Posted: September 28, 1998 at 14:33:55: by Oberon
: I have a suspicion that the waste areas of Middle Earth were less deserted than a cursory look would suggest. I think what characterises Eriador is a relative lack of formally structured societies. The only ones we hear of are the Shire, Breeland and the Dunlendings (if you include Enedwaith) plus probably the Dunedain. I would imagine that many small isolated settlements existed in Eriador. Their inhabitants subsistance farmers, herdsmen or hunters, having no more formal society than a kinship group with a head-man or council of elders.Fully and completely agreed. All we really see of Eriador are those areas that the Hobbits travel through, which may not have been representative of the whole. In fact, they most likely were not. : I would defend my minimum (and I think it is a bare minimum) of a Dunedain population of about 3,000. Mainly because it had to be essentially stable (or capable of quick recovery) for so many generations and cope with the added drain of the casualties undoubtably sustained by the Rangers in their operations. It's possible. Tolkien's comments are so vague as to leave us to conjecture, and he paints the Dunedain of the North as a folk grown few. How many is a few? I think you've made a good argument for 3,000. All I can say in response is that the Dunedain were a remarkable people, with attributes unparalled in our world, and may have been able to sustain themselves at a lower number. But that's just speculation. We know so little about them. : Although what you said is true about the probable ability of the Rangers to sustain themselves in the field, this would only be true in relatively few months of the year. Mediaeval armies of amateur or semi-professional soldiers were restricted to a fairly short campaigning season when easy foraging for food was possible or when stealing it from the locals was effective because they had a sufficent supply themselves. I think it is implied that the Rangers (professional warriors) operated year round, and plundering was not an option for them. This would place a considerable burden on the Dunedain population as a whole, which would as a result have to have been large enough to cope with it. I'm sure they didn't resort to plunder. :-) The rangers resorted to forage in the Wild as need dictated. Recall Aragorn's comments to the Hobbits as they set out from Bree -- mid-autumn, by the way. Though certainly it would have been more difficult in deep winter. The Rangers appear to have used Rivendell as a base of perations and support as well, so that may have alleviated, somewhat, the burden on the Dundeain. It's possible that Lindon may have served a similar role.
: Martin
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