Rohirrim

In J. R. R. Tolkien's "Middle-earth", the Rohirrim were a horse people, settling in the land of Rohan, named after them. The name is Sindarin for People of the Horse-lords (sometimes translated simply as Horse-lords) and was mostly used by outsiders: the name they had for themselves was Eorlingas, after their king Eorl the Young who had first brought them to Rohan.

The Rohirrim were descended from the Éothéod, a race of Men that lived in the vales of the Great River Anduin, but that removed to Calenardhon which was granted them in perpetuity by the Ruling Steward of Gondor, Cirion in reward for the assistance that they offered Gondor at a time of great need.At that time Calenardhon was renamed Rohan ("Horse-land") after their many horses. By the Rohirrim themselves Rohan was usually called The Mark.

The terms Riders of Rohan and Riders of the Mark are commonly used and refer specifically to their mounted soldiers. The former is a chapter title in "The Two Towers". The King's Riders were specifically the Riders who formed the bodyguard of the King.

The Rohirrim were tall, fair, pale, and had blond hair (which they wore long and braided) and mostly had blue eyes. They prized their horses very much, and their entire culture was based around these. They had few cities, but lived in many villages on the plains of Rohan. They were by nature stern, fierce, and grave, yet generous.

The Rohirrim were skilled fighters on horseback; they were armed with swords, shields, spears and bows. They used helms and hauberks of chain mail. In time of war, every able man was obliged to join the Muster of Rohan. They were bound by the Oath of Eorl to help Gondor in times of peril. They were ruled by a line of kings descended from Eorl the Young. The Dúnedain of Gondor believed that the Rohirrim were distantly related to them (having descended from the Atanatári of the First Age) and described them as "Middle Men", that being inferior to the Númenóreans in both culture and descent, but superior to the "Men of Darkness" who had worshipped and served Sauron. However J. R. R. Tolkien calls this a piece of Númenórean fiction meant to satisfy the national pride of the people of Gondor for the surrender of the territory of Calenardhon — in reality there had been no common ancestry between the people of Rohan and of Gondor.ME-fact|date=October 2007

The Rohirrim had had contacts with Elves in their ancient history, and knew of Eru, but like the Dúnedain they did not worship him in any temples. They seem to have venerated the Vala Oromë the Hunter, whom they called Béma.

The word

"Rohirrim" is a collective noun and should be used with the definite article (i.e. "the Rohirrim"). It should not be used as an adjective. (The correct adjective is "Rohirric", which also refers to their language.)

The names and many details of their culture are in fact derived from Scandinavian-derived cultures, particularly that of the Anglo-Saxons and their Old English language, towards which Tolkien felt a strong affinity - though the Angles and Saxons preferred to fight on foot rather than on horses (their relations the Goths did fight mounted). Ultimately Anglo-Saxon England was defeated by the cavalry of the Normans at the Battle of Hastings, and some Tolkien scholars have speculated that the Rohirrim are Tolkien's wishful version of an Anglo-Saxon society that retained a "rider culture", and would have been able to resist such an invasion.

In "The Two Towers", chapter 6, the Riders of Rohan are introduced before they are seen, by Aragorn, who chants in the language of the Rohirrim words "in a slow tongue unknown to the Elf and the Dwarf", a lai that Legolas senses "is laden with the sadness of Mortal Men." To achieve a resonant sense of the lost past, the now-legendary time of a peaceful alliance of the Horse-lords with the city of Gondor, Tolkien has adapted lines of the Old English poem "The Wanderer".

Where is the horse gone? where the rider?
Where the giver of treasure?
Where are the seats at the feast?
Where are the revels in the hall?
Alas for the bright cup!
Alas for the mailed warrior!
Alas for the splendour of the prince!
How that time has passed away, dark under the cover of night,
as if it had never been.

Tolkien's adaptation, comparably heroic in its anguished nostalgia, is characteristic of his approach to remaking his sources:

Where now the horse and the rider? where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the hand on the harp-string, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow.
Who shall gather the smoke of the dead wood burning?
Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning? ["The Two Towers", ch. 6; the comparison is repeatedly noted in the Tolkien literature; recently by John Grigsby, "Beowulf & Grendel" (London:Watkins) 2005:3f.]

"Thus spoke a forgotten poet long ago in Rohan, recalling how tall and fair was Eorl the Young, who rode down out of the North," Aragorn explains. Tolkien has managed to incorporate into the imagery elements of plot ("the horn that was blowing"), his consistent thematic imagery of "West" and "shadow" and imagery of the constant seasonal and linear flow of unretrievable time that gives "The Lord of the Rings" an authentically Anglo-Saxon note. In the last two lines Tolkien has also introduced the character of answers familiar from Old English riddle literature, while he has extended the staccato Anglo-Saxon lines of his model to adjust to our expectations of five-beat stress in heroic poetry in English.

In adaptations

In the Lord of the Rings film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson and produced by New Line Cinema, the Rohirrim, at least of Edoras, wear drab brown and grey clothes. Some have commented that more colourful clothes would be more apt for a Scandinavian-derived culture, calling them shabby "Generic Movie Peasants". [http://oddlots.digitalspace.net/arthedain/broken_promises.html] Also, their officers wear some kind of plate armor, with ornate pseudo-Sutton Hoo designs; in the book, plate armour is not mentioned apart from the vambrace of the Prince of Dol Amroth. [http://oddlots.digitalspace.net/arthedain/broken_promises.html]

"The Lord of the Rings: Weapons and Warfare", a book based on the New Line films, purports to record weaponry and military organization in Middle-earth. However the text should not be taken as a canonical record of Tolkien's Middle-earth, but rather of Jackson's films since it interweaves Tolkien's details with movie-based embellishments.

ee also

*Kings of Rohan

Notes