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Marhwini

Meaning: horse-friend

Location(s): Rhovanion, Vales of Anduin

Race/Species: Man

Type/Kind: Rohirrim

Title(s): Lord of the Éothéod

Dates: III mid- to late 1800's

Parents: Marhari

Children: Forthwini

Description:
As for the Northmen ... others were gathered by Marhwini son of Marhari (who fell in the rearguard action after the Battle of the Plains). Passing north between Mirkwood and Anduin they settled in the Vales of Anduin, where they were joined by many fugitives who came through the Forest. This was the beginning of the Éothéod, though nothing was known of it in Gondor for many years.

Unfinished Tales, Part 3, Ch 2, Cirion and Eorl and the Friendship of Gondor and Rohan: The Northmen and the Wainriders

But at length, King Calimehtar ... determined to avenge the defeat of the Battle of the Plains. Messengers came to him from Marhwini warning him that the Wainriders were plotting to raid Calenardhon over the Undeeps; but they said also that a revolt of the Northmen who had been enslaved was being prepared and would burst into flame if the Wainriders became involved in war. Calimehtar therefore ... led an army out of Ithilien.... The Wainriders came down with all the strength that they could spare, and Calimehtar gave way before them, drawing them away from their homes. At length battle was joined upon the Dagorlad ... at its height horsemen that Calimehtar had sent over the Undeeps ... joined with a great éored led by Marhwini assailed the Wainriders in flank and rear. The victory of Gondor was overwhelming ... When the enemy broke ... Calimehtar ... did not pursue them. ... But the horsemen of Marhwini harried the fugitives and inflicted great loss upon them in their long rout over the plains, until they were within far sight of Mirkwood. There they left them, taunting them: "Fly east not north, folk of Sauron! See, the homes you stole are in flames!" For there was a great smoke going up.

The revolt planned and assisted by Marhwini had indeed broken out; desperate outlaws coming out of the Forest had roused the slaves, and together had succeeded in burning many of the dwellings of the Wainriders, and their storehouses, and their fortified camps of wagons. But most of them had perished in the attempt; for they were ill-armed, and the enemy had not left their homes undefended.... Thus in the end Marhwini was obliged to retire again to his land beside the Anduin, and the Northmen of his race never again returned to their former homes.

Nonetheless the alliance of Calimehtar and Marhwini had not been in vain. If the strength of the Wainriders of Rhovanion had not been broken, that assault would have come sooner and in greater force, and the realm of Gondor might have been destroyed.

Unfinished Tales, Part 3, Ch 2, Cirion and Eorl and the Friendship of Gondor and Rohan: The Northmen and the Wainriders

It is an interesting fact ... that the names of the early kings and princes of the Northmen and the Éothéod are Gothic in form, not Old English (Anglo-Saxon) as in the case of Léod, Eorl, and the later Rohirrim. ... Marhwini and Marhari contain the Gothic word marh "horse," corresponding to Old English mearh, plural mearas, the word used in The Lord of the Rings for the horses of Rohan; wini "friend" corresponds to Old English winë, seen in the names of several of the Kings of the Mark. Since, as is explained in Appendix F (II), the language of Rohan was "made to resemble ancient English," the names of the ancestors of the Rohirrim are cast into the forms of the earliest recorded Germanic language.

Unfinished Tales, Part 3, Ch 2, Cirion and Eorl and the Friendship of Gondor and Rohan: Notes, Note 6

Contributors:
Elena Tiriel 8Oct05

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