It has certainly been remarked upon before that the writings of Tolkien contain extensive allusions to the Viking sagas and eddas, and none more so than their peoples, which i will outline below.
Rohirrim: More viking than the extensively naval numenorean kingsoms of Gondor and the so called black numenoreans, outwardly, even as represented in the books, these lads seem to be the viking archetype, apart from the horses, which could be argued as a kenning for the horses representing boats on the plains the peoples of Rohan tended to live in, with distinct companies (The Riders of Gamling, The Eored, Theodens House guard) of calvalry somewhat analogous to a longship crew and containing many famed heroes from the same province. Their equipment for these wars would be largely the cheaply made (as opposed to a sword) steel axe, Spears, Shields, shortbows and the occasional sword, as well as Chain mail with a gambeson, or padded armor, and vambraces, a leathern breastplate and a notably unhorny helmet. They seemed, as far as the books would suggest, to be at once a nomadic and a sedentary people, maintaining a number of walled settlements and villages, such as the towns of the Westfold and Edoras, and a unified nation with a king capable of maintaining treaties and stability for long periods of time, leading to the beacons of Arnor and the eventual charge at the Pellenor fields.
Gondor: The second most viking. Rather than a god of death or battle or wisdom, they revered Ulmo with an Umlaut, a sea god that was the equivalent of a neutral poseidon, though he occasionally helped his people by revealing relics or passing messages, or even guranteeing a ship fair travel. UNTIL THE WAVES CAME. This destroyed their civilization, aka Numenor, and they proceeded to travel to Eriador, where they founded the kingdoms of Arnor, Gondor, and the eastern settlement of Laketown. After fighting orcs forever, literally since they landed although one time in particular it was werewolves, they eventually established a mighty empire that was ultimately brought low by Sauron in the first war of the ring, though, similarly to Rome after its first good sacking, it never really recovered and just started to kinda crumble away, although after beating up the BFG it seems to be on the rise. Arguably the single most French(Specifically post Charles Martel France) nation.
Black Numenoreans: Similar in appearance to the Numenorians of Gondor, or the "Fair Numenoreans", the black Numenoreans are noted to be much more "Swarthy", due to the fact that they go do piracy in Far Harad. Almost universally reviled, these guys strike me as the Irish from the readings we have done thus far. In almost every instance of Ireland being named, they were either made slaves, betrayed someone, or screwed up, just like the Black Numenorians.
Haradrim: Probably middle easterners, as they were described as very dark of skin. Notably they are all considered evil, which is probably the result of either Tolkien villainizing them for allying with the Orcs and Sauron, personal bias Aka racism, or a direct connection to the Moors on the Spanish peninsula. The latter is actually supported by the idea of the Rohirrim horse kenning being boats, as at the time, the Moors used huge galleys that were vastly larger than viking longships, and this echoes the Oliphaunt v. Cavalry action seen in the text.
I also find it interesting how you compared the Middle Earth people to Vikings. I believe that the Rohirrim people tend to fit the actual Viking narrative, because of the similarities they share. The people of Rohan are mainly farmers and peasants that pick arms to fight against foreign invaders. This is what an actual Viking would have been. We are used to thinking that Vikings are these strong powerful warriors, but Vikings are just peasant farmers from Nordic villages that go on raids when need be. I also find it interesting how the nomadic and weapons used by the people of Rohan tend to also fit the Viking narrative of how they also lived their life.
ReplyDeleteI love your interpretation of horses and Oliphaunts as kennings for longships and galleys, it really adds another layer of depth in Tolkien’s writing. Personally, I can see both the comparison of the Haradrim as Middle Easterners or Iberian Moors; Tolkien copy-pasted a lot from history and mythology while also “changing it so it doesn’t look like you copied.” Either way, I always found it pretty suspect that the equation went Haradrim=Bad ; Haradrim=East ; Therefore, East=Bad. Then again, Tolkien wrote this a long time ago, and this racist mentality fits with the dominant social narrative of his time (though I’d argue that it hasn’t gone away, and has even re-surged in recent decades).
ReplyDeleteI can get behind the idea of Rohirrim being based of Scandinavian/ Nordic Vikings, with a nice outlook on the architect, armory, and military Calvary’s, and farm lifestyles. But come on man, Gondor is a stretch, they’re more in line with the Byzantine empire. So far as Minas Tirith being referred as “Byzantine City”. More so Gondor is a classy, and relatively wealthiest kingdom in Middle Earth. Other than that, I really like the other culture/ societies that were going on such as Haradrim being compared to the middle eastern world, and Vikings, with the long ships, and naval arsenal.
ReplyDeleteThe byzantine empire was heavily grecian, which has no bearing with gondor at all. The steel plate armor they used was certainly styled from europeans, with the exception ofthe corinthian helms they used which had largely been fazed out over the 1500 years of its existence. Furthermore, the byzantines had an empire, not a kingdom, and as gondor was not very expansionist past preexisting borders, the comparison doesnt work.Charles Martel, on the other hand, is a gooood representation of Aragorn, as he reclaimed lost territory but again, failed to expand upon it. When you look at the social structure, the climate, and the lack of a schism, France becomes the much more logical choice.
DeleteI can get behind the idea of Rohirrim being based of Scandinavian/ Nordic Vikings, with a nice outlook on the architect, armory, and military Calvary’s, and farm lifestyles. But come on man, Gondor is a stretch, they’re more in line with the Byzantine empire. So far as Minas Tirith being referred as “Byzantine City”. More so Gondor is a classy, and relatively wealthiest kingdom in Middle Earth. Other than that, I really like the other culture/ societies that were going on such as Haradrim being compared to the middle eastern world, and Vikings, with the long ships, and naval arsenal.
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