And I, in my turn, didn't mean to imply that I think Tolkien meant Arabs or Turks exclusively when he alludes to enemies from the East. I think of the "North-west of the Old World" as including the traditionally "Western" cultures, and I'd tend to disagree with lumping in, for example, the Vikings as included in the "enemies" reference. Who are the Rohirrim most notably based on if not the Vikings?
I was thinking of East vs. West in more traditional terms -- Mongols, certainly, Huns, maybe, Saracens, Pathans, and the like. But then again maybe I'm just talking out of school. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]
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