The Free Peoples

Skilled blacksmiths and craftsmen: the Naugrim

"Another world so far below,
Hidden kingdom, the land of their own:
Mahal's tribe so mighty and old
Delving tunnels under the ground..."
Battlelore - Kazad-Dûm pt. 1-Ages Of Mithril

Tolkien's description of the Dwarves (Khazâd in the dwarven language) does not defer much from the common imagination of what a dwarf is supposed to look like: Of course they were rather small of size (though not as small as the hobbits) and strongly built, they had long beards (the women as well) and carried axes. Unless slain in battle, they lived about 250 years until they turned to the stone they were made out of.
Descended from the Seven Fathers created by Aulë the Smith, who had given them a proud and strong will to resist the torture of Morgoth, they mined and processed gold and jewels, made beautiful amour and jewelry in vast cave systems that made up whole subterranean kingdoms.
In the beginning they traded their products with the Elves and supported them in the wars against Morgoth, being able to resist the fire of his dragons, but they soon got estranged from them and distrusted them ever after; they drew back into their caves under the mountains were they persued their work and fought wars only if they were attacked or to reconquer places they had been driven away from. But the dwarves were not as good and peace-loving as it may seem: Their love for jewels and metal often made them greedy, and their desire to possess the Silmarils even led them to murder the elven king Thingol and destroy Menegroth which they had built for him in their times of friendship; the Dwarves of Khazad-Dûm unchained the balrog of Moria when digging for the precious metal Mithril too deep and too greedily. They refused, however, to help Sauron find the One Ring even when he threatened them, and sought advice from Elrond Halfelven (12).
At the time when the events described in ‘The Lord Of The Rings’ took place, the Dwarves had already drawn back from the world and had but a few relationships with other peoples. Due to this, they are at most talked about and characterised indirectly, with one exception: Gimli, Glóin's son, part of the Fellowship of the Ring.
Many of them got killed in the wars for Kazad-Dûm and the Lonely Mountain (the Battle of Five Armies of which is told in 'The Hobbit'); the few that remained were nearly estinguished in the Ring War.

Children of the Stars: the Quendi

"Hearing music from the deepest forest,
Songs as a seduction of sirens.
The elf-folk is calling me..."
Nightwish - Elvenpath

The fairest and wisest race of Arda was already about to vanish from Middle-Earth in the Third Age: the Elves.
They awoke as soon as the stars were lit over Middle-Earth and so they were the first thing they saw; they loved them above all things and their light shone in their eyes and from their faces ever after.
As they were unsheltered from the evil of Melkor, the Valar invited them to come to Valinor and settle there. However, not all of the Quendi, "those who speak with voices", as they called themselves (as they were the first beings able to speak and every speaking race in Middle-Earth had learned it from them), wanted to leave Middle-Earth: Those who refused the Great Journey to Aman were called the Avari, those who reached Beleriand and the sea were called the Eldar; these were the Noldor, "the Wise", the Vanyar, "the Fair" and the Teleri, "the Last-comers". The Noldor and the Vanyar collectively reached the big island on which Ulmo, the Lord of the Waters, shipped the Eldar to the Undying Lands, but only a small part of the Teleri ever got to Eldamar, the Elvenhome: They first time the Teleri got sepparated was when they reached the Misty Mountains on their way west; those who didn't dare crossing them and settled in the valleys of Anduin were called the Nandor, "Those who turn back". A second part of the Teleri stayed in the forest of Doriath where their king Singollo (later Thingol) met the Maia Melian and didn't want to leave Beleriand any more, enchanted by her. Those were called the Sindar (Grey-Elves or Elves of Twilight, being neither Elves of the Light nor of the Darkness); they later joined up with the Falathrim, a third part of the Teleri who had stayed at the cost of Beleriand, and the Laiquendi or Green-Elves, those of the Nandor who had come west over the mountains later. The rest of the Teleri went to Eldamar where they built the city and haven of Alqualondë, having fallen in love with the sea on their journey to the Undying Lands.
The Elves loved songs and lore; they were rather tall, with hair resembling spun gold and voices like the sound of flowing water. They saw and felt many things that Men could not percieve and could even sometimes foresee the future because they lived in two worlds at once: the "real" world and the spiritual world, a fact that often made the other peoples believe that they could do "magic". Their belonging to two different worlds was also the reason why Elves did not have the need to sleep. They rather fell into some kind of trance or meditation, refreshing themselves in the World of Spirits.
Elves were "immortal": Although they did grow older (which did, however, only make them more beautiful), they only died from grief or if they were slain in battle; if so, their soul went to Mandos, the Halls of Awaiting, from were it was sent back to Arda in another body. In old age, however, they often got weary of life in Middle-Earth and set sail for Valinor.
All in all, one could say that the Elves are everything we humans would like to be.
And still, this fair, "pefect", race is not free of guilt:

The Curse Of Fëanor

In the Age of the Trees, the Noldo Fëanor made the Silmarills. They were the most beautiful gems ever made and the light of the Trees was captured in them and the Valar hallowed them so they could not be touched by an evil being. The Noldor loved them, especially after Melkor had destroyed the Trees and darkness had fallen in Valinor, but Melkor lusted to possess the precious gems. He spread lies and discord among the Noldor and especially poisoned Fëanor ‘s heart, so when Melkor finally got hold of the Silmarils and escaped to Middle-Earth with his prey, Fëanor and his sons swore an oath that they would "persue with vengeance and hatred to the ends of the World Vala, Demon, Elf or Man as yet unborn, or any creature, great or small, good or evil, that time should bring forth until the end of days, whoso should hold or take or keep a Silmaril from their possession." (13) Many of the Noldor decided to go with them because they longed to rule a realm of their own, among them Galadriel, the later Lady of Lothlórien. The Valar did not hold them back, but they warned them that no help had to be expected from their side and when the Noldor still didn't turn back, they banned them from the Undying Lands. Now when the Noldor came to Alqualondë and the Teleri refused to give them their ships for the crossing, they drew their swords and took the ships of the Teleri by force. Having killed their own kin, they were cursed by the Valar so that, when they finally got the Silmarils back after many fights and further outrages, they could not touch them any longer. Maglor, the only surviving son of Fëanor, was condemned to endless grief, regretting his evil deeds but not daring to seek redemption from the Valar, weary of life but unable to die.

The Eldar fought various victorious battles against Morgoth, and later Sauron, in the First and Second Age, but by the beginning of the Third Age most of their realms had been destroyed and they realized that the time of the Elves was over and the time of Men had begun. Most of them left the fate of Middle-Earth to the human race and sailed into the West (also the Noldor whose curse had been lifted); few of them remained in Rivendell, Lothlórien, Lindon and Mirkwood. Due to this development, only some Elvish characters, such as Legolas, Galadriel and Elrond, had a part in the events of the Ring War; after the One Ring had been destroyed and the Three Rings of the Elves had lost their power, Lothlórien fell; the Elven colony in Ithilien founded by Legolas was the last Elven Realm to be established.

Children of the sun: the Fírimar

"Children of the sun, second kindred,
They moved westwards towards the sunshine.
They are morning-breath like,
Short’s their life
Like dawn passes by
When the day comes."
Blind Guardian - A Dark Passage

10 000 years after Elves and Dwarves had awoken, the Valar lit Moon and Mun and thus woke up the third of the three great Free Peoples of Middle-Earth in the eastern land of Hildórien: the Fírimar, Mortal Men. The Elves called them "the Sickly" because they were easily killed by external influences such as diseases. They proved, however, to multiply and spread rapidly. When Morgoth found out that they were weak in mind and tried to gain influence over them, they got divided into three big groups: the High Men and the Middle Men who fled him and went westwards, following the Sun, and the Men of Darkness who stayed behind and fell under his shadow.

From noble mariners to disreputable Rangers:
The Downfall of Númenor

Some of the human tribes that fled Morgoth (Edain) went to the Northwest until they reached Beleriand. There they achieved glorious deeds allying with the Noldor and learning a lot of their skill and wisdom. Of those who survived its downfall, some went East and joined up with other Men who had never set foot on Beleriand (North Men of Rhovanion); the others stayed with the Elves and were given the island of Númenor by the Valar. The Númenórians (or Dúnedain) were granted a long life of far more than a hundred years and became a powerful and noble seafaring people. But doom was already at hand: Seduced by Sauron they assailed the Valar who sank Númenor into the ocean. Of those who survived, one part was loyal to Sauron ever after (Black Númenórians and Corsairs of Umbar), the other part - the most noble of the Dúnedain (Elendili) escaped in nine ships and set up the two great Kingdoms of Men in Middle-Earth: the Northern Kingdom of Arnor, ruled by Elendil, and the Southern Kingdom of Gondor, ruled by Isildur and Anárion, Elendil's sons. All three of them were, however, killed soon after (Elendil and Anárion in the Battle of the Gladden Fields, Isildur in an orc attack); Wild Men and evil creatures such as orcs attacked the two kingdoms. And while Gondor found allies against the assaults of the Wild Men in the Middle Men of the North (especially the Rohirrim) and continued to exist (ruled by stewards for the line of the kings had ceased), Arnor was destroyed by the army of the Witch-king. The few survivors became known as the Rangers of the North: They wandered through the wasted lands until the rightful heir of Isildur, King Elessar (Aragorn, son of Arathorn II) rebuilt Arnor and united the two kingdoms after Sauron's defeat in the Ring War.
In the time of the Ring War, only few of the Dúnedain were left; most of the Middle and Wild Men did not know that they were descendants of the Edain and avoided them (14). Without a cause: In fact, they had still got the wisdom of the Noldor and were learned in lore at least as well as trained in battle. They protected the North from all dangers, but they preferred to do it in secret, unnoticed and without a reward, hiding their real origin. (15)
They did, however, unveil their descent in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields when they arrived in the ships of the defeated Corsairs of Umbar under the lead of Aragorn who revealed himself as Isildur's heir.

Lake-men, Woodmen, Horse-lords: the Middle Men

The human tribes that went west fleeing Melkor but never came to Beleriand were called the Middle Men or North Men. They were quite alike the High Men, but they had not been taught by the Elves and were thus not as wise and more easily corrupted (cf. Gríma's influence on Théoden or Boromir's (16) inability to resist the power of the One Ring) and tended to have some bad character traits (cf. Denethor's preference for his first-born son Boromir). All of them did, however, fight Sauron and his servants, the Rohirrim and the Men of Gondor defeating Sauron's army in the Batlle of the Pelannor Fields, others like the Beornings or the Woodmen driving Sauron's minions away from the fortress of Dol Guldur in Mirkwood or the Lake-men of Dale defeating the dragon smaug in 'The Hobbit'.
In general, having been influenced neither by Morgoth nor by the Elves, they are pretty much like our human race: Not too wise, sometimes selfish, but with a general good will.

Sauron's minions: the Men of Darkness

In the second half of the First Age, a new kind of Men came to Beleriand: Those who who had stayed behind and fallen under the shadow of Melkor had left the land of Hildórien which was now called Rhûn. They split up into various tribes and established their realms all over Middle-Earth; from there they went to war whenever Sauron summoned them.
Those who went south to Harad and allied with the Black Númenórians and the Corsairs of Umbar were called the Haradrim. They had dark brown or black skin, hair and eyes and rode to battle on the backs of enormous elephant-like beasts called Mûmakil; they were said to be as cruel as orcs. The Easterlings went to Beleriand and pretended to be friends of the Elves whom they betrayed by suddenly turning towards them in battle; they were small and strongly built Men with brown or yellow skin and long arms.
Only of the Dunlendings, some turned out good: those who settled in and around Bree became a friendly and merry people that lived side by side with the Hobbits. Others drew back into the forests where they hunted with bows and blowpipes; these were called the Drúedain or Wild Men. They did not care about the wars of Men for a long time, but in the Ring War they came to the aid of Gondor and Rohan because they thought that only a war on Mordor could stop the orc attacks on their own lands.
The rest of the Dunlendings, however, became a wild and barbarian people that especially hated the Rohirrim and often assailed them. When Saruman declared them their plan of wiping out Rohan, they were prepaired to fight for him; they were also the ones who provided the genetic material for Saruman's half-orcs.
A special role among the Dunlendings is taken by the Men of Dunharrow: When they broke their oath to Isildur and fought on Sauron's side in the war, they were cursed and haunted the White Mountains as ghosts ever after. However, when Aragorn came to call them to arms in the Ring War, they had a great part in the defeat of Sauron's army on the Pelannor Fields by overcoming the Corsairs of Umbar, enabling Aragorn to sail to Minas Tirith in their ships, and so they redeemed their oath and finally found peace.


It is conspicious that the Elendili - the most noble - and the Drúedain - the most primitive - of Men were the only tribes that never followed Sauron or Saruman; even the Númenórians who had been taught by the Noldor in Beleriand, were persuaded by Sauron to assail Valinor. This negative imagine of man was probably influenced by Tolkien's experience of the two World Wars where he experienced bad sides of man such as corruptness and greed for power; the positive way in which the Drúedain are presented might reflect Tolkien's dislike of the indistry which was destroying the nature he loved so much.

The smallest hands can turn the wheels of time: The Periannath

"Hobbits are really amazing creatures., as I have said before.
You can learn all there is to know about their ways in month,
and yet after a hundred years they can still surprise you at a pinch." (17)
Gandalf

The Hobbits are probably the most unique and most important race in Tolkien's universe, not only because they are used to bring across one of the most important messages in 'The Lord Of The Rings', but also because the are the only beings originally created by Tolkien, without any mythologic model. If they were made after any model at all, it can be found not in the Edda or the King Arthur saga but in Tolkien's surrounding: his friends, his family, himself.
And there is something else that is special about the Halflings: As they were probably fit into the whole creation of Middle-Earth at a rather late point, appearing only in ‚The Hobbit‘ and ‚The Lord Of The Rings‘ and in none of the accounts of the First and Second Age, they seem to be the only race of Arda that is not given a detailed history. It is said, however, in the prologue to ‘The Lord Of The Rings‘ that they were a very ancient people that had lived near Greenwood the Great since the Elder Days and moved towards and settled in the Shire when Sauron built Dol Guldur in the forest which was later called Mirkwood. There were three Hobbit peoples: the Fallohides, the Harfoots and the Stoors. While the Fallohides and the Harfoots were very alike, the Stoors were what the other Hobbits would have called "queer": They did, for example, go swimming or fishing in boats while the others had a fear of water. Sméagol was one of them.
Hobbits were even smaller than Dwarves and wore brighly coloured clothes, but no shoes (except for the Stoors) because their feet had a thick skin and were covered with hair as brown and curly as that on their heads. They could move without a sound, but being a very merry people they often sang when walking through the fields and meadows of the Shire. They loved dancing and hearing tales about their ancestors as much as drinking and smoking; the pipe weed of the Shire was the best in whole Middle-Earth. They usually reached an age of about a hundred years and became of age only at 33.
It is quite astonishing that it was a Hobbit who went on the perilious journey to Mordor for they were most content as long as they could stay in their comfortable living-holes and have six meals a day without having to get used to anything new or maybe even getting themselves into danger; such things as adventures were considered unhonourable and foolish. However, once they had gotten caught up in one, they proved very courageous and persevering, to the surprise of their companions.

Herdsmen of the forests: Ents and Huorns

"Here it stands, the mighty wood of great age,
Hiding secrets from the early years:
Great guardians, fathers of woods
Defending thier ancient pride.
Long ago they wandered the land..."
Battlelore - Fangorn

The Dwarven peoples were not the only ones the Elves met and taught how to speak on their way west: Deep in the forests they met the Ents, living trees created by Yavanna to watch over the thriving of the plants of Middle-Earth.
There were different like one tree is different from the other: They had the appearance of different kinds of trees and were different in height, girth and shape. The only thing they had in common were their eyes which glowed in a green light; looking into them was like looking into the World inself and feeling ist age.
They lived in "houses" (usually caves) that were surrounded by trees and often had a creek running through them, but they preferred sleeping under a waterfall or out in the rain. They slept standing and looked like normal trees as long as they did and they fed on a drink that was very refreshing and made any other being that drank it grow (like Merry and Pippin who became the tallest Hobbits in history).
The Elves had taught them to speak Eldarin and the Common Language, but they also developped their own one. It took very long to say something in Entish because they did not have single words for anything but told the full story of a thing or living being instead; they thought that calling, for example, a river by such a "hasty" word was not doing justice to its age and long history.
Ents were very wise and very calm, peaceful beings not easily annoyed, but once they were in rage, they could tear down any wall or building; during the Ring War they completely devastated Isengard, residence of the treacherous Wizard Saruman.
Although Ents were practically immortal because they could only be killed by axes or fire which did not happen too often because they hardly left the forests, in the Third Age they were about to vanish, for two reasons: Firstly, many Ents were becoming "sleepy". They were hardly talking or moving any longer and after a while they could not be distinguished from normal trees any more. Secondly, the Ents could not multiply any longer because they had lost the Entwives. In the Ages of the Stars, Ents and Entvives had lived together taking care of the trees. But when the Sun first appeared in the sky, they sepparated: While the Ents desired to stay in the forests and teach the trees how to speak and move, the Entwives wanted to have gardens out in the open, with herbs, grass and bushes and trees carrying fruit.
When the Ents came to the gardens of the Entwives one day, they found them deserted and ravaged by war; the Entwives had gone. Although the Ents travelled all over Middle-Earth looking for them, they were never found again.

Huorns were trees who had awoken to life (18). They could only talk to Ents (and sometimes, but seldom, to Elves) and most of them were unable to walk although they could move their branches and roots. There were also evil Huorns who hated Men and Dwarves because they often chopped down trees; the Old Willow-man in the Old Forest who attacked Frodo, Merry and Pippin was one of them.

The most interesting fact about Ents and Huorns is probably that the Hobbits, who lived near the Old Forest, did not know about them. The few Hobbits who had ever dared to enter it said they had seen the trees moving and heard them whispering to each other, but the others did not believe in those stories about the trees"surround[ing] strangers and hem[ing] them in" (19).

Wise wizards from the west: The Istari

"Higher beings turned to flesh and blood,
The Five Wizards came to help the people of Arda
To raise light over Sauron’s might."
Battlelore - The Grey Wizard

The Istari are probably the most interesting group in Middle-Earth’s population. They were Maiar who were sent over the sea by the Valar in the beginning of the Third Age. They were, however, not supposed to reveal their real nature and their full powers and only the wisest knew who they really were; they had the appearance of old men with long grey hair and beards. They did also feel hunger, tiredness and pain like humans; most Men thought they were of the Elven-folk because they did not die and called them "Wizards".They wandered all across the world, gathering all the wisdom they could, for their mission was to aid Elves and Men in their struggle against Sauron’s encreasing power; each of them had his characteristic abilities.
Of the five Istari who came to Middle-Earth, two, whose cloaks were blue, went into the East and never returned and Radagast the Brown went into the woods were he learned the languages of beasts and birds and ceased to care about the fate of Elves and Men. Only two of them had a part in the events of the Ring War: Saruman the White, who ran over to the evil side, and Gandalf the Grey who was the only Istar to fulfill his task.



At first sight, the story of the Ring War suggests that the population of Middle-Earth was split up into a "good" and an "evil" side. However, if you look at the different peoples more closely, you learn that they were very unlike each other and that some of them joined the war only when they realized that their own kin was in danger: Some - mostly Elvish and Dwarven - peoples did not care about the events of the war until it became a peril to them, living drawn back into or under mountains or into forests, and others (like the Hobbits) did not even know, for a long time, that there was a war going on.
Although the evil side is more of a union, it is still not a perfect one: In addition to the forces of evil envolved in the Ring War, there are several evil creatures created by Morgoth during the Shaping of Middle-Earth such as the giant spider Shelob, the Balrogs or the Barrow-Wights which hid in dark places and did, although they were a danger to travellers who happened to pass their refuges, not ally with Sauron.
If you add treacherous wizards and disfigured Hobbits faithful to neither side to the list, you cannnot say that the structure of Middle-Earth’s population is a "Black and White" scheme because it is actually much more complex.

12 cf. Glóin’s account at the Council of Elrond, TLOTR II/II, p. 235
13 The Silmarillion, p. 89
14 cf. Aragorn in the Pracing Pony TLOTR I/IX,X "He comes out of the Wild, and I never heard no good of such folk." - Sam, p. 162; "(But) If I was in your plight, I wouldn't take up with a Ranger." - Butterbur, p. 165
15 cf. Aragorn at the Council of Elrond TLOTR II/II "And less thanks have we than you [the Men of Minas Tirith]. Travellers scowl at us, and countrymen give us scornful names. "Strider" I am to one fat man who lives within a day's march of foes that would freeze his heart, or lay his little town in ruin, if he were not guarded ceaselessly. Yet we would not have it otherwise. If simple folk are free from care and fear, simple they will be, and we must be secret to keep them so. That has been the task of my kindred, while the years have lengthened and the grass has grown." - Aragorn, p.242
16 The Men of Gondor were originally descended from the Elendili, but the line of the High Kings had ceased long ago and although there was still some Númenórian blood left in the Men of Minas Tirith and the Rangers of Ithilien at the time of the Ring War, Gondor was in a process of decay, having suffered from problems such as civil wars and various Haradrim and Easterling attacks. Many of it's Men had become greedy for power and their steward Denethor had become corrupted by Sauron's power looking into the Palántir. I therefore treat them as Middle Men although they are descended from the Númenórians.
17 TLOTR I/II, p. 61
18 There is also the theorie that they were Ents who had become "sleepy".
19 Merry, TLOTR I/VI, p. 108