Drughu

The name used for themselves by the woodland people otherwise known as Wild Men or Woses (Drughu being the plural form, with the singular being Drûg). During the First Age, these Drughu were close in friendship with the people known as the Haladin, and were to be found dwelling with their allies in the Forest of Brethil. It was here, doubtless, that the Sindar first encountered them, and adapted their own name Drughu to the Sindarin tongue as Drû.

The Drughu had a fierce hatred of the Orcs, and thus they were considered by the Elves to belong to the Edain, those Men who fought beside the Eldar against the Dark Lord and his servants. Their name in Elvish thus became Drúedain (from which their woodland home in Gondor gained the name of the Drúadan Forest). Among later Men, the proud heritage of these dwindled people was forgotten, and they were seen simply as Wild Men of the Woods.

At the end of the Third Age, these people lent their aid to the Rohirrim during the War of the Ring, and as a reward the Drúadan Forest was granted to them by the new King of Gondor as their own domain. More of these Drughu were later found to be dwelling in the far western lands of Drúwaith Iaur, a place that took its name from the Drughu who had once lived there, and had been wrongly thought to have become extinct. So the Drughu continued to dwell in Middle-earth into the Fourth Age, but of their later fate no record exists.