‘Who is Saruman?’ asked Pippin. 'Do you know anything about his history?'
'Saruman is a Wizard,’ answered Treebeard. 'More than that I cannot say. I do not know the history of Wizards. They appeared first after the Great Ships came over the Sea; but if they came with the Ships I never can tell. Saruman was reckoned great among them, I believe. He gave up wandering about and minding the affairs of Men and Elves, some time ago–you would call it a very long time ago: and he settled down at Angrenost, or Isengard as the Men of Rohan call it. He was very quiet to begin with, but his fame began to grow. He was chosen to be head of the White Council, they say; but that did not turn out too well. I wonder now if even then Saruman was not turning to evil ways. But at any rate he used to give no trouble to his neighbours. I used to talk to him. There was a time when he was always walking about my woods. He was polite in those days, always asking my leave (at least when he met me); and always eager to listen. I told him many things that he would never have found out by himself; but he never repaid me in like kind. I cannot remember that he ever told me anything. And he got more and more like that; his face, as I remember it–I have not seen it for many a day–became like windows in a stone wall: windows with shutters inside.’
–J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, “Treebeard”
“Don’t be hasty!” Good advice for a Sunday! It is also @tolkientribe’s suggestion for today’s Middle-earth March topic. So, what better character to choose for our picture than Treebeard! We’d love to sit on his shoulder and wander through Fangorn Forest – after the War of the Ring, of course! We wouldn’t really want to be caught in the Ents’ march on Isengard… What an amazing scene Tolkien wrote there! Nature rebelling against its own destruction through the power hunger of a single person. Still very much up to date!
I think when I first read The Two Towers, I thought of Treebeard as a tree with eyes, in spite of the nice description that suggests otherwise. This is more along the lines of my thinking now - a tree with eyes, AND HILARIOUS HUMANOID ARMS.
Recently I decided to finally play the Lego Lord of the Rings game and it put me in quite the Tolkien mood. I’m currently rewatching the making-of specials of the movies and it all brings back so many memories…
As a kid I always loved the part about Fangorn Forest, so here’s a little fanart!
‘And so is this. Folk have come to grief here. Aye, they have, to grief. Laurelindórenan lindelorendor malinornélion ornemalin.’ he hummed to himself. ‘They are falling rather behind the world in there, I guess,’ he said. ‘Neither this country, nor anything else outside the Golden Wood, is what it was when Celeborn was young. Still:
Poems in the Lord of the Rings [45/84]
that is what they used to say. Things have changed, but it is still true in places.’
‘Hoo now!’ replied Treebeard. ‘Hoo. Now that would be telling! Not so hasty. AndIam doing the asking. You are in my country. What are you, I wonder? I cannot place you. You do not seem to come in the old lists that I learned when I was young. But that was a long, long time ago, and they may have made new lists. Let me see! Let me see! How did it go?
‘Hoom, hom! Here we come with a boom, here we come at last!’ called Treebeard when he caught sight of Bregalad and the hobbits. 'Come, join the Moot! We are off. We are off to Isengard!’
’… Then Orcs came with axes and cut down my trees. I came and called them by their long names, but they did not quiver, they did not hear or answer: they lay dead.
‘There was an Elvish song that spoke of this, or at least so I understand it. It used to be sung up and down the Great River. It was never an Entish song, mark you: it would have been a very long song in Entish! But we know it by heart, and hum it now and again. This is how it runs in your tongue:
Treebeard fell silent, striding along, and yet making hardly a sound with his great feet. Then he began to hum again, and passed into a murmuring chant. Gradually the hobbits became aware that he was chanting to them:
[ID: a photo of a digitally painted tarot card depicting two hobbits, Merry and Pippin, riding on the head of Treebeard the Ent. He walks through a field that has six swords stuck into the ground. The card border is made of vines, rings, and elvish writing, and is labeled: “VI of Swords” /ID]
Lord of the Rings Tarot: VI of Swords: Merry and Pippin find safe passage atop the Ents
