Large cattle used to carry and draw burdens, and for milk and meat. We know that they were domesticated in Middle-earth, at least in Gondor, because Pippin saw them being used to pull wagons to Minas Tirith during the War of the Ring. The most famous oxen of all, though, were not domesticated, but roamed wild in the eastern land of Rhûn. These were the great Kine of Araw, that were hunted by the Gondorian nobles, and most famously by Vorondil the Hunter, father of Mardil. Vorondil had a horn from one of these oxen bound with silver, and this hunting-horn became an heirloom of the Stewards of Gondor. This was the very horn that Boromir bore long years afterwards: it was broken as he fought with the Orcs beneath Amon Hen, a thousand years after Vorondil's time.
Notes
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Domestic oxen are only specifically described as being used in Gondor, but from references by various characters, we can infer that they were well known across Middle-earth. A huge wild variety, the Oxen of the East or Kine of Araw, grazed the plains around the Sea of Rhûn in the distant East.
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Old English oxan (of which the singular was oxa, 'ox') ultimately derived from an ancient root used for any male animal. Indeed, in domestic terms, oxen are by definition male, being bulls used as draught animals (and in this role they were seen pulling wagons in Gondor). In some cases, though, the term seems to be used more broadly: the Oxen of the East were a kind of large cattle that roamed wild on the Eastern plains, and so seem not to have fitted the more usual narrow definition of domestic 'oxen'.
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- Updated 7 December 2022
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