The oxen that lived on the lands around the Sea of Rhûn were hardier and wilder than any others in Middle-earth. Legends claimed that they were descended from the cattle of the Huntsman of the Valar, Oromë himself, and so they were named the Kine of Araw (Araw being the Sindarin form of Oromë's name).
The Kine were famous as the quarry of Vorondil the Hunter, ancestor of the Ruling Stewards of Gondor. It was he who cut a horn from one of these beasts and fashioned a hunting-horn from it, which came to be carried by the eldest son of the Ruling Steward from Vorondil's time onward. The last heir to bear the horn was Boromir, who saw it broken in two in his battle with Orcs beneath Amon Hen.
Notes
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The legend of the great eastern cattle of Middle-earth seems to be connected to, or at least influenced by, the real giant ox known as the aurochs. It's not clear whether the Kine of Araw literally were aurochs; if so, they survived until only a few centuries ago (the last aurochs died in 1627). Whether or not this literal connection applies, the Kine are now definitively extinct.
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- Updated 17 May 2014
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