Q: Were the Rohirrim the Southernmost Group of Northmen?
ANSWER: I received this question in December of 2020. I apologize for waiting so long to provide an answer. A reader wrote:
Having recently read the basics, (tLotR, Hobbit, UT, Sil), I grew a great interest on the Northmen, as a people. I’ve also read separatly of Dwarves and Men to read more about them. A big question rose about them all this time.
Were the Rohirrim the southernmost group of Northmen? Were there other unmentioned groups of Northmen that migrated south (for various reasons)?
The short answer is that we can’t be sure of how many groups of Northmen migrated south or of how far south they migrated.
We do know, from the Appendices in The Lord of the Rings, that Northmen settled in Gondor centuries before Eorl led his people south. Eldacar, son of Valacar, became King of Gondor in Third Age year 1432. Because his mother was a princess of Rhovanion, some Gondorians (including his kinsman Castamir) rejected his right to rule. Gondor fought a civil war called the Kin-strife. Eldacar was driven into exile for 10 years, but he eventually returned with a great army of fellow exiles and many Northmen.
Some of those Northmen settled in Gondor, and though Tolkien doesn’t say whether they were in the chapter “Minas Tirith” Hirluin the Fair from the Green Hills leads tall men to reinforce Denethor’s forces in Minas Tirith. Hirluin’s appearance could have been exceptional, or if his people were fair-haired they could have been descended from Númenóreans – most of whom were descendants of the fair-haired Marachians, the Third House of the Edain and kinsmen of the ancestors of the Northmen of the Third Age. But they could also have been descendants of Eldacar’s Northman followers. We’ll just never know.
Some people speculate that the Variags of Khand may have been descendants of the Northmen as well. There is a reference to Northmen who turned against Gondor in the Appendices. Where did they live? What became of them? The Russian word Varyag is a derivative of the more ancient Varangian, a name for Scandinavian mercenaries who served or settled in the Byzantine Empire. Tolkien may have adapted that word to imply that the Variags of Khand were Northmen who had for whatever reason settled in the lands east of Mordor and become Sauron’s servants.
There are no other named examples beyond those two groups. One would have to invoke the Uzi Rule and say that because Tolkien didn’t explicitly rule out other (possible) migrations of Edainic or Northman peoples into southern Middle-earth that there were some; it’s a reasonable assumption for anyone running a role-playing game set in Middle-earth who wants to create a mysterious group of Northmen in an unusual location.
But other than for gamers, there’s no justification to assume that other groups of Northmen lived in the south.
However …
That said, if you want to stretch the imagination a bit, there is one more possibility to consider: the strange bearded Easterlings who crossed the Anduin river by way of the isle of Cair Andros during the War of the Ring. They bore “large axes” and have been called “half-Dwarves” by many readers (a description Tolkien did not use).
‘There is no news of the Rohirrim,’ [Ingold] said. ‘Rohan will not come now. Or if they come, it will not avail us. The new host that we had tidings of has come first, from over the River by way of Andros, it is said. They are strong: battalions of Orcs of the Eye, and countless companies of Men of a new sort that we have not met before. Not tall, but broad and grim, bearded like dwarves, wielding great axes. Out of some savage land in the wide East they come, we deem. They hold the northward road; and many have passed on into Anórien. The Rohirrim cannot come.’
They sound a little bit like axe-wielding Vikings, in my opinion. But we can’t infer much from a single sentence.
Even so, Tolkien never really defined the limits of Northman expansion. He only mentioned them where he felt they would enhance his historical narrative. So by not ruling out any other named migrations, he left himself opportunity to expand their history without committing to it.
Hence, your imagination sets the boundaries of Northman expansion into the southern lands.
See Also
Who Were the Bearded Easterlings with Large Axes?
Where Did the Northmen Settle in Gondor?
How Many Tribes of Northmen Were There?
Who Were the Variags of Khand?
Who Were the Variags of Khand? (from Tolkien Studies on the Web)
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Have you read our other Tolkien and Middle-earth Questions and Answers articles?
I think these questions are born out of an emptiness of sorts in Middle Earth that the reader gradually comes to find out the more is being read.
You have the same problem in all corners of Middle Earth that aren’t overrun with Orcs, Trolls, Spiders and the occasional Dragon.
The story starts in probably the most normal medieval place of Middle Earth that comes with a flipping postal service and government.
But then you travel essentially through empty lands where seemingly nothing really is.
No small farm lands, no villages, nothing.
Especially in Eriador this is a bit strange. Orcs are largely confined to the Hithaeglir/Misty Mountains.
The Witch King is no more.
So essentially most of the former Kingdom of Arnor is just empty.
The Dunledings are just weird. Dunland is a nice fertile area.
Yet they don’t do anything with it.
So more empty lands.
I could continue but the empty spots are everywhere, even in quite peaceful areas where we as Humans who love to venture into new lands and create new things would do something with them.
Obviously Tolkien wrote it like that for a reason.
He writes about a stagnating mythical place that is under the constant threat from the enemy of it all.
But while doing so I think he missed out on fleshing it out a bit.
Which almost reads like heresy. 😀
This was the thought I had when Michael wrote about Pre-Plague Eriador recently. The one constant in Tolkien’s writings seems to be how empty Middle-earth is. It reminds me of the American Southwest, where there are towns simply because that’s where the ox died and people were forced to settle there, with miles of nothing around them.
If one wants to extrapolate (say, for a role-playing game), then they should put the towns along the roads and rivers. Readers should assume that’s where most of the towns were. As for the farms and estates, they’d spread out gradually from the towns. And that’s not a medieval thing – that’s just the way it’s always worked. Tolkien tended to follow a fairly standard pattern when he did name a settlement. Only a few seem to be plopped down in the middle of nowhere with no real context.
Note: I changed the following sentence: “One would have to invoke the Uzi Rule and say that because Tolkien didn’t explicitly rule out other (possible) migrations of Edainic or Northman peoples into southern Middle-earth that there were none”
I really did mean to end with the word “some” (that there were some [other, unnamed migrations southward]).