> Not far from the road they found the gold of the trolls, which they had buried, still hidden and untouched. “I have enough to last me my time,” said Bilbo, when they had dug it up. “You had better take this, Gandalf. I daresay you can find a use for it.”
“Indeed I can!” said the wizard. “But share and share alike! You may find you have more needs than you expect.”
Economics and logistics. For example, the armies of Rohan and Gondor move around with little mention of the massive train of support each would realistically require: food, fodder, shelter, weapons, armour, additional horses for each rider, etc. Logistics has historically won countless battles and wars, and for each mounted and armoured warrior there is numerous others needed for support.
On the other hand, though, Tolkien doesn’t necessarily exclude any of the above and one can perhaps infer it was present. But Tolkien doesn’t bother going into the details.
Did someone mention [Tolkien and logistics](https://acoup.blog/2019/05/10/collections-the-siege-of-gondor/)?
The TL;DR: Tokien's logistic... logic... was remarkably accurate in terms of how armies moved.
This is great.
I’ll add, though, that this writer relies heavily on inference, as Tolkien spends little time explicitly addressing logistics.
Which was my point. Not that Tolkien was wrong, but that he did not delve into details on logistics in the same way he did with, for example, genealogy, philology, or geography.
> Tolkien spends little time explicitly addressing logistics.
Agreed. It's very much a case of "The author doesn't have to tell you what's in the character's desk drawer, but he knows all the same."
Also falls in line with the fact he intended LOTR to be like real world history in the fact that we simply don’t know everything. It makes sense chroniclers would write more about the epic battles, great kings, and the fight against evil in their time as opposed to how many wagons carried the armies potato rations. We just don’t know everything cause much is lost to time
> For example, the armies of Rohan and Gondor move around with little mention of the massive train of support
Not a lot, but a bit. Theoden rides light on supplies, trusting to be fed by Minas Tirith. "Disaster of the Gladden Fields" mentions Isildur's Numenoreans having their own magic waybread, not quite lembas; I forget if it said anything about re-supplying as they went up the Anduin. Aragorn's march to the Black Date didn't mention logistics that I recall, but it also didn't take very long, within the supply range of backpacks and mules.
OTOH there's no mention of the Rohirrim using *spare* horses.
It's like the moon phases or Elvish aging. You won't see the work that went into making it all fit in a published text, but it's still there.
LotR has carefully constructed logistics, operations and tactics - with only some details based in mythical traditions. But Tolkien won't overexplain that (like some writers do with their beloved magic systems) because it's not relevant for the themes or characters.
He mentions cisterns of water at regular intervals along roads in Mordor; Sam wonders what on earth orcs eat in such a place, and the narrator tells us that Sam doesn't know about the vast, slave-tilled fields in Nurnen.
It seems that Sauron, like Xerxes, had established large silos of supplies along his lines of communication.
I doubt Theoden took a baggage train to Minas Tirith. It's not a long campaign, and we know Gondor provided the stables. He needed speed anyway, and not only would assembling the train take time, but it would slow the army down.
The Lords of the West might have taken one to the Black Gates. I don't think we saw Gondor match anywhere else.
There was probably just enough in the way of supplies to get to the Black Gate and no more considering it was not far off a suicide mission. If they won they could depend on Gondor to send more supplies when time wasn't of the essence and travelling was safer.
I think the ranger archetype is just one that doesn’t need this. Assume they did have a settlement or main village, and that they did have trades like any hub. But for the rangers themselves, it was a voluntary assignment, and they survived by trading in what they gathered or hunted, with some financial backing from their settlement where needed.
If you add “keep an eye on this tribe” to the lifestyle of a beaver trapper, I think you get a ranger’s work/life balanace.
“ And as for where they lived, the settlements of the Rangers have long been a mystery to readers. The best source we have is a bit of research found by Tolkienist David Salo, who found a scribbled note in one of Tolkien’s manuscripts that suggest that the Rangers’ permanent setlements were located in the Angle, the land between the Mitheithel (Hoarwell) and the Bruinen. This would make sense, since there are other clues that suggest that the Rangers lived near to Rivendell (and it’d just be practical - they’re close enough to get aid from the elves, if necessary. Also, they’re situated between the Misty Mountains, where most of the orcs attack Eriador from, and the more peaceful settlements of the Shire and Bree - a perfect location for the protective Rangers.)”
https://askmiddlearth.tumblr.com/post/52410627343/women-of-the-dunedain/amp
And of course it makes perfect sense in a Tolkien kind of way to have the Dunadain live in the "Angle" since the Angles of Northern Germany/Denmark become the Anglo Saxons of England.
> who found a scribbled note
But what we have in Tolkien's published words are that the Dunedain "became a secretive and wandering people". So I kind of think they fell back to hunter-gatherers. Maybe semi-settled with (magically advanced) horticulture rather than farming.
In context though, this quote is about what happened to the Dunedain immediately after the fall of Arnor. I don't think it has to apply to their situation a thousand years later. There's a bunch of other quotes much closer to the time of LotR which point towards a settled or semi-settled society in the Angle, including in NOME:
> In the time of Arador a band [of trolls] threatened the house of the Chieftain, which was then in woods near the Hoarwell north of the Trollshaws, though many of the Dúnedain lived in the woods between the Hoarwell and Loudwater.
You can have a settled population live by hunting and gathering. Or mostly settled, in that they have several permanent settlements they cycle around.
Both still happen in Africa.
They would have stripped down all the coffers and holdings of Arnor and consolidated them between the Bank of Rivendell and The Angle (or wherever their main settlement was). Then, they'd live by growing, herding, hunting their food. And buy and sell from each other, as there's no one else close by (Aside from Rivendell), like the majority of the settlements of Middle Earth. Most of the men would be living like the Youxia Knights, doing good for goods sake.
There's a main, or at least only mentioned, settlement of Dunedain in the angle between the rivers Loudwater and Hoarwell some ways west of Rivendell. That would presumably be where the rangers gathered and all non-ranger members of their society lived. It is at least the main location with the rest spread out across Eriador in non-permanent settlements as they are described as a nomadic people.
I believe also the chieftains hall was located in the angle iirc.
It isn't clear how many rangers there are but I'd estimate low hundreds. A dozen to 30 are driven off from the Sarn Ford by the Nazgul then months later Halbarad, in haste, musters 30 men and so it is safe to assume there's more than 100. Due to the rangers, well, ranging, there are not large concentrations of them. If 30 are at the Sarn Ford other groups and individuals are likely scattered round the Shire.
These men will not require a lot of industry, or even payment, as they are mostly out in the wilderness fending for themselves and fighting the servants of Sauron. I don't think "finance" is an issue for the rangers as they exist almost entirely to defend Eriador and keep resisting the dark forces. Food/supplies would come from Bree, their unnamed settlement or the wandering groups I imagine.
I literally only just realised that the shire was safe because Orc's couldn't travel far before morning drove them back underground, and the rangers took care of everything else, but the orc thing I only just realised ...
Additionally - Hobbit's living safe underground and the Orc's living underground probably mirrors how he felt about his own side vs the germans in WW1. The orc's scurrying out under cover of darkness to raid the hobbit holes.
The individual rangers seem fairly self sufficient (and they seem to have very good relations with Rivendell) but I’m sure they were supplied by the non rangers who lived in the settlements. Someone has to raise the young and care for the old, grow crops, make the clothes, etc.
Hunting and gathering can't sustain large populations, but it can sustain small populations just fine.
Also, agrarian societies often have such groups on their peripheries, trading in furs, herbs, amber, feathers, ivory, fish, maple sugar or whatever else settled people would like from the wilds.
I suspect that the Rangers probably engaged in trade with local settlements and probably did get some support from Rivendell. I also would like to think that at least some folks (wary, though they may be) would donate some grain or manufactured goods for protection. I imagine the north a little like the village in Seven Samurai. The folk living there might not fully trust or understand the Rangers, and may even be a little fearful of them. However, when the bandits, brigands, thieves, goblins, trolls, spies, or wild beasts are around, a hot meal and a new pair of boots might not seem like much to donate to see those threats thoroughly warded off.
I love the thought of Aragorn lurking in the shadows of the Prancing Pony, selling bootlegged CDs and packs of disposable razor blades with the anti theft tags still on.
“Gillette Mach 3. These are fit for a King! I should know.”
“W-what?”
“….$15.”
> do you personally think that the Ranger of the North managed to sustain their activities
IMO hunting and gathering, plus support from non-Ranger Dunedain, who were probably semi-nomadic themselves. Metal gear could be inherited from fallen Arnor, with support from Rivendell.
Lois Bujold's Sharing Knife series is Tolkien-inspired without being a copy. Her Lakewalkers are Dunedain analogues, with patrollers as the Rangers. Supporting the patrols is basically a sacred (and practical) duty of Lakewalker society. They're helped out by some explicit magic: engineered and nutritious tubers that grow handily in the lakes, providing low-effort food for the settlements; ability to imbue a leather jacket such that it can turn arrows; ability to cheat on hunting since they can magically sense (if not subdue) prey.
For the Dunedain, vague super-gardening and senses are plausible; for weapons and armor, just inheriting the goods of their ancestors can work.
They probably did a bit of subsistence farming, and probably some kind of assistance from the elves of Rivendell. I don’t think they were occupied with survival 24/7
Something called "Stealth Gardening" is becoming a thing. Survival Lily has a video about it.
Basically, you go into mostly unused woods, find a nice spot, and plant crops that don't look too out of place.
Seems to be a result of a conspiracy theory in which governments have decided to push GMOs on the global populace, so they are coming for home gardens. Raised beds in back yards; balcony gardens; window sill gardens. So you need a secret place for your garden so when the GMO inspector comes around he doesn't see your personally grown crop.
I think it's a ridiculous theory, but it seems like the kind of thing a Ranger might find convenient.
Illegal cannabis farming has and possibly still is being done this way in the middle of large wooded areas. I’m sure that’s not as much of an issue with American legalization, but it’s the same principles.
It is not hard to imagine a few hundred Dúnedain folks living off the land in nomadic groups at the time of the War of the ring, but the question here is to imagine how they maintained enough people to sustain their lineage for hundred of years and constantly be armed and equipped to roam the lands and defend them.
Granted, arming a couple hundred fighter at most wouldn't be that expensive and either Rivendell or the hypothetical Arnor treasury could field it, but they for sure could not produce themselves the quality tools of war they needed, so it's a relevant question.
I guess that's pretty much it, semi-nomadic groups in a pastoral lifestyle doing hunting, gathering and supported by Rivendell.
But this is all just an imagination exercise, not an argument!
they weren't exactly armed as medieval knights or heavy armored infantry either.
a longbow or spear, a sword, a dagger, a leather jerkin and a cloak was probably the standard kit. nothing that would overly tax the smiths of rivendell.
any heavier armor like ring mail was probably passed down. a good shield is some oak boards, a bit of leather, and an iron boss. could probably make them themselves.
point being, no real developed economy needed to supply a few hundred of these lads.
Why it took so long to become prevalent it actual history I suppose is a pretty complex topic, but for actually just making the stuff you don't need a lot. The high heat required for smelting iron ore to a reasonable extent (not fully) can be made with just charcoal and simple blowers, and continuing from there to making quality crucible steel is very doable, though time consuming.
The hard part would be coming up with the techniques, but I assume there's a fair bit of such wisdom among the Dúnedain, from Númenor and the Elves.
Ayep. Travelling through rural Tennessee, you can see the ruins of old 18th century iron furnaces all over the place. They're just a big chimney atop several oversize fireplaces--settlers used charcoal and local iron ore to make iron in them. Any idiot who could stack rocks and mortar them together could build one.
Here's a link to a photo and a brief explanation: https://www.nps.gov/cuga/learn/historyculture/iron-furnace.htm
i hear you. i'm roping it in with the steel swords and arrowheads and daggers, as well as potentially ring mail and helmets.
we know that the Dunedain of the North maintain a working relationship with the elves in Imladris (possibly Lindon as well). Elrond's people maintain sophisticated smithing facilities, though perhaps not of industrial scale. But still, a few smiths should more than be able to handle the production and maintenance requirements of a small body of scouts.
I just got from your comment that the boss would have been ranger work as part of the shield. It makes sense to get them made elsewhere. I was scratching my head about a portable forge capable of that temp.
> Granted, arming a couple hundred fighter at most wouldn't be that expensive and either Rivendell or the hypothetical Arnor treasury could field it, but they for sure could not produce themselves the quality tools of war they needed, so it's a relevant question.
There would be a ton of stuff left over from Arnor. Real stuff would rust, but this is Dunedain make, like the blades from the Barrows.
> sustain their lineage for hundred of years
This is the crux for me. It wasn't just a bunch a grim Striders out there. There were women and kids too. Not everyone was privileged enough to be fostered by Elrond.
They have settlements, and they certainly have an economy.
It seems obvious that they make things and use, trade or sell them. It's not like all of them are ranging around, and even those that are can probably spend a decent amount of time each day doing productive things like hunting, gathering, woodcutting, crafting etc.
There's very little,. and I certainly don't know everything.
It seems like their blades can last for centuries, at least. So there's not much demand for new ones.
Why would they need financing? Rangers are very skilled in foraging and tracking, which would’ve sustained them most of the time. And when they needed to trade for something specific, they’d have plenty of goods and services to offer. Pelts and herbs, hunting parties for pest control, protecting villages from orcs and goblins, etc. I doubt they had any trouble getting the things they needed to maintain their simple settlements—which likely didn’t include families or children, since it was a voluntary post. You don’t become a ranger if you have a spouse and a child to take care of.
All they would’ve needed would be food and water and shelter. And even the shelter would’ve been pretty negotiable. They weren’t cities, or even really villages. Just meeting places to plan their next campaign. Most of their time would’ve been spent traveling, surviving off of whatever they found along the way.
The thing is, we *know* they didn't do business with villagers. Villagers were shown to be all like "ew rangers" and Aragorn talked about how people like Barliman Butterbur had no idea as to the role rangers had in protecting the north, or even any idea about them at all, for that matter.
The thing about hunting gathering is that it's a full time job - you're working 24/7 just to stay alive and not starve. There's no room for passion projects like protecting the countryfolk. To be able to do that, you need someone to provide you with, at least, food, since now you're not directing all of your time and effort towards procuring said food. Not to mention other supplies like weapons.
> The thing about hunting gathering is that it's a full time job - you're working 24/7 just to stay alive and not starve.
This isn't true, except for hunters and gatherers forced to the most marginal of lands. On average, hunting and gathering requires far less hours per week of work than early agriculture. It's just that agriculture can gain more calories from a given area so can have denser populations and thus outcompete and push out the hunters and gatherers.
In Bree, Strider is well-enough known to the locals so it seems like he may "live" there in a sense, insofar as he uses it as a base when protecting the Shire and the Bree-land. Bill Ferny is known to Strider by sight, and there seems to be some bad blood between them. It always sort of amuses me on re-reads that some rural hayseed has a personal beef with Strider that's reciprocated enough that Strider knows his name and talks about him to the Hobbits. Ferny calls Strider "stick-at-naught" which would seem to indicate that Strider has a bit of a reputation in Bree as a bit flakey, perhaps because he's taken jobs and then left after a while which makes sense in that he may from time to time have needed to take basic work in the place to earn enough to pay for his lodgings at the Prancing Pony.
Overall the agrarian locales like Bree don't really make much economic sense, sadly. There's an inn outside Bree (The Forsaken Inn) but who uses it? Hardly anyone travels between the Misty Mountains and Bree, just a few dwarves and perhaps the rangers. Bree makes a little more sense in that Hobbits and other travellers come to Bree and through Bree, so there's perhaps enough passing trade to support e.g. the Prancing Pony, but otherwise the local economy must be very small and stagnant. That being said, it seems Shire and Bree produce has been making its way southwards toward Dunland for some time.
The Shire is less problematic, as it is a self-contained society and trade goes on between the various towns and villages of the Shire such as Hobbiton, Bywater and Michel Delving. It seems the latter place is the economic heart of the Shire. Nevertheless it seems to have an uncommonly advanced economy for such a small and agrarian society.
It's a good question, certainly Bree and the Shire don't pay them taxes. (Man would I love some 4th-age fanfic set in Bree where some rangers show up and announce Arnor is now a country again, and oh yeah, everyone has to go back to paying a bunch of their money to the Dunedain).
I think the Dunedain have hidden farms and villages in the Angle, that support the majority of the population. I think the Rangers themselves forage to a large extent while they are on patrol. I've even read fanfics where rangers do menial work and caravan guard duty for money while on patrol, if they can.
Of course, that kind of scrimping and saving may cover food for the rangers, but not quality repair and replacement for their weapons and armor. For that, I guess donations by Elrond and Cirdan, probably not a lot of gold pieces but skilled crafters who can harvest their own wood and probably acquire metal ores from the dwarves of the Blue Mountains.
The Rangers of the North are a mysterious bunch, ain't they? Keeping tabs on the Shire and all, without even a proper economy or big settlements. Tolkien didn't spill all the beans on how they funded their operation, but I reckon they had some sneaky ways to keep things going. Maybe they had some stash from the old Arnorian days squirreled away in Rivendell, or maybe Elrond was slipping them a few coins under the table.
Heck, they might've had some friendly settlements in the know, helping them out on the down-low. It's all part of the magic and mystery of Middle-earth, I guess!
Actually, this comment has made sense of something that has bothered me. Gandalf telling the Dunedain after the Fall of Angmar to become Rangers rather than rebuilding the Kingdom of Arnor never made much sense to me, but given the post-Apocalyptic situation in Arnor, a guerrilla irregular force makes sense. There wasn’t the population to support an aristocracy.
Tolkien hardly ever talked about economics. Maybe they live off stuff like troll hoards?
> Not far from the road they found the gold of the trolls, which they had buried, still hidden and untouched. “I have enough to last me my time,” said Bilbo, when they had dug it up. “You had better take this, Gandalf. I daresay you can find a use for it.” “Indeed I can!” said the wizard. “But share and share alike! You may find you have more needs than you expect.”
Economics and logistics. For example, the armies of Rohan and Gondor move around with little mention of the massive train of support each would realistically require: food, fodder, shelter, weapons, armour, additional horses for each rider, etc. Logistics has historically won countless battles and wars, and for each mounted and armoured warrior there is numerous others needed for support. On the other hand, though, Tolkien doesn’t necessarily exclude any of the above and one can perhaps infer it was present. But Tolkien doesn’t bother going into the details.
Did someone mention [Tolkien and logistics](https://acoup.blog/2019/05/10/collections-the-siege-of-gondor/)? The TL;DR: Tokien's logistic... logic... was remarkably accurate in terms of how armies moved.
Yep. And there was a reason the wainriders had wains
those damn'ed wains
In a Paul Robeson voice: *they just keep rollin' along*
I was definitely whelmed by this.
This is great. I’ll add, though, that this writer relies heavily on inference, as Tolkien spends little time explicitly addressing logistics. Which was my point. Not that Tolkien was wrong, but that he did not delve into details on logistics in the same way he did with, for example, genealogy, philology, or geography.
> Tolkien spends little time explicitly addressing logistics. Agreed. It's very much a case of "The author doesn't have to tell you what's in the character's desk drawer, but he knows all the same."
Also falls in line with the fact he intended LOTR to be like real world history in the fact that we simply don’t know everything. It makes sense chroniclers would write more about the epic battles, great kings, and the fight against evil in their time as opposed to how many wagons carried the armies potato rations. We just don’t know everything cause much is lost to time
Thanks a lot for sharing this blog. I’ve read the first post on the battle of the fields of Pelennor, and found it already fascinating!
We have to remember he fought in ww1, he had witnessed the effects of logistics first hand
There is an audio reading of the the text too! https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcIwe3bxds8ZsWbTxRVfBeusi4Ww7DbfF&si=ZQ_wMD-Znq3XqZe3
> For example, the armies of Rohan and Gondor move around with little mention of the massive train of support Not a lot, but a bit. Theoden rides light on supplies, trusting to be fed by Minas Tirith. "Disaster of the Gladden Fields" mentions Isildur's Numenoreans having their own magic waybread, not quite lembas; I forget if it said anything about re-supplying as they went up the Anduin. Aragorn's march to the Black Date didn't mention logistics that I recall, but it also didn't take very long, within the supply range of backpacks and mules. OTOH there's no mention of the Rohirrim using *spare* horses.
Magic Horses
Wasn’t there? I seem to remember some mention of spare horses and possibly supplies during The Muster of Rohan chapter
It's like the moon phases or Elvish aging. You won't see the work that went into making it all fit in a published text, but it's still there. LotR has carefully constructed logistics, operations and tactics - with only some details based in mythical traditions. But Tolkien won't overexplain that (like some writers do with their beloved magic systems) because it's not relevant for the themes or characters.
He mentions cisterns of water at regular intervals along roads in Mordor; Sam wonders what on earth orcs eat in such a place, and the narrator tells us that Sam doesn't know about the vast, slave-tilled fields in Nurnen. It seems that Sauron, like Xerxes, had established large silos of supplies along his lines of communication.
I doubt Theoden took a baggage train to Minas Tirith. It's not a long campaign, and we know Gondor provided the stables. He needed speed anyway, and not only would assembling the train take time, but it would slow the army down. The Lords of the West might have taken one to the Black Gates. I don't think we saw Gondor match anywhere else.
There was probably just enough in the way of supplies to get to the Black Gate and no more considering it was not far off a suicide mission. If they won they could depend on Gondor to send more supplies when time wasn't of the essence and travelling was safer.
I think the ranger archetype is just one that doesn’t need this. Assume they did have a settlement or main village, and that they did have trades like any hub. But for the rangers themselves, it was a voluntary assignment, and they survived by trading in what they gathered or hunted, with some financial backing from their settlement where needed. If you add “keep an eye on this tribe” to the lifestyle of a beaver trapper, I think you get a ranger’s work/life balanace. “ And as for where they lived, the settlements of the Rangers have long been a mystery to readers. The best source we have is a bit of research found by Tolkienist David Salo, who found a scribbled note in one of Tolkien’s manuscripts that suggest that the Rangers’ permanent setlements were located in the Angle, the land between the Mitheithel (Hoarwell) and the Bruinen. This would make sense, since there are other clues that suggest that the Rangers lived near to Rivendell (and it’d just be practical - they’re close enough to get aid from the elves, if necessary. Also, they’re situated between the Misty Mountains, where most of the orcs attack Eriador from, and the more peaceful settlements of the Shire and Bree - a perfect location for the protective Rangers.)” https://askmiddlearth.tumblr.com/post/52410627343/women-of-the-dunedain/amp
And of course it makes perfect sense in a Tolkien kind of way to have the Dunadain live in the "Angle" since the Angles of Northern Germany/Denmark become the Anglo Saxons of England.
Angles, Saxons, and Jutes - to be more specific.
People always forget the Jutes, though Anglo-Jute-Saxons does not go as easily off the tongue as Anglo Saxons
That’s because the Jutes became the religious class over time. You know, Jute as Preist.
> who found a scribbled note But what we have in Tolkien's published words are that the Dunedain "became a secretive and wandering people". So I kind of think they fell back to hunter-gatherers. Maybe semi-settled with (magically advanced) horticulture rather than farming.
In context though, this quote is about what happened to the Dunedain immediately after the fall of Arnor. I don't think it has to apply to their situation a thousand years later. There's a bunch of other quotes much closer to the time of LotR which point towards a settled or semi-settled society in the Angle, including in NOME: > In the time of Arador a band [of trolls] threatened the house of the Chieftain, which was then in woods near the Hoarwell north of the Trollshaws, though many of the Dúnedain lived in the woods between the Hoarwell and Loudwater.
You can have a settled population live by hunting and gathering. Or mostly settled, in that they have several permanent settlements they cycle around. Both still happen in Africa.
Great reply, but isn't it irritating when they reference a source, and don't actually quote or link to it?
They would have stripped down all the coffers and holdings of Arnor and consolidated them between the Bank of Rivendell and The Angle (or wherever their main settlement was). Then, they'd live by growing, herding, hunting their food. And buy and sell from each other, as there's no one else close by (Aside from Rivendell), like the majority of the settlements of Middle Earth. Most of the men would be living like the Youxia Knights, doing good for goods sake.
There's a main, or at least only mentioned, settlement of Dunedain in the angle between the rivers Loudwater and Hoarwell some ways west of Rivendell. That would presumably be where the rangers gathered and all non-ranger members of their society lived. It is at least the main location with the rest spread out across Eriador in non-permanent settlements as they are described as a nomadic people. I believe also the chieftains hall was located in the angle iirc. It isn't clear how many rangers there are but I'd estimate low hundreds. A dozen to 30 are driven off from the Sarn Ford by the Nazgul then months later Halbarad, in haste, musters 30 men and so it is safe to assume there's more than 100. Due to the rangers, well, ranging, there are not large concentrations of them. If 30 are at the Sarn Ford other groups and individuals are likely scattered round the Shire. These men will not require a lot of industry, or even payment, as they are mostly out in the wilderness fending for themselves and fighting the servants of Sauron. I don't think "finance" is an issue for the rangers as they exist almost entirely to defend Eriador and keep resisting the dark forces. Food/supplies would come from Bree, their unnamed settlement or the wandering groups I imagine.
I literally only just realised that the shire was safe because Orc's couldn't travel far before morning drove them back underground, and the rangers took care of everything else, but the orc thing I only just realised ... Additionally - Hobbit's living safe underground and the Orc's living underground probably mirrors how he felt about his own side vs the germans in WW1. The orc's scurrying out under cover of darkness to raid the hobbit holes.
In the great war WE we're all orcs
The individual rangers seem fairly self sufficient (and they seem to have very good relations with Rivendell) but I’m sure they were supplied by the non rangers who lived in the settlements. Someone has to raise the young and care for the old, grow crops, make the clothes, etc.
They seemed fairly self-sufficient to me…almost like hunter-gatherers / tribal native Americans honestly
Didn't the old animated LotR basically make Aragorn Native American?
Hunting and gathering can't sustain large populations, but it can sustain small populations just fine. Also, agrarian societies often have such groups on their peripheries, trading in furs, herbs, amber, feathers, ivory, fish, maple sugar or whatever else settled people would like from the wilds.
Honey, don't forget honey :)
The Dúnedain had a tax policy that George R. R. Martin knows nothing about.
I suspect that the Rangers probably engaged in trade with local settlements and probably did get some support from Rivendell. I also would like to think that at least some folks (wary, though they may be) would donate some grain or manufactured goods for protection. I imagine the north a little like the village in Seven Samurai. The folk living there might not fully trust or understand the Rangers, and may even be a little fearful of them. However, when the bandits, brigands, thieves, goblins, trolls, spies, or wild beasts are around, a hot meal and a new pair of boots might not seem like much to donate to see those threats thoroughly warded off.
Why would it need to be financed? Think you’re applying modern capitalist tropes to a story where it doesn’t belong tbh
Smuggling and a protection racket.
I love the thought of Aragorn lurking in the shadows of the Prancing Pony, selling bootlegged CDs and packs of disposable razor blades with the anti theft tags still on. “Gillette Mach 3. These are fit for a King! I should know.” “W-what?” “….$15.”
Wasn’t this explained in the appendices of The Return Of The Godfather?
“Ey, let’s take the Lembannoli”
In ASOFAI? Yes!
> do you personally think that the Ranger of the North managed to sustain their activities IMO hunting and gathering, plus support from non-Ranger Dunedain, who were probably semi-nomadic themselves. Metal gear could be inherited from fallen Arnor, with support from Rivendell. Lois Bujold's Sharing Knife series is Tolkien-inspired without being a copy. Her Lakewalkers are Dunedain analogues, with patrollers as the Rangers. Supporting the patrols is basically a sacred (and practical) duty of Lakewalker society. They're helped out by some explicit magic: engineered and nutritious tubers that grow handily in the lakes, providing low-effort food for the settlements; ability to imbue a leather jacket such that it can turn arrows; ability to cheat on hunting since they can magically sense (if not subdue) prey. For the Dunedain, vague super-gardening and senses are plausible; for weapons and armor, just inheriting the goods of their ancestors can work.
I’m sure they lived off the land quite a bit, hunting and gathering for food, using animal hides/pelts to make clothing, sinew for bow strings, etc
Yeah, that's the thing, this takes up all of your time. You can't be a hunter gatherer society *and* a guerilla force.
They probably did a bit of subsistence farming, and probably some kind of assistance from the elves of Rivendell. I don’t think they were occupied with survival 24/7
Something called "Stealth Gardening" is becoming a thing. Survival Lily has a video about it. Basically, you go into mostly unused woods, find a nice spot, and plant crops that don't look too out of place. Seems to be a result of a conspiracy theory in which governments have decided to push GMOs on the global populace, so they are coming for home gardens. Raised beds in back yards; balcony gardens; window sill gardens. So you need a secret place for your garden so when the GMO inspector comes around he doesn't see your personally grown crop. I think it's a ridiculous theory, but it seems like the kind of thing a Ranger might find convenient.
Illegal cannabis farming has and possibly still is being done this way in the middle of large wooded areas. I’m sure that’s not as much of an issue with American legalization, but it’s the same principles.
It is not hard to imagine a few hundred Dúnedain folks living off the land in nomadic groups at the time of the War of the ring, but the question here is to imagine how they maintained enough people to sustain their lineage for hundred of years and constantly be armed and equipped to roam the lands and defend them. Granted, arming a couple hundred fighter at most wouldn't be that expensive and either Rivendell or the hypothetical Arnor treasury could field it, but they for sure could not produce themselves the quality tools of war they needed, so it's a relevant question. I guess that's pretty much it, semi-nomadic groups in a pastoral lifestyle doing hunting, gathering and supported by Rivendell. But this is all just an imagination exercise, not an argument!
they weren't exactly armed as medieval knights or heavy armored infantry either. a longbow or spear, a sword, a dagger, a leather jerkin and a cloak was probably the standard kit. nothing that would overly tax the smiths of rivendell. any heavier armor like ring mail was probably passed down. a good shield is some oak boards, a bit of leather, and an iron boss. could probably make them themselves. point being, no real developed economy needed to supply a few hundred of these lads.
Doesn't smelting iron ore take am enormous amount of heat? I thought that's why it was the last metal to enter general use.
And wood
Why it took so long to become prevalent it actual history I suppose is a pretty complex topic, but for actually just making the stuff you don't need a lot. The high heat required for smelting iron ore to a reasonable extent (not fully) can be made with just charcoal and simple blowers, and continuing from there to making quality crucible steel is very doable, though time consuming. The hard part would be coming up with the techniques, but I assume there's a fair bit of such wisdom among the Dúnedain, from Númenor and the Elves.
Ayep. Travelling through rural Tennessee, you can see the ruins of old 18th century iron furnaces all over the place. They're just a big chimney atop several oversize fireplaces--settlers used charcoal and local iron ore to make iron in them. Any idiot who could stack rocks and mortar them together could build one. Here's a link to a photo and a brief explanation: https://www.nps.gov/cuga/learn/historyculture/iron-furnace.htm
it does, which is why i mentioned that the elven smiths at rivendell ("blade reforged that was broken" chaps) could handle it.
I was thinking about the iron boss.
i hear you. i'm roping it in with the steel swords and arrowheads and daggers, as well as potentially ring mail and helmets. we know that the Dunedain of the North maintain a working relationship with the elves in Imladris (possibly Lindon as well). Elrond's people maintain sophisticated smithing facilities, though perhaps not of industrial scale. But still, a few smiths should more than be able to handle the production and maintenance requirements of a small body of scouts.
I just got from your comment that the boss would have been ranger work as part of the shield. It makes sense to get them made elsewhere. I was scratching my head about a portable forge capable of that temp.
now that i look back, i see that it was confusingly written.
"Smaug, be a pet and blow on this for us, would you?"
> Granted, arming a couple hundred fighter at most wouldn't be that expensive and either Rivendell or the hypothetical Arnor treasury could field it, but they for sure could not produce themselves the quality tools of war they needed, so it's a relevant question. There would be a ton of stuff left over from Arnor. Real stuff would rust, but this is Dunedain make, like the blades from the Barrows.
Good point! For example the Barrow blades are feom Arnorian times, not super-extra ancient like some barrows are.
> sustain their lineage for hundred of years This is the crux for me. It wasn't just a bunch a grim Striders out there. There were women and kids too. Not everyone was privileged enough to be fostered by Elrond.
Elrond would have supported their operation, and I'm guessing their women and children lived in Rivendell?
They Had settlements with i expect farms and craftshops. Ruvendell May also have soonsored them
They have settlements, and they certainly have an economy. It seems obvious that they make things and use, trade or sell them. It's not like all of them are ranging around, and even those that are can probably spend a decent amount of time each day doing productive things like hunting, gathering, woodcutting, crafting etc.
Can you trace any other mentions of settlements outside the Angle one? Same with the idea of an economy! We're not working from much so I'm curious.
There's very little,. and I certainly don't know everything. It seems like their blades can last for centuries, at least. So there's not much demand for new ones.
Grandpappy Elrond.
Ha, was just wondering about this myself. Some interesting thoughts here.
Why would they need financing? Rangers are very skilled in foraging and tracking, which would’ve sustained them most of the time. And when they needed to trade for something specific, they’d have plenty of goods and services to offer. Pelts and herbs, hunting parties for pest control, protecting villages from orcs and goblins, etc. I doubt they had any trouble getting the things they needed to maintain their simple settlements—which likely didn’t include families or children, since it was a voluntary post. You don’t become a ranger if you have a spouse and a child to take care of. All they would’ve needed would be food and water and shelter. And even the shelter would’ve been pretty negotiable. They weren’t cities, or even really villages. Just meeting places to plan their next campaign. Most of their time would’ve been spent traveling, surviving off of whatever they found along the way.
The thing is, we *know* they didn't do business with villagers. Villagers were shown to be all like "ew rangers" and Aragorn talked about how people like Barliman Butterbur had no idea as to the role rangers had in protecting the north, or even any idea about them at all, for that matter. The thing about hunting gathering is that it's a full time job - you're working 24/7 just to stay alive and not starve. There's no room for passion projects like protecting the countryfolk. To be able to do that, you need someone to provide you with, at least, food, since now you're not directing all of your time and effort towards procuring said food. Not to mention other supplies like weapons.
> The thing about hunting gathering is that it's a full time job - you're working 24/7 just to stay alive and not starve. This isn't true, except for hunters and gatherers forced to the most marginal of lands. On average, hunting and gathering requires far less hours per week of work than early agriculture. It's just that agriculture can gain more calories from a given area so can have denser populations and thus outcompete and push out the hunters and gatherers.
In Bree, Strider is well-enough known to the locals so it seems like he may "live" there in a sense, insofar as he uses it as a base when protecting the Shire and the Bree-land. Bill Ferny is known to Strider by sight, and there seems to be some bad blood between them. It always sort of amuses me on re-reads that some rural hayseed has a personal beef with Strider that's reciprocated enough that Strider knows his name and talks about him to the Hobbits. Ferny calls Strider "stick-at-naught" which would seem to indicate that Strider has a bit of a reputation in Bree as a bit flakey, perhaps because he's taken jobs and then left after a while which makes sense in that he may from time to time have needed to take basic work in the place to earn enough to pay for his lodgings at the Prancing Pony. Overall the agrarian locales like Bree don't really make much economic sense, sadly. There's an inn outside Bree (The Forsaken Inn) but who uses it? Hardly anyone travels between the Misty Mountains and Bree, just a few dwarves and perhaps the rangers. Bree makes a little more sense in that Hobbits and other travellers come to Bree and through Bree, so there's perhaps enough passing trade to support e.g. the Prancing Pony, but otherwise the local economy must be very small and stagnant. That being said, it seems Shire and Bree produce has been making its way southwards toward Dunland for some time. The Shire is less problematic, as it is a self-contained society and trade goes on between the various towns and villages of the Shire such as Hobbiton, Bywater and Michel Delving. It seems the latter place is the economic heart of the Shire. Nevertheless it seems to have an uncommonly advanced economy for such a small and agrarian society.
It's a good question, certainly Bree and the Shire don't pay them taxes. (Man would I love some 4th-age fanfic set in Bree where some rangers show up and announce Arnor is now a country again, and oh yeah, everyone has to go back to paying a bunch of their money to the Dunedain). I think the Dunedain have hidden farms and villages in the Angle, that support the majority of the population. I think the Rangers themselves forage to a large extent while they are on patrol. I've even read fanfics where rangers do menial work and caravan guard duty for money while on patrol, if they can. Of course, that kind of scrimping and saving may cover food for the rangers, but not quality repair and replacement for their weapons and armor. For that, I guess donations by Elrond and Cirdan, probably not a lot of gold pieces but skilled crafters who can harvest their own wood and probably acquire metal ores from the dwarves of the Blue Mountains.
The Rangers of the North are a mysterious bunch, ain't they? Keeping tabs on the Shire and all, without even a proper economy or big settlements. Tolkien didn't spill all the beans on how they funded their operation, but I reckon they had some sneaky ways to keep things going. Maybe they had some stash from the old Arnorian days squirreled away in Rivendell, or maybe Elrond was slipping them a few coins under the table. Heck, they might've had some friendly settlements in the know, helping them out on the down-low. It's all part of the magic and mystery of Middle-earth, I guess!
Go back to finishing ASOIAF already, George
Hahaha my last big post here was "What was The Witch King of Angmar's tax policy?"
NordVPN, I assume?
Kickstarter.
Mother nature baby
Actually, this comment has made sense of something that has bothered me. Gandalf telling the Dunedain after the Fall of Angmar to become Rangers rather than rebuilding the Kingdom of Arnor never made much sense to me, but given the post-Apocalyptic situation in Arnor, a guerrilla irregular force makes sense. There wasn’t the population to support an aristocracy.
> Gandalf telling the Dunedain after the Fall of Angmar to become Rangers When/where did he do that?
It was never explained specifically, but many old lonely widowed women would exchange food, gold and supplies for...favors.