The Lord of the Rings: Treebeard [Part Three]

 

Presently Merry and Pippin hear Treebeard counting softly to himself. He is trying to figure out how many Ents he can get together for a meeting of some sort.

Of the three oldest from before the Darkness, there is only himself, Fangorn (Treebeard), and Finglas (Leaflock) and Fladrif (Skinbark). Leaflock has grown sleepy and tree-ish. ‘Covered with leafy hair he is.’ He would be hard to wake up for this business. Skinbark has been injured by Orcs and his special trees and tree-herders murdered. He has retreated into the high places of the woods and will not come down.

Still, Treebeard hopes he can get a fair number of the younger Ents together, if he can make them understand the need. It is a pity there are so few of them. Pippin asks why not, if they’ve lived in the land so long? Have so many died? Treebeard answers no, not many, but there have never been very many, and some have grown tree-ish and fallen asleep. And there have been no young Ents born, no Entings as you might say, for many long years, not since they lost the Entwives.

‘How very sad!’ said Pippin. ‘How was it they all died?’

‘They did not die!’ said Treebeard. ‘I never said died. We lost them, I said. We lost them and we cannot find them.’ He thought everyone knew the story about the Ents and the Entwives; many songs were made about it by Elves and Men. Merry asks that he tell them the tale, or sing one of the songs. The request seems to please Treebeard. He agrees to tell them a short version, as they need to sleep soon for the efforts tomorrow.

‘When the world was young, and the woods were wide and wild,’ the Ents and Entwives (who were Entmaidens then) walked and lived together. But their interests began to grow apart and they started living apart: the Ents loving the great trees and wild woods on the high hills, waking the trees and speaking to them, the Entwives to lesser trees, fruit trees and herbs and grain in the meads and fields. The Entwives don’t want to talk to these things, but that they should grow according to their instructions, ‘for the Entwives desired order, and plenty, and peace (by which they meant that things should remain where they had set them).’

So the Entwives made gardens to dwell in, while the Ents remained in the hills and seldom visited them. When the Darkness came in the North (Morgoth, the first Dark Lord), the Entwives moved over the Anduin and made new gardens even farther away from the Ents. But after the First Age ended, the Entwives became even more prosperous, and even taught many Men their craft, and were honored by them greatly.

Treebeard remembers the last time he saw Fimbrethil, his special lady, back when the Men of Numenor were fighting Sauron the first time. She and all the Entwives were greatly changed by their labors, being bent and brown by their labor, but still very fair in his eyes, with ‘hair parched by the sun to the hue of bright corn and their cheeks like red apples.’

The next time the Ents try to visit them, the Entwives are gone, the war having passed over their lands and turning them into the desolation now known as the Brown Lands. No-one knows which way the Entwives went, though some said they walked away west, and some said south, and some said east. The Ents were very sorrowful and searched far and wide, but never found them. Eventually they gave up and returned to the forest, and now there are only memories, ‘and our beards are long and grey.’

Yet they still believe that someday they will meet again, but only when both Ents and Entwives have lost everything they have, both forests and fields It seems that time might be at hand, for Sauron of old blasted the gardens, and now he might accomplish the withering of all woods. Treebeard sings one of the old songs the Elves made about this prophecy, though he says it is too quick; the Ents would have more to say if they made it.

Treebeard says he’s going to stand and take a little sleep. Where will the hobbits like to stand? Merry reminds him that they usually sleep lying down.

‘Why of course you do! Hm, hoom: I was forgetting: singing that song put me in mind of old times; almost thought I was talking to young Entings, I did.’ The hobbits climb into a bed of sweet-scented grass and fern while Treebeard stands under the curtain of water falling over the entrance. Merry and Pippin fall asleep to the sound of the water falling over his head down to his feet.

Bits and Bobs

Just one note for now: we get a couple of mentions of the 'hair' of the Ents and Entwives; one (on a male) seems to be body hair and is called 'leafy', and the other (on a female) on the head is compared to grain. And a short reminder that in 'British' English, corn means grain.