Quote:
I tend towards the opinion, that Fonstad meant with that little stripe not the Dunlendings, but that numerous, but barbarious fisher-folk, which is named in the quote I posted above.
I personally think, that the most interesting question is, how many Dunedain of the North still live in the old regions of Arnor and its following states? I never have found a number save the hint, which Halbard gave, that he could gather in haste 30 Rangers. Any thoughts or already existings threads?
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Oh, I agree that Fonstad is depicting the barbarous fisher-folk, as a I think referenced in
Unfinished Tales, but correctly I believe, she shades them as being/speaking Dunlendish. I'm not sure about the validity of it at the End of the Third Age,
per se, as opposed to other times or places. And, she's on a little shakier ground indicating such widespread Drłedain settlement to the south in Andrast.
Except for, of course, the Dłnedain and the Lossoth, as well as some Adūnaic groups north of the East-West road at one time, the Southmen/Dunlendish/Halethrim are the origins of all other men in Eriador. We really, though, have no idea about the origins of the evil Hill-men of Rhudaur. Probably Dunlendish, again, or perhaps, offshoot remnants of the bad Easterlings from the First Age.
The question of the Dłnedain at the end of the Third Age is a recurring one. The 30 gathered in haste may be taken as a select subset of the Men of prime warrior age. Considering that a couple times as many may not have been able to gathered---I like to think they others were business in the Misty Mountains during the WofR, given the lack of protect around Bree/Shre---then with women, children, older men and so forth, you are still only at several hundred, but I like to assume a good 1,000, which lived at time in the area of The Angle, and I'd assume around Lake Evendim and the North Downs.