Seeking the Wayward Children of Numenor - Page 2
© Michael Martinez
Elendil's people had to have lived on those ships for weeks or months. How could they do so, if they had filled the ships with their wives and children, and their heirlooms, and great store of goods? They must have had a pretty good waybread recipe, or else were taking food from the mainland every now and then. But the impression one gets is that there weren't that many people on the ships. Suppose each ship was large, but carried only 100 families or so. At best Elendil might have had about 4500-5000 people with him.
So where did the rest of the populations of Arnor and Gondor come from, if they weren't all on those ships? The answer is clearly that there were people already living in the lands which became Arnor and Gondor. And this fact troubles some readers, because it seems to them that Numenorean survivors are too few to give rise to the immense numbers of Dunadan soldiers who seem to fill the stories of the later history. And how could the culture of Numenor have such an impact if it's imposed on the inhabitants of Middle-earth by so few refugees?
A less obvious fact escapes the notice of many readers, it seems. There were already many Numenoreans living in northern Middle-earth, members of the Faithful who had fled there previously, or their descendants, some of mixed blood, some of pure Numenorean descent. These Numenoreans and mixed-Numenoreans must have vastly outnumbered Elendil's 9 ship fulls of refugees. They had been settling and flourishing in Middle-earth for the equivalent of generations.
Numenor in fact had three havens in northern Middle-earth: Pelargir, Lond Daer Ened, and Tharbad. Pelargir began as a royal haven, probably a naval base of some sort, an extension or assertion of Numenorean power. Situated so close to Mordor its chief strategic purpose is obscure, but may have been intended to help shield the Elves of Edhellond from the threat of Sauron's power. When Gil-galad first called upon Numenor for aid, soon after the Elves realized Sauron had made the One Ring, the Numenoreans built lines of forts along the Gwathlo and Lhun rivers.
In the War of the Elves and Sauron (S.A. 1695-1701) most of the Gwathlo forts were bypassed and ignored by Sauron. Their garrisons must have been small and ineffectual, but they assured the Numenoreans of a measure of "stealth" when Ciryon, the admiral in command of the Numenorean relief fleet, sent a force up the Gwathlo to Tharbad. The Lhun forts ensured that Lindon remained free. Sauron carried his campaign all the way to the river, but the stubborn resistance of the Eldar and Dunedain prevailed and Sauron was unable to cross the river.
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