Compare And Contrast Gondor And Rohan

The kingdoms of Gondor and Rohan also have a distinctive style within the songs and poems, showing traditionalism, pride, and strength. The race of man, compared to the hobbits and elves, uses or recites poems for a more practical or solemn use, recording histories or lamenting great individuals of the past, as well as sparking bravery and courage in the hearts of the listeners. Rohan’s poems particularly focused upon the latter; Their battle cries are written in poem-form. Often when King Theoden and Eomer call out a poetic battle cry, the soldiers always follow with a response within the scene. King Theoden, immediately after taking from his spell from Saruman by Gandalf, calls for his men to, “Arise now, arise Riders of Theoden! Dire deeds …show more content…
The “Sword that was broken” (Tolkien, Fellowship 276) is revealed to be a symbol for Aragorn, whose ancestral line, the line of Isildur, was broken and lost to Gondor for centuries. The subjects of the Gondorian poetry within the book are always the members of the line of Isildur, whether that be a prophecy about Aragorn or the history of the great kings in the past. Aragorn often is directly influenced by the prophetic poetry to act and fulfill the prophesy, such as to walk the Paths of the Dead and allowing the ghosts there to fulfill their oath to the bloodline of Isildur (Tolkien, Return 49). Tolkien seems to use the prophecies to justify Aragorn’s claim to the throne and to manipulate the plot. The primary reason the people of Gondor accept Aragorn’s claim to the throne is that he fulfills the prophetic poem predicting the King will have the hands of a healer, healing those who are near death after a war with athelas, a common weed (Tolkien, Return 112). This fulfilment shows both the mystic accuracy of such poems, as well as the general significance of such folklore to the people of Gondor; poetry is used to show the values and important messages of the race of