Middle-earth seen by the barbarians: The complete collection including a previously unpublished essay (12 page)

At the end of the First Age, they were all lost from recorded history though some of them escaped from foundering Beleriand. We do not hear about the Swarthy Men any further until the King’s Men from Númenór colonised them in the late Second Age and they progressed to the extent that they ‘
armed with iron
’
(
RP
)
and the Númenóreans found, to their irritation, ‘
that iron was used against them by those to whom they had revealed it
’.
(
DN
)

The Third Age found their remote descendants and relatives in Near Harad where they had grown into ‘
a great and cruel people that dwelt in the wide lands south of Mordor beyond the mouths of Anduin
’
(
RP
)
, ‘
bold men and grim, and fierce in despair
’
(
RK
)
. They were still called Swarthy Men or (by the Hobbits) Swertings: the latter word is ‘
evidently a derivative of swart, which is still in use (= swarthy)
’. (
GN
) In Gondor they were better known as Haradrim, Southrons or Southerners.

Gollum had seen a few of their warriors and described them like medieval oriental men of sorts: with ‘
dark faces. … They are fierce. They have black eyes, and long black hair, and gold rings in their ears, yes, lots of beautiful gold. And some have red paint on their cheeks, and red cloaks; and their flags are red, and the tips of their spears; and they have round shields, yellow and black with big spikes. Not nice; very cruel wicked Men they look. Almost as bad as Orcs, and much bigger
.’
(
TT
)
One of those ‘swarthy men in red’, with whom Sam Gamgee had an unpleasant encounter in Ithilien, had ‘
a golden collar. … scarlet robes …
[a]
corslet of overlapping brazen plates … black plaits of hair braided with gold … brown hand.
’
(
TT
)
This is still the same phenotype that marked the Swarthy Men of Beleriand.

But their culture had changed much till the late Third Age. Their languages had developed into strange ways and sounded completely alien and incomprehensible to the Dúnedain of Gondor who had no mind for delving into the linguistics but, with a few ugly words, dismissed the Harad languages as ‘
crying with harsh voices like beasts and carrion-birds
.’
(
RK
)

Luckily for Gondor, their arms technology had deteriorated. Note the reference to the ‘brazen plates’ of the armour. This suggests a relapse of the technological level into the bronze age. The Númenórean art of refining iron had been lost. Also, for the first time, the Swarthy Men used scimitars: a cultural ‘legacy’ from the orcs?

The best known – and most feared – feat of the Swarthy Men was the taming of the
mûmakil
. These ancient elephantoids from Harad were used in battle as mobile war bases. During the War of the Ring, a
mûmak’s
‘t
usks were bound with bands of gold
’, it was decorated with ‘
trappings of scarlet and gold
’, and the voluminous body was protected by a ‘
triple hide of his flanks
.’ A battle
mûmak
was actually strong enough to carry a veritable ‘war tower’ on its back which was able to provide space for several warriors, probably spear-throwers
(
TT
)
.

Contrary to the development in Rhún, it seems that the Swarthy Men never acquired a centralised realm unless they were subjugated by alien powers like Gondor or Umbar. Otherwise they stayed restricted to tribal territories and petty kingdoms that were frequently in conflict with each other. Yet, during the War of the Ring their troops appeared remarkably standardised, and it seems that Sauron had finally established a central authority to govern and oppress them all. For uniformly, their dresses and banners were described as dark red: ‘
wild Southron men with red banners, shouting with harsh tongues
‘
(
RK
)
- ‘
Southrons in scarlet
’
(
RK
)
- ‘
swarthy men in red
’ with ‘
scarlet robes
’
(
TT
)
. At least one chieftain of a cavalry unit used a ‘
black serpent upon scarlet
’
(
RK
)
as his emblem. Even the tents were ‘
black or sombre red
.’
(
RK
)

^[1]
  See also Codex Regius, ‘Words of Westernesse’, 2015..

1. Not nice, very cruel wicked Men
   

1. Black Númenóreans and Corsairs
   

‘
The King’s Men, who were afterwards called the Black Númenóreans, corrupted by Sauron
’
(
KR
)
were of Dúnedain genome and cannot really be called Southrons, neither by culture nor by phenotype. But ‘
after the fall of Sauron
[in the War of the Last Alliance]
their race swiftly dwindled or became merged with the Men of Middle-earth’
.
(
KR
)
This merger provoked Gondorian historians to reckon their Númenórean kinsmen among the Haradrim.

The barbary Corsairs, chiefly but not exclusively residing in Umbar, ought to be distinguished from the Black Númenóreans. They were late heirs and successors of the King’s Men, a remarkable multi-cultural blend that did not give much on Dúnedainic ideas of ethnic purity. Recognisable historical and biological influences are the Swarthy Men of Harad, Gondorian dissidents and also some late and ‘dwindled’ Black Númenóreans. Gondor claimed that the - politically unpleasant - Dúnedainic element had been eliminated from Umbar long before the War of the Ring.

More about them is found in chapter
IV
.

‘
The Wainriders were a people, or a confederacy of many peoples, that came from the East; but they were stronger and better armed than any that had appeared before. They journeyed in great wains, and their chieftains fought in chariots
.’
(
KR
)
^[1]

The political structure of their vast realm is unknown. But the surprising efficiency by which they ‘
sapped the waning strength of Gondor in wars that lasted for almost a hundred years
’
(
KR
)
since the 19
^th
century TA indicate a powerful central organisation, a kingdom or ‘khanate’ that coordinated communication and strategy.

The Wainriders were originally semi-nomadic, and their defence relied upon ‘
fortified camps of wagons
.’
(
CE
)
When they acquired contact with the West, especially after they had conquered much of Rhovanion, they quickly adopted the lifestyle of the Northmen and Dúnedain.

Another noteworthy feature of their society, alien to the Dúnedain except perhaps for the Haladin, was that their women received combat training. This provided a distinct advantage: While the male Wainriders were out on their campaigns, they did, hence, not leave ‘
their homes undefended: their youths and old men were aided by the younger women, who in that people were also trained in arms and fought fiercely in defence of their homes and their children
.’
(
CE
)
Maybe some Northmen learnt from them the habit to train those women whom the Rohirrim would later call ‘
shield maidens
’:
(
RK
)
female warriors who joined them in battle or defended the home front.

^[1]
  This passage seems to be inspired by references to ancient people who in Greek were referred to as
Amaxoluoi
or ‘Wainmen’. Some researchers have tried to identify them with the Goths. Cf. Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Satiric Odes, c. 3,24): ‘
Campestres melius Scythae/quorum plaustra vagas rite trahunt domos/vivunt
’ - ‘Better live the nomadic Scythians whose wains by tradition carry on their wandering houses.’

1. The Wainriders
   

While the Wainrider empire may not have lasted long, their culture survived to the end of the TA. As late as the 31
^st
century, the familiar vehicles were seen on the plains of Rhún. ‘
Out of the East Men were moving endlessly: swordsmen, spearmen, bowmen upon horses, chariots of chieftains and laden wains
.’
(
FR
)

1. Their chieftains fought in chariots
   

The Balchoth were an Easterling nation that ruled a vassal state of Dol Guldur in eastern and, later, southern Rhovanion.
Balchoth
was not a name they used for themselves, but ‘
so these people were then called in Gondor: a mixed word of popular speech, from Westron balc “horrible” and Sindarin hoth “horde”, applied to such peoples as the Orcs.
’
(
CE
)

‘
They were only rudely armed, and had no great number of horses for riding, using horses mainly for draught, since they had many large wains, as had the Wainriders (to whom they were no doubt akin)
’
(
CE
)
, and with whom they may have shared many other cultural traits.

It was not reported that the Wainrider empire had ever left its grip of eastern Rhovanion; therefore there is a chance that the realm of the Horrible Horde was its direct descendant: a diadoch state, split off when the political centre had faltered.