Country of Dun

Origins

The ancestors of Dunlendings lived, at the beginning of the Second Age on banks of Gwathló, the “River of the Shade”. With the first contact with the Númenoréens, more advanced, they were described like sufficiently many and rather quarrelsome, but they formed small forest communities without true central authority. When they met them, Númenóréens called them Gwathuirim (“People of the Shade” in Sindarin). The language of these men appeared extremely different to them from their own language, the Adûnaic, but Númenóréens could not see that these men of wood were in fact their “parents”, and they took them for Men of the Shade.

Moreover, the need unceasingly crescent for wood of Númenóréens led finally the two people to clash. After long wars, during which Sauron used of Gwathuirim as spies, the surviving men of wood fled towards the Country of Dun, becoming people of shepherds.

End of the Second Age to the birth of Rohan

At the end of the Second Age, these men and their ground were known under the name of Enedwaith , which at the same time means “People of the medium” and “Area of the medium”, because they were located between the two kingdoms númenóréens of Arnor and Gondor. They were largely ignored by the Dúnedain, in spite of the presence of the prosperous city of Tharbad not far from their grounds. They thus never learned how to speak the Westron, which did not prevent them from lentemer colonizing the Calenardhon, that Dúnedain de Gondor deserted little by little. At this point in time the superintendent Cirion gave Calenardhon to Éorl the young person and its people, in 2510 T.A.

Forgoil and Dunlendings

The new arrivals, soon known under the name of Rohirrim, were not long in driving out Dunlendings which occupied new the Royaume of Rohan. Those kept of it a tough resentment towards those which they called Forgoil , “Heads of Straw”. In 2758, carried out by Wulf, a lord of origin at the same time rohanaise and dunlandaise, they attacked Rohan. Wulf took Edoras and king crowned itself there, while the legitimate king, Helm, died at the time of the seat of the Gouffre of Helm by Dunlendings. The usurper was driven out by Fréalaf, nephew of Helm, and Dunlendings were driven back out of Rohan.

The fortress of Orthanc, in the circle of Isengard, kept Perforated of Rohan; but at the time of the superintendent Beren, the garrison of this fortress had mixed with Dunlendings, and it had become hostile in Gondor. To cure it, Beren gave the keys of Orthanc to the magus Saroumane.

At the time of the War of the Ring, Saroumane used the ancestral hostility of Dunlendings towards Rohirrim to gain them with its cause. After the battle of the pit of Helm, Rohirrim let Dunlendings survivors return on their premises, requiring so that all the hostilities cease and that Dunlendings are withdrawn again behind Isen.

Sources

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