An éoherë was the name used by the Men of the Éothéod for a full muster of their armed riders. When Eorl rode from the north to the aid of Gondor, he led an éoherë of some seven thousand horsemen, as well as several hundred mounted archers. The successors of the Éothéod were the Rohirrim, and they continued to use this term. In Théoden's day, some five centuries after the Ride of Eorl, the full éoherë of Rohan was reckoned as one hundred éoreds, or a total of twelve thousand fighting men.
The word éoherë is Old English, and means (approximately) 'horse-host'. Translated into Elvish, this became the name Rohirrim, the much more common term for the Men of Rohan.
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Our earliest records of the term éoherë date back to the time of the Éothéod, when the ancestors of the Rohirrim dwelt in the northern lands around Anduin's sources (a land to which they had removed in III 1977). The ancestors of these people, in turn, had been Northmen of the plains of Rhovanion. The idea of the éoherë thus likely dated back to a time before even the founding the Éothéod themselves. The language of this people had shifted across the centuries, so the earlier name for such a force among the Northmen of Rhovanion would have been different from the éoherë of the Rohirrim. These early Northmen at one time had a leader named Marhari, a name that is not directly explained, but might (among various possibilities) be interpreted as a precursor to the word éoherë.
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- Updated 24 May 2023
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