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The analogy to Syrian refugees is spot on. I love it.

I've just assumed that the southerners are going somewhere safe. They need names. In the 2950's, they're fleeing the destruction of Ithilien. They would probably look like Duinhir or Forlong and have similar-sounding names. Outlandish names, nothing like Appledore or Heathertoes! Also, nothing like the sallow-faced southerner who looked more than half like a goblin to Frodo; he was an outlaw from Dunland (not a refugee). But he's the only 'southerner' described in the book.

Hammond & Scull note in their Reader's Companion that in 3019, the refugees must have been fleeing from the threat of war since Sauron had not yet crossed the river. A telltale sign of the times.

Some Breelanders with torches attacking a group of southerners led by a relative of Faramir's... who should the Rangers destroy?

zedturtle wrote:Finally in front of a real keyboard... I think we are kind of saying the same thing, although my point was that it really depends on what a day's travel means... does it mean a day's easy walk for a Hobbit (maybe ten miles, if that) or a regular day of travelling (the standard 20 miles) or is a day's journey as fast as a Ranger in need can go (40 miles, maybe more).

Frustratingly, Aragorn knew the mileage but failed to inform the hobbits of it.

For what it's worth, Karen Wynn Fonstad, in The Atlas of Middle-earth, placed the Forsaken Inn 20 miles east of Bree.

Not the official Map II from "Treason of Isengard", but faithful to it, this is the best map I've located with the Forsaken Inn in it. Anyone's found something better?



If the distance is in leagues, then it's about 20 leagues from Bree. Is that "a day's ride east of Bree"? I think not, but it really is a quarter distance to Weathertop, where Tolkien wrote "F.I." in his map (not an ultimate map, for what is worth, so he might have also changed its placement had he revisioned the Inn).

That's from Strachey's Journeys of Frodo, distance in miles.

Aeglosdir wrote:That's from Strachey's Journeys of Frodo, distance in miles.

That also comes to about 20 miles, an average day's journey on foot on decent roads.

Yep, while I think there's room to maneuver a little bit, 20 miles is pretty good. There are lots of towns and villages with that sort of distance between them, so a village existing there once upon a time is not implausible.

Aeglosdir wrote:I've just assumed that the southerners are going somewhere safe. They need names. In the 2950's, they're fleeing the destruction of Ithilien. They would probably look like Duinhir or Forlong and have similar-sounding names. Outlandish names, nothing like Appledore or Heathertoes! Also, nothing like the sallow-faced southerner who looked more than half like a goblin to Frodo; he was an outlaw from Dunland (not a refugee). But he's the only 'southerner' described in the book.

Hammond & Scull note in their Reader's Companion that in 3019, the refugees must have been fleeing from the threat of war since Sauron had not yet crossed the river. A telltale sign of the times.

Some Breelanders with torches attacking a group of southerners led by a relative of Faramir's... who should the Rangers destroy?

I must be missing something. In a Dark Ages like setting where people die without going further than 20 miles of their birthplace and there common folk have no maps nor geographical knowledge other than what they can gather with their own eyes and some vague notions of their immediate surroundings beyons that, why would the refugees from Ithilien go all the way up to a place they don't know it exits risking months of travel by unknown roads with women and children and lacking food?

I mean, doesn't it make much more sense they towards the huge walled city close by they do know and can reach far more easily?

Anyway I gather we are speaking about an exodus of the time when Minas Ithil fell and became Minas Morgul (2000 T.A.), far earlier than the events in The Hobbit because after that the land was inhabited. Even Osgiliath was just a militar garrison during the rule of Denethor II.

Am I missing something?

Arthadan wrote:Am I missing something?

J.R.R. Tolkien, in 'At the Sign of the Prancing Pony' wrote:There was trouble away in the South, and it seemed that the Men who had come up the Greenway were on the move, looking for lands where they could find some peace. The Bree-folk were sympathetic, but plainly not ready to take a large number of strangers into their little land. One of the travellers, a squint-eyed ill-favoured fellow was foretelling that more and more people would be coming north in the near future. 'If room is found for them, they'll find it for themselves. They've a right to live, same as other folk,' he said loudly.

That's always spoke to me of a refugee situation. Of course, it would come in waves, and the Southern folk here in the Inn might well be from Dunland instead of Gondor. But there's clearly something going on by the time of the War, and it's pretty easy to say that there might be some foreshadowing of it before then.

The same questions could be asked of any migration of people anywhere, ever.

And yet...it happens.

Often it's the promise (hope?) of cheap land and a benign (or absent) ruler. Which seems to describe Eriador pretty well.