Thank you.

: As regards the Dunlendings, I have always thought that if this
: people were so numerous and strong that they were able to
: contest the rule of Rohan with the Rohirrim on occasion, and
: mostly be in a state of border raiding with them, then they
: would have had no difficulty spreading westward into Minhiriath
: where no resistance would be offered to them. The population
: of Southern Minhiriath at the time of TWOTR could easily have
: been larger than Tolkien appears to indicate.

Maybe Tharbad prevented their westward expansion. But the Dunlendings must also have suffered in the Great Plague, the Long Winter, and the Fell Winter (well -- they benefitted from the Long Winter in some ways). Their wars with Rohan seem to have kept them busy, and their expansion seems to have been mostly toward the south, into the lands west of the Adorn river.

: Tolkien likes to give the impression of Eriador being largely
: desolate at the end of the Third Age, though he only really
: describes those areas through which the characters in the books
: travel. I think that there may have been a considerable, if
: unevenly distributed, and primitively organised, population of
: subsistence farmers and herders in many parts of Eriador. Given
: the relatively intense activities of the Rangers in protection
: of Eriador from evil beings I like to think that this was for
: the sakes of somewhat more than the small enclaves of the Shire
: and Bree.

Well, the Forsaken Inn appears to be one example of a place where a few men, at least, were still holding out. It was a day's journey east of Bree and apparently still in business.

And then the need for the Bounders in the Shire seems to imply that there were indeed "wild" men roaming the lands, particularly north of the Shire. One must inquire what Tolkien meant by "settled dwellings" in "At the Sign of the Prancing Pony". Was he referring only to towns? The Forsaken Inn seems to violate the statement that no other settled dwellings of men existed within 100 leagues (300 miles) of the Shire (unless, of course, it was owned by Dwarves, Elves, or Hobbits).

So I think your idea is perhaps correct. The Bounders were turning away SOMEONE, and I doubt they were either Bree-landers or Rangers. Of course, I suppose these could have been hobbits the Bounders were turning away.
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