Arda Kompendium

Easterlings

The Swarthy Men; the kindreds of the East

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The Easterlings

Names

  • Easterlings — the “Swarthy Men”, the kindreds of Men who dwelt in the East of Middle-earth beyond the Blue Mountains, and who — in the history of Beleriand — became the servants of Morgoth. -

In the sense of the First Age they are the mixed, dark-haired peoples who came from the eastern lands as hirelings and allies of the Dark, in contrast with the fair houses of the Edain.

History in the Tale

  • The fall of Dor-lómin and the betrayal of the North: when the House of Hador fell in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, Morgoth gave the lands of Dor-lómin to a swarthy people — the Easterlings — and Morwen’s and Húrin’s children were diminished to the sorry lot told in the Children of Húrin: the Easterlings are the small tyrants of the land (the “folk of the Swarthy Men” who oppressed Húrin’s widow and daughter).

  • The treachery of the Ulfang host: at the Nirnaeth the largest force of the Easterlings came under the sworn kinship of Ulfang the Black and his three sons — who, at their lord’s foresworn command, turned upon their allies (Maidros’ host — the Easterlings betray the sons of Fëanor in the field) and handed the day to Morgoth; the curse of the Edain upon the traitors was remembered for ages.

  • The continuing shadow: Easterlings ever after appear in the lore of Middle-earth as the perennial foes — the Men of the East in the later Ages serving the Shadow (beyond current scope). In the Akallabêth they are the enemies whom Númenor at its height taxed and dominated.

Nature in the Texts

Tolkien treats the Easterlings not as one race but as several unnamed peoples, “the men of the east, tall and swarthy”

— their motives vary: some were enslaved and some were willing traitors; the quenta names them without warmth, yet their tragedy (the East longs for the light it has never seen) is the background to the counsel that — their story in the Silmarillion is one of the many roads of Men that join Morgoth’s cause through greed and fear rather than through evil birth.

Verknüpfte Seiten

MenUlfangDor-lóminMelkorConcordance — A to ZNirnaeth ArnoediadThe Union of MaedhrosThe Sea of RhûnThargelionBroddaUldorBórCaranthirThe BalchothWainriders
Werke: die Quellen sind seitenübergreifend die Bücher von J.R.R. und Christopher Tolkien (Silmarillion, Hobbit, Herr der Ringe, Unfinished Tales, History of Middle-earth, Nature of Middle-earth u. a.) — eigene Zusammenfassung. Siehe die Concordance und den README der Quelle für die Einzelbelege.
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