Interesting article about Variags

[Rhun charioteer]

I read the post and I honestly disagree.

The Varangians were historically Vikings that traveled south and famously served as the palace guard of the Byzantine emperors.

The Variags are a horse people, living on the far edge of the map-east of Harad even.

The black numenorians and Umbar as I understand it settled largely on the coast south of Gondor.

While the linguistic similarity between Variag and Varangian is fairly obvious I think the post is reading a little too much into it.

We know the Variags were a horse people, a fierce people, and servants of Sauron who lived pretty darn far away from Gondor and far even from Near Harad.

I doubt the Black numenorians settled so far.

The best comparison between the Varangians and Variags is that they were fierce foreign combatants in the service of someone else.

I'd say they were natives to the region.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Rhun charioteer

The Variags are a horse people, living on the far edge of the map-east of Harad even.

I am unaware of any documentation saying they were "a horse people". The Wainriders, of course, had an affinity to horses, but the same isn't mentioned of the Variags that I can recall. All we really know is that the axe was their preferred weapon. Axes of the nature used in foot combat (battle axe, pole axe, halberd) are entirely different than the much smaller single-handed axes used while mounted. I am not sure Tolkien would have these warriors hefting just hatchets.

[Rhun charioteer]

Given the likely geography of their homeland I can't see why they wouldn't be horsemen.

Rhun had large plains and open country.

We can assume Harad being desert and Khand bordering both of them and Mordor would a climate intermediate from them both(while probably getting the benefits of volcanic ash and water form the sea of nurnen.

So I imagine rough grasslands, scrub, and hilly country.

An environment suited for horses.

Also I can't imagine they all marched straight through Mordor on foot.

They like the Haradrim probably had a ground contingent yet horses to me at least seem sensible.

[Galadriel55]

Rhun Charioteer -

I think you may be presenting reasonable ideas against Variags being Varangians, but your horsemen argument is too akin to this. https://res.cloudinary.com/teepublic...s/671556_1.jpg

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

All we really know is that the axe was their preferred weapon. Axes of the nature used in foot combat (battle axe, pole axe, halberd) are entirely different than the much smaller single-handed axes used while mounted. I am not sure Tolkien would have these warriors hefting just hatchets.

If you'll permit me to raise a point here Morthoron, there's no evidence I can see that the Variags of Khand fought with axes. Of the scant times they or their land is mentioned, axes are never specified in relation to them. I think this derives from a common but, as far as I can tell, mistaken belief the "axe bearing Easterlings" who fought at the Pelennor were the same people as the Variags.

I don't mean to cast doubt on your knowledge, Morth, but I see people saying this fairly often, and I very much don't think the two are connected.

Easterlings with axes are mentioned exactly twice, I believe. Firstly, Ingold says:

"countless companies of Men of a new sort that we have not met before. Not tall, but broad and grim, bearded like dwarves, wielding great axes. Out of some savage land in the wide East they come, we deem."

This doesn't connect them with the Variags as far as I can tell.

The second time is this remark about the reserves being sent in at the Pelennor:

Gothmog the lieutenant of Morgul had flung them into the fray; Easterlings with axes, and Variags of Khand. Southrons in scarlet, and out of Far Harad black men like half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues.

This heavily implies, if not outright states, that the axe-bearing Easterlings were a separate people to the Variags of Khand.

Axes are mentioned again at the Pelennor here:

The axes hewed Forlong as he fought alone and unhorsed

This might refer to these Easterlings, although we know Orcs used axes as well. Nonetheless, there is no connection to the Variags.

Incidentally, the only other time the word "Variag" is used is in this line:

East rode the knights of Dol Amroth driving the enemy before them: troll-men and Variags and orcs that hated the sunlight.

Again, axes are never mentioned in relation to them, only to this new group of Easterlings, who appear to be a separate party in the host.

The "Men of Khand", not referred to as "Variags", are mentioned once more in Appendix A, and that's it. The article notes the times Khand is referred to in Unfinished Tales and The Peoples of Middle-earth, each time in a very general sense. Unfinished Tales mentions "peoples of Khand" and "allies in Khand". The Peoples of Middle-earth simply makes an observation about the word "Variag" in isolation. There isn't anything about axes (or horses for that matter). Beyond that I believe we hear absolutely nothing further about Khand of Variags in the entire corpus.

As such I don't believe that they are ever specified as being horsemen or specified as fighting with axes (the axe bearers are a separate group).

I apologise if I'm overemphasising the point but I have encountered this curious elision of the Variags of Khand and the "Easterlings with axes" before, and I'm unsure where it comes from.

As for horses, it's probably likely they did use horses in some capacity, as most Men seem to have done so, but we don't actually have any hard evidence to that effect. Admittedly this line from Unfinished Tales suggests use of horses:

The Wainriders had mustered a great host by the southern shores of the inland Sea of Rhun strengthened by men of their kinsfolk in Rhovanion and from their new allies in Khand. When all was ready they set out for Gondor from the East moving with all the speed they could

If they kept up with the Wainriders they were probably mounted, I suppose, but there's nothing to indicate any particular focus or speciality of horsemanship among them.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

The "Men of Khand", not referred to as "Variags", are mentioned once more in Appendix A, and that's it. The article notes the times Khand is referred to in Unfinished Tales and The Peoples of Middle-earth, each time in a very general sense. Unfinished Tales mentions "peoples of Khand" and "allies in Khand". The Peoples of Middle-earth simply makes an observation about the word "Variag" in isolation. There isn't anything about axes (or horses for that matter). Beyond that I believe we hear absolutely nothing further about Khand of Variags in the entire corpus.

In HOME: The War of the Ring, there is a single reference in the manuscript of the story of the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, in which Christopher Tolkien notes that the chapter was "all but achieved" as it stood in LOTR. He says that there was no precedent form of the name 'Variag', and in the index of the same HOME volume, 'Variag' is said to mean 'the people of Khand'.

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

In HOME: The War of the Ring, there is a single reference in the manuscript of the story of the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, in which Christopher Tolkien notes that the chapter was "all but achieved" as it stood in LOTR. He says that there was no precedent form of the name 'Variag', and in the index of the same HOME volume, 'Variag' is said to mean 'the people of Khand'.

That's a good find. I suppose that adds more fuel to the fire about what implications, if any, the choice of the word "Variag" has.

Nonetheless it doesn't explain the recurring linking of the Variags with axes and horses (not that I'm saying you meant it to).

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

The Tolkien Studies blog is right about variag being hard to find in a dictionary. I have a complete Oxford here, and even in that it appears only in passing under varangian, in a section of the Dictionary that I believe was being compiled while Tolkien was employed there.

In the old Russian chronicle of Nestor the name [varangian] occurs as variags and variazi (pl.) and survives in mod. Russ. варигь a pedlar, Ruthenian varjah a big, strong man

The OED goes on to say that Partington's British Cyclopædia of Literature identifies the Varangians as "a race of bold pirates who infested the coasts of the Baltic".

It's possible that Tolkien intended to convey the sense of a mercenary or pirate. What I find very interesting is that he chooses to use a specifically Russian word for people who originated in Scandinavia and north-western Europe. The Scandinavian origins of the Rus are well known, so it may be that he wanted to imply a branch of the northern peoples that included the Rohirrim. Possibly he intended to imply in one word a group who were akin to but long sundered from the people of the North, living in Khand but not originally native to it, perhaps employed as swords for hire and now seeming foreign to their close relatives elsewhere. It's also possible that he liked the sound of the word, or thought it carried overtones of menace. The overall effect, though, is to give a thoroughly alien feeling to the otherwise reasonably familiar Varangians. Tolkien often also uses synonyms for 'pirate' as names for groups aligned with Sauron (or at least against Gondor), cf Corsair, although I have a suspicion that he might have taken exception to Partington's vague definition. With Tolkien, any, all or none of my suggestions might be true, and I am thinking aloud so to speak, so I may be far off target. It would be very like Tolkien, though, to use a word with the intention that his readers would immediately see - as he did - various layers of historical meaning and significance. He was particularly fond of a terseness of diction that packs a great deal of meaning into few words, and this is one way to achieve that effect. Also, in my view, more often than not JRRT overestimates the average learning of his audience (certainly in my case): one of his more endearing traits.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

If you'll permit me to raise a point here Morthoron, there's no evidence I can see that the Variags of Khand fought with axes.

You are entirely right. I conflated the "Easterlings with axes" with the men of Khand. My point was, though, there was no mention of Variags being horsemen either. Having axes on horses was merely the slicing of the cake.

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

You are entirely right. I conflated the "Easterlings with axes" with the men of Khand. My point was, though, there was no mention of Variags being horsemen either. Having axes on horses was merely the slicing of the cake.

Yep. I think virtually everything we know about the Variags is:
1. They lived in Khand.
2. They were Men.
3. They were allies of the Wainriders, and that's assuming the "Men of Khand" of the second millennium of the Third Age were the same as the Variags of 3019. I notice that the Tolkien Gateway cautiously observes that "The Men of Khand included the Variags." (emphasis mine) We don't even know for sure that all Men of Khand were "Variags". The index to HOME 12 suggests this, but is that Professor Tolkien's own view, or Christopher Tolkien's interpretation?
4. They fought for Sauron at the Pelennor.

I think that more or less sums up literally everything we're told about them. I don't think there's anything about their behaviour or appearance.