The real reason for Helm Hammerhead's nickname

[Elmo]

Helm is completly different to any of the other Kings of the 'good' guys. I mean it is not normal behavour to go round your enemies' camps slaughtering them with your bare hands and killing some guy because his son had a thing for your daughter (well some might say the guy was fat, he had it coming) and not even give up killing when he's dead. Sheesh this guy must have had some issues. I believe I know what they were though.

It obviously goes back to some severe childhood trauma I think it would not be the typical Middle Earth trauma that I'd imagine there would be i.e. I saw my parents getting eaten by orcs and/or peckish hobbits, I think it is something much more mundane and real worldish and it is of course the fault of the parents. I mean what type of sick twisted people would name their child after a piece of headware??? I'm looking at you Mr and Mrs Gram of the House of Earl. Come on what were you thinking, did you not see the abuse he would have had to put up with in Edoras with that name? I believe the children used to encircle and pound him on the head when he'd cry out in pain they'd say 'I'm sorry I didn't know it would hurt, you are a helm after all' This is where he got his nickname because all the children would 'hammer' him on his head with their fists. This of course would give a boy a lot of pent up anger that led him down the path to wraith hood.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

I am much entertained by this theory, but can you explain how the heir to the throne could possibly be bullied? For sure, some kids are not scared by the prospect of detention at school; but if the crime for bullying be hanging, or being pulled apart by horses, I can't really see how young Helm would be bullied.

Is this more anti-Rohan propoganda, that 'they're all violent and uncivilised there'?

[Elmo]

The King could have sent his kid to a normal school to show he had confidence in the Rohirrim State School System and if there's any similarity between them and today's equivalent discipline wouldn't exactly be at Barad-duresqe levels

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Ah yes, a nice little PR opportunity (take note Ruth Kelly!)

I suppose, Rohan is hardly Gondor. It's not as if they could have hired Gandalf as a personal tutor. If we look back to Eorl we see that they are far more 'normal' than other monarchs (I ask you, a kid on a horse?). Ok, the theory is plausible.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

It's an interesting theory, with just one minor flaw: Helm's nickname was Hammerhand.

Personally I think they called him that because he kept mislaying his toolbox and having to improvise. The pain in his fists after bashing in nails with them left him in frequent agonised rage, whence derives his unstable behaviour. A man who has just punched some masonry nails into the walls of the Hornburg to hold a new umbrella rack is scarcely going to see the funny side when someone suggests he needs a walking stick.

[Elmo]

It's an interesting theory, with just one minor flaw: Helm's nickname was Hammerhand.

Och well, I'll try and salvage this thread by claiming there are different 'traditions' on what Helm's nickname was, isn't that the Tolkienian method for explaining away errors

[davem]

Actually, I posted a really funny response to this but decided it was a bit much for a family site, so have regretfully removed it

[Elmo]

Oh Davem it was brilliant you shouldn't have deleted it. It wasn't that bad, it wasn't worse than the original post anyway. Which, by the way, got me accused of having an Orcish sense of humour by a downer who shall remain nameless...

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Oh, er, yes, but, as we all know, the ancient, um, Fornostian legends involved a translation error and, being the tradition I was brought up in, renders Hammerhead the normal title of that particular King.

Hand, you say... well I never...