Easterlings

Depiction of Easterlings by Jan Pospisil
Easterlings
Dominions	Lands east of and including Rhûn, Rhovanion, March of Maedhros, Hithlum
Languages	Unknown
Lifespan	Shorter than Númenóreans
Hair color	Dark

Easterlings, known in early times as Swarthy Men, were a race of Men who eventually populated the vast, uncharted lands of Rhûn, east of Mordor and the Sea of Rhûn. Often opposed to the Free Peoples, many of them were originally in league with Morgoth and went on to serve his successor, Sauron. Some, however, rebelled against the Dark Lords with the help of the Blue Wizards.

Description

As of the Third Age, Easterlings were a people diverse in height and skin tone. Their skin was either sallow (a pale yellow) or olive, their eyes were dark (dark brown and black), and their straight hair was black. One unique variant appeared at the Siege of Gondor, described as broad, short, bearded, and wielding axes. It is unspecified whether the Easterlings of the First Age (told of in the Quenta Silmarillion) were the primary ancestors of those that later settled Rhûn.

History

First Age

In the First Age, the sons of Bór and Ulfang were called Easterlings and Swarthy Men - they had come into Beleriand much later than the Edain, and were for a part secretly in league with Morgoth. By some Men of Dor-lómin that appear in The Wanderings of Hurin, they are called Eastrons.

Bór was a chieftain of Men who came into Lothlann, in Beleriand, during the FA 463. His sons were Borlach, Borlad, and Borthand. Bór was welcomed by Maedhros, who gave him and his followers land north and south of the March of Maedhros. Bór and his sons swore allegiance to Maedhros, and remained faithful, even though he had been ordered by Morgoth to betray the banner of Caranthir. All of them were slain in the Nírnaeth Arnoediad.

Ulfang also came to Lothlann, Beleriand, in 463, shortly after Bór. He was the father of Ulfast, Ulwarth, and Uldor "the Accursed". Ulfang was welcomed by the sons of Fëanor, and he and his sons swore allegiance to Caranthir. They were given lands to dwell in the north and south of the March of Maedhros. Ulfang and his sons were secretly in league with Morgoth, and betrayed the Eldar and Edain during the Nírnaeth Arnoediad in what became known as the Treachery of Men.

Rule in Hithlum

After the Nírnaeth Arnoediad, at the behest of Morgoth, the Easterlings invaded Hithlum. They spread throughout the wide lands plundering, destroying, and killing its inhabitants. The Eldar of Hithlum were able to escape from the invaders by taking refuge in the southern mountains that later the Easterlings avoided out of fear of the Elves. The Easterlings soon withdrew northwards and apparently settled.

However, the Easterlings were betrayed by their master: Morgoth locked them solely in Hithlum and denied them the rich lands of Beleriand that they so desired. Here, their chieftain, Lorgan, governed with cruelty, robbing from and enslaving the remaining Men of Hithlum, who called the Easterlings the " Incomers". They took away the young and the able-bodied, and sometimes young women to be wives, such as Aerin, whom Brodda took to produce his heir. Despite these evil deeds, they did not take Morwen nor seize Morwen's house, for they feared her and believed her to be a witch and so her son Túrin had time to escape to Doriath. Tuor, cousin of Túrin, was also enslaved in Hithlum by the Easterlings, being forced to serve Lorgan. After three years he was able to escape his captors and evaded them by living as an outlaw, until he was contacted by the Vala Ulmo and went to Gondolin.

The Easterlings ruled effectively in Hithlum as vassals of Morgoth from FA 473 to FA 583. They answered their master's summons and fought against the Host of the West in the War of Wrath. Those that survived Morgoth's overthrow fled back over the Blue Mountains to Eriador and beyond where they sat themselves up as kings and chieftains of many of the Middle Men.

Second Age

In the Second Age, the term Easterling referred to various nations and tribes of Men living in uncharted lands east of the Sea of Rhûn and Mordor. Most of them were under the dominion of a new "king and god": Sauron, the heir of Morgoth. Around SA 1600, the Blue Wizards were sent to help the few Easterlings that had rebelled from the worship of the Dark Lord. The influence of the two Istari delayed and weakened Sauron's gathering of the Morgul-host for his war with the Elves.

In SA 1695, Easterlings were promised "land and booty" by Sauron and went westwards into the lands of his enemies. Joined by Orcs, they waged war on the nearby Northmen and Durin's Folk until their master was driven out of Eriador. Khamûl, a king of the Easterlings, was given one of the Nine Rings of Power and became a powerful sorcerer, until the power of Sauron's Ruling Ring corrupted him: around SA 2251, Khamûl became a wraith and thereby one of Sauron's most terrible servants.

Third Age

An Easterling in the Third Age, in the films

In the Third Age, Sauron's defeat in the War of the Last Alliance had freed the Easterlings "from his tyranny", but not from the evil and lies he had sown in their hearts. Aside from fighting amongst themselves, they frequently attacked the Men of Gondor and the lands bordering Rhûn, sometimes forging alliances with the Variags of Khand. In TA 490 they invaded Gondor, passing through Dagorlad and starting a series of wars that lasted sixty years until they were finally defeated in TA 550 by Turambar, the ninth King of Gondor. Afterwards, Gondor subdued some of them and took from them a large area of land between Rhovanion and Mordor including the Sea of Rhûn.

Around TA 1000, "invaders from the East" entered Rhovanion, harassing the local Northmen, and came to the Vales of Anduin, just as Sauron settled in Dol Guldur. In TA 1248, the Easterlings once again clashed with the Gondorians in a series of skirmishes, but were not strong enough to stand against Gondor’s power. Defeated, it was many centuries before they were again a threat until agents of the Dark Lord promoted the rise of the Wainriders. Following their defeat (see below), the Easterlings were quiet for five hundred years until a new group, the Balchoth. These Easterlings allied with the Orcs of the Misty Mountains at Sauron's behest and launched an invasion of Calenardhon in TA 2510.

In TA 2545, the Easterlings sought retribution for the Balchoth's defeat and attacked the Rohirrim. They were defeated, but the King of Rohan, Eorl, fell in battle. By TA 2758, they were stirred by Sauron into allying with the Corsairs and Dunlendings. While Gondor faced the fleets of Umbar, the "Eastern invaders" landed in the mouths of Lefnui and Isen to join the Wild Men's assault upon Rohan. In the aftermath of the Long Winter, the Easterlings were destroyed or retreated and the Rohirrim drove the Dunlendings from their lands.

War of the Ring

During the War of the Ring at the end of the Third Age, most of the Easterlings openly returned to Sauron's service. But the in-fighting caused by the Blue Wizards' interference took its toll: the Dark Lord's eastern forces were smaller than what they could have been.

A large number of Easterlings were part of the armies of Mordor that Sauron's agent, the Witch-king, led in the Siege of Gondor. They were defeated, however, in the wake of the Morgul Lord's death. Other Easterling legions joined Sauron's northern host in the battle against the Men of Dale and the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain. The final overthrow of their master in the Battle of the Black Gate shattered their morale and they were driven back.

The Easterlings that had stood with Sauron remained a threat throughout the early Fourth Age but were finally subdued in a series of campaigns led by King Elessar. Whereas the Easterlings who had rejected the Dark Lord continued to uphold the "secret cults and 'magic' traditions" established by the Blue Wizards.

Specific groups

Wainriders

The Wainriders were a confederation of Easterling tribes who were united by their hatred of the kingdom of Gondor, fueled by Sauron's emissaries. Following the Great Plague which had weakened Gondor, they started their attacks in TA 1856, defeating Gondor at the Battle of the Plains and killing King Narmacil II. They rode in great chariots (which gave them their name), and raided the lands of Rhovanion, destroying or enslaving its people. Gondor lost all of its possessions east of Anduin to them, save only Ithilien.

In TA 1899, the thirtieth King of Gondor, Calimehtar son of Narmacil, defeated the Wainriders at Dagorlad, buying some rest for his land. However the Wainriders struck back in TA 1944, allying themselves with the Haradrim of Near Harad and the Variags of Khand. Before this they had been expanding their power southward beyond Mordor, and had come into conflict with the tribes of Khand and the eastern Haradrim. But eventually these men allied under their universal hate of the West. They managed to kill King Ondoher and all his heirs, but instead of riding on to Minas Anor and taking the city, they paused to celebrate.

Meanwhile, general Eärnil of Gondor's southern army rode and defeated an inferior force of Haradrim in South Ithilien and marched north. He came too late to rescue Ondoher, but he did manage to annihilate the Wainriders for good at the Battle of the Camp. Eärnil was subsequently crowned king. After this defeat the might of the Wainriders was broken, and their tribal confederation broke up.

Balchoth

The Balchoth were a fierce group of Easterlings that were goaded by Sauron into allying with the Orcs of the Misty Mountains and attacking the Gondorians. In TA 2510, they overran the plains of Calenardhon and almost destroyed the army of the Ruling Steward Cirion, but were defeated by the Éothéod under Eorl the Young in the Battle of the Field of Celebrant. Like the Wainriders they rode in chariots and wagons, and they may have been descendants of these people.

Weapons

Not much is known about the weapons used by the Easterlings. They had as far as it is known among their arsenal spears, bows, pikes, axes and chariots. They also seemed to favor the horse on many occasions, although all this probably differed greatly among the Easterling tribes, kingdoms, or empires.

In adaptations

The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies

Easterling forces marching to war

In Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, an army from Rhûn is seen by Frodo, Gollum, and Sam entering the Black Gate. The corresponding passage in the book describes them as Easterlings; in the movie they are the same, quite distinct from the Haradrim passing through Ithilien later in the film. During this encounter, Sam accidentally falls down a slope near to where Easterlings are passing by. Frodo goes after him, and two Easterling warriors notice the commotion; they leave the formation to inspect. Frodo hides himself and Sam under his elvish cloak, disguising them as a boulder. The Easterling soldiers almost find them, but eventually return to their legion and march into Mordor.

In The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King they are also seen briefly after the gate of Minas Tirith has been breached. There they advance upon the soldiers of Gondor, but they are not seen fighting.

Khamûl, a lord of the Easterlings confronts the White Council at Dol Guldur

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies depicts one of the Nazgûl in armor resembling that of the Easterlings; this is undoubtedly intended to be Khamûl.

Inspirations

In Peter Jackson's film series, the Easterlings are depicted as a heavily-stylized, vaguely Middle Eastern culture. In the appendices of the Special Extended Edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the artists claim that they were inspired by a variety of Persian cultures, particularly Sassanid Persians, Mongol horsemen, and Ottoman Turks. They have "crests" on the backs of their hat-like helmets that resemble feudal Samurai crests. They also bear a rising sun emblem upon their armor. The full-body armor the Easterlings wear resembles armor which ancient Chinese soldiers wore. Beneath their armor they wear veils, headscarves, and robes. In some movie-models, their boots have upturned toes, suggesting a Mongolic, Turkic or Persian influence.

Video games

• In The Lord of the Rings Online, the Men collectively referred to as Easterlings by the Free Peoples of the West are portrayed as several clans, distinct in appearance, united only by the might of Sauron. The Khundolar Easterlings attack the Wold of Rohan from the Brown Lands and also fight on Sauron's side at the Battle of the Morannon. The Jangovar Easterlings attack Dale and the Lonely Mountain in the north, and after Sauron's defeat the remainder of that army continues to linger in those lands. The Sûhalar Easterlings are shorter in statue and armed with axes, to the point where some mistake them for dwarves, their armies participate in the Siege of Gondor. The Chayasír Easterlings are craftsmen and tradesmen with no love for Sauron and take no part in the Great War of the Ring. However, on the same day when The One Ring was destroyed, an unknown calamity had taken place in Rhûn, and in the weeks afterwards streams of Chayasír refugees begin arriving into the Iron Hills and the Dale-lands. The men and dwarves of those lands had only just won a bloody war against the Easterlings and hold a great deal of both prejudice an outward hostility towards them, despite the Chayasír seeing themselves as having nothing in common with the Jangovar who fought in that war. None of the refugees would speak in detail about what exactly had happened in Rhûn, other than it is absolutely impossible for any of the Easterlings, soldiers of refugees, to go back.
• Tribesmen of Rhûn appear in the video game The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age, utilizing javelins, axes, and spears as weapons.
• Easterling pikemen are a unit in all three of EA's The Battle for Middle-earthgames, available to the Mordor faction.
• In the Desolation of Mordor DLC for the video game Middle-earth: Shadow of War, the mercenaries whom the player-character Baranor can hire are Easterlings. These Easterlings are depicted similarly to in the films.

Military in adaptations

The Lord of the Rings trilogy

An Easterling army assembled for battle in full uniform with shields and spears

The armor of the Easterlings entering the Black Gates was made from bronze, along with the helmet; its dragon-skull-shape was made to intimidate enemies.

Their gold or brass overlayed steel lamellar armor consisted of a placard (stomach plate), gorget (heart & neck coverage), groin-plate, rerebraces (upper arm), vambraces (forearm), cuisses (thighs), and poleyns (knees). The clothing that the Men of Rhûn wore consisted of red leather gloves, black leather tall boots, burgundy long pants, a burgundy tunic with long sleeves, a burgundy headscarf, and a black facecloth . The undercut, brass helmet was worn over the headscarf, and featured cheek-and-eye guards, along with two horns from the back and a crest on the front, to remind other beings of dragons, intimidating to the enemy even before the battle began.

During battle, these heavy infantrymen formed the core of Sauron's armies, for they were taller and better-equipped than the swarming Orcs that fully comprised his forces.

The curved, rectangular, two-foot by three-foot Easterling shield had concave top and bottom edges and was made with brass that surrounded a dark-brown square. It was held by an iron handgrip that was behind a brass circular boss surrounded by a diamond shape that was itself enveloped by the square. It came with a dark-red leather "belt" if the Man of Rhûn was to strap the shield to the forearm for combat requiring two hands. Even archery was allowed by this big strap. One rather striking detail on Rhûnic armor was that a sun was etched into their sternum-plate, resembling a burning of a grassland such as Rohan or Dale.

The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game

Easterling Kataphrakt models from The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game

In The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game, the Easterlings have a unique type of cavalry known as kataphrakts*. These were Easterlings mounted upon heavily armored horses and wielding a scimitar and broad shield. They were notorious for their ferocity of their attacks and defensive power when they were deployed side-by-side. The brass lamellar armor on the fronts of their horses allowed them to safely trample spearmen and pikemen. Rhunic composite short-bows were sometimes taken instead of shields.

Kataphrakts is from the ancient Greek derivative word Kataphraktos meaning "the armored", translating to Cataphract in English. Cataphracts were heavily armored cavalry used as elite troops or bodyguards. The Sassanid Persian Empire had elite troops called the "Savaran Cataphracts". Cataphracts are thought to have been developed as early as the 8th century B.C. by Middle Eastern cultures such as the Assyrians and Achaemenid Empire. Such heavy horse troops were integrated into the Roman Army sometime around the 2nd Century B.C. and became a distinct troop regiment by the time of Hadrian in the 2nd Century A.D.

Translations

Foreign Language	Translated name
Afrikaans	Die Manne van die Ooste
Albanian	Burra të lindjes
Amharic	የምሥራቅ ሰዎች
Arabic	رجال الشرق
Armenian	Արեւելքի տղամարդիկ
Belarusian Cyrillic	Істэрлінг ?
Bengali	প্রাচ্যের পুরুষদের
Bosnian	Plemena s istoka
Bulgarian Cyrillic	Източни люде
Catalan	Homes de l'Est \ Orientalencs
Chinese (Hong Kong)	東方人
Chinese (China)	东夷
Croatian	Plemena s istoka
Czech	Východňané
Danish	Østerlinge
Dutch	Oosterlingen
Finnish	Itäläiset
French	Orientaux
Georgian	ისტერლინგები (აღმოსავლელები)
German	Ostlinge
Greek	Ανατολίτες
Hebrew	בני המזרח
Hindi	पूर्व के पुरुषों
Hungarian	Keletlakók
Icelandic	Austmenn
Irish Gaelic	Fir an Oirthir
Japanese	東夷
Kannada	ಪೂರ್ವದ ಮೆನ್
Kazakh	Шығыс ерлері (Cyrillic) Şığıs erleri (Latin)
Korean	동부인 (이스터링)
Kurdish	Zilamên rojhilat (Kurmanji Kurdish)
Kyrgyz Cyrillic	Чыгыш адамдар
Latvian	Austrumnieks
Luxembourgish	Ostlingen
Macedonian Cyrillic	Луѓе од исток
Marathi	पूर्व लोक
Mongolian Cyrillic	Дорно дахин эрчүүд
Norwegian	Austringene
Pashto	ختیځ نارینه
Persian	ایسترلینگ‌ها
Polish	Easterlingowie
Punjabi	ਪੂਰਬ ਦੇ ਪੁਰਸ਼
Romanian	Răsăritenii
Russian	Истерлинги
Scottish Gaelic	Fir an ear
Serbian	Источњаци (Cyrillic) Istočnjaci (Latin)
Sinhalese	නැගෙනහිර පුරුෂයන්
Slovak	Východniari
Slovenian	Moški na vzhodu
Spanish	Hombres del Este
Swedish	Östringar
Tajik Cyrillic	Мардони шариф
Tamil	கிழக்கு ஆண்கள்
Telugu	తూర్పు పురుషులు
Turkish	Doğulular
Ukrainian Cyrillic	Еастерлінґс
Uzbek	Чарқий эркаклар (Cyrillic) Sharqiy erkaklar (Latin)
Vietnamese	Đàn ông phương Đông
Welsh	Dynion y dwyrain
Xhosa	Madoda aseMpuma
Yiddish	מענטשן פון די מזרח
Yoruba	Awọn ọkunrin ti ila-õrùn
Zulu	Amadoda aseMpumalanga