Thoughts on Dorwinion
Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2022 4:04 am
NB I wrote this post as part of a tangent to a thread in TheOneRing.net's Reading Room forum, though it's a reworking of notes I wrote several months ago while doing background research for an AU fanfiction project. I hadn't tried to express these thoughts in a form suitable for public consumption before, but now that I have, I would love to get the Plaza's take on them!
I've implicitly assumed Dorwinion was an Elvish realm for as long as I can remember, mainly because its wine is said in The Hobbit to be potent stuff even by Wood-elf standards (the relevant passage can also be read to imply that the ability to hold one's liquor derives from one's social class, but that's neither here nor there :V). The name Dorwinion is Sindarin, translated by Tolkien as "Young-land country" (PE 17, p. 54), though it's frequently interpreted as Sindarin dor "land" + Welsh gwin "wine"—and might well have been so inspired.
The etymology of Dorwinion in PE 17 comes as part of a discussion of the Silvan Elves, and Tolkien follows it up by stating the country "was probably far south down the River Running, and its Sindarin name a testimony to the spread of Sindarin: in this case expectable since the cultivation of vines was not known originally to the Nandor or Avari” (p. 54; emphases in the original). This is consistent with the placement of Dorwinion on the Pauline Baynes map of Middle-earth, which Tolkien was involved in the creation of, where the name appears near the mouth of the River Running (Celduin) into the Sea of Rhûn.
Tolkien's linguistic discussion of Dorwinion in the same paragraph as the Sindarization of Lórien and Greenwood/Mirkwood would seem to suggest it was a similar realm, ruled by one of "the Sindarin princes of the Silvan Elves" discussed in Appendix B of The History of Galadriel and Celeborn and briefly mentioned in Appendix B of LOTR. Dorwinion is not mentioned by name in either of these texts, but it's worth noting the statement in G&C Appendix A that "by the end of the Third Age the Silvan tongues had probably ceased to be spoken in the two regions that had importance at the time of the War of the Ring: Lórien and the realm of Thranduil in northern Mirkwood" (UT, p. 257). While the extirpation of Silvan Elvish in Lórien and Mirkwood is contradicted by a different text quoted just a few pages later, it's worth noting the implicit mention of regions not of importance at the time of the War of the Ring, but also inhabited by Silvan Elves.
We should also note that the name Dorwinion was one of the many elements in The Hobbit borrowed from the earlier legendarium. It's referred to twice in The Lay of the Children of Húrin, where wine grapes are grown in "the burning South" and transported to Doriath by Dwarvish merchants from Nogrod. The wine is evidently highly potent: Orgof, known in the 1977 Silmarillion as Saeros, is said to have been drunk on Dor-Winion [sic] wine when he gave Túrin the insult that indirectly led to his death (lines 424–6, 483–4). Tolkien presumably did not have a fleshed-out geographical scheme in mind when he reused the name and function of Dorwinion wine in The Hobbit, but his later placement of it along the Sea of Rhûn—south of Mirkwood, though not necessarily far enough south to be "burning"—is reminiscent of the First Age account.
One could even imagine the First and Third Age Dorwinions being the same: Dorwinion-on-Rhûn is a mere navigable river journey away from the Dwarvish trade network. In late writing, Tolkien stated that the Dwarf-built Old Forest Road from the map in The Hobbit was already in existence by the early Second Age (HoMe XII, Of Dwarves and Men, note 30). Elsewhere, he specifically referred to bridges over both the Anduin and the Celduin (on opposite sides of the forest), noting that the bridges were built in the First Age but the entire road not completed until the early Second (NoMe, p. 372). If we want to mix and match texts written decades apart, we could imagine Thingol's wine being shipped up the Celduin[1] and carried along Dwarf roads all the way to Doriath, though I don't claim Tolkien himself ever had this in mind.
With all this in mind, I feel pretty confident in the theory that Dorwinion was an Elvish realm, though the possibility remains that it was not exclusively Elvish. In another discussion of the First Age history of the Sea of Rhûn, Tolkien wrote that the Edain had a long sojourn there during their migration period, with the Proto-Hadorians living in the forest on the northeast shore of the Sea, while the Proto-Bëorians "dwelt at the feet of the high hills to the south-west" (HoMe XII, The Problem of Ros, note 13; both these landforms can be clearly seen on the Pauline Baynes map). Andreas Möhn speculatively identified these hills as the location of Dorwinion on the basis that they would be suitable for wine-growing, though they are located south of the label on the Baynes map. While I disagree with Möhn's overall conclusion, I find this reasonable and consistent with the text.
At this point I am fully in the realm of headcanons, but I like the idea of a region of mixed Telerin (Nandor and/or Avari) and Proto-Bëorian settlement, far east of Beleriand, before the Edain encountered the Eldar. It's said in the 1977 Silmarillion that "the language of Bëor and his folk resembled the Elven-tongue in many words and devices" because they "had long had dealings with the Dark Elves east of the mountains, and from them had learned much of their speech" (ch. 17). I like to imagine Dorwinion was the site, or one of the sites, of contact between these peoples. I also imagine this contact was substantial.
The 1977 Silmarillion notes that the Bëorian and Hadorian languages were related (ch. 17), but does not elaborate on this. In a linguistic essay, Tolkien commented that after the divergence of the two originally related languages, "the language of Hador was apparently less changed and more uniform in style[2], whereas the language of Bëor contained many elements that were alien in character. This contrast in speech was probably connected with the observable physical differences between the two peoples" (HoMe XII, Of Dwarves and Men). My reading of this is that the Proto-Bëorians diverged linguistically and phenotypically from the Proto-Hadorians because of contact with the same outside group. Linguistically, we can say—referring back to their first contact with Finrod—that this influence was almost certainly Nandorin and/or Avarin, so I'd argue this is evidence for Bëorian/Dark Elvish intermarriage.
Blasphemy, I know, but Dark Elves are not covered by the closed list of three marriages of the Eldar and the Edain. There's precedent in the legendarium for a single (purported) marriage between a human and a Dark Elf influencing the physical appearance of an entire population. Even the foot soldiers of Dol Amroth were "tall as lords, grey-eyed, dark-haired" (ROTK, V 1), traits[3] that Legolas considered evidence that the legend of a Silvan Elf marrying into the Line of Dol Amroth was true (V 9). If something similar happened in Bëorian prehistory, it might have been in Dorwinion, one of the few areas we know both peoples inhabited, even if their concurrent presence must remain speculative. On the other hand, it could also have occurred in Eriador, where it's strongly implied by LOTR there was an urban Proto-Bëorian civilization prior to their entry into Beleriand—strongly contrasting with the idea that they showed up as "rude and scantily clad" nomads (HoMe XI, p. 216)—but that's a topic for another post.
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[1] While we're playing in late-texts-land, let's note the Teleri are said to have developed a sophisticated shipbuilding tradition while living on the shores of the Sea of Rhûn (HoMe XII, Last Writings, note 29). This is in contrast to the 1977 Silmarillion, where the Teleri learned shipbuilding from Ossë after reaching the coast of Beleriand. In The History of The Hobbit, John D. Rateliff notes that Tolkien's depiction of Elvish boats in paintings of Lake-town and of Taniquetil are "almost identical – naturally enough, having been built by two branches of the same kindred [the Teleri]" (HoTH, p. 428). One could interpret this as meaning that Thranduil and other refugees from Beleriand brought shipbuilding knowledge with them when they established their realm in Greenwood, but Doriath was not a shipbuilding realm, so I prefer to see this in light of the idea that the Telerin maritime tradition was already in place before they crossed the Anduin.
[2] Contrast the observation, in the endnotes to the same essay, of the strong resemblance between Khuzdul (Dwarvish) and Adûnaic, which is obvious at a glance. "This gave rise to the theory (a probable one) that in the unrecorded past some of the languages of Men – including the language of the dominant element in the Atani from which Adûnaic was derived [i.e., the Hadorian language] – had been influenced by Khuzdul" (HoMe XII, Of Dwarves and Men, note 4). The main text of ODAM describes the relationship between Dwarves and Hadorian-related peoples in the early Second Age, but on the basis of this linguistic evidence, I think it's clear that relationship must have begun in the First, before the separation of those who went to Beleriand and those who stayed in Rhovanion.
[3] Grey eyes and dark hair are also characteristically Bëorian traits according to the 1977 Silmarillion, but in ODAM, Bëorians are instead said to have had brown eyes, brown hair, and a greater range of skin tones than the Hadorians.
I've implicitly assumed Dorwinion was an Elvish realm for as long as I can remember, mainly because its wine is said in The Hobbit to be potent stuff even by Wood-elf standards (the relevant passage can also be read to imply that the ability to hold one's liquor derives from one's social class, but that's neither here nor there :V). The name Dorwinion is Sindarin, translated by Tolkien as "Young-land country" (PE 17, p. 54), though it's frequently interpreted as Sindarin dor "land" + Welsh gwin "wine"—and might well have been so inspired.
The etymology of Dorwinion in PE 17 comes as part of a discussion of the Silvan Elves, and Tolkien follows it up by stating the country "was probably far south down the River Running, and its Sindarin name a testimony to the spread of Sindarin: in this case expectable since the cultivation of vines was not known originally to the Nandor or Avari” (p. 54; emphases in the original). This is consistent with the placement of Dorwinion on the Pauline Baynes map of Middle-earth, which Tolkien was involved in the creation of, where the name appears near the mouth of the River Running (Celduin) into the Sea of Rhûn.
Tolkien's linguistic discussion of Dorwinion in the same paragraph as the Sindarization of Lórien and Greenwood/Mirkwood would seem to suggest it was a similar realm, ruled by one of "the Sindarin princes of the Silvan Elves" discussed in Appendix B of The History of Galadriel and Celeborn and briefly mentioned in Appendix B of LOTR. Dorwinion is not mentioned by name in either of these texts, but it's worth noting the statement in G&C Appendix A that "by the end of the Third Age the Silvan tongues had probably ceased to be spoken in the two regions that had importance at the time of the War of the Ring: Lórien and the realm of Thranduil in northern Mirkwood" (UT, p. 257). While the extirpation of Silvan Elvish in Lórien and Mirkwood is contradicted by a different text quoted just a few pages later, it's worth noting the implicit mention of regions not of importance at the time of the War of the Ring, but also inhabited by Silvan Elves.
We should also note that the name Dorwinion was one of the many elements in The Hobbit borrowed from the earlier legendarium. It's referred to twice in The Lay of the Children of Húrin, where wine grapes are grown in "the burning South" and transported to Doriath by Dwarvish merchants from Nogrod. The wine is evidently highly potent: Orgof, known in the 1977 Silmarillion as Saeros, is said to have been drunk on Dor-Winion [sic] wine when he gave Túrin the insult that indirectly led to his death (lines 424–6, 483–4). Tolkien presumably did not have a fleshed-out geographical scheme in mind when he reused the name and function of Dorwinion wine in The Hobbit, but his later placement of it along the Sea of Rhûn—south of Mirkwood, though not necessarily far enough south to be "burning"—is reminiscent of the First Age account.
One could even imagine the First and Third Age Dorwinions being the same: Dorwinion-on-Rhûn is a mere navigable river journey away from the Dwarvish trade network. In late writing, Tolkien stated that the Dwarf-built Old Forest Road from the map in The Hobbit was already in existence by the early Second Age (HoMe XII, Of Dwarves and Men, note 30). Elsewhere, he specifically referred to bridges over both the Anduin and the Celduin (on opposite sides of the forest), noting that the bridges were built in the First Age but the entire road not completed until the early Second (NoMe, p. 372). If we want to mix and match texts written decades apart, we could imagine Thingol's wine being shipped up the Celduin[1] and carried along Dwarf roads all the way to Doriath, though I don't claim Tolkien himself ever had this in mind.
With all this in mind, I feel pretty confident in the theory that Dorwinion was an Elvish realm, though the possibility remains that it was not exclusively Elvish. In another discussion of the First Age history of the Sea of Rhûn, Tolkien wrote that the Edain had a long sojourn there during their migration period, with the Proto-Hadorians living in the forest on the northeast shore of the Sea, while the Proto-Bëorians "dwelt at the feet of the high hills to the south-west" (HoMe XII, The Problem of Ros, note 13; both these landforms can be clearly seen on the Pauline Baynes map). Andreas Möhn speculatively identified these hills as the location of Dorwinion on the basis that they would be suitable for wine-growing, though they are located south of the label on the Baynes map. While I disagree with Möhn's overall conclusion, I find this reasonable and consistent with the text.
At this point I am fully in the realm of headcanons, but I like the idea of a region of mixed Telerin (Nandor and/or Avari) and Proto-Bëorian settlement, far east of Beleriand, before the Edain encountered the Eldar. It's said in the 1977 Silmarillion that "the language of Bëor and his folk resembled the Elven-tongue in many words and devices" because they "had long had dealings with the Dark Elves east of the mountains, and from them had learned much of their speech" (ch. 17). I like to imagine Dorwinion was the site, or one of the sites, of contact between these peoples. I also imagine this contact was substantial.
The 1977 Silmarillion notes that the Bëorian and Hadorian languages were related (ch. 17), but does not elaborate on this. In a linguistic essay, Tolkien commented that after the divergence of the two originally related languages, "the language of Hador was apparently less changed and more uniform in style[2], whereas the language of Bëor contained many elements that were alien in character. This contrast in speech was probably connected with the observable physical differences between the two peoples" (HoMe XII, Of Dwarves and Men). My reading of this is that the Proto-Bëorians diverged linguistically and phenotypically from the Proto-Hadorians because of contact with the same outside group. Linguistically, we can say—referring back to their first contact with Finrod—that this influence was almost certainly Nandorin and/or Avarin, so I'd argue this is evidence for Bëorian/Dark Elvish intermarriage.
Blasphemy, I know, but Dark Elves are not covered by the closed list of three marriages of the Eldar and the Edain. There's precedent in the legendarium for a single (purported) marriage between a human and a Dark Elf influencing the physical appearance of an entire population. Even the foot soldiers of Dol Amroth were "tall as lords, grey-eyed, dark-haired" (ROTK, V 1), traits[3] that Legolas considered evidence that the legend of a Silvan Elf marrying into the Line of Dol Amroth was true (V 9). If something similar happened in Bëorian prehistory, it might have been in Dorwinion, one of the few areas we know both peoples inhabited, even if their concurrent presence must remain speculative. On the other hand, it could also have occurred in Eriador, where it's strongly implied by LOTR there was an urban Proto-Bëorian civilization prior to their entry into Beleriand—strongly contrasting with the idea that they showed up as "rude and scantily clad" nomads (HoMe XI, p. 216)—but that's a topic for another post.
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[1] While we're playing in late-texts-land, let's note the Teleri are said to have developed a sophisticated shipbuilding tradition while living on the shores of the Sea of Rhûn (HoMe XII, Last Writings, note 29). This is in contrast to the 1977 Silmarillion, where the Teleri learned shipbuilding from Ossë after reaching the coast of Beleriand. In The History of The Hobbit, John D. Rateliff notes that Tolkien's depiction of Elvish boats in paintings of Lake-town and of Taniquetil are "almost identical – naturally enough, having been built by two branches of the same kindred [the Teleri]" (HoTH, p. 428). One could interpret this as meaning that Thranduil and other refugees from Beleriand brought shipbuilding knowledge with them when they established their realm in Greenwood, but Doriath was not a shipbuilding realm, so I prefer to see this in light of the idea that the Telerin maritime tradition was already in place before they crossed the Anduin.
[2] Contrast the observation, in the endnotes to the same essay, of the strong resemblance between Khuzdul (Dwarvish) and Adûnaic, which is obvious at a glance. "This gave rise to the theory (a probable one) that in the unrecorded past some of the languages of Men – including the language of the dominant element in the Atani from which Adûnaic was derived [i.e., the Hadorian language] – had been influenced by Khuzdul" (HoMe XII, Of Dwarves and Men, note 4). The main text of ODAM describes the relationship between Dwarves and Hadorian-related peoples in the early Second Age, but on the basis of this linguistic evidence, I think it's clear that relationship must have begun in the First, before the separation of those who went to Beleriand and those who stayed in Rhovanion.
[3] Grey eyes and dark hair are also characteristically Bëorian traits according to the 1977 Silmarillion, but in ODAM, Bëorians are instead said to have had brown eyes, brown hair, and a greater range of skin tones than the Hadorians.
I think it's great that people have fleshed out all these little corners of the legendarium. That's kind of what I was trying to do here, albeit in far less detail.
