Stories told and untold: "The War of the Rohirrim giving a voice, a name, and a narrative"
- Kathryn Boland
- Apr 29
- 7 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
Stories are lasting things; whether through the spoken word or the pen, they endure through generations. Some become beloved across centuries. Those generations change, the world changes – so how much should stories change with them? Do we even have a level of responsibility to reconsider and re-envision these stories as the world spins and years pass?
These are monumental questions – and I certainly have no intention of answering them…perhaps not even in my lifetime, but certainly not in one essay. Yet certain 21rst century media illuminate these questions in meaningful ways. They widen trails for stepping forward in our understanding of what it means to carry these stories forward: who they honor, who they villainize, who they erase.
The War of the Rohirrim (2024), directed by Kenji Kamiyama through Warner Bros. Animation and Sola Entertainment, hums this theme of told and untold tales. That’s underneath a sweeping score of epic battles, threatened royal succession, cross-cultural bigotry, and much more, yes…but hummed clear and strong all the same.
The film’s heroine Héra, of the Kingdom of Rohan, is a woman implied in Tolkien’s legendarium. She lies within the tale that this film tells (found in the The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A). Yet Tolkien never gave her a name, a voice, a story…a humanity of her own. We can perhaps reason that as a writer, building a whole universe with its own complex history, he was focused elsewhere. Fair enough. We can also argue that it being the 21rst century, it is time for heroic women to have that humanity of their own.
Women telling their own ancestral stories
“By her hand, many great deeds were done,” explains Éowyn of this woman, her forebear. Tolkien’s Witch King-slaying heroine of The Lord of the Rings serves as a narrator in the film. That framing is conceivably empowering to both Héra and Éowyn: one having her yet-untold story told, the other telling the story of a woman who laid foundation to be who she became.
“But do not look for tales of her in the old songs, for there are none,” Éowyn continues. Such tales are no small matter; they “light a path through the dark,” she notes. Music is also meaningful, as is only natural in Tolkien’s world – one imbued with song from its very beginning.
Héra’s own brother Hama is a passionate musician, and his song overlays the first time we see her enter the city of Edoras. All of that occurs in the film’s very first few minutes. If we go by a primacy principle – that which comes first is most important – then this theme of told, untold tales and songs is not something to overlook. Hama later wonders if they “will sing ballads of me”: one’s story passed on through song once again underscored as a marker of valour and magnanimity.
Also clear very early into the film is Héra’s daring and wayward nature; with nothing at hand villainizing the conventionally feminine or enthusiasm for it, she’s not one to stay at home baking and sewing. “Héra was ‘wild’...’headstrong’, some called her,” Éowyn says (also to note: there is even a narrative here in how Héra’s community perceives her).
The meaning of a flag and of memory known, unknown
Perhaps it is no surprise, then, when Héra later defends the memory of the Shieldmaidens: her kin, those to whom she belongs. Éowyn is also in that group of warrior women. The fact that she tells of her ancestor speaking up for her own, later right to fight in battle, to protect her people and her nation: another complex meta-narrative at hand here, a beautiful one once untangled.
To note is that Tolkien adapted this idea of the Shieldmaiden from Norse legend: from history that is a bit murky, yet which is clear and present as culturally-shared story. Tolkien indeed spoke of fighting women, these Shieldmaidens, with interest and even reverence; for one, the History of the Éothéod (The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A) notes “many lords and warriors, and many fair and valiant women, are remembered in the songs of Rohan that still remember the North.” (And that's not even getting into Tolkien's “valiant”, well-rounded female characters – from Lúthien to Haleth to Varda and beyond…yes, perhaps relatively few in number, but remarkable all the same.)
Perhaps we can then give him credit for his own passing on of women’s stories, while also critiquing – from a modern lens – his lack of doing so for some women in his own stories, Héra and beyond (the wives of Amandil’s Line would like a word…but that is an analysis for another day).
Héra discusses the Shieldmaidens of old with a few children of the city; they say that they do not know of them. “They defended the borderlands,” she explains. Later discussing the same Shieldmaiden legacy, she recounts how “when all the men were gone, they took up arms to defend their kin.”
Despite that courageous history, a member of the court considers taking down the flag that represents them in the Royal Hall of Meduseld – a flag amongst many others of noble lines and brave deeds. “Those were darker days…the [Shieldmaidens] are all gone,” he argues.
“Not all of them,” Héra corrects – the subtext being that they are not all gone because she is one of them. The film had already shown us her performing a heroic and important deed, coming face-to-face with an Eagle of Manwë (a kind of angel in Tolkien’s cosmology).
Before the narrative advances all that much more, Héra has another opportunity to prove herself a Shieldmaiden: facing danger and further proving her fortitude. Fleeing from a rabid mûmak (a large elephant-type creature), she meets what could be interpreted as of a kind with “the Watcher in the Water” from The Fellowship of the Ring.
“Beware dark waters that hold deep secrets,” she says – as if reminding herself of a warning from caregivers, one likely passed on from their caregivers. Memory and story are indeed woven throughout this narrative: a thick braid of many plaits.
Finding herself in a grand tale: choice, honor, and sacrifice
To whatever degree Héra sees herself as a Shieldmaiden, or wishes to prove herself one, she finds herself in a grand tale – one reflecting the peril and stakes that those Shieldmaidens of old experienced. She is captured by those representing outliers within her nation, called the Dunlendings: a small society grown even more distanced after a conflict resulting in their king’s death (the intricate dynamics of othering, and the narratives therein, being a whole other braid of stories and potential reclaiming of story – perhaps for yet another day).
A debate over Héra’s own fate as a wife and mother sparks that conflict. She, for her part, “does not wish to marry at all.” She is inevitably, inextricably tied to the larger war to come. Be careful what you wish for, one may quip – though Héra undeniably wants to stake her claim in that imminent fight. Helm refuses to let her fight, claiming that her role is instead to have children that will live in peace, will “know nothing of war.”
Her role is to stay safe so that she can carry on their royal line, he thus implies. Héra will have none of that; “my brothers can defend our home while I cannot”, she retorts, naming the inequity of it all. One can in this moment hear echoes from The Return of the King, of Aragorn’s claim to the one telling us this story – Éowyn – that her duty lies outside the battlefield. Éowyn, in her turn, will not hear it; “but I am of the House of Eorl and not a serving woman. I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear either pain or death.”
"You can choose"
The story advances, leading to many more twists and turns for Héra: of slain loved ones, of a fight for her people’s survival through a winter siege, of once again seeking the sanctified assistance of Eagles in a dire moment.
Olwyn, Héra’s Lady-in-Waiting – and a Shieldmaiden in her own right – calls the young woman to her own agency in this story; “you can wait and worry, or you can choose…you can choose how this ends.” Héra is not a passive observer within the stories that will be told of her – or she at least doesn’t have to be. She can choose.
Also to note with respect to Olwyn: as esteemed Tolkien scholar Dr. Sara Brown notes, she is not only a woman, but a middle-aged woman exercising her agency and playing a pivotal role in the unfolding narrative. She in no way needs the freshest youth or the male gaze’s ideal to do just that.
Furthermore, Olwyn guides and inspires those in younger generations – chiefly, Héra. In her very self and in her choices, she paints for Héra a picture of what she can be as she matures. Through all of that, Olwyn avoids the fading into the condition that Éowyn describes, also in The Return of The King: being caught in “a cage…to stay behind bars until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds has gone beyond recall or desire.”
Choosing our stories
Not too long after Olwyn stands as this fortification and inspiration for Héra, the threat to their people is neutralized. Héra’s father Helm is no longer with his people, and her cousin Fréaláf takes his throne. Much earlier in their tale, Helm had admonished Fréaláf – blaming him for Héra’s capture. Tales and songs would not tell of Fréaláf’s deeds, the King had claimed (considering all here discussed, that is a biting claim). Fréaláf had responded that no matter what Helm thought of him, he would serve. “You will always have my sword, whether you will have it or not,” he affirms.
Héra returns this oath of service to Fréaláf once he is King. He believes that the throne should be hers, but she has no desire for it. Héra will instead serve in her own way; her sword will always be of service to her King, she assures him. She chooses, and that is her choice. Whether or not songs and stories would remember her for it, that would be her offering.
And so we also have a choice. We can choose how we carry forward stories: who we include, who we paint with light and dark colors, who we fail to illuminate at all. As years pass and we more keenly recognize the ways in which oppression and othering have shaped our world, do we integrate such awareness into our storytelling? Do we fail to do so? We can choose.
Notes
With further interest, one can here find a more thorough discussion on the historicity of Shieldmaidens, in history and in oral tradition, from Dr. Bret Devereux!
Episode 386, “If You Leave Me Now” (15:00-20:00). The Prancing Pony Podcast. 19 April 2025.
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