LotR -- Book 5 - Chapter 03 - The Muster of Rohan

[Guinevere]

the two weeks have passed and again I haven't managed to post anything...
I did read the chapter though, and followed the interesting discussion, I just didn't have any original thoughts of my own.
As always, I enjoyed Esty's excellent summary, and I loved Davem's posts about Merry and the roads running together, and about Eowyn. There's not really much to discuss if I agree with everything, is there!
Lalwende's link to the prehistorical stones was very interesting too, and her mentioning that the description of the mountainous area sounded rather like Switzerland. Tolkien must have been a very good observer with an almost photografical memory to keep all these evoking details in mind. The description of the mountains must have derived from his only trip to the Swiss alps , which he made as a lad. It must really have made a lasting impression on him! I wonder, if he himself felt rather a bit like Merry, that mountains are grand to look at from afar, but if you are surrounded by them you feel rather oppressed.

He loved mountains, or he had loved the thought of them marching on the edge of stories brought from far away; but now he was borne down by the insupportable weight of Middle-earth. He longed to shut out the immensity in a quiet room by the fire.

I agree very much with Fordim and Formendacil that the last sentence is very "hobbittish"!

...trying to understand the slow sonourous speech of Rohan that he heard the men behind him using. It was a language in which there seemed to be many words that he knew, though spoken more richly and strongly than in the Shire, yet he could not piece the words together.

Is that the reaction of a person of English mothertongue when hearing Anglo-Saxon ? I wish I could hear how it sounds... Well, at least I can listen to Tolkien himself reading the poem of the great ride towards the end of the chapter, because I have the CD with those precious recordings!

Something which made me wonder, are Eowyn's words about the Ghosts, in answer to Théoden's tale:

"But the Dead come seldom forth and only at times of great unquiet and coming death."
"Yet it is said in Harrowdale," said Eowyn in a low voice, "that in the moonless nights but little while ago a great host in strange array passed by. Whence they came, none knew, but they went up the stony road and vanished into the hill, as if they went to keep a tryst"

This must have been before Aragorn entered the Paths (8th March). Theoden & co came to Dunharrow on the 9th March in the evening , and that's when Eowyn made that remark.
So the Dead must have had a foreboding that the time had finally come when they would be summoned?? Aragorn made up his mind to take this path after he had looked into the Palantír on the 6th March in Helm' Deep, but how could the Ghosts have known this?
Anyhow, I find the chronology in the Appendix very useful to keep track of which events took place in which order, and especially what happened simultaneously to the other members of the fellowship. It must have been an enormous piece of work to synchronize all these facts! And it adds greatly to the feeling of "reality".

The discussion about Théoden calling Eomer "son" was also interesting. I couldn't find any other cousins mentioned, and remember that Eomer and Eowyn were brought up in the king's house since their parents had died when Eomer was about 11,
"Her children he took into his house, calling them son and daughter." it says in Appendix B II.

That Théoden rides himself to war with his people instead of staying at home, is a contrast to Denethor (and Sauron himself) who make the plans, but order others to the front. Those were heroic days, when a king in reality was the leader of his people!