Middle-earth seen by the barbarians: The complete collection including a previously unpublished essay (24 page)

It is evident that the chief trading routes from Erebor ran south to south-east along the courses of Celduin and Carnen. As a result, Bladorthin’s kingdom will have been located downstream of the Celduin. Was the lordship of Dale just its province?

1. B
   LADORTHIN AND HIS AGE
   

It seems unlikely. If Bladorthin’s successor had dwelt reasonably close to Dale, he would have provided military and humanitarian aid when Smaug came. But this did not happen: Dale was left on its own, and its survivors escaped to Esgaroth because Bladorthin’s realm seems to have been too far away to provide refuge. It is also said of Bard’s descendant, king Brand, that his ‘
realm now reaches far south and east of Esgaroth
’.
(
FR
)
He could hardly have brought this territory under control if he had to face opposition by Bladorthin’s kinsmen and subjects. There was none, but what could have happened to his kingdom in the meantime that we have not heard of?

The obvious conclusion is that the lordship of Dale was the sole authority of the Northmen between Celduin and Carnen. Bladorthin, though a great king, dwelt too far away to consider a dragon descending on Erebor and Dale more than a reason to write off the ordered weapons in his bookkeeping.

The residence of the great king Bladorthin has to meet the following criteria:

• It had been long enough exposed to the influence of Eldarin or Dúnedainic culture that its rulers acquired the habit to assume Elvish throne-names.
  
• It was close enough to Dale to maintain trade and transport routes but not close enough to provide aid and support in case of emergency or to assist in military campaigns.
  
• It was powerful enough to maintain its own armies, but not enough to leave an impression in the records of Gondor.
  
• In 2770 TA, it was prosperous enough that its king order a rather luxurious set of Dwarvish arms.
  
• These arms do not seem to have been made for ceremonial purposes. Hence, Bladorthin was exposed to a danger which made such equipment necessary (though a fire-breathing dragon was not his concern, obviously).
  

There is one place which meets all these requirements.

1. T
   HE HIDDEN HISTORY OF
   D
   ORWINION
   

The land of Dorwinion is as elusive as king Bladorthin. Like him, it was only mentioned once in the canonical history of Middle-earth, and like him, it was in the context of trade routes:

‘
The wine, and other goods, were brought
[to the Wood-elf realm in Mirkwood]
from far away, from their kinsfolk in the South, or from the vineyards of Men in distant lands. … This wine, it would seem, was the heady vintage of the great gardens of Dorwinion.
’
(
H
, IX)

In a general discussion of the influence of Sindarin in Rhovanion,
WPP
remarks that the Wood-elves of Lothlórien and Mirkwood ‘
were under “Sindarin” rule and influence
,’ expanding in the following on the name Dorwinion: ‘
Dorwinion is Sindarin meaning “Young-land country” or Land of Gwinion. (It as probably far south down the River Running, and its Sindarin name a testimony to the spread of Sindarin: in this case expectable since the cultivation of vine was not originally known to the Nandor or Avari.
)’
(
WPP
)

The name, it says, is derived from a root
WIN-
: ‘
young, Q vinya “young”; S gwein. Q vine “youth”; S gwîn
’.
(
WPP
)
Which is a surprising etymology. As tempting as previous attempts to translate Dorwinion as ‘Land of Wine’ may have been, these had not been the right guess.

Despite the somewhat indecisive note that Dorwinion was ‘
probably far south down the R[iver] Running
’ (Celduin) it does not appear on the published map of
LR
. It was first seen on
PBD
at the northwestern coast of the Sea of Rhûn. And this identification allows deductions on Dorwinion’s hidden history.

There, 48 to 50 degrees of northern latitude (see
Fig. 25
), so far away from the moderating Belegaer ocean, the general climate will have been disadvantageous for wine-growing: continental, subject to powerful and rapid changes of temperature. The large body of the inland sea, though, provided its coasts with a more temperate local climate. And, as any wine grower of the Rhine and Mosel valleys will confirm, slopes oriented towards noon provide more direct sunlight, hence, better conditions for growing than level ground. The territory of Dorwinion will therefore have included the hills of the west and southwest of the Sea of Rhún, and the name was applied to the plain north of them only for reasons of space.

1. The location of Dorwinion on
   PBD
   

In the First Age, the cultivation of vine was restricted to Beleriand. The Valar had invented it, of course. From
Q
&
E
we even learn their own word for wine,
mirub
-. Which is remarkable when it is taken into account that
TE
or any later source do not provide an Elvish word for this popular drink, except for Q
limpe
which is glossed ‘drink of the Valar’ and does not signify ordinary wine but only the Valarin brand,
Miruvor
.

We do not know who planted the first vineyard of Beleriand and when. A certain Sinda, Angrod of Doriath, described the Noldor to king Thingol ‘
as if besotted with wine, and as briefly
.’
(
S
)
Thingol evidently understood the reference, therefore he was familiar with that feeling. But this must have been a recent experience for vine is a friend of warmth and sunlight: it could not have grown in Middle-earth during the eternal twilight of the Age of Trees.

The Edain in Beleriand have been introduced to the pleasures of alcoholic beverages. Tuor responded positively: ‘
This uplifts the heart like the drinking of cool wine!
’
(
UT
)
and wine was served to him even in Gondolin. Which begs for the question where it came from, for the Hidden City did not import it but its northerly latitude and proximity to the cold Ered Engrin should have prohibited the cultivation of vine. Hence, either did the Noldor really possess ‘deep’ knowledge that allowed them transcending climatic restrictions to agriculture or the climate of Arda Flat was much different from that of the later globe. At any rate, Tuor’s exclamation testifies that vineyards were a common sight in the late First Age.

1. Dorwinion is Sindarin meaning “Young-land country” or Land of Gwinion.
   

Suggestions made in early sources (like the
Lay of Leithian
) that Doriath was importing goods from Dorwinion have to be discarded. Beside the improbability of such a long trade route, Sindarin language and technology had not expanded to Rhovanion and Rhún until the early Second Age, when Doriathrin refugees established themselves in Greenwood and Lothlórien. As far as Greenwood is concerned, it was as well too far north for cultivation, and Mr Baggins properly observes that ‘
the Wood-elves, and especially their king, were very fond of wine, though no vines grew in those parts
.’
(
H
, IX)
But Thranduil’s fondness suggests that he got his share even in the Second Age. Certainly he would not have survived several millenia without it?

One source
,
WPP
,
seems to suggest that the cultivation of vine was introduced to Dorwinion by Elves, later in the Second Age. But is this evidence that Dorwinion itself was founded, cultivated and inhabited by Sindar? For many other sources agree that it had a long Mannish history instead that has not been explicitly told.

Dorwinion is mentioned first, and not yet by its later name, in the annals of the early First Age when the migrating Northern Atani from the ‘
Folk of Hador discovered that a part of their host from whom they had become separated had reached
[the Sea of Rhún]
before them, and dwelt at the feet of the high hills to the south-west
’.
(
PR
)
This host was comprised of the pre-Bëorrim, see chapter
I
. But they all left Dorwinion soon, withdrawing from increasing pressure by ‘
Servants of the Dark
’,
(
PR
)
probably Rhúnedain, and we do not hear about Dorwinion in the chronicles of the First and even the Second Age again. But the pre-Bëorrim did not yet cultivate vine. The wine of Dorwinion has a different origin, and it was not introduced by Elves.

When the ships from Númenor reached Middle-earth, they came to export many pleasures to the ‘wild men’: ‘
Corn and wine they brought, and they instructed Men in the sowing of seed and the grinding of grain, in the hewing of wood and the shaping of stone, and in the ordering of their life
.’
(
AK
)
This cultivation programme, however, cannot have expanded to the Sea of Rhún because the Númenóreans never ventured this far inland. Vintage follows migration and colonisation patterns, not trade routes.

Dorwinion enters the historical records again in the crucial year 541 TA. In that year, the Dúnedainic king Turambar established it as the east march of his realm: ‘
Gondor was first attacked by wild men out of the East.
[King Tarostar]
defeated them and drove them out, and took the name of Rómendacil “East-victor”. He was, however, later slain in battle with fresh hordes of Easterlings. Turambar his son avenged him, and won much territory eastwards
.’
(
KR
)
. The scope of this territory won is defined in the following: ‘
The realm then extended north to Celebrant and the southern eaves of Mirkwood; west to the Greyflood; east to the inland Sea of Rhûn
.’
(
KR
)

1. The realm then extended east to the inland Sea of Rhún
   

It was probably then that Dorwinion received its name:
Land of Gwinion
or
Country of young Lands
, the element
gwin
- also suggesting freshness and greenness. It may have been a propagandistic effort to attract settlers to the east march. Ironically, Turambar himself was rather fresh and green when he was crowned. Perhaps Tarostar Romendacil had rather named
Dor-(G)winion
for his son: It is not impossible that *Gwinion may have been Turambar’s birth-name before he ascended the throne.