Middle-earth seen by the barbarians: The complete collection including a previously unpublished essay Read Online Free PDF

been reported to wilfully submit to the Necromancer or any of his minions, though they would not hesitate to take advantage of other military conflicts arising around them. And orcs they despised like any man would, up to expelling individuals from the community whom they suspected to have dealings with them, such as a certain ‘ outlaw driven from Dunland, where many said that he had Orc-blood. … He was the squint-eyed Southerner at the [Prancing Pony] Inn. ’ ( HR ) .
    Non-Dúnedain foreigners, however, enjoyed the same hospitality and generosity from the Dunlendings that was inherent to the Bree-folk: the Stoor hobbits who allegedly ‘l iked to live with or near to Big Folk of friendly kind’ ( DM ) dwelt quite contently ‘at the borders of Dunland ’ ( FT ) . They even were on such good terms with the Dunlendings that the Stoors ‘ appear to have adopted a language related to Dunlendish before they came north to the Shire .’ ( LP )
    Conditions severely changed with the Great Plague of 1636 TA. When it had passed, ‘ in Enedwaith the remnants of the Dunlendings [still] lived in the east, in the foothills of the Misty Mountains, ’ ( FI ) and they had ‘ suffered … less than most, since they dwelt apart and had few dealings with other men .’ ( LP ) But Gondor’s hold on Enedwaith had loosened, because of heavy losses among the troops and garrisons. Thus, ‘ when the days of the Kings ended (1975-2050) and the waning of Gondor began, they [= the Dunlendings] ceased in fact to be subjects of Gondor. ’ ( FI )
    But even northern Dunland had been considerably deprived of inhabitants ( RK ) and the Stoors, finding their abode untenable, headed for the Shire. The Gwathuirim would later meet only the occasional Dwarf north of their territory. ( KR )

     
After the Great Plague: Surviving population centres
    It should not surprise that they took interest in the nearby plains of Calenardhon that before ‘ were ever guarded against any incursion from the ‘Wild Lands’. But [when] during the Watchful Peace (from 2063 to 2460) the [Dúnedainic] people of Calenardhon dwindled … the garrisons of the forts were not renewed, and were left to the care of local hereditary chieftains whose subjects were of more and more mixed blood. For the Dunlendings drifted steadily and unchecked over the Isen. ’ ( FI )
    Calenardhon promised much more fertile and prosperous grounds than the hilly homesteads of Dunland. The Gwathuirim had hardly any other choice unless they wanted to follow the Stoors into an unsafe future in Eriador, and their West and South they found both defended by that more than dubious ‘ barbarous fisher-folk ’. ( GC ) Nor would their infiltration inevitably mean trouble. Only the notorious Gondorian ignorance of Dunlendish interests led to those tragic consequences after the Battle of the Camp in 1944 TA.

Dunlendish territory when the Rohirrim arrived (grey)
    One result of this event was that Gondor passed the province of Calenardhon by decree to a northmannish tribe, the Eótheód (later called Rohirrim), who had ventured south from their original homesteads in the north of Rhovanion. The Dunlendish herdsmen could only consider these alien horse-breeders competitors for the pastures of Calenardhon: they were not welcome on what the Gwathuirim, with some justification, considered their own land by then. The struggle for the resources of Calenardhon/Rohan deteriorated beyond the point of no return when the Kings of the Rohirrim decided to simply eliminate the local minorities, in a manner reminiscent of methods the Men of Darkness might apply:
    ’ Under Brego and Aldor the Dunlendings were rooted out again and driven away beyond the Isen, and the Fords of Isen were guarded .’ Worse, King Aldor ‘ even raided their lands in Enedwaith by way of reprisal. ’ ( FI ) This ethnic cleansing has never been forgotten by the ‘ wild hillmen and herd-folk ’, ( TT ) as the Northern Atani, the Rohirrim,