Q: When Did Vidugavia Live?
ANSWER: This question is more rightly asked in several ways, such as “What were the years of Vidugavia’s birth and death?” or “when was Vidugavia born?” or “when did Vidugavia die?”
So far as I can determine J.R.R. Tolkien never recorded birth and death years for Vidugavia. Curiously, there are quite a few Websites that cite Vidugavia’s birth year as Third Age year 1210 and his death year as 1302. Given that I can find no canonical source for the years I think it unlikely they are reliable as far as a Tolkien purist is concerned. However, I don’t have access to all the linguistic material that has been made available for scholarly evaluation and cannot rule out some obscure document I have never heard of.
On the other hand, the dates seem suspicious to me for a few reasons. First, Vidugavia would have died around age 90. This seems a bit longer than average (about 80 years) for the life spans of Tolkien’s Northmen. One King of Rohan, Aldor the Old, lived to be more than 100 according to The Peoples of Middle-earth so a 92-year life for Vidugavia is not unbelievable. I just think it unlikely.
Also, though we don’t have any detailed information (from Tolkien) about Vidugavia’s life and those of his descendants prior to Léod, we have enough data to make some crude extroplations (Cf. How Many Lords of Éothéod Were There?). Although the dates I projected in that article are little better than years drawn randomly from a bag (in terms of authenticity or authority) they are at least consistent with the generational lengths in the time table for rulers of the Éothéod and Rohirrim from Léod through Helm Hammerhand. But one makes a HUGE unverifiable assumption in arguing that there would have been no breaks in the line through those proposed, or projected 18 generations between Fram and Léod.
To suggest there may have been 18 unnamed, unbroken generations of Lords of Éothéod is simply a matter of convenience. It’s the simplest possible projection. However, the standard rules of logic don’t really apply here because only J.R.R. Tolkien could have known what he would have done with those generations. He could have decided there were 20 generations of unnamed rules; he could decided there were 16. He could have explained any extraordinary short or lengthy regnal periods quite easily. In fact, where such breaks in his documented genealogies there are usually interesting stories (even if only provided as brief anecdotes) explaining why there were such breaks.
Another problem with the reported dates of 1210-1302 for Vidugavia is that he would have been 38 years old in the Third Age year 1248, when Minalcar (Rómendacil II) waged a great war against the Easterlings and brought the Northmen under his control (or influence). Minalcar’s son Valacar went to Vidugavia’s court in 1250 and by 1255 he had married Vidumavi and their son Eldacar was born. Vidumavi’s death year is given as 1344 in The Peoples of Middle-earth. Although these years don’t all agree with the years published in The Lord of the Rings, there are relatively few discrepancies and all of the years were provided by J.R.R. Tolkien himself.
But if Vidumavi died in Third Age year 1944 she must have lived to be at least 100 years old. To have born a child in 1255 she would have been at least 18-20. Tolkien seems not to have provided for girls younger than that bearing children in his stories; but the age of 18-20 is just a guess. Tolkien might have imagined Vidumavi being somewhat older. Éowyn and her mother Théodwyn were both in their mid-20s when they were married. They did have Numenorean blood through Théodwyn’s mother Morwen of Lossarnach but we don’t have death dates for either of them.
Morwen was related to the Princes of Dol Amroth and they were still living around 100 years during her lifetime, so Théodwyn and Éowyn may have had natural life spans of about 90-100 years. If that is the case, it seems highly unlikely that Vidumavi’s death date would have remained 1344. And, in fact, J.R.R. Tolkien did note it as 1332 in one text, according to The Peoples of Middle-earth. Even that death date is problematic as Third Age year 1332 was almost 80 years after Eldacar’s birth.
In The Peoples of Middle-earth we are told that Vidumavi “lived to a great age” and yet in the published Lord of the Rings we are told that she “had been a fair and noble lady, but short-lived according to the fate of lesser Men”. The most generous blended interpretation of these texts, therefore, might be as follows: Vidumavi married Valacar when she was about 20 years old, probably in 1254, and she may have lived to be about age 100 (still far less than Valacar, who lived to be 238).
If we assume that Vidumavi was Vidugavia’s eldest child and that he was born about 25 years before her, we can project a birth year of about 1209 — which is close to the reported year of 1210. On the other hand, if Vidumavi was about 25 when she married Valacar then Vidugavia’s birth year might be closer to 1204. And then if Vidumavi was Vidugavia’s younger child he could have been born before 1204.
So merely using Vidumavi’s life dates to calibrate projections for Vidugavia creates problems that make a date of 1210 unlikely. On the other hand, pushing the projections from my own time table farther back does allow for a birth date of 1210 for someone — possibly Vidugavia or possibly his son. If Tolkien gave these matters any thought he might have devised a generational formula that would match up with the reported date of Third Age year 1210 for Vidugavia’s birth. He could have realized that there was a problem with Vidumavi’s life dates but never really fixed it, so he omitted her years in order to avoid dealing with the problem.
AND ALL OF THIS FAILS as a logical argument because Tolkien did not say that the line from Vidugavia to Léod even existed. It is generally assumed (as a matter of convenience, in my case) that Vidugavia was the direct ancestor of Léod. All that Tolkien published on the matter was the following: “The forefathers of Eorl claimed descent from kings of Rhovanion, whose realm lay beyond Mirkwood before the invasions of the Wainriders, and thus they accounted themselves kinsmen of the kings of Gondor descended from Eldacar.” (Source: “The House of Eorl”, Appendix A, The Lord of the Rings) To be kinsmen of Gondorian kings the House of Eorl had to be descended from Vidugavia but they could have been descended from a daughter of Vidugavia’s house, just as Théoden’s ancestor Fréaláf was the son of the sister of Helm Hammerhand.
We don’t know who Fréaláf’s father was, although it’s very possible he was a male-line descendant of Eorl. Éomer and Éowyn’s father, Éomund, was after all apparently a male-line descendant of Eofor, who was the third son of Brego. Brego’s eldest son Baldor died in the Paths of the Dead and the middle son Aldor was the ancestor of Helm Hammerhand. Freca was another male-line descendant of Eorl, claiming descent from Fréawine.
Given the convoluted successions in the House of Eorl it is not reasonable to conclude that everything from Vidugavia to Eorl was clean and neat in Tolkien’s mind. Hence, any projections we can use to argue that so-and-so could have been or might have been born in some year or or as the son of someone are really without merit in terms of interpreting Tolkien’s fiction.
If you are writing fan fiction or role-playing modules these formulae may be helpful but almost any sort of lineage can be imagined and deemed relatively consistent with Tolkien’s published works. You can use the widely reported dates for Vidugavia’s life if you wish but they are (as mentioned above) unattested in any Tolkien literature to which I have access. The math is a bit fuzzy for those years, too. But that is just the way it is.
See also:
- How Many Lords of Éothéod Were There?
- Did Vidugavia Live in a Fortified Town or Burg?
- Was Vidugavia the Ancestor of Girion or Bard?
- Could Anyone Have Become a King in Middle-earth?
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