I Found the Entwives!

[Ardamir the Blessed]

The fact that the Elves untied the ropes that were used to cross the Silverlode is an interesting, new observation (to me at least).

the phantom posted:

And since we're dealing with such a show off, don't you think that if the ropes could be untied magically he would've done so?

I am not that sure about this. Something tells me that the Elves would not have been so willing to show their magic explicitly. The style of LOTR is that the magic of the Elves is otherworldly, mysterious and difficult to understand - in the Silmarillion the magic is more explicit. Furthermore, the Elves did not really need the ropes to untie themselves, since they could do it - Sam was in a different situation. Maybe these ropes only untie themselves if you really wish for it, as a last resort.

But did you find Teleporno's hidden 'joke' also in relation to the passages concerning Sam's rope?

[Alcuin]

The argument that there was an Entwife at the top of the cliff in the Emyn Muil is, as far as I can determine, the only time an Entwife might have appeared in the text.

For reference, however, careful reading will reveal that Aragorn’s deduction about why the Ringwraiths did not again attack Frodo immediately after stabbing him on Weathertop was in error: he believed that the Nazgûl thought Frodo mortally wounded and unable to flee, when in fact Tolkien’s notes (Reader’s Companion, p. 180) show that the Witch-king

…was actually dismayed. He had been shaken by the fire of Gandalf, and began to perceive that the mission on which Sauron had sent him was one of great peril to himself both by the way, and on his return to his Master (if unsuccessful)… [A]bove all the timid and terrified Bearer had resisted him, had dared to strike at him with an enchanted sword made by his own enemies long ago for his destruction. Narrowly it had missed him. How had he come by it – save in the Barrows of Cardolan. Then he was in some way mightier than the B[arrow]-wight; and he called on Elbereth, a name of terror to the Nazgûl…

Escaping a wound that would have been as deadly to him as the Mordor-knife to Frodo (as was proved at the end), he withdrew and his for a while, out of doubt and fear both of Aragorn and especially of Frodo.

But if you check Hammond & Scull for Tolkien’s notes on the Entwives, the operative citation (p. 387) is to quote the same two letters I have already mentioned.

So there’s nothing in the Letters, nothing in the drafts, and nothing in the notes about the stump being an Entwife; in fact, Tolkien says on at least two separate occasions that he does not believe they will ever be found. When he discusses Tom Bombadil, a similar reader’s favorite, he is deliberately coy and evasive; but in discussing the Entwives, his tone is downbeat and rather final.

Arguing for the stump as an Entwife is a mental exercise – “worth a good essay” – but I believe it has no textual basis. Now can anyone cite any text – notes, letters, Christopher Tolkien’s editorial comments are all fair game – that can give any basis to the speculation?

Or must it remain nothing but speculation and innuendo, with no real substance in the corpus to back it up?

And I still see no “hidden jokes” in any of this, except the name “Teleporno”.

[Ardamir the Blessed]

the phantom posted:

There was no need for the rope to be saved.

They did have use of the rope later on, actually almost immediately afterwards - they tied Gollum with it.

[Alcuin]

the phantom posted:

They did have use of the rope later on, actually almost immediately afterwards - they tied Gollum with it.

tp, you have also overlooked the obvious in Tolkien’s narrative problem documented by Christopher Tolkien in War of the Ring. The dangling rope was a means not only for Gollum to more easily follow them, but for him and any other pursuit – orcs or Nazgûl – to determine that the trail was hot.

[Sardy]

I've been following this thread with great interest, and thought I'd throw in a few thoughts for consideration...

Originally Posted by Alcuin

And I still see no “hidden jokes” in any of this, except the name “Teleporno”.

Not being nearly as versed in biographies of Tolkien as in the LotR/Sil/HoME, I would like to see if anyone more knowledgeable about the lives, histories, anecdotes, etc. of Tolkien, his wife Edith, family, friends, et al might be aware of anything that might consitute a "joke" within the text. Of course, this would most likely require some detective work, scouring of texts, and out-of-the-box thinking... But as an example, in reading the above I found myself wondering what sort've personal anecdote or experience of Tolkien might consitute a "joke" within the text regarding the Entwives. One (purely speculative) example might be if Tolkien (or a friend of Tolkien's) were ever in a stuation by which they'd imcompetently tied a knot, and when called out on it, with great bravo explained to his wife that it was not incompetence, but rather, expert skill, "magic" even that caused the unravelling... This (purely made-up) example of a real life anecdote would perfectly jive with the "inside joke" within the text. I am certainly not proposing my own fabricated example as anything other than a sample of the sorts of things that one might look for in the text of the Tolkien biographies... something that might, however loosely, be related to Tolkien's descriptions of the Ents, the Ent-Wives, or any of the seeming inconsistencies pointed out in the articles above...

Originally Posted by Alcuin

The argument that there was an Entwife at the top of the cliff in the Emyn Muil is, as far as I can determine, the only time an Entwife might have appeared in the text.And I still see no “hidden jokes” in any of this, except the name “Teleporno”.

Forgive me if this has been covered before, but what of the "walking trees" spotted in the Shire, as mentioned ealy on in Fellowship? (Not to derail this fascinating thread, if this has been covered or is innapropriate, a simple link to the topic would be fine!)

Originally Posted by Alcuin

...in fact, Tolkien says on at least two separate occasions that he does not believe they will ever be found.

At the risk of sounding overly picky, there's a semantic consideration to consider here. Tolkien's stated belief is that the Ent-wives will never be found by the Ents. This is an important consideration. His assertion that there will be no re-union between the Ents and their wives is a very different thing than saying that there are no clues or Ent-wives hidden in the text for the readers.

[Alcuin]

Sardy, there are certainly instances of “inside humor” in Tolkien’s work. The character Tom Bombadil, whose creation predates Lord of the Rings by several years, having first appeared in poetry by Tolkien published in Oxford Magazine in 1934 (Tolkien recalled the year as 1933 in Letter 144, perhaps because he had submitted the poems then or they had been accepted for publication then), and his appearance “was based on a Dutch doll that belonged to [Tolkien’s son] Michael.” (Tolkien: A biography, Humphrey Carter, p 162) Tolkien said in Letter 25 that the name Smaug “is the past tense of the primitive Germanic verb Smugan, to squeeze through a hole: a low philological jest.” And Humphrey Carter says that the speaking pattern of Treebeard is based upon that of C.S. Lewis (Carter, p 194). My point is that there seem to be no such “inside jokes” or references surrounding the Entwives; and even if there were, they might not be found in Tolkien’s notes, but in those of Charles Williams, C.S. Lewis’s, or even Lewis’s brother Warnie, if Warnie left any papers and they still exist. I can’t find “clusters of words” or “inside jokes” about the Entwives, and I’ve never seen evidence for any, either: so far, just unsubstantiated and empty claims of “clusters of words” and “inside jokes.”

As far as an “incompetently tied … knot,” I am unaware of any such incident, but perhaps someone else is. Mr. Bliss, a kind of Tolkien comic-book he drew and wrote for his children published posthumously, is based upon Tolkien’s misadventures with an automobile he purchased in 1932: Mr. Bliss wrecked his car and sold it, never to purchase another, and I believe something similar happened to Tolkien, although I cannot find anything about that in Carter’s biography.

Tolkien visited Switzerland in 1911. There are parallels between some of the sights he saw and experiences he had then to later places and events in Lord of the Rings, particularly the appearance of the Mountains of Moria and the name of Celebdil, the Silvertine, with the Swiss mountain, the Silberhorn; the mountains over the Passes of the Dead; and the Valley of Rivendell and the appearance of the Last Homely House. In addition, I believe I recall that he and his party were nearly struck by a small avalanche or stone-fall.

Originally Posted by Sardy

what of the "walking trees" spotted in the Shire, as mentioned ealy on in Fellowship?

That isn’t a “derailment” but a legitimate criticism. You are correct that the “tree-man” in the Shire presages the Ents. Ardamir in his essay, “The Great Search,” argues that it is an Ent out of Lindon, and that seems to me as good an explanation as any. Christopher Tolkien in Return of the Shadow, “Ancient History”, asks if this might be “the first premonition of the Ents?” and then references his father’s referrals of “Tree-men” among the monsters and magical creatures encountered by Eärendil in early versions of The Voyage of Eärendil published in Lost Tales II. However, this discussion also concerns the “Entish lands” or “Ettenmoors” north of Rivendell, which had no direction connection to Treebeard at the time: the word ent is, I believe, an Anglo-Saxon word for our modern giant. Treebeard in his earliest drafts was a giant (Anglo-Saxon ent) that captured and detained Gandalf, a role later relegated to Saruman.

As for my overlooking the reference to Sam’s “tree-man” in his debate with Ted Sandyman, it was oversight on my part, and you caught me on it. Others must choose for themselves whether it is a “first premonition of the Ents,” an Entwife, an Ent continuing his “Great Search” far north of even the Old Forest, or as Ardamir capably suggests, an Ent who still resided in Lindon that had wandered into northern Eriador for some reason. (Ted Sandyman, you will remember, suggested that Hal had seen an elm or nothing; but Sandyman seems a scurrilous source of information, even as a character within the Tale.)

Originally Posted by Sardy

At the risk of sounding overly picky, there's a semantic consideration to consider here. Tolkien's stated belief is that the Ent-wives will never be found by the Ents.

I respectfully disagree. When confronted with Naomi Mitchison’s query on the Entwives (Letter 144; see post #57 in this thread), he first says he believes that “the Entwives had disappeared for good, ... destroyed with their gardens in the War of the Last Alliance ... when Sauron pursued a scorched earth policy and burned their land against the advance of the Allies down the Anduin,” but then backs away, saying that, “Some ... may have fled east, or ... become enslaved... I hope so. I don't know.” I think his instinct was that they were all killed in Sauron’s campaign, but would like to consider that some survived; then he says, “I don't know.” In the last 16 months of his life (Letter 338; again, see post #57 in this thread), he repeats that he doesn’t know what became of the Entwives, but that “being rational creatures,” the Ents and Entwives looked forward like Men (and Dwarves, of whom they were the counterpart) to an afterlife beyond the “circles of the world.” You are certainly correct, as far as Tolkien takes us, that “the Ent-wives will never be found by the Ents ,” but I think they will never be found by the Readers, either: otherwise, as he did in his Letters with Tom Bombadil and a great many questions surrounding the characters and their actions in Silmarillion, Tolkien should at least have left the matter open: he seems to have closed the door on the Entwives, however reluctantly.

Even in the case of Queen Berúthiel, Tolkien filled out the story later on in an interview with one of his former students. He seems never to have returned to the forlorn Ents and the lost Entwives, except in regret. Again, there are – as far as I am aware – no notes on an Entwife in the Emyn Muil; and in the drafts of the rope that somehow came undone (published in War of the Ring), Tolkien’s focus seems to be on the dilemma Frodo and Sam would face in having to leave the rope behind for Gollum: because of the rope, Gollum could both find them and follow them more easily, as could any other enemy hunting them to that point.

That’s not to say that there aren’t or can’t be notes and musings and further essays on the subject as yet unpublished in the archives at Marquette and Oxford; but I have read nothing of them, nor seen any hint of them in any postings on the web by any knowledgeable researcher. (For instance, David Salo reports having read a note Tolkien’s hand indicating that the remaining Northern Dúnedain in Aragorn’s time were concentrated in The Angle of old Rhudaur, near Rivendell. See this post here at Barrow-downs for one citation of Salo.)

You should also be aware that I originally embarked on the little essay now in Post #57 in hopes that I would find some reference to an Entwife at the edge of the cliff in the Emyn Muil. To my disappointment, I found nothing referenced in the notes, letters, or drafts; I assume that Christopher Tolkien, Wayne Hammond, Christina Scull, David Salo, Carl Hostetter, and any number of other scholars who have looked at the material in the archives have made at least cursory glances for such references as well, but so far, either to no avail or without publishing any positive findings.

But there’s always hope, right?

[Ardamir the Blessed]

Yes, I think there is. I will now present my theory regarding the Entwives' (former) location, one that I have long hoarded.

In Letter #180, Tolkien explains that he had long been planning to have Frodo 'run into a tree-adventure', but it turned out later that it did not happen to him (but instead to Merry and Pippin):

... though I knew for years that Frodo would run into a tree-adventure somewhere far down the Great River, I have no recollection of inventing Ents. I came at last to the point, and wrote the 'Treebeard' chapter without any recollection of any previous thought: just as it now is. And then I saw that, of course, it had not happened to Frodo at all.

It is true that in the published LOTR, Frodo does not experience anything that could be called a 'tree-adventure'. But what if Tolkien still left in some remnants of his old thoughts when he worked on the Frodo-Sam narrative thread?


I will now demonstrate the analogies between aspects of Rohan and Gondor (there are most likely more, but these are hopefully enough for my purposes):

Rohan – Gondor
Théoden – Denethor
Saruman – Sauron (or the Lord of the Nazgûl)
The Hornburg – Minas Tirith
Merry and Pippin – Frodo and Sam
Treebeard – Faramir


And thus the one that will be of the highest importance in this thesis:

Fangorn Forest – Ithilien


The Entwives, unlike the Ents, liked small trees, agriculture and gardening:

LR, 'Treebeard':

... the Entwives gave their minds to the lesser trees, and to the meads in the sunshine beyond the feet of the forests; and they saw the sloe in the thicket, and the wild apple and the cherry blossoming in spring, and the green herbs in the waterlands in summer, and the seeding grasses in the autumn fields … So the Entwives made gardens to live in.

Thus the Entwives would have liked the vegetation of Ithilien, 'the garden of Gondor':

LR, 'Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit':

All about them [Frodo, Sam and Gollum] were small woods of resinous trees, fir and cedar and cypress, and other kinds unknown in the Shire, with wide glades among them; and everywhere there was a wealth of sweet-smelling herbs and shrubs. The long journey from Rivendell had brought them far south of their own land, but not until now in this more sheltered region had the hobbits felt the change of clime. Here Spring was already busy about them: fronds pierced moss and mould, larches were green-fingered, small flowers were opening in the turf, birds were singing. Ithilien, the garden of Gondor now desolate kept still a dishevelled dryad loveliness.
South and west it looked towards the warm lower vales of Anduin, shielded from the east by the Ephel Dúath and yet not under the mountain-shadow, protected from the north by the Emyn Muil, open to the southern airs and the moist winds from the Sea far away. Many great trees grew there, planted long ago, falling into untended age amid a riot of careless descendants; and groves and thickets there were of tamarisk and pungent terebinth, of olive and of bay; and there were junipers and myrtles; and thymes that grew in bushes, or with their woody creeping stems mantled in deep tapestries the hidden stones; sages of many kinds putting forth blue flowers, or red, or pale green; and marjorams and new-sprouting parsleys, and many herbs of forms and scents beyond the garden-lore of Sam. The grots and rocky walls were already starred with saxifrages and stonecrops. Primeroles and anemones were awake in the filbert-brakes; and asphodel and many lily-flowers nodded their half-opened heads in the grass: deep green grass beside the pools, where falling streams halted in cool hollows on their journey down to Anduin.

As is described in the above passage, the 'garden' was planted long ago and had been untended for a long time. But who had tended it? The Men of Gondor, of course. Or?

In Ithilien, Frodo and Sam also finds a small lake within a curious stone basin:

LR, 'Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit':

They [Frodo, Sam and Gollum] followed a stream that went quickly down before them. Presently it brought them to a small clear lake in a shallow dell: it lay in the broken ruins of an ancient stone basin, the carven rim of which was almost wholly covered with mosses and rose-brambles; iris-swords stood in ranks about it. and water-lily leaves floated on its dark gently-rippling surface; but it was deep and fresh, and spilled ever softly out over a stony lip at the far end.

It seems to have been unused for a long time. What purpose did it serve?

Now, inside Wellinghall, Treebeard's home, there was also a water-filled stone basin, albeit smaller:

LR, 'Treebeard':

A little stream escaped from the springs above, and leaving the main water, fell tinkling down the sheer face of the wall, pouring in silver drops, like a fine curtain in front of the arched bay. The water was gathered again into a stone basin in the floor between the trees, and thence it spilled and flowed away beside the open path, out to rejoin the Entwash in its journey through the forest.

It is clear that the water gathered in the basin is the special sort that Treebeard seems to like and that made Merry and Pippin to grow taller:

LR, 'Treebeard':

For a moment Treebeard stood under the rain of the falling spring, and took a deep breath; then he laughed, and passed inside.

'You [Merry and Pippin] are thirsty I [Treebeard] expect. Perhaps you are also tired. Drink this!' He went to the back of the bay, and then they saw that several tall stone jars stood there, with heavy lids.

As for Treebeard, he first laved his feet in the basin beyond the arch, and then he drained his bowl at one draught, one long, slow draught.

In the drafts for the account of the Three Hunters' chase, the hunters also find a basin, which was removed from the published text:

The Treason of Isengard, 'The Riders of Rohan':

...a rough path descended like a broad steep stair into the plain. At the top of the ravine Aragorn stopped. There was a shallow pool like a great basin, over the worn lip of which the water spilled: lying at the edge of the basin something glistening caught his eye. He lifted it out and held it up in the light. It looked like the new-opened leaf of a beech-tree, fair and untimely in the winter morning.

What purpose could this basin have served, and why did Tolkien remove it? The wording is quite similar to the one describing the basin that Frodo, Sam and Gollum found in Ithilien – I quote again from 'Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit':

They [Frodo, Sam and Gollum] followed a stream that went quickly down before them. Presently it brought them to a small clear lake in a shallow dell: it lay in the broken ruins of an ancient stone basin, the carven rim of which was almost wholly covered with mosses and rose-brambles; iris-swords stood in ranks about it. and water-lily leaves floated on its dark gently-rippling surface; but it was deep and fresh, and spilled ever softly out over a stony lip at the far end.

It should perhaps also be noted (as is mentioned in the LOTR Companion, note for p. 650) that Tolkien added the account of the flora in Ithilien, probably including the passage concerning the basin, after he wrote in the following pages of Sam cooking rabbits, and (as is mentioned in The War of the Ring, 'Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit') that he pencilled a note

Describe baytrees and spicy herbs as they march.'

Therefore it seems that Tolkien moved this basin to the Frodo-Sam narrative thread. What for? Was this initially to be Treebeard's basin (or a 'public' basin for all his Ents, or even the Entwives as well), and was later moved because Treebeard's basin had to appear much later, or was it to have some other purpose?


The research presented above has led me to suspect that the vegetation of Ithilien, described in 'Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit', was planted, or at least tended, by Entwives – some had survived the desctruction of their gardens south of Mirkwood and then come to Ithilien, a fairly obvious new home and garden - the wood corresponding to Fangorn forest, the Entwood. The basin was used by them for the same purpose that Treebeard used his basin. For some reason they later disappeared, maybe finally eradicated by Sauron, or had fled once again somewhere else.

It should also be noted though, that Frodo, Sam and Gollum both drank and bathed in the pool within the basin they found in Ithilien:

LR, 'Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit':

[... it [the lake] was deep and fresh, and spilled ever softly out over a stony lip at the far end.
Here they washed themselves and drank their fill at the in-falling freshet.

A growth in stature in neither Frodo, Sam or Gollum is ever mentioned afterwards. This was apparently 'normal' water, or at least it did not affect the travellers' height – after all, it was probably only water from the Entwash that was special:

LR, 'Flotsam and Jetsam':

Tired?" he [Treebeard] said, "tired? Well no, not tired, but stiff. I need a good draught of Entwash.