The Lord of the Rings: The Ride of the Rohirrim (Part 4 and Last)

The Tale

It is night. The host of Rohan ride along the road on either side, and now turn southward along the side of Mindolluin. They can see the red glow of the assault on the distant Minas Tirith. They are getting close to the distant outer wall (Rammas) and it is not yet day.

King Theoden leads the way and Merry (who is riding with Dernhelm), notices the Rider is slowly leaving the company of Elfhelm to ride closer to the King until they are at the rear of his guard. Suddenly scouts approach the King to report.

There are fires all around Minas Tirith, with the foes swarming all about. But they seem concentrated on the assault, with few on the approaches to City, and those heedless with wanton destruction.

One of the scouts, Widfara, reminds Theoden of Ghan-buri-Ghan’s words. He too feels a change in the wind from the South, bearing a faint tang of the sea. The wind is turning. When they reach the wall, it will be dawn above the reeking pall. The morning, he concludes hopefully, will bring new things.

Theoden blesses him with the hope of long life, if he speaks truly. He issues his commands with a loud clear voice.

‘Now is the hour come, Riders of the Mark, sons of Eorl! Foes and fire are before you, and your homes far behind. Yet, though you fight upon an alien field, the glory that you reap there shall be your own forever. Oaths ye have taken: now fulfill them all, to lord and land and league of friendship!’

The men clash their spears on their shields in acknowledgement and Theoden give his order. He and Eomer shall lead an eored (company), with Dernhelm and Grimbold with eored on either side. All other companies shall follow as they can and strike where needed. No other plan can be made now, for they don’t know how things are on the field. ‘Forth now, and fear no darkness!’

They leave as quickly as they can; it is still dark, no matter what changes Widfara feels. Merry holds on behind Derhelm with one hand and tries to loosen his sword in its sheath. He remembers bitterly Theoden’s question what he would do in such a battle.  ‘Just this,’ he thought: ‘encumber a rider, and hope at best to stay in my seat and not be pounded to death by galloping hoofs!’

It's only a league to the out-walls, and there are brief cries as the few looting orcs there are surprised and swept away. At the ruin of the north-gate in the wall Theoden halts and the riders draw around him. Ten miles away they can see the great blaze around Minas Tirith surrounded by a great crescent of flame surrounding it, the outer line not a league away. Merry, gazing out upon it from behind Dernhelm, can see no hope of morning of feel any wind of change.

The host of Rohan moves silently spreading into the field of Gondor, like a tide breaching a dike, but the enemy doesn’t raise any alarms. It seems the Black Captain is too focused on the falling city to notice them yet. The King leads the host a little east to get past the fires and then they halt again.

Burning is in the air and ‘a very shadow of death.’ The horses are uneasy. Theoden sits on his horse Snowmane and gazes on the agony of Minas Tirith. He seems suddenly stricken by dread and doubt and weighed down by age. Merry feels horror and doubt settling on him.

‘They were too late! Too late was worse than never! Perhaps Theoden would quail, bow his old head, turn, slink away to hide in the hills.’

Then Merry feels it at last, a definite wind blowing from the south, breaking the pall of shadow and allowing a glimmer of light! But in the city there is a sudden flash like lightning, lighting up the white tower ‘like a glittering needle’ then closing in into darkness. A rolling boom comes over the field.

At the sound Theoden springs erect again. He cries in a loud voice, clearer than any there have ever heard.

‘Arise, arise, Riders of Theoden!

Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter!

spear shall be shaken, shield shall be splintered,

a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!

Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!’

He grabs a horn from Guthlaf his banner-bearer and sounds a blast that bursts the trumpet. All the horns of Rohan are lifted up, ‘like a storm upon the plain and a thunder in the mountains.’

Theoden springs forward and his banner, a white horse on a green field, flies in the wind, but he outpaces it. He outpaces all his men, even Eomer with ‘white horsetail on his helm' floating with his speed. The first eored roars like a wave breaking on the shore but Theoden cannot be overtaken.

‘Fey he seemed, or the battle-fury of his fathers ran like new fire in his veins, and he was borne up on Snowmane like a god of old, even as Orome the Great in the battle of the Valar when the world was young. His golden shield was uncovered, and lo! It shone like an image of the Sun, and the grass flamed into green about the white feet of his steed. For morning came, morning and a wind from the sea; and darkness was removed, and the hosts of Mordor wailed, and terror took them, and they fled, and died, and the hoofs of wrath rode over them. And then all the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City.’

Bits and Bobs

Widfara = ‘wide-farer, far traveller.’

Guthlaf = ‘guth = battle + laf = leave’ or one who survives a battle, not someone who runs away

Orome = ‘the sound of horns blowing’. He was the Huntsman of the Valar (gods, more or less, not THE God). The battle may have been the first one after the Elves had awakened and Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, was taken to be imprisoned in Valinor.

Fey = Fey: fey • \FAY\ • adjective. 1 : marked by a foreboding of death or calamity 2 a : marked by an otherworldly air or attitude b : crazy, touched.” Fey is a Scottish word denoting something doomed or fated, and therefore partaking of a heedless nature, caring not for consequences.

The lightning and boom is obviously the breaking of the Gate of Gondor.

This is one of the most Old English parts of the book, from the battle-fury (berserk?) to the Anglo-Saxon meter of the verses. But, as Tom Shippey has pointed out, the Anglo-Saxons had no tradition of fighting en masse on horseback.

The lightning and boom is obviously the breaking of the Gate of Gondor.

Even the Peter Jackson films cannot not help but show the glory of the charge of the Rohirrim, deglamorizing of the joy of battle as they try to be. Don't get me wrong, I love the films, but they go far in their efforts to debunk martial heroism. Tolkien also shows the cost of war and such heroics later, but he does not deny the exhilaration of fighting in a good cause against terrible odds. 

You can't really summarize this part without very large direct quotations. It is a section that has a recording of Tolkien reading it aloud. Like a bard.

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. 

 

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.

The Lord of the Rings: The Ride of the Rohirrim (Part 1)

The Tale

Merry is having a restless night, bivouacking with the Rohirrim army in the pine woods around Eilenach Beacon, a hill rising out of the Druadan Forest next to the great road in East Anorion. He cannot rest, though they have been on the road four days. All around him are the sighing of trees, the smell and shifting of horse, and a strange throbbing in the air that comes and goes.

The hobbit wonders why he is even there. He certainly didn’t have to come; in fact, King Theoden had positively ordered him not to come. Even so all the Riders ignore him as if he wasn’t there. There seems to be some arrangement between Dernhelm, his ride, and Elfhelm, the leader of this part of the army. Merry longs to have Pippin to talk to and wonders how his friend is faring alone in a city of stone, no doubt under siege.

The host is anxious, because they are only a day’s ride from Minas Tirith, and already the road is being held by enemy forces of men and orcs. Theoden and Eomer are holding council on how to proceed. And the strange throbbing drums seem to be moving nearer.

But suddenly he sees men moving vaguely in the dark, carrying covered lanterns. One trips over him, cursing, and he recognizes the voice of Elfhelm. He dares to ask the marshall what is going on, and is told that there are orders for the host to prepare to move out at a moment’s notice. Merry asks nervously if the enemy is moving, if it has anything to do with the strange drums in the hills.

No, he is told, the enemy is on the road, not in the hills. What he hears are the Woses, the Wild Men of the Wood. They are remnants of an older time, secretive and wary as beasts, using poison arrows rather than swords. But it seems they fear the Dark Years are coming again, and are willing to aid Theoden and his men. One of their leaders is being taken to Theoden for counsel even now. But Elfhelm must go and get his men ready. Merry should get ready to move, too.

Merry is quite ready for action; simply waiting is unbearable. He doesn’t like the sound of poison darts, but feels he must know more about what’s going on. He follows the last lantern to where the counsel is taking place.

He comes to an open space where Theoden’s tent has been set under a great tree. A lantern hangs, shedding light on a strange meeting. Theoden and Eomer are there, and before them sits a strange figure, ‘a squat shape of a man, gnarled as an old stone, and the hairs of his scanty beard straggled on his lumpy chin like dry moss. He was short-legged and fat-armed, thick and stumpy, and clad only in grass about his waist.’ Merry thinks he has seen such a figure before, then remembers the old Pukel-men carved at Dunharrow. This could be one brought to life, or a distant descendant of the models for the statues.

Notes

The Woses sound like some kind of cavemen, but they are based on an old medieval story, the wood (wild, frenzied, crazy) wose (being, person) who lived in the wood. They were seen either to be creatures of their own race, like satyrs, covered with hair; or men who had run crazy out into the wild and gone au naturale, as it were.

The idea of hairy wild men goes back as far as Enkidu in the Epic of Gilgamesh or Nebuchadnezzar in the Book of Daniel. Sir Lancelot once went through a period where he went mad and lived as a Wild Man in the woods. The term woodwose survives in the modern English surname Wodehouse (as in P. G. Wodehouse).

The element of wood (in the sense of frenzied) may be related to Woden, who drove men mad in battle … and also into frenzies of poetic inspiration. But anyway, the term and idea of the woses were very popular in old heraldry and art, especially during the Renaissance.

The Bal des Ardents (Ball of the Burning Men), or the Bal des Sauvages (Ball of the Wild Men), was a masquerade ball held on 28 January 1393 in Paris, France, at which King Charles VI had a dance performance with five members of the French nobility. Four of the dancers were killed in a fire caused by a torch brought in by Louis I, Duke of Orléans, the king's brother. On the suggestion of Huguet de Guisay …  six young men, including Charles [the King], performed a dance in costume as wood savages. The costumes, which were sewn onto the men, were made of linen soaked with resin to which flax was attached "so that they appeared shaggy and hairy from head to foot". Masks made of the same materials covered the dancers' faces and hid their identities from the audience. “ – Wikipedia. The incident later inspired Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, Hop Toad.

All of which is neither here nor there, but you can see how Woses have been an obscure but persistent motif in popular culture. Why, even ideas about Bigfoot might be connected.

In Faramir’s categorization of the Men of Middle-earth the Woses (Druedain = dru ‘wild’ + edain ‘Men’) would fall into the Wild or Men of Darkness. This has nothing to do with their morality, only their degree of enlightenment.

Eilianach was the second of the Beacon-hills from Gondor, so they are quite close. A tall, sharp peak, whose name was of unknown origin.

Tolkien fiddled around with the Woses quite a bit, developing their origins and backstory. Most of this can be seen in Unfinished Tales, Part 4, Section 1. Woodwoses are also mentioned in his translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, as they are there in the original poem.