Q: Is Rhûn a Part of Middle-earth?
ANSWER: Rhûn is simply the Sindarin (Elvish) word for “east”. It is not the name of a country or a region. When Aragorn or others speak of Rhûn the reader is meant to understand it was “the East” just as we would think of any lands eastward of our present locations as “the East”. To someone in California the state of Virginia in “the East”, whereas to someone in Switzerland both Virginia and California are the in “the West”.
Hence, from the Shire even Rivendell would be considered to lay in Rhûn. Geopolitically Rivendell was considered to be one of the free Western lands, so people in and near Eriador might have referred to the region as something like Forod-Dún (“the North-west”) or simply Dún (“the West”). Even today it is common for historians, news reporters, and many people to speak of “the West” when referring to the United States and its allies in Europe and the Americas.
The most famous citation using the word “Rhûn” is probably Aragorn’s statement to Boromir at Rivendell:
‘Little do I resemble the figures of Elendil and Isildur as they stand carven in their majesty in the halls of Denethor. I am but the heir of Isildur, not Isildur himself. I have had a hard life and a long; and the leagues that lie between here and Gondor are a small part in the count of my journeys. I have crossed many mountains and many rivers, and trodden many plains, even into the far countries of Rhûn and Harad where the stars are strange.’
Aragorn is not naming specific countries. Rather, he is simply saying he has traveled “even into the far countries of (the East) and (the South) where the stars are strange”. In another passage Denethor speaks of the horn that he had passed to his son Boromir:
‘Verily,’ said Denethor. ‘And in my turn I bore it, and so did each eldest son of our house, far back into the vanished years before the failing of the kings, since Vorondil father of Mardil hunted the wild kine of Araw in the far fields of Rhûn. I heard it blowing dim upon the northern marches thirteen days ago, and the River brought it to me, broken: it will wind no more.’
Again, all he is saying is “…since Vorondil father of Mardil hunted the wild kine of Araw in the far fields of (the East).” This identification is made more clear to the reader in another passage where the narrative voice creates the association:
The Captains bowed their heads; and when they looked up again, behold! their enemies were flying and the power of Mordor was scattering like dust in the wind. As when death smites the swollen brooding thing that inhabits their crawling hill and holds them all in sway, ants will wander witless and purposeless and then feebly die, so the creatures of Sauron, orc or troll or beast spell-enslaved, ran hither and thither mindless; and some slew themselves, or cast themselves in pits, or fled wailing back to hide in holes and dark lightless places far from hope. But the Men of Rhûn and of Harad, Easterling and Southron, saw the ruin of their war and the great majesty and glory of the Captains of the West. And those that were deepest and longest in evil servitude, hating the West, and yet were men proud and bold, in their turn now gathered themselves for a last stand of desperate battle. But the most part fled eastward as they could; and some cast their weapons down and sued for mercy.
Here the narrative is essentially saying, “But the Men of (the East) and of (the South), Easterling and Southron, saw the ruin of their war….” Easterling is not a tribal designation any more than Southron is. These are simply generic names that note where the countries of the various people lie with respect to Gondor and the other free lands of the West.
It is unfortunate that many Tolkien fan sites (among others less well-informed, like Wikipedia) fail to explain the correct usage and meaning of these words. There is no region in Middle-earth that would be appropriately named “the East” any more than Europe is appropriately name “the West”, “the North”, or “the East”. Every land in Middle-earth could be identified as laying in a different direction depending on where the speaker was located. After all, as J.R.R. Tolkien himself noted many times, after the Downfall of Numenor Middle-earth had been made “round and inescapable”.
See also
Who Were the Drúedain, Haradrim, and Easterlings?
Were All Easterlings and Haradrim in Middle-earth Evil People?
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Have you read our other Tolkien and Middle-earth Questions and Answers articles?
I’ll have to admit, I’ve always viewed Rhun as being the equivalent of real-world Asia; with the Orocarni as a sort of ancient Urals. I would imagine there would be many nations of men there as well (perhaps not all of them evil). With Dwarves in the Orocarni and possibly secret Avari realms as well. It’s a pity that some of the mysterious (and largely undescribed) parts of Middle-earth are the most interesting.
Surely when Aragorn says “Rhun” he means something more specific than just “eastern countries”. After all, The Map has a section labelled in gigantic letters “RHUN”, with a Sea of Rhun in it (and definitely not including Rivendell!)
As a cartographical term it is rather like “Terra Australis Incognita”; fascinating by its very vagueness, but nonetheless linked to a specific location, if an unfortunately largely unknown one. Again, readers can associate “Easterlings” with Rhun merely by way of the map; one doesn’t have to know (and there is no clue in the book) that Rhun actually means “East”.
Regarding “the West”, I should say that to Tolkien this usually means either Numenor (as in Dunadan, “man of the West”) or the Undying Lands. “Westron”, as the name of a language, is ambiguous, but may convey primarily its Numenorean provenance.
Aragorn explicitly terms Eriador not “the West” or “the North-West” but “the North”, thus: “My home, such as I have, is in the North.” Perhaps though he means only the old lands of Arnor. However in the discussion of Gandalf’s names (UT p.397ff), “the North” (i.e. where Gandalf is called Gandalf) is made to denote the entire north-west of Middle Earth, as far as the river Carnen and South Gondor. Then again, when Gandalf says “the state of the North was very bad” (UT, ‘The Quest of Erebor’), he must mean the region from the northern Misty Mountains east to the Iron Hills. In Tolkien’s scheme of things this would be analagous to the countries around the Baltic, which were once known as the “Northern Powers”. Evidently, such terms depend on context, but in a particular context they can have very specific associations.
Tolkien was probably aware that the story’s good-evil polarisation was conducive to what is now called “stereotyping”. (I find his “tall-ism” particularly obtrusive, for example.) The West-East axis seems all too amenable to such an interpretation. E.g., why does Sauron hide “in the East”? – obviously, because it is there, but it does seem to fall rather conveniently to the purpose. I think he is wriggling a little on this point in the remarks about Gandalf. The best one can say is that he tries in one place – Sam and the dead Southron – to counter such readings by stepping out of the frame completely.
Rhun is Rhun and Dún is Dún, but they are both just directions on the map and nothing more. Or, at least, there is no indication in any Tolkien text of which I am aware in which he uses them as names for countries or regions. Using “The West” figuratively for Valinor isn’t the same as using it as a name for Valinor. I mean, you can find all sorts of references to “the West” in The Lord of the Rings such as this sentence: “But now Frodo often met strange dwarves of far countries, seeking refuge in the West.”
Patrick, Tolkien was also aware of European history, where the eastern Barbarians were the ones spreading chaos, and the southern kingdoms were once friendly but now sent their boats to attack the west (are the corsairs of Umbar similar to the Barbary pirates, who terrorized southern France and Italy, and who even attacked England in the middle ages?).
And there may be historical parallels between the Numenorians civilizing middle Earth and the Irish and English monks evangelizing the Germans and Vikings.
Modern scholars see what they want, but I suspect the roots of his story go back a bit farther back than 1939
Yes, the Corsairs of Umbar sound a lot like the Barbary ones, and the other parallels hold.
Michael, I still think Rhun is a place – it’s right there on the map. It is not a country in itself, it has lots of different countries in it, but it certainly is a “region”.
Regarding Rivendell, according to the ‘Hobbit’ map it is over the Edge of the Wild, so it lies in Wilderland ; but on the main map “Rhovanion (Wilderland)” is clearly distinct from Rhun. So Rivendell can’t be in Rhun.
There may be a difference between insular and continental outlooks here, and also a change over time. The real “East” meant something to the English of Tolkien’s day which is hard to sum up. It was definitely a “somewhere”, with known constituents i.e. India, China and so on (but not Russia, which might seem to qualify geographically), and a long way from “here”. It is quite different from a US person using “the East” to mean a section of the USA itself. (Confusingly an English person is likely to use “the North” in such a way, even or especially if they live there; less so “the West” or “the South”, and least likely “the East”.)
It is all incredibly context-specific and probably only of interest to people as insular, parochial and literal-minded as the Hobbits. In a similar spirit though, I’d say that “The West” is not exactly figurative for Valinor (like “the West” today), as it represents an actual direction. The flat-world to round-world change may be raised as evidence against this, but the change is scarcely if at all evident in LOTR itself – quite the reverse, if “where the stars are strange” applies to Rhun as well as Harad, as might naturally be read. I think I did read it this way at the age of ten or so, when one’s most important opinions are formed!