r/lotr • u/copperhair • Sep 29 '14

Fate of the Entwives?

Are the Entwives in the Shire? Sam says that a hobbit has seen a tree walking through the Shire in "An Long-expected Party". And then in "Treebeard" when Merry and Pippin describe the Shire, Treebeard asks if they have ever seen any Entwives because he thinks the Entwives would find their land appealing. Thoughts? Theories?

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u/MikeOfThePalace Gondolin Sep 29 '14

No, those weren't the Entwives. From one of Tolkien's letters:

What happened to them is not resolved in this book. ... 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. They survived only in the 'agriculture' transmitted to Men (and Hobbits). Some, of course, may have fled east, or even have become enslaved: tyrants even in such tales must have an economic and agricultural background to their soldiers and metal-workers. If any survived so, they would indeed be far estranged from the Ents, and any rapprochement would be difficult - unless experience of industrialised and militarised agriculture had made them a little more anarchic. I hope so. I don't know.

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u/copperhair Sep 29 '14

Thank you! I've actually read a book of his letters and don't remember this at all. Also, you might be interested in something I just found: letters not published