Hoofs of Wrath (J.R.R. Tolkien, ROTK)
For the morning came, morning and a wind from the sea; and darkness was removed, and the hosts of Mordor wailed, and terror took them, and they fled, and died, and the hoofs of wrath rode over them.
end of chapter 5, “The Ride of the Rohirrim”, The Return of the King
In my yearly re-read of the LOTR trilogy, I was struck by this sentence and the glory of the phrase “hoofs of wrath.” It would be absurd if it were not so damn beautiful.
One of the dangers of high epic style in the modern age is navigating the razor's edge between effect and parody. In any other context, “hoofs of wrath” sounds like a tongue-in-cheek headline about mad cow disease or an Onion lede. But the fact is that it works, even now, post Game of Thrones and all the gritty Tolkien-inspired sensibilities, in part because Tolkien commits so fully to epic style here. It's all parataxis (that is, one clause next to the other, lots of linking with “and,” no subordination). It goes beyond everyday parataxis, with particularly strong overlapping of ideas from one clause to the next. It is cinematic to be sure. To modern eyes, one of the striking things about parataxis (the hallmark of Homer, Beowulf et al) is that it reads to us like action film or comic books, with quick cuts that mimic in some way the darting of attention, taking in a scene in bits and pieces.
(Nerd note: Reid analyzes the style of this particular passage in Reid, Robin Anne. “Mythology and History: A Stylistic Analysis of The Lord of the Rings.” Style, vol. 43, no. 4, 2009, pp. 517–538. Part of a broader picture of Tolkien's style.)
Tolkien's other stylistic trick is to hold off on his customary adjectives. He tends to use adjectives with frequency. Some of them are exultant in their texture and rarity, others are pedestrian, but he is clearly following an ancient habit of epithetizing, something that is often frowned upon in modern writing. (On this I like the recent piece on what you can learn from author's adjectives by Michael Maar: By their epithets ye shall know them. )
So this “hoofs of wrath” line got me thinking. Is that a coinage? Did he pull that from somewhere? In Beowulf horses aren't described in battle, though they are common. In fact, the horses in Beowulf may be pretty strange when compared to Anglo-Saxon horses. I'm not an expert in things medieval or Old English, so perhaps this is a familiar collocation to others.
I only had a moment to look into this. More digging will be required.
Until then, I am going to look for every opportunity to use this phrase in everyday speech. No longer is an errand urgent. Rather, I shall henceforth “set my hoofs of wrath” upon the task. To my kids, “Don't get all hoofs of wrath with me!” And to wayward students, it's going in the syllabus. “Submit assignments lest ye find hoofs of wrath thundering upon you. (over email, of course, because nothing is real anymore)”