Entwives Are you smart enough?

[Josecurvo]

Do any of the hardcore fans of tolkein know where the entwives really areconfused: ? How did they get there? Is there stuff about them in books after the LotR's! :eek:

[RosieCotton]

I haven't read that many books excpet, Hobbit and LOTR, and in those it doesnt say. Treebeard asked Merry and Pippin to look in the Shire, but as far as I know, they didn't find them. I am going to read the Silmarillion soon, but I doubt its in there.
Good question, sorry I cna't answer it.
~Rosie~

[Darius O'Herran]

Well, Tolkien himself doesn't even know where the Entwives are. He says so in his letters. (A great book, if you plan on being a hardcore Tolkien fan, I suggest you pick it up.) Anyway, that is one of the great mysteries of Middle-Earth, what did happen to the Entwives? Some people claim they all died, or that they continued west like the Elves. Who knows?? Not I, Not you, Not Tolkien. Decide what you want about these darling treeherders, because that is one thread that Tolkien leaves wide open throughout the books. :confused:

[RosieCotton]

I hate it when you have to decide yourself. I always wind up getting confused. I think they're still around somewhere. I bet there hanging out with Tom Bombadil in the Old Forest :D
~Rosie~

[Play Girl]

Big Tree sized creatures are mentioned at the start of FotR but are never mentioned again. They might be the ent wives but it is never cleared up in the end.
Play Girl
xxx

[Darius O'Herran]

Yeah, I've thought that myself, but I don't think so. More than likely it was an Ent traveling west to become no more like the elves.

[Elf Girl]

I think the dissapearence of the Entwives is a sign by Tolkein that the Ents cannot survive in the changing world.

[EntwifeLost]

AH! A perfect question for an Entwife! :)

I shall say that alot of the History on Entwives is unclear - But an internet search away you will find alot of discussions available to read on "Entwives" -
Although they are the somewhat Lost spouses of the Ents - It is pleasing to Think that they do exist in somewhat of an Earthly Paradise - Perhaps far off to the West - As Treebeards song refers too! Ive always enjpoyed the mystery of the Garden and Flower Loving Entwives! Its a discussion i shall not tire of!! :D

Entwife Waves and Smiles

[markedel]

Tolkien wrote- he doesn't know where they are

-but they're probably dead

-if not Sauron used them for his mechanized, slave centred agriculture, and they'd have little in common with ents.

-the tree mentioned in the Shire was thought up before Ents ever were so they are unrelated, and serve as an "empty" enigma.

[barrelrider110]

Originally posted by Play Girl
Big Tree sized creatures are mentioned at the start of FotR but are never mentioned again. They might be the ent wives but it is never cleared up in the end.
In FoTR, at "the Long-Expected Party", Sam says to Ted Sandyman:
'But what about these Tree-men, these giants, as you might call them?’ They do say that one bigger than a tree was seen up away beyond the North Moors not long back…. this one was as big as an elm tree, and walking – walking seven yards to a stride, if it was an inch…this one was walking, I tell you; and there ain't no elm tree on the North Moors.'
This was an Ent, no doubt, probably looking for the Entwives. Treebeard said that Ents wandered far from time to time.

When the Ents crossed the Anduin, they came to the spot where the gardens of the Entwives were, and found the land spoiled by war-- the brown lands. I can imagine young J.R.R. Tolkien, standing in World War I France, looking at the blasted terrain, wondering where the people are that used to live there?
People will flee before an advancing army, but I am not sure the Entwives would. Treebeard said that they loved peace 'meaning things should stay where they put them.' I am afriad that the Entwives may have stayed to protect their beloved gardens and became innocent casualties of war.
The Ents must feel the same emptiness, the loss that the families of the victims of 911 must have endured: to have lost someone, and yet not knowing for sure. It is the ultimate tragedy, the sadness upon the ents--loss without closure.

[Khamûl]

I read that perhaps the Olog-hai (smarter and more ferocious trolls) mentioned in RotK are the Entwives that were captured and twisted for 3000 years by Sauron. I sure hope not, but it is a rather interesting thought, isn't it?


By the way, the website is http://people.wiesbaden.netsurf.de/~lalaith/Tolkien/The_History_of_Ents.html if you want to check it out.

[barrelrider110]

Interesting. Is there any mention when the entwives were last seen?

[Pailan]

Wither the Entwives? Lost beyond recall. It seems but...

In RotK in the chapter, Many Partings, there is this very intesting exchange between Treebeard and Galadriel:

'It is sad that we should meet only thus at the ending. For the world is changing: I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air. I do not think we shall meet again.'
And Celeborn said: 'I do not know, Eldest.' But Galadriel said: 'Not in Middle-earth, nor until the lands that lie under the wave are lifted up again. Then in the willow-meads of Tasarinan we may meet in the Spring. Farewell.'
It's a bit of a reach, but could Galadriel have some knowledge of where the Entwives went? And is she impling that the willow-meads of Tasarinan were on Numenor or in Beleriand? So would this mean that the Entwives were gone before the First Age or the Second Age? Did they survive the destruction of either place?

I don't know, but I think this might be a clue that Tolkien never followed through with...

[Finrod Felagund]

Wouldn't there still be Ents (and Entwives) in Valinor even if not in ME?
Also, at the beginning of LoTR, Sam mentions at the inn that his cousin saw a "tree-man" was it an ent? The Old forest was once part of the forest that covered the east of middle earth, (east in the days of the Silmarillion), and look at the "huorn-ish" old man willow. So could the "tree man" have been an ent or even an entwife?

[markedel]

Once again that tree qas stuck in before ents were thought of. Check HoME. Galadriel's farewell is a reference to "Arda Unmarred" at the end of days when the ravages of Melkor will be healed and Beleriand will be raised up from the Sea.

[barrelrider110]

Sam to Ted Sandyman in the Green Dragon, early in FoTR:'But what about these Tree-men, these giants, as you might call them?’ They do say that one bigger than a tree was seen up away beyond the North Moors not long back…. this one was as big as an elm tree, and walking – walking seven yards to a stride, if it was an inch…this one was walking, I tell you; and there ain't no elm tree on the North Moors.'

I must disagree with you markedel, the discription above sounds very much like an ent. It is clearly forshadowing, as is Sam's vision in the Mirror of Galadriel.

Treebeard said that the Ents searched far and wide for the Entwives, so my guess is that the tree-man is an ent looking for the estranged spouses.

[Comic Book Guy]

Merry said that the news and songs of the loss of the Entwives never reached the west.

'Well, I am afraid the songs have not come west over the Mountains to the Shire,' said Merry.

and Treebeard says that the songs were sung from the areas from the Mirkwood and the Gondor, (Up and Down the River Anduin) were they probally only searched.

There were songs about the hunt of the Ents for the Entwives sung among Elves and Men from Mirkwood to Gondor. They cannot be quite forgotten.'

[barrelrider110]

After doing some HoME-work, *collective groan* I must reveal that my earlier posts too be much too hasty :( I must disagree with you markedel, the description above sounds very much like an Ent. It is clearly foreshadowing, as is Sam's vision in the Mirror of Galadriel. Markedel is correct, The rough drafts in HoME confirm that Sam and Ted's conversation was composed long before Ents ever entered the story. JRRT could not have had them in mind when he wrote it. So, it was not an Ent.

Is it a random element? I don’t think so. JRRT said of Tom Bombadil, who also appears early in the story, "I would not have left him in if he did not have some kind of function." The implication is that everything written in the earlier chapters was left in for a reason, and he would have known how suggestive it would have been. Once you become aware of what an Ent is, Sam's description of the tree-man can bring only one thing to mind. Also consider this exchange between Treebeard Merry and Pippin: He made them describe the Shire and its country over and over again. He said an odd thing at this point. 'You never see any, hm, any Ents round there, do you?' he asked. 'Well, not Ents, Entwives I should really say.' The two conversations taken together suggest that what Sam’s cousin Hal saw was an Entwife.

Tolkien was at heart a softie. He allowed Bill the Pony to escape and Shadowfax to be taken into the West with Gandalf. I think that the old tree-lover wanted the Entwives to survive, and by leaving in the conversation between Sam and Ted, he gives us the opportunity for that hope.

[ladyisme]

In the books Treebeard speaks of the ents becoming more like trees, turning "treeish" so to speak. What if the same process affected the entwives? Could it be that the reason they were never found it that over time they grew more and more like the trees of their gardens until at last there wasn't any difference between the two?

"The road goes ever on and on down from the door where it began."

[Comic Book Guy]

Tolken had the idea of Treebeard and the Ents before the Two Towers was composed, a first Idea of Treebeard was that he was Evil, and the captor of Gandalf.

[BeardofPants]

Interesting to think that perhaps Sam's cousin may have seen an Entiwife. Personally, I've always thought they either became more tree-ish, or that the went to the Grey Havens. They have afterall, been gone along time from Fanghorn, why would they still be wandering? Just a question. Any answers?

[barrelrider110]

No answers, only theories.

Ents that became tree-ish retired in a sense. They became inactive much as people do when they stop challenging themselves, stop growing. Use it or lose it as they say.

I personally don't think the Entwives became tree-ish, because they were far too busy tending their gardens.