Oxonmoot 2024

The many parallels between Tolkien's Rohirrim and the Anglo-Saxons, and particularly Mercians, are well-established as they are well-known. This essay follows this strain and, drawing on a number of Old English, Medieval Welsh and Latin texts, as well as Tolkien’s work as a medievalist, aims to demonstrate some key parallels instead between the Dunlendings and Brittonic-speaking peoples. A significant part of what rendered the kingdom of Mercia (deriving from 'Mierce', which may be glossed as 'the people of the borderlands') and Riddermark alike, 'border-lands', was the presence of their displaced neighbours, the Welsh and the Dunlendings respectively. This essay examines in what ways the depiction of the Welsh Other, particularly in Anglo-Saxon sources, as well as certain ideas and trends in academia concerning the history of Early Medieval Britain, now superseded and amended to varying degrees, may throw light on our understanding of the Dunlendings in the Legendarium.