3 Houses of Men?

[Alcuin]

Urgh! I’ve dropped back two ages and three explanations! The Chem-E of Arda tells me the solution may be that the Drúedain helped build Dunharrow with their allies akin to the Second House in the early Second Age. (Perhaps as a reaction to solve-ate some threat?) But Michael points out that in UT, “Drúedain”, the Drûg cross the Anduin in the First Age and settle on both sides of the White Mountains (thank you Michael), but tall men come out of the East and drive them away. My original concept that the Drúedain had built the Púkel-men for Dúnedain residents of the vales of Calenardhon is clearly shot. But if the Púkel-men are versions of the Drúedain’s “faithful stones”, why would the Men of Dunharrow leave them? Surely the Púkel-men are, at the very least, in opposition to the Dark-age practices of the Men of Dunharrow; and worse, a potential threat? Perhaps the Men of Dunharrow were congregated mainly around the south side of the White Mountains, so that Erech was a principal place of congregation, and the stones on the north side were of no concern? (Everyone in Middle-Earth is “superstitious” to some degree, and with good reason.) And if the Gwathuirim are akin to the Folk of Haleth, is it only the People of Haleth who live with the Drûg in the First Age, or do their kinsfolk east of the Blue Mountains do likewise? Perhaps these two folk – the Drûg and the People of Haleth – find that they are estranged from their kinsfolk and neighbors and made common cause; or perhaps the People of Haleth are the first and best of the Gwathuirim and the rest are at enmity with the Drúedain? But even the Gwathuirim were not enemies of the Númenóreans until they began cutting down the vast forests of Eriador.

Thank you for your greetings, Alvin Eriol and Coconut Ent. I have to mull this over: there are too many side-products in this solution. I am inclined to take solutions that occur earlier in Middle-Earth over later ones if I can resolve the loose ends.

[Maerbenn]

Originally Posted by Michael

And, yes, Tolkien used Edain and Edainic as I have stated. Not everything comes from "Dwarves and Men".

I have still not found Edainic. Where is it?

[Alvin Eriol]

In re Dunharrow, I never got the impression that the Druedain were said specifically to have been persecuted by the Dunharrow-folk, but by virtually everybody who came along, from nameless Easterlings summoned by Morgoth, to the Rohirrim. Given what is told of them, I simply can't picture the Druedain building Dunharrow or its access road themselves, nor the Dunharrow-folk using their statues in such a fashion if there was not friendhip between the two peoples, just as with their respective cousins in Beleriand.

************************************************** *

Okay, “everyone knows” that members of the Three Houses of the Edain fought in the War of Wrath on the side of the Valar. Then, after the defeat and judgement of Morgoth, Men of the Edain under the leadership of Elros Halfelven, son of Earendil and Elwing, departed from Lindon to the newly raised Isle of Elenna, to found the kingdom of Numenor and its inhabiting race the Dunedain.

Skip forward about 800 years. As of the time of “Aldarion and Erendis”, the late first millennium of the Second Age, it evidently was still possible to distinguish Numenoreans by the Edainic nation of their forebears, as note 19 of A&E indicates, the dominant Marachians and the royal house differed noticeably from the Beorians that favored the west of the island. In note 7 to “The Druedain” in UT, it was noted that “few” Haladin, with very few Druedain friends, went to Numenor, so the Haladin represented a tiny minority that presumably was soon subsumed into the other nations. Erendis was said to come of the Beorians, and as a result was said in “A&E” to be shorter-lived (though this may have meant merely that she was not descended from Elros).

So, to recap:
· The Marachians seemed to be the more numerous and dominant of the ancestral Dunedain. They gave the people their Mannish tongue that evolved into Adunaic.
· The Beorians were a distinct minority tending to dwell in a particular section of Numenor, the north and west (an interesting circumstance to which I’ll return in a future post).
· The Halethians seemed to be a relatively unimportant minority whose distinctive culture and ethnicity may have virtually vanished relatively quickly.

Now, let’s back up thru the timeline to see where a problem may exist. According to “the History of Akallabeth” in HoME XII PoME, the original settlers of Numenor, some five to ten thousand total, followed Elros over a fifty year period from Middle-Earth, on elven ships provided by Cirdan and crewed by his sailors. So there were that number of Edain to be found in or near Lindon or northwest Eriador willing to go, and they were predominantly Marachians with a minority, I’ll guess one eighth to one fourth the total, of Beorians, and a small number of Halethians (with some Druedain, who presumably never intermarried with the others). So here we are in early Numenor in SA 1 – c. SA 50 (in SA 32 Elros was crowned and Numenor became a kingdom).

So we have gotten this impression of the descendants of the heroic Marachians of Hithlum/Dor-Lomin, Beorians of Dorthonion, and a few Halethians from Brethil, traipsing carefree over the Sea at the start of the Second Age, right? There is a big problem with this picture, though. The menfolk of these Marachians and Beorians were killed off some 120 years earlier.

To go back further, we get into the iffy chronology of the First Age, but I’ll use the IMO well-attested convention that the judgement of Morgoth, with which that Age ended, took place in 590 First Age Years of the Sun (FAYS) since the arrival of Fingolfin.

The original Halethians of Numenor seem to be composed of descendants of the Men of Brethil who possibly fled after the fall of Doriath about FAYS 507 to the woodlands of Nan-Tathren, Nimbrethil, and Arvernien to the south, becoming associated with the Elven refugees of Doriath. So, their presence can at least be kinda sorta accounted for, 83 years before the Second Age began, if they settled and multiplied there.

Where did the distinct Beorians come from, who went to Numenor originally with Elros? The nation of Beor was destroyed or virtually subsumed into the Marachians of Hithlum, to whom the survivors (other than Beren) fled, in the aftermath of the Dagor Bragollach in FAYS 455. One would think there would hardly be a distinction between the two nations by the Second Age, 135 years later. But there is an even bigger difficulty looming with the coming of the Nirnaeth.

Nearly the entire male population of Hithlum who were then of age, and able to bear arms, marched to the Nirnaeth in c. FAYS 470. They, the flower of Marachian and surviving Beorian manhood at that time, were finally virtually all slaughtered (except Hurin) covering Turgon’s retreat at Serech. None, we are told in the later QS, returned to Hithlum, though a few seem to have escaped from the battle to join the “outlaws” such as those who were to follow Turin later (c. FAYS 500?). Only the women, the very old, the very young, and the infirm (such as Sador), remained in Hithlum to be victimized by Morgoth’s occupying Wolf-folk. The young Edainic boys usually were made thralls. The stories of Turin and especially of Tuor relate how difficult it was for young Marachian/Beorian men to grow up free and become Edainic warriors. Presumably there were very few like them who actually escaped the thralldom of the Wolf-Folk and become free men of the Edain.

Furthermore, between Turin and Tuor, the only descendant was Earendil, so we can hardly say they themselves rebuilt two nations. Moreover, Turin almost certainly invited terrible retribution down on his already oppressed people by his actions, seemingly making it even more unlikely young male Edainic thralls might beget mighty Edainic warriors who would march with the Host of Valinor, then later colonize Numenor with Elros.

So, how did they get from being oppressed thralls in Hithlum to Edainic warriors (who were nonetheless still distinct Marachians and Beorians) in time for the War of Wrath and the founding of Numenor? In the latest First Age Tale of in Years in WotJ that dealt with the subject, the version designated “B”, the host of the Valar arrived in FAYS 545. So, from FAYS 470 to at least SA 545, 75 years, two and a half generations, Hithlum and its remaining Edain were under the control of the Wolf-folk. If pure Edainic men and women were seldom if ever allowed to marry and have children, and the Edainic women tended to be taken by the men of the Wolf-folk instead, then there should be darn few pure Marachian/Beorian Edain, not mixed with “Wolf-folk”, left by the time the Host of the Valar arrived.

If, as one might imagine, the Host liberated the Edain of Hithlum almost immediately, is it even possible to select only the few-if-any pure Edain still left there? For that matter, is it impossible that any of the persons with mixed heritage might opt to go with the Host of the Valar rather than with Morgoth? Are these mixed-blood people to be considered Edain?

To be sure, there were the “outlaws”, and presumably some Marachians and Beorians who had lingered in Estolad until the Bragollach, but surely these weren’t intended to be the fathers of the Numenoreans, any more so than the mixed people left in Hithlum.

I might add that the idea did exist that there might be Marachians and Beorians in or around Arvernien after the fall of Gondolin and Doriath but before the Host of Valinor arrived, documented in the tale of Dirhaval, the reputed Marachian author/composer of “Nin I Hin Hurin”, who dwelt in Arvenien (see “Aelfwine and Dirhaval” in WotJ). Still, their presence must be explained.

The War of Wrath, according to the Tales of Years in WotJ, lasted 42 years until FAYS 587, the judgement of Morgoth actually transpiring in Valinor three years later. It would follow that a new generation of men from the liberated Edain would have time to grow to manhood and take part in the war as is told in the closing chapters of the Silmarillion. But these men would be expected to be mostly Haladin and mixed Marachian/ Beorian/ Wolf-folk, given the stated history.

Of all the paradoxes in the Arda Cycle, this seems IMCO one of the thorniest and hardest to explain away. It is unfortunate JRRT never got around to reworking this stage of the Silmrillion mythos from its early state.


P.S. : Of course, in a War of Wrath that destroyed the very subcontinent of Beleriand, one must wonder how could any number of Men make a positive contribution, or even avoid annihilation? Did they just guard the marches of Lindon and repulse Orcs that tried to invade or escape?

[Coconut Ent]

More women than men after the Nirnaeth... conditions in which polygamy might arise. Maybe the first male generation in Numenor practiced polygamy?

BUt a good point there about the lack of true model Men for the Edain after the Nirnaeth. The first generation of (traumatised?) youths in the Second Age must have needed a lot of coaching. Good thing they were on on good terms with the Elves of Valinor. Perhaps the Beorian youths were especially avid to learn from the Elves, having grown up with tale of Beren and Finrod.

THe Marachians having been enslaved by foreigners might have become a little more distrustful of outsiders.

[Alcuin]

Originally Posted by Alvin Eriol

In re Dunharrow, I never got the impression that the Druedain were said specifically to have been persecuted by the Dunharrow-folk, but by virtually everybody who came along, from nameless Easterlings summoned by Morgoth, to the Rohirrim. Given what is told of them, I simply can't picture the Druedain building Dunharrow or its access road themselves, nor the Dunharrow-folk using their statues in such a fashion if there was not friendhip between the two peoples, just as with their respective cousins in Beleriand.

I’ll buy that argument.

I think, though that the general import is that the survivors – and there were survivors from Hithlum, Nargothrond, Doriath, the Marches of Maedhros, and the Falas – made their way to the Mouths of Sirion and the Isle of Balar. Some, I suspect, headed back East into Ossiriand: the West coastlands were lost, and nobody believed any help was coming.

In The War of the Jewels is a sad sequel to the tale of Turin, “The Wanderings of Húrin,” which might as well be called “The Fall of the House of Haleth.” It seems that between Turin, Húrin, and their own native irascibility, the ruling clan of the Second House extinguished itself in civil war, “and lesser men ruled in Brethil in the time that was left.” These folk interacted with neighboring Sindar, and even if both sides were less than openly friendly toward one another, the survivors either headed south with them, or east with them. Presumably the Drúedain went, too, or even suggested which way to go. (Not unlikely. They seem to have had a good sense for when to get up and leave a place in danger – like Númenor.)

Almost everyone who survived the War of Wrath must have ended up in Ossiriand, both elves and men. What was left of Ossiriand became Lindon, and nearly everything else was “the land under the waves.” Of the Edain, the two surviving ruling houses were thoroughly intermixed. Any children left at the end of the War of Wrath would have grown to adulthood by the time Elros departed the mainland.

If people who were mostly descended from Bëor settled the west of Númenor, and that’s where the Lords of Andúnië lived, does this mean that most of the dark-haired Third-Age Dúnedain were descendants of those folk? They’d have to be descendants of the Faithful, and most of them were in the west of the island. If so, and if Alvin E. has his basic numbers right, Númenor must have been quite thickly populated at the end of the Second Age and capable of fielding quite an army if all that was left was what Elendil could muster in Middle-Earth. (Elrond remembered Elendil's army with admiration.) More to the point: was Aragorn a descendant of the First House rather than the Third, which ruled Númenor? (Note: his patrilineal descent is through Elatan, who is called a nobleman of Andúnië and who might not be a member of the Third House). Is this how he inherited the Ring of Barahir, which was an heirloom of the First House?

Toward the end of “Of Dwarves and Men” in The Peoples of Middle-Earth, there is a discussion of the kinsfolk of the People of Haleth who were left in Middle-Earth. They were not unfriendly toward the Númenóreans because they worshipped Sauron, but because the Númenóreans ravaged the great forest of Eriador in which they lived as part of their ship-building. That's what became of the great forest Treebeard recalled.

[Alvin Eriol]

Originally Posted by Alcuin

I’ll buy that argument.

I think, though that the general import is that the survivors – and there were survivors from Hithlum, Nargothrond, Doriath, the Marches of Maedhros, and the Falas – made their way to the Mouths of Sirion and the Isle of Balar. Some, I suspect, headed back East into Ossiriand: the West coastlands were lost, and nobody believed any help was coming.

Agreed. However, I still don't see how any significant number of pure-blooded Marachains/Beorians, least of all from the remnant of Hithlum, could have ended up in Lindon at the end of the First Age.

In The War of the Jewels is a sad sequel to the tale of Turin, “The Wanderings of Húrin,” which might as well be called “The Fall of the House of Haleth.” It seems that between Turin, Húrin, and their own native irascibility, the ruling clan of the Second House extinguished itself in civil war, “and lesser men ruled in Brethil in the time that was left.” These folk interacted with neighboring Sindar, and even if both sides were less than openly friendly toward one another, the survivors either headed south with them, or east with them. Presumably the Drúedain went, too, or even suggested which way to go. (Not unlikely. They seem to have had a good sense for when to get up and leave a place in danger – like Númenor.)

Again, very good. As the power of Morgoth grew, we are told that only the south of Beleriand around Sirion / Arvernien remained free, therefore, the remnant of the Men of Brethil went there or fled east and south to Eriador. (Including, perhaps, hypothetical refugees who went to Calenardhon, befriended the Drug of that region, and by their tales of the Elf fortresses inspired the building of Dunharrow )

Almost everyone who survived the War of Wrath must have ended up in Ossiriand, both elves and men. What was left of Ossiriand became Lindon, and nearly everything else was “the land under the waves.” Of the Edain, the two surviving ruling houses were thoroughly intermixed.

One would think, and that would contradict the statements of A&E and its notes.

Any children left at the end of the War of Wrath would have grown to adulthood by the time Elros departed the mainland.

Hmm? Are you referring to the statement in Appendix B that "The Edain reach Numenor" in SA 32? I wondered about that myself. Surely the voyage didn't occupy 32 years! And I can think of little reason for Elros and his pioneers to hang out in Lindon for that long before setting out, unless the Isle of Elenna had to be raised, then allowed to dry out and become fertile.

In "The Line of Elros" in UT, it is told that "The Realm of Numenor is held to have begun in the thirty-second year of the Second Age, when Elros son of Earendil ascended the throne in the City of Armenelos..." If Elros and his followers had only just arrived and disembarked from the boats, there was no throne nor any City of Armenelos, unless it would be a makeshift like the Aragorns turf seats at Cair Andros, and a nascent plan (i.e. "We shall build our city here") .

I am inclined to interpret this to mean that sometime after the beginning of the Second Age, (during which time since the end of the war in SA -3 (FAYS 587) presumably they were instructed by Eonwe and the Elves) but well before SA 32, Cirdan's mariners ferried Elros and his first load of pioneers, surely the most ambitious and talented (and highborn, probably) of the Edain in Lindon, including surely ancestors of the later Lords of Numenor.

These pioneers presumably surveyed the land and divided it into its provinces and established the first ports and the site of Armenelos. Then they set to work building and establishing, while more settlers were brought in a steady trickle by the Elves of Cirdan, until by SA 32 there was a throne and a citadel at Armenelos, as well as a port at Andunie (and presumably at Rommena as well) so that everything was ripe and due to proclaim the kingdom of Numenor. The occasion was marked with the formal coronation of Elros as Tar-Minyatur (my rough translation: ) "[His] Highness, the First great-Lord".

If people who were mostly descended from Bëor settled the west of Númenor, and that’s where the Lords of Andúnië lived, does this mean that most of the dark-haired Third-Age Dúnedain were descendants of those folk? They’d have to be descendants of the Faithful, and most of them were in the west of the island. If so, and if Alvin E. has his basic numbers right, Númenor must have been quite thickly populated at the end of the Second Age and capable of fielding quite an army if all that was left was what Elendil could muster in Middle-Earth. (Elrond remembered Elendil's army with admiration.) More to the point: was Aragorn a descendant of the First House rather than the Third, which ruled Númenor? (Note: his patrilineal descent is through Elatan, who is called a nobleman of Andúnië and who might not be a member of the Third House). Is this how he inherited the Ring of Barahir, which was an heirloom of the First House?

In re the Ring of Barahir, I can picture two possible scenarios: Tar-Elendil gave it to his daughter Silmarien and Elatan of Andunie on the occasion of their marriage, as the leading family of Andunie was already greatly esteemed by the Kings it appears. (Their son would become the first Lord of Andunie). Or, Elros himself, who presumably had custody of all the great heirlooms and brought them to Numenor originally, might have given it to Elatan's father or grandfather who I'll guess was one of his closest companions and a witness to his coronation.

Since the royal ancestry of the LoA sprang from a distaff line of the fourth King, Tar-Elendil, it is quite possible that subsequent marriages of the Lords of Andunie tended to favor Beorian noblewomen of Andunie. Furthermore, the first four kings who were ancestors of the Lords of A might have married Beorian women themselves. The never-named wife of Elros himself, first Queen of Numenor, might for all we know have been of the Beorians of western / northern Numenor

You're on the ball, Alcuin! I too had noticed the probable significance of the ethnic distribution of Numenor and the characteristics of the later Dunedain of the Third Age. The Rangers and the pure Numenoreans of Gondor (e.g. Denethor and his sons) resemble the dark haired, fair-skinned, handsome, tall, grey-eyed Beorians, don't they?

So you anticipated my observation: given that the Lords of Andunie were the chief critics of the policies of the later Kings under the Shadow, and the leaders of the Faithful faction, would it not follow that the Faithful would tend to be predominantly Beorians of Andunie and the surrounding region? Was the country actually divided along roughly ethnic and language lines during the time of the Shadow? Notice the increasing use of Marachian-derived Adunaic, and the supression of the Sindarin that the Beorians favored since their realm in Dorthonion. OTOH, in their colonies around Pelargir and the surrounding lands that later became Gondor, the more Faithful inclined settlers named places in Sindarin.

While Numenor surely did indeed get pretty crowded, quite a lot of the population by this time actually seems to have already resided along the west coast of Middle-Earth. Elendil presumably brought only a small contingent of pure blooded, mostly highborn Faithful primarily native of Andunie (from which Ar-Gimilzor had exiled them, relocating them to Romenna instead), who became lords of the Numenorean and other friendly peoples already there.

Did the King's men, OTOH, tend to be descended from Numenoreans of more Marachian stock?

We know that the descendants of the King's Men who colonized the southern shores of Middle-Earth from Umbar southwards gave rise to the Black Numenoreans. So, I must wonder:

Were the original Black Numenoreans -- blonde?

[Alcuin]

Alvin E., you realize of course that you are describing a reconstitution of two of the three houses of the Edain on the island of Númenor. The House of Hador did produce the greater warriors: Hador, Húrin and Huor, Turin and Tuor. The Kings of Númenor claimed the title Heirs of Eärendil, who as the son of Tuor was also a member of the Third House, half-elven though he was. (It is curious that they did not call themselves the “Heirs of Elros”, though perhaps they did but it is not recorded, as far as I know. And where does that leave Elrond, who like his father chose to be counted among the First Kindred? And doesn’t that technically make Elrond a member of the Third House as well, at least as far as men are concerned? Or can he be a member of any of the Three Houses since he has sundered himself from the Second Kindred by his choice of Doom?)

Valandil of Andúnië is then re-establishing the ruling line of the First House, is he not? That alone would tend to make the Lords of Andúnië loved in the west of the island: the local folk would have thought of them in effect as the local king or “Bëor”, making the king in Armenelos truly the High King. It might also explain the strangely considerable leeway the Lords of Andúnië seem to possess as the Kings’ Men become more aggressive over centuries, along with what appears to be a permanent seat on the Council of the Sceptre, as well as in part the (at the end, grudging?) honor in which the people of Númenor held Amandil and Elendil? (And yes, I realize the text says they were honored because they were great captains.)

And do not the fates of the House of Elros (the kings did call themselves by this title) and the Lords of Andúnië somewhat mirror their forebears? Beginning in the ways of Tuor, Eärendil, and Elros, the kings eventually fall into pride and folly, as did Turin and then his father Húrin on his release from bondage. (Man, “The Wanderings of Húrin” is sad! And no, I’m not suggesting Húrin was a fool: he was a bitter, unhappy man, and I believe he was full of remorse and regret. Like his son, he saw the chaos he left in his wake only after the harm was done. And no, I’m not blaming him, either; I understand the mythological curse of Morgoth. Just pointing out the similarity to the latter Kings of Númenor. Like Húrin with the Nauglamír, Tar-Palantir repented, but the damage was already done.) If that is true, then is the marriage of Ar-Pharazôn to Tar-Míriel an image of the marriage of Turin to Nienor/Níniel?

Aragorn, descendent of the First House, bereft of crown and kingdom, as Beren wooed Lúthien, woos Arwen and even gives her the ring Finrod gave Barahir, the ring that led Finrod to his doom in the Quest for the Silmaril.

Say! I like to think of Gandalf in the image of JRR Tolkien with the voice of JRR Tolkien. But if Edith Tolkien was Lúthien and Ronald Tolkien was Beren, is Aragorn in some fashion an image of a future Tolkien? But I suppose that is a silly observation.

At any rate, it strikes me that you are correct, Alvin E., and the First and Third Houses survived in some recognizable form throughout the Second Age until its end. Until I read your posts, I always just assumed that all the Edain became amalgamated into one more or less cohesive folk, the Númenóreans, and that the old Houses were mostly merged into one homogenous group. I just find it very depressing to imagine that the Black Númenóreans were mostly descendants of the House of Hador, but I cannot see how that could be avoided.

Isn’t story of the downfall of the Númenóreans and their worship of the Dark a reflection of the downfall of Men that Andreth told Finrod in Morgoth’s Ring?

And if the marriage of Arwen and Aragorn reunited the long-sundered lines of the Peredhil, does it also reunite the First and Third Houses?

Mark Twain wrote that history never repeats itself, but it rhymes. We have a thread nearby (http://www.sf-fandom.com/vbulletin/s...ad.php?t=17861) about the characters in these tales as archetypes or “real folk”. Is part of the reality of the characters a familiar kind of rhyme that Tolkien presents in his pseudo-history? The rhyme seems to be there, and I think Alvin E. has found it. Was it deliberate?

[Alvin Eriol]

Elros and Elrond, through their grandpa Tuor, already had ancestors from all three nations of the Edain. You can find this info plainly in the geneological tables of Sil77.

Tuor's mother was Rian, of the nation of Beor. His father was Huor who in turn was the son of Galdor son of Hador, and Hareth the daughter of Halmir of the Haladin. So the union of the three Houses was already accomplished in Tuor.

We need not even mention Elwing's descent from Beren, of course!

Tolkien has a number of motifs that do seem to recur in the Arda Cycle, such as the parallels between the Silmarils and the Ruling Ring we discussed in another thread. I honstly never thought of the forced marriage of Ar-Pharazon and Miriel to be one such; the differences are profound. E.g. Pharazon knowingly forced his first cousin to marry him (contrary to Numenorean law and custom but still quite a different thing from marrying a sibling) in order to legitimize his succession to the throne, for which otherwise he was not heir. OTOH Turin and Nienor married in conscious ignorance with no dimension of worldly ambition present at all.

This business of worshipping the Dark could IMCO be considered more than the mere recycling of a motif. I suspect JRRT would explain it as the inevitable result of Men being seduced by and worshipping the dark powers, so no one should be surprised if in all such cases the later stages converge toward the same outcome: the nihilistic empty darkness that is the lot of those who persistently rebel against Eru.

While JRRT probably had sources or inspirations for many of his characters and their fates (such as a Finnish myth for the story of Turin), I'm inclined to distinguish between the idea of a motif JRRT chose to use repeatedly in various contexts, a theme he deliberately embedded, and an archetype drawn from other bodies of myth and legend, even if sometimes these elements do overlap. But, one way or another, certain elements do have a way of recurring, like a pattern.