Most people watching The Two Towers see a bunch of dirty, angry men with torches burning down Rohan’s villages and figure they’re just generic "bad guys." They’re the "Wild Men." Saruman gives them a quick pep talk, they scream about the Mark, and then they disappear into the background of the Uruk-hai's shadow. But honestly? The Lord of the Rings Dunlendings are probably the most tragic, misunderstood group in Tolkien’s entire Legendarium. They aren't Orcs. They aren't inherently evil. They’re a people with a massive, multi-millennial grudge that actually makes a lot of sense if you look at it from their perspective.
If you’ve only seen the movies, you’re missing the fact that these guys were basically the "First Nations" of the Westfold. Long before Eorl the Young rode down from the North, the Dunlendings—or the People of Haleth’s kin—lived in the valleys of the White Mountains and the lush plains that would eventually become Rohan. Then, the "civilized" people showed up and pushed them into the literal dirt.
The Lord of the Rings Dunlendings: Not Just Saruman’s Pawns
The history of the Dunlendings is a long series of getting the short end of the stick. They are the descendants of the Middle Men, specifically the Haladin. While the Númenóreans were busy building massive stone towers and living for hundreds of years, the ancestors of the Dunlendings were just trying to survive in the woods. When the Númenóreans returned to Middle-earth as conquerors during the Second Age, they didn't see the Dunlendings as distant cousins. They saw them as obstacles. They chopped down the Dunlendings’ forests to build ships. They drove them into the hills.
It’s easy to call them "Wild Men," but they were displaced.
Then comes the big one. The founding of Rohan. In T.A. 2510, Cirion, the Steward of Gondor, gave the province of Calenardhon to the Éothéod as a reward for their help at the Battle of the Field of Celebrant. The problem? People were already living there. The Dunlendings were still occupying parts of that land. Suddenly, they were told that these "straw-haired" newcomers from the North owned their ancestral grazing lands because a guy in a stone city miles away said so.
Why the Hatred for Rohan is Actually Logical
Imagine your family has lived on a piece of land for five hundred years. Suddenly, a king you’ve never met gives that land to a tribe of horse-lords who speak a different language and look nothing like you. That’s the core of the Dunlendings' rage. They didn't join Saruman because they loved industrialization or Uruk-hai. They joined him because he promised them their homes back.
👉 See also: Is Heroes and Villains Legit? What You Need to Know Before Buying
Saruman is a master manipulator. He didn't have to use magic to convince them to fight; he just used the truth, twisted to his own ends. He reminded them of the "foray of Helm Hammerhand."
Helm Hammerhand is remembered by the Rohirrim as a legendary hero. To the Dunlendings, he was a monster. During the Long Winter of T.A. 2758, the Dunlendings, led by a man named Wulf (who actually had Rohirrim blood), managed to conquer Edoras. Helm was besieged in the Hornburg. He used to go out at night and kill Dunlendings with his bare hands. He didn't use a sword. He just punched them to death. From a Rohan perspective, that’s "legendary strength." From a Dunlending perspective, that’s a terrifying warlord murdering your cousins in the dark.
The Dunlendings are deeply human. Their cruelty in the War of the Ring was born of a generational poverty and a sense of stolen heritage. They were the "un-Dúnedain." They didn't have the "high" culture of Gondor, but they had a rich, oral tradition and a fierce loyalty to their own kin. Tolkien uses them to show that evil isn't always a supernatural force; sometimes it's just a guy who’s been treated like garbage for a thousand years finally getting a chance to hit back.
What Happened to the Dunlendings After Helm’s Deep?
The movies leave this out entirely, but the aftermath of the Battle of the Hornburg is where we see the real character of the Lord of the Rings Dunlendings. After the Rohirrim and the Huorns (the tree-spirits) crushed the army of Isengard, the Dunlendings surrendered. They expected to be slaughtered. Why wouldn't they? That’s what they would have done. Saruman had told them that the "Leaper" (the Rohirrim) burned their prisoners alive.
But Erkenbrand and Eomer didn't kill them.
✨ Don't miss: Jack Blocker American Idol Journey: What Most People Get Wrong
The Rohirrim showed mercy. They made the Dunlendings help rebuild the dikes and repair the damage they’d done. Then, they let them go. They made them swear an oath never to cross the River Isen in arms again. This was a massive turning point. It broke Saruman’s spell. The Dunlendings realized that the "Strawheads" weren't the demons Saruman had painted them to be.
The Linguistic Connection You Probably Missed
Tolkien was a philologist first and a storyteller second. He used language to denote the relationship between these peoples. The names of the Dunlendings, like Wulf or Freca, sound somewhat Germanic, but their actual native tongue was related to the Pre-Númenórean languages of the Second Age. It was "Dunlendingish."
Interestingly, the word "Dunland" itself comes from the Rohan word dunn, meaning "brown" or "dark." It was a derogatory name for the people who were darker-complexioned than the blonde-haired Rohirrim. Even their name was a label given to them by their enemies. This adds another layer to their isolation. They weren't just physically displaced; they were linguistically and culturally erased from the "official" history of the West.
Key Facts About Dunlending Culture
- The Hillmen of Rhudaur Connection: It’s highly likely that the Hillmen who served the Witch-king of Angmar were distant relatives of the Dunlendings. Both groups were remnants of the indigenous populations of Eriador who resisted the influence of the Dúnedain.
- The Wulf Usurpation: Wulf was the son of Freca, a Rohan lord who claimed he was a descendant of King Fréawine. When Helm Hammerhand killed Freca with a single blow during a council meeting, Wulf led a Dunlending invasion that nearly destroyed the kingdom of Rohan.
- Saruman’s Breeding Programs: It is heavily implied in The Fellowship of the Ring (specifically the chapter "The Council of Elrond") and later in The Two Towers that Saruman cross-bred Dunlendings with Orcs to create "Half-orcs" and "Goblin-men." These are distinct from Uruk-hai. These were men who could pass as humans but had "sallow faces and squint eyes."
- The Dead Men of Dunharrow: The ghosts that Aragorn summons? They were technically the ancestors of the Dunlendings. They were the Men of the Mountains who swore an oath to Isildur and then broke it. This means the "Wild Men" Saruman used actually had a more ancient claim to the land than the Kings of Rohan did.
Why Tolkien Included Them
Tolkien wasn't writing a simple "Good vs. Evil" story, despite what some critics say. By including the Lord of the Rings Dunlendings, he introduced a shade of grey. He showed that war creates desperate people. He showed that the "Golden Hall" of Meduseld was built on land that someone else remembered losing.
The tragedy of the Dunlendings is that they chose the wrong side of history because they were too blinded by their own suffering to see that Saruman was a greater threat than Rohan. They were tools. Saruman didn't care about "Dunland for the Dunlendings." He just wanted a meat shield to slow down the horse-lords while his Uruks did the real work.
🔗 Read more: Why American Beauty by the Grateful Dead is Still the Gold Standard of Americana
Moving Beyond the Movie Tropes
If you want to understand the Dunlendings, stop looking at them as "Saruman’s goons." Look at them as a displaced indigenous population. To get a better grasp of this, you should check out The Peoples of Middle-earth (Volume 12 of the History of Middle-earth series). It goes into the "Atani" and the different houses of Men.
Next time you watch the trilogy, look at the scene where the Dunlending leaders are signing their blood oaths. It’s not just a scary ritual. It’s a desperate act of a people who have nothing left to lose.
Actionable Insights for Tolkien Fans:
- Read "The House of Eorl" in Appendix A: This is where the real meat of the Dunlending-Rohan conflict lives. It explains the Freca and Helm Hammerhand saga in detail.
- Explore the "Men of the Shadows": Research the Second Age migrations. It helps you see why the Dunlendings felt like they were the "true" owners of Middle-earth’s central lands.
- Differentiate the "Half-orcs": In your next re-watch, notice the difference between the massive Uruk-hai and the more human-looking spies in Bree or the scouts at the back of the Isengard army. Those are the tragic results of Saruman’s Dunlending experiments.
The Dunlendings remind us that in Middle-earth, as in our world, the "villains" are often just people who were left out of the peace. Understanding them doesn't justify their violence, but it certainly makes the world of Arda feel a lot more real and a lot more heartbreaking.