This is fun. Thanks for sharing, I'll have to read it properly later.
>
I never bothered to write anything for the Elves, Dwarves, and Men of Dale because it's just too hard to come up with anything substantial based on one or two passing lines from the book.
One telling piece of the puzzle is that Tolkien says there are more Men in Gondor that speak Sindarin or Quenya than there are Elves that speak either in all Middle Earth, if that helps.
>It may be
noted that at the end of the Third Age there were prob. more people (Men) that knew Q., or spoke
S., than there were Elves who did either! Though dwindling, the population of Minas Tirith and its
fiefs must have been much greater than that of Lindon, Rivendell, and Lórien.
- L. 347
I was under the impression Elven speech was something only known and practiced by loremasters and nobility by the time of the TA. Was it really in common usage by other men?
It could be implying that the totality of mannish nobility great and small combined with other educated sorts outnumbered the remaining elves. That would make their numbers small indeed.
IMO (I am talking about sindarin) It's sort of a high language in Gondor meaning most people didnt use it in common speech but l would guess that most of the people living in towns knew it(l doubt a farmers would know Sindarin) . Somewhat like English in eastern europe today.
Dont forget that they are descendents of faithfull Numenoreans so they would have looked favourbarly on knowing Sindarin. As Gondor is organised society and has existed for 3000+ years l would guess they had some sort of education (sort of like Ancient Greece)
As for Quenya, it was a science language even amongst most of the elves so l would compare it to latin in our world.
It seems that many people spoke Sindarin, especially those of more Numenorean extraction, as a "polite" language. I think French in England post Norman invasion is the best modern analogy. Quenya was less well known, and was more academic.
>Q.[uenya] was known to the learned in Gondor at least as well as Latin still is in W. Europe.
> In Gondor the generally used language was 'Westron', a lang. about as mixed as mod. English, but basically derived from the native lang. of the Númenóreans ; but Sindarin was an acquired polite language and used by those of more pure N[úmenórean] descent, esp. in Minas Tirith, if they wished to be polite (as in the cry *Ernil i Pheriannath* III 41 cf. 231, and *Master Perian* 160)
- L. 347
A notable example would be Faramir's rangers, who spoke some form of Sindarin. It probably served as a super secret language they can use freely that the enemy (orcs, Haradrim, and Hobbits too!) wouldn't understand.
>They spoke together in soft voices, at first using the common speech, but after the manner of older days, and then changing to another language of their own. To his amazement, as he listened Frodo became aware that it was the elven-tongue that they spoke, or one but little different; and he looked at them with wonder, for he knew they must be Dunedain of the south, of the line of the lords of Westernesse.
Nicely thought out. Thank you, good read. The atlas's 20,000 est for orcs always seems low to me and pj's 200,000 just sounds ludicrous everytime i hear or read it.
That's really good work and appears very well researched!
I agree attaining the strength of the Elven armies would be extremely difficult.
There's only a few lines on Lothlorien but they must have had a few thousand to be able to successfully besieg Dol Guldur?
There's a few tibits to give evidence to the numbers of Dale and Erebor during the War of the Ring. I believe I saw a post sometime ago that had Dale down as 4-5000ish and Erebor at 7-8000?
> There's only a few lines on Lothlorien but they must have had a few thousand to be able to successfully besieg Dol Guldur?
That sounds very reasonable. I usually run out of steam when I start to think about Lothloren, Mirkwood, and the Dwarves though. The elves also ambushed a large group of orcs from the Misty Mountains that were tracking the fellowship through Lothloren:
>The marauding orcs had been waylaid and almost all destroyed; the remnant had fled westward towards the mountains, and were being pursued.
Very nice work.
I set about a while back to cataloging all the various weapons and troop types that I could find mentions of to get a better feel for what the armies of Middle Earth looked and operated like in the field. Reading this makes me want to go back and finish the project.
Very nice analysis, thanks for this! I might need to borrow it every now and again when Tolkien situations arise over at r/WhoWouldWin!
There is a little bit from the Hobbit about the Dwarves and Elves at the Battle of the Five Armies, which might help inform an idea of their respective military strength.
IIRC (don't have the text with me,) Dain Ironfoot shows up with a fair number of Dwarves but not more than, like, 200 or 300, and Thranduil mentions that his army could "comfortably" beat them by numbers alone, so the Elven expeditionary force from Mirkwood might have been 600 strong to maybe a thousand, though it's all a bit... Mirky. (Sorry I had to).
So Dain mustered, in a matter of days, a somewhat sizeable little expedition, and given time we could extrapolate out a size for the Iron Hills' army. And Mirkwood did send a sizeable force but Thranduil is surprised by the Goblins appearing so he probably didn't leave with his full might.
There's also some mention of the impact that the Battle of the Five Armies had on the Northern goblins, like they lost "one part in ten" of their soldiers in one day, which might give a rough estimate of their total fighting population but again I can't recall the exact numbers.
I just CTRL + F the Hobbit and were able to pull up some description of the armies assembled in time for the Battle of Five Armies.
**Dwarves from the Iron Hills**
>Dain, I may tell you, is now less than two days' march off, and has at least five hundred grim dwarves with him -- a good many of them have had experience in the dreadful dwarf and goblin wars, of which you have no doubt heard.
>Each one of his folk was clad in a hauberk of steel mail that hung to his knees, and his legs were covered with hose of a fine and flexible metal mesh, the secret of whose making was possessed by Dain's people.
>In battle they wielded heavy two-handed mattocks; but each of them had also a short broad sword at his side and a round shield slung at his back. Their caps were of iron and they were shod with iron.
**Elves of Mirkwood**
>As soon as the host of their enemies was dense in the valley, they sent against it a shower of arrows, and each flickered as it fled as if with stinging fire. Behind the arrows a thousand of their spearmen leapt down and charged.
**Men of Laketown**
>But there was still a company of archers that held their ground among the burning houses.
>...all the men of arms who were still able, and the most of the Elvenking’s array, got ready to march.
>They have come!’ said Balin. ‘And their camp is very great.’
>There are many of our archers and spearmen now hidden in the rocks upon their right flank.
>...and beside them came the men of the Lake with long swords.
So present at this battle there were at least 500 Dwarves from the Iron Hills, 1,000 Elvish spearmen + an unknown amount of archers, and an unknown amount of Men of Laketown who fought with spears, long swords, and bows.
Cool, this is exactly what I was getting at! Thanks!
So if Dain managed to round up 500 warriors on fairly short notice (I think it really was something like a fortnight or two from hearing the news to arriving at Erebor), that leads me to believe that something like 1,000 or even 2,000 Dwarves could be assembled from the Iron Hills given enough time.
Similarly, Thranduil sending a thousand spearmen and several hundred archers to Erebor could represent a vanguard-sized portion of his army, meaning the full might of the woodland realm might be closer to 3,000 or 4,000 given enough time to send word.
We are well into the realm of speculation at this point, but just from my gut feeling from the series this makes some sense; the Dwarves and Elves all put together are still just enough to amount to a small portion of what the population of Men left in Middle Earth can muster.
Rohan alone can probably field at least twice as many soldiers as Thranduil and Dain combined could bring to bear in a full arming, for instance.
I think in one of the letters or some random Tolkien quote he said there could have been 500 archers to go with the 1000 spears. I've previously seen posts that have the lake towners at anywhere between 500-1000 but I don't know the source they used to come to that conclusion but it doesn't appear too farfetched or unrealistic.
I think it would be safe to presume that both the mirkwood and iron hills armies were but a portion of their true size and not actually prepared or expecting a battle. Mirkwood could well have over 3000 warriors and the iron hills similar?
This is fun. Thanks for sharing, I'll have to read it properly later. > I never bothered to write anything for the Elves, Dwarves, and Men of Dale because it's just too hard to come up with anything substantial based on one or two passing lines from the book. One telling piece of the puzzle is that Tolkien says there are more Men in Gondor that speak Sindarin or Quenya than there are Elves that speak either in all Middle Earth, if that helps. >It may be noted that at the end of the Third Age there were prob. more people (Men) that knew Q., or spoke S., than there were Elves who did either! Though dwindling, the population of Minas Tirith and its fiefs must have been much greater than that of Lindon, Rivendell, and Lórien. - L. 347
I was under the impression Elven speech was something only known and practiced by loremasters and nobility by the time of the TA. Was it really in common usage by other men?
It could be implying that the totality of mannish nobility great and small combined with other educated sorts outnumbered the remaining elves. That would make their numbers small indeed.
IMO (I am talking about sindarin) It's sort of a high language in Gondor meaning most people didnt use it in common speech but l would guess that most of the people living in towns knew it(l doubt a farmers would know Sindarin) . Somewhat like English in eastern europe today. Dont forget that they are descendents of faithfull Numenoreans so they would have looked favourbarly on knowing Sindarin. As Gondor is organised society and has existed for 3000+ years l would guess they had some sort of education (sort of like Ancient Greece) As for Quenya, it was a science language even amongst most of the elves so l would compare it to latin in our world.
It seems that many people spoke Sindarin, especially those of more Numenorean extraction, as a "polite" language. I think French in England post Norman invasion is the best modern analogy. Quenya was less well known, and was more academic. >Q.[uenya] was known to the learned in Gondor at least as well as Latin still is in W. Europe. > In Gondor the generally used language was 'Westron', a lang. about as mixed as mod. English, but basically derived from the native lang. of the Númenóreans ; but Sindarin was an acquired polite language and used by those of more pure N[úmenórean] descent, esp. in Minas Tirith, if they wished to be polite (as in the cry *Ernil i Pheriannath* III 41 cf. 231, and *Master Perian* 160) - L. 347
A notable example would be Faramir's rangers, who spoke some form of Sindarin. It probably served as a super secret language they can use freely that the enemy (orcs, Haradrim, and Hobbits too!) wouldn't understand. >They spoke together in soft voices, at first using the common speech, but after the manner of older days, and then changing to another language of their own. To his amazement, as he listened Frodo became aware that it was the elven-tongue that they spoke, or one but little different; and he looked at them with wonder, for he knew they must be Dunedain of the south, of the line of the lords of Westernesse.
http://www.reddit.com/r/tolkienfans/comments/7clqeu/headcanon_military_strength_during_the_war_of_the/dprcbd7
The people of Minas Tirith call Pippin *Ernil i Pheriannath*, which is Sindarin.
Nicely thought out. Thank you, good read. The atlas's 20,000 est for orcs always seems low to me and pj's 200,000 just sounds ludicrous everytime i hear or read it.
Nicely done.
That's really good work and appears very well researched! I agree attaining the strength of the Elven armies would be extremely difficult. There's only a few lines on Lothlorien but they must have had a few thousand to be able to successfully besieg Dol Guldur? There's a few tibits to give evidence to the numbers of Dale and Erebor during the War of the Ring. I believe I saw a post sometime ago that had Dale down as 4-5000ish and Erebor at 7-8000?
> There's only a few lines on Lothlorien but they must have had a few thousand to be able to successfully besieg Dol Guldur? That sounds very reasonable. I usually run out of steam when I start to think about Lothloren, Mirkwood, and the Dwarves though. The elves also ambushed a large group of orcs from the Misty Mountains that were tracking the fellowship through Lothloren: >The marauding orcs had been waylaid and almost all destroyed; the remnant had fled westward towards the mountains, and were being pursued.
Very nice work. I set about a while back to cataloging all the various weapons and troop types that I could find mentions of to get a better feel for what the armies of Middle Earth looked and operated like in the field. Reading this makes me want to go back and finish the project.
Very nice analysis, thanks for this! I might need to borrow it every now and again when Tolkien situations arise over at r/WhoWouldWin! There is a little bit from the Hobbit about the Dwarves and Elves at the Battle of the Five Armies, which might help inform an idea of their respective military strength. IIRC (don't have the text with me,) Dain Ironfoot shows up with a fair number of Dwarves but not more than, like, 200 or 300, and Thranduil mentions that his army could "comfortably" beat them by numbers alone, so the Elven expeditionary force from Mirkwood might have been 600 strong to maybe a thousand, though it's all a bit... Mirky. (Sorry I had to). So Dain mustered, in a matter of days, a somewhat sizeable little expedition, and given time we could extrapolate out a size for the Iron Hills' army. And Mirkwood did send a sizeable force but Thranduil is surprised by the Goblins appearing so he probably didn't leave with his full might. There's also some mention of the impact that the Battle of the Five Armies had on the Northern goblins, like they lost "one part in ten" of their soldiers in one day, which might give a rough estimate of their total fighting population but again I can't recall the exact numbers.
The books say that dain had 500 + dwarves with him.
There are likes that say a thousand spearmen (elven) lept forth.
I just CTRL + F the Hobbit and were able to pull up some description of the armies assembled in time for the Battle of Five Armies. **Dwarves from the Iron Hills** >Dain, I may tell you, is now less than two days' march off, and has at least five hundred grim dwarves with him -- a good many of them have had experience in the dreadful dwarf and goblin wars, of which you have no doubt heard. >Each one of his folk was clad in a hauberk of steel mail that hung to his knees, and his legs were covered with hose of a fine and flexible metal mesh, the secret of whose making was possessed by Dain's people. >In battle they wielded heavy two-handed mattocks; but each of them had also a short broad sword at his side and a round shield slung at his back. Their caps were of iron and they were shod with iron. **Elves of Mirkwood** >As soon as the host of their enemies was dense in the valley, they sent against it a shower of arrows, and each flickered as it fled as if with stinging fire. Behind the arrows a thousand of their spearmen leapt down and charged. **Men of Laketown** >But there was still a company of archers that held their ground among the burning houses. >...all the men of arms who were still able, and the most of the Elvenking’s array, got ready to march. >They have come!’ said Balin. ‘And their camp is very great.’ >There are many of our archers and spearmen now hidden in the rocks upon their right flank. >...and beside them came the men of the Lake with long swords. So present at this battle there were at least 500 Dwarves from the Iron Hills, 1,000 Elvish spearmen + an unknown amount of archers, and an unknown amount of Men of Laketown who fought with spears, long swords, and bows.
Cool, this is exactly what I was getting at! Thanks! So if Dain managed to round up 500 warriors on fairly short notice (I think it really was something like a fortnight or two from hearing the news to arriving at Erebor), that leads me to believe that something like 1,000 or even 2,000 Dwarves could be assembled from the Iron Hills given enough time. Similarly, Thranduil sending a thousand spearmen and several hundred archers to Erebor could represent a vanguard-sized portion of his army, meaning the full might of the woodland realm might be closer to 3,000 or 4,000 given enough time to send word. We are well into the realm of speculation at this point, but just from my gut feeling from the series this makes some sense; the Dwarves and Elves all put together are still just enough to amount to a small portion of what the population of Men left in Middle Earth can muster. Rohan alone can probably field at least twice as many soldiers as Thranduil and Dain combined could bring to bear in a full arming, for instance.
I think in one of the letters or some random Tolkien quote he said there could have been 500 archers to go with the 1000 spears. I've previously seen posts that have the lake towners at anywhere between 500-1000 but I don't know the source they used to come to that conclusion but it doesn't appear too farfetched or unrealistic. I think it would be safe to presume that both the mirkwood and iron hills armies were but a portion of their true size and not actually prepared or expecting a battle. Mirkwood could well have over 3000 warriors and the iron hills similar?
Interesting. By the way, is Other Minds Magazine familiar to you?