#drúedain

Apparently it was world goat day on the 21st which I completely missed but in honor of that here are some Middle Earth related goat thoughts! I focused primarily on Beleriand but please let me know if you'd like a post on later Middle Earth goat related world building specifically!

There are also mentions of goats on several of my mammals of Beleriand posts where I go into more detail about their status as domestic animals!

Several species of wild goats live in Beleriand, primarily in montane regions and domesticated goats, variants of two of the wild species, are kept by elves, humans, and dwarves throughout Middle Earth.

Caprus aegagrus, the wild species closest to the later domestic goat, is found mostly east of the Ered Luin in montane regions where it's primarily kept by humans and some dwarven populations.

Ibexes are found in the mountains in the south of Dorthonion and into the Ered Gorgoroth though these are rarely observed by humans or elves.

Tur, a subgenus of wild goats, are found in the Ered Luin and in montane regions in the south of Middle Earth

In Beleriand, the Noldor elves and the dwarves of the eastern regions own the highest numbers of goats.

Goats milk is the most common source for milk and cheese in Himlad, Thargelion and Estolad.

A popular dish in Himlad includes Goats milk cheese prepared with woolly hedgenettle (lamb's ear) herbs.

The Sindar of Hithlum, the Haladin, and the Drúedain of central Beleriand also keep them in smaller numbers. They’re used for wool, meet and occasionally milk.

Obligatory mention of this but it's an old headcanon of mine that Aerin had a goat as a child named Wilwandrëa which means like a butterfly. The goat got its name from its black splotches that reminded Aerin of a common species found in meadows in Dor-lómin (likely marbled white). The Hadorians don’t typically raise goats but the Drúedain do and some of their people pass through Dor-lómin not infrequently. @rana-temporaria made me adorable art of this here :)

Sealord father is set in an alternative timeline in Arda where Adar has led the Uruk to the sea to become pirates rather than turning the Southlands into Mordor. The Ghost Elf and his spectral crew are wreaking havoc across the vast Sundering Seas. Admiral Veanelen is on a mission to keep the waters safe for all. However, she soon uncovers a concealed agenda behind the reports of piracy, revealing a bigger danger to the free peoples of Middle Earth.

Chapter 28 is soaring with the wind on its stern!

Adar and the Admiral agreed to sail their ships as consorts to meet Adar's most trusted captain and assure Veanelen's company that he can be trusted. Then there is the minor issue of hauling the Númenórean vessel full of Peredhil recently freed from enslavement.

Ao3 link

Ghan-buri-ghan was of the Earth.

The lives of the Drúedain were meant to be short, so that at the end they could return to the earth. Sometimes he had believed that the creation of his people had been a mistake, that the creator had intended for them to be spirits that roamed Middle Earth, and not men.

Why else would their lives be so short?

He supposed his kind were granted life though to appreciate both the woods and the people (though until, King Elessar, he’d cared little of them and those before that trespassed on his land), for spirits and elves lost their appreciation with time.

And to live to be an elf was a world of black and grey, and to live as a man was a world of regret at a life so long--yet so short.

But the Drúedain were of the forest. And they would live forever in the earth, their souls seeping into the soil and making it alive.

Spring, Winter, Autumn

Summer headcanons for the elves

Obviously I couldn’t go through each group or culture so please feel free to send one and I’ll tell my ideas for them! I’m going to do humans next. Feel free to request for outside of Beleriand too!

I talked about Hadorian summer festivals here!o

I like to use these posts to explore world building topics (I went into probably too much about water supply in Dor-lómin for example here) as well as environmental and climate thoughts

I’ll go into information about water supply in other locations soon! It just came up here for the Hadorians when I was thinking about Nen Lalaith 

As always please feel free to ask more