Races of men and real world counterparts?

[Max Brown]

Hi,

What would the real world counterparts of all the races of men in Middle Earth be? And I'm most curious about the Southrons and Easterlings in this matter...

Thanks.

[Finwe]

Since Tolkien originally intended the saga of Lord of the Rings to be a mythology or legendarium for England, the Southrons and Easterlings were roughly (emphasis on roughly) based on Africans and Asians (Middle-eastern, etc.) respectively.

[Lily Bracegirdle]

Or the Spanish and the French. smilies/biggrin.gif

-Lily

[Tuor Turambar,Cursed by the Valar]

Well then what are the Dunedain?

[Finwe]

The Dunedain are most likely the Men of England. But then again, Numenor could be compared to Ireland (even though Ireland didn't sink, in a geographic sense the comparison can be made), so that would make the Dunedain Irish.

[Oroaranion]

If this was true, where would the Elves have come from? Would it be Iceland. Maybe that is why so many Elves have fair hair.

[Lobelia]

Numenor sank, remember? :-) So it's not Ireland. In fact, it's meant to be Atlantis - Tolkien said so. So the Dunedain are Atlantean by descent. As for fair-haired Elves, I think it's only Galadriel's bunch, her family's House tended to fair hair, but as far as I know - and correct me if I'm wrong here - they mostly are dark and grey-eyed, eg Elrond and his daughter. They follow a different route from Men anyway - "awakened" somewhere on ME before the sun and moon were created, I forget where, then invited to the Undying Lands - and we all know, I assume, what happened after that - Feanor sulking over the Silmarils, leading a bunch of rebels off back to ME, etc.

[Daisy Brambleburr]

When I was reading a book on Mythology I saw that, according to myth, there was once an island called Lyonnesse that was somewhere off the coast of Cornwall.

once a region West of Cornwall, now sunk beneath the sea more than 40 fathoms deep. The Lyonnesse of Celtic legend, the home of Tristram and of the Lady of Lyones, has been identified with Lothian in Scotland.

The great Arthurian epics of medieval Romance turned the lost land of Cornish folklore into the legendary kingdom of Lyonnesse. The prince of this lost land and noble race was Tristan - the most accomplished of Arthur's champions and the famed lover of Isolde. It was to 'the sunset bound of Lyonnesse ... where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt, and the long mountains ended in a coast of ever-shifting sand' that Arthur 'ever pushed Mordred, league by league' as he pursued him across Cornwall, according to Tennyson's Idylls of the King. The Scillies are the high peaks of ancient Lyonnesse, so legend tells - two of its islands are known as Great and Little Arthur. Accordingly, from the westmost point of Lyonnesse, now the Scillies, Arthur lured Mordred's entire army towards him. This version of the flood story relates that Merlin then caused a great earthquake to send a tidal wave to drown Mordred's army and so flood Tristan's land of Lyonnesse.

I'm not sure if Lyonnesse and Atlantis are thought to be the same place, but it does sound a little like Numenor. What do you think?

[Iaurhirwen]

That ancient Arturian land sounds a lot like Numenor. The entire idea that this island, Lyonnesse, was once the home of the fragments of a forgottten people is quite similar to the idea of the house of Elros settling here and the rest of the men of Middle Earth forgetting about their existance.

I'm not quite sure if Lyonnesse and Atlantis are the same location though. From what I can remember from my studies, the ancient city of Antlantis was supposed to have sunk into the sea during the ancient times, hundreds of years before the time of Arthur. The statement must be made, however, that the similarites between Antlantis, Lyonnesse, and Numenor are very striking, and that there is possibly a connection between the three.

[Arothir]

Merlin still around in the time of the last battle of Camlann? Duneadain and Easterlings and Southrons don't come in in the early mythology when it was written for England. So they couldn't be European or anything. Besides Tolkien doesn't like allegory, so he wouldn't envisage Easterlings as representing an entire race.

[Finwe]

Merlin was imprisoned in a cave (or a tree, depending on which legend you look at) by the enchantress Nimue (also called Vivian, Viviane, and a bunch of other names), and there he waits until Arthur needs him again (which, presumably, will be at the Battle of Camlann).

True, Tolkien didn't like allegory, but these are hypothetical comparisons. We're just imagining which races in the real world would compare to certain races in Middle-earth.

[doug*platypus]

Southrons and Easterlings were roughly (emphasis on roughly) based on Africans and Asians (Middle-eastern, etc.) respectively. Finwe is right geographically speaking, but I don't see much evidence that any races of men in Middle-Earth had real world counterparts. Reading the descriptions of the Haradrim, they seem to be part Carthaginian, part Roman and part sub-Saharan African (maybe from one of the formerly great African kingdoms like Ethiopia). Their advanced armour, made of overlapping plates, would mean (in my uneducated opinion) that they couldn't be described only as African.

Similarly, the appearance of the Easterlings was, I thought, of rough, hairy blokes possibly like the Dunlendings. Although that might just be the impression I got. At any rate, if they were supposed to represent an Asiatic force like the Mongols, surely they would have had more cavalry and archers, rather than chariots and wains (whatever those are).

It seems to me that Tolkien took several ideas from existing cultures and used them to create the races of Middle-Earth, often relying more on his imagination than anything else. For one, I don't think there is a race in our world that has historically been taller than everybody else, as the Dúnedain were. The Dúnedain were a race of intelligent, fair and powerful men that had no parallel in our own world, especially since they adopted some of the characteristics of the Eldar.

[Voralphion]

I am pretty sure that the Variags were meant to represent Africans.
The half-orcs in Sauraman's army were described as being squint-eyed and having sallow skin. These are possibly representing North Asians.
The northmen such as those in Rohan, have blond hair and probably resemble Scandinavians.

[doug*platypus]

The "half-orcs in Sauraman's army" were bred or created by Saruman in Isengard. My ethnopaleontology might not be up to scratch, but I don't believe that Asiatic people came from Isengard! Or perhaps I'm just choosing not to believe that JRRT was somehow biased against the cultures of the east. Being told you resemble a half Orc would hardly be received very well, and I hope that no Barrow Downers are offended by the comments above, or those in the books.

You have a pretty good point about the Rohirrim, though. I wonder what the Bardings of the north looked like, and whether they had a similar culture? But after saying that, I think that the culture of Rohan also had Celtic and Germanic roots. Anyone know a bit more about that?