It appears from my email and comments posted after last week’s article that more discussion of the Rohirrim would be appropriate. It is impossible to address the subject fully in this space, and as each essay itself may raise new questions and challenges, there will come a point where I have to say enough and move on.
To begin, a counter point has been raised to my explanation of the Rohirrim in last week’s article: “Tolkien chose to represent the Rohirrim in a fashion HIGHLY influenced by Anglo-Saxon-Danish culture.” The argument provided in support of this statement is that the plains of Rohan are similar to the northern seas. And yet the northern seas were traversed by diverse peoples such as the Angles, Saxons, Frisians, Jutes, Swedes, Norwegians, Franks, Celts, et. al. while the Rohirrim generally do not seem to have permitted foreign peoples to wander through their lands (in fact, they had few neighbors who would even be so inclined).
The Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes were originally groups of related tribes. The Angles were in fact a Danish people, originally living in Jutland. But the world of the Danes, Anglo-Saxons, Continental Germans (Franks, Saxons, Alemanni, et. al.), Norwegians, and Swedes, with all their many diverse tribes, was considerably different from Tolkien’s world of Northmen. The details provided in THE LORD OF THE RINGS demonstrate the Northmen were unlike the Scandinavians and West Germans of medieval history, but a wealth of additional information has come to light through Christopher Tolkien’s work in Unfinished Tales and The History of Middle-earth.
Did Tolkien ever say the Rohirrim visually resembled any of these peoples? Not at all. What he said was that “the styles of the Bayeux Tapestry (made in England) fit [the Rohirrim] well enough” (source: Letter 211, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien) — the same Rohirrim whom in the preceding sentence he said were not medieval, “in our sense”. And Tolkien cautioned his readers in Appendix F against identifying the Rohirrim with the Anglo-Saxons: “This linguistic procedure [of using Anglo-Saxon to represent the language of Rohan] does not imply that the Rohirrim closely resembled the ancient English otherwise….”
Despite such clear admonitions from the author not to mistake the Rohirrim for a medieval people, however, the argument they must have been modelled on medieval peoples persists. “Read the [Icelandic/Norse] sagas,” I am admonished, “and you will see quite a similar culture.” I do have two sagas handy for reference: Orkneyingasaga and Nyal’s Saga. Let’s see how well the cultures portrayed in these sagas compare to what we know of the Rohirrim.
To begin with, we are presented with boats. They are everywhere in the sagas and nowhere in Rohan. Then Njal Thorgeirsson and his family are burned alive by their enemies (other Icelanders) in their own home. There is nothing of this type of brutal feuding in the history of the Rohirrim, although Helm Hammerhand did take action against the arrogant Freca, whose mixed Dunlending blood made him an outsider among the Rohirrim. Helm’s slaying of Freca precipitated a great war with the Dunlendings and some of Gondor’s enemies.
In Njal’s Saga Icelanders casually cross the North Sea to Scandinavia, a queen curses a marriage, men are slain on points of pride, the men leave the land to seek fame and fortune in other parts of the world, jealous women set men to killing each other — although elements of great drama, such things do not occur in Tolkien’s stories of the Northmen. We know from examples like Freca and Grima Wormtongue they were capable of greed, ambition, and evil, but these traits are hardly confined to the ancient Germans and Scandinavians anyway.
Njal’s Saga is essentially about the obligations of bloodlines. There is no hint of nationalism. Icelanders don’t refrain from killing each other in the face of outside threats — rather, they go about the process almost with total glee and abandon. Theirs was a harsh world with no incarnate evil beings such as Sauron to unite them all against a common foe.
Rohan was founded by a single tribe (the Eotheod) who migrated south to help defend the kingdom of Gondor in exchange for a wider land to replace their own. The Rohirric culture underwent some changes through the centuries, but they retained their strong kings, did not fragment into feuding clans, and repeatedly went to Gondor’s aid in war. The Rohirrim were a militaristic culture in many ways, and their kingdom was formed as a buffer state. That is why they call it the Mark or the Riddermark. “Mark” is an ancient Germanic word for a border region often administered by a military officer, but it also denoted a region held or worked in common by a community or people.
Iceland was not founded by kings but rather by free farmers. In time the family chiefs convened the Althing, forming a commonwealth which lasted nearly 400 years before the system broke down into the chaos which precipitated the events on which Njal’s Saga is based. There was no final singular authority to appeal to in Iceland as there was in Rohan.
On the other hand, as Iceland was colonized by farmers there is evidence that Rohan’s people were also largely farmers. Agriculture and animal husbandry were thus both central to the lifestyles of the peoples of Iceland and Rohan. Of course, in the ancient world, agriculture and animal husbandry were central to the lifestyles of hundreds of tribes and small nations. There’s nothing particularly Scandinavian or Germanic about Rohan’s farms.
One clear aspect of Icelandic culture missing from Rohan is religion. The only hint of religion among the Northmen of Middle-earth at all is that they had a name for Oromë, the Vala who was known as the Huntsman because he hunted the great beasts of Morgoth. The ancient Northmen called him Bema (this is a translated name, of course). The Rohirrim do not acknowledge the Valar or even Iluvatar. Iceland, on the other hand, started out as a pagan culture whose people worshipped the Norse gods. The Althing was led by thirty-nine priest-chieftains who also led worship throughout the land. They became priests when Christianity succeeded the Norse beliefs in Iceland. Religion was thus a major part of Icelandic culture whereas it simply didn’t exist in Rohan. Religion was, in fact, an important aspect of life for all the Scandinavians and Germans. That is not to say Viking warriors piously sang the praises of Thor and Odin every hour, but they carried their gods with them to many lands. Even when they became Christians they carried their beliefs with them. The Eotheod are not said to have carried any beliefs or gods with them out of the North.
And when Iceland was founded slavery was still a very large part of northern culture. Slavery in fact was a key factor in the colonization of the land, although it eventually died out. But the Rohirrim never practiced slavery, nor any of their predecessors or related groups of Northmen in Middle-earth. Slavery, when it is mentioned, occurs only among the fallen peoples of Middle-earth.
There are, of course, numerous details of life and custom in the sagas which space here doesn’t permit me to discuss fully. But the Rohirrim did not leave their lands and go adventuring as the Viking farmers were wont to do. Nor do Tolkien’s Northmen seem to have fathers struggling to send troublesome sons away (the one possible exception being Thengel’s departure from Rohan because of problems with his father — but this was a highly unusual situation). Gondor did recruit many of the ancient Northmen to serve in its army, but there were also periods where Northmen simply migrated to Gondor altogether. Such examples are not unlike the gradual barbarization of the Roman army, or the resettlement of ancient Germans within the bounds of the Roman Empire.
Another striking dissimilarity between the Rohirrim and the people of the sagas is the fact the Icelanders and their relatives in Scandinavia and Europe were literate. The Rohirrim did not write, according to Tolkien, although there must have been some among them who learned the Cirth and Tengwar through Gondorian influence. Iceland developed a literary center at Oddi in the 11th century. Runestones are common throughout the northern world, and as Christianity spread among the northern peoples so, too, did the Latin alphabet spread among them.
The history of northern Europe is one of fragmentation, migration, and occasional reintegration. The Germanic peoples were traditionally divided into three groups: the West Germans, the northerners, and the East Germans. The West Germans were the most primitive group. The northern peoples mingled with early Scandinavians to produce the Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians, but the East Germans also came from this group. The Goths, Vandals, and other tribes who migrated from Scandinavia around the 2nd century BCE to the southern Baltic coast eventually followed the Vistula river down into the steppes north of the Black Sea.
The East Germans acquired steppe culture customs, such as the widespread use of horses and mounted warfare tactics, while retaining knowledge of sedentary agriculture. They produced a remarkable blend of eastern and western lifestyles which gave them their own unique character.
The groups who remained behind in Scandinavia eventually coelesced into large nations, but the process took another thousand years. In that time, the Cimbri, Teutoni, Angles, and other tribes migrated to other lands. And as the ancient Roman culture was gradually superceded by hybrid Germano-Roman states in Gaul and Iberia, adventurers began crossing the seas in search of fortune and new homes. Most of Brittannia thus fell into the hands of Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, and other Germans and became Angle-land, England.
The West Germans were composed of dozens of tribes which gradually formed confederations, perhaps the eldest of which (certainly the first one mentioned by Roman writers) were the Suebi. Tacitus mentions a few Suebic tribes, who in later centuries spread across Europe. Suebi settled as far away as Iberia. But the two most well-known confederations were the Saxons and Franks. The Franks lived close to Gaul and they eventually conquered that land, making it into Frankia, France. The most notable Frankish tribe were the Chatti, from whom came the Batavians, a Germanic people used by the Romans as auxiliaries in many campaigns. The Chatti fielded a great infantry force, but centuries later the Frankish cavalry of Charles Martel would signal the advent of a new power in Europe.
Unlike the Franks, who were eventually united by Clovis, the Saxons never formed their own nation. Many of Saxon chiefs led raids over seas and settled in Brittannia, founding little kingdoms. Some of the Saxons settled in France. Charlemagne eventually conquered the remaining free Saxons in what is now western Germany. The ancient tribal names were lost and forgotten, replaced by new “folk” names. Particularly among the Saxons, local leaders customarily gave their names to their followers, and many place-names in England ending with -ing (from -ingas) denote where the various small groups settled.
Tolkien’s Rohirrim called themselves the Eorlingas, the sons of Eorl, in similar fashion, but whereas small groups like the Haestingas established only a village or town (Hastings), the Eorlings (formerly called the Eotheod) established a nation. There are no subgroups among the Rohirrim nor any place names which imply such groupings.
We can trace the history of the Rohirrim from the beginning all the way up to the end of the Third Age. We learn in The Peoples of Middle-earth (volume 12 of The History of Middle-earth) that the two northern groups of Edain, the First and Third Houses (often called Marachians and Bëorians for the leaders who first entered Beleriand), passed westward along the Sea of Rhun’s northern shore.
When these two groups of Edain reached Greenwood the Great, some passed south around the forest and came to Anduin. Others passed north around the forest and came to the mountains. It appears that the majority of the Bëorians eventually crossed Anduin and the Misty Mountains and entered Eriador. From Eriador the westernmost group eventually reached Beleriand but most of the Bëorians remained in Eriador. Some of the Marachians also passed into Eriador, and from these came the westernmost group who entered Beleriand.
The Folk of Haleth, the Second House of the Edain, came from an unrelated people who were later known as the Gwathuirim. These peoples settled throughout the lands east of the Ered Nimrais and as far north as Tyrn Gorthad (the Barrow-downs). From them came the Dead Men of Dunharrow, the Dunlendings, the Men of Bree, and many of Gondor’s people. The Folk of Haleth crossed the Ered Lindon into Beleriand and were eventually merged into the Numenoreans.
The Edain thus became divided across three regions: Beleriand, Eriador, and Wilderland. The Beleriandic Edain were mostly destroyed, but those who survived eventually passed over Sea (except for a few exiles who fled back to Eriador) to become the Dunedain, the Numenoreans.
The Eriadorian Edain flourished until the War of the Elves and Sauron. By then the Numenoreans and the Gwathuirim were enemies but the Numenoreans were still friendly with the Bëorians and Marachians who lived in the more northern lands. Sauron destroyed most of Eriador and slew or drove off many of its people. Tolkien is not clear on who survived, although obviously the Men of Bree were incporporated into Arnor at the end of the Second Age. It is entirely possible that some of the Bëorians survived the war to eventually become merged into Arnor’s people as well.
The Edain of Wilderland formed an alliance with the Dwarves of Durin’s Folk (the Longbeards) early in the Second Age as Orcs and other evil creatures settled in the mountains and began to trouble the Dwarves and Men. This alliance benefitted both races considerably, and the greatest military contribution of the Men consisted of companies of mounted archers. Their cavalry forces were thus quite different from the forces of the Eotheod and Rohirrim of the Third Age.
The great alliance between Dwarves and Men was destroyed by Sauron in the War of the Elves and Sauron. The villages and towns of the Edain were destroyed and the survivors fled deep into the Greenwood or to the northern mountains for refuge. Whether they were one tribe or many, all that had composed their culture was lost and forgotten.
Many centuries later, near the end of the Second Age and early in the Third Age, the Elves of Greenwood reported (presumably to the scholars of Arnor and Gondor) that the “Free Men of the North” were beginning to migrate south along the eastern eaves of the forest. In time the Men of the mountains also settled in the Vales of Anduin. The Men of the Vales of Anduin were eventually joined by Harfoots, Stoors, and Fallohides (the Hobbits), who migrated from the east and with these Edainic men formed a symbiotic culture much like the later Breeland, until the Shadow arose in the forest and it was renamed Mirkwood. Thereafter the Hobbits began migrating into Eriador and the Men of the Vales of Anduin became diminished as Easterlings invaded the lands under the influence of Dol Guldur.
Eastern Edainic peoples settled the northeastern parts of Mirkwood and moved south to colonize the lands around Erebor and along the Celduin. One or more groups moved further south to the lands between Mirkwood and Celduin and the lands beyond. The kingdom of Rhovanion rose in the area between Mirkwood and Celduin, and its first named ruler was Vidugavia, who allied himself with Gondor.
The Kingdom of Rhovanion is attested from the middle of the 13th century in the Third Age (Vidugavia’s time) until the middle of the 19th century. Unfinished Tales says the people of this kingdom were “a numerous and powerful confederation of peoples…great breeders of horses and riders renownded for their skill and endurance, though their settled homes were in the eaves of the Forest….” The Great Plague of 1636 killed more than half the Northmen of Rhovanion and initiated their decline.
In the year 1851 the Wainriders began to attack Gondor and they did not spare Rhovanion. After the Battle of the Plains in 1856, the Northman kingdom was overrun and its people were mostly slain or enslaved. Some fled north up the Celduin and others fled west into the Forest. This event is highly reminiscent of the demise of the Gothic lands when the Huns invaded Europe. Many of the Goths passed into the Roman Empire, seeking refuge, and yet many others were conquered by the Huns and forced to join their confederation of tribes. Generations later Goths would fight Goths when Aetius turned back the Huns in Gaul. It is perhaps significant that Tolkien used the Gothic language to provide names for Vidugavia (an Latinized form of widugauja, “wood-dweller”), his daughter (Vidumavi, Latinized from widumawi, “wood-maiden”), and her son, Vinitharya (later King Eldacar of Gondor). Tolkien continued to use Gothic in this fashion for the names of the early chieftains of the Eotheod.
Marhari, a descendant of Vidugavia (and probably the last king of Rhovanion), led the rearguard of the combined forces of Rhovanion and Gondor in the Battle of the Plains. He fell and his son Marhwini (Gothic “horse” + “friend”, marh + wini) gathered a remnant of their people and fled west and then north around the Forest to the Vales of Anduin. He established a settlement between the Carrock and the Gladden fields, east of Anduin and close to the Forest. Tolkien tells us “this was the beginning of the Eotheod” (Unfinished Tales, “Cirion and Eorl”, section {i}).
Marhwini still led his exiled people in 1899 when King Calimehtar of Gondor (son of Narmacil II, who had fallen in the Battle of the Plains) inflicted a great defeat on the Wainriders. Marhwini’s people arranged for a rebellion to erupt in Rhovanion while the greater part of the Wainriders’ warriors were engaged with Gondor’s army (which Marhwini’s cavalry assisted). The rebellion came off as planned but most of the slaves were slain or recaptured. Marhwini’s people, only a small remnant of their once great nation, thus retreated to the Vales of Anduin again and gave up hope of returning to their former homes.
Years later, in 1944, the Eotheod aided Gondor against the Wainriders again. Their leader’s name is only partially recorded (it contains the stem marh-). He was probably Marhwini’s grandson or great-grandson (this was almost 90 years after the young Marhwini led the exiles to the Vales of Anduin). And the great cavalry force Earnur recruited from the Vales of Anduin for the expedition to Arnor in 1975 was probably composed of Eotheod warriors. Their leader by this time was Frumgar, whose name reflects a shift in language among the Eotheod. In 1977 he led his people north to settle about the two rivers which converged to form the Anduin. For more than 500 years the Eotheod remained isolated from other peoples, having only occasional contact with Gondor.
Whatever diversity the ancestors of the Eotheod once may have known (as various tribes or clans) was therefore lost through the centuries. The original band of exiles must have numbered only a few hundred warriors (certainly no more than a couple thousand) and their families at most. By Eorl’s day more than 600 years later they were able to field an army of more than seven thousand Riders and they were beginning to feel crowded in their northern land. But there is no evidence that their numbers had been increased by additional migrations from other northern peoples (Northmen continued to live in at least two parts of Mirkwood and at least two regions along the Celduin).
Hence, the Eotheod who migrated south to Calenardhon were a homogenous people unlike the Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians, and unlike the Franks they did not settle among other peoples or conquer other tribes. Some of Calenardhon’s original inhabitants fled across the Adorn river in the west and from there began slowly spreading eastward. The westernmost Rohirrim mingled with these people to produce the semi-loyal families who supported Freca and later were not wholly trusted by Theoden’s marshals. But the Rohirrim remained for the most part a coherent and single people.
Whatever clans or family traditions they may have developed are undocumented. We know hardly anything of the families outside the descendants of Eorl. Freca was himself a descendant of Eorl, and the only other family of significance would be Erkenbrand’s. He was Lord of Westfold and his nephew was Dunhere (Lord of Harrowdale), who fell in the Battle of the Pelennor fields. But though there is occasional reference to “the Men of Westfold”, there is really no indication of distinct peoples among the Rohirrim.
Finally, where did the Rohirrim live?
Eorl settled in Aldburg, a city in the Folde probably 40-60 miles southeast of where Edoras was later built. Some have taken exception with my use of the word “city” for Edoras and Aldburg. We are not provided with details of populations but it’s clear that even after the departure of part of the Muster of Edoras under Elfhelm (who, according to “The Battles of the Fords of Isen” in Unfinished Tales, led 4 companies to Theodred’s aid — 480 men if the eoreds were at full strength) Theoden was still able to assemble more than 1,000 Riders from the district. The population of Edoras and its nearby lands must therefore have exceeded 6,000 people (more likely it was in excess of 9,000 people — and this merely assumes all men in the district were Riders, which is unlikely).
In Unfinished Tales Tolkien writes that at the beginning of the War of the Ring the full Muster of Rohan included 12,000 Riders, an arbitrary number set at 100 companies (eoreds) of 120 men each, but that the population of Rohan could have supplied many more Riders. In The Return of the King Theoden tells Hirgon the messenger from Gondor he would have led 10,000 spears to Gondor’s aid under better circumstances, a considerable expeditionary force. This army, the Muster of Rohan, was divided into three parts: the Muster of Edoras (led by the First Marshal of the Riddermark), the Muster of the West-mark (led by the Second Marshal of the Riddermark), and the muster of the East-mark (led by the Third Marshal).
Theodred, Second Marshal and commander of the Muster of the West-mark, led 12 companies into the field (11 companies of Riders and 1 company of archers). At full strength these would represent 1440 men. He supplemented his force with an undisclosed number of levies from the West-mark. These levies provided the infantry force to support Theodred’s Riders. After the second battle and while the Hornburg was besieged Gandalf rallied as many of the scattered Riders of the Muster of the West-mark as he could and he sent them back to Edoras. In the meantime Erkenbrand’s army, hastily raised from the Men of Westfold, seems to have numbered around 1,000 men (according to “Helm’s Deep” in The Two Towers). Whether this 1,000 men included the levies from Theodred’s force is not indicated, but perhaps 1,000 more remained behind in Westfold (mostly too old or too young to march with the army).
These numbers thus show clearly that the Rohirrim were able to raise large forces in a reasonably short period of time. Necessarily, the men had to be quartered or living close to their commanders in order to answer those summonses. Whereas Theoden or Erkenbrand could each raise 1,000 men in the space of several hours, it required several days to assemble the larger Muster of Rohan, and in that event Theoden left sooner than he intended, taking only 6,000 Riders with him (but Unfinished Tales indicates Erkenbrand was left in command of a substantial force to defend Rohan).
When Legolas, Gimli, and Aragorn followed Ugluk’s Orcs through the Emyn Muil (the range of hills in eastern Rohan bordering the lake between Rauros and Sarn Gebir) Legolas asked, “Do any folk dwell in these hills?” Aragorn replied, “No, the Rohirrim seldom come here, and it is far from Minas Tirith.”
When Eomer and Aragorn exchanged news and identified themselves to each each other, Eomer said, “The East-mark is my charge, the ward of the Third Marshal, and I have removed all our herds and herdfolk, withdrawing them beyond Entwash, and leaving none here but guards and swift scouts.”
It has been suggested that Eomer spoke of the removal of a permanent (nomadic) population. A nomadic people live in tents and derive most if not all of their sustenance from their herds. There is no mention of such people in any of the passages which detail the travels of Gandalf and the Fellowship through Rohan. We see the houses in the walled city of Edoras, the houses of the villages of Upbourn and Underharrow, and the burning homesteads of Westfold. As Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli ride south from Fangorn to Edoras, there is no mention of herds and herdsfolk. They may have been prudently removed to the southern lands altogether, but there is nothing to indicate any of the Rohirrim ever led a nomadic life. Certainly none of their ancestors were nomads.
The army gathered in Harrowdale when Theoden arrived from Helm’s Deep was using tents, but armies have long used tents in the field, and there is no indication the tents served any other purpose than to house the soldiers. Furthermore, if the herdsfolk were nomads, who owned the herds? Why would Tolkien place the Riders of Rohan in towns and (small) cities if he intended to convey a nomadic life for them? Unless the herdsfolk Eomer spoke of were simply specialized workers, like the cowhands who roved the American west, Argentina’s pampas, the grasslands of southern France (Cowboys and Vaqueros, Gauchos, etc.). Theoden lived in a hall but he seems to have possessed herds of horses. Someone watched over those herds for him. Tolkien does in fact mention such workers in “The Battles of the Fords of Isen”: “…[Theodred] therefore manned the approaches, east and west, to the Fords with sturdy men on foot from the levies of Westfold. Leaving three companies of Riders, together with horse-herds and spare mounts, on the east bank.” So the profession of “horse-herd” is attested, albeit only in the context of the Muster of Rohan. If the “horse-herds” lived with their families in the field, they may indeed have been nomadic in lifestyle, but they would not have been representative of Rohan’s people or culture.
This article was originally published on October 22, 1999.
