of Theoden's battles?

So ... I was recalling a line from the movie (I know its precarious to begin any assumption coming from the movie) in which Théoden is talking to Aragorn and Gimli I believe, and he says something to the effect of "I have won many battles ... a king knows how to protect his own keep." I believe there is something in the book to the same effect and I was wondering who you folks think Theoden had been fighting in his decades of rule. There are other comments from the men of Rohan like "war is ever on our borders" but I'm wondering where exactly, considering we hear of no major battles in (or even near) Rohan until all hell breaks loose. Here is my point:

We are lead to believe that much of S. Eriador that lies NW of Rohan, East of the Misty Mountains is at best sparsely populated and even where populated it is not well ordered (especially not ordered enough to want to fight a kingdom of tall, strong, horse-men). We know that until his betrayal Saruman, to the North did not engage Theoden. To the South was Gondor, obviously not a threat. North was Fangorn and further up lay Lorien both of which held no enemies. East, S. East was the River, Emyn Muil and directly east was the Dagorlad/Dead Marshes. It seems that we can rule out most of the areas surrounding Rohan as without any real threat to Theoden.

I am obviously overstating the case a little bit ... there were orcs comming south out of the Misty Mountains and orcs/men potentially coming from Mordor, SE. But we are given reasons to believe that Sauron had not been waging war against Rohan. Therefore my question remains who were the Rohimim warring with that Theoden (either king or crown prince) was out fighting?

The whole business sounds a bit fishy to me ... maybe there we just a bunch of very small skirmishes with surrounding Goth/Vandal types, maybe Theoden was just trying to make himself sound a little more bad-*** than he really was, maybe I'm wrong and there is nothing in the book like that ... but Id like to hear some other opinions so we can at least chalk another one up to PJ and the writing crew.

[The Saucepan Man]

Throughout the history of Rohan, following the grant of the lands by the Steward Cirion to Eorl, there had been frequent incursions by the Dunlendings who believed that much of the land was by rights theirs. At times, as I recall, the Men of Umbar were also involved in attacks on Rohan.

These were not "very small skirmishes with surrounding Goth/Vandal types" but full scale battles and seiges and, on occasion, Rohan came pretty close to defeat. At times, they verged on civil war as a result of intermarrying with Dunlendings in the west. No doubt the Dunlendings' incursions continued up to and during Theoden's reign (by which time they were almost certainly being encouraged by Saruman).

Yes, and Rohan was subject to raids by Orcs from the Misty Mountains too. Eomer's father was killed in one such raid.

Read the Appendix A to LotR for further information.

[Garulf]

This probably belongs in the movie forum but...maybe Theoden meant that his people had fought many wars, not he himself. What I mean is that since Theoden is the First Marshall of the Mark he is a general and therefore participates in every war, but might not neccesarily fight in that war.

[Rumil]

Try the 'Battles of the late Third Age thread', we discussed the skirmishes in Rohan on page 2, please feel free to add to this!

[Knight of Gondor]

there had been frequent incursions by the Dunlendings who believed that much of the land was by rights theirs.

Ha ha, a little off-subject, but what two tribes in the Middle-East does this remind you of? Two tribes of people who believe they have the right to one piece of land, and squabble with each other over it? [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[Finwe]

That's true. Rights to a piece of land have started some of the bloodiest conflicts known to man. Just look at the Crusades!


Since the land grant of Rohan to the Rohirrim displaced a lot of people like the Dunlendings and the Orcs, the Dunlendings felt like their rightful land had been stolen. It is indeed like the Middle-east conflict between Israel and Palestine. Israel can be compared to Rohan, and Palestine to Dunland. The Palestinian people were roughly pushed out of the land they were used to living in for a long time, by the Israelites, who claimed that it was theirs by right (due to a land grant). Hopefully the Israel-Palestine conflict won't end up in a Battle-of-Helm's-Deep situation!