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He Shall Be Like a Tree Planted By the Rivers of Water

© Michael Martinez

Why did the Ents end up in Fangorn Forest? How, and when, did they make the trek across Middle-earth to the southern end of the Misty Mountains. And why did they move all the way down there? Fangorn tells Merry and Pippin that he once wandered through the willow-meads of Tasarinan. "Willow-meads" is a curious turn of phrase. Trees don't grow in meadows. But Tolkien loved to scatter willows around Middle-earth, along with rivers and lakes. And willows do grow beside rivers and lakes. The willow has long been used as a symbol of regret and lost love in English literature. As Fangorn sings about his youth in Beleriand, he begins with the Willow-meads of Tasarinan (Nan-Tathren on the map of Beleriand, a region between the Mouths of Sirion and the Gates of Sirion, to the south of Doriath). When Frodo and Sam wander through Mordor, and they are thirsty, Sam thinks wistfully of willow trees beside rivers where they had stopped on their journey. And as Theoden leads his Riders of Rohan out of Harrowdale, they pass willow trees along the Snowbourne river. The most poetic description of the willows in Middle-earth is probably Voronwe's description of Nan-Tathren for Tuor in "Of Tuor and his coming to Gondolin":

"...In that land Narog joins Sirion, and they haste no more, but flow broad and quiet through living meads; and all about the shining river are flaglilies like a blossoming forest, and the grass is filled with flowers, like gems, like bells, like flames of red and gold, like a waste of many-coloured stars in a firmament of green. Yet fairest of all are the willows of Nan-Tathren, pale green, or silver in the wind, and the rustle of their innumerable leaves is a spell of music: day and night would flicker by uncounted, while still I stood knee-deep in grass and listened. There I was enchanted, and forgot the Sea in my heart...."

For all its beauty and bliss, however, Nan-Tathren seems never to have attracted a permanent Elven population. Tuor and Idril led the exiles of Gondolin to the region and stayed there for a while, holding a feast and making songs of regret and sorrow for Gondolin, and to remember the courage of Glorfindel. But they did not remain long in the region. Fangorn's song for the hobbits says he would stay in Nan-Tathren (Tasarinan -- he preferred to use Quenya) in the spring, and from there he passed east to Ossiriand, to wander through the elm-woods. In the autumn he would wander into Neldoreth, one of the forests of Doriath, and from there he would pass north into Dorthonion for the winter.

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