Timeline of the Great Rings

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Snowdog

This is qute an interesting read! Good work with the thorough researching the Rings Huinesoron!

Thank you.

Originally Posted by Snowdog

In reference to the nine, we also know that one Easterling, Khamûl, had one of the nine and was 2nd in command of the Nazgûl after the Witch King of Angmar. Any guesses who got the other five? I know this is reaching into the realm of fan-cic, but it is fun and interesting to speculate.

Okay, let's have a play.

The speculation so far is that the three Numenoreans represented the three Houses of the Edain. We know from Aldarion and Erendis that the Beorians retained a separate racial identity for at least 800 years after Numenor was founded, so it's not impossible.

I would guess that the Hadorian Nazgul is someone close to the royal house of Numenor. Tar-Telperiën the long-lived is my usual guess, but if you want another named character, her brother Isilmo is a good bet: embittered by his sister's claim on the sceptre that "should be his". This is probably the Witch-King(/Queen).

The Beorian Nazgul is an interesting one: based on Aldarion and Erendis, the Beorians are known to have lived in the west of Numenor - but the lords of that region were Hadorians, the heirs of Silmarien. At least, the lords of Andunie were - could the Beorian be a lord or princeling of Eldalonde, the other elf-haven of Numenor? In A & E, the elven-birds are said to have flown westwards from Erendis' house in Mittalmar to her parents' home, which suggests they lived some ways south of Andunie.

As for the Haladin Nazgul, there's not really anything to go on. The Haladin were basically wiped out (there's a statement that their tongue wasn't spoken in later years), but we can imagine one of the 'arms' of Numenor had a Haladin descendent population. If Sauron had already picked up a King's Man and a Faithful (to use the later terminology), perhaps the third was from Hyarrostar - the forests that built Numenor's fleets, and a likely place for the heirs of the Woodsmen of Brethil to live.

Moving back to Middle-earth, is it too much to assume 3 Nazgul from the west, 3 from the east? We know of peoples related to the Haladin (the Dunlendings, Bree-men, Oathbreakers, and all the rest of the pre-Numenoreans) and the Hadorians (the Northmen/future Rohirrim). Could there be a "pre-Beorian" presence somewhere to round out the set? I wonder about Dale - the Northmen there seem to have a different mode of living to the Rohirrim, and are said to have come up from the south. Was there a "pre-Beorian" splinter group living near the Sea of Rhun - perhaps even the mysterious Dorwinion?

If we've come this far, we might as well finish: the three eastern Nazgul also represented the three houses of Men. We know so little of the East, but there are two named "kingdoms" - Rhun and Khand (where the Variags live). There are also the Wainriders of the Third Age, who came from further east and allied with the Variags.

Khamul is "the Easterling", so he may be from the furthest east - he's the Wainrider Nazgul. I would place him as the Hadorian - the Wainriders are mobile like the Rohirrim, and as the largest of the houses would presumably have stayed closer to their origin.

Of the other two, the Rhunish Nazgul is the "Beorian". We know the Beorians were a splinter of Hador; if that split happened around Rhun, then the Rhun and Dorwinion groups could have actually been the same people initially. They would have split later, into eastern and western parties, but it's possible the Rhun and Dorwinion Nazgul had some contact even before Sauron came to them.

And then there's the Variag Nazgul, who's the Haladin on no more basis than that the Haladin-related peoples tend to live further south. The Haradrim, Druedain, and Hobbits all get left out of the ring-giving party for various reasons (the Druedain are too sensible, the Hobbits too secretive, and I dunno, maybe Sauron was just racist).

Parsing that all across to the real world map, and looking back to the post-Roman era because it lets me say "Goth":

- One European Celt (pre-Numenorean).
- One Goth (Northman).
- One Vandal (Dorwinion).
- One Rus' (Rhun).
- One Persian (Khand).
- One Hun (Wainrider, Khamul).
- ... and three from lands that don't exist. You can call them Irish (Hadorian), Welsh (Haladin), and Scottish (Beorian) Celts if you want.

hS