The Ride of the Rohirrim

The Ride of the Rohirrim is the desperate, climactic cavalry march of the Riders of Rohan from the Drúadan Forest to the Pelennor Fields, culminating in Théoden's legendary dawn charge that breaks the siege of Minas Tirith and turns the tide of the War of the Ring. It is the moment when the horsemen of the Mark, having mustered their full strength, ride to the aid of Gondor in its darkest hour, answering the ancient Oath of Eorl. The ride is both a physical journey across the perilous lands of Anórien and a spiritual transformation, as the aged King Théoden, seemingly cowed by the horror before him, is suddenly reborn into a figure of mythic fury. The event is narrated with the intensity of an epic battle-song, marking the point where the forces of the West cease to be merely beleaguered defenders and become the instruments of a great and terrible deliverance.

The Muster and the March

The ride begins in darkness, with the host of the Rohirrim bivouacked in the pine-woods that cluster about Eilenach Beacon, a tall hill standing up from the long ridges of the Drúadan Forest beside the great road in East Anórien. Merry, lying rolled in a blanket on the ground, can see nothing in the airless, windless night, yet he hears the hidden trees sighing softly all about him. The sound of faint drums throbs through the wooded hills and mountain-steps, ceasing suddenly only to be taken up again at some other point, now nearer, now further off. He wonders if the watchmen have heard it, and he can smell the horses in the dark and hear their shiftings and soft stamping on the needle-covered ground. The host is vast, and its presence is felt through the senses of the small hobbit who has been caught up in events far beyond his reckoning.

The guidance of the Wild Men proves crucial to the march. Ghân-buri-Ghân, the leader of the Wild Men, squats down and touches the earth with his horny brow in token of farewell before departing, but suddenly he stands looking up like some startled woodland animal snuffling a strange air, a light coming in his eyes. He cries that the wind is changing, and in a twinkling he and his fellows vanish into the glooms, never to be seen by any Rider of Rohan again. Not long after, far away eastward, the faint drums throb again, yet no heart in all the host fears that the Wild Men are unfaithful, strange and unlovely though they may appear. Elfhelm, one of the captains, declares that no further guidance is needed, for there are riders in the host who have ridden down to Mundburg in days of peace, and he is one of them. He explains that when they come to the road it will veer south, and there will lie before them still seven leagues ere they reach the wall of the townlands, with much grass on either side of the road along most of that way, the stretch where the errand-riders of Gondor reckoned to make their greatest speed. Éomer counsels that since they must look for fell deeds and the need of all their strength, they should rest now and set out by night, timing their going so that they come upon the fields when tomorrow is as light as it will be, or when their lord gives the signal. To this the king assents, and the captains depart. Soon Elfhelm returns with the scouts' report: they have found naught to report beyond the Grey Wood save two men only, two dead men and two dead horses.

The Approach to the City

After a while, the king leads his men away somewhat eastward, to come between the fires of the siege and the outer fields. Still they are unchallenged, and still Théoden gives no signal. At last he halts once again, the City now nearer. A smell of burning is in the air and a very shadow of death. The horses are uneasy, but the king sits upon Snowmane, motionless, gazing upon the agony of Minas Tirith, as if stricken suddenly by anguish, or by dread. He seems to shrink down, cowed by age. Merry himself feels as if a great weight of horror and doubt has settled on him, his heart beating slowly, time seeming poised in uncertainty. The thought strikes him that they are too late, and that too late is worse than never, and he fears that Théoden will quail, bow his old head, turn, and slink away to hide in the hills.

Then suddenly Merry feels it at last, beyond doubt: a change. Wind is in his face, and light is glimmering. Far, far away in the South, the clouds can be dimly seen as remote grey shapes, rolling up, drifting, with morning lying beyond them. At that same moment there is a flash, as if lightning had sprung from the earth beneath the City. For a searing second it stands dazzling far off in black and white, its topmost tower like a glittering needle, and then as the darkness closes again there comes rolling over the fields a great boom. This is the signal, the moment of transformation.

The Charge of Théoden

At that sound, the bent shape of the king springs suddenly erect. Tall and proud he seems again, and rising in his stirrups he cries in a loud voice, more clear than any there had ever heard a mortal man achieve before, calling on the Riders of Théoden to arise, for fell deeds awake, fire and slaughter, spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered, a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises, and to ride now, ride now, ride to Gondor. With that he seizes a great horn from Guthláf his banner-bearer, and he blows such a blast upon it that it bursts asunder. Straightway all the horns in the host are lifted up in music, and the blowing of the horns of Rohan in that hour is like a storm upon the plain and a thunder in the mountains. The king cries again to Snowmane, and the horse springs away, his banner blowing in the wind behind him, a white horse upon a field of green, but he outpaces it.

After him thunder the knights of his house, but he is ever before them. Éomer rides there, the white horsetail on his helm floating in his speed, and the front of the first éored roars like a breaker foaming to the shore, but Théoden cannot be overtaken. Fey he seems, or the battle-fury of his fathers runs like new fire in his veins, and he is borne up on Snowmane like a god of old, even as Oromë the Great in the battle of the Valar when the world was young. His golden shield is uncovered, and lo! it shines like an image of the Sun, and the grass flames into green about the white feet of his steed. For morning comes, morning and a wind from the sea, and darkness is removed, and the hosts of Mordor wail, and terror takes them, and they flee, and die, and the hoofs of wrath ride over them. Then all the host of Rohan bursts into song, and they sing as they slay, for the joy of battle is on them, and the sound of their singing that is fair and terrible comes even to the City.

The Significance of the Ride

The Ride of the Rohirrim is the fulfillment of the ancient alliance between Rohan and Gondor, the moment when the horsemen of the Mark answer the call for aid with their full strength. It is also the personal apotheosis of Théoden, who, having been healed from the withered counsel of Gríma Wormtongue, here achieves his greatest and final glory. The ride transforms the hobbit Merry, who witnesses it from within the host, from a helpless observer into a participant in events of legendary scale. The event stands in stark contrast to the creeping, secretive journey of Frodo and Samwise Gamgee into Mordor, which unfolds at the same time; where the hobbits must move in shadow and silence, the Rohirrim ride in open, blazing defiance. The ride is a moment of pure, epic action, a bright flare of courage and martial glory against the gathering darkness of Sauron, and it marks the turning point of the war, the first great blow that breaks the siege of Minas Tirith and sets the stage for the final confrontation at the Black Gate.