The Rohirrim Song and Sibley’s Additions
How do you tell of a battle on the radio? Mostly, there’s a narrator to fill in the gaps between what people might plausibly say to each other.
Brian Sibley’s 1981 adaptation of Lord of the Rings has the ingenious idea of using a song-like poem by Tolkien that covers a lot of it. [A] And adding a few extra verses in what I’d see as a decent copy of the original.
Tolkien actually has two separate chapters containing portions of what is presented as a Rohirrim song written long afterwards. And told as you’d imagine an Anglo-Saxon writing it if they’d learned modern English. Tolkien, of course, knew the original well. From my limited knowledge of the matter, I can see how he copied a typical rhythm. And instead of rhymes, the poem-song uses kenning (repeating similar words in a line).[B]
In Chapter 3 of Book Five, we had some initial verses describing how Theoden’s forces set out:
“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.”
Episode Nine of the radio broadcast has part of this song, beginning with “Forth rode the king”. (That’s episode 9 of the later 13-part broadcast and CD recording – I suppose it was episode 17 of the original broadcast of 26 half-hour episodes.)
Tolkien’ verses at the end of Chapter 6, The Battle of the Pelennor Fields, seem like a continuation of the same work[C]:
“We heard of the horns in the hills ringing,
“the swords shining in the South-kingdom.
“Steeds went striding to the Stoningland
“as wind in the morning. War was kindled.
“There Theoden fell, Thengling mighty,
“to his golden halls and green pastures
“in the Northern fields never returning,
“high lord of the host. Harding and Guthlaf
“Dunhere and Deorwine, doughty Grimbold,
“Herefara and Herubrand, Horn and Fastred,
“fought and fell there in a far country:
“in the Mounds of Mundburg under mould they lie
“with their league-fellows, lords of Gondor.
“Neither Hirluin the Fair to the hills by the sea,
“nor Forlong the old to the flowering vales
“ever, to Arnach, to his own country
“returned in triumph; nor the tall bowmen,
“Derufin and Duilin, to their dark waters,
“meres of Morthond under mountain-shadows.
“Death in the morning and at day’s ending
“lords took and lowly. Long now they sleep
“under grass in Gondor by the Great River.
“Grey now as tears, gleaming silver,
“red then it rolled, roaring water:
“foam dyed with blood flamed at sunset;
“as beacons mountains burned at evening;
“red fell the dew in Rammas Echor.”
Sibley used the start for the start of the battle, and the end for its ending. Omitting the middle portion, which is mostly names that even the book tells little of. (I have put these lines in italic.
There are other snatches of verse in Chapter 6 also sound Anglo-Saxon, at least to me. But also with a different line-pattern, and not from the same work.
Sibley also added some extra verses in the same mode, to describe events during the battle itself. And helpfully, there is a transcript of the entire script posted on-line.[D]
As I said, Episode 11, the radio dramatization of the battle, begins with the first four lines that Tolkien put at the end of his chapter
“We heard of the horns in the hills ringing,
“the swords shining in the South-kingdom.
“Steeds went striding to the Stoningland
“as wind in the morning. War was kindled.”
Then there are four new verses , in a fair copy of the same style:
“Like fire in a furnace they drove through the bowmen;
“Theoden Thengel’s son, where the press was thickest.
“Shivered his spear as he struck down the Southrons.”
Then:
“Came like a cloud, the creature of darkness,
“Nazgul the naked with neither quill nor feather,
“Steed of the Morgul-king, mightiest in Mordor.”
And after some more dialogue:
“Snowmane, the king’s steed, started and reared high,
“Crashed to the ground with the king crushed beneath.”
When Eomer arrives, Tolkien has him say:
“Mourn not overmuch! Mighty was the fallen,
“meet was his ending. When his mound is raised,
“women then shall weep. War now calls us!
This is replaced by a continuation of the song:
“Then said Eomer: “Mourn not yet! Mighty was the fallen,
“Meet was his ending. When his grave-mound is raised,
“Great shall be the weeping. But war calls us now!’”
The radio version then switches to Denethor, which Tolkien does not tell of until the next chapter:
“Dark was the doom that fell upon Denethor:
“the end of his House and the high host of Gondor,
“fortune had failed him and fighting was vain now.
“So in despair, he runs to destruction,
“heaps up a pyre for his son and himself;
“longs to destroy the last of the Stewards
With Denethor gone, the mood turns dark on the radio, as it did in the book:
“Lamps were burning bright in Gondor.
“Death came to Denethor; his doom fulfilling,
“Faramir brought they forth from the pyre
“to the House of Healing, for help of his wounds.“In the Field of Pelennor, fate turned against them;
“Gondor’s fortune failed in the morning;
“Monstrous ships in the middle distance,
“Wonder and fear and the watchers crying.
Sauron’s forces appear to have been reinforced by Corsairs of Umbar sailing up the river. Brought by the very south wind that had given hope, and dispersed the dark cloud that Sauron had created. That the Orcs had been fighting under.
Facing this, the radio version had Eomer speak as he does in the book:
““Out of doubt, out of dark to the day’s rising
“I came singing in the sun, sword unsheathing.
“To hope’s end I rode and to heart’s breaking:
“Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!
But then they see it is Aragorn, and go on to win the battle. The poem concludes with the last eight lines of Tolkien’s verse:
“Death in the morning and at day’s ending
“lords took and lowly. Long now they sleep
“under grass in Gondor by the Great River.
“Grey now as tears, gleaming silver,
“red then it rolled, roaring water:
“foam dyed with blood flamed at sunset;
“as beacons mountains burned at evening;
“red fell the dew in Rammas Echor.
It is an excellent way to handle a complex battle on the radio, If it is ever given a new and respectful adaptation for television, I hope a lot of Sibley’s work is copied or expanded.
[A] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_(1981_radio_series)
[B] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenning
[C] I do not use accents or other diacritical marks, which some of the names have. In the past, I have all too often seen computer software turn them into something meaningless.
As to why this flaw exists, see https://gwydionmadawc.com/030-human-dynamics/ascii-an-unhappy-legacy-for-computers/
[D] http://lunar.littlestar.jp/stardust/tolkien/AudioCD/CD-ALL.html
Gwydion Madawc Williams 