The White Council

Re: The Rohirrim and Anglo-Saxons

Tolkien and Inklings Discussion

: : Michael I think that you take a rather extremist stance on the : : Rohirrim and Anglo-Saxon relationship issue.

: Actually, I'm just accepting Tolkien's word on the matter. He does INSIST that the Rohirrim don't resemble the Anglo-Saxons in anything but a general sense.

He says that the Rohirrim cannot be interpreted as being identical with the A-S, he does not explicitly state that absolutely no influences went into the creation of the Rohirrim. In general Tolkien is very shy of admitting to outside influences having an effect on his work, this seems to me something touching on his pride as a "Sub-creator" and his statements in this vein have to be critically appraised.

: : Are the Rohirrim Anglo-Saxons? I agree that they are not; they : : are an invention of Tolkien's. Were they influenced by : : Tolkien's knowledge of the Anglo-Saxons? I think they : : undoubtedly were.

: : The bottom line is language, whatever the origin of Tolkien's : : use of a version of Anglo-Saxon for the speech of the Rohirrim : : (archaic English compared to modern = an archaic variant of : : Adunaic to Westron) on the page the words are Old English and : : this will unavoidably affect how the reader views the speakers.

: I avoided mistaking the Rohirrim for Anglo-Saxons quite easily, and many other people have done so as well. That some readers want to identify the Rohirrim with the Anglo-Saxons doesn't mean Tolkien did. You'll never find any statements by Tolkien which support such a conclusion. You'll never find one from Tolkien saying he modelled them on the Goths. I can point to the Goths and say, "Here are clear and distinct parallels", but Tolkien himself didn't say the Rohirrim were modelled on the Goths.

: Nonetheless, he used Gothic for their early language and if we must identify the Rohirrim with the Anglo-Saxons because of Tolkien's use of A-S to represent their speech then we must identify their ancestors with Goths for the same reason -- and that sort of logic becomes self-defeating, because the Anglo-Saxons and the Goths had entirely different cultures.

Somewhat distinct, but I would not say entirely; both had a common Germanic cultural inheritance modified by a greater or lesser influence from Greco-Roman culture.

: : Other parallels between the two peoples are plentiful:

: : Both have:

: : Domestic architechture based on timber, though both can use : : stone (Hornburg - A-S churches, repairs/additions to Roman : : fortifications).

: This is not peculiar to the Anglo-Saxons, nor even to the ancient Germans. Hence, it's not a parallel between the Rohirrim and the Anglo-Saxons.

Please let us be logical, it is definitely a parallel, just not an exclusive one. You yourself use similar arguments to favour particular ideas you espouse. For example Dunedan and Egyptian parallels in regard of monumental architecture, when of course monumental building was the hallmark of such diverse cultures as Imperial Rome, The Khmer, Aztecs, Toltecs, Babylonians..... etc. etc.

Without going into the realms of the minutiae of artistic styles and decorative themes, systems of land-tenure and such like it is difficult to give any cultural trait which is totally exclusive to the Anglo-Saxons. However, if you have many of these non-exclusive parallels then a pattern of similarity emerges where influences, intentional or sub-conscious on the part of the author, become apparent.

: : Give names to weapons and invest them with moral and : : temperamental characteristics.

: Nor was this peculiar to the Anglo-Saxons, although it does appear to be more of a Germanic custom than something found outside their world. So, again, this is not a parallel between the Rohirrim and the Anglo-Saxons.

As above.

: : Have a heroic poetry which is based on alliteration and the use : : of a caesura (pause) in the middle of a line.

: We have on examples of untranslated Rohirric poetry to make such a comparison.

Translation while retaining the form of poetry is quite possible. Rhythm and metre can be accommodated between languages. Tolkien could have rendered Rohirric poetry in any metre he chose - from rhyming couplets to iambic pentameter - that he gave an approximation in Modern English of the standard heroic verse-form of the Anglo-Saxons surely indicates that the original language used the same poetical method.

: : Have a penchant for using by-words - such as whale-road for sea : : or war-board for shield.

: Nor was this peculiar to the Anglo-Saxons, so again it's not a parallel between the Rohirrim and the Anglo-Saxons.

As above. It is a linguistic quirk not found amongst the other peoples of LOTR, excepting the Ents though here it takes an almost pathological form. In ME it is essentially peculiar to the Rohirrim, where else is it found to a great extent, in Anglo-Saxon literature, can you think of any other literature where it is so prominent?

: : Have codes of honour stressing personal bravery and : : faithfulness to a lord and hospitality to strangers.

: Again, this is not peculiar to the Anglo-Saxons, so it's not a parallel between the Rohirrim and the Anglo-Saxons.

As above. The Rohirrim have exactly the same anxiety about retaining and defending the body of Theoden as the English displayed, or were expected to display, for the fallen ealdorman Beortnoth at the Battle of Maldon. The parallel in this case is palpable.

: : Bury dead leaders in earthen mounds.

: See above.

: : These are just some of the more immediately obvious parallels.

: But they are not parallels at all -- not in the sense you propose. If they were there would never have been any question of identifying the Rohirrim with the Anglo-Saxons. But because Tolkien integrated only generic customs found throughout many Celto-Germanic tribes of the ancient world, it's inarguable that the Rohirric culture is nothing more than a generalization of the cultures that once thrived in northern Europe, rather than a derivative of Anglo-Saxon or any other particular culture.

I have never argued that the Anglo-Saxons were the only influence on the genesis of the Rohirrim, only that to exclude their influence entirely is not tenable given the many similarities.

: : Some of the differences you quote are not quite as clear-cut as : : you might like. Much of Rohan was lowland, though the major : : fortified sites were for obvious reasons constructed in the : : highlands...

: All the named cities and villages were located in the mountains or their foothills: Edoras, Aldburg, Upboard, Underharrow, and the hundreds or thousands of farms of Westfold were all located in the hills and mountains. There is no mention of anyone actually living in the lowlands.

Horses are not well equiped for life in mountainous districts, an extreme caballocentric culture like the Rohirrim necessarily has to occupy and use plains and grass-rich lowlands, the mountains cannot have held the overwhelming majority of the population. Classical Greece had only one area famous for producing cavalry, Thessaly, which had rich plains, the rest of Greece was too largely mountainous to allow extensive horsebreeding (Macedon also had plains and cavalry, but the Greeks thought of the Macedonians as only semi-Greek).

: : ...Also some of the Anglo-Saxon peoples were settled in : : highland - try telling a Pecsaete or Elmetsaete that the high : : Pennines were lowlands, or a Wreocensaete that the Wrekin hills : : were mere molehills ;)

: The Anglo-Saxons, when they first settled in Britain, settled along the coasts, not in the highlands. And the bulk of the population has always remained in the lowlands.

There were, as I have argued, lowland Rohirrim and highland Anglo-Saxons so the use of this contrast is not really warranted.

: : Also, judging from pictographic evidence, the Northumbrian : : Anglo-Saxon army defeated by the Picts at Nechtansmere in the : : 7th century was composed wholly of cavalry.

: So why is it that historians continue to portray the Anglo-Saxons as an infantry-dominated people? Egfrid's use of cavalry against the Picts doesn't mean his only significant military force consisted of mounted warriors (and the fact he lost control over the Picts and was indeed killed doesn't compare favorably with the Rohirrim either).

There is, as I have attempted to show, no hard and fast distinction between "purely footslogging A-Saxons" and centaur-like Rohirrim. Rohan had some footsoldiers and the Anglo-Saxons could produce cavalry when appropriate. Anne Hyland in her book The Mediaeval War Horse has produced some compelling evidence from A-Saxon wills that a type of very costly horse existed in A-Saxon times which is always associated with weapons and armour and is always separated carefully from ordinary riding horses. This peculiar beast could be nothing else but a costly large, powerful, brave and well trained war-horse schooled for use in mounted combat no other interpretation of the evidence makes sense.

: : The Anglo-Saxons, as opposed to the Angles and Saxons, were not : : particularly effective seafarers...

: Neither the Rohirrim, the Eotheod, the Rhovanions, nor the Free Men of the North or any of their predecessors ever went to sea. The Anglo-Saxons may not have maintained great navies, but they most certainly retained their knowledge of the sea and stayed in contact with Scandinavia and France by ship.

: : ...Once the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms had arose in Britain any : : inheritance from the Saxon pirates who preyed on the Late : : Romans of Britain and Gaul seems to have been quickly lost as : : most sea traffic in Northwestern Europe was carried on by the : : Frisians. The eventual English response to Viking sea power : : was a rather artificial one spawned by the genius of Alfred the : : Great, and not drawn from a strong sea-faring tradition : : previously exhibited by the English peoples themselves.

: The point, however, is that they did not forget the sea and become a wholly landbound people. Anglo-Saxons crossed over to the continent and other peoples crossed over to England. The Rohirrim simply did not use ships or boats.

Then again the A-Saxons were hardly mermen or thalassocrats.