Unfinished Tales - J. R. R. Tolkien [175]
Measures of distance are converted as nearly as possible into modern terms. ‘League’ is used because it was the longest measurement of distance: in Númenórean reckoning (which was decimal) five thousand rangar (full paces) made a lár, which was very nearly three of our miles. Lár meant ‘pause’, because except in forced marches a brief halt was usually made after this distance had been covered [see note 9 above]. The Númenórean ranga was slightly longer than our yard, approximately thirty-eight inches, owing to their greater stature. Therefore five thousand rangar would be almost exactly the equivalent of 5280 yards, our ‘league’: 5277 yards, two feet and four inches, supposing the equivalence to be exact. This cannot be determined, being based on the lengths given in histories of various things and distances that can be compared with those of our time. Account has to be taken both of the great stature of the Númenóreans (since hands, feet, fingers and paces are likely to be the origin of names of units of length), and also of the variations from these averages or norms in the process of fixing and organising a measurement system both for daily use and for exact calculations. Thus two rangar was often called ‘man-high’, which at thirty-eight inches gives an average height of six feet four inches; but this was at a later date, when the stature of the Dúnedain appears to have decreased, and also was not intended to be an accurate statement of the observed average of male stature among them, but was an approximate length expressed in the well-known unit ranga. (The ranga is often said to have been the length of the stride, from rear heel to front toe, of a full-grown man marching swiftly but at ease; a full stride ‘might be well nigh a ranga and a half’ .) It is however said of the great people of the past that they were more than man-high. Elendil was said to be ‘more than man-high by nearly half a ranga’; but he was accounted the tallest of all the Númenóreans who escaped the Downfall [and was indeed generally known as Elendil the Tall]. The Eldar of the Elder Days were also very tall. Galadriel, ‘the tallest of all the women of the Eldar of whom tales tell’, was said to be man-high, but it is noted ‘according to the measure of the Dúnedain and the men of old’, indicating a height of about six feet four inches.
The Rohirrim were generally shorter, for in their far-off ancestry they had been mingled with men of broader and heavier build.Éomer was said to have been tall, of like height with Aragorn; but he with other descendants of King Thengel were taller than the norm of Rohan, deriving this characteristic (together in some cases with darker hair) from Morwen, Thengel’s wife, a lady of Gondor of high Númenórean descent.
A note to the foregoing text adds some information concerning Morwen to what is given in The Lord of the Rings (Appendix A(II), ‘The Kings of the Mark’):
She was known as Morwen of Lossarnach, for she dwelt there; but she did not belong to the people of that land. Her father had removed thither, for love of its flowering vales, from Belfalas; he was a descendant of a former Prince of that fief, and thus a kinsman of Prince Imrahil. His kinship withÉomer of Rohan, though distant, was recognised by Imrahil, and great friendship grew between them.Éomer wedded Imrahil’s daughter [Lothíriel], and their son, Elfwine the Fair, had a striking likeness to his mother’s father.
Another note remarks of Celeborn that he was ‘a Linda of Valinor’ (that is, one of the Teleri, whose own name for themselves was Lindar, the Singers), and that
he was held by them to be tall, as his name indicated (‘silver-tall’); but the Teleri were in general somewhat less in build and stature than the Noldor.
This is the late version of the story of Celeborn’s origin, and of the meaning of his name; see pp. 300– 1, 346.
In another place my father wrote of Hobbit stature in relation to that of the Númenóreans, and of the origin of the name Halflings:
The remarks [on the stature of Hobbits] in the Prologue