What is the true fate of the Entwives?

[grishnak]

location of the entwives

I think that the entwives were not killed by eather Sauruman or Sauron, but are living in the old forest and are under the care of Tom Bombadill. Somewhat aggreeing to the quote that Beleg mentioned about Sam saying something about the massive giants near there.

 

[Grond]

Thanks to MithrandirII who posted this quote on another thread on the same subject.

originally posted by MithrandirII on another thread
"I think 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."

Letters of JRR Tolkien #144

and...

"As for the Entwives: I do not know... But I think it is plain that there would be no reunion in 'history' - but Ents and their wives being rational creatures would find some 'earthly paradise' until the end of the world: beyond which the wisdom neither of Elves or Ents could see."

Letters of JRR Tolkien #338

These are the author's thoughts on what happened and he ought to know the mostest.

 

[Beleg Strongbow]

Originally posted by Grond
Thanks to MithrandirII who posted this quote on another thread on the same subject.

These are the author's thoughts on what happened and he ought to know the mostest.

Grond that is the first i have heard of that thanks!

 

[QueenBeruthiel]

Where are the Entwives?

A question for other LOTR fans-
Have the Entwives all ceased to exist, and if not where in ME are they?
I was re-reading FOTR the other day and thought about what Sam had said to Sandyman in the inn right at the beginning, that his cousin Hal had seen a tree walking across the shire "as big as an elm...walking mind you..and there aint no elm on the north moors" (or something like that). So I was thinking could this be one of the elusive Entwives?

 

[Niniel]

I wsa thinking that maybe there live Entwives in the Old Forest, beacse the Old Forest and Fangorn are the only remainders of the old forest that covered a great part of Middle-Earth. But then again the trees in the Old Forest are evil ands the Ents are not.

 

[Goldberry]

Re: Where are the Entwives?

Originally posted by QueenBeruthiel
A question for other LOTR fans-
Have the Entwives all ceased to exist, and if not where in ME are they?
I was re-reading FOTR the other day and thought about what Sam had said to Sandyman in the inn right at the beginning, that his cousin Hal had seen a tree walking across the shire "as big as an elm...walking mind you..and there aint no elm on the north moors" (or something like that). So I was thinking could this be one of the elusive Entwives?

I missed that! That is a very good point. If the Entwives are near or in the Shire, maybe that is why it is so pretty.

 

[Lantarion]

All of the Entwives were killed by Sauron some time in the end of the Second Age, as he destroyed their gardens (now the Brown Lands). But I think that some were not killed straight away, and that they fled to faraway forest. That might be the explanation for the 'strangeness' in the Old Forest: the Entwives fled there but turned 'tree-like' because of lack of interaction with other Ents. They basically turned into angry Huorns. IMHO, mind you.
I think the hobbling tree Sam's cousin saw was a Huorn, not an Entwife.

 

[Dûndorer]

i dont get, it he killed all the ent wives. but didnt kill any ents.

 

[Wonko The Sane]

Whatever happened to those entwife things?

 

[Dûndorer]

it slips my mind. didnt someone start beating them so they ran away? or there gardens couldnt grow or somethin?

 

[wonko]

hahaha, i dont think anyone could beat an entwife... didnt they grow apart from the ents because they wanted to have control over the earth they cultivated (i.e. making gardens look pretty) and the ents just wanted to let things grow and kind of watch over them in a passive sort of way... whatever happened to them i think their story is possibly one of the most tragic in LOTR.

 

[Lantarion]

Here we go again..

As has been stated in quadrillions of threads (which I cannot be bothered to dig up), (supposedly all) the Entiwives were killed and their gardens destroyed by Sauron in the end of the Second Age or so. But it has been argued in one of the quadrillion threads that the 'walking elm' might have been an Entwife: I personally think that the walking elm was a Huorn, and that the remaining Entwives fled to the Old Forest and grew bitter and half-'evil' in their loneliness.

 

[wonko]

seriously pontifex? i don't remember hearing about that but i'll take your word for it... that's sucky, it makes the ents story so much sadder... poo

 

[Gil-Galad]

Again and again Pontifex is right.What else can be wrtitten?!Nothing...

 

[Dûndorer]

so they were beatin and some of them ran away right?

 

[Ithrynluin]

As I said in another thread, I believe that the Entwives(at least some of them) are still alive in the woods around Shire and Bree and thus there is a glimmer of hope for the race of Ents - and maybe little Ent-children roamed the forests after the end of the Third Age.

Now,isn't this a much happier explanation?

 

[Gary Gamgee]

Conversation in The Green Dragon Inn?

Remember the conversation the Sam had with Ted Sandyman in the Green Dragon? I was wondering about these tree men Sam was talking about...

'but what about these Tree-men, these giants, as you might call them? They do say that one bigger than a tree was seen up away beyond the North Moors not long back'

Who are these Tree-men? He went on...

"But this one was as big as an elm tree, and walking-walking seven yards to an inch'

At first I thought they where rangers but no ranger is tall enough to walk seven yards in one stride. These Tree-men have to be Ents, surely. Tolkien was fond of hinting at things that would come later. But I thought the Ents haven't left Fangorn for a very long time, at that to Ents would be long indeed. Not the 20 years or so it took for Merry and Pip to reach Fangorn. Perhaps these Tree-men where not Tree-men but Tree-women, are these the long lost Entwives?

I wonder...

 

[Ithrynluin]

Yes,I believe these "tree-men" were indeed the Entwives,who have been long sundered from the Ents.
Do you remember Treebeard's song? It was kind of sad and tragic, but I think it ends quite optimistically,with Ents and Entwives being reunited again.
YAY!!!

 

[BluestEye]

Entwives in the Shire

"'You never see any, hm, any Ents round there do you?' he [Treabeard]asked. 'Well, not Ents, "Entwives" I should really say.'
'"Entwives"?' said Pippin. 'Are they like you at all?'
'Yes, hm, well no: I do not really know now,' said Treebeard thoughtfully. 'But they would like your country, so I just wondered.'"

"The Two Towers", Chapter 4: Treabead

Treabeard, after he hears from the two Hobbits about the Shire is quite fond of it, and thinks maybe the Entwives went there because it seems a probable country for Ents... so it could be that what Sam talked about was truly an Enltwife.
But notice that Tolkien never wrote about the founding of the Entwives. He left it as a sad story. We ever know if the Ents found their Entwives and where these Entwives realy are (or were is a mystery that will never be solved...

Bluest Eye

 

[pohuist]

All Entviwes were destroyed when Sauron plundered their gardens.