The Lord of the Rings: The Muster of Rohan (Part Seven and Last)

 

The Tale

Under the deepening darkness from Mordor, Theoden gets ready to lead his Riders on the eastern road. Their hearts are heavy, but they are a stern folk and loyal to the king. Even in the camp where the women, children, and elderly are housed, there is little weeping. ‘Doom hung over them, but they faced it silently.’ Two hours pass as ranks are formed. Theoden, white haired and erect on his white horse gleaming in the dark, gives his people hope as he stands unbent and unafraid.

On the flats beside the river 5500 fully armed Riders are marshalled, with ‘many hundreds of other men with spare horses lightly burdened.’ A single trumpet sounds, Theoden raises his hand, and the army begins to move out silently. First come twelve of the king’s household men, an elite batch of warriors. Then Theoden and Eomer; he has said his grievous farewell to Eowyn already and turns his mind to the road ahead. After them follows Merry on his pony and the two riders from Gondor, and then twelve more picked Riders.

As they pass to the front of the long ranks, Merry notices a slight young Rider near the end of the line who glances at him with keen grey eyes. Merry shudders, for it seems the face ‘of one without hope who goes in search of death.’

The army goes along the Snowbourne (‘snow-born’) river, past Underharrow and Upbourn, two villages where sad faces look out of dark windows and doors at them. There are no horns or song or music as they pass, though there are songs sung years later of their fearful, fate-driven ride, five days to Mundberg (Minas Tirith) in Sunlending (translated from Anorien, ‘the land of the sun’), six thousand spears strong, and how they passed into darkness.

It is dark when they reach Edoras at high noon, where they are joined by about sixty more Riders, late to the muster. Theoden halts a short while to eat, then he bids Merry farewell. The hobbit is to stay safely here. Merry begs again to go with him; why did the king make him his swordthain (squire), if not to be with him. He does not want it to be said of him in song that he was only left behind!

Theoden reminds him that his pony is too small to make the long journey, and in the fighting they expect at the end there is little the hobbit can do. No rider can bear him as a burden. Theoden took him to keep safe, and here safe he shall stay. He will say no more.

‘Merry bowed and went away unhappily.’ He passes through the lines of Riders getting ready to move out, and in their busy ranks he is suddenly approached by the young doom-laden rider he noticed earlier, who speaks softly into Merry’s ear.

‘Where will wants not, a way opens, so we say,’ he whispered.' And he has found it so for himself. Merry obviously wants to go with Theoden, and good will and great heart should not be denied. The hobbit can ride with him, hidden under his cloak in the darkness, and none shall notice. Merry thanks him, though he remarks he does not know his name.

‘Do you not?’ said the Rider softly. ‘Then call me Dernhelm.’

So when the army rides out, Dernhelm’s steed Windfola secretly carries both Rider and Merry easily, ‘for Dernhelm is less in weight than many men, though lithe and well-knit in frame.’ They ride through the willows running along the Snowbourne into the Entwash, then rest for the night twelve leagues (about 36 miles) from Edoras. Then the next day through Folde and Fenmarch and past where Halifirien skirts the hills on the borders of Gondor.

As they go they find rumor of war in the north, lone men riding fleeing attacks by orc-hosts on the eastern borders, marching on the Wold of Rohan. But it is too late to turn aside. They must make haste to Gondor. ‘Ride on! Ride on!’ urges Eomer.

‘And so Theoden departed from his own realm, and mile by mile the long road wound away, and the beacon hills marched past: Calenhad, Min-Rimmon, Erelas, Nardol. But their fires were quenched. All the lands were grey and still; and ever the shadow deepened before them, and hope waned in every heart.’

 

Notes

And so we come at last to the end of this chapter, which we have been on since the start of the New Year. I have taken it in easy stages, usually writing it up in the early hours of the same day I post it, simply stopping at what seems a natural pause.

The Folde (Old Norse for land or country) is the center of the kingdom where the king and his kin live; it is bordered by the Eastfold and the Westfold.

The Fenmarch is the stretch of marshy land that follows the Mering Stream. It is the border between Rohan and Gondor.

The Firienwood (also called Firien Holt) stood beneath the Halifirien (‘holy wood’), an oakwood left unfelled to cover stealthy passage between the kingdoms.

Theoden, while impressing the distance to Minas Tirith on Merry, says it is a 102 league (306 mile) ride.

Dernhelm comes from dern (hidden, secret) and helm. So, helmet of secrecy, or as we might say, disguise. An odd entanglement, perhaps, as Grima (Wormtongue’s actual name) means ‘mask.’ Windfola means ‘foal of the wind’. The name implies the steed is as swift as the wind, being its child. It recalls old Greek legends of the land of Hyperborea (‘Beyond the North Wind’) where Boreas, the North Wind, fertilizes mares by blowing on them. Some writers identify Hyperborea with Britain, which makes an odd little connection with the Rohirrim and the English.

‘Where will wants not, a way opens’ loosely translates to ‘where there’s a will, there’s a way.’ In other words, if you want something enough, you’ll find a way. For years I misread it as ‘a way will open up where you didn’t want it, or least expected it.’

I’m going to be as cagey about Dernhelm as Tolkien himself is here, until the proper time comes. I imagine it will be no surprise to most people.

The Lord of the Rings: The Muster of Rohan (Part Six)

 

The Tale

‘I won’t be left behind to be called for on return!’ said Merry. ‘I won’t be left, I won’t.” And repeating this over and over again to himself he fell asleep at last in his tent.’

He wakes, startled out of deep dreams, when a man shakes him, calling him Master Holbytla and telling him that the King summons him. Merry looks around. It seems very dark still; it doesn’t look as if the Sun has risen.

And won’t today, says the man. And may never again. ‘But time does not stand still, though the Sun be lost.’ Merry should make haste.

Outside the world is dark, ‘the very air seemed brown.’ Everything is black and grey and shadowless, and the sky above is flat and featureless. Far to the West there is still a little sky, but the creeping darkness is eating that up. In the disastrous atmosphere people look pale and grey and sad, some look fearful.  It seems to be getting darker, not lighter, as the day grows.

Merry makes his way to Theoden’s tent, and there he finds Hirgon and another messenger from Gondor talking to the King. The new messenger tells him this darkness is from Mordor; it came creeping westward as he rode all through the night, eating up the stars. It is a sign. War has already begun.

For a while the king sits silently, pondering this news. Then he speaks. ‘So we come to it in the end; the great battle of our time, in which many things shall pass away.’ But at least they no longer need to move under cover of darkness; darkness has come to meet them. They shall begin the muster and ride at once. He hopes they have good provision in Gondor, for they must ride light, with only enough food to get them to the City.

Hirgon replies they have long made good stores, planning for this day. Let them ride as lightly and as swiftly as they can! Theoden tells Eomer to command the heralds to marshal the Riders, and presently horns ring out, sounding dull and harsh in the heavy air, ‘braying ominously.’

Theoden turns to Merry. He is riding to war, so he releases him from his service but not his friendship. He suggests that he stay in safety in Rohan, perhaps serving Eowyn if he wants to. She will be ruling the folk in Theoden’s absence.

But Merry wants to go with the King; he pledged him his service. All his friends have gone to war and he would be ashamed to be left behind.  Theoden counters that they must travel quickly on great steeds, Merry cannot ride such beasts ‘great though your heart be.’ Merry counters that he can be trussed up as a bundle and carried on the back of a horse or hung from a stirrup; ’It is a long way to run, but run I shall, if I cannot ride, even if I wear my feet off and arrive weeks to late.’

Theoden smiles at his bravado and says the hobbit can at least ride to Meduseld with him; his pony Stybba can bear him that far. But when the great race to Minas Tirith begins, he cannot join.

Eowyn rises and asks Merry to come with her to see the gear she has gathered for him. She says she did this at Aragorn’s request so that he will be armed; she fears he will need it. Eowyn leads him to a booth where an armourer brings out his arms.

There is a small helm; a little shield, green and with the white horse of Rohan on it; a belt and a knife. He already has a sword, fit for his size. They have no mail that will fit him but supply him with ‘a stout jerkin of leather.’

‘Take all these things,’ she said, ‘and bear them to good fortune! Fare well now, Master Meriadoc! Yet maybe we shall meet again, you and I.’

 

Bits and Bobs

‘Holbytla’ is the asterix word (unrecorded term that is extrapolated or conjectured) in Rohirrric (Anglo-Saxon) that Tolkien feigns that the (English) word hobbit may have been worn down from. It means Hole (hol) Builder (bytla). He came up with the explanation years after he invented and started using the word, perhaps an unconscious reflex from his philologist’s training.

Merry's comment about wearing his feet off reminds me inevitably of Trotter, the Hobbit who served as the first draft for Aragorn at the Prancing Pony. His feet had been removed by some kind of torture, and his 'wooden shoes' were actually prosthetics to replace them.

A rider controls a horse as much by shifting weight as by steering with the reins; Merry is deemed too light to control the big strong steed needed to make the journey.

Looking back (hastily I fear) I can find no place where Aragorn requests anyone (let alone Eowyn) to arm Merry. Perhaps he did and it just wasn’t mentioned in the details; perhaps he did and I just plain-de-old missed it; perhaps this is an extrapolation that Eowyn makes from Aragorn’s desire that Merry be taken care of. But perhaps Eowyn is projecting her own desires on Merry, preparing him for battle, seeing in his willingness to go an echo of her own impulses and indulging them through him. Or perhaps she is already planning her own decision.

The Lord of the Rings: The Muster of Rohan (Part Five)

 

The Tale

The captain of the Guard opens the curtain they are sitting behind and announces that an errand-rider from Gondor has arrived and wants to see the king. Theoden says to let him in. When the tall man enters Merry almost cries out, because it seems to him Boromir has come again, tall and grey-eyed and proud. The messenger is clad in fine mail with a green cloak, and a helm with a small silver star.

In his hand he carries a single arrow, black-feathered and barbed in steel, the tip of the arrowhead painted red. He kneels and presents it to Theoden.

‘Hail, Lord of the Rohirrim, friend of Gondor! Hirgon am I, errand-rider of Denethor, who bring you this token of war. Gondor is in great need. Often the Rohirrim have aided us, but now the Lord Denethor asks for all your strength and all your speed, lest Gondor fall at last.’

Theoden accepts the Red Arrow and holds it like a dread token, long feared. His hands tremble. The summons has not been made in all his years. He asks what Denethor reckons his strength and speed may be?

Hirgon replies that is best known to himself; but that unless Theoden comes quickly, he may find Minas Tirith besieged and his troops unable to enter the city. Unless he has enough men to break such a siege, Denethor thinks his army would be better inside than out.

But the Rohirrim fight better on horseback and in the open, Theoden replies, and they are usually a scattered people and take time to gather an army. Did Denethor know more than he speaks in the message? For the Riders are already at war and are mustering for battle in the East. Gandalf the Grey, the Stormcrow, has been among them.

Hirgon does not know; only that their case is desperate. Denethor does not command him to come, only to remember long friendships of their people and old oaths spoken. Mordor has a vast army, and alliances with many kings in the East. If they are not stopped in Gondor, they will overflow into many lands, and even Rohan’s strongholds will be of no use.

Theoden says that such peril is not unguessed, but they would come, even if Rohan felt no danger to their own lands. But they have had losses in their fight with Saruman the traitor and must leave some troops on their north and east frontiers, to guard his own kingdom. He might have been able to send ten thousand spears, but now he will definitely bring six thousand, and he himself the King will ride with them.  But it is a long road, and men and horses must get to the end with strength enough to fight. It might be a week before the Sons of Eorl reach the walls of Minas Tirith.

Hirgon is dismayed. ‘A week! … you are like to find only ruined walls in seven days … Still, you may at least disturb the Orcs and Swarthy Men from their feasting in the Tower.’

‘At least we will do that,’ says Theoden grimly. But all are tired and will rest for the night. Tomorrow Hirgon will ride away gladder for the sight of the muster of Rohan, and faster for having rested. Meanwhile, ‘In the morning counsels are best, and night changes many thoughts.’

He rises and bids them all rest. He tells Merry he needs him no more tonight, but he’ll call him in the morning. Merry says he’ll be ready, even if Theoden bids him ride with him on the paths of the Dead.

‘Speak not words of omen! Said the king. ‘For there may be more roads than one that could bear that name. But I did not say that I would bid you ride with me on any road. Good night!’

 

Notes

Hirgon is a name of unknown meaning. The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion points out that a similar war-arrow is used as a token calling to battle in William Morris’s The House of the Wulfings, a work and author well known to Tolkien. Rohan has ridden to help Gondor several times; the first was when Eorl himself led his troops to the aid of Gondor at the Fields of Celebrant, and thus was granted by the Steward the land of Calenardhon, which became the kingdom of Rohan. It was then that Eorl swore the first of those ‘old oaths.’

The Swarthy Men are the Haradrim. Theoden’s comment that they will ‘at least’ disturb the Orcs at their feasting is part of the grim, understated humor so typical of the Anglo-Saxon idiom, where the grimmest of thoughts are put aside in the lightest of ways, ‘chuckling in the face of doom.’ It shows defiance of fear and not letting the spirit be cowed by thoughts. An example from history might be when the Persians said their flights of arrows would block out the sun and the Spartans replied that they would at least then fight in the shade.

Theoden cautions Merry against speaking ‘words of omen’; the Paths of the Dead could refer not only the track through the Haunted Mountain, but any road that would lead them to death, as this riding to war may well be.

 

The Lord of the Rings: The Muster of Rohan (Part Four)

The Tale

The company come to the King’s pavilion; a small tent for Merry has been pitched next to it. The Hobbit is forgotten and left to himself in the general business of settling into camp. As dark as the night becomes, the shadows of the Dwimorberg, the Haunted Mountain, are darker still. Merry wonders about the name he has heard spoken.

‘The Paths of the Dead? What does it all this mean? They have all left me now. They have all gone to some doom: Gandalf and Pippin to war in the East; and Sam and Frodo to Mordor; and Strider and Legolas and Gimli to the Paths of the Dead.’ Among these gloomy thoughts he thinks (very Hobbit-like) that he is very hungry and wants something to eat, but he is suddenly summoned to Theoden’s tent, to serve as squire at the King’s meal.

In the tent a space with a small table is curtained off, and there Theoden, Eomer, Eowyn, and Dunhere sit. Merry waits next to the King’s stool, ready to serve, but Theoden is deep in thought. Finally he looks up, smiles, and bids the hobbit sit next to him as his guest, and maybe lighten his heart with tales.

But they all sit and eat and drink quietly, calling for no tale. Their hearts seem heavy. At last Merry musters the courage to ask the question that has been plaguing him: what are the Paths of the Dead? Where has Aragorn gone?

Theoden can only sigh. At last Eomer answers. Merry himself has walked on the first steps of the Paths of the Dead. ‘Nay, I speak no words of ill-omen!’ The road they have climbed is the approach to the door to the paths, away there in the Dimholt Woods. What lies beyond no man knows. That’s where Aragorn has gone.

Theoden speaks. No man really knows where it leads, but there are ancient legends. Tales say the Door leads beneath the mountains to some forgotten end. But no one has ever searched for them, except one. Long ago, when Meduseld was first built, Brego, the King then, held a great feast to hallow the Hall. Baldor, his son, made a rash vow (there was probably a lot of drinking) to pass the Door of the Dead. He did so a year later and was never seen again, never became king after his father.

Folk say the Dead Men out of the Dark Years guard the way and let no living man pass. But they themselves come out sometime, riding down the stony road like shadows, at times ‘of great unquiet and coming death.’

Eowyn says in a low voice that in the moonless lights a little while ago ‘a great host in strange array' passed by in Harrowdale. Nobody knew where they came from, but they went up the road and vanished into the hill, ‘as if they went to keep a tryst.’ Merry asks why Aragorn would take such a way, but Eomer says if he hasn’t spoken to Merry about this, no living person can guess. Eowyn says that he looked older than when first she saw him, grimmer and older. ‘Fey I thought him, and like one that the Dead call.’

Theoden notices that his niece seems to need more comfort about the fate of this ‘guest.’ Aragorn is a kingly man of high destiny. There is another tale of when the Eorlingas first came to the country from the North, Brego and Baldor came up the Stair to the Door in search of a strong place for times of refuge. At the Door they found an old man sitting. He seemed like he had been tall and kingly once, but now as withered as an old stone. They thought he was dead, but when they tried to pass him into the Door, he spoke in a voice that seemed to come out of the ground.

“The way is shut … It was made by those who are Dead, and the Dead keep it, until the time comes. The way is shut.’ Baldor asks when that will be, but ‘the old man died in that hour and fell upon his face’. No other word have they heard about the ‘dwellers’ since that time. But maybe the time has come at last, and Aragorn may pass.

But how can anyone know if the time has come, unless he dare the Paths, asks Eomer. And he himself wouldn’t try it if all the hosts of Mordor were before him, and he were alone with nowhere else to go. Alas for Aragorn, that such a mood should take him; isn’t there enough war in the land and evil things abroad in the world without seeking them under the earth?

‘He paused, for at that moment there was a noise outside, a man’s voice crying the name of Theoden, and a challenge of the guard.’

Notes

Brego (‘ruler’) was the son of Eorl (‘earl’) and the second King of Rohan. Baldor recalls Balder, the doomed son of Odin in Norse mythology. It is Baldor’s skeleton Aragorn finds on the Paths of the Dead; his legs have apparently been broken by the ghosts so he could not escape. Brego was succeeded by his second son, Aldor (elder, alderman). Brego built Meduseld as the capitol of Rohan; it was ‘hallowed’ (made holy), or as we might say, inaugurated, by a great feast, when many oaths would be sworn and boasts would be made. Perhaps it was Baldor’s curiosity from their encounter with the Old King that led to his rash vow. Brego survives in the Jackson movies as a horse 'with a kingly name.'

• Ghost Hosts were seen as omens with connection to the Wild Hunts or Furious Rides of folklore. But instead of comprising completely supernatural beings they were seen as the human dead, and their intent was not always evil. During the English Civil War hosts were seen in the clouds that echoed a battle then being fought far away; observers could actually identify combatants they knew. “A story about a ghostly army that helped the British retreat during World War I became popular in Britain after the war. The story claimed that a British soldier called on Saint George for help, and then a ghostly army appeared and held back the German forces. However, there are no reliable contemporary eyewitness accounts to support this story. The story may have originated from a short story written by Arthur Machen in 1914.” 

Aragorn’s mood is several times called fey, as it seems to the people of Rohan. “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 related to the term fay, or fairy, and is a Scottish word denoting something doomed or fated, and therefore partaking of a heedless nature, caring not for consequences. In old folklore fairies were sometimes referred to as fata, or fates; connections with Classical mythology and the Three Fates may have influenced the trope of Three Fairy Godmothers. Perhaps its relationship to the word fairy that has led it to be used as a term for effeminate or campy.

I think the image of the Old King before the Door of the Dead would make a fine illustration, but I can’t find one for it anywhere. If it ain’t in the movies, apparently, it ain’t anywhere. This scene in Theoden’s tent has the atmosphere of people gloomily telling ghost stories on the edge of doom.

The Lord of the Rings: The Muster of Rohan (Part Three)

The Tale

‘The road now led eastward straight across the valley, which was at that point little more than half a mile in width. Flats and meads of rough grass, grey now in the falling night, lay all about, but in front on the far side of the dale Merry saw a frowning wall, a last outlier of the great roots of the Starkhorn, cloven by the river in ages past.’

There is a great host of men gathered on every level space, tents, booths, picketed horses, and piles of weapons. Although it is growing cold and dark there is not even a spark of fire; they do not want anyone, either lookouts or in the air (Winged Riders!) to know their numbers.

Merry can’t tell in the gloom how many men there are; many thousands, he thinks. The King’s troop (which he is with) starts to climb a road up the cliff side. Looking up, he sees a steep road, coiling back and forth up the steep hillside. Horses and slow carts can be driven up, but no enemy can approach it by land if it is defended from above. It seems to be a great work from ancient times. At each corner as the road turns are ‘great standing stones that had been carved in the likeness of men, huge and clumsy-limbed, squatting cross-legged with their stumpy arms folded on fat bellies.’ The Rider’s call them Pukel-men; they are hollow-eyed and crumbling, and no power is left in them. Merry gazes at them almost in pity, so old and sad they look.

Only Theoden and company are going up the road to the Hold; below them the riders who followed them are crossing the ford and joining the camp. The company comes to a brink and go up a cutting in the rock into a wide upland, called the Firienfield, a green plateau of grass and heath. Behind it looms the Dwimorberg, the Haunted Mountain like a black wall, the road to it guarded on both side by rough standing stones like rows of teeth, ending in the forbidden door into the mountain.

This was Dunharrow, built by men in ancient times before the Men of the West ever came to Middle-earth; whether as a town or a fortress or a tomb or a temple no one can say. The field is clustered with tents and booths, but they are set far from the road and the door and the dark trees that shroud them.

They turn to the larger camp on the right side of the road, and are met by a rider, a woman clad to the waist as a warrior, with helm on her head and a sword at her side. She welcomes the King with joy, and Theoden hails her as Eowyn (the first time Merry ever sees her) and asks if all is well with her. She says yes, but to the hobbit it seems that despite her stern face that she’s been weeping.

Eowyn says the road was weary and there were hard words from the people torn from their homes and forced to take refuge, but no evil deeds. And now Theoden’s lodging has been prepared; she’s had news of when he’d be arriving.

‘So Aragorn has come then,’ said Eomer. ‘Is he still here?’

She tells him that Aragorn has come and gone, leaving yesterday morning. She cannot tell where he is exactly, only that he’s gone. Theoden points to the mountain and asks if he spoke of the Paths of the Dead. Eowyn must confess that she was unable to persuade him against taking that way, and that he passed away into the shadows ‘from which none have returned.’

‘Then our paths are sundered,’ said Eomer. ‘He is lost. We must ride without him, and our hope dwindles.’

Notes

Pukel is an old Anglo-Saxon word meaning a goblin or demon; the name of Puck (a traditional figure) in the Shakespeare play comes from the same word. There is even an old term, Puck’s Penfold, as another name for Hell. It says there was ‘no power or terror left in them’, they were so old. It is told in Unfinished Tales that the ancient Druedain (Wild Men) would carve such ‘watch-stones’ and imbue them with their own energies to watch and guard, almost as a minor example of the same craft Sauron used to imbue the One Ring with his power.

Firienfield simply means ‘mountain-field’. Dwimorberg is indeed ‘haunted mountain’; dwimor meaning work of sorcery or phantom, and as we’ve seen the ghosts of the Dead literally haunt it.

We can start to see the emotions working away in Eowyn; she may already be becoming fey, or doom-laden, which leads to her reckless behavior. There may be a bit of wordplay, probably unintentional on Eomer’s part, when he says that their hope dwindles with Aragorn lost. Estel (‘hope’) was Aragorn’s name when he was growing up in Rivendell. When you are watching the Jackson films, notice Aragorn whenever someone mentions hope.

 

The Lord of the Rings: The Muster of Rohan (Part Two)

 

The Tale

They reach Harrowdale. ‘The paths out of the narrow gorge fell steeply. Only a glimpse, as through a tall window, could be seen of the great valley in the gloaming below. A single small light could be seen twinkling by the river.’ Theoden says he will ride in the morning to Edoras and the gathering of the army.

Eomer advises the King that once they are there, Theoden should stay there, for safety’s sake until the war is over, for good or ill. Theoden smiles, and calls Eomer son, but tells him not to speak the words of Wormtongue again. If the war is lost, it won’t do him any good hiding in the hills. And even if it is won, but he falls in the fight, it will be no grief. But he wil lie in the Hold of Dunharrow tonight ‘One evening of peace at least is left us.’

In the deepening dusk they descend into the dale. Soon they come to a ford across the Snowbourne where they are met and challenged by many guards. But when they see it is the King returning a shout of joy goes up, and he is welcomed by one long horncall that turns into a chorus of trumpets throughout the valley. Theoden’s company is met by a company of the captains of his remaining forces, led by Dunhere, chieftain of the folk of Harrowdale.

Dunhere tells the King how three days ago Gandalf on Shadowfax came to them, bearing the news of Theoden’s victory, but also the King’s order to hasten the gathering of the Riders. And then came the winged Shadow.

Theoden says they had seen this Nazgul before, when Gandalf was still with them, but Dunhere says it came again, ‘a flying darkness in the shape of a monstrous bird’ flying over Edoras, swooping down almost to the gables of Meduseld, screeching a freezing cry. Gandalf advised them not to meet in the fields but to bring the army to Dunharrow, and light no more fires than needed, to mask the size of their host. The advice seemed good, as no such evil thing has been seen in Harrowdale, and since Gandalf spoke with authority, they obeyed him, and hope they have done what the King wishes.

‘It is well,’ said Theoden. ‘I will now ride to the Hold, and there before I go to rest I will meet the marshalls and captains. Let them come to me as soon as may be!’

Notes

Dunharrow is a fortress hidden high in the White Mountains, south of Edoras, built on a level upland. It was occupied even before the Men of Numenor came over the Sea in the second Age. Its name means “the heathen fane(temple) on the hillside.”

The name Dunhere translates to “hill-warrior”. He was Erkenbrand’s nephew. He will be one of those who fall at the Battle of Pelennor Fields.

In this passage we are given a foretaste of the stirring horns of the Rohirrim.

The Lord of the Rings: The Muster of Rohan (Part One)

 

The Tale

‘Now all roads were running together to the East to meet the coming of war and the onset of the Shadow. And even as Pippin stood at the Great Gate of the City and saw the Prince of Dol Amroth ride in with his banners, the King of Rohan came down out of the hills.’

          The day is going down as they break out of the mountains into hills and the sighing fir-woods below. They follow the falling water to the bottom of the gorge and find the land of Harrowdale before them. The river Snowbourne flows down towards Edoras; to the right is the mountain Starkhorn, blue in the East but stained red in the West by the sunset.

Merry gazes in wonder at this strange land. To him it seems skyless, with steep tree-clad hills on either side. He always had liked the idea of mountains, at least marching along the borders of old tales, ‘but now he was borne down by the insupportable weight of Middle-earth.’ He wants to shut the immensity out with a cozy little room with a fire.

Merry is very tired; they have ridden for three days, slowly but with little rest. Sometimes, when the road allowed, he had ridden at Theoden’s side, telling him tales about the Shire, with the King telling him in turn tales of the Mark and its ‘mighty men of old’ in exchange. But most of the time he has ridden behind Theoden in silence, listening to the ‘slow sonorous speech’ of the Riders behind him, trying to understand it. It seems to have many familiar words, spoken in strange accents, but he cannot piece together the meaning. ‘At times some Rider would lift up his clear voice in a stirring song, and Merry felt his heart leap, though he did not know what it was about.’

But here at the day’s end he feels lonelier than ever, and wonders what Pippin is doing, or Aragorn and Gimli and Legolas. Then with a guilty start he remembers Frodo and Sam as well. He started on this adventure to help Frodo! They are more important than any of the rest, and they must be hundreds of miles away on their journey, if they are even still alive. He shivers.

Notes

Only a couple of pages of this chapter, but I think I must start slowly to position myself again and begin cranking the machinery up after my vacation, as it were. We are given a smooth transition from Pippin (who has had the last two chapters) in the soon to be besieged City to Merry, who is riding with an army to war.

Also in contrast Merry certainly seems closer to his ‘liege-lord’ than Pippin is to Denethor; Pippin’s dialogue with the Steward of Gondor has been to extract information, while Merry and Theoden have been exchanging tales. Tolkien says that some Riders are amused at the little figure of the Hobbit on his stubby grey pony talking familiarly with the King on his great white horse.

It is his contact with the Rohirrim that sparks a scholarly curiosity in Merry. Elsewhere Tolkien states that the Hobbits’ speech bears the same relation to Rohirric as our Modern English does to Anglo-Saxon; the ‘real’ languages are transposed to those of our world. Tolkien clearly means that our reaction to Anglo-Saxon should be like Merry’s: a recognition of ancient kinship, a dim but stirring echo of the past. Perhaps he is even describing his own feelings on being introduced to Anglo-Saxon. Merry’s interest and familiarity with the language of Rohan leads him to writing (among other books) Old Words and Names in the Shire, described as a ‘short treatise’, showing the relationship between the two.

Merry’s remembrance of Frodo not only shows his concern with his cousin and his quest, but jogs our memory too, and places all the pieces on the board in relationship to each other. Little touches like this keep us in mind of Frodo and Sam and the greater mission amid the hurly-burly of war.