Not quite. Sméagol did not recover the ring himself, it was his friend Déagol that found the ring after being pulled to the bottom of the river by a large fish. In the end Sméagol saw the ring and desired it for himself and killed his best friend for it. He demanded it first for a Birthday gift and Déagol protested he had already given him a more expensive gift then he could afford. Shortly after Sméagol committed the first of his many stranglings and more Déagol ended up a brief footnote in the history of Middle-Earth.
Please note the difference in customs between this tribe of Halflings and the Hobbits of the Shire. In the Shire the person having the Birthday does the gifting, upon this village of fisher-folk, we see the tradition of receiving gifts instead.
Nava - No fish gobbled the one ring off Sauron’s hand, as you say. Isildur cut the ring off Sauron’s hand (famous broken sword and all that). He selfishly used it to turn invisible and hide from marauding orcs, but it slipped off while he was escaping in the river, leading to his being spotted and killed. Then the ring stayed on the riverbed til Deagol was unfortunate enough to find it.
The only minor addition to Eagle journeys I can remember:
after rescuing the party from the flaming firs in ‘The Hobbit’, the Eagles then flew them to the plains between the Misty Mountains and Mirkwood so they could travel to meet Beorn.
As What Exit? said, the fish merely pulled Deagol into the river, where he saw the Ring stuck in the mud.
The Ring was taken from Sauron by Isildur, who then foolishly refused to throw it into Mount Doom despite Elrond’s urging (Elrond was only a Herald at the time).
Isildur set off back home with the Ring, but was ambushed by orcs. He put the Ring on and dived into the river Anduin. But the sentient Ring slipped off his finger (hence the nickname ‘Isildur’s Bane’) and sank to the bottom of the River.
Isildur was killed by orc bowmen and the Ring lay inthe river for many many years.
A quibble, although you touch upon it. Men were very much less in number – they’d essentially disappeared from the North, and the borders of Gondor had retreated significantly. The entire journey from the Shire to Rivendell is through what had once been a populous kingdom, Arnor – and it’s completely empty in the Hobbit and in LotR.
That’s a lot of humans gone missing. In the first War of the Ring, humans had both Arnor and Gondor to draw from. By Frodo’s time as Ringbearer, there was only teeny little Gondor, and its few allies. Those humans were seriously in decline.
Its the ones allied with Sauron who seem to have multiplied. And the hobbits.
sorry to butt in again, but wasn’t there an actual plaque mentioned that accounted in part for the low population numbers in Middle Earth at the time of our favorite tale?
Excellent point, robertliguori, and should put an end to the question of why the eagles didn’t just fly the ring and drop it over the volcano. The ring would only need to nudge itself a little in falling to miss falling into the pit, and land along the side of the mountain and roll down to a convenient spot. Note that the hot air blasts coming up from Mt Doom would make it difficult for the eagle to drop accurately anyway.
It raises the interesting notion that if Frodo had just dropped the ring into Mt Doom, he might have failed – the ring would only need to nudge itself while falling to land on a ledge somewhere, or a hunk of rock in the middle of the lava. So, just as well that it fell with someone attached!
There was a plague mentioned centuries earlier that devastated Gondor. Arnor was depopulated by constant warfare between the three parts of the kingdom, with Angmar being led by the Witchking who was the Captain of the Nazguls and probably the most powerful figure of evil after Sauron, Sauraman and the Balrog leading up to and during the War of the Ring. The Rangers were the small remnant of once proud Arnor. Breelanders were more closely related to Dunlanders and numbered among the lesser humans or those that did not descend from Elf-Friends.
Plagues and Wainriders and kinstrife had seriously weaken all the “Good Men” of North Western Middle-Earth. Even the Dunlanders succumbed to some of these problems. The Easterlings in particular were large in numbers. I see no reason to believe the Black Numenoreans faired any better than the Dunedain.
Men, particular the Harad and the Umbar/Lumbar/Oompaloompa whatever they are. Where did they come from? I thought all Men came from Numenor originally. Did Men actually pop up all over the place, and only the Manly Men came from Numenor? Why were they so easily corrupted by Sauron? Why do they all seem Middle Eastern or Indian…
When men awoke in Middle-Earth most fell under the sway of Morgoth or remain in hiding from both Elves and Orcs. There were three houses that made up the bulk of those men that would be the Numenoreans. It was from these houses that all the human heroes of the Silmarillion came. The bulk of men, the ancestors of the Hobbits and the Woses all remained in Middle-Earth.
The common men always outnumbered the Elf-Friends.
*Warning this is conjecture only by me: *
As to types, the Easterling were people of roughly Middle-East and even Indian flavor. Geographically they would overlap. The Shire is roughly where England is today. You can think of the men of Rohan and Dale as roughly Norseman/Germanic. The Dunedain/Numenoreans appear to be roughly Celtic in type. Think of the Dunlanders and Breefolk as Iberian or Latins. These are not 100% by any means but my guess as to the rough approximations that Tolkien made.
I honestly read that as “plaque;” I thought well he’s back was joking and wanted one of those little signs you see on the outskirts of cities, you know, “Edoras, population 4,692, Girls’ State High School Equestrian Champs, 3012.”
Qadgop, I think Udun Freezes Over was the reunion concert, the original is on Hotel Eressea.
To continue on this question -
Numenor was first settled by men sometime in the First Age, I think (or maybe right near the end), and had the highest houses (the ‘Manly Men’ aka Edain) who had aided the Elves. The small remnant who escaped Numenor’s destruction formed the line of the kings, and the original men of Gondor and Arnor, in the Third Age. I don’t think any of the Edain outside of the Numenoreans survived the destruction of Beleriand (First Age), so it was true that by the Third Age, the only ‘Manly Men’ left were descend from those of Numenor.
You forget the Druedain. They came to Numenor, but they began leaving it for middle earth when the rest of the edain began to turn to evil. The last ones who resided there fled the island when Sauron was brought to it, claiming that the land no longer felt steady under their feet.
It is possible that Ghan-buri-Ghan was a descendant of those Drugin that fled Numenor, or even of some that had never left Middle-Earth.
Also, in JRRT’s later writings, not published until later in the HOMES series, he revealed that the Dunlendings were actually descendents of the People of Haleth, who remained in ME, rather than go to Numenor. They remained friendly with their kinsmen until the Numenoreans began coming as conquerors, and when they cut down the beloved trees of the People of Haleth, to build their forts and armadas, then began the long-lived hatred between the estranged kin.
Didn’t the Dunlendings play the “Celtic” role in LOTR? Weren’t they the wild indigenes, resentful of their displacement by the Rohirrim? (With the Riders playing the Anglo-Saxon role, although the Anglos-Saxons “rode” the sea, not horses.)
I’m speaking humbly in the presence of so many experts. And I don’t remember this idea from Tolkien’s letters. But some online sources have made the connection.
The race of Man awoke in Hildorien, at the same time as the rising of the sun. They were initially blessed with direct communication with Eru, but Melkor came among them and deceived them, and many, if not most, renounced Eru and served Melkor.
A large number of men recognized their folly, and quested West, looking for a way out of Melkor’s lands, seeking for the Blessed Realm, of which they’d heard rumor. They ran into the Noldorin and Sindarin elves when they reached Beleriand. Prior to that, they’d only known the (relatively) primitive Avari and Sylvan elves, and were amazed by the power and the glory of those refugees from Valinor, and those Sindar who’d been subjected to the Enlightenment of Melian the Maia. These houses of men, who reached Beleriand early, became the Edain, of whom many of which migrated to Numenor.
The Rohirrim were descended from near kinsmen of the house of Hador Goldenhead, but the ancestors of Eorl the Young and Eomer never entered into Beleriand, nor were they ever counted among the Edain.
Well, you could achieve TLM status too, if you didn’t spend sooooo much time mucking around in the Pit! Coulda been studying the Lhammas all those hours you were posting there! Never really fully grasped the entire scope of the Lhammas yet, did you? But noooooooooooooooooooo, you were neglecting higher lore to push electrons around on non-JRRT subjects! You’ll never rise higher than competent JRRT Journeyman if you don’t cut out all other interests! Not ready to give up sex? Here’s all the sex you’ll need: What JRRT said about elf sex!
Now give me the difference between Angerthas Daeron and Angerthas Moria! And what would Rumil have thought about ‘the Great Vowel Shift’?
AND: Produce an essay on why you do/don’t want to know exactly when your ‘begetting day’ was!
*Again only my own conjecture: *
The one big key is that Tolkien set out to write a great epic for the British people and to him the British people meant the Britons, Welsh and others of the Celtic groupings. The Dunlanders were a lesser group, smaller in stature and less in strength and prowess. So not Celtic at all but either Pictish which does not seem to fit or the early Mediterranean groups that were overwhelmed by the Anglo-Saxons and Normans. He gives the Celtic like people more than their historical due as these were the people he was writing for. In this case by Celtic, I mean the Celts of England and Wales.
I will settle for one of the Journeymen under your guidance. I am not sure what our numbers are, but I would guess there is maybe a dozen of us.
Sometimes I am a little frightened by how much I can recall for memory.
