The White Council

Re: Anduin

Tolkien and Inklings Discussion

: : 20,000 is way too many people. Tharbad was well past its : : prime when the town was abandoned. Had there truly been : : that many people living there, Tolkien would have had them : : re-establish the town. Tharbad dwindled over the course of : : many centuries (and the process of dwindling continues even : : today -- towns and cities are constantly growing or : : shrinking).

: Please reread what I said, I do not claim THARBAD had 20,000 : inhabitants, maybe 3 or 4,000 at its ruin. My point is that : towns do not exist 'in isolation' - Tharbad would have been : the centre of a small collection of villages and farms - to : feed the populace that would have (imho) stretched up and down : the Gwathlo basin - and that the survivors of Tharbad would : have settled in these villages once the 'city' itself was : ruined - perhaps 20k is too high, but 10 to 15 I could live : with.

I understand your point, and you are quite correct. Cities are surrounded by towns, towns are surrounded by villages and hamlets, and these are surrounded by isolated homesteads. That has always been the case, although plantations and superfarms and estates have also peppered the landscape for thousands of years.

But I was lumping everyone together for convenience' sake. However, the WHOLE population had to leave. They would have been within 300 miles of the Shire otherwise, and that would contradict Tolkien's statement.

I suspect his feeling was that any flood sufficient enough to destroy the ancient works at Tharbad would devastate the entire region. Hence, the people had to go find new homes. And I believe they would have most likely gone to the Angle to join the other Dunedain.

: : : 30 were all that could be mustered in haste from the : : : lengths and breadths of Eriador. I don't think the prof : : : really expects us to believe that a handful of Dunedain : : : could really have survived 1100 years alone in the : : : wilderness without destroying the gene pool or perishing.

: : Halbarad did not say he gathered his company from all over : : Eriador. It would have taken weeks for him to find and : : bring in 30 Rangers if they were really scattered all over : : the north.

: : And, no, Tolkien never implied their population was always : : small. Rather, he stated they DWINDLED. Their numbers : : gradually became less and less as the centuries passed.

: This doesn't make sense - why dwindle? Populations tend to : increase over time, not decrease...

Populations TEND to increase over time, but many HAVE dwindled (and vanished) throughout history. Look what happened to the Britons after the Anglo-Saxon invasions. Their population dwindled. Some of them fled across the channel to Brittany. Some of them accepted Anglo-Saxon rule. But many died, and the overall population dwindled.

The Norse colonists in Greenland died out, too.

Native American populations were radically reduced in number by disease and war.

All these historical population reductions (and others) occurred over periods of centuries. Tolkien's depopulation of Arnor is therefore not unrealistic.

: : Aragorn's people were supposedly ALL pure Dunedain. 50,000 : : is simply way too many. More likely they numbered fewer : : than 10,000, and there is no indication they had the full : : range of professions among them.

: Must have had - how would they live otherwise? They couldn't : exactly advertise their existence by extensive trade networks : could they??

They could certainly trade. Who says they weren't? Tolkien only says they became a secretive and wandering folk, not that they totally withdrew. Clearly they stayed in close cooperation with Rivendell, and the Rangers often visited Bree. And the Angle was situated just on the Road, where they would have access to all sorts of traffic (especially before the last 100 years of the Third Age, which appears to have been the worst period for everyone).

: OK numbers too high, but 10,000 is a little smaller than I can : live with.

Say 10-20,000 then, if we must look for some agreement.

: : : : He says whole populations died out. That's very : : : : specific.

: : : Yes, from a probable pre-split(say 861-1409) population of : : : 2 million or so - three quarters dead would indicate whole : : : populations dying out.

: : "Probable"? How do you justify "probable" and "three : : quarters"? You're just tossing out assumptions.

: Yes, and as there is no canon, I have to give my thoughts : here. 2 Million is based on a succesful large realm with the : size taken into consideration - 2 mill populates the land but : does not overflood it with people - Eriador is VERY large.

Eriador IS very large, but it wasn't all held by Elendil and his heirs. There were other people, other MEN, living in Eriador.

: : : : : The Greenfields is a fairly minor engagment and only : : : : : part of a wider invasion...

: : : : That was an unusual event, and not representative of : : : : typical Orc activity.

: : : No, but it specifcally says that they invade and there is : : : trouble for the Eriadorians - indicating a population base : : : there.

: : On one occasion.

: But indicating an eriadorian presence nonetheless

Look at Appendix B. "2740 Orcs renew their invasions of Eriador." "2747 Bandobras Took defeats an Orc-band in the North-farthing."

Then go back to Appendix A: "And later in the days of Arassuil [chieftain 2719-84], Orcs, multiplying again in the Misty Mountains, began to ravage the lands, and the Dunedain and the sons of Elrond fought with them. It was at this time that a large band came so far west as to enter the Shire, and were driven off by Bandabras Took."

Eriador was probably NOT as sparsely populated then as at the end of the Age. At the very least, there should have been many more Elves running around the landscape, since their great exodus didn't occur until sometime after TA 3000. Bree was probably much larger, and the Dunedain were probably more numerous than at the end of the Age.

So, yes, there is a population in Eriador, but not one large enough to support constant raiding by the Orcs. This event was part of a relatively temporary upswell in Orcish activity. When did the upswell end? At the very latest with the War of the Dwarves and Orcs, 2793-99.

: : : To be honest, the nadir for Eriador has to be the fall of : : : Arthedain and the 50 years afterwards - whatever is left : : : after this must necessarily increase due to the nature of : : : reproduction

: : There were further periods of decline, including the Long : : Winter, the Fell Winter, and other periods. And the : : Dunedain, at least, most likely continued to decline as : : their men were more likely to die violent deaths.

: No, this is untrue - a hidden race other than the rangers : themselves - therefore less likely to die an unnatural : death....

Quite incorrect. The chieftains show that they were dying in combat. Four of them died prematurely, including three of the last five. And Tolkien wrote at the end of the Arnor section in Appendix A "it was the pride and wonder of the Northern Line that, though their power departed and their people dwindled, through all the many generations the succession was unbroken from father to son...."

The people were dwindling, and by the time Aragorn revealed himself to Boromir at the Council of Elrond, Elrond told Boromir, "He is Aragorn son of Arathorn, and he is descended through many fathers from Isildur Elendil's son of Minas Ithil. He is the chief of the Dunedain in the North, and few are now left of that Folk."

: Rangers would NOT constitute the majority profession of these : peoples - that does not and cannot work on any level

Whether most of the men were Rangers or not, the Dunedain did not have to support a large civilization, and they certainly had no more cities requiring specialized professions. The Rangers could have served in their functions for a season or two and still worked to provide food for themselves and their families. And they could have had a rotating system to maintain guards over the Shire and Bree.

But there just weren't that many of them left by the end of the Third Age. Elrond's statement makes that indisputable.