
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. In The Lord of the Rings, Rohan is important in the action, first against the wizard Saruman in the Battle of the Hornburg, and then in the climactic Battle of the Pelennor Fields. Meduseld, King Théoden's hall, is modelled on Heorot, the great hall in Beowulf. Tolkien used Old English for the kingdom's language and names, pretending that this was in translation of Rohirric. Rohan is grounded in Anglo-Saxon tradition, poetry, and linguistics, specifically in its Mercian dialect, in everything but its use of horses. The Rohirrim call their land the Mark or the Riddermark, the name recalling that of the Kingdom of Mercia, the region of Western England where Tolkien lived. It is mainly a grassland, and provides its ally Gondor with cavalry. Tolkien's fantasy setting of Middle-earth. Rohan is a kingdom of horsemen, the Rohirrim, in J.
