Trading Places: Lake-Town and the Trade Routes of Wilderland

I find myself yet again with speculating on incredibly minor details from Middle-Earth - this time, I'm reaching back to my introduction to Tolkien's creation, The Hobbit.  

Once Bilbo leaves the Shire, arguably the only open town he encounters is near the end of the quest, Lake-Town.  Lake-Town is the town built on piers sunk into the western part of the Long Lake, and is the closest human settlement to the Lonely Mountain.  The town, in fact, seems to be doing fairly well for its location; despite Smaug's attack shortly before his death, the town rebuilds and even with Dale also returning remains prosperous.

It also gets another, older name - Esgaroth.

Tolkien never explains with the term means in The Hobbit or LOTR for that matter.  A number of names only had speculative translations for years, of course, before later published writings revealed their meaning Eriador likely meaning 'lonely land' certainly springs to mind; speculation usually ran to calling it 'Kings-land'.  Similarly, Dorwinion was thought to just be 'land of wine' - not even full elvish! - but later revealed to mean 'the land of Gwinion' (aka the Land of Youth).

In Esgaroth's case, Tolkien alluded in a letter that he had imported it from his broader mythology like Elrond and Gondolin - although unlike those terms, Esgaroth doesn't have an independent existence.  The only clue appears in the Etymologies published in The Lost Road that translate it as 'reedlake', named for the 'reeds on the west side of the lake'.  It would seem 'case closed', but post-LOTR, Tolkien either had forgotten or rethought it, and considering it a Mannish name in imitation of Sindarin.  Other Tolkien scholars have suggested Nordic or Celtic translations, and pointed out the oddity of having the town being given an Elvish name.  There could be explanations for it, of course, such as the town being originally named after the Elvish name for the lake itself (in which case, 'Lake-town' makes sense in context as being the translation for the town's name).   However, there's a different path that I'm taking here - but let's talk about trade routes first.

The origins of the human settlements in the area are vague, but likely in the Third Age; other sources have mentioned that the Lonely Mountain had long been considered territory of the Longbeard Dwarves, and that Greenwood stretched to surround the mountain.  As the actual dwarven settlement here does not appear to predate its founding; Thrain the Old is said to have 'discovered' it, so I'd say at best it had an outpost, but likely just was a 'claim' to a mountain that was never developed at the time.  Dale is said to have been built by Men who migrated up the River Running, and it's doubtful that it predates the settlement of the Lonely Mountain by the dwarves. 

We are told by Tolkien that there's active trade going on here through Lake-town under the shadow of Smaug, which appears to be the reason the town prospers; wine from the land of Dorwinion, far to the south, comes up to be traded with Thranduil's elvish kingdom; we are not told specifically what is traded in return.  Payment could be made with treasure or coin from Thranduil's palace itself, but two other sources of goods would probably be more likely; non-perishable items found only in Mirkwood, or goods from west.  The elves themselves probably had a monopoly on both, because apart from the Woodsmen living in the eaves in the south, only the elves could cross from one end to another (via their enchanted path) or safely harvest in the northern woodlands.

When did this trade begin?  We know that by the end of the Second Age, the Woodland Realm sat in the middle of Greenwood; when the Shadow fell over the woods, King Thranduil relocated to the northeast portion of the woods; dwarves helped create his palace out of caverns on the Forest River.   Longbeard dwarven craftsmen would have likely travelled up the River Running from where the Old Forest Road - the dwarven road from Moria to the Iron Hills - crossed it.  

While its height would have been during the days of Dale and Erebor, the trade route was still important and significant enough to maintain it in the years leading up to The Hobbit.  Trade went down the Long Lake to its falls - ported to the lower level, likely the site of a waystation similar to the one near Lake-Town; and then down the River Running.  One could speculate that the meeting of the River Running and the Redwater would have been a logical site for a trade-town, with trade down the Redwater from the Iron Hills with iron ore and metalworking, before reaching Dorwinion on the shores of the Sea of Rhun.

I had speculated before that Dorwinion was a rump state from the days where Gondor's borders 'reached the Sea of Rhun' during its height, and received its Sindarin name from their inhabitants (in a mistaken idea that it represented the 'birthplace of humanity', possibly due to the presence of ancient ruins from the Men who dwelled on the shores in the 1st Age), and didn't lose its 'eastern territories' until 1856 TA.  The Northmen during this time dwelled in the plains between the River Running and Redwater, migrating southwards into lands east of Mirkwood with various realms, with the Kingdom of Rhovanion (another elvish name for 'wilderland', again likely from Gondorian origin).  

Am I saying that Lake-town is of Gondorian origin?  Not likely; however, the height of Gondor's influence happened at the same time as the shadow falling on Mirkwood.  Trading with the elves would have been simple when they were in central Mirkwood, off the Great Dwarf Road; but once they moved to the northeast, a trade route would have to be extended northwards along the river, leading to the trade town of Esgaroth, the elvish name of the Long Lake itself.  As the name "Rhovanion" attests, the Northmen were not adverse to calling something by its Sindarin name, especially in the days of Gondor's power.  If this is the case, the original Lake-town is the predecessor of Dale by hundreds of years!

As for Dorwinion, it may lie at the center for trade in the region; not only up the River Running but across the Sea of Rhun itself.  We don't know what can be found along its shores, especially to the north east.  As mention in the "Rhun" blog entry, the Red Mountains lie not too far off the eastern edge of the map, and probably holds two of the seven dwarven clans.  Human settlements may also stretch northwards, east of the Redwater.

So, there we have it - some thoughts behind the trade to and from Lake-town and Dorwinion!