LotR -- Book 5 - Chapter 05 - The Ride of the Rohirrim

[Formendacil]

"The Ride of the Rohirrim" builds slowly--we get a glimpse of their arrival in the eucatastrophe of the last chapter, but now we have to rewind to see how it comes about, the tension rising again until its release in the rush across the Pelennor at the end of the chapter--and when it did come, I'm swept up in it. If this were a first time read, there's almost no chance I'd have stopped between chapters; even rereading, the momentum nearly swept me right into "The Battle of the Pelennor."

It's impressive how, though we know they charge from the end of the last chapter, that there's still doubt about what Theoden will do.

The meeting of Ghan-buri-ghan is a unique episode in the books, and it contrasts in interesting ways with Aragorn's adventures with the Dead Men of Dunharrow: the Druedain must have been there before the Dead Men (kin of the Dunlendings, we're told in UT) and probably were first displaced by them. But where the Dead Men are more politically displaced by the Numenoreans (and the later Rohirrim), the Druedain are almost more of a mythological displacement. The Dead Men are displaced like the Celts being driven west by the Anglo-Saxons, but the Druedain are like the builders of Stonehenge: unfathomably older and unknown.

EDIT: I meant to say something, and then forgot, about the role of weather in this chapter: the turning of the wind is much highlighted and it's almost as important to the victory of the West as the arrival of the Rohirrim or Aragorn's fleet. Manwe's timing is subtle in the narrative but perfect.