Then, surely Treebeard, master of Fangorn would have known this, and reported it to the hobbits, rather than asking if they knew of the Entwives.
Teleporno's idea that the location of the Entwives is encrypted somewhere within the second half of TTT is intriguing. Several posters here have stated that Tolkien did not engage in these kinds of easter egg hunts, but do we know that for sure? Especially in light of the following:
- two of Bombadil's names, Forn and Orald, are possibly intentionally an anagram of "for Ronald" meaning for Tolkien, the author
- Treebeard is a character based on CS Lewis
- Beren and Lúthien are for Tolkien and his wife Edith
- Smaug is a philological jest
And there are most likely others that I am not aware of... anyone care to add to the list?
IF (that's a big if) Tolkien did hide the location of the Entwives within the book, it is possible that he would have wished this to remain a secret to all but the careful literary detective, and this may be the reason he did not overtly state in
Letters that the information was there. Particularly if he was lampooning suffragettes or others.
Of course, without
Teleporno actually telling us
where he thinks this information is, there is no way for us to debate whether he is onto something, or whether his love of the halflings' leaf has dulled his wits. I hope that he does at least
think that he has found something; if he were trying to intentionally mislead us, that would be sad indeed...