Arnor

Arnor is the name the Númenóreans in Middle-earth gave to the northern of their two realms, set against Gondor in the south. The index to the published Silmarillion glosses it as the king's land, and the appended notes on name-elements place its opening syllable among the many names built on ar(a)-, a stem carrying the sense of high, noble or royal. The name therefore describes the realm by its rank, not by any feature of its terrain, in contrast to the southern kingdom, whose name points to stone. The form is Elvish rather than Adûnaic, in keeping with the practice of the Faithful, who held to the Eldarin tongues and used them for the realms founded after the downfall of their island.1

The royal sense of the name corresponds to the arrangement described in the account of the two kingdoms: the northern realm was the seat of Elendil himself, while his sons Isildur and Anárion held the south. A kingdom named for the king thus fitted the land in which the High King dwelt. Alongside the Elvish name, the texts commonly use plain descriptive equivalents such as the Northern Kingdom or the North-kingdom, which translate its position rather than its meaning and serve to set it apart from its southern counterpart.2

The same royal element later acquired a political weight of its own. In the chronicles of the northern line, the kings who ruled from Fornost at one point resumed a claim to lordship over the whole of the old realm, and in token of that claim took names beginning with the prefix ar(a)-. The syllable that had given Arnor its name thus became a mark of legitimacy, borne by rulers who wished to be seen as heirs of the undivided kingdom and not merely of one of its parts. The usage shows how closely the name of the realm and the dignity of its kingship remained bound together in the tradition recorded in the appendices of The Lord of the Rings.3

Arnor was a kingdom of Eriador, the broad country west of the Misty Mountains, and at its height it covered most of that land. The account of the northern realm in the appendices to The Lord of the Rings sets its western limit at the River Lhûn, beyond which lay the Elvish lands of Lindon. To the east and south-east its bounds ran along the Greyflood and the Loudwater. The country beyond those rivers, where Rivendell and Hollin lay, stood outside the realm. Arnor was thus defined chiefly by rivers and mountains. It was a wide inland kingdom between the Elves of the western coasts and the great range to the east, with only a short reach to the sea near the mouths of the Lhûn.1

The land within these bounds was varied rather than uniform. In the north-west lay Lake Evendim, from which the Baranduin flowed south-east across the lowlands that later became the Shire. East of the lake rose the North Downs. Further east ran the line of the Weather Hills, whose southern end, Weathertop, commands a wide view over the Great East Road where it crosses the wilds towards the mountains. South of the Road lay the Barrow-downs, a country of grassy heights crowned with ancient mounds, older than the realm itself. The roads that crossed Eriador from east to west and from north to south joined these districts together. By the time of the War of the Ring, travellers on those roads passed through a largely empty land, where the traces of the old kingdom showed as ruins on hilltops and as dikes and walls grown over with grass.2

What set the realm apart in the landscape were the works its builders left on high ground. The account of the Third Age in The Silmarillion names the towers raised on Emyn Beraid, the Tower Hills in the far west of the realm, and on Amon Sûl in the east. It also mentions the Númenórean settlements in the hills of Rhudaur and the barrows and ruined works scattered over the northern country. Of all these works, only the towers of Emyn Beraid are said to have endured. They stand on the western edge of the realm and look towards the sea, marking the side from which the founders had come. Elsewhere the kingdom survived in the land as scattered remains on hills and downs, not as a living realm.3

The northern realm was founded in the Second Age, after the survivors of the Downfall of Númenor were carried to the coasts of Middle-earth. The Tale of Years sets the establishment of the Realms in Exile in the year 3320. Elendil came ashore in Lindon, was received in friendship by Gil-galad, and took Eriador for his kingdom, the lands between the Blue Mountains and the Misty Mountains. His chief city was Annúminas beside Lake Nenuial, and Fornost on the North Downs was another great dwelling of his people. The seeing-stones brought out of Númenor were divided between the realms; in the north they were kept at Annúminas, on Amon Sûl and in the tower of Elostirion upon Emyn Beraid, the last of these being turned towards the West.1

The founding generation did not long enjoy peace. When Sauron attacked Gondor, Elendil and Gil-galad joined in the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, and the host of the north marched with the Elves to the Battle of Dagorlad and the siege of the Dark Tower. In 3441 Sauron was overthrown, but Elendil fell in that struggle. Isildur, now High King, did not return to his father's realm: early in the Third Age he was ambushed by Orcs in the Gladden Fields and slain there together with his three elder sons. The kingship of Arnor passed to his youngest son Valandil, who had remained at Rivendell during the war, and the shards of Elendil's sword were preserved there as an heirloom of the line.2

The Dúnedain of the north were fewer than their kin in Gondor, and their numbers waned over the centuries. After the death of the tenth king, Eärendur, in 861, the realm was divided among his three sons into Arthedain, Cardolan and Rhudaur. Arthedain lay in the north-west and held Fornost, Cardolan the south, and Rhudaur the north-east between the Weather Hills and the mountains. The three kingdoms were often at odds, and their quarrels centred on the Weather Hills and the tower of Amon Sûl, where the chief palantír of the north was kept. In Rhudaur the Dúnedain dwindled until the land came under the rule of Hillmen, who were not friendly to their neighbours.3

Around 1300 a new peril arose in the north beyond the Ettenmoors, where the Lord of the Nazgûl established the realm of Angmar and became known as the Witch-king. His purpose was the destruction of the remaining Dúnedain of the north. In 1409 a great host from Angmar invaded, supported from Rhudaur; the tower on Amon Sûl was burned and Arveleg I of Arthedain was killed, though Fornost and the Barrow-downs were defended and the palantír of Amon Sûl was saved and taken to Fornost. Cardolan suffered heavily in these wars, and after the Great Plague of 1636 its Dúnedain came to an end. Evil spirits out of Angmar and Rhudaur then entered the deserted mounds of the Barrow-downs.4

Arthedain survived alone for some three centuries more. Its king Arvedui, wedded to a daughter of the royal house of Gondor, put forward a claim to the southern crown in 1944, which the southern kingdom refused, although it later sent help in the hour of need. In 1974 the Witch-king overran Arthedain and took Fornost. Arvedui fled into the far north and in the following year was lost at sea in the Ice Bay of Forochel, and with him perished the two palantíri that had still been kept in the north. A fleet from Gondor under Eärnur arrived too late to save the kingdom, but in the Battle of Fornost the forces of Angmar were broken, and the Witch-king departed from the north.5

The North-kingdom ended as a realm, but its royal line continued. Aranarth, the son of Arvedui, took the title of Chieftain of the Dúnedain rather than king, and his successors were fostered at Rivendell, where the heirlooms of their house were kept. Their people became a wandering folk, the Rangers, who guarded the empty lands of Eriador. At the end of the Third Age, after the fall of Sauron, Aragorn, the sixteenth Chieftain, received the crowns of both Gondor and Arnor. Under him the northern realm was restored within the Reunited Kingdom, and Annúminas was rebuilt as one of the royal seats.6

The ruling people of Arnor were the Dúnedain, descendants of the Faithful who had escaped the Downfall, but they were never the only inhabitants of Eriador. The realm took in lands where older populations already lived, among them the Men of Bree and the hill-folk of the east, and the Númenórean settlers remained a governing minority whose strength rested on their cities, towers and fortified hills more than on numbers. Kingship descended in the line of Isildur, and the kings of the undivided realm reckoned themselves the senior branch of Elendil's house. Their royalty was marked not by a crown but by the Sceptre of Annúminas and by a single white gem worn upon the brow, the Elendilmir. When the line of Isildur failed in Cardolan and Rhudaur, the kings of Arthedain claimed lordship over the whole North; Cardolan accepted the claim, while Rhudaur, already under Hillmen of doubtful loyalty, did not.1

Relations with the Elves were close from the founding onward. The friendship between Elendil and Gil-galad set a pattern that later generations maintained with Círdan in Lindon and with Elrond in Rivendell, where the heirs of the royal house were fostered after the kingdom's end. The Elves gave aid in the wars against Angmar, and the heirlooms of the line were entrusted to Rivendell for safekeeping. In the far north the Dúnedain had dealings with the Lossoth of Forochel, a poor and wary people who nonetheless sheltered the last king of Arthedain in his flight and received a ring from him in return.2

Their royalty was marked not by a crown but by the Sceptre of Annúminas and by a single white gem worn upon the brow, the Elendilmir.

The Hobbits also entered the realm as subjects. In the year 1601 of the Third Age the brothers Marcho and Blanco led a company across the Baranduin with leave from the king at Fornost, who granted them the land beyond the river. In return the Hobbits acknowledged his lordship, undertook to keep the bridges and roads in repair and to help his messengers on their way. The Shire-folk later held that they had sent archers to the king in the last war of the North, and long after the kingdom fell they continued to regard the vanished king as the source of their laws.3

In The Lord of the Rings the North-kingdom is never visited as a living realm. It is a country the hobbits cross without at first knowing its name. From the Shire eastward, Frodo and his companions travel through the former territory of Arnor, and the story repeatedly lets the vanished kingdom surface in the landscape. On the Barrow-downs the four hobbits are taken by a wight and rescued by Tom Bombadil. Among the grave-goods they receive long daggers, which Tom explains were forged by Men of Westernesse who fought the evil king of Angmar. Merry, waking from his enchantment, briefly speaks as if he had been one of those men, struck down in a night attack. This is the first moment in the book where the old wars of the North reach into the present.1

From Bree onward the kingdom acquires a human face in Strider, a Ranger whose rank the hobbits do not yet grasp. On Weathertop he points out the ring of ruin that once was a watch-tower of the northern kings. There Sam recites the lay of Gil-galad, and Aragorn tells the tale of Beren and Lúthien. That same night the Black Riders attack, and the Witch-king wounds Frodo. The scene places the chief servant of Sauron on the very hill his armies had once laid waste. At the Council of Elrond, Aragorn describes how his people have kept a hidden watch over the northern lands. Arnor thus appears less as a past state than as an unseen protection still at work.2

The threads laid down in Eriador are drawn together far to the south. Merry's blade from the barrow wounds the Lord of the Nazgûl on the Pelennor, and the narrator notes that its makers had wrought it for exactly such an enemy. At the close of the tale, Gandalf tells Barliman Butterbur that a king will again rule in the North. He foresees that the empty roads and wild lands around Bree will come back into use. Within the story, Arnor stands for a loss that is not final: a kingdom remembered in ruins, weapons and songs, and restored when the heir who walked its roads as a Ranger returns as king.3

In Peter Jackson's film trilogy the northern kingdom is not a setting in its own right, and its history reaches the screen only in fragments. The prologue of the first film presents the war of the Last Alliance, with Peter McKenzie as Elendil and Harry Sinclair as Isildur, but it passes over the founding of the realms in exile and the division between north and south. The heir of the northern line is played by Viggo Mortensen, and the ruin on Weathertop remains the place where the Black Riders attack the travellers. The largest departure concerns the barrows. The films leave out the Barrow-downs and Tom Bombadil entirely, so the hobbits do not receive their blades from an ancient grave. Aragorn hands them swords on the way instead, and the link between the weapons and the old war against Angmar disappears. As a result, the moment in the last film when Merry wounds the Witch-king has no stated connection to the smiths of the North. The broken sword of the royal house also follows a different course: in the films it is reforged only late in the war and brought to Aragorn by Elrond, played by Hugo Weaving. In the book it is remade at Rivendell before the Company sets out.1

The later Hobbit trilogy adds material with no counterpart in either novel. In the second film, Gandalf, played by Ian McKellen, goes to the High Fells of Rhudaur and finds tombs there that are said to have held the Nazgûl. This invented site places the old north-eastern province of the kingdom at the centre of the films' account of the Necromancer's return. Tolkien's texts contain no such burial of the Ringwraiths in Rhudaur.2