Battle of Helm's Deep

The Battle of Helm's Deep, also called the Battle of the Hornburg, is a fictional battle in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings that saw the total destruction of the forces of the Wizard Saruman by the army of Rohan, assisted by a forest of tree-like Huorns.

Helm's Deep was a valley in the north-western White Mountains of Middle-earth. Helm's Deep, with its fortress the Hornburg, becomes the refuge of some of the army of Rohan, the Rohirrim, under King Théoden, from assault by the forces of Saruman. Although Théoden says that "the Hornburg has never fallen to assault," in the battle a massive army of Uruk-hai and Dunlendings sent by Saruman almost overwhelms the defences. Saruman's Orcs breach the fortress wall that blocks the valley by setting off an explosion in a culvert; Aragorn names it "Saruman's devilry" and "the fire of Orthanc"; the critic Tom Shippey calls it "a kind of gunpowder".^[2] The defenders hold out in the fortress until dawn, when Théoden and Aragorn lead a cavalry charge that drives the Orcs from the fortress. They are surprised to see the valley to the enemy's rear blocked by a forest of tree-like Huorns that have walked from Fangorn in the night. On the side of the valley are relieving forces assembled by Gandalf and Erkenbrand, a Rohirrim leader. These attack, driving the Orcs into the angry Huorn forest, from which the Orcs never emerge; the Huorns bury the Orcs' bodies in an earthen mound known as "Death's Down".

Tolkien based Helm's Deep on England's Cheddar Gorge, and the Glittering Caves of Aglarond on the cave complex that he had visited there. The army of Rohan was according to Tolkien armed and equipped much like that of the armies depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry. He noted further that his walking forest was partly a response to Shakespeare's Macbeth, which tells of the coming of "Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane hill". Scholars have likened the way Aragorn, Éomer, and Gimli heroically hold off the army of Orcs to Horatius Cocles's heroic defence of a bridge of ancient Rome.

Peter Jackson's 2002 film The Two Towers makes the battle dramatic, following Tolkien's account quite closely, but with changes to the forces involved: the defenders include a group of Elf-warriors sent by Elrond; the attackers include neither men nor wargs (battle-wolves). Huorns appear only in additional scenes in the Extended Edition, later released on DVD.