Gamling

The guard on the Dike

Gamling was an old man of the Westfold, a soldier of Erkenbrand's people, who commanded the Riders holding Helm's Dike, the earthwork across the mouth of the Deeping-coomb below the Hornburg, when King Théoden came to Helm's Deep on 3 March 3019. He told the king that Erkenbrand was believed lost after the second battle of the Fords of Isen, and that the Dike was held by a few hundred men, many of them old or very young. He fell back with them to the fortress when the host of Saruman came up the valley in the night.

The Hornburg

Gamling fought on the Deeping Wall and in the breach. He understood the speech of Dunland, and when the attackers began to cry out against the Strawheads and the Forgoil he explained to Éomer what the words meant and why the Dunlendings hated the Rohirrim: it was five hundred years of resentment for the loss of the plains, kindled again by Saruman. When Orcs crept through the culvert under the wall, it was Gamling who led the men of the Westfold down on them with Éomer, and he led the cheer for the Lord of the Mark when the breach was stopped. Later in the night, as the wall was lost and the defenders fell back to the Hornburg, he told Éomer the hour, warning that the dawn was still far off; and when Théoden resolved to ride out at first light, Gamling was among those who went. After the battle he is not mentioned again, and nothing is known of his death.

His is one of the few named voices among the ordinary soldiers of Rohan in the story, and through him the reader learns the history of the Dunlendish grievance that Saruman had exploited.

Fought through the Battle of the Hornburg; nothing further is recorded of him.