Masters of Horses

The descendants of a people who had once roamed the wide grasslands eastward of Greenwood the Great. Even in those early times, horses had been an important part of their cultures, and these people were unparalleled in the breeding, keeping and riding of horses. At one time allies of the Gondorians, these Northmen were driven by war from their lands in Rhovanion. They travelled northward, settling for a time in the Vales of Anduin before establishing the land of the Éothéod (meaning 'horse-people') in the far North.

In the year III 2509, a messenger arrived at the court of their lord, Eorl the Young, carrying a plea for aid from Gondor, the ancient ally of his people. Eorl answered, and rode into the south to defeat the invading Balchoth and earn the gratitude of Steward Cirion. So great was that gratitude, in fact, that the Steward ceded an entire province of his realm, the grassland of Calenardhon, into the keeping of Eorl and his people.

Thus began the realm that would become known as Rohan, with Eorl as its first King. The name Rohan for the new country of the Masters of Horses was devised by Hallas, son of Steward Cirion, from the Sindarin for 'horse-land'.¹ Similarly he named its people Rohirrim, 'people of the horse-lords' or 'people of the masters of horses'. These names came into common use among the Rohirrim and Gondorians alike.

The land of the Rohirrim was established in III 2510, and so was some five centuries old at the time of the War of the Ring. Through those centuries its people had suffered many hardships, but remained staunch allies of Gondor. At the end of the Third Age, when Eorl's distant descendent Théoden led his people to the Battle of the Pelennor, the Men of Rohan were still known in Gondor as the Masters of Horses.