Horn was a Man of Rohan who died in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.
Afterwards, the memory of his death as with others is lamented in the Song of the Mounds of Mundburg.[1]
In adaptations[]
In The Lord of the Rings Online, Horn is a major character, who accompanies the player throughout Riddermark.
He comes from the town of Eaworth in the Entwash Vale is the youngest child of its Reeve Ingbert. He has an older brother Ingmar and a sister Ingyth. Though capable with a sword, Horn wished in his heart to be a minstrel, of which his father did not approve. He had apprenticeship under King Théoden's minster Gléowine until he spoke out against Gríma Wormtongue and was sentenced to the border outpost of Stangard, north of the river Limlight, and forbidden to set foot into Rohan proper.
It is in Stangard where the player first meets Horn, accompanied by a young woman from Dunland, Nona, who had been waging her own private war against Saruman after her brother was killed by his servants. The Rohirrim men do not allow the Dunlending into their settlement, but otherwise raise no arms against her. Nona and the player then go on an expedition into the Brown Lands across the Great River, and on their way back Nona is wounded in an Easterling attack. The men of Stangard refuse to aid her with the sole exception of Horn, who helps the player take Nona into the Golden Wood to the north, where Nona's life is saved by Lady Galadriel. Though he barely set wood into the forest, the other men of Rohan feel that Horn has been affected by it and he is no longer welcome in Stangard. He then joins the company of the player, Nona and a Galadhrim Elf named Corudan in their journey across Rohan in the defiance of the ban that had been placed upon him.
Having acquired steeds, the group comes across the signs of a passing band of Uruk-hai that captured Merry and Pippin and follows them across the plain on horseback. On their journey Horn and Nona begin developing affection towards one another, which comes to test when the group reaches Horn's hometown of Eaworth. Horn's father is angry at him for abandoning his post, but none of the Rohirrim wishes to as much see a Dunlending walking among them. Nona angrily storms out and unable to find her, Horn, Corudan and the player continue on until they meet Éomer and his riders. They travel them to the town of Snowbourn and then to Edoras, where Gríma orders Éomer imprisoned and the rest banished from returning under penalty of death. King's minstrel and Horn's mentor Gléowine is exiles along with them and the group to investigate the situation in Gléowine's home country of Wildermore, from which no word has come out in some weeks. The group finds Wildermore ravaged by Saruman's forces and meets Nona, who had been helping the survivors, which mellowed her attitude towards the Rohirrim. Horn and Nona reconcile their feelings for each other and the group decides that despite the penalty of death the King must hear of what has transpired. Nona and Corudan the Elf stay behind while the player, Norn and Gléowine return to Edoras, arriving soon after Théoden has been healed by Gandalf.
Gléowine joins the King's side as he rides to war, while Éomer asks the player and Horn to check on his home town of Aldburg. There they reunite with Nona and Corudan and returns to Edoras, where Lady Éowyn makes the last preparations before leading the people to Dunharrow. An agent of Wormtongue is discovered but flees the city and the player, Horn, Nona and Corudan chase after him across Westemnet. In the province of Stonedeans ruled by Reeve Herubrand they receive the word of a large raiding party of Dunlendings loyal to Saruman that had come from the mountains. Nona wishes to bring vengeance on those of her people who sided with the wizard and Horn follows her while the player and Corudan turn south towards Helm's Deep. The player does not encounter Horn again until much later, when Théoden's army makes its way through the Drúadan Forest. Horn reveals that Nona did not in truth seek the raiding the party, but wanted to escape the war now that she is pregnant with his child. She begged Horn to come with her, but he could not abandon his duty and answered the King's muster of the Rohirrim, knowing that he would never see Nona again one way or another.
Horn's ultimate fate depends on a decision made by the player much earlier in the game. During the summoning of the Grey Company, Ranger Halros guarding the borders of the Shire can be persuaded to either journey south to the aid of Aragorn or stay and perform the very task that Aragorn, his Chieftain, personally instructed him to do. If Halros stays in the Shire, Horn dies in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. However, if Halros is persuaded to go south, he shields Horn from the mortal blow at the cost of his own life. Horrified by the death around him and the sacrifice of a man he didn't even know, Horn loses his will to go on and abandons his duty. He forsakes his name and, now a broken man, leaves into paths unknown, telling the player to report him as dead.
References[]
- ↑ The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, Book Five, Ch. VI: "The Battle of the Pelennor Fields"