[davem]

I think its clear that one of Tolkien’s purposes in this chapter is to ‘echo’ the history of the Anglo-Saxons in the story of Rohan. Perhaps the reason Tolkien went into more depth with the history of the House of Eorl was that Anglo-Saxon history & culture was so close to his heart. Certainly the Rohirrim’s coming into Calenardhon & driving out the Dunlendings is very similar to the Anglo-Saxon’s driving the native Britons west into what is now Wales & Cornwall.

Of course, as Shippey has pointed out, the main difference between the Rohirrim & the Anglo-Saxons was horses - the Anglo-Saxons had few if any cavalry, yet the Rohirrim fight on, travel by & virtually worship, horses. That’s not to say that the Horse wasn’t important to the Saxons.

One thing that did strike me on this re-reading was Eorl’s use of the word ‘weregild’ (‘man price’) :

"Felarof I name you. You loved your freedom, and I do not blame you for that. But now you owe me a great weregild, and you shall surrender your freedom to me until your life's end."

Its odd that Isildur should use that word of the Ring - ie that Tolkien should have a Gondorian of Numenorean descent use not just that word but have that concept. The Gondorians seem to ‘civilised’ to think in such terms. Felarof is (as far as Eorl is concerned) in debt to him for the killing of his father & Eorl demands (& gets) payment of that debt through Felarof’s service to him. Did Isildur think the same way - that Sauron had ‘paid his debt’ to Isildur for the killing of his father by the ‘surrender’ of the Ring? If Isildur did think that way (ie, if he believed in the concept of weregild) then he would have been almost obliged to take the Ring & to keep it in payment of Sauron’s ‘debt’ to him.

But I’m getting sidetracked.

In this section we get to meet Helm Hammerhand (not so called because he carried a big hammer - as in the movies!). Helm is the great hero of this section. He slays Freca with a single punch, & later goes out hunting & killing Dunlendings barehanded. The interesting comment that:

It was believed that if he bore no weapon no weapon would bite on him.

shows quite a superstitious mindset - unless those who ‘believed’ this were Dunlendings & not Rohirrim. What we see here is a belief in some form of ‘sympathetic magic’. In the end, although he dies, he still remains a terrible presence of fear to rohan’s enemies:

Yet men said that the horn was still heard at times in the Deep and the wraith of Helm would walk among the foes of Rohan and kill men with fear.

What we actually see is a kind of ‘perfect’ Anglo-Saxon world - pagan, filled with magic & superstition. It is a world of dragon slayers, mighty warriors, bards & animals that undestand human speech. If Tolkien was indeed trying to supply the English with a replacement for their lost mythology (which is questionable) it is in the story of the Rohirrim that he comes closest to doing that. We even get a glimpse of their ‘religious’ beliefs:

Men said of them that Bema (whom the Eldar call Orome) must have brought their sire from West over Sea.'

‘Bema’ is clearly a figure of myth to the Rohirrim. Whether their ‘religion’ was the same as that of the Elves but with different names assigned to the Valar, or whether it had its own flavour is unknowable, but the kinds of beliefs & practices we’ve seen displayed in this section seems to indicate the latter.