by Codex Regius
A strange situation had occurred: the Southern Kingdom had split, similar to, but more violent than, the disintegration of Arnor. The third Realm in Exile had re-emerged from the shadows; and it deserved its name even more than before because the Dúnedainic strain among its inhabitants was, involuntarily, continuously replenished by the throne of Gondor. ‘Since that time the kings had become jealous and watchful of those near akin. Often those on whom suspicion fell had fled to Umbar and there joined the rebels.’ (KR, IV) This perpetual influx of suspects, justified or not, was most welcome to the Black Númenóreans who now enjoyed – in contrast to the comparable case of Arnor-Rhudaur – the rule of actual descendants of Elendil!
We do not know how many sons Castamir may have had. It seems plausible to assume that there were two, so that the ancient tradition of the duumvirate of Umbar lived up again. The Castamirioni were strong enough to fend off any intervention forces from Gondor, and their lordship maintained sovereignty for a long period that may be unofficially labelled as the Middle Realm. They were not as radical as their sires, though, and soon rejected his ethnic purity doctrine in favour of marrying Harad women. Within three generations, their line had allegedly lost most of its Númenórean blood (HE). Yet, though Sauron may have secretly instigated among them, the Castamirioni never officially joined the side of the Dark Lord.
1448- 1810 TA: MIDDLE REALM. CASTAMIRION DYNASTY
Gondor considered the loss of its southernmost province ‘grievous’ (KR, IV), for the control of that highly symbolic place gave the dissidents an excellent opportunity to claim the tradition of Númenórean naval power. They will have continued to consider themselves the legitimate continuation of the royal line of Anárion, despising the ‘mixed-blooded’ Eldacar and his offspring, though even they did not proclaim a kingdom of Umbar. It was probably part of their propaganda that the kingship could only rule Gondor as a whole, and their feud was with the line of Eldacar, not with the Heirs of Elendil in general (HE).
The Castamirioni gained the support of the adjacent kingdoms of Harad that till then had been tributary to Gondor (and now to Umbar? HE). Thus, Gondor was facing enemies all along its receded southern border. And it had grown too weak to eliminate the threat. In 1540, king ‘Aldamir fell in battle with the rebelling kings of Harad allied with the rebels of Umbar’. (HE) The conflict continued for eleven years until Aldamir’s successor ‘Hyarmendacil II. defeat[ed] the Men of Harad.’ (TY)
It took a hundred years to recover. In 1634, Umbar was ruled by yet another duumvirate, consisting of Castamir’s two great-grandsons, Angamaitë and Sangahyando (note that they continued the tradition of the Line of Anárion to assume names in Quenya, though they sound more warlike than others). They managed to deal a terrible blow to king Minardil of Gondor.
‘Learning through spies that Minardil was at Pelargir, suspecting no peril since the crushing of Harad and Umbar by his father [Hyarmendacil II, they] made a raid up Anduin, slew the king, ravaged Pelargir and the coasts, and escaped with great booty. [Minardil’s heir] Telemnar immediately began to fit out a fleet for the reduction of Umbar’, (HE) but before it even set sail, this retaliation fleet was destroyed - not in war, but by the Great Plague of 1636 TA.
Gondor felt the consequences of the Plague for the next 200 years. Even King Tarondor ‘was unable to do more than attempt to re-establish life and order within his borders.’ (HE) The Castamirioni thus ‘long held it [i. e. Umbar] as an independent realm’ that opposed Gondor, ‘attacking its ships and raiding its coast at every opportunity.’ (HE) The third Realm in Exile ‘remained at war with Gondor for many lives of men, a threat to its coastlands and to all traffic on the sea. It was never again completely subdued until the days of Elessar.’ (KR, IV)
However, the doom of the Middle Realm came when king Telumehtar, ‘being troubled by the insolence of the Corsairs, who raided his coasts even as far as the Anfalas, gathered his forces and in 1810 took Umbar by storm. In that war the last descendants of Castamir perished’ (KR, IV) during ‘the storming and destruction of the haven and stronghold of the Corsairs of Umbar’ (HE). And ‘King Telumehtar Umbardacil [drove] out the Corsairs’ (TY), and Umbar was again, for a royal generation or two, held by Gondor.
With the Castamirion dynasty eliminated and the fate of the other Dúnedainic dissidents unknown, ‘Umbar was again held for a while by the kings. Telumehtar added to his name the title Umbardacil.’ (KR, IV) But Gondor was no longer ruled by Ship-kings, and Telumehtar did not have the foresight to reclaim and resettle port or fortress. He simply left the ruined and deserted haven to decay and, apparently, forbade anyone from Harad to enter while leaving just a protective garrison. Yet Osgiliath would hold Umbar for the major part of a century, meeting little resistance, for in the meantime ‘the peoples of Harad were … engaged in wars and feuds of their own’, (CE) being in peril to get subdued by a new and very powerful opponent: the ever-hungry Wainrider empire from Rhún (see chapter III.3.3).
Ultimately, Sauron’s emissaries managed to arrange that fragile alliance between Wainriders, Khand and the Haradrim that in 1944 invaded the Southern Kingdom both from the east and the south. ‘In the new evils that soon befell Gondor Umbar was again lost, and fell into the hands of the Men of the Harad,’ (KR) who probably included some Black Númenóreans. They could not use it yet to support their land forces from the seaside, though. The Harad forces just ‘poured into Ithilien’, (KR) were stopped by Eärnil’s Southern Army, and vanquished.
1810 - 1944 TA: INTERREGNUM
Umbar was at last ‘reoccupied and rebuilt’ (HE) under the sovereignty of Haradrim. The Southrons quickly reinaugurated the traditions of the Castamirioni, becoming Corsairs by their own right, though on a lower level. Wherever they may have learnt their shipcraft, their fleets consisted merely of ‘dromunds, and ships of great draught with many oars, and with black sails bellying in the breeze’ (RK), though other sources claim that the Corsairs preferred ‘red sails with black star or eye’. (PBD) A dromund is a vessel that Byzantium has much relied upon: a kind of large and swift ship of war, not unlike a triere of the Roman Empire. Typically it was a large ship, driven by 100 oars on two banks that were served by slaves. However, it had no keel, and that restricted it to coastal areas; the new Corsairs were unable to navigate the open seas of the Bay of Belfalas and the greater Belegaer. The shipbuilding of the New Realm of Umbar was indeed a far cry from the sophisticated high-sea ‘galleons’ (HA) of Númenor.
The New Realm had a different hierarchical structure than its predecessors. It was no longer held by a duumvirate but by autocratic individuals whose official title was Captain of the Haven (KR, IV). Beyond that, we do not learn anything about life in Umbar nor do we know whether Gondor’s political opposition was still asking for asylum there. Gondor never relinquished its claim of the firth, and to them, the Corsairs remained ‘rebels’ and ‘renegades’ (KR, IV; RK). Lasting peace was never achieved again in the Third Age.
1944 - 3019 TA: NEW REALM
The situation was much aggravated after 2460, when the Watchful Peace ended and Sauron returned to Dol Guldur. ‘After that time, Gondor was assailed both by orcs out of Mordor (which had long been unguarded) and the Corsairs of Umbar.’ (CE)
In 2746, the 15th Prince of Dol Amroth fell, apparently during an attempt to stop a raid of the Corsairs in Dor-en-Ernil (HE). No other source gives any details of the circumstances under which he died. That was only a test of Gondor’s remaining strength.
Only a few years later, ‘in the days of Beren, the nineteenth Steward’ (KR, IV), in 2758, Gondor was finally ‘attacked by fleets of the Corsairs’ (TY) who supported Sauron in his large-scale simultaneous campaign against the - kingless - Southern Kingdom and its recent new ally, Rohan. ‘Three great fleets, long prepared, came up from Umbar and the Harad, and assailed the coasts of Gondor in great force; and the enemy made many landings, even as far north as the mouth of the Isen.’ (KR) Then the west march of Rohan was in peril of getting ravag
ed - but Wulf, a local landlord, averted the threat. He managed to negotiate an alliance with the Corsairs and aroused the Dunlendings who now, ‘seeing their chance … were in great force, for they were joined by [the] enemies of Gondor that landed in the mouths of Lefnui and Isen’ (KR). Wulf went with them to Edoras, and took it, and for a short time, he had the support of the Corsairs to elevate him to his throne.
But the New Realm had no part in the eventual defeat of the usurper by the Long Winter and the legitimate kings of Rohan. The Corsairs may have been present again in 2885 when ‘stirred up by emissaries of Sauron the Haradrim cross[ed] the Poros and attack[ed] Gondor.’ (TY) Then they ‘occupied South Gondor, and there was much fighting along the Poros.’ (KR) There is, however, no official statement of the New Realm that would tell which side it supported. Such a declaration was issued only when ‘after the second arising of Sauron … Umbar fell under the domination of his servants, and the memorial of his humiliation [the big globe of Ar-Pharazôn’s memorial that had been dominating the firth of Umbar for well-nigh two-thousand years now] was thrown down.’ (KR) The New Realm was the one that fell deepest into Darkness. ‘The corsairs of Umbar … have long ceased to fear the might of Gondor, and they have allied them with the Enemy.’ (RK)
The threat was relieved a few decades before the War of the Ring when Umbar suffered heavy losses. In 2979, the mysterious warlord ‘Thorongil often counselled Ecthelion that the strength of the rebels in Umbar was a great peril to Gondor. He finally got leave of the Steward and gathered a small fleet, and he came to Umbar unlooked-for by night, and there burned a great part of the ships of the Corsairs. He himself overthrew the Captain of the Haven in battle upon the quays, and then he withdrew his fleet with small loss.’ (KR, IV)
The New Realm had not yet recovered from that blow, dealt in 2980, when Sauron summoned its vessels to provide troop transportation to the Pelennor fields. Still, eyewitnesses observed that the main fleet of Umbar consisted of ‘fifty great ships and smaller vessels beyond count.’ (RK)
The corsairs have long ceased to fear the might of Gondor
But to no avail: With the Fall of Barad-dûr, Umbar finally lost its sovereignty and submitted to the crown of King Elessar. (KR)
The Captain of the Haven
It was in 3019 TA that the King’s Men of Númenor wrote history for a last time. One of them, ‘a renegade, who came of the race of those that are named the Black Númenóreans’, (RK) presented himself in public as an emissary of Mordor. ‘His name is remembered in no tale, for he himself had forgotten it, and he said: “I am the Mouth of Sauron”.’ … And he entered the service of the Dark Tower when it first rose again, and because of his cunning he grew ever higher in the Lord’s favour; and he learned great sorcery, and knew much of the mind of Sauron and was more cruel than any orc.’ (KR, IV)
This man may also have been the ‘horseman in the night’ who asked the Dwarf-king Dain for ‘a trifle that Sauron fancies’ (FR) and also ‘the Questioner’ whom Grishnákh intended to deliver Merry and Pippin to (TT). All together the Mouth of Sauron remains elusive. We do not know whether he came from Umbar or another southern port or maybe from the Harad aristocracy further inland. And how, after all the turmoils of three millenia during which their nation had ‘dwindled’ and ‘merged’ and been routed by the forces of Gondor, could there still be any Black Númenórean with a right to claim that name?
Even those few allusions to his identity that have been recorded have caused many arguments. How shall we interpret the stupefying statement that ‘he entered the service of the Dark Tower when it first rose again’? Barad-dûr ‘first rose again’ in the late Second Age! (Following its desertion while Sauron was in Númenor and believed to be destroyed.) The rebuilding of the Dark Tower at the end of the Third Age is commonly referenced as ‘the second arising’. (KR; iv)
THE LAST BLACK NÚMENÓREAN
His name is remembered in no tale
And how long does it take to forget your own name? Gollum still remembered his after 500 years. Some commentators, including Tyler and Foster in their respective dictionaries, have interpreted these statements to mean that the Mouth of Sauron was a living fossil from the War of the Last Alliance, a contemporary of Herumor and Fuinur (or maybe even one of them). But in that case he would have been more than 3000 years old. Yet he was explicitly ‘no Ringwraith but a living man’. (RK) How could he reasonably have rejected the Gift of Eru, the inherent mortality of man?
Maybe, despite being not a wraith, he was a Ringbearer. That would also explain the ‘great sorcery’ that he had learnt; compare the sorcery the Nazgûls had been devoted to while they had still been living men (RP). Of course, at the end of the Second Age, Sauron will already have had one or two of the Seven Rings at his disposal which he had retrieved from the Dwarves (another was still in possession of the House of Dúrin, four were later consumed by dragon-fire). It would have been stupid not to make use of them another time. Perhaps, without the One in Sauron’s hands, a Great Ring was no longer capable of turning a man into a wraith. Maybe the Mouth was instead a kind of super-Gollum, aged but not faded. His seemingly unique longevity might be explained that way.
When the One was destroyed, the Seven Rings became useless. But if the Mouth managed to escape from the fall of Mordor, then there is a peculiar possibility. It might be conceivable that he was identical to that mysterious Herumor who tried to install the New Shadow in Gondor! (NS) In that case, the choice of his name may have been more than an accidental reference to one of the Black Númenórean field marshals of the War of the Last Alliance.
THE MYSTERIOUS KING BLADORTHIN
the location of his kingdom and the history of vintage in Middle-earth
‘… the spears that were made for the armies of the great King Bladorthin (long since dead), each had a thrice-forged head and their shafts were inlaid with cunning gold, but they were never delivered or paid for…’ (H, XII)
This single phrase, not even a complete phrase, is all that was ever been told about king Bladorthin. He is not mentioned in any genealogy or chronology of the Realms in Exile, of Rohan, the Elves or the Dwarves. Written history has overlooked him, creating a mystery that attracted the adventurous spirit of many a researcher.
To make matters worse, Thorin Oakenshield boasted that ‘Kings used to send for our smiths, and reward even the least skillful most richly.’ (H, I) It is tempting to assume that Bladorthin was one of them. The others may have been the Dwarf-kings of the Iron Hills. After all, fitting one unaccounted royal line into the history Middle-earth is a challenge, but fitting several of them is a nightmare!
From which language does Bladorthin’s name derive?
On the first glance, it seems to be Sindarin. Notably the element -thin seems to support that view, as Sindarin has that familiar word thin ‘grey’. And there is a claim, made in WPP, that ‘In the Hobbit all names are translated except for Galion (the Butler), Esgaroth and Dorwinion.’ This seems indeed to suggest that all untranslated names in H are Sindarin. But our commentator overlooks at least the name of the wizard, Radagast, which is irreconcilable with his assumption. And, alas, the rest of Bladorthin, Blador-, remains unintelligible.
Matter of fact, Sindarin as a language was not existent yet when H was written. We find the contemporary vocabulary in TE, among various Elvish languages like Exilic Noldorin (the immediate precursor of Sindarin), Ilkorin or Doriathrin. When Sindarin was achieved, the early Noldorin element blador was apparently lost so that the name of our king cannot be accepted as Sindarin proper. It is rather Doriathrin, which may be conceived of as the precursor of Nandorin, the language spoken in Mirkwood and Lothlórien.
His royal name indicates modesty. Very likely it means Prince of the World, see Appendix A.
WAS BLADORTHIN ELF OR MAN?
From which of the Speaking Peoples had Bladorthin originated? Many have assumed that he was an Elf (CG, CO) because of his Elvish name. There are, however, sound arguments agains
t this hypothesis:
The kings and kingdoms of the Light Elves are all accounted for. Bladorthin could only have been a Dark Elf. But Dark Elves would not have used names in Exilic Noldorin.
Elven kingdoms of the Third Age did not maintain regular armies. There would have been no need to order a significant number of spears from Erebor.
No respectable Elf of the Third Age, however dark, would order weapons from Dwarves.
Bladorthin was mortal. Evidence is the fact that Thorin Oakenshield considered his death only worth a casual remark. Certainly, if Bladorthin had been an Elf, the way of his demise would have been better remembered.
The custom of using Elvish names is found not only among Elves but also among Men exposed to their cultural influence - from the Edain of Beleriand to Girion of Dale. Notably the Dúnedain have applied them for ages.
The indiscriminate use of the title ‘king’, rather than ‘Elven-king’ or ‘Dwarf-king’, suggests that he was of the kind most familiar to Bilbo Baggins (and his readers).
These arguments suggest that king Bladorthin was a mortal Man. Which Mannish kingdoms have there been near Erebor whose rulers might have used Elvish sounding names?
