House of Haleth - The Folk of Haleth

The Folk of Haleth

The Folk of Haleth or the Men of Brethil were dark-haired and dark-eyed, resembling the House of Bëor but "shorter and broader, sterner and less swift. They were less eager for lore, and used few words; for they did not love great concourse of men, and many among them delighted in solitude, wandering free in the greenwoods." They were a reclusive people and kept separate from the Edain of other Houses, for they were unrelated to the Bëorians and Hadorians and spoke a different language. However, they were always accompanied by an emigrant branch of the Drúedain.

The ancestors of the Folk of Haleth travelled from the East of Middle-earth separately from the great people of whom came the Houses of Bëor and Hador. Their first known settling-place was west of the later Gap of Rohan between the Misty Mountains and the White. Some remained there throughout the later ages, becoming the Dunlendings and the folk of Enedwaith and Minhiriath. Around the same time they became acquainted with the ancestors of the Drúedain, and profitable relationship was soon established. Together many of both people journeyed across Eriador.

The Men of the Second House first appeared in Beleriand in the Year of the Sun 312 of the First Age, crossing the Ered Luin in small parties and hiding in the woods of Thargelion, since they were unwilling to settle in Estolad with the Bëorians and Marachians. They did not have any lords and lived in separate homesteads, with occasional strife between tribes. For a long while they dwelt there, unheeded by other Men and Elves.

But in Y.S. 375 Morgoth sent out an Orc-raid that passed to the east of Ered Luin and entered Thargelion by the Dwarf-pass. The Men of the Second House were caught off-guard, and a great part of their people was wiped out. The remnant was gathered under one Haldad and his daughter Haleth and son Haldar; and they held out for days in a stockade until the Noldor rescued them. Impressed by their virtue, Caranthir offered them his lands to live in protected, but Haleth, with her father and brother slain, refused. Next year she led her people first to Estolad (which was already abandoned by the majority of other Edain) and after a time further westward, passing through Nan Dungortheb and coming in Y.S. 391 to the woods of Talath Dirnen. Later many removed to the forest of Brethil, which was a part of Doriath outside the Girdle of Melian, but now was granted to them by Thingol.

For the next century the Folk of Brethil mostly kept out of the wars. The companies of warriors they sent to battle beyond their borders were small, though formed of redoubtable warriors. They remained "a small people, chiefly concerned to protect their own woodlands, and they excelled in forest warfare". The Men of Brethil formed a loose alliance of clans rather than a strong nation as the other Edain, and were ruled by a 'Chieftain' or 'Halad' (see below). In the woods to the south of river Taeglin their kinsfolk dwelt in scattered homesteads; they "owned no lord, and they lived both by hunting and by husbandry, keeping swine in the mast-lands, and tilling clearings in the forest which were fenced from the wild".

The Folk of Brethil successfully managed to protect their borders after the fall of Tol Sirion, but the end of this relative peace came soon after the Nírnaeth Arnoediad. First, the folk living to the south of Taeglin were worsened by the Orc-raids, so that the few that remained became wary and from now onwards "about the houses was a ditch and a stockade; and there were paths from stead to stead, and men could summon help at need by horn-calls." Their dwellings were finally sacked by Orcs in Y.S. 485, with most of men slain in battle, but women and children having fled to Brethil in time.

The Men of Brethil were themselves seriously assailed in Y.S. 495, and their lord Handir was slain. They retreated to the deeps of the forest and, according to some versions, "dwelt for the most part secretly within a stockade upon Amon Obel" (see also Obel Halad). The final ruin of Brethil was brought about by the Curse of Morgoth, when by the deeds of Túrin Turambar and Húrin Thalion the last descendants of Haldad perished. Moreover in Y.S. 501 Húrin caused a civil war during which a great part of the Folk of Haleth was slain or "fell back again to be more like their kinsmen in the open woods", and their strength was loosened.

After the fall of Doriath the Men of Brethil were nearly completely wiped out, or at least they had disappeared as a separate people. The last of them, including some Drúedain, escaped to the Mouths of Sirion and later to the Isle of Balar. After the ruin of Beleriand they either journeyed to Númenor or fled back to Eriador. Among the Númenóreans (in majority descendants of the Folk of Hador) communities of Bëorians and of Drúedain are known to have existed, but the descendants of the Men of Brethil are not mentioned.