Éomer his sister Éowyn were adopted by their uncle Théoden, king of the Rohirrim. He first appears in "The Two Towers" as the leader of the "éored" who attacked and killed the Uruk-hai who had kidnapped the hobbits Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took. He helps Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas by providing them two horses, Hasufel and Arod, and guiding them to the spot where the attack had taken place. On his return to Edoras, Éomer reports this meeting to Théoden, and is promptly imprisoned on the orders of Gríma Wormtongue, Théoden's sinister advisor. Gríma kept the king in a sickly stupor
Samwise Gamgee and packing... Tolkien maps the gradual breakdown of restraint [through prolonged peril] until Sam can take Frodo in his arms and call him "Mr Frodo, my dear." " Tolkien wrote in a private letter: "My Sam Gamgee is indeed a reflexion of the English soldier, of the privates and batmen I knew in the 1914 war, and recognised as so far superior to myself". and elsewhere: "Sam was cocksure, and deep down a little conceited; but his conceit had been transformed by his devotion to Frodo. He did not think of himself as heroic or even brave, or in any