We Nine Kings of....where?

[Elianna]

Which nine kings of Men took the Nine rings? I can barely think of nine places where men lived that have kings, and it makes no sense for some of those to have become Ring-wraiths. I know one of them is an Easterling, and there's the Witch-King of Angmar. But where are the other seven from?

[rutslegolas]

I do not whether JRR has mentioned anywhere where the Nine Kings came from ,but according to me One was as you mention the King of Angmar , an Easterling King, One Haradrim I suppose , and the Other corrupted Numenoreans ??

[Lalaith]

According to the encyclopaedia of Arda:

One of them, the second in rank after the Lord of the Nazgûl himself, was named Khamûl, and also known as the Black Easterling. This is the only one of the nine Nazgûl explicitly named by Tolkien

I always assumed that the WitchKing ruled over Angmar after he became a ringwraith, rather than before. I don't know why.

[Rimbaud]

Certainly a very patchy area. The only explicitly named, as said above, are the Witch-king of Angmar, and his second in command Khamûl.

At least three of them were of Black Númenórean race.

Khamûl was a lord of Easterlings, and was the only Nazgûl known by his name, although there has been some speculation that Gothmog, Lieutenant of Barad-dûr, may have been a Nazgûl. That said, Gothmog generally isn't an especially clear part of the canon, what with Gondolin-Goth as well...

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Were they all kings?

[rutslegolas]

Well I can't see how the corrupted Numernoreans could all be Kings,but the Haradrim and the Easterling could be and as we know the Morgul -King was the King of Angmar ,so their could be hidden kingdoms in Middle-Earth that we do not know about ????

[Elianna]

Originally Posted by Eomer of the Rohirrim

Were they all kings?

That's part of what I was wondering. The Ring poem just says "Nine for the Mortal Men doomed to die," nothing about them all being kings.

Perhaps some of them were only lords of darkness?

[Lalaith]

Faramir has this to say:

It is said that their lords
were men of N´umenor who had fallen into dark wickedness; to them the Enemy
had given rings of power, and he had devoured them: living ghosts they were
become, terrible and evil

Elsewhere the ringwraiths are described as "mortal men, proud and great", but not actually kings.

[Nimrodel_9]

Were they all kings?

I was going to say that Aragorn said they were "great kings of men." I do not think they were actually kings.

[Gil-Galad]

probaly kings from the east, i've read some where that they were great leaders, and warriors, some are magicians while others knights, and sauron drew them to him, then after they put the rings on, they basically just start turning into wraiths and serve Sauron

[Morgul Queen]

and as we know the Morgul -King was the King of Angmar

O.o I thought you were talking about me for a moment there...

*bows to Witchy and his noble steed*

[rutslegolas]

Well as you say I think the corrupted Numenoreans were not Kings at all I think they were the knights of a corrupted King or men in powerful positions researching the arts of the enemy ( like good old Saruman ) and fell into evilness.

[Gil-Galad]

keep in mind, Morgul king wasn't lord of Angmar till he went there to usurp Arnors power, after the Last Alliance

[Numenorean]

Akallabêth p.321

"...among those whom he ensnared with the Nine Rings three were great lords of Númenórean race."

Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age p.348

"Those who used the Nine Rings became mighty in their day, kings, sorcerers, warriors of old. They obtained glory and great wealth, yet it turned to their undoing."

[Meneltarmacil]

Let's see what we've got here.

One Easterling and three Numenoreans would still leave five wraiths unaccounted for. As for the Witch King, I don't think Tolkien ever mentioned where he was originally from, only that he was sent to Angmar after he became a ringwraith. So he might be one of the Numenoreans or from somewhere else entirely. I think a couple of them are probably from Harad, and it's possible that one of the ancestors of the Rohirrim (who were living in the upper vales of Anduin at the time, as I think I remember) may have been one.

This leads me to an interesting theory: I think that the Witch King may have been from the line of kings that eventually led to Eorl the Young. Before moving to Rohan, that race of people originally lived in the upper vale of Anduin, in the foothills of the Misty and Gray Mountains. The Witch King, after turning ringwraith ,was sent to command Angmar, a region that included part of that area. If Sauron wanted to control that area, I think that he'd probably send someone familiar with the land. However, this is only speculation since we're not given much information about where the Witch King was from. And in fact, Angmar includes more territory to the west that the early Rohirrim wouldn't have gone into.

[Gil-Galad]

i remember somewhere where all the nazgul names were written down now i totally forgot...

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Names for all nine Nazgûl were invented for a game, so there are lists, but I wouldn't recommend naming them as "correct" or "original" on a Tolkien board like this one - too many people know the source material well here!

[Gil-Galad]

funny.... it was in a game i noticied the names, well i thought they were made up, thanks for the input estelyn

[Meneltarmacil]

I appear to have made an error in my previous post. I found out that the Rohirrim did not live in the upper vales of Anduin at the time the Nine Rings were given. It seems they were actually living east of Greenwood the Great (later Mirkwood) in Rhovanion and didn't move to the vales of Anduin until later. So the whole theory I put forth about Angmar is definitely wrong. Still, one of the kings/leaders of Rhovanion may have become a ringwraith.

So the possible homelands of the Nazgul are:

Numenor and colonies (3 confirmed)
Rhun (1 confirmed, Khamul)
Harad
Rhovanion, or future Rohirrim
...and possibly more, but these are the only ones that I think could have had kings or lords at the time.