Erkenbrand

Lord of the Westfold

Erkenbrand was one of the great lords of Rohan in the last years of the Third Age, the master of the Westfold, the rich country between the White Mountains and the Isen, and the keeper of the fortress at the head of the Deeping-coomb that had been named for Helm Hammerhand. He was a tall, broad man, grey-haired in the War of the Ring, and the men of the Westfold followed him before any other captain. In the years of Théoden's decline, when the king's son Théodred commanded the western defences as Second Marshal from Helm's Deep, Erkenbrand was his chief support against the raids of Saruman.

The Fords of Isen

After Théodred fell at the first battle of the Fords of Isen on 25 February 3019, Erkenbrand took over the command of the Westfold's forces and set about gathering the scattered Riders and the men of the valleys. He was not at the Fords on 2 March, when Saruman's main host came down the river and broke Grimbold and Elfhelm in the second battle, and in the confusion that followed the survivors thought him lost. Saruman's army swept on toward the Hornburg and the king.

The relief of the Hornburg

Gandalf, who had left Théoden on the road, rode across the Westfold looking for Erkenbrand and found him with about a thousand men on foot, part of them fugitives from the Fords and part the muster of the valleys. Gandalf brought him back to Helm's Deep by forced march through the night of 3 March, while the Hornburg was assailed and the Deeping Wall breached. At dawn on 4 March, as the horn of Helm sounded from the cliffs and Théoden rode out from the gate, Erkenbrand's men appeared on the crest of the Dike with Gandalf on Shadowfax before them. Between the king's charge, the men of the Westfold, and the forest of Huorns that had come in the night to fill the valley, the host of Saruman was destroyed. Erkenbrand took the surrender of the Dunlendings, who had expected to be burned alive, and set them to burying the dead and repairing the wall.

After the war

When Théoden rode east to Gondor with the muster of the Mark, Erkenbrand was left with the charge of the Westfold and its defence, so that the king's absence should not leave the western border open. After the war Éomer, reorganising the command of the Mark, made him Marshal of the West-mark, the first to hold that title, with Elfhelm as his counterpart in the East-mark. The years of his death are not recorded.

Survived the War of the Ring and served King Éomer as Marshal of the West-mark; the date of his death is not recorded.