The Green Book of the White Downs: Migrations and monuments: Part 4

Migrations and monuments: the story of the First Age in Eriador and Rhovanion

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📗 Part 4] Awakening the Shepherds of the Forests

When the Maia Yavanna saw that the Dwarves of Aulë would walk the land, she was fearful for the trees that she loved. Through Manwë she appealed to Eru Ilúvatar to give the trees life (or be inhabited by spirits): thus awoke the Shepherds of the Forests:

‘Nay,’ he said, ‘only the trees of Aulë will be tall enough. In the mountains the Eagles shall house, and hear the voices of those who call upon us. But in the forests shall walk the Shepherds of the Trees.’
-- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion (Quenta Silmarillion, Chapter 2: Of Aulë and Yavanna)

They awoke around the same time as the Elves, possibly earlier. Treebeard tells Merry and Pippin (via ableist language) how the Elves talked to the first Ents and taught them a shared language:

“it was the Elves that cured us of dumbness long ago, and that was a great gift that cannot be forgotten, though our ways have parted since.”
-- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Book Three Chapter 4: Treebeard)

This is confirmed in the Appendixes of the Lord of the Rings:

“The most ancient people surviving in the Third Age were the Onodrim or Enyd. Ent was the form of their name in the language of Rohan. They were known to the Eldar in ancient days, and to the Eldar indeed the Ents ascribed not their own language but the desire for speech.”
-- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Appendix F: Of Other Races)

The Ents in the early days roamed far and wide from Beleriand to Rhovanion through forests that stretched across the Westlands of Middle-earth. It is through their movements, as sung by Treebeard and also tracking other creatures, that we know at least until the Second Age that vast amounts of Eriador and Rhovanion were forested.

Elrond speaks of the Old Forest whilst quoting a folklore saying about squirrels (I wrote about this for the Tolkien Trewsday theme of “Trees” here):

‘The Barrow-wights we know by many names; and of the Old Forest many tales have been told: all that now remains is but an outlier of its northern march. Time was when a squirrel could go from tree to tree from what is now the Shire to Dunland west of Isengard. In those lands I journeyed once, and many things wild and strange I knew.
-- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Book Two Chapter 2: The Council of Elrond)

Aragorn speaks both of the Old Forest and Fangorn:

‘Yes, it is old,’ said Aragorn, ‘as old as the forest by the Barrow-downs, and it is far greater. Elrond says that the two are akin, the last strongholds of the mighty woods of the Elder Days, in which the Firstborn roamed while Men still slept. Yet Fangorn holds some secret of its own. What it is I do not know.’
-- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Book Three Chapter 2: The Riders of Rohan)

Even up to the end of the First Age these forests would still be linked since it was only with the Númenórean colonial expansion in the Second Age that there was mass deforestation in Eriador (and Rhovanion?) on an unprecedented scale which was later added to by the establishment of kingdoms and population centres in those lands.

We’ll explore the Entwives later when we discuss the Hobbits. We now turn to the race that caused Yavanna to fear for her beloved forests: the Dwarves.

Next:
📜 Part 5] Dwarf-roads to the fortress delvings: the Dwarves in Eriador

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Saturday 8 July 2023

Migrations and monuments: Part 4 - Ents

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