Hello everyone, and welcome to Living by the Law, the podcast discussing fictional worlds and how wondrous and ridiculous they are. My name is Matt, and I'm joined by my co-host Jude and Guy. Hey listeners, Editor Jude here. Unfortunately, we lost the audio files for this episode, so we had to revert to using screen-recorded audio, which I then did my best to edit up.
It's not our greatest product, but at least we still got the episode. Living by the Law is not currently sponsored. If you wish to sponsor us, find your closest homie in the world and take them out for dinner. Make sure to dress up and get your homie some flowers.
At the end of the night, take your homie's hand, lean in real close, and what's for your sponsorship offer in their ear? We will hear you. We always do. Lord of the Rings, War of the Rohirrim is out on our screens in a few hours, but before you see what happens to Helm Hanahan, let us go back to where it all began.
Today, we will walk you through the founding of the Kingdom of Rohan, or, to put it another way, the Tale of the Northman. This episode contains the mind spoilers to the movies and books of the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. Amazing. Beautiful.
The only time we don't prepare a cold open. Talking about perfection, Guy. Um, did the pivot already happen? No, this was your cold intro.
I was expecting you to continue on your perfection tangent from last time. That's fair. I... You know what?
I am... Perfection is a thing to strive for, but you know what else? A thing to strive for is good enough. Um, I...
The boys will, in fact, be aware that I just sent pictures of my current recording setup for this particular episode, where I have a curtain strung up behind my desk. Uh, one side of the curtain is a sliding door that's part of the cover against my wall, and the other one is held up by a broom, which is sandwiched between an ironing board, which is nice and low, and my desk, which is beneath, and a sample of tile, because I need a little bit more space, and then a clothes peg attaches the top end of the sheet to the top of the bowl, and boy howdy, I feel like it's probably gonna fall on me at some point, but... I think that it would complete the episode if it fell and just crushed Guy. Video is being recorded.
If it falls, it will... You'll see it. We will upload... Content is content.
Content is content, baby. If Guy dies, we will upload this to the... It'll be a final episode. It may be a little fragile.
I don't think a broom's gonna take me out, but... Speaking of men dying, and people... No way. Let's go!
Um, with Lord of the Rings, right? Lord of the Rings, baby! This is not even cold open. We're icy cold still.
This is icy cold. Yeah, we haven't got the muscle gonna hurt on this one. We're going for this fucking run. Rings, Lord of the Rings, perfect rings.
If you like this podcast, you can find a couple of other Lord of the Rings episodes that we've done over the years. We did an episode on Numenor way back in the day when I thought Lord of the Rings, Rings of Power was gonna come out a lot sooner than it did. Uh, we did an episode talking about the five wizards and the hobbits for some reason. I don't know why I put the hobbits in there.
I think I didn't have enough time or something. Delightful. Um, and then we did an episode on some pretty badass Elven lords and who would win if they were all thrown into a Hunger Games. Um, but you can also find loads more on all of our platforms and Patreon.
There we go. Let's go! My god, we're getting so good at social media. We're three fucking minutes in.
We've given zero content. We can't promote our other guns again. My content is the fucking MacGyvering I'm doing, alright? I guess I do for the subscribers.
And it's about to be content when guys brew falls. Um, so last time, last episode even, if you'll remember, I'm sure, we did a great episode on the realms of men in Lord of the Rings and in particular, um, the two major kingdoms, the kingdom of Arnor and the kingdom of Gondor, and their rise and fall from the beginnings of Numenor, where the people came across on their boats, the island got sunk, and then these kingdoms came about, and then they all died horribly. You remember it all, I'm sure? I remember those dumbest fucking kings that couldn't stop being absolutely zooked on by, uh, not Saramon.
Voldemort? That sounds right. Yep. Come on, don't you correct me.
I know I'm not right. It was usually the witch king of Angmar. I feel like, honestly, Sauron, Voldemort, witch king of Angmar. I feel like he's kind of the midpoint between those two villains.
Hang on, is the witch king of Angmar? Not Sauron, am I stupid? No, they're two new villains. He's one of the Nazguls.
He's one of the old kings of men. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, those are the Dementors.
No, those are the Mandrax. Ah, ah. So we talked about a few of the different, um, there were predominantly in this setting there, um, you can split the origins of the race of men into three different groups. Those that fought with Morgoth and the Dark Gods in the big war of gods way back in the old days, and then you had the men that fought with the gods of good, if you want to call them that, the ones that were fighting on the protective side of the war, and then you had the people that stayed neutral.
Well, today's episode, we're going to talk a lot more about those people that stayed neutral. Yeah, yeah, I know about these guys. You're the knights, cowboys, and ninjas, you know, the three types of men. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We talked about the knights, we've talked in bits and pieces about the cowboys, and now we're talking about what did we, no, we cut ninjas and put something else in there. The Vikings. Vikings, that was it. Now, today we're talking about the Vikings, because that's basically what these guys are, really.
Um, so, the predominant focus is going to be, um, the lands of Ravanian, which I will... Ravanian? The lands of Romania? Woo, baby!
Sorry, Ravanian? Ravanian. Okay. Never fucking heard of it.
I'm going to send you a cheeky little image of a chunk of Middle-earth, which I'm sure we'll be able to put into a document that can be linked to this episode, or you can just search Middle-earth, Ravanian, even if you butcher the spelling, it will probably still come up. Oh, this one is all fucking maps. This little section is where a lot of today's episode is going to be being talked about. So, anyone that has seen read, read a watch or anything else, Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit in particular, I think there's quite a lot of people that have maybe read The Hobbit but not read Lord of the Rings or read The Hobbit and not seen Lord of the Rings, whatever, anywhere in between, you will be familiar with a particular part of this chunk of map that I've sent you, and that is the Forest of Mirkwood, the Mountain of Erebor, or the Lonely Mountain, and the Town of Dale.
Those are all places that in the modern era of Middle-earth, that is all parts of what was once called Ravanian, and still kind of is. It's like a larger realm that has lots of different kingdoms and realms within it, if that makes sense. Not a great comparison, but Ravanian would be like Europe, in a sense, where you've got Ravanian and then inside of it you've got your Mirkwood, you've got your Kingdom of Dale, you've got your Forest of Beornings, all these different little factions that make up the one greater hope. Yeah, we've got the Baltic countries and we've got Romania.
Is this an original map from ManJRT? This does look like, I believe, I think I want to send an illustration from him. It looks like it's signed by him, but I'm just confused because there's a title of a movie on here, and surely I don't think he knows about that. I don't think he knows about that.
Great movie. Desolation of Smog. It does say Desolation of Smog on the map. And a little cute drawing of a dragon.
It is a very cute drawing of a dragon. It is also like 20 pixels. I'm struggling to read most of the words on the map. I don't know why.
The image that I had up on a tab was like a lot better than that. Did you wait for the low properly before? Yeah. I thought...
I can see... Okay, for viewers listening, on the left side of the map we have a compass point in the north, and then we have a mountain going from north to south. Excellent. Mountains going north to south, which are called the Misty Mountains.
Then we have a river called the Great River going north to south as well. Then we have a big thing called Mirkwood, which is huge and covers most of the map. And inside there there's spider webs and shit. There's a little bit of mountains.
I can't remember. I think it's the mountains of Mirkwood. Yes, it's the mountains of Mirkwood. It certainly does.
And then on the other side of the mountains, so to the west, or east, east of the Mirkwood, you see there's a lake and there's a Misty Mountain, which also says Desolation of Smog, and a little dragon. Which is probably where the Hobbit gets to. Yeah, and in the north there is the Grey Mountains. Wait, what?
Erebor's to the east. Wait, what? Erebor's to the east. East is the right guy.
He said Misty Mountains, and I'm seeing Misty Mountains on the left. Oh, there's a Lonely Mountain. My bad? I misheard.
There's Misty Mountain on the other side, the Lonely Mountains on the other. I'm confused about the mountains. What's Lonely Mountain? Only one.
Oh, that explains why it's lonely. This is me doing first grade Lord of the Rings class. This is prep class, honestly. And anyone that's read The Hobbit or watched The Hobbit, this has got some lovely areas.
Bjorn's house is in Ravanian. You've got the old forest road leading through Mirkwood, where the dwarves go down and have all their weird drug trip moments. They didn't put that in the movies? Yeah, they did.
Did they? Which one? The Desolation of Smog. I didn't watch it.
Yeah, that's all right. I didn't think so. You'll also see all of our bearded enjoyers and big hairy men enjoyers. There are a lot of dwarf holes in this map.
So we've got the Misty Mountains, which of course is home to many different clans of dwarves, chief of which being Khazadum. And then we've also got up in the north the Grey Mountains, where there's a lot of different dwarf colonies. Of course, the Lonely Mountain, which is Erebor, one of the big dwarven capitals. And then over to the east, you start to get the Iron Hills.
So this is, in many ways, kind of one of the heavier dwarf concentrations of mid-earth. I love how one of the rivers is called River Running. Yeah, I sure hope it is. Jesus Christ.
I mean, we do have Great River of Wilderland. We've got Forest River. We've got River Running. Great River, so great.
There's no label on the other one, but it's Riverdale. Yeah, on the west of the Misty Mountains, you have Riverdale. I love how there's been Elrond. He's a place.
The man of the legend. It is Elrond. But yeah, so a lot of different things that you can kind of see in this area, and especially the Hobbit books, pretty much the majority of that does happen in the realm of Ravenian. So, the people that lived in these lands, east of the Misty Mountains, we would now know as Mirkwood, Dale, and all these different areas.
But there are, of course, many different tribes of men. Men. Men. I love the end word.
Men. But as we established last time, men in the traditional Anglo-Saxon gender-neutral sense, as opposed to men. With these different groupings and tribes, you have lots and lots of different mixed floods, and it kind of becomes a little bit of a melting pot of different cultures. You've got people from the eastern deserts coming in, so way out into the lands of Rune, which we won't talk about today that much, but maybe I'll do an episode on there soon.
They're a very different land. You've got the mountain folk. You've got people that are coming down from the very far north, and more of like an Arctic-colder background, so you're classic Scandinavians, I guess, if you like. The Vikings are here.
And then even people from the south that have migrated up north, so people that share a lot more traits of the Numenoreans, but are not really in any way descended from them. All in all, it creates a whole bunch of different tribes, and all different fledgling kingdoms that group together and become this sprawling area, living out of Mirkwood, or, sorry, I will clarify, back in these times, Mirkwood would have been called Greenwood, because it was still nice and green and not full of spiderwebs. But in any case, you have a big forest, you've got lovely rivers, mountains. It's a pretty good place.
I was going to say, it has a lot of spiders, and it looks very scary right now. I wouldn't want to live there, but if it's called Greenwood at the time, it sounds nicer. Greenwood is when it was a lot nicer. And these men are colloquially grouped together, or referred to as the Northmen.
Some of the later descendants, I think I've pretty much tied all of them, but just to jump on top of, for anyone that knows any Tolkien lore, some of the men that we know in modern movies that have descended from them, the men of Dale and Esgaroth, so these are in the Hobbit movies, the people that live on the lakes are like Lake Town, the people that live in the big city of Dale, against the Patmosamaug, their descendants, and Eotheod, who we're going to talk about a lot today, who are the ancestors of the kingdom of Rohan. And, of course, the Bionics, who are big, forest-dwelling tribesmen, people that like to turn into bears. We like all. In the Second Age, so a long time before our last episode, this whole area was predominantly two Sylvan Elf kingdoms, Sylvan Elves meaning Wood Elves, basically, to put it in simple fantasy words, and you had Greenwood itself, and Lorient, which would later become Lorient, or anyone that's watched Lord of the Rings.
But during the War of the Last Alliance, which we talked about last time, when the Elves and men got together to go beat up Sauron, both of the kings of those separate Elf kingdoms got killed, meaning that these two Elven kingdoms began to significantly deteriorate and began to give more space to the tribes of them, who, of course, would uprise big time in the Third Age, the time of men to be men. So we talked a lot about it last time. You've got Gondor Rising at this time, you've got Arnor Rising, you've got these 800, pretty much 800 years of peace and everyone going great and everything getting prosperous. What's his opinion on the people from Numenor coming over in certain big cities?
At this stage, pretty neutral. They're like, oh, that's a bit south, we don't really give a shit about that shit. They are very disconnected at this point. They're two different peoples.
The peoples in the south have raised up these Numenoreans and put them as their kings. The people in the north are just kind of separate tribes at this stage. They have people move between the two kingdoms, and you get people from north moving south or south moving north, but it's not like a political alliance or anything like that. But what are the dwarves?
The dwarves? I'm so glad you asked. At this point, there are many, many different tribes, and some of them are certainly friendly of the dwarves, and some of them don't really have anything to do with them. There's not any beef going on?
Not yet. Yeah! The dwarves are like in the mountains. The mountains are dangerous.
I'd rather be on the rivers and in the valleys and the forests. I'm not one to engage in stereotype. The dwarves have a reputation of being a little prickly, so I would not be surprised if a bunch of random fucking humans rocking up on their doorstep would piss them off. Honestly, godspeed to them if they're given kingdom.
What we do have, which seems like a good place, then you've got a little nugget, during the third age, so during, I don't think it's quite happened to be a few thousand, probably a few hundred years after where we're about up to now in the timeline I'm going through here, you have the Lonely Mountain Erebor, as we've established, which becomes a very prosperous and rich kingdom of dwarves, and you get a large group of men from these tribes that form up outside, and they create kind of a, they allow Erebor to trade with the rest of Middle-earth by giving it ports, by giving it access to the great rivers, and the dwarven riches flow through this town, which then becomes a big city and becomes Dale, which becomes a, of course, very, very powerful and wealthy nation of men, and they have a very, very, very powerful friendship with the dwarves that would endure for a very long time. Maybe a bit too rich, maybe a bit too powerful. Maybe a bit too rich. Wouldn't want to attract any dragons now, would you?
So, a couple more hundred years on, Angmar and Arnor are fighting, Gondor's just kind of being Gondor, and the Easterlings that we discussed last time begin to foray into the Northmen. They see Gondor, they see this big scary kingdom, and they go, what if we just went north and started taking on all these weaker tribes? And so they did. They start burning, they start pillaging, and they just start ransacking the wilderness, all these different tribes, none of them are unified or strong enough together to stand up against these unified armies coming from the east.
It's a bit rough, but Gondor is not one to sit idly by. So the king of Gondor at the time brings his armies north, and frees the tribes of the Northmen from the Easterlings, and sends them packing back into the deserts. And they become very good friends at this point. Damn, so Gondor was there.
Gondor comes along at this time. After 1100 years of relative separation, they decided that seeing them... burn and be pillaged towards a step too far. So they come north and this is the start of a friendship between all these different tribes and this big mighty kingdom to the south.
What's the kingdom called then? Rovion? Rovanian. The Rovanian call for aid and Gondor will answer.
Well it isn't as much call for aid as much as a whole bunch of different tribes are like, help us! And Gondor goes, don't worry child, I'm coming. What's that if not calling for aid, you know? Well, we'll get to that bit later.
So then Gondor comes up, they become very, very, very good friends. Now you may be thinking, you may not be thinking, but you may be thinking, we've gone past the year 1200 now, we're heading into the year 1300. Remember last episode I talked about in the years 1400, that like 100 year period, Gondor suddenly had a whole bunch of infighting because of a mixed blood king. Yes, yes, well not infighting, they kind of just went, now we don't want this one.
Well, yeah. That was later, that was later. Oh, sorry. It's the early infightings, early civil war, that's why they couldn't help Ardor when they got attacked.
Yes, apologies, apologies. That's all good. And so after this Gondor became very close with the people of the north and populations flourished between the two realms, you might even say too close. So much so that there was a marriage between Gondor royalty and the lords of one of the northern tribes, creating a mixed blood king.
While this was in many people's eyes, it was less of a, it was less of, I suppose it's still racism, but it was less of a, it was, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's where they were from and their background and like, you know, the culture, you know? My point is more, it's less of evil northmen, they like and respect the northmen, but it's more, the northmen are cool, but the Numenoreans are the kings, and this person was no longer pure Numenoreans. That was more the conflict. I don't know, I don't think it makes any better.
Dude, dude, I'm sorry, that's definitely still racism. I see, what did I say? It's a little bit of racism. It's about, it's about a thing about purity of blood, you know?
Yeah, yeah. Which is not good. But anyway, the, fuck's sake, this led to infighting in Gondor, which we went through last time, um, however, as the Gondor exiled king was pushed north, he retreated away from Gondor, Gondor fell to this usurper, um, the northmen then rallied behind their king, um, respecting him as one of their own, but also one of Gondor, and then this massive army of northmen went down south, and half of Gondor rallies behind him, and they push the usurpers out, and reaffirm the line of kings in Gondor. Um, this, of course, would only help to strengthen their friendship, and begin to circulate a lot of wealth, construction, resources, craftsmanship, whatever you want to call it, into the north, and start to share a lot of their civilization.
Um, meanwhile, yeah, meanwhile, uh, just a small little aside for everyone that's wondering about the elves, because I know everyone loves the elves. I always wonder about the elves. I always think you motherfuckers up to. They never come across my mind.
In this few hundred year gap, before we jump into what's happening with the men of Ravenian, um, in the hidden north, uh, we have Greenwood, and in a little pocket of the north, we have the Silver Nels, or the Wood Elves, once again, um, ruled by, now, well, now ruled by King Thranduil, um, who are people from the Hobbit era, who all know kind of well as the arsehole king that doesn't like Thrawn very much, um, he is the son of the king that went into the last alliance and died horribly, and this largely contributes to why he becomes such an isolationist king, and why he's so hesitant to help the dwarves and such in the future, because last time his people went to help, they lost their king, half their people, and fell apart as a kingdom. So he just starts withdrawing into himself, bringing all of his people back into their, like, most northern pockets, and just abandoning the Greenwood, and this is what starts to lead to the corruption seeking into the Greenwood, as the elves are not there to maintain it. This is Legolas' daddy, right? This is Legolas' daddy.
Um, I can't always blame the elves, but I always want to blame the elves. Yeah, they don't know, they're still in the Greenwood, but if you see, if you're looking at the map, the Greenwood's massive, they go from occupying most of the woods to a little pocket that you can see in tiny writing that says Elven King's Halls. Oh, right, okay, yeah, it is literally like nothing. So back in the glory days, they would have occupied most of it, and had, like, roving groups of people around most of the woods.
They kind of go way up north and abandon most of it, especially the mountains of Mirkwood, which used to be, like, where their capital city stood, and they completely pull out of those mountains and retreat north. Yeah, this is the guy that, like, pulled his army up onto the hill, and then looked across, made direct eye contact with Oren, and then turned his army around. He went up to him. Honestly, the biggest dig move, you didn't have to bring the arm, you could just send a messenger, and then turn around.
But it's not about sending a messenger, it's about sending a message, man. Yeah, that's true, that's true. Look directly in the eyes and turn the arm back. Meanwhile, back across to the west, which is a little bit south of this particular map image, because it's out of Revanian, but that's okay.
West and south. Southwest. We have the realm of Lorinand, which would eventually become Lothlorien, a place that you go to in the Fellowship of the Ring, where Galadriel, the spooky blonde witch lady, sits. And at this point, you still have a wood elf king ruling over this part, and they completely disappear from these northern areas and just retreat into their woods as well.
But also, a fun little throwaway that I learned that you'll just love to know, that big river running down the middle, the Great River of the Worldland, or otherwise known as the River Anduin, the valleys along that river are where we find a little cute group of creatures known as Stores, otherwise known as the other hobbits. What the fuck are you talking about? Yeah. So we have the Hobbits of the Shire, and then we have the Stores, who are...
Let's just put it into D&D terms. You've got Lightfoot Hobbits, and you've got the other ones. Lightfoot Hobbits. I forgot what they're called in D&D.
That's a good question. I don't know either, because I don't play halflings. Fuck, we're shit at D&D, guys. You forgot a race name.
Wait, there's other fucking hobbits we didn't know about that were much closer to the Mordor that Gandalf could have been to, like, I need two hobbits. They're not the best adventurers. The important thing is was. Lightfoot and Stout, if anyone was saying.
Lightfoot and Stout. Oh, no, dude. They eventually migrate around in Mordor. That's actually really good as well.
Sorry, the Stout Halflings in the description has... As a Stout Halfling, you're harder than average, and have some resistance to poison. Some say that Stouts have dwarven blood. Yeah.
I wonder where they got it from. But yes, that is the Stores. Anyway, a couple hundred years past, and we get to our good old friend, the Great Plague. Yay, wait, we're back.
We're back in the Great Plague. Why are we friends with the Great Plague? We talked about it last time. It's a friend of the podcast.
Ow, no. Anything that's a friend of the podcast is a friend of the podcast. Exactly. So in the year 1636 of the Great Plague, it devastates Revanian, where it does damage to Gondor, and not too much to Arnor due to how far west it is.
Revanian is far enough east to cop it badly, and both densely populated enough and not developed enough that this plague just decimates the population. It is awful. And this leaves them even more weakens than Gondor. And where I said last episode, Gondor was left so weak that the people of the east could probably have beat them, the Northmen were even worse.
So what do you think those people did? They attacked the Northmen. Yeah. And this is when another friend of the podcast, the Wainriders, those guys that are riding Wayne.
Wayne Gretzky, it's back! The Wainriders, in their chariots, come over in 1856 after the plague's finished up and everyone's... they've recovered, not Northmen, and they completely overrun Revanian and just begin enslaving the varied tribes. This fucking area can't catch a break.
It really can't. It only gets worse. So how are those bears going in there? Oh, they're bears!
They can do the bears! How are they not doing well? Bear can still get a plague. We'll do an episode on the Beardings at some point.
Can they get a plague? Yeah, I imagine so. I mean, it depends on how... the illness is like.
Human to animal, the illnesses are very different. That's why usually big plagues come from animals, because it affects us greatly because they were not immune to that kind of disease. There have been several cases of plague and wildlife in the States. This is from Oregon.
One case involved a mule deer near the Dales, but generally most ungulates and carnivores, canids, bears, raccoons, are fairly resistant. Okay. So, for 43 years, the majority of the people of Revanian were enslaved on the run, but in 1899, there was a revolt coordinated with an attack by Gondor, and the Wainriders... well, coordinated by Gondor on the Wainriders from the West, and this was the first big victory against them.
Not the final one, because there were a couple we talked about last time, but the one where Gondor went North and was able to beat them back into the East. Yeah, get out of here! When they came up here, they were once again free. Revanian was once again free, but left extremely weakened.
This means that a lot of the tribes begin to disperse, and the once-thriving areas of many different cultures begin to break up to some extent. Yeah, so they're at least all very separated groups, right? There's not a country yet, is there? There's not a country.
There's many different small nations, many different tribes, all of this sort of thing, but there's not one unified kingdom at this point. Part of the reason why they continually run into these issues where one big unified force from the East can come over. Yeah, I guess it might be difficult with a big fucking forest in the middle. Yep.
But the result of this is many of the men of Revanian left for Gondor, where they were welcomed as distant relatives, or a small population of them went up to the West and settled along the river. The Great River of Woodland, or the Great River of Anduin, depending on what you want to call it, and the valleys that run along this river. And these men would become known as the Eotheod. Eotheod?
Eotheod, yes. What are they getting after? What are they cooking? Are we supposed to know this word?
We're about to get to them. Yay! So you don't know it yet. Can I ask a question before?
Yeah, sure. Sorry, just about the Wainriders. Because they're coming from the East. The first thing I'm seeing they're hitting is the Lonely Mountain and Dale and stuff like that.
Was Dale not as strong at this point, or did they just avoid Dale because there was a bit of a stronghold? Yes, it's more the areas that get hit worse are kind of south of the old forest road. Ah, I see. So they have weaker areas instead of getting a city of Dale.
Yeah, let me just get a handy prop that I totally prepared earlier. Of course, King. Of course, of course. Where's the one that I normally like to look at?
The one that I like to look at? I imagine Jude sits there and just inspects a lot of the reasons. I also need to know which river did the dwarves barrel down in the barrels in the Hobbit. Oh, I can tell you that very soon.
Is that the forest river? No, it's the river running. Yeah, it would have been the eastern end of the forest river. Damn it!
Well, the river runs through south. They weren't even going through Dale. Oh no, I was just hedging my bets in case Jude said I was right. That'll do my thing.
But if you're a graphically guy, it would have made no sense. Hey man. Get your head in the game. I barely remember the scene, let alone the fucking geography of where they're at.
Didn't they? They got dropped out of the mountains. Oh, how long do we have to be? Do we have to strap you down?
You won't get me to do it. Can we do it? I want to do this. I'm just going to jump in real quick here.
So this other image, which I'll put in. I do like this. Ooh, that's a wobbly image. The interesting thing about, well, the thing you can kind of learn from this.
So you can see the big title of Romanian. Yes. Which is the zoomed out version of what we were just looking at. And then you can look.
Way to the south is Gondor. Yes. Yes, south Gondor. I've got south Gondor.
Oh no, it's just Gondor, I'm saying. Oh no, okay, it's just written in there, sorry. It's one of those things that sometimes integrate the names in amongst the elements and stuff. That one.
And then the place that the Wainriders are coming from is the Sea of Rune. Oh, so they just went directly... Oh, west. I see.
The sea. It's a big lake. It is a... Why is it like a desi lake?
That is all desert, basically. That's disgusting. Okay, cool. So wait, why do they go that way?
That's stupid. Why not? Sure. The reasons that we'll get to.
Sure. Trust me, we actually will. Yeah, I know. My parents are called the Brownlands.
Fuck me. This brings us to the midpoint of the Third Age, where Romanian is quite a populated area. In the north lays the Dwarven Kingdoms of Erebor at this stage, and the Dwarf Halls in the Great Mountains. The kingdoms of Dale and near the Great River of Anduin, we have this newly forged realm of the Eotheod.
And in the south-east of Greenwood the Great, we have the Woodmen. Everything's stable. Sorry. And then it's not.
No, motherfucker. So something did happen during the Third Age, which we later find out about. An area that you'll see called Doggledor on the big map, or anyone from... That's the big map at the top, right?
Nope. Doggledor is in the middle of the forest. Oh, that's good and bad. Sorry.
That's okay. There's a lot of random names. None of them make any sense, I swear. And then Doggledor is a fortress in the middle of the big forest from Mertwood slash Greenwood, and this particular mountain is an old Elven fortress that was abandoned by the Wood Elves, and a spirit has taken up residence here.
Is this the Necromancer? And that spirit is Sauron, the Necromancer. Oh, sick. Whoa.
He's a little far away from Mordor. Well, this is the mid... Doggledor provides a perfect midpoint between Mordor and Angmar at this time. That makes sense.
And of course, that's quite possibly, while it's in no way confirmed, it's definitely one of a few positive theories that that is why the Wainriders attack in such this direction, because that leaves them very much in the direction of Doggledor. Wainriders are kind of being egged on and manipulated by Sauron and his servants. So is every single scene in this world a little egged on by Sauron? All evil is, yeah.
It's like if you find an elevator in Middle-earth, you're like, it's like, sorry, that was Sauron, he told me to. I was commanded, the spirits told me to. It's when you failed it, when you don't hold a door open for some while on the way out, you're like, damn, I can't stop listening to the whispers of Sauron. So that'll bring us to the Eotheod.
So they escaped the Wainriders after Gondor Freedlem, and they let their revolt, they fought their way out, and they escaped further west, abandoning where they used to live, and settled along the banks of the Anguim. However, they would not find too much peace here, unfortunately, as despite the Wainriders being defeated in 1944, this new shadow had arisen in Doggledor, that while no one knew what it truly was, everyone that dwelt anywhere near it could feel its presence. And so Eotheod, led by a man named Fongar, leads them to migrate north to these very distant northern plains, in a confined area between rivers, at the very top source of the Anguim. So if you're looking at that, way up near the Eret Mithrin, near Mount Gundabad and this little fork area.
Hey, Gundabad! Way, way, way, way up there. Which is an interesting choice to go, with how north it is, but hey, it's far away from where the enemies are, right? Sorry, the scale on this map is insane.
I'm just looking, like, 50 miles is... Everything on this map is way bigger than it seems at first blush. Yep. And wild.
It is a long way. There's a lot of walking a lot of it. I don't know, it just feels like it's a really long way. It does, right?
Yeah, walking from one side the other takes three movies. I hear you don't simply do it, though. One must. Anyway, they actually came up to this area, this spot, very near the Grey Mountains, near the top of the Misty Mountains, and they arrived there after the fall of Angmar, eventually.
So if you remember last time we talked about the final fall of Arnor, and of the elves, and the last king of Gondor, Aarnor, leads this combined army to attack Angmar, and they drive them off and defeat Angmar, and they get rid of the Witch King. flees. Well, they get up there, and they find fleeing into this direction the remaining orcs of Angmar. So, if they all go, let's fucking get them, boys, and they defeat the rest of the orcs of Angmar.
Oh, great. That's it? They're done? They're done.
Angmar's gone. That's all she wrote. Jesus. Wait, okay, is this after that big thing with the Northmen and the wife and the problems with Gondor?
This is way after. Okay, I kind of missed that a little bit. Okay, that's what I'm saying. So, this is, they settle.
That was the midpoint, and then they eventually get driven north with the fear of Begledore, and then they arrive there after all of the other things have happened. Ah, okay, cool. Yeah. So, then we get to...
Is it still going to have, like, together a government or anything like that? There's still just a couple of tribes chilling? At this stage, yeah. You've got Dale, you've got Esgroth.
Like I said, that's why... It's the 1900s. It's time to start. Well, it's the 1900s if we had a 300-year-long black death in the middle of it.
That's why I said, so the midpoint that I established before, the midpoint of the Third Age, that's when you've got Romanian being pretty scattered post all of these invasions and great plagues. You've got the Kingdom of Dale well and truly happening. You've got the river people happening, the woodland people, and then these guys eventually make their way up here. The next thing we're going to get to, you may be thinking, that's dwarves.
Can anyone guess what that might be? Sauron? Or, what's the demon? Nasty bitch?
No. Nasty bitch. I am going to the chat. God love you, boys, but, like, sometimes there are topics that are just so indecipherable to me and a lot of the rings just happens to be one of them.
I don't know what, my brain processing cannot understand a lot of the rings. It's another language to me. It's just, dude, it's like you refuse to watch any of them. I have gone on too long for this bit.
At this point, it just needs to stay a thing. To be fair, even I, sometimes when I know the names of places, I know the names of people, get lost to the fact that it just sounds like a history book sometimes. It's just like, that name did that thing and that name did that thing and then it was, they lived life and then they died. It's like, okay, bye-bye.
It's pretty simple. Meanwhile, there's me like, cool, what happened next? I'm going to send a quote to the chat. I'm ready to read this.
I want you to give me a creepy sort of yeah, sort of voice. Do you get what I mean? Who the fuck is this? I'm trying to think of who they could be.
Oh, don't be the Easterlings. He's like dwarves. I don't know. I can't see it.
Is it guys in it? It's in the chat. Oh, it's in the... Oh, you should send things to the message, can't you?
We do, don't we? Sorry. Zoom chat was this. Okay, I'll read it.
He crawled like a slow, creeping death, too horrible to flee from. From men with fear and his icy breath. Ah, froze, froze, froze men. Froze men with fear and his icy breath and then crushed them ground them under his long white belly.
It's a fucking dragon! It's a dragon! These men cannot catch a break because they're about to tangle with Scatha the Worm. Dude, didn't these guys just like do the one thing to defeat Agmar, which like Gondor couldn't fucking do?
They didn't defeat Agmar, they just defeated some fleeing orcs from Agmar. Oh, okay. I thought they got rid of it. I thought they were like, no more Agmar, bye-bye.
Yes, but that's because it was just some like remaining orcs that had fled the line. They cleaned up. Exactly. So Scatha, known as the Worm, was get ready for this because it's a delightful little mental image, a blind and silent grey long worm of a dragon with a white belly that was known as the Great Dragon of the Grey Mountains.
Yep, slithery little grey fucker. I'm like an old man. Old dragon. So Liv was told of Scatha's life, except that he had a vast den in the Grey Mountains that sank like a dark tomb and contained a horde of treasure which included sharp bright stones and a beautiful silver horn made by the dwarves.
This dragon raided from the dwarves of the Grey Mountains like you wouldn't believe. He was a fucking scourge on them. He also collected bones as toys, particularly the hands of dwarves and the skulls of men, which he piled in his den as a bed and he licked them clean. He's a rat!
He's a rat! I'm looking at images. This guy looks feral. This is just a rat in dragon clothing.
Also, yeah, we get his evil. We get it. Also, maybe that's just what dragons do. How dare you judge?
Smog was beautiful and magnificent and stuff. This guy's just a gross rat. Dude, Smog burned an entire town and killed entire city. He did it gracefully.
He did it with Poe. He did it with the voice of Benedict Cumberbatch and God is my witness. This is a big thing. I don't think there's much, I'll be honest, I don't think there's much difference between killing an entire city and sleeping on their bones and killing an entire city and sleeping on their gold.
Say I'm crazy! Maybe this is the disrespect at the end of it. I think both of them are pretty bad. You've got a creature that's sitting there making a bed out of bones, licking every last scrap off, and then you've got one that's sitting in gold, like, look how pretty I am.
Yeah, but you're not taking the point out. They both killed a lot of people. Oh, no, no. I'm just saying, well, he's way more magnificent, my dude.
Yeah, Smog is bigger than Smog. He is a bit more. Okay, that's fair. Smog is beautiful.
This is a rat. I guess if we're judging my covers, if we're just being a bit rude here, judging my cover, I guess he's a bit more. I feel sorry for him. I think he's never been shown in love.
I know you don't listen to me, but I said, this guy's a rat. Meanwhile, Smog is magnificent. That was all I ever said. I think you were, that's Smog propaganda.
Scar does not have a lie. Wait, he or him. Scar does he. This dragon, which, as I said, had long been a skirt of dwarves of the Grey Mountains, decided these tasteful men that had just settled would be great to make another snack.
And so he attacked the Aotheod, and they were not pleased. Can I say, unsurprising. That brings us to the next chapter. This is still just about before the time of, pretty much just about before the time of Gondor collapsing, or the kings of Gondor ending, just for a loose timeline.
So after Angmar's gone, after Arnor's gone, but Gondor's kings are just about still there. That dude hasn't been called a little bitch for enough years yet. He hasn't been baited yet. And while we do not know the truth of what happens here, one of the most popular theories, and the one that I like, so it's the one I'm going to go with, is that Scarfer attacked the early Aethered in their early years, when they had only recently gotten to the north, because we know that when Scarfer meets them, their king, Frumgar, the one that led them up here in the first place, is still ruling.
They do have kings, at least. They do have kings. They have kings. They're kings of individual tribes and stuff.
Oh, okay. They're not like huge ruling kings or massive kings. In the attack, Frumgar was badly wounded or slain. It is not clear, bitch.
This led to his eldest son, Fram, swearing vengeance on the Drake, that had eluded these dwarves for centuries. We do not have details on how this tribal chad of a man attacked and fought the dragon, but he did. And in the year 2000 of the Third Age, this is about 40 years before the death of the last king of Gondor, he just goes up and kills Scarfer. This is the guy that they needed when Sauron was baiting them.
They should have taken this guy. This is the man I trust. Make him king. He is.
He's the son of a king. They make him king. Make him king now. After he killed the beast, he claimed the dragon's entire treasure hoard, which the dwarves believed rightfully belonged to them, which, of course, it probably did.
It was their shit. I think you could take attacks on it, but most of that's their shit. Knowing this, he said... Also, the key rule is that dwarves don't want you fucking with their gold.
That's what he did. And then, so he makes a very smart decision at this point from, and that is, of course, you know, dwarves are grudge-bearing creatures, you know, very hard to forgive, very stubborn, very prickly, probably likely to punch you in the face if you insult them. So, of course, he makes the only sensible decision, and when they ask for their gold and treasure back, he sends them a very rare gift instead. He sends them a necklace made from the teeth of the dragon itself with a written message.
Fuck off. Guy, I'm going to get you to read this message in your best harsh chad voice that's just beaten up a dragon you've got for me. Oh, I'm beating up a dragon. Jewels such as these you will not find in your treasuries, for they are hard to come by.
Oh, that is chad. That is pretty chad. That is what sends you to the Warf Kings of the Grey Mountain. These teeth are more valuable than your fucking gems, because I pulled these out of a dragon.
You just pulled these out of the ground, idiot. Did you kill a dragon? I didn't think so, bitch boy. For some reason, the dwarves found this insulting.
What? That's crazy. I think it could be, in a weird way, like a really cool gift, but also, like, it would be a gift you give along with giving back, like, half the horde. They like shiny things.
They want shiny things. Yep, but instead he gives them that back and keeps the money. And the treasure in general, rather, because it's not just gold. However, as the dwarves found this very insulting, the outcome of Ram's fate is uncertain, though it is heavily believed that he was eventually slain out of revenge by the dwarves for the insult.
You could take a dragon, but not dwarves. You could take a thousand dwarves. I like how the dwarves were mad enough to kill this guy who killed a dragon, but they weren't mad enough for hundreds of years to kill the dragon itself. Yep.
Mad enough to kill him for killing the dragon, but not mad enough to take back the treasure or kill his people, which is interesting, because we know, as we'll get to at the very end of this episode, we know that this treasure is still in the hands of the descendants of these people. So, eh. Honestly, they were just bummed about the insult of that point, like, fuck the gold, you piece of shit, go here. And so it is likely that much of the ongoing success and the rise of the Aofeod is due to this treasure taken from the dragon, and the fact that they pretty much have a complete monopoly on all the fields up in this area, that their population is just allowed to grow massively, and they discover that there is another creature that loves living up in this area, and that these fields are teeming with horses that are otherwise wild.
Gamer! They start to befriend them, and they start to become very, very powerful and well-skilled and well-trained horsemen. They start to breed horses, they start to breed themselves, and they become arguably the most flourishing and most significant. If you exclude Dale, who are basically the bloody bitch boys of the dwarves of Erebor, these guys basically become the strongest and most prominent tribe of all of Revanian at this stage, and the descendants of Fran and Fromgar continue to lead them.
That brings us to, to wrap out this episode, we get to Erel, well, I say wrap out this episode, there's a bit of it, but it's the last thing in timeline-wise, we get to the time of Erel the Young. This is about 400 years later. Ah, yes. No, reset.
What's changed? Quick question. Is Mervwood fucked yet? Like, what point does that happen?
The elves were drew probably ages ago. I'm so glad you asked. At this point, to set the scene, Gondor has fallen, the line of kings is gone, the line of kings is gone, and the reign of Gondor has been passed over to lesser men, i.e. the rule of stewards.
Yeah, well, Gondor has no king, and Gondor needs no king, dude. Exactly. Basically, a group of men who are not descendants of the king, they are descendants of the steward, who, there was always a steward with the king, the king's ended, so the steward's family has continued on, and their pledge has basically been, we will look after the realm of Gondor until the king returns. They're just keeping the seat warm, there's nothing going on.
Well, most of them are quite genuine, it's just later on some of them start to get a bit less genuine. I get that, but like, okay, weird fucking relation, there's this thing where there's like a multi-millionaire who died, and he willed all of his money to his dog, and since then there's been a succession of people taking care of the dog, and being like, the dog wants another stripper. I understand that hypothetically you are acting in favour of the dog. I do not believe that is true, though.
But you forget that Gondor has no king, and Gondor needs money. You're so right. Gondor is a free state. And at this point, the elves have well and truly retreated, and Greenwood is not quite Mirkwood yet, but it's starting to become less hospitable of a land.
It's more of an Irkwood, you know, like Irkwood, yeah. It's not really referred to Mirkwood until the time of the Hobbit movies, which was still a little way away from you. But if you want a bit of a trajectory, it used to be beautiful, luscious Greenwood. It becomes icky, filled with spiders, Mirkwood.
At this point, it's gone from being friendly and hospitable to dark and dingy, and you might find a slider if you're unlucky, I guess, if you want a bit of a trajectory. It's the other forest outside Hogwarts. Yeah, it's become the old woods, whatever the fuck they call it. Forbidden forest.
It's the Merwoods, you know? Arnor, completely gone. All semblance of that's gone. The remaining kings have become the Dunedain Rangers that we talked about last time.
The son that decided not to become king because he had no kingdom. The Shire is well and truly jiving and going at this point because no more Arnor means all those fields that used to be Arnor are Hobbit lands now, baby, so the Hobbits really are fine. That's, yeah, that's just a little bit of a scope on the world. Mordor is still a pretty much abandoned land as far as people are aware, but there's beginning to be some interesting things happening there.
The Witch King's gone into Mordor, they've lost that castle that the Gondor King got lured to and killed, and yeah. So, Earl was born in the year 2485 of the Third Age, and his father, Laod, was the king of the Aethord at this time. A few years later, when Earl was 16 years old, so I guess 16 years later, Laod was killed by a wild horse that he tried to tame. Me, you're our lord, 2496.
He was killed by a horse. Did you say a horse? Dare I say L? Chicking, choking.
He was killed by a horse. He decided to try and tame. There was a rare breed of horse that they would find that was particularly bigger, stronger, and more cunning than other horses, and after many years of not being able to tame these horses, he wanted to try to. And he killed them.
God to be. He's trying to come back and explain, like, oh, you got killed by a horse. It was a strong horse, though. It was a real good horse.
Listen, this horse, this horse, you put up a fight. It's not a normal horse. He's trying to make it sound not so bad to everyone else. It was a horse.
You should have seen it. It's such a smart horse. I love the next bit. So, before this act, the people of Eurved called this horse Man's Bane.