Welcome Guest 

Register

Author Topic:
Wandering Noldo
Council Member
Posts: 69
Send Message
Post Drúedain
on: December 25, 2018 06:48
Hi there,

Are there any known theories on why Tolkien included the Drúedain in LotR ?
He felt a delight in wood and the touch of it, neither as forester nor as carpenter; it was the delight of the living tree itself.
tarcolan
Movies Moderator and General Dogsbody
Posts: 6046
Send Message
Post
on: December 25, 2018 08:43
Wood woses are part of folklore in Medieval Europe, wild men of the woods. Tolkien was teaching in Leeds, Yorkshire and identified Woodhouse Lane as being derived from that name.
Gandolorin
Council Member
Posts: 24040
Send Message
Post
on: December 25, 2018 08:59
Well, strictly from the "plot", the road to Minas Tirith that the Rohirrim would normally have taken had been blocked near Druadan Forest by an army sent there by Sauron. So to come to the help of Gondor without having to fight a battle on the way, which would at the very least have delayed them, and possibly also caused them such severe losses as to reduce the Rohirrim to being of very little help, they needed a secret way to bypass this blocking army. This way throught the Stonewain Valley had been constrcted by the Men of newly founded Gondor (they had arrived in SA 3320, and the Second Age did not end until Sauron's being overthrown in SA 3341), but had fallen into disuse and been obscured by the forest. The only ones who still knew the way were the Woses (last remnants of the Drúedain), who were thus needed as guides to the Rohirrim.

Interestingly, the Drúedain are not mentioned in the Silmarillion itself. First published writings about them appear in the "Unfinished Tales" of 1980, and a bit more in volume 12 of the "History of Middle-earth: The Peoples of Middle-earth" of 1996. The bit in UT belongs to Silmarillion writings, and whether or not JRRT would have included this in his version of a finished Silmarillion, nobody knows. CRT clearly decided against it. "Just" another piece of the huge, if in many aspects shapeless mass of the Silmarillion legandarium lurking at the background or the edges of LoTR, but in this case one which JRRT brought into the story proper.

But then I have a question about your question: did you mean why the Woses (under which name my two English-language lexicons have information about them, under D only Druadan Forest has a short note) and not, say, wood-Elves like in Lórien or Thranduil's Realm? My short guess would bee too many men around there ...
Image
Members Online
Print Friendly, PDF & Email