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Lord of the Rings
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Bk 3 Chapters 3 & 4
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Book 3, Chapter 4: Treebeard
On the run, the two hobbits ran deeper and deeper into Fangorn Forest. The forest was so thick the sun could not break into it. They lived on lembas and stream water. The terrain was getting steeper. They suddenly came against a natural stone set of rising steps. They climbed up to an open area. As they looked down into the forest a voice behind them spoke. It was a fourteen foot tall creature of a man-like shape with a large beard and a tree-like figure. He picked the two hobbits up and put one on each shoulder. He said he was an “Ent” and his name was Treebeard.
Treebeard sang a song listing the world’s creatures. Ents were categorized as “Ent the earthborn, old as mountains.” The song did not include hobbits, and Treebeard was not familiar with hobbits. Treebeard taught them about Ents, their unique language, their very deliberate modes of being, and their slow speech. The hobbits told Treebeard about Gandalf and the orcs and Saruman. The three decided to go to Treebeard’s home, and so he took one hobbit under each arm and took his long, slow strides down the steps of the hill.
The hobbits had a probing conversation with Treebeard as he carried them. He told them how Ents were “tree-herds.” As shepherds are for protecting sheep, Ents protect trees. He spoke about trees and their actions, about the long history of Middle Earth, He sang them a song.
Finally they reached a slope of the mountain Methedras, near the roots of the last mountain. He sat them at a table where he brought them pitchers of what appeared to be water but it was some refreshment that gave them vigor. They relaxed, and Treebeard lay down on a low bed and had Merry and Pippin recite their adventures. Then he told them about Entwives. Entwives were different than their husbands in that they preferred gardening as opposed to herding trees. They had been displaced and had been gone for a long time. The Ents all hoped they would return one day.
Treebeard offered his bed to the hobbits for the night. In the morning Treebeard proposed they go to Entmoot, a gathering place for Ents. He carried them as the previous day, and, after several hours at a fast pace, Treebeard stopped and using he hands as a horn blew out calls. He continued to do so for a while as he continued walking at a slower pace. At a spot, some two dozen Ents had gathered. Each Ent was as different from one another as trees are different from each other. Merry and Pippin walked about as the Ents had their meeting.
At one point in the meeting Treebeard introduced the hobbits to Bregalad, nicknamed Quickbeam. Bregalad would keep the hobbits company while the Ents continued their meeting.
The meeting continued on for three days while Merry and Pippin lodged at an Ent house. The Ents had made a big decision to invade Isengard. They would march together and challenge Saruman. Treebeard said this could be their last march and they could all be going to their “doom.” They started marching at a great pace. The hobbits noticed that the number of Ents had greatly increased.
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1. Finally we see personalities to the Orcs…lol. They are all variations of evil, but they are only evil. I guess there’s no conscience there. They have a mission. They have no qualms about performing the mission despite the morality of the acts.
2. When Pippin comes to from being unconscious, he asks himself, “Why didn’t the Orcs kill us?” There is this exchange with several of the orcs.
He struggled a little, quite uselessly. One of the Orcs sitting near laughed and said something to a companion in their abominable tongue. ‘Rest while you can, little fool!’ he said then to Pippin, in the Common Speech, which he made almost as hideous as his own language. ‘Rest while you can! We’ll find a use for your legs before long. You’ll wish you had got none before we get home.’
‘If I had my way, you’d wish you were dead now,’ said the other. ‘I’d make you squeak, you miserable rat.’ He stooped over Pippin, bringing his yellow fangs close to his face. He had a black knife with a long jagged blade in his hand. ‘Lie quiet, or I’ll tickle you with this,’ he hissed. ‘Don’t draw attention to yourself, or I may forget my orders. Curse the Isengarders! Uglúk u bagronk sha pushdug Saruman-glob búbhosh skai’: he passed into a long angry speech in his own tongue that slowly died away into muttering and snarling.
One of the orcs appears to have some sympathy for Pippin. “Rest while you can,” he tells him, but this only serve’s the orc’s purpose. “We’ll find use for your legs,” he says. It’s so the orcs don’t have to carry them. These orcs would prefer to kill them. They have orders to bring them to Saruman. These must be the Northern orcs. “Curse the Isengarders!” he says. And then I think he curses Uglúk in his native tongue. Uglúk is the one enforcing the orders.
3. Division between the orcs is the norm. Uglúk tries to hold them in line. This is a great little scene.
‘Aye, we must stick together,’ growled Uglúk. ‘I don’t trust you little swine. You’ve no guts outside your own sties. But for us you’d all have run away. We are the fighting Uruk-hai! We slew the great warrior. We took the prisoners. We are the servants of Saruman the Wise, the White Hand: the Hand that gives us man’s-flesh to eat. We came out of Isengard, and led you here, and we shall lead you back by the way we choose. I am Uglúk. I have spoken.’
‘You have spoken more than enough, Uglúk,’ sneered the evil voice. ‘I wonder how they would like it in Lugbúrz. They might think that Uglúk’s shoulders needed relieving of a swollen head. They might ask where his strange ideas came from. Did they come from Saruman, perhaps? Who does he think he is, setting up on his own with his filthy white badges? They might agree with me, with Grishnákh their trusted messenger; and I Grishnákh say this: Saruman is a fool, and a dirty treacherous fool. But the Great Eye is on him.
‘Swine is it? How do you folk like being called swine by the muck-rakers of a dirty little wizard? It’s orc-flesh they eat, I’ll warrant.’
Many loud yells in orc-speech answered him, and the ringing clash of weapons being drawn. Cautiously Pippin rolled over, hoping to see what would happen. His guards had gone to join in the fray. In the twilight he saw a large black Orc, probably Uglúk, standing facing Grishnákh, a short crook-legged creature, very broad and with long arms that hung almost to the ground. Round them were many smaller goblins. Pippin supposed that these were the ones from the North. They had drawn their knives and swords, but hesitated to attack Uglúk.
Uglúk shouted, and a number of other Orcs of nearly his own size ran up. Then suddenly, without warning, Uglúk sprang forwards, and with two swift strokes swept the heads off two of his opponents. Grishnákh stepped aside and vanished into the shadows. The others gave way, and one stepped backwards and fell over Merry’s prostrate form with a curse. Yet that probably saved his life, for Uglúk’s followers leaped over him and cut down another with their broad-bladed swords. It was the yellow-fanged guard. His body fell right on top of Pippin, still clutching its long saw-edged knife.
‘Put up your weapons!’ shouted Uglúk. ‘And let’s have no more nonsense! We go straight west from here, and down the stair. From there straight to the downs, then along the river to the forest. And we march day and night. That clear?’
“Stick together,” Uglúk appeals. Frankly it’s just manipulation. They call each other disrespectful names; their attempts at coordination is by mere force; anger and hatred lead them to violence. This is the opposite of the fellowship of the companions on the quest.
4. Pope Frances was fond of saying that division is of the devil. I’m sure others have said it before him, and I think this was on Tolkien’s mind as he created the Orcs. The opposite is also true: fellowship, community is of God.
5. The speech of the orcs is ugly. That is no coincidence. Beauty reflects God. Harshness, brutality, and hideousness reflects evil.
6. Merry and Pippin sustain themselves on Lembas. Obviously this is an analogue to the Eucharist.
7. I found the scenes with the orcs funny. There is nothing likable about them but their vulgarity, their tempers, and their peevishness which all leads to violence is funny in a cartoon sense.
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Actually now that I think of it, they remind me the fake wrestlers. All their trash talk which slowly builds to violence. 🤣
(so sorry for the late response, work and the scorching weather has been keeping me busy and very tired) I don't have a lot of notes on the chapter with orcs, but what I noticed is the orc names: Grishnákh, Uglúk... they just sound... strange, almost evil and not rolling off of the tongue as easily, as if reflecting their nature. I'm sure Tolkien placed a lot of emphasis on the various names he gave his characters and I think this is a great example!! Just like you said with the speech of the orcs, Manny: their names feel ugly.In this chapter I also loved this one line where Grishnákh said: "Little people should not meddle in affairs that are too big for them." And it's wonderful to see that all the "little people" in the story are bigger than these orcs, are braver than most men...
I have some more thoughts on the Treebeard chapter, it was so far the best chapter in the trilogy, I think.
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1. What I incorrectly remembered about this chapter was that the Ents were actual trees, not humanoids in tree form. Tree shepherds is an amazingly imaginative idea. That’s one of the most imaginative elements of this book. And there are plenty of imaginative elements.
2. Here is what they see when they first meet Treebeard.
They found that they were looking at a most extraordinary face. It belonged to a large Man-like, almost Troll-like, figure, at least fourteen foot high, very sturdy, with a tall head, and hardly any neck. Whether it was clad in stuff like green and grey bark, or whether that was its hide, was difficult to say. At any rate the arms, at a short distance from the trunk, were not wrinkled, but covered with a brown smooth skin. The large feet had seven toes each. The lower part of the long face was covered with a sweeping grey beard, bushy, almost twiggy at the roots, thin and mossy at the ends. But at the moment the hobbits noted little but the eyes. These deep eyes were now surveying them, slow and solemn, but very penetrating. They were brown, shot with a green light.
So is this a manlike creature or a man that has evolved to look like a tree just as sheep dogs look like sheep?
3. This is Treebeard’s first encounter with hobbits. Given he has such memory of Middle Earth, doesn’t it seem strange he has never heard of hobbits before? He says hobbits are “hasty” which is the opposite of the Ent’s personalities. Hobbits are short and hasty while Ents are tall and very deliberate.
4. Treebeard says that Gandalf is the only wizard that cares about trees. Is Gandalf the only good wizard? The only other wizards I know of are Saruman and Radagast, and as far as I remember both have alternated between good and bad.
5. Although Treebeard and the other Ents are huge, they treat the halflings with respect and care. Treebeard holds them with care under each arm, which contrasts with how the orcs carried them in the previous chapter. He speaks to them in a manner of an equal. Here is some dialogue.
The hobbits were silent for some time. They felt, oddly enough, safe and comfortable, and they had a great deal to think and wonder about. At last Pippin ventured to speak again.
‘Please, Treebeard,’ he said, ‘could I ask you something? Why did Celeborn warn us against your forest? He told us not to risk getting entangled in it.’
‘Hmm, did he now?’ rumbled Treebeard. ‘And I might have said much the same, if you had been going the other way. Do not risk getting entangled in the woods of Laurelindórenan! That is what the Elves used to call it, but now they make the name shorter: Lothlórien they call it. Perhaps they are right: maybe it is fading, not growing. Land of the Valley of Singing Gold, that was it, once upon a time. Now it is the Dreamflower. Ah well! But it is a queer place, and not for just anyone to venture in. I am surprised that you ever got out, but much more surprised that you ever got in: that has not happened to strangers for many a year. It is a queer land.
‘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:
Taurelilómëa-tumbalemorna Tumbaletaurëa Lómëanor,
that is what they used to say. Things have changed, but it is still true in places.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Pippin. ‘What is true?’
‘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, well 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.’
So Ents can become trees, is that what that means, “going tree-ish”? Nonetheless, Treebeard answers Pippin’s question with civility and openness. This is in contrast to the orcs of the previous chapter. The more I see contrast between the orcs and ents, I think it’s clear that Tolkien intentionally put these chapters back to back to highlight the contrast.
6. I found Treebeard’s explanation of the nature of Ents fascinating.
‘We are tree-herds, we old Ents. Few enough of us are left now. Sheep get like shepherd, and shepherds like sheep, it is said; but slowly, and neither have long in the world. It is quicker and closer with trees and Ents, and they walk down the ages together. For Ents are more like Elves: less interested in themselves than Men are, and better at getting inside other things. And yet again Ents are more like Men, more changeable than Elves are, and quicker at taking the colour of the outside, you might say. Or better than both: for they are steadier and keep their minds on things longer.
‘Some of my kin look just like trees now, and need something great to rouse them; and they speak only in whispers. But some of my trees are limb-lithe, and many can talk to me. Elves began it, of course, waking trees up and teaching them to speak and learning their tree-talk. They always wished to talk to everything, the old Elves did. But then the Great Darkness came, and they passed away over the Sea, or fled into far valleys, and hid themselves, and made songs about days that would never come again. Never again. Aye, aye, there was all one wood once upon a time from here to the Mountains of Lune, and this was just the East End.
‘Those were the broad days! Time was when I could walk and sing all day and hear no more than the echo of my own voice in the hollow hills. The woods were like the woods of Lothlórien, only thicker, stronger,
It’s hard to say what Tolkien wishes to imply with Ents being “less interested in themselves than Men are, and better at getting inside other things” and more like Men “quicker at taking the colour of the outside.” That is interesting to try to contemplate. Getting inside other things might refer to seeing things from another’s point of view, but can’t begin to speculate at the meaning of taking the color of the outside.
7. I’m not sure I understand the significance of the entwives. The enwives did not want to follow in tree-herding but they enjoyed gardening instead. Then they went off to some gardening grounds away from their husbands. The husbands visited them on occasion, but then they disappeared and could not be found. What is the significance of all this? Is there a religious element to this? It seems rather odd detail.
8. I read somewhere that Tolkien got the inspiration for the Ents from Shakespeare’s MacBeth. In the play there is the climatic scene where the forest of Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane. The forces of Malcom, to hide their movement toward MacBeth’s castle, cut the tops of the trees in Birnam Wood and progress toward the castle, seemingly the trees advancing toward the battle. If I remember correctly Tolkien wished Shakespeare had written that the trees themselves advanced toward the castle. It was a wish but it must have inspired him to put it into his novel.
9. The Ents in counsel is Tolkien’s attempt to what good and rational government should be like. The Ents deliberate, exchange ideas, and convince each other of the proper course of action. And once a decision is made, they are of one mind and heart to carry it out. I wish my government worked like this! This again stands in contrast to the infighting seen with the orcs.
10. Finally, authors sometimes have stand-ins of themselves in the work. Does it seem that Treebeard is a stand-in for Tolkien? Treebeard is a wise old man with a knowledge of history and of culture around the world. He acts deliberately, with good humor, and with kindness. He deliberates in a counsel much like the Inklings must have done so. Treebeard has a sense of tradition and the need to act in virtue. He reminds me of Tolkien.
11. What a remarkable chapter!
What a remarkable summary! Thank you, Manny. I had read that Tolkien objected to Shakespeare’s portrayal of the forest marching on the castle: the ‘’forest’’ was only soldiers hidden beneath branches. Tolkien wanted the trees themselves to march. His response was to create the Ents, actual tree-like creatures that marched on the castle.
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Yes, I read that somewhere too.
Very good thoughts, Manny! If I remember correctly, Tolkien once told his biographer that he modelled Treebeard's voice after C. S. Lewis! I would be plausible that he took more liberties and inserted his best friend into his book, just like he did when he compared his wife to another of his characters, Lúthien, the most beautiful of the elves (from The Silmarillion)I think the entwives may represent the old forests going extinct? I don't know if it's the case, but it may be the "old-growth forests" of the UK and Ireland! But I found the story about them just really moving (I even teared up a bit when I was reading it!!)
I overall loved the ancient feeling of Treebeard and the ents, and how unhasty and slow they are, especially now in a world in which everything is fast. I think they are a bit of an antithesis to Sauron as well as the changing of Tolkien's world into a modern one:
"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."
It feels really timeless. I also loved the march of the ents, in their eyes their last attempt, that I think has been growing in Treebeard for a while (he even said: "It was not a hasty resolve.").
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These enormous forests are like a being on its own. Vast and majestic, and utterly intimidating and dangerous when you don't know where you are going.
Fangorn has a similar feel like the Old Forest in book 1. It is a remnant of ancient times long before Middle Earth. Whereas the Old Forest is inhabited by Tom Bombadil and closer to current times, so to speak, Fangorn has no human inhabitants and feels much older. One gets the sense it wants to stay isolated from them. The hobbits are not alone for long before treebeard appears and checks them out. And from then on he carries them as if they are in a place they don't belong.
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Yes, Kerstin, I think the forests, at least this one, represent a sort of ancient history and tradition that has survived time.
I do remember when I read LOTR as a young man appreciating Tolkien's love of trees. Ever since it has made me conscious of the trees around me and made me appreciate them more.
Here's a thought that just struck me. when you slice across a tree, it has rings across its trunk. I have not seen the suggestion anywhere but could Tolkien be thinking of those rings somehow connected to all the rings that fall under the power of the one ring? Probably not but it's a thought.
I think we all enjoyed the Treebeard chapter!
Book 3, Chapter 3: The Uruk-Hai
The scene shifted to Pippin captured to the orcs and waking from a troubled sleep. Slowly he recalled the events that led from Boromir fighting the orcs to he and Merry being captured and forced to travel to wherever the orcs were looking to go. Terrified Pippin lay quiet as they were all camped for the night. He listened to the orcs talking. They were arguing over what to do with the halflings. Some wanted to kill them immediately. Their leader, Uglúk, argued he had orders to bring them unharmed to Isengard. It was evident there were two factions between the orcs, Northerners who wanted to kill the hobbits and those that were loyal to Saruman. The argument rose to a fever pitch to the point it got violent. Uglúk killed two of the Northern orcs, then a scuffle and two more of the Northerners were killed.
Uglúk got his orcs back on the move, but now the orcs were tired of carrying Pippin and Merry. They unbound their feet and had them walk. They marched at an incredible pace. They camped for another night. Once again disagreement came between the Northerners and the Isengarders. Still a third faction from Mordor, led by an orc named Grishnákh, caught up with the other two factions. Grishnákh warned that the riders from Rohan were catching up to them. They all pushed on. Arrows from the riders flew into their group and slew more orcs.
The orcs stopped for another night and decided to brace up against the riders. Pippin and Merry for the first time were beside each other. They decided to eat some Lembas, the elf bread that provided strength. In the night Grishnákh interrogated them and finally untied them to search for the Ring. Grishnákh drew his sword to prevent them from escaping but an arrow launched by the Riders pierced his right hand, dropping the sword. Grishnákh shrieked away, allowing Pippin and Merry to get free. While the orcs were occupied with fighting the riders, the hobbits freed their hands and fled into the woods.