He Shall Be Like a Tree Planted By the Rivers of Water - Page 5
© Michael Martinez
And so began a quest which may have lasted 1,000 years. Every now and then the Ents would venture forth and ask people if they had seen the Entwives. Of course, the Ents never found the Entwives. When asked about them by a reader, Tolkien replied:
I think that in fact the Entwives had disappeared for good, being destroyed with their gardens in the War of the Last Alliance (Second Age 3429-3441) when Sauron pursued a scorched earth policy and burned their land against the advance of the Allies down the Anduin (vol. II p. 79 refers to it). They survived only in the 'agriculture' transmitted to Men (and Hobbits). Some, of course, may have fled east, or even have become enslaved: tyrants even in such tales must have an economic and agricultural background to their soldiers and metal-workers. If any survived so, they would indeed be far estranged from the Ents, and any rapprochement would be difficult -- unless experience of industrialized and militarized agriculture had made them a little more anarchic. I hope so. I don't know. (Letter 144)The Ents' search for the Entwives inspired many songs and tales, and even Aragorn seemed to know something of the Ents' long search, for he told Fangorn that new lands would be open to them. Fangorn by that time held little hope of finding his beloved Fimbrethil again, and he may never have left his woods in the Fourth Age. The Ents seem to have been content to remain in the wild wood, and to watch over the Treegarth of Orthanc, to ensure that evil never returned to the region. Of course, people are quick to point out that Ents or Ent-like creatures dwelt near the Shire. And when Fangorn questioned Merry and Pippin about their homeland he concluded that it would be a land suitable for the Entwives. But there were no Entwives in the Shire, and it's unlikely they ever dwelt there. Sam's famous walking tree, which his cousin Hal reported to him, could indeed have been just that. The trees of the Old Forest were able to move around, as Frodo and his companions learned when they lost their way amid the angry woods. But there were no Ents in the Forest. Just ancient trees like Old Man Willow and other curious, unnamed perils. Trees could wake up on their own, for unexplained reasons. Fangorn described the process for Merry and Pippin:
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