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

© Michael Martinez

'The trees and the Ents,' said Treebeard. 'I do not understand all that goes on myself, so I cannot explain it to you. Some of us are still true Ents, and lively enough in our fashion, but many are growing sleepy, going tree-ish, as you might say. Most of the trees are just trees, of course; but many are half awake. Some are quite wide awake, and a few are, well, ah, getting Entish. That is going on all the time.

'When that happens to a tree, you find that some have bad hearts. Nothing to do with their wood: I do not mean that. Why, I knew some good old willows down the Entwash, gone long ago, alas! They were quite hollow, indeed they were falling all to pieces, but as quiet and sweet-spoken as a young leaf. And then there are some trees in the valleys under the mountains, sound as a bell, and bad right through. That sort of thing seems to spread. There used to be some very dangerous parts in this country. There are still some very black patches.'

In a letter to The Daily Telegraph Tolkien explained the difference between forests in Middle-earth. An article had associated gloom with Tolkien's woods, and he took exception to the comparison:

With reference to the Daily Telegraph of June 29th, page 18, I feel that it is unfair to use my name as an adjective qualifying 'gloom', especially in a context dealing with trees. In all my works I take the part of trees as against all their enemies. Lothlorien is beautiful because there the trees were loved; elsewhere forests are represented as awakeningto the consciousness of themselves. The Old Forest was hostile to two legged creatures because of the memory of many injuries. Fangorn Forest was old and beautiful, but at the time of the story tense with hostility because it was threatened by a machine-loving enemy. Mirkwood had fallen under the domination of a Power that hated all living things but was restored to beauty and became Greenwood the Great before the end of the story.

It is difficult to think of Beren enraptured by the beauty and grace of Luthien in a gloomy wood, or of Finrod looking upon Beren's sleeping ancestors in a forbidding forest, wicked and full of hate. The woods of Doriath, Ossiriand, and even the Shire are friendly, open places. Their inhabitants may be insular and protective of their lands and lives, but they are not consumed with malice. The Old Forest, and Fangorn Forest, inherited some patches of evil from the days of Morgoth. But whereas the Ents returned to Fangorn to cleanse or watch over their ancestral woods, the Old Forest was left to gnaw itself with malice, at least until Tom Bombadil decided to settle down nearby. Gandalf noted at Elrond's Council that Bombadil was "withdrawn into a little land, within bounds that he has set, though none can see them, waiting perhaps for a change of days". Bombadil told Frodo and his companions that he, Bombadil, could not leave his land, because he had to watch over it. The evil from the Old Forest and the Barrow-wights had become so great that Bombadil felt compelled to keep it in check.