The White Council

Re: The Meaning of "Cardolan"

Tolkien and Inklings Discussion

: A country can get a descriptive name from only a part of it. : The name Albion (from Latin albus) for Britain derives from the : white cliffs on the Kentish coast, but was applied to the whole : island. Indeed the Picto-Scottish Kingdom (about as far as you : can get from Kent) was known as Alban down into the High Middle : Ages. : I can see no particular difficulty in Cardolan getting its name : from an area of sandstone hills for example.

I suppose that's fair enough, although Anorien and Ilthilien were named for people. If Cardolan was originally the name of an administrative region within Arnor, I believe it's equally possibly that it could be referring to a family (especially given Tolkien's discussion of the meaning of "suza" in the original material prepared for the Appendix on Languages).

Lebenin refers to the five rivers of that region, and Belfalas and Anfalas name two coastal regions. Calenardhon refers to the wide grassy lands making up the majority of that province. The reason I doubt so strongly the "red hills" interpretation is that Tolkien never mentions any red hill or hills and even if he did I would find it unusual compared to the other names given to Dunadan regions in Gondor.

Of course, Christopher Tolkien's Elvish dictionary in THE SILMARILLION gives the meaning of "dol" as "head", and says the word is often applied to hills (the actual word for "hill" being "amon"). So, CAR + DOL + AN would literally be "red" + "head" + "great" if none of the letters or syllables of the roots were lost in constructing the word (as "carak" became "carch" in "carcharoth").

If the word is really more like CARAK + DOL + LHANN then it would mean something like "the province of the red head". Perhaps there is indeed a reference to a specific hill then whose name would be something like "Red Top", but I remain unconvinced because there is no mention of such a prominent feature.

On the other hand, I (in my infinite ignorance of these matters) like CAR + DO(ME) + LHANN, "House" + "Twilight" + "province, shire, fief, region": Province of the House of Twilight or Shire of the Twilight House.

I guess it's time to bug Carl Hostetter and see what he thinks. :)