The Term "Dunedain"

[Valandil]

How inclusive is the term "Dunedain"? Alcuin and I were having this discussion via email. We agreed that it was worth a thread-start - but I suppose each of us was waiting on the other to start it. Until now...

I had the impression from something JRRT wrote, somewhere - that the term "Dunedain" began to be used of the Exiles who reached Middle Earth after the Fall of Numenor: those in the ships commanded by Elendil, Isildur and Anarion. By extension, I think this would include all those of Numenorean descent in both Arnor and Gondor.

But did it also include those in the southern Numenorean Kingdoms? Those of Numenorean descent in Umbar, and Harad, for instance - were they also called Dunedain? Would they call themselves this?

[Earniel]

Without looking anything up, I personally would rather have restricted Dúnedain further to the remnant of Númenorean people of Arnor alone. Gondor has always struck me as, starting from quite early in its conception, very different from Arnor, culturally, geographically, and well pretty much anything else. Gondor is in effect as much a southern nation as Umbar.

There appears to be very little interaction between the two nations after the Last Battle. The familial connection between the Founders seem to have been nearly the only thing that tied them together. After their deaths, both nations look inwardly and go their own way. And stay that way until Aragorn II turns up, and even then I wonder just how much he managed to marriage such two vastly different peoples back together again.

[Alcuin]

Surely by the late Third Age the only “Dúnedain” were the Dúnedain/Númenóreans of Arnor and Gondor.

Less than four hundred years into the Third Age there were no longer any “Númenóreans” in the sense that they were natives of Númenor. (Well, three Nazgûl, but we can disregard them.) Their forebears were native Númenóreans. As long as Númenor the island was above the waterline, anyone born there, a descendant of its original settlers at the end of the First Age, was a “Númenórean,” as so also was anyone born in Middle-earth of “Númenórean” lineage.

Let me explicate that last line, anyone born in Middle-earth of “Númenórean” lineage. I’m an American because I was born in the US of parents descended from people who were colonists at the end of the Revolution. (By American law, I would be every bit as much an American if I were born in Russia and naturalized just yesterday; but bear with me for this explanation.) As the child of Americans, if I were born in Germany (one of my cousins was born in Frankfurt), I’d still be an American. If I were born in the Panama Canal Zone, I’d still be an American. (John McCain, who just died, was born in the Panama Canal Zone, and when he ran for President, some Democrats claimed he wasn’t born an American.) If I were born in Kenya, I’d still be an American. (Barack Obama claimed he was born in Kenya, and whether his claim was true or not – he later repudiated it – he was born an American because his mother was an American.)

The rule comes from English Common Law, which is the law established by custom in the Kingdom of England during the Middle Ages. Rulings of the courts and the King comprise the law, and the common law concerning citizenship comes to us from the thirteenth or fourteenth century. The king sent an English ambassador to a foreign court on the Continent. While there, his wife bore him a son. Soon after, the ambassador died overseas. His relatives tried to seize his lands and titles for themselves, claiming the boy was not an Englishman. The court ruled that, “The son of an Englishman is an Englishman,” and so has the law been in England ever since. The Commonwealth Countries and the Americans have inherited that Solomonicism.

So long as Númenor stood above the waves, the son (or daughter) of a Númenórean was a Númenórean, whether he was born in Armenelos or Umbar. The reference was to Númenor.

But what happened after Númenor was destroyed?

Well, the survivors who were Númenóreans were still Númenóreans. That didn’t change. There were still two parties of Númenóreans, the King’s Men and the Faithful. There were apparently people of some noble if not royal lineage still in Middle-earth among the King’s Men: witness the dynastic marriage of Tarannon Falastur King of Gondor to Queen Berúthiel in an attempt to make himself King of the Númenóreans of Middle-earth. (Eärendur was king of Arnor during Falastur’s reign in Gondor: after Eärendur, Arnor divided: I think Valandil has suggested this might be due to conflicts among sons, or between hereditary princely houses in Arnor, but I cannot immediately find the thread to reference. In any case, had Falastur’s marriage to Berúthiel been a success, he would arguably have been “King of the Númenóreans” in place of Eärendur, the rightful “High King.”)

But were they still “Númenóreans”?

Well, the King’s Men came to be called the “Black Númenóreans,” at least in Gondor. They were dedicated to Sauron and fought on Sauron’s side against Elendil in the War of the Last Alliance. They practiced black magic (morgul) and dark arts. Berúthiel, who sounds like a patroness of modern sculpture, dressed only in black. And the Corsairs of Umbar, who had Númenórean blood in their veins but were no longer of as pure descent as the folk of Gondor, still used black sails on their great ships, as had their forefathers in the Second Age.

But they were still Dún-edain, “West Edain”, “West Men”. They were no longer natives of Númenor: they were natives of Middle-earth. But they were still Dúnedain, Men of Westernesse, as it was called in the Common Tongue, the daily usage in Middle-earth of the everyday language of Númenor their fathers brought with them to Middle-earth.

That suggests they had been using the term “Dúnedain” in Númenor. It isn’t conclusive, but highly suggestive: it was a way of distinguishing themselves from their (“lesser” and shorter-lived) kindred left behind in Middle-earth. And the distinction was necessary because once the Númenóreans began voyaging back to Middle-earth in the seventh century of the Second Age, the Eldar of Lindon introduced them to Men living in Eriador (what later became Arnor, probably what later became The Shire) just east of Lindon: descendents of the Edain who did not take the voyage to Númenor six or seven hundred years earlier. The two groups immediately recognized one another as kindred, and after overcoming a little difficulty with dialect, could converse together: both spoke the everyday language of the House of Hador, the tongue of the People of Marach, the Third House of the Edain.

These people in Middle-earth were also direct descendants of the Edain, and by the rule cited above concerning the ambassador’s son, they too were Edain. But their Númenórean cousins were a little larger, more advanced technologically and in education and civilization, and most importantly lived three times longer than their cousins in Middle-earth. This last point would soon be unmistakable to both sides. (It still remained that Dúnedain outlived other men at the end of the Third Age, though the difference was no longer as great: Denethor the Steward was eighty-nine in the War of the Ring, a year older than Aragorn, who had the longevity of a Dúnadan king, though it was half that of the first twelve kings of Númenor.) So what do they call themselves to distinguish themselves from the Edain of Middle-earth? Dúnedain seems appropriate, simple, straightforward.

They were still Dúnedain when Númenor fell. They were, properly speaking, still Númenóreans, too; but as a reference, Númenor was no more. I think there was a shift in usage away from “Númenórean” to “Dúnadan”.

A last couple of points from Return of the King.

Éomer cried in a loud voice: “Halt! Halt! Who rides in Rohan?”
…
“Halbarad Dúnadan, Ranger of the North I am.”

That’s the equivalent of “Halbarad the Númenórean,” I think, but he uses the word “Dúnadan”. And in the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen, Aragorn says to her,

“I am the last of the Númenóreans”

In Unfinished Tales, “Imrazôr the Númenórean”, Prince of Belfalas, wed the Elf-maiden Mithrellas, one of the companions of Nimrodel. Note that this was during the reign of Eärnur, the last descendant of Anárion as King in Gondor. Maybe that implies that at that time, around Third Age 2000, the more pure-blooded Men of Gondor apparently still referred to themselves as “Númenóreans” in preference to “Dúnedain”, or maybe Imrazôr was called that because he was completely or very nearly of only Númenórean lineage.

And finally, Gandalf referred to the Rangers of the Dúnedain of Arnor as “the last remnant in the North of the great people, the Men of the West.” The phrase Men of the West, which Strider also uses on the way to Rivendell, is a transliteration of Dúnedain.

Overly loquacious as usual. Sorry.

[Valandil]

Nice post Alcuin, as usual.

But I'm not certain the Men of Second Age Eriador were descended from the Edain... those who crossed the Blue Mountains (Ered Luin) into Beleriand. I think they were descendants of their kin - those who traveled into Eriador but did not cross the Blue Mountains.

[Alcuin]

You are correct, Valandil.

But not all the Edain sailed west to Andor, the Land of Gift, with the Elven mariners at the end of the First Age. Some refused to go; others were left behind when the Maiar from Valinor ordered the Elves to stop ferrying them to the island.

If the remaining Edain were not permitted to remain in Lindon with the Eldar, and there seem to have been no Men there by the Third Age at any rate, then the next best thing they could do was migrate inland to Eriador.

Tolkien indicates there were only five or ten thousand survivors among the Edain of Beleriand at the end of the First Age. If ninety percent of them went to Andor (Númenor), then 500-1000 remained in Middle-earth, willingly or unwillingly. They had been living among the Eldar for centuries. The logical thing to do was to remain as close to their old allies as possible, assuming none of them resented their treatment vis-Ã*-vis their lost voyage west, which would put them in what later became the Shire. For the first Númenórean mariners arriving in Lindon, that would mean only a short journey inland to meet distant kinsmen. This would also imply a strong impetus for the Elves in Lindon to introduce them to one another.

You are undoubtedly correct that these Men were a mixed group, though: it can hardly be expected that the survivors of Beleriand would hold themselves aloof from their kindred east f the Blue Mountains, so that after six hundred years they were completely re-assimilated.

The story of Tal-Elmar suggests that the Númenóreans occasionally took people from Middle-earth back with them to Númenor. I wonder if any of the Men of Eriador returned with the early mariners?

[Alcuin]

Valandil, you are correct, and I am in error. I apologize

In Unfinished Tales, the story of “Aldarion and Erendis”, footnote 3 contains this passage, which I cite (nearly) in full:

There is a … late … essay of the first meeting of the Númenóreans with Men of Eriador…: “It was six hundred years after the departure of the survivors of the Atani [Edain] over the sea to Númenor that a ship first came again out of the West to Middle-earth and passed up the Gulf of Lhûn. Its captain and mariners were welcomed by Gil-galad; and thus was begun the friendship and alliance of Númenor with the Eldar of Lindon. The news spread swiftly and Men in Eriador were filled with wonder. Although in the First Age they had dwelt in the East, rumors of the terrible war ‘beyond the Western Mountains’ [i.e. Ered Luin] [sic] had reached them; but their traditions preserved no clear account of it, and they believed that all the Men who dwelt in the lands beyond had been destroyed or drowned in great tumults of fire and inrushing seas. But since it was still said among them that those Men had in years beyond memory been kinsmen of their own, they sent messages to Gil-galad asking leave to meet the shipmen ‘who had returned from death in the deeps of the Sea.’ Thus it came about that there was a meeting between them on the Tower Hills; and to that meeting with the Númenóreans came twelve Men only out of Eriador, Men of high heart and courage, for most of their people feared that the newcomers were perilous spirits of the Dead. But when they looked on the shipmen fear left them, though for a while they stood silent in awe; for mighty as they were themselves accounted among their kin, the shipmen resembled rather Elvish lords than mortal Men in bearing and apparel. Nonetheless they felt no doubt of their ancient kinship; and likewise the shipmen looked with glad surprise upon the Men of Middle-earth, for it had been believed in Númenor that the Men left behind were descended from the evil Men who in the last days of the war against Morgoth had been summoned by him out of the East. But now they looked upon faces free from the Shadow and Men who could have walked in Númenor and not been thought aliens save in their clothes and their arms. Then suddenly, after the silence, both the Númenóreans and the Men of Eriador spoke words of welcome and greeting in their own tongues, as if addressing friends and kinsmen after a long parting. At first they were disappointed, for neither side could understand the other; but when they mingled in friendship they found that they shared very many words still clearly recognizable, and others that could be understood with attention, and they were able to converse haltingly about simple matters.” Elsewhere in this essay it is explained that these Men dwelt about Lake Evendim, in the North Downs and the Weather Hills, and in the lands between as far as the Brandywine, west of which they often wandered though they did not dwell there. They were friendly with the Elves, though they held them in awe; and they feared the Sea and would not look upon it. It appears that they were in origin Men of the same stock as the Peoples of Bëor and Hador who had not crossed the Blue Mountains into Beleriand during the First Age.

I suppose that means they were ancestors of the Men of Bree; but they did not live in the territory that became The Shire, nor did they include (according to this essay) descendants of those survivors of Beleriand who did not cross the Sea.

[Valandil]

OK - thought I remembered something like that. I had forgotten that they mostly stayed to the east of Baranduin - other than living around Lake Evendim. Though it's possible these dwelling places referred only to the 12 representatives who showed up... so some of the associated Men may have lived in other parts of Eriador (South Downs, what was to become Minhiriath, etc). Still, it sounds like none dwelt anywhere near to Lindon and the River Lhun - no closer than Baranduin. That sounds like something that would cover all.

I wonder what became of those other Men from Beleriand. The ones who did not sail to Andor / Numenor.