Entwives

"I shan't call it the end, till we've cleared up the mess." — Sam This article or section needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of article quality.

Farewell to Fangorn by Luca Bonatti

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.

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.

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. 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

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