Northmen

Origins

When the ancestors of the Edain crossed the Misty Mountains into Beleriand in the First Age, not all of their kin followed. Some of the same stock stayed east of the mountains, in the wide lands between the Anduin and the Sea of Rhûn, and it was from these that the Northmen of the Third Age descended. Gondor recognised the relationship. Its lore-masters divided Men into the High, who were the Númenóreans, the Middle, who were the Northmen and their like, and the Wild, who had served the Shadow; the Northmen were held to be near kin of the House of Hador, and their yellow hair and tall stature were taken as proof. Their languages remained distinct from Westron, and it was from an older form of their speech that the names of the hobbits of the Anduin vale and later of Rohan were drawn.

The kingdom of Rhovanion

The Northmen settled the plains and woods of Rhovanion, the wide land east of Mirkwood, and in the thirteenth century of the Third Age they were a numerous people of horsemen, herders and hunters, grown in the long peace that Gondor's strength gave them. King Rómendacil II of Gondor, fighting the Easterlings in 1248, made an alliance with them and took many into his service. His son Valacar was sent to live at the court of Vidugavia, the greatest of their lords, who called himself King of Rhovanion, and Valacar married Vidugavia's daughter Vidumavi. Their son Eldacar was born among the Northmen, and when the pure-blooded lords of Gondor rebelled against him in the Kin-strife it was the Northmen who restored him to his throne in 1447. Many of them settled in Gondor afterwards, and Eldacar's dynasty was of mixed blood from then on.

The Great Plague of 1636 ran through Rhovanion and killed more than half its people. Two centuries later the Wainriders came out of the East. In 1856 King Narmacil II of Gondor and Marhari, the Northmen's leader and a descendant of Vidugavia, both fell in the Battle of the Plains, and the Northmen were enslaved or driven from their homes. Some fled west over the Anduin, led by Marhari's son Marhwini, and settled between the river and Mirkwood, where they became the Éothéod. Some hid in the forest, and some in the north near the Long Lake. In 1899 those who had remained in Rhovanion rose against their masters while Calimehtar of Gondor drew the Wainriders south to defeat on Dagorlad, and Marhwini's riders struck them from behind, but the survivors could not reclaim the land.

The Éothéod and the founding of Rohan

The Éothéod grew in the vales of the Anduin, though they were pressed by Orcs from the mountains and by the shadow of Dol Guldur. After Angmar fell in 1975, their lord Frumgar led them north in 1977 to the empty land at the sources of the Anduin. Fram, his son, killed the dragon Scatha and quarrelled with the Dwarves of the Grey Mountains over the hoard. Five centuries later the Éothéod had become a nation of horsemen who felt themselves hemmed in, and when the Steward Cirion called for aid in 2510, Eorl led them south, saved Gondor at the Field of Celebrant, and received Calenardhon. From that day they were the Rohirrim, and their story is told separately.

The Men of the Long Lake and Dale

Another part of the Northmen lived in the north around the Long Lake and the river Running, trading with the Elves of the Woodland Realm and, after Thráin I settled Erebor in 1999, with the Dwarves. The town of Dale rose beneath the Lonely Mountain and grew rich until the dragon Smaug destroyed it in 2770; the lake-dwellers survived on their pile-built town of Lake-town. Their descendants, the Men of Dale, rebuilt the city after Smaug fell in 2941 under King Bard, and fought the Easterlings in the War of the Ring.

The Vales of Anduin

In the Anduin vale itself, between the mountains and the forest, lived the Beornings around the Carrock and the Woodmen in the western eaves of Mirkwood, both of Northmen stock, both hardy, isolated, and hostile to the Orcs and wolves that came down from the passes. Beorn claimed descent from the first Men to live in those valleys, before dragons and goblins had come. The Stoors of the hobbits also lived in this vale for a time and took names from the Northmen's speech.

Relations with other peoples

The Northmen were the most trusted allies Gondor had among Men. They intermarried with the royal house, served in its armies, and their descendants in Rohan kept the Oath of Eorl for five centuries. With the Elves of the Woodland Realm and Lórien relations were more distant but never hostile; with the Dwarves of Erebor and the Iron Hills the Men of Dale traded and fought side by side. Their enemies were the Easterlings who came against them in successive waves, the Wainriders and the Balchoth, and the Orcs of the Misty Mountains and Dol Guldur. The Dragons of the North, Scatha and Smaug, brought ruin to the Éothéod's forebears and to Dale.

The Northmen were tall, strongly built and fair, with yellow or golden hair, fair skin and grey or blue eyes; Gondor took this as the mark of Hador's house. They were horsemen from early days, and the Éothéod and the Rohirrim after them were shaped by life in the saddle. The lake-dwellers of Esgaroth were sturdier and darker than the horse-folk of the plains, being fishermen and boatmen. They lived ordinary mortal spans, and their descendants in Gondor were held to have shortened the royal line's years, though the fear proved groundless.

The Northmen lived in timber halls and villages, kept great herds of horses and cattle, and hunted in the forests. Their tongues were of the Mannish North, related to the languages of the Edain but not to Westron, and from them came the names of the Éothéod and of Rohan, the speech of Dale, and the older personal names of the hobbits. They kept their history in song rather than writing, a custom the Rohirrim continued. Their lords were kings only in the sense that they led warriors and were followed; the greatest of them, Vidugavia, claimed the title but ruled a confederation rather than an organised state. They were skilled in the forging of arms and in the training of horses, and in the north in the building of boats.

The Northmen were of the same origin as the Edain, the three houses of Men who befriended the Elves in the First Age; they were the kin who stayed behind in the lands east of the mountains rather than follow the migration into Beleriand. During the Second Age they spread through the great forest and the plains beyond it, mostly beyond the reach of Sauron, and by the middle of the Third Age they had become the strongest free people of Men north of Gondor.

By the end of the Third Age the Northmen no longer existed as a single people but as four flourishing nations: the Rohirrim of the Mark, the Men of Dale under Bard's heirs, the Beornings under Grimbeorn, and the Woodmen of Mirkwood. All four fought on the side of the West in the War of the Ring. In the Fourth Age they prospered under the alliance of King Elessar and King Éomer, and Thranduil and Celeborn granted the Beornings and Woodmen the middle of the forest that was renamed Eryn Lasgalen.