Horse Folk

[Desi Baggins]

I was just reading Unfinished Tales- The Description of Númenor...I found out that the people of Númenor loved and rode horses. They could also call their horses to them with thought! I thought only the people of Rohan had this great love of horses and only the Mearas could be trained to come when called, like Shadowfax!

[Ninhiisenen]

Well, Aragorn seemed to be a lover of horses and wasn't he a Numenor? I feel so stupid sometimes trying to remember three years worth of reading. (I'm visually impaired and the LotR trilogy took a great while)

[Stormrider]

Yes, Aragorn was from the Númenorean lineage.

The fact that the Númenoreans had horses and could call them to them by thought makes me think that these horses might have been mearas, too. Or did the Númenoreans retain some of their Elvish abilities such as communicating telepathically--which even extended to horses?

The Númenoreans were a great line of people born from Elrond's brother Elros. I could see how they might have been able to befriend the mearas and have them as their horse companions.

But how did Théoden's people come by Shadowfax and his line was definately meara? And how many of the horses of Rohan were from meara lineage?

[Greenleaf]

In LotR, Appendix A, The House of Eorl, I found the following information about the Rohirrim and the mearas. The passage is four paragraphs long, so I'll just sum it up.

When the Rohirrim still lived in the North, near the sources of Anduin, Léod, Eorl's father, who was a tamer of wild horses, captured a white foal. It soon grew to a strong, fair and proud horse that no man could tame. Léod dared to mount it but it threw him and he hit his head on a rock and died. Eorl vowed to avenge his father and when he found the horse, instead of killing it, he called: "Come hither, Mansbane, and get a new name!" ... "Felaróf I name you. You loved your freedom, and I do not blame you for that. But now you owe me a great weregild, and you shall surrender your freedom to me until your life's end."

Felaróf submitted and Eorl always rode him withour bit or bridle. The horse understood all that men said but allowed only Eorl to mount him. He lived as long as Men, and so did his descendants, who were the mearas and bore only the King of the Mark and his sons (until Shadowfax, who let Gandalf ride him). Men said that Oromë must have brought their sire from West over sea.

I don't know whether it is stated anywhere how many of the horses of Rohan were mearas.

From all this info a question comes to my mind: If Felaróf was the sire of the mearas, then the horses of the Númenoreans couldn't have been mearas as well, could they? And if not, did they also have some "divine" element in them? Perhaps another or the same Vala brought them to Númenor?

(Seems to me that all this should probably be in the mearas thread in Creatures of Middle-earth, but... well.)

~~~

Later addition:

The Encyclopedia of Arda states that Felaróf, who sired the mearas, was one of a proud race of wild horses that lived in the old north of Middle-earth and were long-lived, wise and fleet-footed. Men believed that their ancestors had been brought from the West by Oromë. I think then, that it is not unlikely that Felaróf's ancestors and Númenorean horses might be somehow related.

[Andorinha]

RE: Greenleaf -- "From all this info a question comes to my mind: If Felaróf was the sire of the mearas, then the horses of the Númenoreans couldn't have been mearas as well, could they? And if not, did they also have some 'divine' element in them? Perhaps another or the same Vala brought them to Númenor?"


In The Two Towers, "The Riders of Rohan," pp. 455 - 456 in the Omnibus edition, Eomer says this concerning the Mearas:

"'Gandalf!' Eomer exclaimed. 'Gandalf Greyhame is known in the Mark; but his name, I warn you, is no longer a password to the king's favour. ... 'He is wroth. For Gandalf took the horse that is called Shadowfax, the most precious of all the king's steeds, chief of the Mearas, which only the Lord of the Mark may ride. For the sire of their race was the great horse of Eorl that knew the speech of Men."

From the published version in the LotR, I think Greenleaf is correct to conclude that the Mearas have no definitive, stated Numenorean connexion, but, is this situation changed when we compare this section with an earlier variant found in HOME vol. VII, "The Treason of Isengard:"

" 'Gandalf?' said Eomer. 'We have heard of him. An old man of that name used to appear at times in our land. ... Nonetheless he asked us for a horse! What arts he used I cannot guess, but Theoden gave him one of the mearas: the steeds that only the First Master of the Mark may ride; for it is said that <they are descended from the horses which the Men of Westernesse brought over the Great Seas> their sires came out of the Lost Land [Numenor] over the Great Sea when the Kings of Men came out of the Deeps to Gondor. Shadowfax was the name of that horse [given to Gandalf]'." (ToI, "The Riders of Rohan," p. 400)

It seems that JRRT -- at one time anyway -- was considering the Mearas as being Numenorean horses, with the possiblity that they came to Numenor even earlier out of Valinor.

[Stormrider]

I always wondered why the Rohirrim had these special horses when they were just plain men and the Men of Westerness did not have them. I wonder why Tolkien chose to give the mearas to the Rohirrim.

I guess he wanted the Rohirrim to be special in their own way and having them be exceptional horsemen with a very fine line of horse could have been the way he chose to distinguish them from other men.