Who were the men refusing the call of Gondor?

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by hewhoarisesinmight

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

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

[Elmo]

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.

[Ghazi]

Originally Posted by hewhoarisesinmight

I'd always assumed that the squinty eyed southerner was a Dunlander

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.

[yavanna II]

Originally Posted by hewhoarisesinmight

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.

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?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

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

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

[Elmo]

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.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

What Boromir says exactly is:

But still we fight on, holding all the west shores of Anduin; and those who
shelter behind us give us praise, if ever they hear our name: much praise but
little help. Only from Rohan now will any men ride to us when we call.

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.

[Elmo]

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