Concerning Rangers

[Luinadar]

Just pondering something which you may be able to illuminate for me:

At the start of the wars for the Ring, how many Rangers/Dunedain did
Aragorn have under his Chieftenship, given that they were of such
limited genetic stock there must have been Dunedain females also under
his dominion, in which case where do said Rangers/Familiys reside? With Elves?
Any insight here would be appreciated...

[lindil]

uh, while this is a most interesting question it ended upsomehow in the wrong forum, and as my forum powers do not extend outside of my 2 barrows, I can only comment on that fact...


but anyway not to be snooty, I will be happy to give this a go if I see it in the books section.

[Arwen Imladris]

Hmm, I never thought about that before. I would assume that there were a couple of places where they lived. Aragorn was brought up in Rivendell, perhaps others were brought up there as well?

[Morgoth Bauglir]

oh!!! i know!!i THINK its lake evendim....im pretty sure his mother lived and died there.

You kind of lost me about where you started talking about elves and stf. I think he did rule over the ranger snad all, but i know nothing in detail about them they are not relly mention much except in brief in the chapter in The Fellowship of the Ring Bree.

[lindil]

I have seen a couple of threads on various boards where this was gone into in detail. We know the location of where the Dunedain lived in Eriador, it was found on a slip of papere amidst JRRT's writings at Marquette. It gave no name other than calling it a 'Hidden Fastness' and stated that it Tolkien felt bound by his statement that there were no other settlements of Men within 100 leauges [ 300 miles] of the shire. JRRT then deduced that the dwelling of the remaining Dunedain was at the confluence of the Hoarwell and Loudwater[bruinen]Rivers. This would put them southwest of Imladris by approximately 150 miles.

As for population the only #'s we have to even deduct from are the number of Rangers that went south with Halbarad to join Aragorn in Rohan.

There were 30 mentioned I believe, whom halbarad mentioned 'were all that could be gathered in haste'.

So let us postulate another 20-40 rangers making a total of 50-90.

These would probably be nearly every male of 'military age' if you will, and I imagine the older [100 or more by Arnorian standards?]men, and younger lads would have stayed back to do smith work and farming and such. So let us say that would be possibly equal to the number of rangers; another 50-90. So now we are talking 100-180 males and add to that an equal # of women [100 - 180] although due to the Rangers hazardous line of work the women would almost certainly outnumber them. but any way as a semi-educated guess we can say the Dunedain of the North numbered something like 200 - 400 people.

One can come up with other figures but I do not really see how they could have numbered more than a thousand.

Also keep in mind that the departure of the 30 rangers allowed the Shire and Bree to be essntially taken over by the servants and refugees of Isaengard, who in the shire were said to have numbered 200 [I think?] or so.

So we are truly talking a very small population in a hard almost empty land. The Elves [Mithlond,Imladris] and The Shire, Bree were the only populations centers [ along with the Dwarves in the Mountains and scattered fisher folk in Minhirriath.

[lindil]

one other point re: lake Evendim and others being raised in Rivendell.

I think [meaning this is my speculation] the Northern Dunedain had made it policy to:
1] stay more or less in hiding as a community, to avoid being targeted as Arthedain and Cardolan were by Sauron, who as we hear in Rivendell has been searching to see if any hear of Isildur still exists.

Any Heir of Isildur would be a triple threat: 1 - he might have or [more likely] know of the whereabouts of the Ring,
2 - would be seen as a personal threat by Sauron as the heir and inheritor of the sword that defeated him in the Last Alliance.

3 - He could potentially [ in Sauron's mind I imagine] rally both Gondor and Rivendell and even possibly Lorien against him.

Michael Martinez has done some very interesting research into Arnor you can check out: http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/tolkien/73611

and more pertinently [in terms of the northern Rangers]: http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/tolkien/64660

enjoy.

[Birdland]

Lindil - Thank you for the references concerning the population of Middle-earth.

One of the things that has troubled me about Tolkien's work is the absence of people! Even allowing for the fact that, as an epic, he is concentrating his focus on those few civilizations that have a direct involvement in combating Mordor, Middle-earth has always seemed to me to be a strangely barren land.

Even allowing for the wars and the Dark Plague, it seems odd that there are so few settlements, towns, freeholds, or even the odd woodcutter here or there.

Where the heck did everyone go?

[lindil]

your welcome birdland.

I have always thought the same about Eriador.

In UT we are however given to see that the Wilderland was full of folks, your missing woodcutters, loose settlements of Men.

The Rohirrim had a burg near MtGundabad that shows up on no map.

Also during the relams of Arnor and arthedain and co. we never see the many cities and towns which must have existed during the 3rd age.

Another factor [in Eriador] - Sauron and War.

From 1409 -1975 Arthedain and co. were under near perpetual war from Angmar.

A 500 year war is longer than anything I have ever heard of.

[Luinadar]

Thanks for the illumination there Lindil, you have given me some interesting points to ponder. On further reading last night I found this: Appendix A(iii) says they
were
'...a secret and wandering people, and their deeds and labours were seldom sung or recorded. Little now is remembered of them since Elrond departed.'

Now they evidently do meet up regularly, and clearly have a fairly well organised society, so they can't simply wander around
Eriador.
But I pictured a travelling people,
like gypsies in many ways. I'm not sure whether this is what Tolkien had in mind, but from what he wrote, this could seem to be a possiblity too?

[ October 03, 2002: Message edited by: Luinadar ]

[lindil]

The rangers wandered the rest of the Northern Dunedain did not. The lived at 'the angle of the mitheithel and bruinen [ I think I mistated one of the rivers earlier - anyway if you follow the river coming down out of Rivendell then when it joins the one coming from the last bridge you have it - the 'hidden fastnes' of the Dunedain].


MM addresses this wandering question rather fully in his article quoted above [ the second one].

btw MM evisions a Northern Dunedain population of 'thousands not hundreds', which too me seems very high, but he does put forth a rational argument concerning their absence from Bree and the Shire.

[Luinadar]

I have read the articles Lindil, excellent detail and scope laid out by MM, plenty of stuff to ponder, yet even he admits that there is still areas of mystery surounding the Northern Dunedain. For sure though, their military contribution towards victory in the Wars Of The Ring was far greater than the 30 or so Rangers who fought so well with Aragorn.
I like MM's postulation that many more Rangers were fighting to the last man against orcs, goblins and wargs trying to invade from the foothills of the Misty Mountains, just North East of Rivendell. It gives deserved recognition far more befitting of such a noble race of people.

[ October 04, 2002: Message edited by: Luinadar ]

[lindil]

It is def an area where folks can reasonably disagree we really have no solid #'s to go on. The 30 rangers merely provides a staring point for extrapolation.

I lean towards the smaller population, because everytine the rangers and co. are mentioned in The appendix or in LotR there small population and 'dwindling' community is underlined. So I do not see thousands [ a town] but hundreds [a village].

Just my impression of the texts. There simply is too little info to go on.

[bombur]

I think we are over-canonising Tolkien quite often. Like for example taking as fact something scribbled on a slip of paper. This may well have been a thought discarded by Tolkien himself. Or, Tolkien being the ultimate perfectionist, he just pondered "hidden fastness" as the anwser, but was not totally satisfied with it and hence did not include it even on any of the semi-finished tales of his. I do not take the "waste basket archaeology" without a pound or two of salt. [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img]

Also, there is tendency to assume that what Tolkien does not mention does not exist. This is not realistic, as he was not even trying to write a geographic manual, but rather a story, that reveals parts of the land only.

in Tolkiens work Eriador seems awfully empty. But come to think of it, so do the plains of Rohan. We are facing the fact that Tolkien does not cover all of the Middle Earth in his books. By the books we only know that there are no major cities in Eriador and that Tharbad and Fornost are in ruins. We also know that the western slopes of misty mountains between Rivendell and Moria, surroundings of shire and the road between Bree and Rivendell are relatively scarcely populated what comes to men.

It would seem reasonable to assume that in middle earth as in our world, when a great kingdom falls, the population is not suddenly extinct. It would rationally follow that the edges of the north-south road, banks of greyflood and lake Evendim, Emyn Uial, North downs, south downs and shores of Minhiriath are littered by occasional smallish villages and hamlets of men. Theese after all were the heartlands of Cardolan and Arthedain.

The Areas that are barren are so for reason. The mountainslopes are not the most arable land available. The weather hills were the area contested by the three kingdoms of Eriador and the population of Rhudaur was worst decimated by the wars.

Streams of refugees were coming from south to Eriador in the end of the third age. It is not in human nature to flee to a barren wilderness. People flee to more peaceful lands where other people live. If Eriador was barren, the people would have fled from south to Rhovanion and Anfalas.

It often mentioned that the Rangers fight a secret war on the servants of Sauron in the Eriador and keep its inhabitants safe. 30 hunters can hardly be called a war. And could hardly keep even Bree safe. Never mind that they are mighty warriors, they still cannot be in two places at one time.

I would tend to think that the rangers are a gipsylike elitist clan setteling nowhere. A family might settle down for a few years in this or that village and raise a child, then moving on. There are plenty of people living in Eriador and the last survivors of the great men of Numenor have important skills to trade for (As Gipsies used to have in farming society) occasional temporary mebership of the village communities.

This kind of life would be too dangerous to a heir of Isildur while growing up, as he/she is hunted by Saurons servants, so a shelter that is not part of a normal Ranger way of life has to be found. Elrond provided this.

A land the size of Eriador could well sustain a scarce population of quarter of a million without any village being over hundred or two hundred people in size, hunting being important livelihood and farming prevalent only by rivers or lakes or where there are small streams or ponds, like propably around Bree. There might well be few several hundreds of combatant Rangers. Population of some thousand or two maybe.

This is only what I think the not-spoken-of part of the story is. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]


Janne Harju


And BTW. Aragorn made a second capital where Fornost used to be after becoming a king. Never in human history has a capital (or city even) been built in a location where no or very few people live nearby. All the cities / admistrative palaces ever built by royal order heve been built on a location where there are at least farming communities closeby for hiring of construction labour etc.

[ October 06, 2002: Message edited by: bombur ]

[lindil]

many worthy points, I will try and respond to them later.

As for aragorn's arnor restoration project I have often wondered if he recruited second sons of Gondor to relocate north.

But in reality, I think he kept it pretty small in Arnor. But certainly the Dunedain, however many would come ut of hiding.

As for the note, we know Gilrain lived somewhere and that the Rangers as a whole did not live in Rivendell, so the location JRRT gave made total sense and fit w/ his other staements.
I like it.
We know so little about Arnor [compared to Gondor] that i tend to cling to any scrap thrown my way!