Farewell to the Riddermark

My last class in "Tolkien as Translator" is tomorrow night. My final paper is nearly complete; just some minor edits and a final read-through and it will be done. I have re-read "The Lord of the Rings" and studied the languages of Middle-earth; all under the watchful, knowledgeable gaze of Dr. Marc Zender.

Dr. Zender jumped right into things on the first night of class. I listened intently, concerned that I did not have an anthropological language background and that I would not be able to follow along. This notion was was slowly dispelled over the next 1.5 hours. Then, something miraculous happened.

Dr. Zender was talking about the Riders of Rohan, and how Tolkien infused his languages and cultures with the linguistic echoes of our own Old World cultures, now lost to time. Then, Dr. Zender started to recite - from memory - the Ride of the Riddermark. His confident recitation started slowly at first and gathered in intensity as the passage continued on. Suddenly thoughts of Beowulf crept into my mind. Is this Tolkien or Beowulf? This sounds just like some passages from Beowulf.

As Dr. Zender finished the passage, we applauded. Never before had I heard Tolkien read aloud yet I realized now that it should be. Or, at least, some of it should be. Dr. Zender now spoke about how Tolkien altered his writing styles based on the source-culture or literary material and that, yes, there is much of the Anglo-Saxon world - and Beowulf - to be found in the passages concerning Rohan.

And I was hooked.

Dr. Zender has both impressed and inspired me. Once I was content to simply be a teacher of English lit. I now find that I want to specifically study Old English literature. I had an inkling of this notion after I finished "Beowulf & Seamus Heaney" with Professor Daniel Donoghue. Later, my heart stirred when I heard Benjamin Bagby's presentation of Beowulf and I knew that something about this moved me. Then there was " Tolkien as Translator: Language, Culture and Society in Middle-Earth". I have learned so much in this class. Mostly I have learned that I have so much more to learn.

Here, in it's entirety, is the passage Dr. Zender read on the first night of class. Read it aloud (particularly the text in italics) and listen for the alliteration as you do so. See if you can feel the sense of doom and destiny for Théoden as he leads his men to war. It may not change your life; but it changed the way that I look at mine.

“On down the grey road they went beside the Snowbourn rushing on its stones; through the hamlets of Underharrow and Upbourn, where many sad faces of women looked out from dark doors; and so without horn or harp or music of men's voices the great ride into the East began with which the songs of Rohan were busy for many long lives of men thereafter.

From dark Dunharrow in the dim morning

with thane and captain rode Thengel's son:

to Edoras he came, the ancient halls

of the Mark-wardens mist-enshrouded;

golden timbers were in gloom mantled.

Farewell he bade to his free people,

hearth and high-seat, and the hallowed places,

where long he had feasted ere the light faded.

Forth rode the king, fear behind him,

fate before him. Fealty kept he;

oaths he had taken, all fulfilled them.

Forth rode Théoden. Five nights and days

east and onward rode the Eorlingas

through Folde and Fenmarch and the Firienwood,

six thousand spears to Sunlending,

Mundburg the mighty under Mindolluin,

Sea-kings’ city in the South-kingdom

foe-beleaguered, fire-encircled.

Doom drove them on. Darkness took them,

horse and horseman; hoofbeats afar

sank into silence: so the songs tell us.”

— JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

Bk. V, Ch. 3, ‘The Muster of Rohan’ (p. 803)