Character Bios
Vidugavia
Meaning: wood-dweller
Location(s): Northeast Rhovanion
Race/Species: Man
Title(s): King of Rhovanion
Dates: circa 1250 III
Children: Vidumavi
Description:
[In 1247 III, after the 3rd Invasion of Gondor by Easterlings,] Rómendacil showed especial favour to Vidugavia, who had aided him in the war. He called himself King of Rhovanion, and was indeed the most powerful of the Northern princes, though his own realm lay between Greenwood and the River Celduin. In 1250 Rómendacil sent his son Valacar as an ambassador to dwell for a while with Vidugavia and make himself acquainted with the language, manners, and policies of the Northmen. But Valacar far exceeded his father's designs. He grew to love the Northern lands and people, and he married Vidumavi, daughter of Vidugavia.
The Return of the King, LoTR Appendix A, Annals of the Kings and Rulers: Gondor and the Heirs of Anárion
Romendakil gave his consent to the marriage. He could not forbid it or refuse to recognize it without earning the enmity of Vidugavia. Indeed all the Northmen would have been angered, and those in his service would have been no longer to be trusted.
The Peoples of Middle-Earth, HoME Vol 12, Part 1, Ch 9, The Making of Appendix A: The Realms in Exile
Etymology
It is an interesting fact, not referred to I believe in any of my father's writings, that the names of the early kings and princes of the Northmen and the Éothéod are Gothic in form, not Old English (Anglo-Saxon) as in the case of Léod, Eorl, and the later Rohirrim. Vidugavia is Latinized in spelling, representing Gothic Widugauja ("wood-dweller"), a recorded Gothic name, and similarly Vidumavi Gothic Widumawi ("wood-maiden"). ... Since, as is explained in Appendix F (II), the language of Rohan was "made to resemble ancient English," the names of the ancestors of the Rohirrim are cast into the forms of the earliest recorded Germanic language.
Unfinished Tales, Part 3, Ch 2, Cirion and Eorl and the Friendship of Gondor and Rohan: Notes, Note 6
Contributors:
Elena Tiriel 12Dec04