Middle-earth seen by the barbarians: The complete collection including a previously unpublished essay (15 page)

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 defensive 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.

1. 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.

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.

1. Cyriandil continued the building of ships
   

1. 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
.’
(
L
211)

1. 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
.’
(
L
211)
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 13
^th
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.