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 is based on Cheddar Gorge, a steep-sided limestone valley in South West England, seen here in the 1890s
The caves in Cheddar Gorge inspired Tolkien's Glittering Caves of Aglarond, at the head of the gorge of Helm's Deep.
Tolkien made use of Livy's tale of the heroic bridge defence by Horatius Cocles, perhaps partly via Macaulay's version in his 1842 Lays of Ancient Rome.
The Battle of Helm's Deep in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
The Lord of the Rings is an epic high fantasy novel by the English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book The Hobbit, but eventually developed into a much larger work. Written in stages between 1937 and 1949, The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling books ever written, with over 150 million copies sold.
Beowulf's eotenas [ond] ylfe [ond] orcneas, "ogres [and] elves [and] devil-corpses" helped to inspire Tolkien to create the Orcs and Elves of Middle-earth.
Barbara Remington's cover illustrations for the Ballantine paperback version "achieved mass-cult status" on American college campuses in the 1960s. They were parodied by Michael K. Frith's cover design for the 1969 Bored of the Rings.
"Welcome to Hobbiton" sign in Matamata, New Zealand, where Peter Jackson's film version was shot
![Beowulf's eotenas [ond] ylfe [ond] orcneas, "ogres [and] elves [and] devil-corpses" helped to inspire Tolkien to create the Orcs and Elves of Middle-e](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cd/Beowulf_eotenas_ylfe_orcneas.jpg/640px-Beowulf_eotenas_ylfe_orcneas.jpg)
