Who Are the Drúedain? | Middle-earth's Wild Men of the Woods

[@larrykuenning5754]

Have you noticed that the Druedain have a distinctive tradition of mathematics? You quoted the key text for this at 11:35 but without commenting: "You have a score of scores counted ten times and five." They count in base 20 (rendered in old-fashioned English as "a score"). That is, instead of counting a group of ten, then another group of ten, and so forth up to ten tens, and then counting hundreds, the Druedain count up to twenty before starting a new group, and count groups of twenty up to twenty such groups; "a score of scores" = 400. Then they count groups of 400 until they reach the total number of Theoden's army, which is 15 x 20 x 20 = 6000 as we express it in base ten (6 x 10 x 10 x 10). And they can keep going beyond that ("they have more"). As a teenager in the late 1960s I expressed this as "Every good Wose counts on his toes."

[@GirlNextGondor]

I did do the math to make sure Ghan's estimate matched up with the historical records of the Muster (it does!) But the toes connection escaped me 🤣 Brilliant observation.

[@HairTiesForGlorfindel]

This is such a great comment!

[@MatejCadil]

Yes, that is fascinating, it is interesting what we can learn from these little hints about different mathematical traditions of various peoples, such as the elves with their base 12 system.

[@larrykuenning5754]

@@MatejCadil Somewhere (maybe in _Letters of JJRT_) Tolkien replies to a fan's question about whether the elves got their base 12 system from having six fingers on each hand. No, he said, they have five like humans. They use base 12 because they were learned enough to know that this makes many calculations easier, 12 being divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6, unlike 10 which is divisible only by 2 and 5. This comment by JRRT might cast some doubt on my fingers-and-toes inference about the Druedain. But I think they weren't as "wise" as the Eldar (not being immortal, not having been to Valinor, etc.) and they almost certainly had the same total of fingers and toes that we do, being human.

[@istari0]

I wonder why hobbits never went that route then with their aversion to footwear.

[@leGUIGUI]

Side note: a strand of humans who definitely have magic abilities yet do not serve Sauron or Melkor are the skin-changers, like Beorn.

[@istari0]

I'd say the Drúedain were example of people who, despite being far from the most knowledgeable and technically advanced, never fell into the darkness that many other men, such as the Númenoreans, did. It appears that, like the Hobbits, their moment to change the course of history in MIddle-Earth came during the War of the Ring when their aid made it possible for the Rohirrim to reach Minas Tirith before it fell.

[@Enerdhil]

Great point. Maybe their migration from Southern Eriador to the forest for that purpose. Eru Iluvatar thinks of everything.🤔

[@jpbjoel]

Ghân-buri-Ghân? More like Ghân-buri-great! Another winning video from Girl Next Gondor Industries!

[@GirlNextGondor]

The lore-industrial complex strikes again 🤣

[@DavidRoberts]

🎶 She does what she must. Because she can. For the good of all of us. 🎶

[@TJDious]

"Dead men are not friends to living men, and give them no gifts." Low key one of the best LOTR quotes.

[@GirlNextGondor]

Gbg has some straight bangers for someone who a) only appears for half a chapter and b) can barely speak Westron

[@TJDious]

@@GirlNextGondor c) doesn't wear pants 🤣

[@leonardomarquesbellini]

@@TJDious but that's where half his wisdom comes from

[@JoeQuake]

"Kill Gorgun! Kill Orc-folk! ... Drive away bad air and darkness with bright iron!"

[@pedrovargas2181]

@@TJDious Pants are an illusion and so is death

[@TolkienLorePodcast]

The Faithful Stone is the biggest example of something that seems to cut against the grain of what Tolkien typically says about “magic” vs “art”. And then he goes and straight up makes the biggest comparison! I think we know what the next video in your magic series needs to be. 😉

[@GirlNextGondor]

I didn't get too deep into it here but I felt like screaming when I read that note. 🤣 Absolutely typical Tolkien: leaves highly suggestive footnote in the most obscure place imaginable, refuses to elaborate, never returns to the subject. I will definitely be wrestling with it at some point.

[@JoeQuake]

Grass skirts, poison-tipped arrows, guttural speech pattern, relatively primitive way of life, ... I've always wondered if Tolkien's Druedain were a reflection of some native peoples of the Polynesian islands. The description of the Pukelmen statues always reminds me of the statues of Easter Island. Also, the Druedain would've been a great subject for an article in a Gondorian version of "National Geographic Magazine". p.s. Great video!

[@p.bckman2997]

Back when I first read LotR as a boy in the 1980s, the Neanderthal connotation immediately sprang to mind (my father was an avid reader of popular science, particularly paleonthology, so Neanderthals were well known to me). Tolkien seems to me to have taken inspiration from all manner of late Victorian and early modern ethnology though. Back when he was a boy, it would have been an open question where modern humans arose, whether remnants of older human stock remained in this world and to what degree. I think it was that feeling on unsolved and deeply intriguing questions he tried to replicate with his inclusion of the Drúedain.

[@teovu5557]

polynesian languages arent guttural lol they have one of the softest almost rhyming sounding languages due to their open vowels and a form of vowel harmony....not sure what polynesian languages youre talking about...

[@JoeQuake]

@@teovu5557 Yes. I see I was mistaken in that portion of my post. Just watched a video of an Easter Island native speaking Rapa Nui, and it's certainly not guttural. Beautiful language! Thanks.

[@Rakhamon]

Lovely video. I think another important inspiration for the druedain (apart from the very obvious woodwose) are the late 19th century and early 20th century conception of the picts, often considered then to be one of the original human groups to inhabit the British isles. Today we know that the Picts were descended from already existing groups who lived there much further back and for much longer periods, but in that time over a hundred years ago there was a belief that the picts may have been something like the aboriginies of the British isles - small, squat, dark-eyed, often said to be hairy and more muscular than the later people. This conception of picts served as the inspiration for a not negligible amount of fiction back in its day and the most famous is probably Robert E. Howard, the pulp author and creator of Conan. Not only did Howard have picts as supporting characters (both villains and heroes) in many of his stories - one of his heroes was a pict himself, Bran Mak Morn. I find it likely that Tolkien was well aware of these theories and the cultural useage of the pictish people as an aboriginal race of the british isles since those theories and the fiction they spawned were prevalent during his childhood and youth, and that he may used them in his conception of the Drúedain. You can even see echoes of Howard's depiction of the picts as a persecuted, dwindling people in Ghan-buri-Ghan and his kin, even if I am certain that is purely coincidental. Anyway just food for thought I guess. Another banger of a video! When I was a teenager I got a bunch of the classic Mithril miniatures because they were close to the only Tolkien merch out there, and one of the miniature sets was the Pukel-Men (or watchstones). Always captured my imagination, and I'm glad you thought they were interesting enough to be given an video.

[@GirlNextGondor]

Glad you enjoyed it! I hadn't considered the Picts as one of the sources but I think you might have a point, definitely something Tolkien would have been familiar with.

[@moruchtuil]

I really like how you and @TheRedBook choose interesting, obscure corners of Tolkien's legendarium, risk a little light, and illuminate wonderful things.

[@moruchtuil]

Well, that didn't work. Trying again... @TheRedBook

[@jonathonfrazier6622]

I wonder if the druedain of Numenore lived longer than their Middle earth counterparts.

[@strocau]

Third Age Middle-Earth: Neanderthals, Mammoths, Pterodactyls, antedeluvian shape of the continents Also Third Age Middle-Earth: clocks, umbrellas, golf

[@labrynianrebel]

And fish and chips 😄

[@michaelfisher7170]

Thank you so much for the inclusion of the story of The Faithful Stone! i had NEVER come across this in all my readings of Tolkien, and that reading covers several decades. The story is just amazing, and it confirmed a feeling I'd always had that the Druedain are FAR more than their physical appearance. "If some power passes from you to a thing you have made, then you must share in its hurts." Just an incredible episode! Your research is perfect, your presentation flawless. Thank you so much for these videos from a Tolkien fan who wishes he were as resourceful as you are!

[@ishmaelforester9825]

'Good and evil has not changed since yesteryear. Nor is it different among dwarves, or elves or men. It is a man's part to discern it, whether in the Golden Wood or his own house.' - Aragorn

[@ishmaelforester9825]

Aragorn is the best character in Tolkien in my opinion. The light after the fire, the building after the rubble, he is the best hero in Middle Earth.We might call him Aragorn the Great because title meant tyrant and king of kings. But he's not a tyrant. One of the best characters in fiction. And he's the exiled ranger king.

[@drewastolfi6840]

So. Ive always thought they were inspired by the bushman of the Kalahari. Since JRRT was originally from South Africa, and remained interested in it, it felt like a natural inspiration. Sadly the bushman were also hunted, and Tolkien likely knew about it.

[@beatleblev]

"Kill Gorgun, Drive away the Dark (Lord), and Get home safe and get some rest." could be the farewell of all the Free Peoples of Middle Earth. I feel like the Druedain would appreciate the scary masked helms of the Dwarfs and the Dwarfs would love the stone guardians and statues of fleeing orcs.

[@GirlNextGondor]

Imagine the Dwarves of Belegost or some such place conducting trade with the Haladin and stopping mid-sentence when they notice a Watch-stone, spending the rest of the encounter marvelling at it and asking to meet the sculptor (who has hidden himself in the woods and refuses to come out) while the Men grow increasingly exasperated...

[@LeHobbitFan]

Amazing as usual! I've heard Tolkien entertained for a short time the idea that the gnomes, dwarves and other small mythical creatures could be traced back to a smaller subgroup of prehistoric humans. And strangely, there's one group of prehistoric humans (Homo Florensis) who were rather small, between 3 to 4 feet high at most. What I'm trying to say is Hobbits are real.

[@TheLadyVictory]

Had zero recollection of this people. SO COOL.

[@GirlNextGondor]

They appear for three glorious pages and then are mentioned maybe twice apart from that in LotR itself. 🤣 There's obscure Tolkien topics... and then there's the Druedain.

[@mikelarsen5836]

I have always thought that Tom Bombadil would really empathise with the Druedain. Both have a strong connection with their natural surroundings.

[@Valdagast]

I think Tolkien would have loved to hear about the stalactite stone circles - of Neanderthal make - that we have found in France.

[@GirlNextGondor]

I tried looking up examples of megalithic sites in western Europe for this video and gave up because there's just too many.

[@Valdagast]

@@GirlNextGondor we've only found one Neanderthal site with stone circles. Remind me and I'll post a link in the Discord server.

[@worldtraveler930]

I find your observation of the Druidane men being descended from the Pukelmen of the early parts of Arda rather interesting as I myself have overlooked that very same statement from Mary Brandibuck and as it is my actual understanding of how Moregoth created the Orks was by capturing and corrupting Pukelmen {Not Elves!} which explains the Pukelmen and later Druidane's Utter and Extream Hatred of Orks!!! 🤠👍

[@Enerdhil]

The Druedain were rewarded for their part in the War of Wrath and many went to live in Numenor. It seems that the discrimination they felt in Eriador was there in Numenor and they all left by the time Numenor was swallowed up by the sea. I am curious what happened to these educated, elite Druedain who could not have possibly chosen to live a lifestyle like that which Ghan-buri-Ghan's people did. What happened to them?🤔

[@richmondlandersenfells2238]

What's even more impressive is that they felt uneasy the moment sauron stepped foot in numenor while still in chains. Then quietly left the island the moment they realize the numenoreans were already being influenced.

[@Enerdhil]

@@richmondlandersenfells2238 I just reread the Chapter entitled "The Drúedain" in Unfinished Tales. The Drúedan were leaving Numenor little by little long before Sauron was brought to the island. They apparently have the ability to "foretell" things that affect their existence. They had to get captains of ships to allow them to board the ships. I think many of these Drûgs founded Drúwaith Iaur.

[@rosaliegrace905]

An incredible break down of another of Tolkien's mysteries. I'm in love with this channel and am so happy to watch!

[@Pandaemoni]

I always enjoy the speculation that the Druedain's physical description was inspired by neanderthals. If Tolkien saw Middle-Earth this as a fictional pre-history of our world, it makes sense that the neanderthals had to be there, somewhere and at some point.

[@GirlNextGondor]

The recently discovered species of a 3-foot "hobbit" hominid species is something I wish Tolkien had lived to learn of. I suspect there would have been vindicated table-thumping 😅

[@istari0]

@@GirlNextGondor Imagine what he might have done with a modern family tree for genus Homo!

[@PrometheanRising]

I don't know why I never knew how correctly pronounce Anduin, but as soon as I heard you say it everything made much more sense. Specifically, Brandywine and Baranduin suddenly got much closer to one another than they were before.

[@VineFynn]

Tolkien and his sneaky linguistic hobby

[@maxwellbien1992]

Your videos are so well thought out and written, also with fantastic presentation! New favorite Tolkien account

[@zephyr2988]

One of my very favorite people of Middle Earth. I’ve been reading Tolkien for over 35 years and absolutely love your channel! The subject you choose and perspective you bring is deep and unique. I subscribe to about 10 other Tolkien channels but always get the most excited when I see you’ve posted a new video. My 9 & 12 year old daughters, despite having very little interest in Tolkien, also love to hear your stories and voice. Keep up the fantastic job and thank you!!

[@HairTiesForGlorfindel]

Ah, i was just bingeing some of your work again! Excellent timing ☺️

[@GirlNextGondor]

Yay 🥰 I have improved a binge! Hope you enjoy it, a bit more of an obscure topic than even I usually tackle but it was a LOT of fun for me

[@sargonsblackgrandfather2072]

Han Buri Han (however you spell it) was one of the most underrated characters in LOTD

[@jensphiliphohmann1876]

13:35 It's hilarious that "Ororhai" sounds a bit like "Urukhai" whom the original orcs are allied but not at really good terms with. The "-hai", however, may just mean "folks", so it might be no big deal.

[@jimbombadill]

exellent video as always. I always loved the stories of the Druedain. Both from unfinnished tales and LOTR ...its just something quite sad about them...maybe mans loss of connection to nature, im not sure, but they always gave me a sad feeling inside.

[@robertcoplin2830]

Thanks for this episode. Informative and enjoyable. Tolkien's world building never ceases to amaze.

[@_creighton]

Just discovered your channel. Your sharing is a delight! Thank you.

[@SuperDMCNAIR]

Your analysis is inspiring me to be a better reader. Love your content and thank you!!

[@allisonkreutzberg6079]

Dru - edain. As in, related to the edain. I can’t believe I never noticed that! 😂 It actually clicked right before you explained the etymology, but I did a literal face palm to myself for having missed that all these years 😂. Wonderful video!

[@TheOtherMwalimu]

As an anthropologist and Tolkien fan, I loved your comparison of the Druedain and the Neanderthals. Many humans on earth today still have some Neanderthal DNA... so they never really died out. The more you read about Neanderthals through archaeology, my respect for the Neanderthal (Druedain?) increases!

[@jmgonzales7701]

as an anthropologist does race really exist? and how should it be classified? what is the difference between denisovan and neanderthal?

[@andykapfenstein7032]

​@@jmgonzales7701 race exists from my simplistic view is environmental. All people with darker are because they lived closer to the equator and their dark pigment just protected their skin from UV rays. While Asian people have more slanted eyes because during the last ice age they developed a second slight transparent thinner eyelid to protect their eyes from the cold but also because of glare of the sun off of the snow. There's other exexamples but I think that kinda roughly explains

[@nickkorkodylas5005]

When Australopetheci interbred with H. habilis did they have to say "no Homo"?

[@fabiansw8]

I belive we didnt have civilisation before neanderthals died out. I feel like alot of the concept here is about being wild and “uncivilised” compared to other men in middle earth

[@lukatrkanjec899]

My personal headcannon is that, in-universe, Druedain had to had something to do with hobbits - that they shared some common ancestry or descended from the same base stock of earliest humans. There are too many similarities: small lumpy stature, lack of beards, general avoidance of all other types of men, secrecy and reclusion, tribal-like insularity and isolation, proximity to earth and general earthly feel, fear and revulsion of the sea... heck, even some innate skill with primitive projectile weapons seems to be a trait of both: hobbits are good at throwing stones, Druedain with poison darts. As for them being inspired by Neanderthals... eeeeh, it's possible, but Tolkien himself was averse of attempts to "scientify" his mythology. Even in the case of Nazgul steeds, he is only reluctant to grant that, yes, they can be interpreted as pterodactyls, but remains firm that pterodactyls isn't what inspired them. And while he indeed might have imbued Druedain with some of his ideas about "prehistoric cave-men", one should also keep in mind that back in 1930s-1940s, the general understanding of Neanderthals and other early humans was far less sympathetic than it is today: less of "our long-lost cousins, strange but wise in their own way", and more of "primitive dumb brutes good for nothing but extinction."

[@Edward-nf4nc]

What is ironic is whilst historic events and mythology may have inspired JRR Tolkien, it was him who inspired the nickname of Homo Floresiensis, The Hobbit! They were both about three to four feet tall, were the same ancestral family, man or Homo, both used the same tools and for a while lived in the same lands, and in the Fourth Age men take over the whole of Middle Earth and Hobbits begin to fade and are rarely seen in later Ages, but as Ages is spelt with a capital A it implies they survive the Fourth Age or rathet 100 generations of men! And Homo Floresiensis were believed to have been the last Homo to die out! It's such a pity JRR Tolkien never knew how correct he was about Hobbits!

[@frankhancock2881]

This is a wonderful video for true Tolkien fans. I look forward to seeing more videos

[@obxwave]

On the plus side, this is yet another superb Tolkien analysis video…on the minus side, we aren’t any closer to “Of Maeglin” in the Silmarillion read-along….

[@jlburilov]

Not that it really matters for the main topic of the video, but the neanderthals also lived in Europe, they came to Europe way before homisapiens and lived alongside them for thousands of years. There last populations were on the fringes of Europe like Gibraltar.

[@fabster3333]

Fantastic work. Love the end regarding hitting the LIKE button 😆. Cheers !

[@samuellaakso7012]

Little beside the topic, but I always thought that if Orcs were corrupted forms of Elves and Trolls were corrupted forms of Ents, the Fell Beasts would have been corrupted form of Eagels. I never thought they could be Tolkiens interpretation of real life extinct animals like pterodactyls into his world. Great video!

[@cernunos8153]

Great video. Followed!

[@OnlyAFoolsHope]

There’s actually a subspecies of human we know very little about called Denisovans. Thought to be a branch off Neanderthal, but smaller with staunch frame. They lived in a time well before any civilization arose, and yet they made these curious jade bracelets with perfect drill holes in them, possibly to hold other trinkets. How they had access to smelting or carving a raw ore harder than steel is like heresy against mainstream historians.

[@Kuudere-Kun]

I think in addition to the influences you mentioned there might have also been some inspiration from non Indeoeurpean speaking peopels of Europe, like the Samii who inspired aspects of the Frozen movies.

[@konnorsullivan5993]

You should have added the Beornings at 4:10, they also branched off.

[@jennipherem3695]

Buillding on what you say about Neanderthals, this is my own reading of the Drúedain (and orcs and hobbits). Admittedly it's not directly suggested by the canon, but I feel it fits in a very satisfying way, both logistically and thematically. When Tolkien calls Drûgs and hobbits kindreds of men, I don't think he intends for us to imagine literal processes of evolution by natural selection over a few thousand years. Apart from being unrealistic (it would take many millions more), this doesn't seem like a very Tolkienian answer, since he conceived of his peoples as very distinct in their nature. Rather it seems more like they are all men in the sense that they all share the same essential nature, such as their relationship with the Fëa and death. I imagine that they were brought forth by Eru as they are, all at once - or at different times. Later in his life Tolkien experiments with the idea of men actually arriving earlier than is told in The Silmarillion. I speculate that this is actually true of Drûgs, awakening some time in the Years of the Trees. Perhaps they were intended to be guides and elders to younger men - but this purpose was disrupted by Morgoth. Coming forth earlier, it is now possible for the lieutenants of Morgoth to have captured some Drûgs and bred orcs out of them, in time for the events of the First Age in Beleriand. Latter generations could have been mixed with captive elves and men, but their essence is still Drûg in the beginning. This would explain the mysterious implied kinship and unique hatred between Drûgs and orcs, as well as their peculiar similarities. It also fits the profile of Drûgs as an early, 'primitive' race of men, coming west earlier than others being cruelly hunted - presumably as a result of Morgoth's corruption of men. But their intended purpose by Eru is perhaps seen in Beleriand and Drúadan forest, where they aid men with arts that the younger children have lost. What if we see hobbits as a later, third awakening of men? This would explain why they seem to arrive out of nowhere in the Third Age. Whereas Drûgs were elders to men, hobbits are children to them, and come to fulfill their own purpose in the late Third Age, with their size, endurance and courage serving to accomplish deeds in Eru's plan that older men could not. The agricultural, at times almost near-modern country British lifestyle of the hobbits also compares as younger than the early-medieval men that surround them, just as the Drûgs compare as a hangover of a previous age.

[@MatejCadil]

Great video, a fascinating topic and wonderful presentation (I love to listen to your videos). This is a topic I was myself researching just a few months ago when I wanted to make a drawing of the Drúedain. I realized I needed to clarify my own mental picture of them and one of the best ways to do that for me is to try drawing them and research all relevant sources that could influence my depiction. And I came to a similar conclusion as you: the connection of the Drúedain and the Neanderthals, which I find utterly fascinating. There are so many similarities in their physical appearance as you mentioned in the video, but even such details as their arrival as the first Men in western Middle-earth. Interestingly, relatively recent research showed that the Neanderthals were more intelligent than previously thought and had a fairly rich cultural life, which nicely fits with what Tolkien writes about them in the essays. There is also a theory among anthropologists is that even the Northern European myths of trolls and similar creatures had their origin in stories of early modern man's interactions with the then-dwindling race of Neanderthals, passed down for hundreds of generations and through much exaggeration. All in all I thin Tolkien used the medieval trope of the woodwose and filled it with new meaning informed by modern archaeology and anthropology, doing what he did so often: He suggested the "actual" origin of traditional folklore and legends. I have written about it in more detail, if you are interested: www.patreon.com/posts/starting-new-one-61031090 (as for the picture, I ended up drawing only a relatively simple drawing, but I would love to explore the Drúedain in my art more)

[@abooga8]

Matej! I've enjoyed your art a lot!

[@MatejCadil]

@@abooga8 Thank you!

[@emtiger3]

WOW!!!!!! Thanks, Lexi!! Outstanding!!😄

[@GirlNextGondor]

So glad you enjoyed it!

[@jeeplife2035]

My god.. there’s so much history and races Tolkien created in his world you could make movies for decades if done right would be so epic

[@jeeplife2035]

You’ve done such a great job in bringing these races to the front I’m honored to have listened to you. Amazing and well done

[@anchuisneoir3973]

04:10 I'm sorry but it's now well documented that the ancestors of the hobbits were in fact making pointless circular migrations somewhere in Rhovanian in a cruel attempt to weed out their weak.

[@GirlNextGondor]

😂😂Was not expecting this level of savagery in the comments, well done sir

[@anchuisneoir3973]

@@GirlNextGondor I couldn't resist it. Great content as usual, of course.

[@istari0]

😂🤣😂

[@Enerdhil]

I assume you believe only the racist white Hobbits survived the cleansing.🤪 Nice try! 😆🤣😂🤣😆

[@anchuisneoir3973]

@@Enerdhil You assume incorrectly.

[@WhoIsCalli]

Very good. Thanks for this!

[@waltonsmith7210]

It took me the longest time to realize theyre another species of human. Then they made much more sense. In the Nature of Middle earth it says that by Tolkiens revised timeline, about fifty thousand years passed between the awakening of men and their entrance into Beleriand because the original three hundred was absurd. That gives so much more time for all this diversity to emerge. Isnt it mindblowing to picture a middle earth human prehistory that lasts so long?

[@KipIngram]

Re: the picture of Merry at 15:59, one thing that has always bothered me a little is that the Hobbits (at least those of the Fellowship) seem invariably drawn as though they're children (like pre-teen or barely teen children). But at least Frodo was a thoroughly mature adult. I know he was supposed to have aged very gracefully because of the Ring, but it still feels to me like he should look like a mature adult, albeit "Hobbit sized" instead of Man sized. In some places Merry is described as wordly and of a mature nature, but the image here looks like a wide-eyed little boy.

[@nolgroth]

Awesome video. Thanks.

[@reggiethelion]

Yay! I love the Druedain!

[@EriktheRed2023]

Old Ghân is a sardonic badarse, and I love him!

[@GirlNextGondor]

His massive refusal to be impressed by Theoden is the textbook definition of 'based' 😁

[@Filthnails]

These guys sound amazing, shame they didn't have a stronger role. I had always wondered who they were in the story.

[@jacobitewiseman3696]

They should have had maori play the drudaine

[@mikedonohue9927]

Great job!

[@IanHeins]

Nice work thanks

[@yorktown99]

The Drúedain remain the most direct attack by Tolkien against racism. Of those men who fought with the Elves against Morgoth, not all were "white": the Elves counted a group of "Drúedain" in addition to the Edain and Dunedain. Some of the Drúedain moved to Numenor, but as that land fell further into the Shadow, the Drúedain of Numenor became deeply disturbed. They migrated back to Middle-Earth by the time Sauron came to Numenor. Their connections to the Men of the Mountains that Isildur bound in an oath was never made directly clear, nor was the connection to the Wild Men of Drúadan Forest mentioned beyond the name. It is said that Minas Arnor was first built as a defense against these men who lived along both sides of the White Mountains, just as Minas Ithil was built as a defense against the land of Mordor.

[@greenman6141]

Very good, very enjoyable.

[@Laucron]

Mmph, I don't know how I feel about them. Considering how the first men that ever woke up were modern looking it always struck me as odd to find characters such as these. I imagine Tolkien was just fascinated with the discoveries related to neanderthals and other hominins. Although now that I think about it, a lot of scholars back then saw the neanderthal as our predecessor or even a subspecies of Homo sapiens. So that might explain why he saw it fitting to include them. Can't blame him, such enigmatic people must have been a feast for thought for a scholar-storyteller such as him.

[@ImperatorPenguin]

And I just learned that the Druedain leader, Ghan-buri-Ghan, was almost in the Return of the King.

[@jaytucker7873]

I'll have to hit that like button like a Drúedain drum beating one last time in the forest of the internet!

[@GirlNextGondor]

DOOM oh wait wrong drums 😉

[@sirzorg5728]

I have heard suggestions that Neanderthals were individually more intelligent than modern humans, but they were less social and therefore could not maintain large group sizes, when enabled modern man to overrun their lands. As a not-particularly social guy, I strongly empathize with that.

[@GirlNextGondor]

Theoden: how can we ever repay you for this great service - - Ghan-buri-Ghan: you can go get yourselves killed fighting orcs and never come to visit us again Theoden: ...sounds doable

[@sirzorg5728]

@@GirlNextGondor :D

[@Enerdhil]

Honestly, everytime I hear or read people that make these kinds of assumptions, I 😆🤣😂. How do they know? Did they interview the skeleton? Modern science has lost its credibility. It is all woke and humanist.

[@leahlemieux]

this was a great video to come across. In England, historically, the Wood wose was certainly a known thing, so there was plenty for Tolkien to draw upon. kzbin.info/www/bejne/oqC9qHmEiZ17ldU

[@robertgebruers9519]

Superb video!

[@hglundahl]

20:01 w a i t ... is your video on PIE already "baked"?

[@GirlNextGondor]

More in the dough rolling stage to extend the metaphor, and I'm not 'following a recipe' aka I have no idea what I'm talking about, but the kurgan hypothesis will be involved... I hope to post some thoughts to patreon tonight or tomorrow!

[@hglundahl]

@@GirlNextGondor Have you thought of the two other hypotheses? These: Alinei's continuity with Neolithic Anatolian Farmers; Trubetskoy's Sprachbund theory. I have no patreon, do you think some will "leak" (totally different metaphor) to the simple youtube account?

[@jarrodcarver9001]

Great video Lexi!

[@IanHeins]

Nice work

[@shanenolan8252]

Thanks lexi

[@ThorSonOfOdin85]

Numenor is actually based on atlantis btw :) you can look it up too :)

[@kumabear3529]

Yay! I’ve always liked hearing about the woses.

[@jessewilliams9195]

Very interesting, thank you

[@seasidescott]

Have you looked at the Petty-Dwarves, those outcast from the other 7 tribes one reason given is for being undersized. Yep, a dwarf who was too short was cast out of his family and home. They formed their own tribe but were hunted to near extinction by the Elves who thought them animals, but even when learning better, they still stole their lands and took their homes. Finrod took the last home of the Dwarves, Nulukkhizdîn , and renamed it Nargothrond . But it was Húrin who killed Mîm, the last petty-dwarf known to exist. That all explains Galadriel trying to genocide the orcs in Rings of Power - just trying to match her brother Finrod in genocide count. Seems like the Hobbits would have been easier as they were often fat and lazy and all lived in one place. Sorta strange for Tolkien to be dissing on the shorter folk since he was no giant at 5'9'''.

[@JpMicheletti]

you're a true historian

[@LinguarumFautor]

I wonder if the toughness and craftsmanship of the Drùedain might not be the result of early attempts to “dwarf-ize” Men.

[@Enerdhil]

My favorite Druedan is Sadoc.🤪

[@mattanderson5921]

Some men stayed in the East like the Horradrim

[@kyleurban20]

Much enjoyed

[@dambrooks7578]

If only Tolkien had been an anthropologist instead of a professor of language, admittedly I am both biased as well as aware that Lord of the Rings wouldn't have been anywhere near as good and at least we have the ability to imagine now, not Peter Jackson level of imagination, but still...😅😊🙂 I would, however, recommend The Forest People by Colin Turnbull as it is both a great book, as well as illumination of common anthropologist ideas around the time Tolkien was writing at Oxford...

[@alexv3357]

It's amazing how far removed we are from the primary sources for Middle Earth, especially its deep history, and how much room that makes for fan-fiction and headcanon. All we have are one scholar's imperfect translations of a single group of Hobbits' limited interpretations of events that were already myth and legend to most elves of their age, filtered through the elves' own perceptions and biases and inattention to the races of men, put to paper thousands of years still thousands of years ago. There is no archaeological record of the peoples, places, and events of the Legendarium, nor even Tolkien's primary sources to go on. It's like trying to interpret the Epic of Gilgamesh except only in one person's translation of an ancient Egyptian translation of the older Sumerian legends which are all describing the legends of an even older neolithic people, all without any other texts in Sumerian or Egyptian, and no knowledge either language outside of that one translator's conflicting notes, and also nearly every character in the story including its authors aren't even modern Homo Sapiens and some have wildly differing biologies and psychologies and perspectives. Think about how alien already the Bronze Age Mediterranean and Near East are to us, how much the world changed even between the historical events of the Iliad and its compiling by Homer maybe 4-5 centuries later, much less between Homer and the world of today, and how much remains a mystery to us despite how much remains to us in archaeology and despite all the characters still being normal humans, and then multiply all of that by a thousand.

[@LearnRunes]

Your volume still seems a little quiet here but I seem to be able to hear it reasonably.

[@aozeliadhunter1499]

4 ft in height, strongly built, broad faces...seems like the human version of the Dwarves.

[@ivarisalie8759]

Druedein are based on stereotypes for slavs (or at least depictions of prechristian slavs), similarly to how hobbits are based on stefetypes of countryside englishmen. "Wild men. Free men".

[@ivarisalie8759]

Slavs and balts* I should have said

[@ecthelion1735]

How do you say "Elu Thiccgol" with a straight face in your credits?

[@GirlNextGondor]

Bold of you to assume I'm saying it with a straight face 😂

[@ecthelion1735]

@@GirlNextGondor at least I can hear you're not on the verge of cracking up. It sounds like you may be slightly rolling your eyes, though.

[@dhruvseoni8418]

The lost Numenorians

[@ChicagoDB]

A pity PJ omitted them :/

[@patriciofernandez6500]

Tolkien is so awesome!

[@RonJohn63]

17:39 This is not what "Science" thought of Neanderthals when Tolkien wrote his stories. Still, they're a reasonable match. 19:19 Is there evidence that Tolkien was interested in archaeology and paleontology?

[@22781dave]

Spoiler warning: they were the Entwives 😮

[@GirlNextGondor]

😆

[@KevDaly]

The description of their build and appearance seems decidedly Neanderthal-adjacent.

[@gnome_hat_kynio]

[@bryanmatthews2370]

I wish they could've added these guys into the return of the king movie, peter Jackson would've done it very well I believe

[@gallendugall8913]

Drúadan Forest, what a mess The orcs here are unwelcome guests Drúadan Forest, cause of stress Who will lead us through? I can only guess Well, it's Ghân-buri-Ghân He can lend a hand Yeah, it’s Ghân-buri-Ghân A wild man Yeah, it's Ghân-buri-Ghân He'll help, Rohan Yeah, it’s Ghân-buri-Ghân His name is fun to say Yeah Théoden king gotta clue A secret path only Ghan knew Wearin' a grass skirt, even in the gloom You could see his crack of doom And it's Ghân-buri-Ghân He can lend a hand It's Ghân-buri-Ghân A wild man He's Ghân-buri-Ghân He'll help, Rohan It's Ghân-buri-Ghân His name is fun to say I can tell from the look of your bulging gut That you didn't make the director’s cut I know that hurts and it always will So go have a beer with Tom Bombadil Well, it’s Ghân-buri-Ghân He can lend a hand Yeah, it's Ghân-buri-Ghân A wild man Yeah, it’s Ghân-buri-Ghân He'll help, Rohan Yeah, it's Ghân-buri-Ghân His name is fun Drúadan Forest, what a mess (Yeah, it's Ghân-buri-Ghân) The orcs here are unwelcome guests (Said it’s Ghân-buri-Ghân) Drúadan Forest, cause of stress (Yeah, it's Ghân-buri-Ghân) Who'll lead us through? I can only guess (Yeah, it's Ghân-buri-Ghân) Well, it's Ghân-buri-Ghân He'll lend a hand Yeah, it's Ghân-buri-Ghân A wild man Yeah, it's Ghân-buri-Ghân He'll help, Rohan Yeah, it's Ghân-buri-Ghân His name is fun to say Fun to say So fun to say Anyway We're gonna have a beer With Bombadil Bombadil Ah, Bombadil Yeah, Bombadil

[@mattanderson5921]

we are the round ears

[@yvonnerogers6429]

👍🏻

[@eluthiccgol4715]

🥰

[@dudeofdoriath1081]

🤙

[@GirlNextGondor]

🤘