Why Did Tolkien Use the Name ‘Ranger’?

Q: Why Did Tolkien Use the Name ‘Ranger’?

ANSWER: Many readers have asked about the significance of the Rangers in The Lord of the Rings, such as “What was the purpose of the Rangers?”, “Why did the Rangers guard Eriador?”, “Were all the men of the Dunedain of the North also Rangers?”, and so on. People have even asked “Why did Tolkien use the name ‘Ranger’?” And while I cannot speak for Tolkien I think I can offer a plausible explanation. In fact, I already have in my essay “Of Thegns and Kings and Rangers and Things”, although that essay has not yet been republished here on Xenite.Org (Editor’s Note: the essay is now available on Xenite).

In “Thegns and Kings” I wrote:

…The word itself, ranger, is a good, old-fashioned Middle English word which stems from a French root, which in turn goes back to ancient German, even Anglo-Saxon, roots. Ultimately, it is traceable back to a postulated Indo-European root-word. The modern meaning of the word is not clearly defined. It could denote a specific type of soldier, or merely a wanderer.

The Etymology Online Dictionary says the word is “attested from 1660s in sense of ‘man (often mounted) who polices an area.'” The dictionary traces ranger to “range”, which is derived from from an Old French root. The 14th century use of “range” in Middle English, however, is given as “‘row or line of persons’ (especially hunters or soldiers)”.

It is unusual for Tolkien to use a word with such a strong French connection for so significant a part of his nomenclature. Why didn’t he use an Old English word like ward as the root for the name of a special corps of what were essentially guardsmen? I suspect there were too many negative connotations with warden — which though used in Old and Middle English for many titles such as “Warden of the Forest”, “Warden of the Marshes”, “Warden of the Port”, etc. — which had by Tolkien’s time come to be associated with officers in charge of prisons. The nature of the Rangers would also be less obscure if they had a title that could be clearly and easily tied to a guarding function. Tolkien probably wanted a word that both implied a certain royal authority and yet matched his description of the Rangers as a “wandering folk”. As I wrote in “Of Thegns and Kings and Rangers and Things”:

… Although a ranger may indeed be nothing more than “a wanderer; a rover”, he may also be “a member of an armed troop employed in patrolling a specific region”. Now, that sounds very much like Faramir’s Rangers, who worked together to maintain Gondor’s claim to Ithilien, but it could also describe Halbarad’s thirty hastily gathered Rangers.

On the other hand, there are other meanings for the word. For example, “One of a body of mounted troops, formerly armed with short muskets, who range over the country, and often fight on foot.” Now, this sounds a bit more like Halbarad’s Rangers, although instead of muskets their ranged weapons were bows instead of muskets. However, Halbarad seems to imply that they didn’t normally work together as a company.

So one must consider the possibility that Tolkien had something like the forest ranger in mind: “The keeper of a public park or forest; formerly, a sworn officer of a forest, appointed by the king’s letters patent, whose business was to walk through the forest, recover beasts that had strayed beyond its limits, watch the deer, present trespassers to the next court held for the forest, etc. [Eng.]”

Aragorn’s rangers do, in many ways, resemble sworn officers of the forest….

Tolkien’s use of “ranger” is rather sophisticated. He allows his characters and cultures to apply the word in at least two different ways, but both for similar reasons. Both Aragorn and Faramir’s rangers even act in a capacity like special forces Rangers — undertaking dangerous missions in enemy-controlled territory. I just don’t think there is an Old English word which has accumulated as much variety and flexibility as the French-derived word ranger.

Hence, Tolkien probably felt it would feel more natural and yet more mysterious if he used Ranger rather than devise some Elvish title or modify an Old English word to describe the two types of Rangers in The Lord of the Rings.

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