The economy of Arnor (as seen in The Hobbit)

[Huinesoron]

To put this bluntly: what in Arda is going on up in Arnor at the time of The Hobbit?

“That would be no good,” said the wizard, “not without a mighty Warrior, even a Hero. I tried to find one; but warriors are busy fighting one another in distant lands, and in this neighbourhood heroes are scarce, or simply not to be found. Swords in these parts are mostly blunt, and axes are used for trees, and shields as cradles or dish-covers; and dragons are comfortably far-off (and therefore legendary).

I assure you there is a mark on this door — the usual one in the trade, or used to be. Burglar wants a good job, plenty of Excitement and reasonable Reward, that’s how it is usually read. You can say Expert Treasure-hunter instead of Burglar if you like. Some of them do. It’s all the same to us.

Thorin and company clearly expect that both Warriors and Heroes should be available for hire in Arnor, and consider Expert Treasure-Hunter to be an established trade. Why, then, do we never hear of any of these things later on?

(Obviously: because The Hobbit is children's fantasy and wasn't intended to be set in Middle-earth. But besides that.)

Warriors are the easiest to accept - Gandalf could well be referring to the Rangers. It wouldn't surprise me at all to hear that they occasionally took work for hire, as individuals or groups. But 'fighting each other' gives me pause, as does 'distant lands'. Could it be that Dunlending warriors are also for hire, and that there was a border squabble going on down around Tharbad? The Rangers would surely do their best to prevent raiders from crossing the river.

As for Heroes - forget who they would be for a second, what do they do? It sounds like Gandalf intended to hire one, but the likes of Aragorn (were he not 10 at this point) would hardly sell their swords to the highest bidder. The theory might be that if you tell a heroic type 'I'm off to kill a dragon and avenge my dad', he'll probably tag along out of a sense of noble justice - but even so, that doesn't sound like anyone we meet in Middle-earth.

There is a glimmer of sense, in that Gandalf says 'in this neighbourhood', not 'nowadays'. The dwarves' understanding of the world comes from their days in the Lonely Mountain and the Grey Mountains, which are a far wilder area even than Arnor. The people up that way are related to the Rohirrim, who seem like they'd be all over the 'wa-hey, let's go get some vengeance!' thing. (This does suggest that when Gandalf says 'hero', he really means 'blond'. )

And then, the Burglar. How in the world is 'Expert Treasure-Hunter' a common job description? Well... two possible answers:

• In the Grey Mountains, there's a long history of dragons stealing gold. It could be that going and getting it back (without rousing the dragon) is a viable, if high-risk, industry. Fram of the Eotheod certainly thought so.
• Alternately... well, Arnor is a realm in ruins, and they can't all be haunted by Wights. Venturing out into the wild places to see what you can find is actually pretty viable - though why someone of that ilk would hire themselves out is another question entirely. Possibly simply because, thousands of years after the Fall of Arthedain, there's not a whole lot left to steal.

I don't know, though: all of this is very tenuous. I'm hoping someone else can come up with some firmer answers.

(One last random thought: is 13 an unlucky number for dwarves because it's one less than 14 - ie, twice 7, the number of Fathers of the Dwarves? If we accept the idea that each Father was set to sleep alongside his wife, then 13 would be 'and one of them was alone'. Dwarves are pretty ritualistic; that might bother them a lot.)

hS

[Faramir Jones]

Thanks for starting this thread, Huinesoron.

I agree with you that the first response to the 2 quotations from The Hobbit is that the book is 'children's fantasy and wasn't intended to be set in Middle-earth'.

I also agree with you in seeing the Rangers, including their Chieftain, undertaking tasks for hire, as individuals and groups. The big proviso, as I see it, is that such work would need to be consistent with their duty of protecting 'their people'. This would keep up an image of them available for exploitation when Arnor was restored, something I'm presuming happened after King Elessar was crowned.

You may be right about there being Dunlending warriors offering their services for hire, people the Rangers presumably then dealt with, whether for hire or not.

In terms of 'Expert Treasure-Hunter', as you say there may be a lucrative, though very dangerous opportunity for some people in this area. When you say that perhaps, after thousands of years, there wasn't much left to steal in Arnor, it is possible, though I would add the proviso 'easily' before 'steal'. I would point out a certain barrow-wight who imprisoned 4 hobbits appeared to have a lot of treasure. But then, perhaps an average treasure-hunter would avoid such great risks!

I remember when the Fellowship was in Moria, Sam asking if there were 'piles of jewels and gold lying about here still?' Gandalf replied that there was nothing of value left in the 'upper halls', due to so much plunder by the Orcs. Further down, the 'shafts and treasuries down in the deep places' were drowned in water or in 'a shadow of fear', that shadow presumably being Balrog-shaped.

I don't think Fram would have considered himself a 'treasure hunter'; such a description would have been scornfully rejected by such a warrior. His actions seem to bear this out. If he was a real 'treasure hunter' I would have expected him to bargain with the Dwarves for a share of Scatha's hoard, instead of insulting them... If he was in that business, it would have been best to walk away with a share of the hoard, which would have been a lot, and the kudos of being a dragon-slayer.

[Nerwen]

Then there's Tom, Bert and William, who had accumulated some of their stash from "plundering other plunderers". Would they qualify as "average treasure hunters"?

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Faramir Jones

I also agree with you in seeing the Rangers, including their Chieftain, undertaking tasks for hire, as individuals and groups. The big proviso, as I see it, is that such work would need to be consistent with their duty of protecting 'their people'. This would keep up an image of them available for exploitation when Arnor was restored, something I'm presuming happened after King Elessar was crowned.

You may be right about there being Dunlending warriors offering their services for hire, people the Rangers presumably then dealt with, whether for hire or not.

I certainly agree with that! I get the impression that the Rangers kind of pretended to be independent wanderers, with the fact that they were still an organised kingdom-in-hiding pretty well hidden; it'd be interesting to see how they would balance that with also maintaining consistent values.

(I'm also now imagining an AU where the Quest of Erebor takes place ten years later, and the fourteenth member is 20-year-old Estel of Rivendell...)

Originally Posted by Faramir Jones

In terms of 'Expert Treasure-Hunter', as you say there may be a lucrative, though very dangerous opportunity for some people in this area. When you say that perhaps, after thousands of years, there wasn't much left to steal in Arnor, it is possible, though I would add the proviso 'easily' before 'steal'. I would point out a certain barrow-wight who imprisoned 4 hobbits appeared to have a lot of treasure. But then, perhaps an average treasure-hunter would avoid such great risks!

I remember when the Fellowship was in Moria, Sam asking if there were 'piles of jewels and gold lying about here still?' Gandalf replied that there was nothing of value left in the 'upper halls', due to so much plunder by the Orcs. Further down, the 'shafts and treasuries down in the deep places' were drowned in water or in 'a shadow of fear', that shadow presumably being Balrog-shaped.

I don't think Fram would have considered himself a 'treasure hunter'; such a description would have been scornfully rejected by such a warrior. His actions seem to bear this out. If he was a real 'treasure hunter' I would have expected him to bargain with the Dwarves for a share of Scatha's hoard, instead of insulting them... If he was in that business, it would have been best to walk away with a share of the hoard, which would have been a lot, and the kudos of being a dragon-slayer.

Point taken about Fram. And about everything else - I'd kind of forgotten the Barrows, but heck, they're right next to the last chunks of Arnor civilisation, they must get raided occasionally. I suppose being haunted would add considerably to the longevity of a tomb.

Originally Posted by Nerwen

Then there's Tom, Bert and William, who had accumulated some of their stash from "plundering other plunderers". Would they qualify as "average treasure hunters"?

If they managed to pilfer swords of Gondolinic origin, I'd say they were Expert level! I'm still not sure how Biter and Beater made it out of Beleriand - I've theorised about Durin's Bane stealing a different sword, but are we to assume that Orcs who besieged Gondolin made it out to the east?

... huh. Of course there's one person we know escaped the fall of Beleriand. Could Sauron have made off with the swords after the War of Wrath? And could he have gifted them to someone he wanted to turn into an ally - a Numenorean who would be swayed by the Gondolinic pedigree of the weapons, even more than by a magic ring - the Lord of the Nazgul? And could he have taken them with him when he founded the realm of Angmar - and had to leave them when he fled Earnur's armies?

Which would mean Biter and Beater (and Sting) were probably lost in the vicinity of Fornost. That puts them in the right area to be eventually raided by the Trolls (probably by way of several hoards in between, unless the movie's Tomb of the Nazgul should be considered, which, no). It kinda works!

hS

[Huinesoron]

Well, after getting a little further through The Hobbit, I've discovered that I'm wrong about the swords, at least.

Originally Posted by Roast Mutton

There were lots of clothes, too, hanging on the walls — too small for trolls, I am afraid they belonged to victims — and among them were several swords of various makes, shapes, and sizes. Two caught their eyes particularly, because of their beautiful scabbards and jewelled hilts.

So the swords are strongly implied to have been taken from living (at the time) victims - and not too long before, or else the clothes would have rotted away. Certainly the implication, given Gandalf's account a few lines later that three [trolls] had come down from the mountains and settled in the woods not far from the road: they had frightened everyone away from the district, and they waylaid strangers, is that they've only recently been taken.

So... from who? Elrond theorises that they were plundered from 'other plunderers' - so, treasure hunters-slash-bandits in the region. I assume they would be descendents of the Hillmen of Rhudaur, engaging in a sort of low-key squabble with the Rangers. Perhaps, indeed, the trolls' driving-out of these hypothetical Hillmen is what freed up the Rangers (ie, the 'Warriors' from earlier) to go deal with the Dunlendings?

I feel like I'm very high on the house of cards here. It's a bit precarious - but the view is first rate.

hS