The Lord of the Rings: The Ride of the Rohirrim (Part 3)

The Tale

Merry leaves to get ready for the march. He thinks of Pippin and the fires in Minas Tirith and is filled with dread.

All goes well on the march that day, with the Wild Men sending out hunters to assure no orc or spy finds out about their movements. Every company is guided by a woodman but Ghan rides with Theoden. It takes them a while to find ways through the thickets going down into the Stonewain Valley by a forgotten road. But the trees offer them their last cover before they return to the main road.

After they emerge from the valley and gather again, Theoden calls the captains together for a council. Ghan is there to hear the reports of the Wild Men’s scouts. Ghan speaks with them ‘in a strange, throaty language’ and they report that there is a force an hour away gathered around the beacon hill of Amon Din, but nothing else between there and Minas Tirith. They also report that the enemy has thrown down Gondor’s new outlying wall ‘with earth-thunder and black clubs.’ The enemy is unwary, thinking their ‘friends’ are watching all roads. Ghan laughs at the thought with ‘a curious gurgling noise.’

Eomer sees hope in this and voices a theme that is often repeated throughout the tale. ‘Our Enemy’s devices oft serve us in his despite.’ Sauron's darkness has helped cover their approach, and throwing down the outer wall has removed a barrier to helping them reach the main battle.

Theoden thanks Ghan and his people and wishes them good fortune, but the Woses want only one kind of thanks.

‘Kill gorgun! Kill orc-folk! No other words please Wild Men … Drive away bad air and darkness with bright iron!’

The king replies that they have ridden far to do so, but only the next day will show if they can do so. Ghan-buri-Ghan bows his forehead in farewell and gets up to leave, but suddenly the Wild Man looks up startled and a light comes into his eyes. ‘Wind is changing!’ he cries.

He and his people vanish in a twinkling, never to be seen by the Riders of Rohan again. Their drums in the hills roll as if in farewell. ‘Yet to no heart in all the host came any fear that the Wild Men were unfaithful, strange and unlovely though they might appear.’

And the Riders need no further guides, for as Elfhelm states, many of them have ridden this road to Gondor in days of peace. They can ride much of that way quickly and without a lot of noise to warn the enemy. Eomer advises they rest before undertaking that ride, because after that they may look to ‘fell deeds and the need of all our strength.’

Theoden agrees, and the captains leave. But Elfhelm soon returns with the report that the two bodies of the errand-riders from Gondor have been found, hewed and headless. It seems they were unable to reach Minas Tirith and turned back west before they were killed. Theoden realizes that Denethor could not know of their riding and will not hope that they are coming.

‘Need brooks no delay, yet late is better than never,’ said Eomer. ‘And mayhap in this time shall the old saw be proved truer than ever before since men spoke with mouth.’

Bits and Bobs

The Wild Men or Woses are another of those vanishing people, like the Ents, who do not seem to survive the coming of the next age. You might include the Hobbits, except that Tolkien avers that there are still some in our time (or at least as late as the middle 20^th Century).

To add to ‘Our Enemy’s devices oft serve us in his despite,’ could be ‘oft evil will shall evil mar’, ‘oft does hatred hurt itself’, and ‘a traitor may betray himself and do good that he does not intend’. Even Eru, the creator, tells Morgoth at the beginning of the world: “And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.”

One of the dead errand riders of Gondor is identified as Hirgon, the messenger who spoke to Theoden; he still clutches the Red Arrow he showed the king.

The proverb Eomer quotes might be translated as “Urgent need allows (brooks) no hesitation but getting there late is better than not coming at all.” As usual, Tolkien hints that our modern saying, “better late than never” might be a folk remembrance of a longer phrase and a cultural commonality. 'Since men spoke with mouth' is a striking phrase; it implies that this proverb is as old as language itself.

‘Wind is changing!’ strikes a strange note of hope in the darkness, hinting at a change of fortune.