LotR -- Book 3 - Chapter 04 - Treebeard

[Estelyn Telcontar]

This is a long chapter, and as the upcoming holidays (and the release of RotK EE! ) are keeping us all busy, we will take two or three weeks to discuss it. (The next chapter thread will go up the last Monday of the old year or the first Monday of the new year, depending on how active this thread is in the meantime.)

This is the third chapter in which we are introduced to a new people of Middle-earth, after the Riders of Rohan and the Uruk-Hai. The Ents are a unique creation of Tolkien's, not taken from folklore or previous myths, as other creatures are. As a matter of fact, he wrote that he himself was surprised by their appearance! Here's the small print quote (in its entirety, since not everyone has access to the Letters) from Letter #163:

Take the Ents, for instance. I did not consciously invent them at all. The chapter called 'Treebeard', from Treebeard's first remark on p. 66, was written off more or less as it stands, with an effect on myself (except for labour pains) almost like reading some one else's work. And I like Ents now because they do not seem to have anything to do with me. I daresay something had been going on in the 'unconscious' for some time, and that accounts for my feeling throughout, especially when stuck, that I was not inventing but reporting (imperfectly) and had at times to wait till 'what really happened' came through. But looking back analytically I should say that Ents are composed of philology, literature, and life. They owe their name to the eald enta geweorc of Anglo-Saxon, and their connexion with stone. Their part in the story is due, I think, to my bitter disappointment and disgust from schooldays with the shabby use made in Shakespeare of the coming of 'Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill': I longed to devise a setting in which the trees might really march to war. And into this has crept a mere piece of experience, the difference of the 'male' and 'female' attitude to wild things, the difference between unpossessive love and gardening.

This chapter is rich in linguistic aspects, including bits of Entish and some Elvish, and in poetry. There is the list of Middle-earth creatures, 'In the willow-meads of Tasarinan', 'When Spring unfolds the beechen leaf', 'O Orofarnë', and the marching song(s) of the aroused Entmoot. At this reading, I also noticed something magical about Ents - Entdraught is not necessarily supernatural, but doesn't making the bowls of water light up seem magical? The fact that they are two, a golden and a green light, that blend together, is very reminiscent of the Two Trees and their light.

And what about the Entwash itself? After the hobbits drank from its water, they were not only refreshed (normal reaction) but their hearts were cheered, and "the cuts and sores of their captivity had healed and their vigour had returned."

The conversations have a special charm, with too many quotable lines to mention in one post. I'd like to mention a few of my favorites:
the name conversation
"...it is easier to shout stop! than to do it!"
"But if we stayed at home and did nothing, doom would find us anyway, sooner or later." (This reminds me of Éowyn's statement that those who do not use the sword can still die by it.)

There are lovely descriptions: "...stars were shining already in lakes between shores of cloud."; the tantalizing comparison between Ents and Trolls; the mention of Saruman’s corruption; and two different Ent characters that we get to know more closely.

Add to that the poignant sadness of the relationship gone wrong between Ents and Entwives, and there's much food for thought and discussion here!

[Boromir88]

I love how Tolkien brings out the Entish Race. He describes the Ents more as a "human," than as a tree-like being, and that's what I like about it.

They found that they were looking at a most extraordinary face. It belonged to a large man-like, almost troll-like figure, at least fourteen foot high, very sturdy, with a tall head, and hardly any neck. Whether it was clad in stuff like green and grey bark, or whether that was its hide, was difficult to say. At any rate the arms, at a short distances from the trunk, were not wrinkled, but covered with brown smooth skin. The large feet had seven toes each. The lower part of hte long face was covered with a sweeping grey beard, bushy, almost twiggy at the roots, thin and mossy at the ends. But at the moment the hobbits noted little but the eyes. These deep eyes were now surveying them, slow and solemn, but very penetrating. They were brown, shot with a green light.

I love this because he gives the Ents "human" features head, hands, face, legs, toes...etc. He doesn't make them seem like trees, but an actual race (which they are). I admit when I first read this chapter, with the description, and the human features I actually thought it was a 15 foot tall giant.

Another thing, Tolkien influences on the Ent's eyes, throughout this whole chapter. I haven't figured this out yet. First,

These deep eyes were now surveying them, slow and solemn, but very penetrating. They were brown, shot with a green light.

Treebeard raised himself from his bed with a jerk, stood up, and thumped his hand on the table. The vessels of light trembled and sent up two jets of flame. There was a flicker of green fire in his eyes.

In the first encounter there is a "green light," the second when Treebeard gets angry at Saruman there is a "green fire."

Bregalad, his eyes shining...

At last Pippin looked up, and Pippin could see a sad look in his eyes, sad but not unhappy. There was a light in them, as if the green flame had sunk deeper into the dark wells of his thought.

Tolkien is definately directing us to the Ents eyes, and especially this "green light/flame" in Treebeard's. And Pippin is intrigued by these "eyes," what is happening with them? Well, I'll leave that up to one of are great philosopher's to try and explain.

Some smaller things I wanted to point out were the Entwives, and the historian. I don't know if anyone on these forums believe this, but a common thought is Ents are slow and dumb. Slow, yes, because they like to go into deep thought. But not dumb, they were cured from their dumbness. If you look in this chapter, I am amazed how knowledgeable (it's a word now) Treebeard is, he is almost like a historian. He knows of the days long gone, when "woods filled the world," he remembers days when Celeborn was younger, he knows quite a bit about Saruman (eventhough he won't admit it).

The entwives is a sad story. I think the fact that their are "walking trees" spotted around the Shire, and Treebeard did say the Entwives would enjoy the Shire, would give some solid evidence the the Ents around the Shire are Entwives. However, Tolkien doesn't answer this question (atleast to my knowledge), and there's still room for doubt, if you ask me. They are Entwives . I think the moral behind the story of the Entwives is, that if you let go, or let slip past the people you care about, they could let you go .

Lastly, one quick comment. Treebeard says...

[Saruman] has a mind for metal and wheels...

This got me thinking about the upcoming battle between the Ents and Isengard. A battle of nature vs. metal(industry). The Ents (nature) vs. Isengard (industry). Reminded me of one of the best silent movies ever made, Metropolis. Where the main character (forget his name), has a stick, and he tries to pry open the metal doors he was locked in. This is the battle of nature vs industry in the movie, and the stick breaks!!!!.

Edit: Estelyn, you got me thinking again! (mutters of "darnit")

"But if we stayed at home and did nothing, doom would find us anyway, sooner or later." (This reminds me of Éowyn's statement that those who do not use the sword can still die by it.)

Reminds me of what Rudy Guilliani said,

"When good people sit back, and let evil happen, that is the greatest of evil."

Also, got me thinking Treebeard seems very Grandpa-ish. As up above, he knows a lot of the stories from the past, you know those grandpa stories "I remember when....," "Did I tell you about the time..." Treebeard is like the Grandpa (only great, great, great, great, great, great, (times 3,000), to the hobbits. Or maybe even the grandpa of Middle-earth?

[the phantom]

I've got my book out now and I'm just going to type as I read. This will result in real-time random ramblings, but maybe I will say something that will spark a discussion amongst those who aren't taking a bunch of finals this week (people who have time to organize their thoughts).

First, as Boro pointed out, there's this whole metal versus nature thing going on here. Note the ent-draught and Elrond's cordial versus the burning liquid the orcs gave Merry and Pip, as well as Elrond's healing skill and the healing virtues of the Entwash versus the paste the orcs put on Merry's wound.

But what about the manner in which the hobbits were carried? The orcs-

An Orc seized Pippin like a sack, put its head between his tied hands, grabbed his arms and dragged them down, until Pippin's face was crushed against its neck... The Orc's clawlike hand gripped Pippin's arms like iron; the nails bit into him.

Notice the reference to metal ("like iron") and also, though it may be a coincidence, the reference to the nails of the Orcs (which made me think of the other type of nails, metal nails).

But here's how Treebeard carried the Halflings-

Holding the Hobbits gently but firmly

And later it says they felt "safe and comfortable". That's more than a little bit different than their experience with the Orcs.

Did Tolkien mean for us to compare the two situations? Was he saying "Industry and nature can both take you someplace, but with nature the ride is more comfortable"?

And was anyone else captured by a desire to see the darker parts of Fangorn?

'Like the Old Forest away to the north, do you mean?' asked Merry.
'Aye, aye, something like, but much worse. I do not doubt there is some shadow of the Great Darkness lying there still away north; and bad memories are handed down. But there are hollow dales in this land where the Darkness has never been lifted, and the trees are older than I am.

I am very intrigued by this. I want to hear these "hollow dales" described in full detail. I want to know exactly what is dangerous about them, and I want to see them, places where the trees are older than Treebeard and more dangerous than Old Man Willow. What would happen if Treebeard and the other Ents attempted to attack these places? What sort of battle would there be? Could an army of men charge into one of these pockets and burn down the evil or would the trees come alive and grab them before they could do anything?

I don't know why I'm so fascinated by this. It's sort of like the way Pippin was drawn to the well in Moria, or to the palantir.

And does anyone know- did Tolkien ever see the great sequoias of California? I saw them years ago and still remember them clearly. Did Tolkien get his ideas for the giant mallorn trees from the sequoias? They also could've given inspiration for Fangorn. The Hobbits note how "treeish" Fangorn is. The sequoia groves are similar in the way the trees are absolutely the dominant force.

Well, I've really got to get back to work now. If I have time I'll post more thoughts later.

[Tuor of Gondolin]

As for entwives north of the Shire, that seems rather unlikely:
In "Letters #144:

I think that in fact the Entwives had disappeared for good, being 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. They survived only in the 'agriculture' transmitted to men (and Hobbits)... Some, of course, may have fled east, or even have become enslaved: tyrants even in such tales must have an economic and agricultural background to their soldiers and metal-workers. If any survived so, they would indeed be far estranged from the Ents, and any rapprochement would be difficult-unless experience of industrialized and militarized agriculture had made them a little more anarchic. I hope so. I don't know.

Also, it's interesting that the estrangement of the ents and the entwives
seems an instance of "blame" accruing to both sides, rather reminiscent
of the long-term hostility of elves and dwarves, similarly with "blame"
being possible to attribute to either side.

[A_Brandybuck]

A very interesting note concerning this chapter can be found in a footnote of the Letter #163:

Take the Ents, for instance. I did not consciously invent them at all. The chapter called 'Treebeard', from Treebeard's first remark on p. 66, was written off more or less as it stands, with an effect on my self (except for labour pains) almost like reading some one else's work. And I like Ents now because they do not seem to have anything to do with me. I daresay something had been going on in the 'unconscious' for some time, and that accounts for my feeling throughout, especially when stuck, that I was not inventing but reporting (imperfectly) and had at times to wait till 'what really happened' came through. But looking back analytically I should say that Ents are composed of philology, literature, and life. They owe their name to the eald enta geweorc of Anglo-Saxon, and their connexion with stone. Their pan in the story is due, I think, to my bitter disappointment and disgust from schooldays with the shabby use made in Shakespeare of the coming of 'Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill': I longed to devise a setting in which the trees might really march to war. And into this has crept a mere piece of experience, the difference of the 'male' and 'female' attitude to wild things, the difference between unpossessive love and gardening.

There are some details nice to know while reading the chapter.
Speaks for itself, I think. ;-)

[The Saucepan Man]

I find it interesting that this Chapter opens with some slightly conflicting messages in its description of Fangorn Forest. Merry and Pippin feel a "queer stifling feeling" come over them, but they are refreshed (and indeed healed) by the waters of the Entwash. The forest is dim and stuffy, yet it feels to Pippin like an old Hobbity room. It does not look or feel like Bilbo's description of Mirkwood (a pretty fearsome place), but the Hobbits don't imagine it to be a place for animals - or indeed Hobbits.

Pippin's comparison of the place to "the old room in the Great Smials" suggests to me that he does not feel threatened by it, but that he sees it as somewhere where he shouldn't be, like a child playing somewhere where he has been told not to go. An old room used by adults that is out of bounds, but nevertheless somehow comforting. Indeed, Pippin feels that he "almost likes the place".

And when Treebeard first speaks to them, it does not come across as threatening. It does, of course, come as a surprise (both to Hobbits and the reader), an effect which Tolkien achieves by starting a paragraph with his unbidden response to Pippin's comment. There is, perhaps, a moment of tension in the reference to Treebeard as "almost Troll-like". But it is quickly dispelled by the remainder of the description and, in particular, the reference to Pippin's subsequent attempts to describe his first impression of Treebeard’s eyes (suggesting that he will come to no danger here) and to his initial feeling of fear quickly disappearing. Like Pippin (and indeed Tolkien himself), we are amazed, rather than concerned, at the Ent's sudden introduction into the story.

I find all this interesting, because Tolkien could have used this moment to suspenseful effect: a giant, Tree-like being suddenly comes to life right next to the two young Hobbits. But he does not. We are very soon assured that Treebeard is a friend, or at least not someone who poses a threat to Merry and Pippin (having thankfully not mistaken them for small Orcs). And the fact that he does not use this as an excuse for a moment of tension suggests to me that, once he decided who Treebeard was (not, for example, an evil giant), he was quite concerned to portray him sympathetically right from the outset.

As for the slightly contradictory descriptions of the forest, these tie in with Treebeard's subsequent comments about its "hollow dales ... where the Darkness has never been lifted". There is both good and evil in this forest, so Tolkien steers away from portraying it as either too safe on the one hand, or too forbidding on the other.

It occurred to me that, in the absence of Hobbits from Treebeard's list of the free peoples and in Merry's rueful comment that:

We always seem to have got left out of the old lists, and the old stories ...

Tolkien is commenting wryly upon the absence of Hobbits from his own old stories. His tales of the First Age (as eventually compiled in The Silmarillion), at least in their original versions, considerably pre-date LotR. Hobbits did not feature in his reckoning until The Hobbit (the book) came along, and was incorporated into the Legendarium. And it was his readers' appetite for more tales of Hobbits that led him to embark upon its sequel, which eventually became LotR. Hobbits almost seem to have thrust themselves into the history of Middle-earth and, despite their absence from "the old stories", they become (in terms of the story) central figures in it and (in terms of Tolkien's own ideas) wonderful "devices" for his exploration of the "ennoblement" of the humble (as well as many other of his central themes, such as friendship, loyalty, sacrifice etc). And given how important they have become, it seems to me that, with the benefit of hindsight, Tolkien is here, on one level, commenting with some irony on the Hobbits’ absence from all that went before.

I do wonder, however, why this Chapter (as well as the previous one and, as I recall, those concerning Isengard) focusses primarily on Pippin's point of view, rather than Merry's. Is there something in Pippin's character that makes him a more suitable vehicle for observation of the events that they experience? Is this perhaps linked to the idea of Pippin being the more intuitive, the more "feeling", of the two?

Finally, I cannot let this Chapter go without commenting on the tragic story of the Ents and the Entwives. Quite apart from adding flavour and background to the Ents, it does seem to me that Tolkien is building on an earlier theme here, one that he hints at in the Letter quoted by Esty and A_Brandybuck above:

And into this has crept a mere piece of experience, the difference of the 'male' and 'female' attitude to wild things, the difference between unpossessive love and gardening.

We considered, in the discussion of The Old Forest, Tolkien's differing portrayals of nature in the Shire and the Old Forest, tamed on the one hand, and wild and unpredictable on the other. And it seems to me that this distinction is brought into sharp relief by Treebeard's tale of the Entwives. Like the Hobbits of the Shire, the Entwives are portrayed as wishing to tame nature:

They did not desire to speak with these things; but they wished them to hear and obey what was said to them. The Entwives ordered them to grow according to their wishes, and bear leaf and fruit to their liking; for the Entwives desired order, and plenty, and peace (by which they meant that things should remain where they had set them.)

The identification of the Entwives with the Shire is further suggested by Treebeard's comment that it is a place that they would have liked.

This leads me to think of the conflict that occurred between the Hobbits of the Shire and the denizens of the Old Forest, starting with the encroachment of the trees on Buckland and culminating in the events which led to the Bonfire Glade. The same conflict, albeit emotional rather than physical, features in the differing approaches that leads to the estrangement of the Ents and the Entwives.

Treebeard, however, is clearly no Old Man Willow (although the suggestion is that there are worse things living in those dark hollow vales, and Pippin himself makes the point that Ents are not "quite as safe and, well, funny as they seem"). In the earlier discussion, I speculated whether, in Treebeard, we have someone who has learned a lesson that Old Man Willow has not: the necessity of living in harmony with his fellow inhabitants of Middle-earth. And perhaps it is the Ents' estrangement from the Entwives that has taught them this lesson.

It is interesting though that, in the differing (conflicting) attitudes of the Ents and Entwives (and as indicated in the Letter quoted above), Tolkien is suggesting that the difference here is between "male" and "female" attitudes to nature. Although it is a generalisation, there does seem to be something in this. I would hazard a guess, for example, that nicely ordered gardens appeal more to women, whereas men prefer nature in its wild, untamed state. On the other hand, on a more general level, men's brains do seem to be more prone to ordering and commanding, while the female brain might be described as being more passive and intuitive (and therefore, perhaps, more in touch with nature). (Before any feminists (or their male equivalents) start throwing fruit (whether it be wild or cultivated ) at me, I am, as I said, generalising here.) For some interesting thoughts on this issue, however, see: Are you an Ent or an Entwife?

In any event, I wonder which approach Tolkien felt more drawn towards. It seems to me that he had some sympathy for both. Neither the Ents nor the Entwives are portrayed as being "wrong", although the description of the Entwives' approach (involving, as it does, a rejection of love of something for its own sake) is perhaps the less sympathetic. And, while he had what might be described as an "unpossessive love” of trees, Tolkien also had a great deal of time for the landscape of rural England which was (and is), like the Shire, tamed to quite a considerable degree. So it seems quite possible to me that, in both The Old Forest Chapter and in this Chapter, with the tale of the Ents and the Entwives, he is working through his own feelings and attitudes to nature.

Hmm (or should I say Hroom). And I thought that this was going to be a short one.