Ghân-buri-Ghân

The Wild Men of the forest

Ghân-buri-Ghân was the chief of the Drúedain, whom the Rohirrim called Woses and the Men of Gondor the Wild Men: a small, squat, thick-bodied people with short legs, broad faces, dark deep-set eyes and sparse beards, who lived in the Drúadan Forest on the northern slopes of the White Mountains between Rohan and Minas Tirith. They were the remnant of a people far older than either kingdom, who had dwelt in those hills before the coming of the Númenóreans and whose statues still stood at the Dunharrow road. The Rohirrim hunted them as beasts. Ghân-buri-Ghân, who wore only grass about his waist and spoke the Common Speech haltingly, had a shrewd and ancient memory; he reminded Théoden that his folk had lived in those woods before the tall Horse-men came and would be there after them.

The ride to Minas Tirith

On 13 March 3019 the host of Rohan, six thousand riders under Théoden, camped in the eaves of the Drúadan Forest on its way to relieve the siege of Minas Tirith, and learned from its scouts that the Great West Road ahead was held in strength by Orcs and that the enemy had blocked it. The Wild Men, who had been sounding their drums through the hills, came down to the camp of their own accord. Ghân-buri-Ghân, led to the king by Elfhelm, told Théoden what the Rohirrim could not see: that the enemy had broken the great wall of the Pelennor, that the city was burning, and that the Orcs on the road far outnumbered the horsemen. He offered a bargain. His people knew an old road through the Stonewain Valley, a forgotten quarry-road of the Men of Gondor that ran hidden behind the hills to the Grey Wood north of the city, and he would guide the host along it himself. In exchange the Wild Men wanted nothing except that the Rohirrim should leave them alone and stop hunting them, and that when the Orcs were driven off they should be killed rather than left to trouble the forest.

Théoden accepted, and Éomer gave his word for Rohan. Ghân-buri-Ghân and his trackers led the whole army through the valley during 14 March, walking beside the horses of the king and reporting through the day on the enemy's movements. Before dawn on 15 March they reached the Grey Wood with the Pelennor open ahead and the wind changing from the sea. Ghân-buri-Ghân told the king that the Wild Men had done what they had promised, warned him that the Orcs were near, and asked him to remember the bargain; then he and his people vanished into the trees, and the Rohirrim never saw them again. Merry, riding hidden with Dernhelm, watched the whole exchange. The Rohirrim rode out to the charge that broke the siege, and the drums of the Wild Men were heard in the distance as they went.

The gift of the forest

The bargain was kept, and more than kept. When Aragorn rode north with the body of Théoden in the summer of 3019, the drums of the Wild Men sounded in the hills as the procession passed, and the king halted and declared that the Forest of Drúadan was the property of Ghân-buri-Ghân and his people for ever, and that no man was to enter it without their leave. The drums stopped, and the Wild Men were left in peace.

Returned to the Drúadan Forest after guiding the Rohirrim; granted the forest by Aragorn in 3019. His death is not recorded.