Q: What Is An Emnet?
ANSWER: An emnet, according to Tom Shippey in The Road to Middle-earth, is a “steppe” or “prarie” — a grassland. The East+Emnet and West+Emnet in Rohan are therefore steppelands named because of their geographical relationship with each other.
What Professor Shippey actually wrote was:
The first Rohirric place-name we hear is ‘Eastemnet’, followed soon by ‘Westemnet’. An ‘emnet’ is a thing in Middle-earth, also a place in Norfolk [England], also an asterisk-word [reconstructed, hypothesized] *emnmaeth for ‘steppe’ or ‘prairie’, also the green grass which the Riders use as a touchstone for reality.
Professor Shippey also mentions this interesting detail in the much-acclaimed Centenniel video produced by the Tolkien Society in 1992 (it’s not easily available in the United States).
The Norfolk place-name is actually given as Emneth. It is well-documented as you can see from the pinpoint on the map image I have provided here. You might not be surprised to learn that the area does not much resemble a grassland any more, as indicated by the accompanying satellite photo.
The source of the word emnet leads one to wonder just how many of the place-names in Middle-earth may actually be found in England. This is a somewhat broader application of the question I answered in “Can all the Shire place-names be found in England?”.
However, before you run out and tell your friends that all the Middle-earth names come from Old English, you might want to read Where Did Tolkien Get His Names From?”. He had many sources with which to enrichen his Middle-earth lexicon. Deciphering all those sources is no simple task.
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