The Northern Kingdoms

[Snowdog]

Originally Posted by ArquenoSingollo72

One of the most intriguing and frustrating pieces of the history of the Dunedain for me is the separation of Arnor into the three sister realms of Arthedain, Cardolan and Rhudaur. Tolkien gave us very little information to go on, i was wondering if anyone out there had their own theories why or indeed why Tolkien was reticent on the subject of Arnor when we have a relatively detailed history of Gondor from the same period.

I've pondered this a bit myself over the years. Of the event there are a couple possibilities.
One could just be a case of bad parenting. Since little is said of King Eärendur other than he split the kingdom between his sons. Another could be that Eärendur didn't like his eldest son Amlaith for any number of reasons and so split the kingdom amongst the sons.
As for Tolkien ot expanding on this or the other subjects mention, well, he did have a full time job as a Professor, and raised a family. I doubt he could have covered everything had he spent every waking moment writing in the world of Middle Earth

[Nerwen]

Re: the "triplets" hypothesis: it seems to me that if Tolkien had meant something as noteworthy as that to be the reason for the split, he would have said so.