The Riders and the Battle of the Pelennor Fields

"There is, one has to admit, one thing about the Riders which does not resemble the historical ancestors of the English, which is that they are riders. In texts of the later Anglo-Saxon period [...], the reluctance of the Anglo-Saxon military to have anything to do with horses approaches the doomed, or the comical. The Maldon poem begins with the English leader telling his men to leave their horses and advance on foot [...].  It could be argued that Hastings was lost because of this insular insistence on fighting on foot."  

                  --Tom Shippey, J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century at 92.

As I've been revisiting "The Battle of the Pelennor Fields" (LotR V.6) in multiple passes to mark up different phenomena, I noticed that Tolkien may be giving us a pre-history that starts to explain why the later Anglo-Saxons might have given up on military use of horses.

Specifically, he shows how unreliable the horses are in this particular battle – and how dangerous to their masters, as they are easily spooked and vulnerable to darts – which may be the first step in transforming the Eorlingas into the horse-eschewing Anglo-Saxons.

[Citation note: To identify specific paragraphs within book V, chapter 6, I lettered the "sections" within each chapter (each separated from other sections by white space), and then numbered the paragraphs within each section.]

First, the horses are spooked by the unnatural dark, throwing their riders. "The new morning was blotted from the sky. Dark fell about [Théoden].  Horses reared and screamed.  Men cast from the saddle lay grovelling on the ground" (C.1).  The "grovelling" to me suggests great pain and physical injury, but even if they are merely inconvenienced rather than broken or killed, they are at least temporarily sidelined; they can't join the battle until they get themselves off the ground.

Merry is, of course, the exception; he does his one great battle-deed from the ground where he has been crawling! But he and Dernhelm were likewise thrown by Windfola "in his terror," when the Shadow came (C.5).  Although they survive to jointly defeat the Dark Rider, they are left to do so on foot because Windfola is running "wild upon the plain" (id.) and is thus unavailable.

Second, even the best rider on the best horse can be defeated if his steed is killed; it's an extra point of vulnerability.  As the horses rear and scream, throwing off their riders, Théoden immediately tries to rally his men, but "Snowmane wild with terror stood up on high, fighting with the air, and then with a great scream he crashed upon his side: a black dart had pierced him.  The king fell beneath him" (C.2).  Critically, even the king's steed (doubtless the best of the lot) is "wild with terror."  The king manages to stay on, but the horse is only mortal; he is shot and falls over, crushing Théoden.  (As later noted, he indeed proves "Faithful servant yet master's bane" [E.3]).

Third, the spooked horses run wild, scattering into the distance and thus rendering their riders useless to the battle.  As Théoden lies dying, the "knights of his house lay slain about him, or else mastered by the madness of their steeds were borne far away" (C.5)

Fourth, even when the riders regain control of their horses, they still can't necessarily get them to go where they need them to go.  This happens at least twice:

• Éomer rides up in haste, accompanied by "the knights of the household that still lived and had now mastered their horses" (D.9).  Logically, this suggests to me that some knights that have survived are not with him because they have not yet been able to control their horses.  Moreover, even though these particular knights have allegedly "mastered their horses," still "their steeds would not go near" the place where the empty mantle and hauberk lie (id.).  The Black Rider is gone, but the horses are still spooked, presumably by the carcass of his fell steed.  Éomer ends up leaping from his saddle to stand by Théoden's side.

• Worst of all, in the midst of battle, "wherever the mûmakil came there the horses would not go, but blenched and swerved away," allowing the creatures to remain unfought and stand "like towers of defence" as a rallying point for the Haradrim (F.2).  So the spookability of the horses actually provides bastions or safe-havens for the enemy on the field of battle.  

After all this, I can see why the Eorlingas might have started to sour on horses...