A title for the rulers of the Men of the Mountains, at least in the closing years of the Second Age. Their people had traditionally served Sauron, but at the time the Exiles of Númenor appeared in Middle-earth, the Dark Lord had been absent from Mordor for many years.2 Soon after the foundation of Gondor, the King of the Mountains met Isildur at Erech, and there swore an oath of allegiance.
When Sauron arose again and launched a war against Gondor, Isildur called on his allies for aid. The new3 King of the Mountains would not join the war, and so Isildur cursed him and his people to wander the world until their oath should be fulfilled. Thus the last King of the Mountains became the King of the Dead, haunting the Paths of the Dead throughout the Third Age. In the War of the Ring, he aided Isildur's Heir Aragorn, and thus the King and his people were finally released from their ancient curse.
Notes
1 |
The ancestors of the Men of the Mountains belonged to the same branch of wandering Men as the Haladin. While the people of the King of the Mountains remained in the White Mountains, the Haladin continued northward and westward to eventually settle in Brethil and become one of the Three Houses of the Edain. Thus the Men of the Mountains belonged to the same original stock as those who would go on to become the Dúnedain, placing them among those Men described as Middle Peoples.
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2 |
Sauron had travelled to Númenor fifty-seven years earlier, though it seems unlikely that he would have explained his purposes to the Men of the Mountains. Presumably, from their point of view, Sauron's absence was a mystery, and that in turn might account for their initial willingness to ally with the newly arrived Dúnedain.
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3 |
The original oath was taken 'in the beginning of the realm of Gondor' (The Return of the King V 2), which would date it at II 3320 or soon afterwards. Sauron's attack on Gondor took place in II 3429, more than a century later. It follows that the King who swore the oath to Isildur cannot reasonably have been the same one who later broke it (that would presumably have been the earlier King's grandson or great-grandson, but Tolkien gives us no specific details). |
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