A Sense of History: The Easterling Hostages in Middle-earth and Their Parallels in Welsh Medieval History

Many years ago, Angelica wrote a monthly column called "A Sense of History," connecting Tolkien's legendarium with real-world history.

We are very pleased to bring this column back! To welcome it back, MirienSilowende has written an article about the parallels between medieval Welsh history and the history of the Easterlings and Gondor, focusing on hostage-taking.

The term hostage has chilling connotations in modern English. Historically, hostages were used as a means of controlling a neighboring people. The Gondorians, for a time, held Easterling hostages as a way of subduing the Easterling leaders and establishing cultural dominance. MirienSilowende finds parallels in Wales, where the history has a bloody conclusion. Even more tantalizing: What impact did Gondorian hostage-taking have on later relations between the Easterlings and Sauron? Would a softer touch from Gondor have led to a different outcome?

You can read this month's article, "The Easterling Hostages in Middle-earth and Their Parallels in Welsh Medieval History," here.

"A Sense of History" is a monthly column open to contributions that succinctly explain connections between the legendarium and history for a nonscholarly audience. If you have a historical topic you'd like to write about, find out more about contributing to this column here.

Posted on 19 August 2022 (updated 9 September 2022) by SWG Moderators