the borders of Khand. Defeat even of the Dúnedain might have been imminent if the Wainriders had not suffered so much from the plague of 1636. But benefiting from its devastating effects, ‘the forces of Gondor had inflicted such losses on the Wainriders that they had not strength enough to press their invasion, until reinforced from the East, and were content for the time to complete their conquest of Rhovanion.’ (CE) For 43 years, Wilderland would remain a satrapy of the Wainrider empire.

  In that troubled period, many Northmen fled from Gondor-beyond-Anduin and ‘passing north between Mirkwood and Anduin settled in the Vales of Anduin, where they were joined by many fugitives who came through the Forest. This was the beginning of the Éothéod.’ (CE) It was also the ultimate ethnogenesis of the Rohirrim. Those Northmen who stayed behind became an oppressed minority, and the occupants’ numbers steadily increased until the Wainriders had gained enough power to consider further expansion of their empire.

  They had not reckoned with the Northmen, however. ‘King Calimehtar, son of Narmacil II, [was warned] that the Wainriders were plotting to raid Calenardhon over the Undeeps; but … also that a revolt of the Northmen who had been enslaved was being prepared and would burst into flame if the Wainriders became involved in war.’ (CE)

  This seemed a unique opportunity to push the enemy back beyond the Inland Sea and Calimehtar made a hazardous decision: He stationed the Southern Army away from the river Poros to counter the Wainriders’ invasion scheme, for the Haradrim as well seemed more concerned about the threat from their expansive empire than about Gondor, and he took the risk to expose his southern borders.

  The king, ‘helped by [the] revolt in Rhovanion, avenged his father with a great victory over the Easterlings upon Dagorlad in 1899, and for a while the peril was averted.’ (KR) But alas, the Northmen met resistance that was much harder than anticipated. They had not reckoned with the amazon-style defence of the ‘dwellings of the Wainriders, and their storehouses, and their fortified camps of wagons’ by their womenfolk who were skilfully trained in defending the home-front. ‘Thus in the end they [the Northmen] never again returned to their former homes’ (CE), and southern Rhovanion remained subject to the Wainrider empire. The lesson was learned, though, and the notion of training shieldmaidens caught on, though the Northmen never applied them in large numbers, unlike the Wainriders.

  The younger women fought fiercely in defence of their homes and their children

  Having secured its borders, the mysterious central authority of the Wainriders now aimed at a direction where resistance seemed weaker. ‘Beyond the reach of the arms of Gondor, in lands east of the Sea of Rhún from which no tidings came to its Kings, their kinsfolk spread and multiplied. … The eastern Wainriders had been spreading southward, beyond Mordor, and were in conflict with the peoples of Khand and their neighbours further south [i. e. with the Swarthy Men of Near Harad].’ (KR)

  A conflict of that kind was certainly not in Sauron’s interests. It meant a waste of forces that he would have had better use for. But it took even his emissaries and instigators decades to disperse those undesirable ambitions of the Wainriders’ authority. As late as 1944, a fragile ‘peace and alliance was agreed between these enemies of Gondor, and an attack was prepared that should be made at the same time from north and south’ of Mordor. ‘It was also clear that the hatred of Gondor, and the alliance of its enemies in concerted action (for which they themselves had neither the will nor the wisdom) was due to the machinations of Sauron.’ (CE)

  At the beginning of this war, ‘the Wainriders had mustered a great host by the southern shores of the inland Sea of Rhún, strengthened by men of their kinsfolk in Rhovanion and from their new allies in Khand.’[4] (CE) They initiated ‘raids to the south of [Rhovanion] that came both up the river [Anduin] and through the Narrows of the Forest [of Mirkwood, note the proximity of that assault path to Dol Guldur].’ (CE)

  The Dúnedain were aware of the peril, but their condition was now even worse than it had been a century ago. Sauron had finally designed a master
plan whose scope and ingenuity surpassed everything since the War of the Elves and Sauron in the Second Age.

  The empire of the Wainriders was several times larger than Gondor

  The Dark Lord had initiated an offensive move against both Realms in Exile at once! His vassal state of ‘Angmar renewed its attack upon Arthedain at the same time as the Wainriders reappeared in great force’ (KR), and facing collapse, the Northern Kingdom was unable to support its imperilled sibling at the Anduin.

  ‘In this great assault from north and south, Gondor came near to destruction.’ (KR) In the south, ‘Umbar was again lost, and fell into the hands of the Men of the Harad’ (KR) who ‘reoccupied and rebuilt’ (HE) the desolate stronghold. Next, ‘the enemy poured into Ithilien.’ (KR) Fortunately, Gondor had the benefit of Ithilien’s particular morphology: ‘An attack proceeding from Near Harad - unless it had assistance from Umbar, which was not at that time available - could more easily be resisted and contained [than an attack across the Brown Lands]. It could not cross the Anduin, and as it went north passed into a narrowing land between the river and the mountains.’ (CE) Cunningly using this advantage, ‘Eärnil, Captain of the Southern Army, won a great victory in South Ithilien and destroyed the army of Harad that had crossed the River Poros.’

  The enemy’s vanguard was composed not only of the war-chariots

  Further north, the situation was less favourable. Ironically and inevitably, the advance of enemies was much speeded by the old road network of Gondor-beyond-Anduin which, though it had never been completed, helped to speed the chariot and cavalry troops at least up to fifty miles east of the Morannon. (CE) And this was not the only unpleasant surprise.