Timeline Event
Northmen of Rhovanion ally with Gondor against the Wainriders
Event Type: Military/Strategic
Age: 3rd Age - The Kings
Year: 1852
Description:
An event in Gondor's Wars with the Wainriders; see that entry for a description of the enemy and an overall timeline:
But when the invasions of the Wainriders began ... the Northmen bore the brunt of the first assaults. King Narmacil II took a great army north into the plains south of Mirkwood, and gathered all that he could of the scattered remnants of the Northmen; but he was defeated ...
Most of the Northmen were reduced to servitude, and all their former lands were occupied by the Wainriders.
Unfinished Tales, Part 3, Ch 2, Cirion and Eorl and the Friendship of Gondor and Rohan: The Northmen and the Wainriders
But at length, King Calimehtar, son of Narmacil II ... determined to avenge the defeat of the Battle of the Plains. Messengers came to him from Marhwini warning him that the Wainriders were plotting to raid Calenardhon over the Undeeps; but they said also that a revolt of the Northmen who had been enslaved was being prepared and would burst into flame if the Wainriders became involved in war.
Unfinished Tales, Part 3, Ch 2, Cirion and Eorl and the Friendship of Gondor and Rohan: The Northmen and the Wainriders
The revolt planned and assisted by Marhwini had indeed broken out.... But most of [the Northmen] had perished in the attempt; for they were ill-armed, and the enemy had not left their homes undefended ...
[After his victory at the Battle against the Wainriders at Dagorlad:] Calimehtar withdrew to Gondor, which enjoyed for a time (from 1899 to 1944) a respite from war before the great assault in which the line of its kings came near to its end.
Nonetheless the alliance of Calimehtar and Marhwini had not been in vain. If the strength of the Wainriders of Rhovanion had not been broken, that assault would have come sooner and in greater force, and the realm of Gondor might have been destroyed. But the greatest effect of the alliance lay far in the future which none could then foresee: the two great rides of the Rohirrim to the salvation of Gondor, the coming of Eorl to the Field of Celebrant, and the horns of King Théoden upon the Pelennor but for which the return of the King would have been in vain.
Unfinished Tales, Part 3, Ch 2, Cirion and Eorl and the Friendship of Gondor and Rohan: The Northmen and the Wainriders
Forthwini, son of Marhwini, indeed warned King Ondoher (who succeeded his father Calimehtar in the year 1936) that the Wainriders of Rhovanion were recovering from their weakness and fear, and that he suspected that they were receiving new strength from the East....
Unfinished Tales, Part 3, Ch 2, Cirion and Eorl and the Friendship of Gondor and Rohan: The Northmen and the Wainriders
[Note: the date is arbitrary, set to follow the beginning of the Wars with the Wainriders in the timeline.]
Contributors:
Elena Tiriel 18Jul04