The Lord of the Rings: Treebeard [Part Five and Last]

Merry and Pippin spend the next day with Quickbeam at his ‘house’. The wind is colder and the sky grey. They can hear the Entmoot going on in the distance, rolling, rising and falling, sometimes loud and strong, sometimes sad, sometimes slow and dirgelike. When the second night comes, they are still at it.

The third day breaks, bleak and windy. At sunrise the moot rises to a great clamor of voices then goes low again. There is a feeling of expectancy in the air, and the young Ent listens closely. The afternoon comes and the sun sends great beams through the woods from over the mountain. Suddenly the hobbits realize that things have gone still and quiet: the distant voices of the Ents have gone quiet. Quickbeam stands erect and tense, looking towards Derndingle and the moot.

‘Then with a crash came a great ringing shout: ra-hoom-rah! The trees quivered and bent as if a great gust had struck them. There was another pause, and then a marching music began like solemn drums, and above the beats and booms there welled voices singing high and strong.’

‘We come, we come with roll of drum: ta-runda runda runda rom!’

Quickbeam picks up Merry and Pippin and strides forth. Before long they see a marching line approaching: it is about fifty Ents striding two abreast, with Treebeard at their head. They beat time on their sides to set the beat of their march and their green eyes are flashing. Treebeard spots Quickbeam and the hobbits and tells them to join the Moot. They are coming at last; they are going to Isengard and to war. The Ents cry To Isengard! and begin singing a martial song. Treebeard takes the hobbits from the young Ent and sets them on his shoulder while Quickbeam joins the ranks. They ride proudly at the head of the company, hearts beating and heads held high, surprised at the sudden transformation of the usually stolid and solemn Ents.

After a while, when the singing has died down and there is only the sound of marching feet and drumming hands, Pippin ventures to remark that the Moot made up its mind rather quickly, after all. Treebeard agrees. They have not been roused like this for ages; Ents do not like to be roused, and only are when their lives and their trees are in danger. It is the treachery and orc-mischief that has done it. ‘Wizards ought to know better: they do know better. There is no curse in Elvish, Entish, or the tongues of Men bad enough for such treachery. Down with Saruman!’

Merry asks if they can really break the doors of Isengard and bring doom upon Saruman, as they threatened in their song. They could, you know, Treebeard replies. They do not know how strong the Ents are. Trolls are very strong, but they are ‘mere counterfeits’ made by the Enemy in mockery. Ents are even stronger than that and can split stone like tree roots eating into rock, but quicker. They can reduce Isengard to rubble if not hewn down or stopped by fire or ‘blast of sorcery’.

But won’t that be exactly what Saruman will do? Treebeard has thought about it, but the younger Ents are roused now and marching, and their thoughts are hot. Let them march! They will think more about the dangers later when they cool down a bit. For now, it is something to have started.

He marches and sings for a while, then his voice drops to silence. The old Ent’s brow is wrinkled and knotted, his thoughts grower ever deeper and more solemn. Of course, he says, they might be going to their doom, and this is the last march of the Ents. If they are destroyed, however, they at least will go out helping other people, and their end will be worth a song. But he would have liked to see Fimbrethil one last time.

The march continues and it grows dark. Pippin looks behind them and rubs his eyes in wonderment. ‘The number of Ents had grown – or what was happening?’ There seem to be groves of trees behind them, filling the bare slopes they have passed, following behind them with a noise like wind in many branches. The Ents finally halt at the top of a ridge and all goes silent, except for the shade of a whisper like many drifting leaves. Below them lies a great cleft, like a dark pit: Nan Curunir, the Valley of Saruman.

‘Night lies on Isengard,’ said Treebeard.

Bits and Bobs

In Letter 163 (The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien) to W. H. Auden, Tolkien admitted that the Last March of the Ents was in a sense negatively inspired by Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, where it is prophesied that “Macbeth shall never vanquished be until the Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against him”. Tolkien said how disappointed he was when the prophecy was fulfilled by soldiers cutting branches and using them as camouflage to get near the castle. How much better it would be if the trees themselves actually rose against the usurper of the land!

Saruman’s name in Sindarin Elvish is Curunir; both this and Saruman translate to ‘man of skill’ or ‘cunning man’. The term ‘cunning man’ was used for a wise man or ‘white witch’ in English tradition. “Cunning folk, also known as folk healers or wise folk, were practitioners of folk medicine, helpful folk magic and divination in Europe from the Middle Ages until the 20th century. Their practices were known as the cunning craft. Their services also included thwarting witchcraft. Although some cunning folk were denounced as witches themselves, they made up a minority of those accused,^[1] and the common people generally made a distinction between the two. The name 'cunning folk' originally referred to folk-healers and magic-workers in Britain, but the name is now applied as an umbrella term for similar people in other parts of Europe.” – Wikipedia. Of course, in modern parlance, 'cunning' has the implied meaning of crafty, deceptive, and devious, all of which Saruman is.

The idea of peaceful nature rebelling and rising up to protect itself from those who would misuse it is a very potent motif in modern culture, partially no doubt because of the influence of Tolkien on the early environmentalist movement. Here is Tolkien’s own reading of the marching song of the Ents: Tolkien reads - We come, we come with roll of drum - The Ent's Marching Song - YouTube . Here is the segment from the Jackson movies: LOTR The Two Towers - Extended Edition - The Last March of the Ents - YouTube . And here is the song as rendered by Clamavi De Profundis: The Ents' Marching Song - Clamavi De Profundis - YouTube .