'The Lord of the Rings' - The Rohirrim
For obvious reasons, I’m dedicating this month to J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’, and my favourite peoples in Middle-earth, the Rohirrim.
While I love the Hobbits and like the Dwarves, am in awe of the Elves, and feel an affinity to the people of Gondor, it is the Rohirrim, the people of Rohan, who stand out the most for me.
It’s no secret that Tolkien took his inspiration for the Rohirrim from Anglo-Saxon tradition, using Old English for the language and names.
Like the Anglo-Saxons, the Rohirrim were fair-skinned, blonde, mainly blue-eyed, and tall.
‘Riders of Rohan’ - John Howe
The armour favoured by the Rohirrim included chain and scaled mail, similar to the Anglo-Saxons whose preferred battle strategy involved the use of the shield-wall, a strategy commonly employed by the Rohirric armies.
Known for their heroic and noble character, they were also strong-willed and independent, fierce in their protection of their language and culture.
There was one big difference between the Anglo-Saxons and the Rohirrim – the latter were horse-lovers and prized their horses, around which their culture was based.
In ‘The Two Towers’ Aragorn describes them thus:
‘“They are proud and wilful, but they are true-hearted, generous in thought and in deed; bold but not cruel; wise but unlearned, writing no books but singing many songs…”’
The ancestors of the Rohirrim were the Northmen, who were related to Men of the First Age, the Elf-friends whom the Elves called the Edain; they fought alongside the Elves in their wars against Morgoth.
Unlike the 3 Houses of the Edain, they didn’t journey west over the mountains to Beleriand. Consequently, they had no part in the reward that was the island of Númenor and the long life granted to those people.
Despite not allying themselves with the Elves in the First Age, they never served Morgoth or, his servant, Sauron.
In the Third Age, these Northmen, who settled in Rhovanion (which included the forest of Greenwood the Great, later Mirkwood) became faithful allies to Gondor, fighting alongside them against common enemies.
The princes of Rhovanion and their men served in the armies of Gondor, and the 2 peoples were further linked through marriage.
The main foe of Gondor and Rhovanion was an alliance of men from the East, the Wainriders, so named because they journeyed in wagons, and their leaders rode chariots in battle.
When the Great Plague swept through the lands, thousands died in Gondor and Rhovanion.
There then followed many years of relative peace for the Wainriders had also been struck by the plague.
However, a little over 200 years later, roused by Sauron, the Wainriders began attacking Gondor and Rhovanion.
Bearing the brunt of the initial assaults, the scattered remnants of the Northmen joined with the army of King Narmacil II of Gondor.
But their combined force was utterly defeated by the Wainriders; Narmacil II was slain as was Marhari, the leader of the Northmen.
While Gondor’s forces managed to keep the Wainriders at bay, Rhovanion was conquered by the Easterlings who enslaved many of the people there.
However, some Northmen found their way to Dale and merged with the people there, others to Gondor, and yet others joined Marhwini, son of Marhari.
Marhwini led them north, eventually settling in the land east of Mirkwood, and they became known as the Éothéod.
About 40 years later, Marhwini, on learning that the Wainriders were planning on invading Gondor, warned King Calimehtar of Gondor, son of the slain Narmacil II.
Calimehtar of Gondor (Lord of the Rings Wiki)
Both men, good friends and allies, formed an alliance that successfully defeated the Wainriders.
Tolkien effortlessly ties this alliance to events that will happen over 600 years and more in the future…
“… the greatest effect of the alliance lay far in the future… the two great rides of the Rohirrim to the salvation of Gondor, the coming of Eorl to the Field of Celebrant, and the horns of King Théoden upon the Pelennor but for which the return of the King would have been in vain.” (‘Unfinished Tales’ – ‘Cirion and Eorl and the Friendship of Gondor and Rohan’)
About 100 years later, after the defeat of the Witch-king and his kingdom of Angmar, the then-leader of the Éothéod, Lord Frumgar, led them to the north of Mirkwood, to a new land, south of the Grey Mountains.
As the Éothéod and their horses multiplied, they drove the remnants of the Orcs of Angmar, and the remaining Hill-men out of their lands.
But a threat lingered in the Grey Mountains for there lived the last but one of the Great Worms, the dragon Scatha.
Scatha met his end when he was slain by Fram, Frumgar’s son, who claimed the dragon’s horde for his own.
In his honour, the Éothéod named their chief settlement, Framsburg, in his honour.
However, Fram also earned the enmity of the Dwarves who claimed ownership of Scatha’s treasure.
Denying them the hoard, Fram instead sent them the teeth of Scatha, strung as a necklace.
It was said that, because of this insult, the Dwarves slew Fram, which is why, hundreds of years later, there was still little love between the Rohirrim and Dwarves.
The centuries that followed were prosperous enough that the Éothéod and their horses thrived.
There is no information about the leaders after Fram until, about 5 centuries later, there is mention of King Léod.
He had captured a wild white foal, which he tried to tame.
But when he tried to ride it, it threw him; Léod hit his head and died.
Léod was succeeded by his sixteen-year-old son, Eorl.
Over time, Eorl hunted the stallion and when he found it, called it ‘Mansbane’ and demanded the horse surrender its freedom and serve Eorl as weregild for causing his father’s death.
Understanding the speech of men, the horse submitted, and Eorl renamed it Felaróf.
From Felaróf come the Mearas, a breed of wild horses with a lifespan as long as men.
Strong, wild and intelligent, they only bear the kings and princes of the Mark; the notable exception being Gandalf thanks to his friendship with Shadowfax, lord of the Mearas in Théoden’s time.
The Rohirrim believe Felaróf is descended from Nahar, the horse of Oromé, the Huntsman of the Valar, who they call Béma.
Nahar’s coat was said to be white in sunlight, but to shimmer silver at night, and his feet were shod in gold.
Less than 10 years after succeeding his father, Eorl received a summons from Cirion, the Steward of Gondor, who pleaded for aid against a large army of Easterlings.
Despite his young age, 25 years, Eorl was wise enough to realise that Gondor’s fall would lead to the fall of other, lesser realms of men.
In Gondor, Cirion doubted if Eorl and his men would arrive in time, for their journey involved many days travelling across dangerous territories.
At the Battle of the Field of Celebrant, ‘All hope was lost when, unlooked for, the Riders came out of the North and broke upon the rear of the enemy. Then the fortunes of battle were reversed, and the enemy was driven with slaughter… Eorl led his men in pursuit, and… great was the fear that went before the horsemen of the North…’ (‘Unfinished Tales’ – ‘Cirion and Eorl and the Friendship of Gondor and Rohan’)
In recognition for their aid, Cirion gave as a gift to Eorl and his people the land that would become their new homeland.
The Éothéod came to be known as the Rohirrim, Horse-lords, by the people of Gondor, who called their country Rohan.
The Rohirrim would sometimes call themselves ‘Eorlingas’, which means ‘followers of Eorl’, and they named their country, the Riddermark, land of the riders, or simply, the Mark.
Eorl chose the site that would become Edoras, but it was his son, Brego, who built the Golden Hall of Meduseld.
This is only a small part of the Rohirrim and their history; there’s more in the time before they became known as the Éothéod, and more in the years following Eorl’s death.
I guess it will come as no surprise that Tolkien has given them as rich and full a history as anything we might find in real life.
I’ll end with this interesting note about the image on the banners and flags of the Rohirrim, the emblem of the House of Éorl, a ‘white horse upon green’ – according to the renowned Tolkien scholar, Tom Shippey, the design is based on the Uffington White Horse, situated in Oxfordshire, and created between 1380 and 500BC.
The Uffington White Horse (Wikipedia)