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Rohirrim

“
They are proud and willful, but they are true-
hearted, generous in thought and deed; bold
but not cruel; wise but unlearned, writing no
books but singing many songs, after the
manner of the children of Men before the Dark
Years.

ARAGORN, THE TWO TOWERS

The Rohirrim were a people of Northmen descent

who inhabited the realm of Rohan in central
Middle-earth. The names Rohirrim and Rohan
referred to their famous horsemanship.

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Description & culture

The Rohirrim were a tall, blonde, and mostly blue-

eyed people, the men were large, husky, and
handsome while the women were particularly
beautiful. They were noble, brave, strong-willed
and Bercely independent, remaining within their
own language and culture. Their horses were very
important assets in their everyday lives, with their
entire culture based around the breeding and
trading of them. They lived mostly in villages on
the plains of Rohan where their horses grazed,
and had few cities.

A Rohirrim horn-blower in the Blms

History

The Rohirrim were descended from the Northmen

of Rhovanion and the Éothéod, who lived in the
vales of the Great River Anduin but were removed
to Calenardhon, a plains-land granted them in
perpetuity by the Ruling Steward of Gondor, Cirion,
in reward for the assistance that they oHered
Gondor at a time of great need. As a result, they
were lifelong allies of Gondor bound by the Oath of
Eorl. At that time Calenardhon was renamed
Rohan (Horse-land) after their many horses. By
the Rohirrim themselves Rohan is usually called
"The Mark".

The terms Riders of Rohan and Riders of the

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

A Rohirrim recruit in the late Third Age

The Dúnedain of Gondor believed that the Rohirrim

were distantly related to them (having descended
from the Atanatári of the First Age) and describe
them as Middle Men, that being inferior to the
Númenóreans in both culture and descent, but
superior to the Men of Darkness who had
worshiped and served Sauron.

The Rohirrim riding to Minas Tirith, with the disguised Éowyn in

foreground - by Matthew Stewart

The Rohirrim had contacts with Elves in their

ancient years, and knew of Eru, but, like the
Dúnedain, they did not worship him corporately.
They seem to have highly valued the Vala Oromë
the Hunter, whom they called Béma.

During the reign of Théoden, the largest

assembled host of Rohirrim, mustered at the camp
of Dunharrow, became crucial in saving Gondor
and Minas Tirith from utter destruction by Sauron's
host, at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields in TA
3019. Following that and the death of Théoden,
many of them rode to Mordor, under Aragorn II
Elessar's lead, and fought courageously at the
Battle of the Black Gate, without certainty that the
One Ring would be successfully destroyed.

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Etymology

Rohirrim is Sindarin for People of the Horse-

lords (sometimes translated simply as Horse-
lords) and are mostly used by outsiders: the name
they had for themselves are Eorlingas, after their
king, Eorl the Young, who had Brst brought them
to Rohan. Rohirrim is a collective noun, and when
used grammatically as a subject or object is
usually used with the deBnite article (i.e. the
Rohirrim). It can also be used as an adjective to
modify another noun (e.g., a Rohirrim village, a
troop of Rohirrim cavalry, etc.) The pure adjectival
form, meaning "pertaining to the Rohirrim," is
Rohirric (Rohirric tactics, Rohirric culture, etc.)

Anglo-Saxon connection

Concept art of a Rohirrim

The Rohirrim seem to resemble the ancient Anglo-

Saxons, a Germanic people comprising three
tribes, the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes, who
invaded and conquered Britain around the 5th
century. J.R.R. Tolkien was himself a distinguished
professor of the Anglo-Saxon language (Old
English).

The people of Rohan resemble the Anglo-Saxons

in several ways. In appearance they are fair
skinned and mostly blond haired, like the
Germanic invaders, but they also have cultural
links to those ancient tribes. This is shown in the
type of armour used by Rohirric warriors, which
includes an extensive choice of mail, both chain
and scaled, and in their reverence for the sword as
an expensive yet symbolically important weapon,
to be given a title and passed down through
generations.

Rohirric armies are also known to favour the

shield-wall, which was a strategy commonly
employed by the Anglo-Saxons. Finally, common
names given to the people of Rohan tend to
resemble names of Old English. For instance, the
name Éomer is found in the Beowulf saga (an epic
Tolkien built much of his career around), and
means "horse-famous" in Old English. While these
traits of the Rohirrim could be passed oH as typical
of any agricultural, Northern society of Europe,
such as the Vikings, taken as a whole and with the
knowledge that Tolkien was an acclaimed
professor of Anglo-Saxon and indeed had set out
to create a uniquely "English" mythology, it can be
inferred that the descriptions of the Rohirrim were
heavily drawn from those of the ancient Anglo-
Saxons.

However one aspect of the Rohirrim, their close

afnity to horses as beasts of warfare and their
extensive and superb use of cavalry, is not a trait
that is shared with the ancient Anglo-Saxon
tribes, who were predominately foot-soldiers in
wartime. (It was, however, characteristic of the
Ostrogoths, a Germanic tribe that dominated
eastern Europe during the late Roman period,
whose language was also studied by Tolkien.)
Tolkien's choice to represent the Northern-
descended Rohirrim as a horse-loving people is in
itself quite interesting, but is obviously part of his
unique mythology. Yet it has been argued that one
possible reason for the horse inclusion is the
events of 1066 in England. According to Tom
Shippey, Tolkien imagined the Rohirrim to be a
horse-culture because the only surviving Anglo-
Saxon words for color were all words for the colors
of horses.

At this point the Anglo-Saxons were defeated by

the invading Normans, who were able to win the
battle through their superior use of cavalry.
Therefore, it has been stated that this inclusion
may an idea inhuenced by this, that if the Anglo-
Saxon had been horse-lords they could have won
the Battle of Hastings thus preserving the Anglo-
Saxon culture which Tolkien enjoyed. Certainly,
whether the Rohirrim truly are partly or wholly
based on the Anglo-Saxons can be a topic of
debate among Tolkien fans and scholars.

It should also be noted in Brittany, in France. The

ancient House of Rohan, hence the Norman
connection with the Rohirrim rather than an
Anglo-Saxon connection. The Normans were well
known Horsemen.

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Gallery

The Army of Rohan at the

Pelennor Fields, in The Return
of the King Llm (2003)
A member of the Éored in The
Lord of the Rings Llms

A Rohirrim soldier preparing for

the Battle of the Hornburg in
The Two Towers Llm (2002)

Rohirrim commonfolk

Éomer, Third Marshall of the

Riddermark

See also

Kings of Rohan
Gondor

Translations

Foreign Language Translated [Show]

name

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