Sîredain



The Rivermen, or Sîredain, were an Eriadorian culture of men living along the northern rivers such as the Lhûn and the Baranduin. They were actually a branch of the Forodrim, descendants of the Eriedain of the First Age.

The "Rivermen of the Brandywine" were actually the masters of two great rivers. The Lhun was treacherous and littered with shoals and rapids. The Rivermen were the only Eriadorans to move easily along it, using canoes where barges and flatboats could not hope to pass. Throughout the Third Age, they maintained a simple network of trade routes from Mulkan, a Lossoth village with access to the Bay of Forochel, across the divide of the Talath Muil and down the Lhun to Caras Celairnen; then eastward across the Gondpinnath to Nenuial and down the Brandywine to the sea. Furs, amber, metalware made in the Nan-i-Naugrim and foodstuffs of the Shire were their usual cargo. In spite of their rough ways, the peoples of late-Third Age Eriador could not do without the Rivermen.

In The Lord of The Rings Books
In the Lord of the Rings Books it is stated that no men had settled dwellings so far west or within a hundred leagues of the Shire.On the other Hand it is stated in the Lord of the Rings hat the Hobbits of the Southfarthing had troubles with men, indicating men near the southern borders of the Shire, probably along the Baranduin.This might either indicate that these men who lived south of the shire or men who had lived along the Lune might have been either nomads or at least that their settlements were small, thinly populated or instable in comparison to breeland and the shire.

Other meanings

 * Rivermen may also refer to the Gwathló Bargemen, Celduin Rivermen, Boatmen of Calenardhon,River-Valley People of Sirayn and the Anduin River Culture.