Éowyn

Lineage and youth

Éowyn was born in 2995, the daughter of Éomund, chief Marshal of the Mark, and Théodwyn, the youngest sister of King Théoden. She was seven when her father was killed by Orcs and her mother died of grief, and Théoden took her and her brother Éomer into the Golden Hall at Edoras and raised them as his own. She grew up tall and slender, grave and fair, with the strength and the pride of the House of Eorl, and she learned to ride and to use a sword as the shieldmaidens of the Rohirrim had in older days. But the years of her youth were the years of Théoden's decline, and her part in them was to wait on a king who dwindled daily under the counsel of Gríma Wormtongue, while Gríma himself watched her with a desire that Saruman had promised to reward. Éomer knew it and hated him for it; Éowyn bore it in silence and came to feel that her life was a cage, and that her only escape from it would be to die well.

The coming of Aragorn

On 2 March 3019 Gandalf came to Edoras and healed the king, and Éowyn saw her uncle stand upright for the first time in years. With him came Aragorn, and she saw in the grey-cloaked Ranger a lord out of the old songs and gave him her heart before she understood it. When Théoden rode to war, Háma named her as the one whom the people would follow, and the king made her ruler of the Mark in his absence and gave her a sword and corslet. She led the folk of Edoras to the refuge of Dunharrow and kept the muster there.

When Aragorn came to Dunharrow with the Grey Company on 7 March and told her that he meant to take the Paths of the Dead, she begged to ride with him. He refused, gently, and when she pressed him she confessed that she feared nothing but a cage. He left at dawn, and she stood in the road and watched him go into the mountain. Two days later Théoden arrived with his host and gave her the same answer: she was to stay and govern until his return.

Dernhelm

Éowyn did not stay. On 10 March, when six thousand Riders went down the Harrowdale, a young Rider in helm and mail, calling himself Dernhelm, rode among the éored of Elfhelm, and took up behind him the hobbit Merry, whom Théoden had ordered to remain behind. Elfhelm asked no questions, and no one else looked closely. Dernhelm rode with the host through Anórien and the Stonewain Valley, silent and grim, and in the grey dawn of 15 March charged with the king's guard across the Pelennor Fields.

When the Witch-king came down on his winged beast and Théoden lay crushed beneath Snowmane, the king's knights were scattered and their horses fled mad with fear. Only Dernhelm stood over the fallen king, with Merry crawling forward behind. The Nazgûl mocked the Rider, reminding him of the old prophecy that no living man could hinder the Lord of the Nazgûl; and Dernhelm laughed, threw off the helm, and answered that she was no man. Éowyn cut the head from the fell beast with one stroke, took the blow of the Witch-king's mace on her shield, which shattered and broke her arm, and as Merry drove his barrow-blade into the back of the Nazgûl's knee she rose and thrust her sword into the emptiness beneath his crown. The Witch-king was unmade with a cry that faded on the wind, and her sword splintered and she fell senseless across the body of her uncle. Éomer, coming up with the banner of the Mark, found her and thought her dead; she was carried into Minas Tirith by Prince Imrahil, who saw that she still breathed.

The Houses of Healing

In the Houses of Healing she lay under the Black Breath, cold and sinking, until Aragorn came from the field that night and called her back with athelas. Her arm mended slowly, but her heart did not: she had wished for death in battle and been denied it, and the man she had loved had gone to the Black Gate without her. In the days that followed she met Faramir, the wounded Steward, who was lodged in the same house, and he saw her grief and understood it. They walked the walls together, watching the east, and on 25 March they stood there hand in hand when the shadow over Mordor rose and fell and the Eagle came with the news of Sauron's end. Faramir asked her to love him, and she found that the winter in her had ended: she gave up her wish to be a queen or a shieldmaiden and chose to be a healer and to love growing things, and she gave him her hand.

Lady of Ithilien

At Théoden's funeral in Edoras in August she gave Merry a horn from the hoard of the dragon Scatha in thanks for what they had done together, and Éomer announced her betrothal to Faramir before the assembled lords. She married him and went with him to Emyn Arnen in Ithilien, which King Elessar had given him as a princedom, and there they made a garden of the land that Mordor had poisoned. Their son Elboron succeeded his father as Prince of Ithilien. The year of her death is not recorded.

Éowyn is the only woman of the Rohirrim whose deeds are told at length, and her slaying of the Witch-king, the greatest of Sauron's servants, was among the decisive acts of the war. Her story is also the story of a despair overcome: she rode out seeking death and was given, instead, a life she had not imagined.

Survived the War of the Ring, married Faramir, and lived as Lady of Ithilien in Emyn Arnen; the year of her death is not recorded.