[mark12_30]

There are other reasons to build a wall, right? Wolves, theives, skirmishes, raiding parties. People build walls, or fences, around simple gardens just to keep out the deer (ahem-- eight feet high, precious.)

As the darkness outside slowly thickened, building a wall probably seemed more reasonable than not having one. If you have a wall, then people know where to gather. If a raiding party of orcs lumbers over the horizon, the watchman blows a horn and we swap the pitchforks for the bows kept at the wall. Archers on the wall should do more damage and take less casualties, than a raggletag bunch of farmers with pitchforks, or shepherds with crooks.

I imagine the walls served their purpose more than once, before the War of the Ring erupted. Pelennor would not have been so green, I think, without the wall.