Entwives
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Entwives were the mates of the Ents. They had gardens in the regions later known as the Brown Lands and had taught agriculture to Men and Hobbits.
History
When Sauron burned that region to stop the advance of the Last Alliance down the Anduin, the Entwives were either destroyed, or escaped into the wilds of Middle-earth and were lost to the Ents (or so the Ents themselves believed). Some of those who fled to the East were probably enslaved as farmers to feed the armies of the Men of Darkness.[1]
Treebeard would tell Merry and Pippin that the Entwives would love their country. Indeed sometime before the War of the Ring, Halfast Gamgee claimed that he saw an elm-like "Tree-Man" walking in the North Moors.[2] However, it was never learned whether the "Tree-Man" was an Ent, an Entwife, or just a story.
Background
One of the primary daggers on the survival of the Entwives is found in Letter 144 of The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien:
- "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..."
- ― Letter 144
In 2017, a Quora user named Pip Willis published a partial image of a map he says his father drew and shared with J.R.R. Tolkien in 1971. Willis says that Tolkien wrote on the map "Here may be Entwives", in an area on the east bank a southern bow of the river Carnen, flowing into the Sea of Rhûn.[3][4]
See also
- Images of Entwives
- The Ent and the Entwife (song/poem)
External Links
- Of the Ents and the Entwives - An essay on the location of the Entwives by Ardamir.
- I found the Entwives! - Theory on the location of the Entwives. (MinasTirith.com)
- I found the Entwives! - Discussion on the where-abouts of the Entwives. (BarrowDowns.com)
- What became of the Entwives? from the Tolkien FAQ
References
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien; Humphrey Carpenter, Christopher Tolkien (eds.), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 144, (dated 25 April 1954)
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, "The Shadow of the Past"
- ↑ Pip Willis, "After Lord of the Rings was there any mention of the entwives?" dated 22 May 2017, quora.com (accessed 7 June 2017)
- ↑ Michael Martinez, "Yes, but is it canon?" dated 24 May 2017, The Tolkien Society (accessed 7 June 2017)
