Resurrecting Dale, City of A Thousand Untold Stories - Page 2
© Michael Martinez
Most likely these Free Men of the North (as they were called) lived in communities much like those of the Edain of the First Age. They would have built strong villages protected by stockades (There were Orcs and other evil creatures in the far north even back then. In fact, they had been there since the end of the First Age.). Each generation or two, probably, one or more leaders would have led a southward migration to help ease population pressures.
In those early centuries the forest extended farther east, and in fact Erebor was situated on the eastern edge of the forest. So these early Third Age Northmen were in fact Woodmen (though not the same Woodmen, it seems, who inhabited the middle part of Greenwood and tried to help Isildur's Arnorians). These northern Woodmen were probably very primitive in lifestyle, essentially "barbarians" in the traditional sense: illiterate, speaking their own (Adunaic-derived) language, and relatively unsophisticated in culture and customs.
But at some point one or more of the migrational bands had to leave the forest, and these Northmen would have taken the first steps toward building the culture which eventually came into contact with Gondor. In the year 541, King Romendacil I was slain in battle with Easterlings and his son Turambar launched a campaign which resulted in Gondor taking control of much eastern territory. It was most likely Turambar who conquered all the lands between Mordor and Greenwood as far east as the Sea of Rhun.
So by the end of the 6th century of the Third Age, Gondor was probably in contact with various communities of Northmen who could have, by that time, spread far down the Celduin. How many "tribes" would there have been? There is no knowing. Tolkien says the Kings of Gondor gave them much land after Turambar subdued the lands. These Northmen then increased, both within Gondor's borders and without, and by the 13th century they were quite numerous.
Now the situation was quite different. Northman culture was probably a mixture of woodman communities in the far north, farming and fishing communities along the rivers, and farming and herding communities in the lands south of Celduin. Tolkien implies they had many princes, leaders, and probably he envisioned as many as 10 or 12 rival dynasties. These would have been petty kingships, of which Vidugavia's was the largest (between Greenwood and the Celduin).
Vidugavia's people are characterized as "a numerous and poweful confederation of peoples living in the wide plains between Mirkwood and the River". These Northmen actually lived along the eastern edge of the forest, but because of their use of horses they were able to control all the territory eastward to the Celduin. They must, therefore, have possessed a very mobile and sophisticated army. It was from the cavalry arm of this army that the Eotheod, the ancestors of the Rohirrim, were derived.
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