Жүзүктің Иесіндегі Рохан Корольдігі

Fictional location in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle earth legendarium

Rohan is a fictional kingdom of Men in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy setting of Middle earth. Known for its horsemen, the Rohirrim, Rohan provides its ally Gondor with cavalry. Its territory is mainly grassland. The Rohirrim call their land the Mark or the Riddermark, names recalling that of the historical kingdom of Mercia, the region of Western England where Tolkien lived. Tolkien grounded Rohan in elements inspired by Anglo Saxon tradition, poetry, and linguistics, specifically in its Mercian dialect, in everything but its use of horses. Tolkien used Old English for the kingdom's language and names, pretending that this was in translation of Rohirric. Meduseld, the hall of King Théoden, is modelled on Heorot, the great hall in Beowulf. Within the plot of The Lord of the Rings, Rohan plays a critical role in the action—first against the wizard Saruman in the Battle of the Hornburg, then in the climactic Battle of the Pelennor Fields. There, Théoden leads the Rohirrim to victory against the forces of Mordor; he is killed when his horse falls, but his niece Éowyn kills the leader of the Ringwraiths.

The Rohirrim called their homeland the Riddermark, a modernization by Tolkien of Old English Riddena mearc, meaning, according to the Index to The Lord of the Rings, "the border country of the knights"; also Éo marc, the Horse mark, or simply the Mark. They call themselves the Éorlingas, the Sons of Éorl. Tolkien rendered the language of the Riders of Rohan, Rohirric, as the Mercian dialect of Old English. Even words and phrases that were printed in modern English showed a strong Old English influence. This solution occurred to Tolkien when he was searching for an explanation of the Eddaic names of the dwarves already published in The Hobbit. Tolkien, a philologist, with a special interest in Germanic languages, pretended that the names and phrases of Old English were translated from Rohirric, just as the English used in The Shire was supposedly translated from Middle earth's Westron or Common Speech. The Riders' names for the cunningly built tower of Isengard, Orthanc, and for the Ents, the tree giants of Fangorn forest, are similarly Old English, both being found in the phrase orþanc enta geweorc, "cunning work of giants" in the poem The Ruin, though Shippey suggests that Tolkien may have chosen to read the phrase also as "Orthanc, the Ent's fortress". In The Two Towers, chapter 6, the Riders of Rohan are introduced before they are seen, by Aragorn, who chants in the language of the Rohirrim words "in a slow tongue unknown to the Elf and the Dwarf", a lai that Legolas senses "is laden with the sadness of Mortal Men". The song is called the Lament of the Rohirrim. To achieve a resonant sense of the lost past, the now legendary time of a peaceful alliance of the Horse lords with the realm of Gondor, Tolkien adapted the short Ubi sunt ("Where are they?") passage of the Old English poem The Wanderer. + Tolkien adapted the Ubi sunt passage of the Old English poem The Wanderer to create a song of Rohan. Hwær cwom mearg? Hwær cwom mago?Hwær cwom maþþumgyfa?Hwær cwom symbla gesetu? Hwær sindon seledreamas?Eala beorht bune!Eala byrnwiga!Eala þeodnes þrym!Hu seo þrag gewat,genap under nihthelm,swa heo no wære. Where is the horse? where the rider?Where the giver of treasure?Where are the seats at the feast?Where are the revels in the hall?Alas for the bright cup!Alas for the mailed warrior!Alas for the splendour of the prince!How that time has passed away,dark under the cover of night,as if it had never been. Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?Where is the hand on the harp string, and the red fire glowing?Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow. Who shall gather the smoke of the dead wood burning?Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning? "Thus spoke a forgotten poet long ago in Rohan, recalling how tall and fair was Eorl the Young, who rode down out of the North," Aragorn explains, after singing the Lament. In 2509, Cirion the Steward of Gondor summoned the Éothéod to help repel an invasion of Men from Rhûn and Orcs from Mordor. Eorl the Young, lord of the Éothéod, answered the summons, arriving unexpected at a decisive battle on the Field of Celebrant, routing the orc army. As a reward, Éorl was given the Gondorian province of Calenardhon (except for Isengard). Saruman was defeated at the Battle of the Hornburg, where the tree like Huorns came from the forest of Fangorn to help the Rohirrim. Éomer rode with the armies of Gondor to the Black Gate of Mordor and took part in the Battle of the Morannon against the forces of Sauron. At this time, the destruction of the Ruling Ring in Mount Doom ended the battle and the war. Éowyn married Faramir, Prince of Ithilien.

The Tolkien scholar Jane Chance writes that Théoden is transformed by Gandalf into a good bold "Germanic king"; she contrasts this with the failure of "the proud Beorhtnoth" in the Old English poem The Battle of Maldon. In her view, in the account of the battle of Helm's Deep, the fortress of the Riddermark, Tolkien is emphasising the Rohirrim's physical prowess. The philologist and Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey notes that the Riders of Rohan are, despite Tolkien's protestations, much like the ancient English (the Anglo Saxons), but that they differed from the ancient English in having a culture based on horses. They use many Old English words related to horses; their name for themselves is Éotheod, horse people, and the names of riders like Éomund, Éomer, and Éowyn begin with the word for "horse", eo[h]. In Shippey's view, a defining virtue of the Riders is panache, which he explains means both "the white horsetail on [Éomer's] helm floating in his speed" and "the virtue of sudden onset, the dash that sweeps away resistance." Shippey notes that this allows Tolkien to display Rohan both as English, based on their Old English names and words like éored ("troop of cavalry"), and as "alien, to offer a glimpse of the way land shapes people". Shippey states further that "the Mark" (or the Riddermark), the land of the Riders of Rohan – all of whom have names in the Mercian dialect of Old English, was once the usual term for central England, and it would have been pronounced and written "marc" rather than the West Saxon "mearc" or the Latinized "Mercia". The Tolkien scholar Thomas Honegger, agreeing with Shippey's description of the Rohirrim as "Anglo Saxons on Horseback", calls the sources for them "quite obvious to anyone familiar with Anglo Saxon literature and culture".

For Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, the Poolburn Reservoir in Central Otago, New Zealand was used for Rohan scenes. The theme for Rohan is played on a Hardanger fiddle. A fully realised set for Edoras was built on Mount Sunday in the upper reaches of the Rangitata Valley, near Erewhon in New Zealand. Some of the set was built digitally, but the main buildings atop the city were built on location; the mountain ranges in the background were part of the actual location shot. The interiors of buildings such as the Golden Hall, however, were located on soundstages in other parts of New Zealand; when the camera is inside of the Golden Hall, looking out the open gates, the image of the on set Edoras set is digitally inserted into the door frame. The site was known among the cast and crew for being extremely windy, as can be seen during the film and DVD interviews. After filming, Mount Sunday was returned to its original state.