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Hungry Ghoul
Posts: 891</TD><TD><img src=http://www.tolkiens-legacy.de/draugen.jpg WIDTH=60 HEIGHT=60></TD></TR></TABLE>
Another fascinating motif
Théoden, King of the Riderfolk, old, but with a regained vigour the dawn of battle has brought him, charges headlong into the standard bearer of the Southrons, the Haradrim, the proud, dark people from the south-east, whose scimitars gleam in the sun, and, singing stave-rhymes, slays him...
<blockquote>
Quote:<hr> That family [i.e. the Tolkiens] told (as families do) stories of past glory, such as that of a noble ancestor who with high courage captured the standard of the Turkish Sultan at the siege of Vienna in 1683.
(C. Moseley, Writers and their Work: J.R.R. Tolkien<hr></blockquote>
I couldn't help but think of a mythological elevation or transfiguration of the Tolkiens' family myth by JRRT in the story of the charge of Théoden.
'I heed no call of clamant bell that rings / Iron-tongued in the towers of earthly kings. / Here on the stones and trees there lies a spell / Of unforgotten loss, of memory more blest / Than mortal wealth...'</p>