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Old 01-04-2007, 01:11 PM   #74
Ardamir the Blessed
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The Saucepan Man and Boromir88 have given more interesting things to ponder. I would like to point out that my theory is separate from Teleporno's 'joke' (the 'joke' might of course be hidden in the passages I have used), but I do not think it is less interesting.


I forgot a few important points concerning my theory.

An oft-ignored fact is that Treebeard states that at the end of the Second Age, some people said that they had seen the Entwives going west, some said east, and others south from the Brown Lands after Sauron burned their gardens:

LR, ‘Treebeard’:
Quote:
… we [Ents] asked all folk that we met which way the Entwives had gone. Some said they had never seen them; and some said that they had seen them walking away west, and some said east, and others south.
This could provide valuable clues as to where the Entwives might be post-Brown Lands. Now, where could 'south' more specifically be?


The Saucepan Man mentioned the well known 'dryad loveliness' reference, and 'larches were green-fingered' in the description of the flora of Ithilien – this may also hint at the work of Entwives. The Ents and the Entwives slowly took the likeness of the trees they tended, and vice versa:

LR, ‘Treebeard’:
Quote:
We are tree-herds, we old Ents. … Sheep get like shepherd, and shepherds like sheep, it is said; but slowly, and neither have long in the world. It is quicker and closer with trees and Ents …
We also have this passage in Letter #144:
Quote:
They [the Entwives] survived only in the 'agriculture' transmitted to Men (and Hobbits).
Most people believe that this passage means that the Entwives' art of agriculture was transmitted to Men, but the Entwives themselves did not survive. However, the passage also fits rather well if one assumes that there were surviving Entwives in Ithilien practising agriculture, since Ithilien belonged to Gondor, a realm of Men.


It should also be mentioned that Treebeard describes the Ents as drinking of mountain-streams (the source of the Entwash is in the mountains):

LR, 'Treebeard':
Quote:
...the Ents loved the great trees; and the wild woods, and the slopes of the high hills; and they drank of the mountain-streams ...
But the Entwives are not described as drinking of any streams. Perhaps it was only specific to the Ents to gather water in basins, not the Entwives? But I think it would be logical if the Entwives also had a need of great amounts of water.


Also, before Frodo, Sam and Gollum find the basin in Ithilien, they also encounter other handiworks:

LR, 'Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit':
Quote:
The road had been made in a long lost time: and for perhaps thirty miles below the Morannon it had been newly repaired, but as it went south the wild encroached upon it. The handiwork of Men of old could still be seen in its straight sure flight and level course: now and again it cut its way through hillside slopes, or leaped over a stream upon a wide shapely arch of enduring masonry; but at last all signs of stonework faded, save for a broken pillar here and there, peering out of bushes at the side, or old paving-stones still lurking amid weeds and moss. Heather and trees and bracken scrambled down and overhung the banks, or sprawled out over the surface. It dwindled at last to a country cart-road little used; but it did not wind: it held on its own sure course and guided them by the swiftest way.
The road, the bridges, the pillars and the paving-stones – all were most likely the work of the Men of Gondor. Thus the basin could be that as well, especially since it is mentioned just a few paragraphs later, and maybe the flora was also planted and tended by the Men of Gondor. One should remember though, that

Letter #247:
Quote:
The Ents thus had mastery over stone.
And there is a vague connection between the Ents and ancient, abandoned stoneworks – Tolkien got inspiration for them from giants erecting buildings in the Old English poem The Wanderer:

Letter #163:
Quote:
They [the Ents] owe their name to the eald enta geweorc of Anglo-Saxon, and their connexion with stone [from the Old English poem The Wanderer, line 87: 'eald enta geweorc idlu stodon' = 'the old creations of giants (i.e. ancient buildings erected by a former race) stood desolate'].
However, I am wondering if the Númenóreans also come in here – they could perhaps also be termed 'giants' as they were the Men of the greatest stature, and they (or at least the Men of Gondor) are associated with stonework – Gondor even has the sense 'Stone-land' sc. 'Stone (-using people's) land' [Letter #324].
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