The Lord of the Rings: The Ride of the Rohirrim (Part 2)

The Tale

Merry draws near and he hears the strange figure start to speak. The Wild Men will not help the Horse-men fight. They kill gorgun, orc-folk, when they can, but Druedain are hunters, not fighters. Eomer asks what, then, is this help they are offering?

The Woses have lived here for ages. They know all the paths in the woods they are passing through. They are great scouts. They know the enemy armies are blocking the roads. Many more folk than the Rohirrim.

Eomer asks how he knows that, and Ghan-buri-Ghan replies that the Wild Men are not children. He knows – they have been counted – that Theoden has ‘a score of scores counted ten times and five.’ The enemy have more. And there are many more, inside and outside of Minas Tirith – the Stonehouses.

Theoden agrees. And they have dug trenches and cast stakes across the road. There will be battle before they ever get to the city.

But this is where the Woses can help. They know of an ancient, abandoned, and secret way through the hills, built by Gondor in its heyday but long forgotten. Ghan and his folk can lead the Rohirrim by that way and bring them back to the road, circumventing the enemy. Then ‘you will kill gorgun and drive away bad dark with bright iron, and the Wild Men can go back to sleep in the wild woods.’

Theoden and Eomer confer a while. Then Theoden agrees, and offers Ghan a rich reward if they survive, which is not at all sure. Ghan replies that the only reward they want is to be left alone afterwards and not hunted like animals anymore. As a sign of good faith Ghan offers himself as a hostage to go with the king, and Theoden accepts.

The way is narrow, only wide enough for four horsemen at a time. By their calculations, it will take ten hours to get out of the hills and then form the host again. They wonder what time it is now; with the Darkness all is night. But Ghan knows. It is not night; the Wild Men feel the Sun even when she is hidden. It is rising even now over the East-mountains, behind the dark pall.

‘Then we must set out as soon as may be,’ said Eomer. ‘Even so we cannot hope to Gondor’s aid today.’

NOTES

‘A score of scores counted ten times and five’ is 6000, 920x20x (10+5). The Woses are simple but not ignorant, ‘not children.’ They know the score, and know what time it is even when other men are lost in the unnatural dark. They have long memories, stretching to before the Numenoreans, who have passed into legend, even arrived. And Ghan can speak at least some Common Speech. The only recorded word in the Druedain language is gorgun, Orc, creatures whom the Woses have hated for uncounted years.

The people of Rohan in the past have hunted Woses for sport like beasts, not recognizing the Wild Men’s common humanity. The only reward they want for their help is to be left alone in their forests. That they would ally themselves with Rohan now shows how dire are the straits, and also argues for the common sense of the Woses, not allowing past grudges to crowd present necessities.

On a personal note, I am sorry that I am a day late and a dollar short with this post. I seem only to be able to crawl along a couple of pages at a time. I am undergoing some Dark Days myself lately. But ‘above all shadows rides the Sun.’ Maybe – maybe – I can prepare such posts more than once a week, and so speed things up a bit. We shall see. In the beginning I was able to cover a chapter at a time, but those were simpler matters, a hobbit’s birthday opposed to an epic battle. Now my efforts seem as laden as the whole Matter of Middle-earth.