The Lord of the Rings: Treebeard [Part Four]

 

The Tale

Merry and Pippin wake up the next morning. Treebeard isn’t there, but as the hobbits take a bit of a wash-up in the basin in the waterfall, he comes striding up, humming and singing. He has been out walking far already while they slept. But now they must go to Entmoot.

Entmoot? Where’s that? Pippin asks. Treebeard replies that it is not a place; Entmoot is a gathering of Ents, which doesn’t happen often these days. This one is taking place at Derndingle, as Men might call it. After a nourishing drink and a few crumbs of lembas on the part of the hobbits, they are off, Treebeard once more carrying them in his arms.

Traveling through the deep groves, Merry and Pippin at first feeling the stifling atmosphere they felt the day before, but that passes away. Treebeard hums as they go along, deeply and thoughtfully, in a long, slow, changing sort of language, that every now and then seems to answered by a vibration through the earth or from the trees. Finally the old Ent stops, sets the hobbits down, and makes a kind of horn with his hands. He calls out a deep hoom, hom, that is answered by similar calls all around them. He perches the hobbits on his shoulders and walks on.

Eventually they reach a dingle [‘a deep narrow valley or dell’], almost as round as a bowl, rimmed by an evergreen hedge of a tree the hobbits have never seen, with three tall silver birches at the bottom of the bowl. Three paths enter into it: the one they are on, one from the east and another from the west. There are already many Ents there, about two dozen and more coming all the time. The hobbits are amazed at their variety.

There are some very old, but hale, and there are tall strong Ents like trees in their prime, but no saplings, no Entings. But all are as different as one type of tree is from another: beech, oak, chestnut, ash, fir, birch, rowan, linden, and others. There are different colors, heights, girths, numbers of toes and fingers, length of arms and legs, but all have the same eyes, the eyes of their people, deep, thoughtful, and slow, with the same green flicker.

As soon as all are assembled, there begins a long and curious conversation among the Ents. It is rather like a song, with rising single voices, then rhythmic chanting, and punctuated now and then with great rising booms. Pippin finds it very pleasant to listen to at first, but not being able to understand the Entish language, his attention wavers, and he yawns. Treebeard begs his pardon, then sets them down, saying they can wander about if they wish. He says that so far, the Ents have been told about the hobbits, that they agree they are not Orcs, and they should now be entered into the old lists. That’s quite quick work for Ents.  But now they will start the real business of the moot [‘assembly held for debate’]. The hobbits bow low to the gathering, which seems to amuse the Ents.

Merry and Pippin walk around a bit, trying to figure out exactly where they are on the map. They see smoke rising to the left of the mountain peak. Merry guesses that’s where Isengard is, thought what the Ents think they can do against it is a mystery. As he understands it, it is a tower within the ring of a stone wall. But then he thinks the Ents, though they seem slow and patient, might yet be roused. Pippin agrees; it might be the difference of a peacefully grazing cow and a charging mad bull.

They wander the dell, drinking from the fountain there and listening to the strange droning voices of the Entmoot. It seems to the hobbits rather dreamlike, and they begin to wish for the company of their friends, especially Frodo and Sam and Strider. After a while there is a pause, and Treebeard comes marching over with a strange young Ent. The first stage of the moot is over, but it will likely last at least a couple more days. Meanwhile here is one who has already made up his mind and will take care them until it’s done. He’s the closest they have to a hasty Ent. They ought to get on together. Treebeard leaves them and walks back to the Entmoot.

The hobbits stare at the young Ent for a while, waiting for him to show signs of ‘hastiness’.  He has smooth skin on his arms and legs, ruddy lips, and grey-green hair. Finally, he introduces himself as ‘Bregalad, that is Quickbeam in your language. But is only a nickname, of course. They have called me that ever since I said yes to an elder Ent before he had finished his question.’ He gives them each a hand and they go walking off into the woods together.

They laugh and sing much of the day. Bregalad is a great laugher, and he stops and sings whenever they come across a rowan tree. At nightfall he brings them to his Enthouse: ‘nothing more than a mossy stone set upon turves under a green bank.’ There is water from a bubbling spring, and the area is surrounded by many beautiful rowan trees, the young Ent’s most beloved care. They can hear the distant sounds of the Entmoot, going on into the night. They learn that Quickbeam belonged to Skinbark’s people, whose trees were ravaged by the Orcs, and that alone would seem to account for his ‘hastiness’ in the matter of the moot. There were rowan trees that were planted when he was just an Enting, made to please the Entwives, and now they are dead. Quickbeam sings a sad song about them, and ‘the hobbits fell asleep to the sound of the soft singing of Bregalad, that seemed to lament in many tongues the fall of trees that he had loved.

Bits and Bobs

A moot, of course, is a very old Anglo-Saxon word, and a tradition. It refers, of course, to a ‘meeting’ (a related word) to debate and define local law. A ‘moot point’ is a subject that can be debated, or so ill-defined that it’s meaning is open to interpretation. Today there are ‘Tolkienmoots’ or ‘Oxenmoots’ and the like that are held by Tolkien societies to talk about the Professor and his works.

Treebeards method of communicating as he walks along, that seems to bring up vibrating answers out of the earth, reminds me of the ‘seismic communication’ of elephants, only lately discovered, sounds transmitted by the animals through the ground and read through their sensitive feet. Though Tolkien probably would not have definitely known of this at the time, his interest in all the various ways of communication might have suggested it to him.

‘Quickbeam’ is another name for the rowan tree, or mountain ash, and rowans are Quickbeam’s favorite tree. The rowan is a member of the Rose-tree family and is crowned with bright red berries in season. The wood is tough and flexible, but not durable. The word ‘quick’ of course has a double meaning; it can mean ‘living’ (as in ‘the quick and the dead’) or it can mean ‘fast’. ‘Beam’ is a word that can be used for the sturdiest part or trunk of a tree, and by extension the tree itself. Quickbeam, thus, can mean a living tree or a ‘hasty’ tree, a suitable name for the young Ent.