Treebeard
| House / Order | The Ents of Fangorn |
|---|---|
| Race / Culture | Ent |
| Status | Survived |
| Origin | Fangorn Forest, on the eaves of Rohan |
| Born | Before the First Age (one of the eldest living things) |
| Died | Living (still wandering his forest at the end of the Third Age) |
| Weapon | His own great strength; the rousing of the Ents and Huorns |
| Fate | Roused the Ents to destroy Isengard; freed his forest; remained eldest of the woods |
| Portrayed by | John Rhys-Davies (voice) |
Treebeard, whose name in the Elvish tongue was Fangorn, was the eldest of the Ents — the tree-herds of Middle-earth — and the master of the ancient forest that bore his name on the borders of Rohan. Among the oldest living things in all the world, he had walked beneath the trees since the Elder Days, and his rousing in the War of the Ring brought about the downfall of Saruman and the ruin of Isengard.
He embodies the deep memory and slow patience of the natural world, and the awakening of that world against those who would burn and despoil it. When Saruman cut down the trees of his land to feed the fires of war, Treebeard led the Ents in their first march in an Age — a wrath ancient, terrible, and just.
Origins
The Ents were brought into being in the first days, shepherds of the trees made (so the Elves held) at the request of Yavanna, that growing things might have guardians against the axes of the younger peoples. Treebeard was the eldest of them, "the oldest of the Ents," who claimed to be the oldest living thing that still walked beneath the Sun in Middle-earth — older even than the wandering Elves who first taught the Ents the gift of speech. He dwelt in Fangorn forest, the last great remnant of the primeval woods that had once covered the West, on the southern eaves of the Misty Mountains near Isengard.
Biography
The meeting with the hobbits
- Main article: Ents
During the War of the Ring, the hobbits Merry and Pippin, fleeing their orc-captors, wandered into Fangorn and were taken up by Treebeard. Wary at first — for he placed nothing readily in his lists of living things — he warmed to the small folk and gave them ent-draught to drink. From them he learned the full extent of Saruman's treachery: that the wizard, "who has a mind of metal and wheels," had been felling the trees of Fangorn's borders without care, feeding the living wood to the furnaces of Isengard.
The Entmoot and the march
The Ents were a slow folk, not "hasty," and they did not stir without long deliberation. Treebeard summoned the Entmoot, a council in the dell of Derndingle that lasted three days. At its end the Ents resolved on war. Roused to a wrath that had slept for centuries, Treebeard led them — with the half-wakened tree-spirits called Huorns — in a march upon Isengard. They stormed the ring of Saruman's fortress, tore apart its walls and machines, and loosed the waters of the Isen to flood and drown the pits, leaving Saruman trapped and powerless in the tower of Orthanc.
Warden of Orthanc
Treebeard kept guard over the imprisoned Saruman and Gríma Wormtongue in the drowned ruin of Isengard, turning the place into a garden of trees and pools he called the Treegarden (Orthanc). Yet, true to the gentleness beneath his strength, he at last took pity and let Saruman go free when the broken wizard begged release — a mercy Saruman repaid by going on to ravage the Shire. After the war Treebeard hosted Gandalf, Aragorn, and the others, and was given leave by the new King to keep his forest free and to let it grow back into the empty lands, if he could.
The Entwives
Treebeard carried one abiding sorrow: the loss of the Entwives, the females of his kind, who long ago had wandered away to tend gardens and fields and were lost in the wars and ruin of the Elder Days. Without them the Ents could have no children, and their slow dwindling was certain. Treebeard's lament for the Entwives, and his hope that they might yet be found, is among the most melancholy notes in the tale.
Character
Treebeard is slow, deliberate, and immensely old, speaking in the long rolling tongue of the Ents that takes "a long time to say anything... that is worth taking a long time to say." He is patient and gentle by nature, reluctant to take sides in the wars of the hasty younger peoples — "nobody cares for the woods as I care for them" — but when at last roused, his anger is overwhelming and elemental. He embodies the standing of the natural world as a force in its own right: enduring, easily wronged, and terrible when provoked.
Relationships
- Merry and Pippin — the hobbits whose tidings roused him to war.
- Saruman — the wizard whose despoiling of the forest he repaid with ruin, and whom he later freed.
- Gandalf — an old acquaintance among the Wise, reunited after Isengard's fall.
- The Entwives — the lost females of his kind, whom he mourned and sought.
- The Ents and Huorns — his people and the half-wild trees he shepherded.
Appearances
- The Two Towers
- The Return of the King
- The Silmarillion (the Ents and their origin, briefly)
In Peter Jackson's film trilogy (2001–2003), Treebeard was voiced by John Rhys-Davies. The films have Merry and Pippin trick Treebeard into seeing the destruction near Isengard to spur the march, whereas in the book the Ents resolve on war themselves at the Entmoot after full deliberation.
Quotes
I am not altogether on anybody's side, because nobody is altogether on my side, if you understand me... And there are some things, of course, whose side I am altogether not on; I am against them altogether.
He has a mind of metal and wheels; and he does not care for growing things, except as far as they serve him for the moment.