"
Faithful servant yet master's bane
Lightfoot's foal, swift Snowmane."
Inscription on the grave marker of
Snowmane's HoweThe Return of the King V 6,
The Battle of the Pelennor Fields
A horse of the Rohirrim, and parent to King Théoden's steed, Snowmane. As the sire of a King's mount, it seems reasonable to speculate that Lightfoot was one of the regal horses known as mearas, of the same kind as Shadowfax. When Snowmane died in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, a grave mound was raised over him known as Snowmane's Howe, and the inscription on the stone marker set up on that grave, given above, is our only explicit reference to Lightfoot.
Notes
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Given the typical lifespan of a horse, and the fact that Lightfoot's foal Snowmane was ridden to war by Théoden in III 3019, Lightfoot would probably have been born between ten and twenty years before the end of the Third Age (that is, between about III 2999 and III 3009). However, there is good reason to suspect that Lightfoot was one of the mearas, horses that seem to have have rather longer lifespans than usual, which makes it extremely difficult to estimate dates. The best we can say with confidence is the Lightfoot was extant at some point during the final decades of the Third Age (and possibly even into the early years of the Fourth Age).
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- Updated 11 December 2024
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