Dúnedain of the North

Origins

When Númenor was drowned in S.A. 3319, nine ships bearing Elendil and his sons Isildur and Anárion were driven onto the coasts of Middle-earth. The Faithful who came with them were the last remnant of the Númenóreans who had kept friendship with the Elves, and they found a welcome among the older Númenórean settlements along the coasts and among the Elves of Lindon. Elendil landed in the north and established his seat at Annúminas beside Lake Evendim, while his sons founded Gondor in the south. From the beginning the northern kingdom, Arnor, was the senior realm, since Elendil was High King over both, and the Dúnedain of the North thought of themselves as the direct heirs of the kings of Númenor.

Arnor took in the whole of Eriador between the Misty Mountains and the Blue Mountains, from the Ice Bay of Forochel in the north to the river Greyflood in the south. It was never as populous as Gondor. Many of the Númenóreans who had earlier settled in Eriador had already dwindled or mingled with lesser Men, and after the losses of the war against Sauron the northern Dúnedain were always a thinly spread people ruling a large land.

The Last Alliance and the loss of Isildur

Arnor was the mustering ground of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men. Elendil's host marched east with Gil-galad's Elves over the Misty Mountains, and after seven years of war before Barad-dûr both kings were slain in the overthrow of Sauron in S.A. 3441. Isildur, now High King, spent a year in Gondor setting his brother's son Meneldil in order there, then marched north to take up his father's kingdom. He never arrived. In T.A. 2 his company was ambushed by Orcs at the Gladden Fields, his three elder sons fell, and Isildur himself was shot as he tried to swim the Anduin wearing the One Ring. Only his youngest son Valandil, a child left in safety at Rivendell, survived to inherit Arnor.

The disaster shaped everything that followed. The northern line lost the High Kingship in practice, since Gondor thereafter regarded Meneldil's line as fully independent, and the North was left with a boy king, a diminished people, and no share in the wealth and power that Gondor gained in the following centuries.

The division of Arnor

Eight kings of the line of Valandil reigned at Annúminas: Valandil, Eldacar, Arantar, Tarcil, Tarondor, Valandur, Elendur and Eärendur. Little is told of them beyond their names, but the kingdom slowly lost its vigour. When Eärendur died in T.A. 861 his sons quarrelled, and Arnor was broken into three realms. Arthedain, between the Brandywine and the Lune with its capital moved to Fornost on the North Downs, went to the eldest son Amlaith and kept the line of Isildur. Cardolan, south of the Great East Road and east of the Brandywine, took in the Barrow-downs and Tharbad. Rhudaur, in the wild angle between the Trollshaws and the Ettenmoors, was the poorest of the three, and its Dúnedain population soon became a minority among hill-men. The three kingdoms bickered over the tower of Amon Sûl on Weathertop, which held the chief palantír of the North, and over the Weather Hills that divided them.

Annúminas itself was abandoned and fell into ruin. The sceptre of Annúminas, the silver rod that was the token of royalty in the North, passed to Fornost and remained the most ancient heirloom of the house.

The wars with Angmar

Around T.A. 1300 a new realm arose in the far north beyond the Ettenmoors, ruled by a sorcerer-king who was later understood to be the chief of the Ringwraiths, the Witch-king. Angmar with its fortress at Carn Dûm was created for one purpose: to destroy the Dúnedain in the North while Gondor was still strong. Its first success was in Rhudaur, where an evil lord of the hill-men seized power in secret alliance with Angmar and drove out the last Dúnedain.

In 1349 Argeleb I of Arthedain, seeing that no descendants of Isildur remained in the other kingdoms, claimed lordship over all Arnor. Cardolan accepted; Rhudaur, now a client of Angmar, refused. Argeleb fortified the Weather Hills but was slain in battle in 1356. His son Arveleg I drove the enemy back with help from Cardolan and Lindon and held the frontier for fifty years. Then in 1409 a great host came out of Angmar, crossed the river, surrounded Weathertop and burned the tower of Amon Sûl. Arveleg was killed; the palantír was carried back to Fornost. Cardolan was ravaged and its last prince fell in the Barrow-downs. The young king Araphor, aided by Círdan and by Elves from Rivendell and Lindon, beat the invaders off from Fornost and the North Downs, and Angmar was subdued for a time.

The kingdom never fully recovered. The Great Plague of 1636 came north and killed most of what was left of the people of Cardolan, and afterwards evil spirits out of Angmar and Rhudaur entered the mounds of the Barrow-downs. Arthedain, by contrast, was less hurt, and it was under Argeleb II that the Hobbits were granted the land beyond the Brandywine that became the Shire in 1601. The hobbits accepted the king's nominal authority and in return kept the bridges and roads and sent bowmen to his wars.

The fall of Arthedain

By the reign of Araphant, Arthedain was hard pressed and the king sought closer ties with Gondor. His son Arvedui married Fíriel, daughter of King Ondoher of Gondor, and when Ondoher and both his sons were killed by the Wainriders in 1944 Arvedui claimed the southern crown as Isildur's heir and as Fíriel's husband. Gondor, led by the Steward Pelendur, refused him and chose the victorious general Eärnil II instead. Eärnil promised aid to the North, but it came too late.

In the winter of 1974 the Witch-king struck with everything he had. Fornost fell, and Arvedui fled with his guard to the Tower Hills and then into the frozen north, where he was sheltered through the winter by the Lossoth of Forochel. In March 1975 a ship sent by Círdan reached him, but the Snowmen warned him against the sea; he sailed, and the ship was lost with all aboard and with the palantíri of Annúminas and Amon Sûl. The northern kingdom ended with him.

Within the year Eärnil's son Eärnur landed at the Grey Havens with a great fleet, joined with Círdan and the surviving Dúnedain, and shattered the Witch-king's army in the Battle of Fornost. The Witch-king himself fled to Mordor, and Glorfindel, who had pursued him from the field, spoke the prophecy that no man would bring him down. Angmar was emptied and never rose again, but there were no longer enough Dúnedain to refill the empty land.

The Chieftains and the Rangers

Arvedui's son Aranarth judged that the remnant was too few to be a kingdom, and took the title Chieftain of the Dúnedain instead of King. From then on the heirs of Isildur lived in secret. Their sons were fostered in Rivendell, where Elrond kept the heirlooms of the house: the shards of Narsil, the ring of Barahir, the sceptre of Annúminas and the Elendilmir. The people, wandering now in small companies between the Angle, the Shire's borders and the empty hills, were called Rangers by the settled folk of Bree and the Shire, who neither knew their descent nor guessed that the grim men in stained cloaks were guarding them from the creatures of the wild.

Sixteen Chieftains held the line in unbroken succession from Aranarth to Aragorn. Several died violently: Aragorn I was killed by wolves, Arathorn I and Arador by Orcs and hill-trolls, and Arathorn II by an Orc arrow when his son was only two. In the Long Winter of 2758 and the Fell Winter of 2911 the Rangers came to the Shire's aid, and under Arassuil they fought the Orcs who came down from the mountains in 2747. Through all these centuries they kept the Elvish tongue, the memory of Númenor and the arts of healing and lore, though their numbers shrank and their lives, once several times those of other Men, grew shorter.

Aragorn and the restoration

Aragorn II, raised as Estel in Rivendell by Gilraen and Elrond, was told of his descent at twenty and spent nearly seventy years labouring in the wild and in the service of Rohan and Gondor under other names. In the War of the Ring he led the Fellowship after Gandalf fell, summoned the Dead of Dunharrow, took the Corsair fleet at Pelargir and turned the battle on the Pelennor Fields. Thirty Rangers of the North under Halbarad rode south with him as the Grey Company, and Halbarad fell on the Pelennor bearing the standard that Arwen had made.

On 1 May T.A. 3019 Aragorn was crowned King Elessar of the Reunited Kingdom, and the long exile of the Dúnedain of the North ended. He rebuilt Annúminas, made the Shire a free land under his protection, and ruled for a hundred and twenty years before passing the sceptre to his son Eldarion.

The northern Dúnedain kept the look of their Númenórean ancestors longer than most: tall, grey-eyed and dark-haired, grave in face and slow to age. Even at the end of the Third Age Aragorn at eighty-seven looked like a hard man in his prime. Their lives had shortened greatly from the three or four centuries of the early kings, but a Chieftain could still expect twice the span of ordinary Men, and Aragorn lived to two hundred and ten by the grace of his line. Years in the wild left them lean and weathered, and to strangers in Bree they seemed stern and unlovely, wrapped in stained green and grey cloaks, with worn boots and a silver star at the shoulder. Their eyesight and hearing were keen beyond those of other Men, and they were the best trackers in Middle-earth.

The Dúnedain of the North preserved the high culture of Númenor in a diminished form. Sindarin was their daily tongue among themselves, and royal names of the house from Valandil on were given in that language, with Quenya kept for lore. The king's regalia were not a crown but the sceptre of Annúminas and the Elendilmir, a white star-gem worn on the brow, a custom older than the crown of Gondor. Records of the kings and the deeds of the Rangers were kept at Rivendell and later copied into the archives of the Shire.

After the fall of Arthedain the people were organised around the Chieftain and a scattered network of Rangers who patrolled the borders of the Shire and Bree-land, the fords of the Hoarwell and the roads through the Trollshaws. Boys of the ruling house were raised in Rivendell; the ordinary folk lived in hidden settlements, of which the Angle between the Hoarwell and the Loudwater was the chief. They were healers of great skill, knowing the virtues of athelas that others had forgotten, and their lore included the making of weapons, the reading of the stars and the memory of ancient songs. They were not merchants or builders in these later centuries, and their poverty was as marked as their pride.

The Dúnedain of the North came into being at the end of the Second Age when Elendil the Tall, leader of the Faithful of Númenor, was cast up on the shores of Lindon after the Downfall. He was welcomed by Gil-galad and by the older Númenórean colonists of Eriador, and he founded Arnor as the seat of the High King, with Annúminas as its capital and the palantíri of Annúminas, Amon Sûl and Elostirion as its chief treasures. His people were those who had refused Sauron's worship and the King's Men of Númenor, and they brought with them the White Tree's seedling, the sword Narsil, and the friendship of the Elves.

By the end of the Third Age the Dúnedain of the North were a few hundred wandering families led by a Chieftain who lived in secret. The War of the Ring reversed their long decline. Aragorn took the crown of Gondor and Arnor together, married Arwen Undómiel, and refounded the North Kingdom with Annúminas restored beside Lake Evendim. The Rangers became the king's men once more; the Shire and Bree-land came under the protection of the Reunited Kingdom while keeping their own customs. Aragorn died in Fo.A. 120 and his son Eldarion reigned after him, and the line of Isildur, preserved through fifteen centuries of exile, ruled both kingdoms far into the Fourth Age.