Who were the men refusing the call of Gondor?
 

During the Council of Elrond Boromir says What men other then the Rohirrim would have riden to GOndor before? None are mentioned anyhwere I can find. Maybe from Dale but I assumed they'd be too far away from Gondor to ride their. Maybe the Rangers but I can't imagine them riding in an army to help Gondor especially when they seem so few of them and they have to guard the whole of Eriador. Maybe Barliman would lead the Breemen? (that's a joke by the way)

Basically all the Men scattered around Middle-earth who were not already completely under the yoke of Sauron (or Saruman, as is the case with the Dunlendings). And there must have been quite a lot of Men, not only in Dale but in other settlements, for example there were Men way up north around the ice bay of Forochel, and there must have been settlements to the south of the Shire with all that talk of 'squint-eyed Southerners'. Of course there were Rangers and remnants of Arnor.

But all these Men were not united in any kind of common cause against Sauron, they were fighting their own battles. The enemy must have known well about the concept of 'divide and conquer' - for example, send a few Orc bands up to harry those Men in the villages of Arnor and they'll be far too busy fighting for their own livelihoods to worry about Gondor facing an army 1,000 times as large.

Only Rohan really still had any formal bonds with Gondor, which was probably why Saruman was keen to destabilise what remained (which wasn't that much) of the old alliance.

Anyway, old Butterbur would have been a great asset in war. After all, everyone needs beer. ;)

then these men seem to have been written out of history for not coming to Gondor's aid during the war of the ring

maybe Barliman was invited but he forgot about the invitation :p

Well, they do say that the victors write all the history books.

;)

it would have been a good story the Snowmen coming to Gondor's aid...
and I'd always assumed that the squinty eyed southerner was a Dunlander which are many leagues away from the Shire and I couldn't imagine them coming to Gondor's rescue.

They might have been in part. I seem to recall Merry or Pippin saying they had seen many men of the same type at Isengard around the time the Ents attacked it. So they were probably some breed of goblin mixed with men.

I always thought Tolkien uses the fair-imaged people aiding the other fair people, and I couldn't imagine some "squinty-eyed southerner" riding to Gondor's aid, or any "good kingdom" in any case. Remember in the Sil, the Easterners were not that fair, and it was them (with the exception of Ulfang & Co) who betrayed the Noldor. And hey. Were there other "fair men" apart from the Rohirrim and the Dunedain?

There were the Northerners from Rhovanion, possibly, but they were long ago destroyed or disperded due to Easterling raids, plagues, and other Dragons :cool:

And as we know, they had problems of their own at that time...

In my opinion Boromir made it sound like it was in his memory that people refused the call so they could not have been the early Rhovanians.

What Boromir says exactly is:
Which is really interesting, this would suggest someone Boromir really knows and someone who "shelters behind Gondor". Perhaps he might be referring to his recent journey, maybe he was speaking with some men from the wilderness around Tharbad - if they have any knowledge of Gondor - but there could be some remaining tales about the times when Tharbad was held by Gondorians (before 2912 TA)... But I'm not sure: these folks have problems of their own and I think they wouldn't give the Gondorians praise any more than the Breelanders. Or maybe there were some non-Gondorian Men similar to the Oathbreakers hiding on Andrast?

I think the sentence "Only from Rohan now will any men ride to us when we call" does not necessarily mean that Boromir remembers "testing" this call: he might just refer to his political, geographical, historical etc. knowledge. To anyone who looks at the map of M-E it is pretty obvious that at this time there is no realm except of Rohan from where anyone could come to Gondor's aid.

Maybe Tolkien when he was writing it he envisaged more countries of men in the west of Middle Earth when he was writing that chapter then there actually turned out to be (it is quite early in the story) or is that sacrilege here to say that here ;)

MMM... yes, that IS a sacrilege. Mandoos!

After all, I don't find it such an improbable idea... we know that Tolkien, for example, could not match the Shire-Rivendell journey with that in the Hobbit. (okay, now at least we get cast out to the Void both. After all, when I put my name in the Barrow-downs name generator, it came out that I am an "unwanted Vala" :D ) But if Tolkien knew what he was doing, there were two possibilities: either he referred to something we have no clue about (like "the kingdom of Monte Albo" in the White Mountains) or to some of those we know: the fishermen of Minhiriath, the tribes of Enedwaith, the Dúnedain of the North or some Northernmen (Beornings?!?) from the Anduin Valleys, even the Rhovanioners as I said before (Dorwinion; Lake-Town, Dale?)... maybe even Harondor (was it under Gondor at that time? I think not, but I don't know if it was enemy at that time - of course they served Sauron, but there possibly wasn't a status of war, or was it?). He could also mean the Elves... Remember that Denethor knew very well about Rivendell, although it was really far away.

Gondor's Call
 

Boromir may be speaking not just about whole regions and peoples once allied to Gondor, but also broadly about small parties of gentlemen adventurers who once came to Gondor's aid, who do so no longer. In the Catholic Medieval Europe Tolkien so loved, small parties of well-armed gentlemen-adventurers would travel great distances to help in the wars against the Moors and Saracens on the frontiers of Christendom. Aragorn himself was such a warrior adventurer in his younger days. Boromir may simply be complaining that none of this kind come any longer to Gondor as of III 3018, save from Rohan.

what about the men and troops from lamedon, anfalas, morthond vale, pinnath gelin, lossarnach, dol amroth, ringlo vale and pelargir and lebennin they all could come to aid minas tirith??

and for the who were the dead cursed guys well i think they were they men of dwimorberg in lamedon

"this stone brought by isildur out of the ruin of Numenor, has become the trysting place of shadowmen of the dwimorberg, whom he cursed as oathbreakers in ages past. this forgotten people and their king are doomed to await the day when a heir of isildur releases them from the curse. untill then, the lands about Erech are the home of those who are dead, and the living go there not."


Erech is north lamedon, south of helms deep.

If Boromir was speaking of coming to Minas Tirith's aid, then you're surely right. But I think he was speaking of coming to Gondor's aid, and to that your comment doesn't obviously apply to: those are regions and cities within Gondor itself.