Entwives Printable version

Ents are a race in J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘The Lord of the Rings. They are like talking trees and they appear in Middle Earth as shepherds of the forest during the War of the Ring. Entwives are feminine Ents, brought to the Earth by Yavanna to work with their husband Ents for the protection of gardens [1]. They had formed gardens in some areas which later came to be known as the Brown Lands and their knowledge of farming was passed on to Men and Hobbits.​

Entwives are described as being extremely beautiful with hair having the hue of ripe corn and cheeks resembling red apples. They had the eyes of normal people. Though ents were the oldest walking being on Middle Earth, they did not know how to speak until they were taught by the Elves. They vary in terms of personal traits like color and height as they resembled the type of trees they shepherded. Entwives preferred smaller trees like flowers, vegetables, grasses, fruits, and others while males looked after bigger trees.​

Similar to Ents, the Entwives took care of gardens in the forests of Middle Earth. However, during the First or Second Age, they started moving far away from their husbands as they liked controlling smaller trees like flowers, grass, and vegetables while the male Ents tended the bigger trees in the forests.

The Entwives proceeded towards an area that eventually got known as the ‘Brown Lands’. The Ents used to visit them. The Entwives started communicating with the Men and gave them much knowledge about the skills of farming. They lived peacefully until Sauron destroyed their lands after which the Entwives disappeared on their own. The Ents searched for them but could not find them. They sang that they would find each other one day.

An Ent named Treebeard tells the Hobbits to inform him if they get any news of the Entwives, as described in ‘The Return of the King’. In The Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit Sam Gamgee says his father claimed to have seen a walking tree which gives some clue that the Entwives could have lived near the Shire. Tolkien himself considered so much about what actually happened to the Entwives and later wrote that they disappeared for good as their gardens got destroyed in the War of the Last Alliance [2].​

In Peter Jackson’s The Two Towers, Treebeard talks about Entwives and the way they got lost. He asks if Entwives lived in the Shire. When asked about their appearance, he tells him he does not remember. In the game ‘Middle Earth – Shadow of War’, there is a character named Carnan that resembles an Entwife in terms of attributes and appearance.​