Root and Twig - LOTR: An Author's Journey, Bk 3 Ch 4

00:05 - Julia Golding (Host) Hello and welcome to Mythmakers. Mythmakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding and we are continuing our series today where we take an author's journey through the Lord of the Rings, and we have reached chapter 4 in book 3, that's in the Two Towers, and the chapter rather gives away its content because it's called Treebeard. Now, if you turn to this chapter, you'll notice that it is amongst one of the longer ones that Tolkien wrote. It covers a lot of ground, both in terms of how far they walk but also what happens in it. It's stuffed full of events. So I've broken it down into six main parts, not of equal length. So the first part is seeing Merry and Pippin on their own having escaped into Fangorn Forest. The second part is their meeting with Treebeard and going to stay with him. The third part, which I've separated out, is the talk they have with him because we get a lot of the history of the Ents. It's quite a long piece in this chapter. And then the fourth part is the Entmoot and the debate there. The fifth part is the little stay that they have sort of on their own whilst the Entmoot goes on with Bregolad, who is the hasty Ent, and the last part is the march on Isengard, where they move through the forest to reach Isengard. 01:47 So do you remember that the very first sentence in the Two Towers was incredibly short? It was like two words, look, in contrast to the first line of this chapter, because it's a very long sentence indeed. I'll just read it to you. Meanwhile, the hobbits went with as much speed as the dark and tangled forest allowed, following the line of the running stream westward and up towards the slopes of the mountains, deeper and deeper into Fangorn. So a long sentence, and what seems to be going on here, I think, is that we are being wound into Fangorn in that sentence structure. So it's very different from the short, sharp sentences where we're running and following and hunting. This is, we are wandering in and in a way getting lost, and this is what books and prose can do in a way that films can't. So if you remember the film version of this, if you've seen that it's all very rapid because they're keeping up the tension of the battle, Merry and Pippin run into the forest, they're pursued by, I suppose, grishnak and he's then stamped on by Treebeard and off they go. This we have a run into actually getting settled in Fangorn and it's also very much not the atmosphere of a studio set. The limitations on filming meant the Fangorn of Peter Jackson's films was all in a large soundstage. I'd love to see a filmic version of this where they actually use a real forest, but that probably will happen one day. 03:32 But this is what books can do. It can build the atmosphere. We don't have to rush from event to event and we can really get a sense of the landscapes of Middle Earth. Note that we also get more about our characters when we see them in new settings. Locations can have a character of their own. Fangorn is this old bearded forest. We've had the image of them like the first people seeing the first dawn in the previous chapter. Here their childlike aspect is and this youthfulness is emphasized by seeing them doing such things as dabbling their sore feet and legs and peering around at the trees that stood silently about them. What you notice on a reread because, remember, a book is so different when you first read it to the rereading it's like knowing the end of a murder mystery the second time through is very different, and this is the case here that we know it is significant that they're drinking from this river and they are feeling a lot better as a result and no doubt growing an inch or two. Anyway, it's their conversation here that I wanted to highlight. 04:50 There is a Shire reference here where Pippin talks about the forest, as it reminds me somehow of the old room in the great place of the Tooks, a way back in the smiles at Tuckborough, a huge place where the furniture has never been moved or changed for generations. We don't actually visit the Took house at all. It's referenced, but we are getting a sense of Pippin's background and he is thinking of the oldest thing he knows, which is this great room which is associated with the old Took, who is characterized as a sort of benign Miss Havisham Miss Havisham from Great Expectation, wandering around getting old in the room as he grew old, grew old. But of course, what this really goes to point out is the hobbit's yardstick is so much shorter than everybody else's that the old toque is someone who Bilbo can remember, so it's within living memory and that's the oldest thing he can come across, whereas we know that Treebeard or we get to know that Treebeard is one of the oldest living creatures in Middle-earth, so eons old. And then another stylistic thing here just to point out if you want to describe a place, why not give the description to one of the characters? So we've got Pippin saying look he's saying it ostensibly to Merry, but we also look, look at all those weeping, trailing beards and whiskers of lichen. That image has been used before, but we keep hearing that note played which is preparing us for meeting the creature who is very much like an old bearded man with his lichen. So we are being the breadcrumbs, are being led along to the next meeting. 06:47 Pippin also characterizes it as the opposite of spring. He says that it's. I can't imagine what spring would look like here if it ever comes. If you remember where we are on the timeline, we are actually on the verge of spring, so presumably there is a spring in Fangorn. But he also says there are no animals, and that's quite an interesting point, that it seems as though the animals have almost been crowded out by the trees. There is a mention of animals later, but we never actually see any. So it does feel an intensely tree-ish place rather than a forest as we would know it, where animals actually flourish. And Mary in fact says the thing about the treeishness. This is just him and frightfully treeish. So he is the one who points out that there are no animals here Anyway. 07:36 So they move on from there by the happenstance of the sun, almost spotlighting a way forward. You never quite know in Middle Earth if it's just luck or if there is something more intentional guiding them. I mean, obviously there's a narratorial intention by the author, but there is also powers at work, as we are being told by the characters. They go and climb the hill up to the ledge where there is just one old stump of a tree with two branches left. One thing I wanted to highlight here again, this is I've mentioned this several times in this journey that there are bits in the book which are sort of unremarkable, like nobody's favourite passages, but yet when you find them you think, wow, that's just so beautifully written. And I think the passages which aren't touched by film versions are even nicer as a result, and this is one of them here. 08:33 So this rock ledge that they climb up is given a very specific description, and this is the hallmark of Tolkien's landscapes. It's not just a green hill. He gives it absolutely. He's seeing something in his mind and he is relaying that to you. So here we go broader. 09:00 As they went on, and soon they saw that there was a rock wall before them, the side of a hill or the abrupt end of some long route thrust out by the distant mountains. No trees grew on it and the sun was falling full on its stony face. The twigs of the trees at its foot were stretched out, stiff and still, as if reaching out to the warmth. Where all had looked so shabby and grey before, the wood now gleamed with rich browns and with the smooth black greys of bark like polished leather. The boles of the trees glowed with a soft green, like young grass. Early spring, or a fleeting vision of it, was about them. 09:42 So I think the learning point here that I take from it is never throw away a place. Always make it something where it is very clearly defined and a place you could walk into, so that the readers feel that you know exactly what you're doing. Because these little touches, these deaf touches of these unremarkable places is what adds up to the entirety of the enchantment of Middle-earth. And we have another of these quintessentially Tolkienian moments where they stand together and look back out across the heads of the forest. They're now up the hill and we get the famous line here. Once they're up there, where Pippin is unintentionally rude as they're looking back out across the forest, this shaggy old forest looks so different in the sunlight I almost felt I liked the place. Unfortunately, he's saying that in the hearing of his host place. Unfortunately he's saying that in the hearing of his host Right. So now we get the introduction of Treebeard. 10:50 Let's just pause at that point and think about Ents. What are Ents? Where have they come from? Well, I think it's worth following Tolkien's own journey about Ents. He would have come across the word in Old English poetry, where Ents were regarded as giants, the creatures that you might have to battle if you were Sir Gawain out in the wilds. So they weren't necessarily a benign force at all. Remember the old man Willow. We've already had a kind of almost Entish tree, not quite a full ent, but on the spectrum. 11:29 And when he first started writing this story, the very, very first thoughts was that Treebeard was in fact and I found this quite shocking when I came across it in Michael White's biography. But here you go. Treebeard was originally thought of as a hostile figure who imprisoned Gandalf, and it wasn't Saruman who did that. So there, hard to imagine, because I've always thought that Treebeard was in fact one of the best at heart characters. But he started his journey on the other side of the heroes and villains sheet but was relocated as the role of the Saruman, the wizard developed, and I suppose also in contrast to the mechanized, ruined landscapes, because he stands for the forests and the old world. So Tolkien moved away from that very first thought and it shows you how, as a writer, do question your first thoughts, but they're good to have, because it's from that where you go say well, no, that's wrong. That response is where your story starts. They will know that's wrong. That response is where your story starts. So it's interesting to see the workings of Tolkien at this point and we also get a very clear impression that one thing that has remained from that initial idea of them being powerful enough to hold on to Gandalf is that they are more powerful than they seem and they are not to be underestimated. 13:09 This is one of my favorite introductions of a character in Lord of the Rings because, well, basically, Treebeard is sassy. He starts with sarcasm, so I almost felt you like the forest, that's good. Yeah, eye roll, or equivalent Entish equivalent and he comes back or claps back with. I almost feel that I dislike you both, but do not, let us be hasty. So a wonderfully comic but also characterful introduction. He is described as a 14 feet high, which is a decent size but not overly tall for a tree. And we'll pause here for the actual description, because I love the toes. Tolkien's good on feet, isn't he? Love the toes talking's good on feet, isn't he? 14:07 Whether it that's tree beard was clad in stuff like green and grey bark or whether that was its hides was difficult to say. At any rate, the arms at a short distance from the trunk were not wrinkled but covered with the brown smooth skin. The large feet have seven toes each. The lower part of the long face was covered with a sweeping grey beard, bushy, almost twiggy at the roots, thin and mossy at the ends. But at the moment the hobbits noted little but the eyes. This is where I think the realisation of Treebeard wasn't bad in the Peter Jackson version. It's so hard because sometimes characters work better in the half-realized world of the imagination. You can be a little bit indefinite, like that description. Was it its hide or was it bark? I think they did a very good job, particularly with the beard, with the twiggy bits near the base of it, and the eyes. 15:07 Of course I'm trying to delete from my head the filmic version of this and try and see what Tolkien was saying, and I think where we're supposed to rest most and put our concentration is the eyes. Our concentration is the eyes. And there's an interesting second description here where Tolkien turns to a later memory from Pippin. One of the things this does is that we know the hobbits survive in order to give this account. So a little bit of jeopardy is taken out by this, but it's fine, I think, because it does seem a story world where at least some of the hobbits will survive. But the description of the eyes is very long but also very thoughtful. Of course One felt this is Pippin and Pippin is suddenly finding this poetic register that we haven't heard from him before. One felt as if there was an enormous well behind them, filled up with ages of memory and long, slow, steady thinking. But their surface was sparkling with the present, like sun shimmering on the outer leaves of a vast tree or on the ripples of a very deep lake. I don't know, but it felt as if something that grew in the ground asleep, you might say, or just feeling itself as something between root tip and leaf tip, between deep earth and sky had suddenly waked up and was considering you with the same slow care that it had given to its own inside affairs for endless years. A wonderful description of an ent and a suggestion of what a mature Pippin will be like, because that doesn't seem like the Pippin of the early days of this book. 16:59 So one of the famous stories about Treebeard is that in a way he is CS Lewis in the book or a homage to his presence in the book. The Inklings often put each other in their books, often put each other in their books, and CS Lewis's booming voice was something that Tolkien was trying to capture with the hrum-hums of Treebeard. I have completely the wrong voice for Treebeard, so I won't insult you by trying to do it. You need a nice deep bass voice for this. I don't think it is meant that it's not like the professor, for example, in Narnia or someone like that. This is just meant as almost like an inside joke where everybody would chuckle knowingly that Jack's voice was being sent up a little with his poetry and his prolix way of talking. So we'll just do the nod and then we'll put CS Lewis to one side. He's not suddenly become a tree in the book, it's nothing as close as that. 18:05 So now we enter the conversations with Treebeard, and the conversations happen first of all while standing still and then on the move. So the first part of that conversation is where we get the first of the poems, and Treebeard, who has not had the experience of meeting a hobbit before, is not so proud that he won't go back to what sounds like a learning rhyme, the kind of thing that you might have learnt at school by rote. To enumerate, I don't know, kings and queens of England or something, here he's doing it for the different species and the division in the list is that sentient creatures who have speech, that kind of creature, get a whole line, whereas non-speaking creatures get half aligned. So dwarf the delver, darker his houses, versus beaver the builder, buck the leaper. So when the hobbits hear this they quickly work out what's going on, what the code of this learning poem is, and Pippin rapidly comes back with half-grown hobbits, the whole dwellers. And this is part of the well. It instantly earns Treebeard's approval because he likes the idea of living in a hole, but it also shows the nature of these creatures that he's just met to leap ahead of him. But he's not slow himself. He is very cunning, I think. Probably the difference is he's very methodical. If you know somebody in your life who will not be rushed, that is a treebeardish quality, so maybe that will help you put up with it in future. 19:57 Notice the evolution of Treebeard's speech. So he's using mainly common speech to talk to them and it starts with short sentences. Partly that is because he is not he's on his guard, but also, one would imagine, because he doesn't use it very often and he's got to remember it. So the first few sentences are very short, turn around. That's good, no sort of subordinate clauses. And then as he gets more comfortable with them, he gets more and more complicated in what he says. His sentences are longer and he starts to weave in some of his own language. So there's a sort of unbending. I know Ents don't bend, but there's an unbending in his language and it becomes more like Entish as it grows. I hadn't noticed that until I read it through this time to see that he does change in the way he speaks. 21:04 The greetings of the two people, ent and Hobbit, sort of stand for the differences in their culture. So you know, we love these exchanges, don't we? They're such great fun. Nobody else calls us hobbits, we call ourselves. That said Pippin. And then they say here's our names. I am a brandybuck, merryadduck brandybuck, though most people call me just merry, and I'm a toque, peregrine toque, though I'm generally called Pippin or even Pip. I'm very James Bond of them, though this predates James Bond Surname first, then first name. 21:42 But poor old Treebeard is rather left standing in the dust. He says hmm, you are hasty folk, I see. And so what? He gives them and it's told here. As a queer, half-knowing, half-humorous look that comes into his eyes. He says if I tell you my real name, we'll be here all day, kind of thing. And he has this line real names tell you the story of the things they belong to. In my language, in the old Entish, as you might say. 22:13 Now, if there's one thing that you want to take away from where Treebeard is like Tolkien, it's that sentence. For Tolkien, words were the story of the places that they came from, the same, but he could see that as an extreme version of his own love of language, as telling the story of a place, but he's also aware of how this can be humorous, because he is in a way sending up himself and other philologists, because there's this debate about the nature of what they're standing on, and Trivier starts his long name, which is reminiscent of those long place names in Wales, and the hobbits try to come up with answers for what that means Hill, shelf, step and Treebeard, after thinking about it, goes yeah, hill. So it's nice to see that Tolkien has a sense of humour about his own love of language as story. There's also a very wise and resonant passage here about trying to work out who's on whose side. So Merry's saying you know what side are you on, and Treebeard is saying well, it's not about sides for me, but how do you judge if he is a friend or a foe? It's this I'm not going to do anything with you, not if you mean by that do something to you without your leave. That's exactly what the orcs did. They did something with the hobbits. We might do some things together. So there you are. If you're working together with someone who's your friend and your ally, if they're doing something to you, manipulating you, having a malign force over you like the ring, then you can recognise the face of evil. It's quite a good rule for life as well, isn't it? This exchange where they talk, mary and Pippin and Treebeard actually is almost lifted word for word as the script for the BBC audio version, which shows you just what a good small mini play it is, because it's transposed very well to radio drama. So that's the static in the same place conversation. 24:47 Then we get on the move conversation. Tree Beard is carrying them and I love this touch that we are told that the hobbits feel safe and comfortable. Remember that books also provide you with an emotional journey. So the previous chapter was dark, confused, terrifying. It's a good idea to then move from that darkness to the light, and this is one of the chapters of light. It's full of comedy. It's full of hero, characters, delight, the magic and restorative powers of nature. It's the antidote to the bad medicine that we've just had as they walk. There are lots of fascinating parts of this conversation. Just want to highlight a couple. 25:34 He gives a critique of Lorien. We were left with the idea that it's almost this beautiful land outside time, but he gives the critique that it is. They are falling rather behind the world in there. I guess they have gone from being. They're fading, not growing. It was the land of the Valley of Singing gold. Now it is the dream flower. So he is recognising that the elves themselves are no longer at the cutting edge of history. We are entering into a different world where other people are going to be making the running. And if you think about the overall scope of the war in the appendices you see that battles were fought up in the north by the elves and so on, but it is actually the men and the Ents that actually do the heavy lifting in terms of the main front of this battle. Though the Ents don't know yet, they're about to step up and join the men in resistance. 26:36 They move from that to a discussion of the old forest. And here we have an explanation of why you might get a creature like Old man. Willow Treebeard says it's a shadow of the great darkness lying on that land. It's interesting that it was put in that way because that's not something that Tom Bombadil stressed. He talked about the rotten hearts of the trees. But it does seem to fit with the history of the Northern Kingdom. 27:09 And Trebea goes on to say that the role of the Ents are we are tree herds, we old Ents, and sheep get like shepherd and shepherd like sheep. So I suppose a reader might be thinking in our sort of musing why are there no ents today? Let's just run with that fantasy. He's saying that they're sort of there. The idea that there's a merging of that property, that they'll get more and more tree-ish, the idea that when we feel the woods are alive it's because they once were or maybe still are when we have our backs turned. This is something which CS Lewis transposed into Narnia, the idea of the sort of moving, singing trees. And of course they've both got it from the idea of naiads and dryads and folkloric versions of this. But there's a lot of cross-fertilization of the stories going on. Here we get the back history of the Ents. Here Treebeard tells us that the elves began it. They woke up the trees. This part where Treebeard is telling his backstory whilst walking is an example of how to give over necessary, well, maybe not even necessary, but interesting background detail, because Mary and Pippin need to know it. Always have that question in your mind Is it natural that they would ask these questions? Do they need to know it? At this point? And they have space, they have time. It's the first few hours of their communication with Treebeard, so all of this feels like the natural kind of conversation he would have and we have a lovely evocation of what it was like in the very early days of middle earth, for example. 28:53 There's a line here which I've underlined in my notes. The tree bit says I used to spend a week just breathing. That gives a sense of the purity of the air, the fact that it was almost all forests, and also the slow passage of time, how spending a week breathing was just what you did if you were a tree. So we've moved into tree time, not hobbit time, and this gives on to a poem. The unity in this poem is that of the seasons, but it's full of places. We don't know unless we go and dig deep in the Silmarillion and the maps and so on. So, assuming you haven't done that when you first come across it here, what makes it work or not, I think, is how much under a spell of the sounds of this language you fall. 29:48 The fact that he moves between speech and poetry so easily. He shares that in common. So easily he shares that in common. The hobbits do that as well at times. The elves do that at times. So it's part of the world of Middle-earth where to express something in song is as natural as saying it in speech. So that's the conversation on the move. 30:13 Then we get to Treebeard's house, which is beautifully described. It feels like a tree version of someone like Edoras. You have the larger hall with the pillar trees and then a retreat at the back. So we're still within this, more archaic structures of the old English world, as opposed to the Gondor world, which feels more medieval and Norman, with gates and ramparts and the complication of a city. This idea of it's a simpler grandeur, a natural grandeur, chimes with the way he characterizes it. He just simply says I like it. 30:54 Tolkien's very fascinated, I think, by trees. He said he loved trees. He had by trees. He said he loved trees, he had favourite trees. Sadly, his favourite tree in the botanical gardens is now only a plaque mentioning its place, but you can walk around Oxford and touch the trees that Tolkien would have seen. And there's a little detail here which I want to mention which shows you how closely Tolkien observed things as he was writing. He talks about the steps that treebeards takes, being toes first. If you think about how trees make progress, they do it by putting their roots forward into cracks and expanding that way. So he's giving the gate of the Ent, as far as he can, a tree-ish feeling. He may have a simple house, but it's not without its drama and its beauty, because we have the description of the lights which then pass from the bowls and the lights that he conjures up. One imagines it like a phosphorescence, a natural bioluminescence which then passes to all the leaves. So it's incredibly beautiful and ethereal. 32:11 The hobbits, surprisingly, are finding themselves full after drinking what looks like pure water. They do nibble some lembas just because they're used to eating, and we can start to see that something strange is happening to them, because the effect of the draught began at the toes and rose steadily through every limb, bringing refreshment and vigor as it coursed upwards right to the tips of the hair. Indeed, the hobbits felt that the hair on their heads was actually standing up, waving and curling and growing. Now, this is like those sort of fast forward David Attenborough programmes where you look at a fern unfolding or something like that. Tolkien, as a keen gardener, would know that in spring you could almost watch. You can see things sprouting and growing. If you stood there long enough, you could see them grow in a day, and that's the sort of feeling you get from this. 33:09 So Treebeard lies down, so the drink doesn't rise to his head, and we get the chance now for Merry and Pippin to tell him what's going on. We don't need to recap that, but what's interesting here is what it shows about the things that interest Treebeard. So he's interested in the Shire and he says that the Entwives would like the Shire. That's explained later on. But he's most interested in Saruman and we're beginning now to head towards what this is actually all about. It's not just a sidestep in the story, an interesting encounter. Like Tom Bombadil, it's actually going to be one of the major pieces in the puzzle of this battle, and Treebeard himself makes a masterful summary, even though they have gone back and fro in their storytelling by root and tweak. 34:01 But it is a strange business Up sprout a little folk who are not in the old lists and behold, the nine forgotten riders reappear to hunt them. And Gandalf takes them on a great journey and Galadriel harbours them in Caras. Galathon and orcs pursue them down all the leagues of Wilderland. Indeed, they seem to be caught up in a great storm. I hope they weather it. Pretty good summary. I hope you agree. 34:27 And there's then the conversation about how everyone's going to survive, and Treebeard, remember this is described later on as like the stones that start the avalanche. He says there is naught that an old ant can do to hold back that storm. He must weather it or crack. Treebeard realises that this is a fight for survival. How are they going to weather it? Will they be felled or cracked in the onslaught? And his thoughts turn to Saruman. 34:59 We haven't met Saruman, or we've only met him in story. We met him when Gandalf recounted his imprisonment, but here we get a longer version of Saruman as he has gone from seemingly politely sitting and learning the secrets of the wild, to being a man whose eyes are shuttered like shuttered windows in a stone wall. And further he has a mind of metal and wheels who is plotting to become a power. Treebeard shows he has no flies on him, because he has worked out that there has been some awful breeding program going on, because the Uruk-hai are not like other orcs. As he is doing this, the passion behind it grows. How do you stop your reader's mental eyes glazing over? Well, you put passion and energy into what is being said. 36:00 And as Treebeard realizes through this conversation and reminds himself of the evil that Saruman has done, he is like the first blast of the storm. His anger builds until he does this thunderous curse him root and branch and so on and fire shoots up from the bowls. His beard goes like a besom brush. Besom brush is like the sort that witches ride in jordan's illustrations twiggy brushes. But he has self-control. So he has his burst of anger and then he buttons it all down, restores his humour, he stands under the waterfall and then he's beginning to work out that he actually has to step up the roll call of Ents. As he thinks about who can come and help him. Then he's going. That sparks off the story of the Entwives. 37:02 This is a little bit aside to the main story, but we've heard mention of the Entwives a couple of times, so it's fun to actually get some answers why there are no more Ents. So is this story of Entwives? Is this gender politics? Because the wives are politics? Because the wives are characterized here as people staying close to the homestead, gardens, farms, not the sort of people who go out to strive in the mountains. Is it that? Or are we here getting a glimpse of a sort of sociological idea that you get pastoralist communities of the Ents sitting alongside the gardening and the farming, arable development of culture? It could be both, of course, and we don't hear it from the Entwives point of view. We do get this song, which is quite fun. 38:01 It's a two-voice song with an Ent and an Ent wife, an Elvish song. Again, we've got the seasons running through it. It's told in rhyming couplets. I would say that, in terms of just looking at it as a chapter, it is taking us quite a long time this chapter. That could be part of the point. Taking us quite a long time, this chapter, that could be part of the point. But it's also why, when you're doing something like a filmic version of it, you skim through this, because a reader might indulge you in not being hasty, but the demands of a narrative may mean that a blue pencil is needed for a script. So anyway, let's keep on going. 38:44 The previous day, or a few days, mary and Pip had been dragged from pillar to post by the Orcs, and here we get another of Tolkien's capstone passages. It's on page 81 in my edition, just after the song. It's the equivalent of the look-back moment. It's let 81 in my edition, just after the song. It's the equivalent of the look back moment. It's. Let's take a snapshot, let's crystallize this moment. 39:08 Mary and Pippin climbed onto the bed and curled up in the soft grass and fern. It was fresh and sweet, scented and warm. The lights died down and the glow of the trees faded. But outside, under the arch, they could see old Treebeard standing motionless with his arms raised above his head. The bright stars peered out of the sky and lit the falling water as it spilled onto his fingers and head and dripped, dripped in hundreds of silver drops onto his feet. Listening to the tinkling of the drops, the hobbits fell asleep. 39:44 Somewhere in that passage is the magic of Middle-earth Right. So the next section. We'll move swiftly on. Now we get to the Entmoot. Now moot you may have been in moots at school. It's the kind of debate. It is actually an old form of government where smaller units would gather together in a moot to debate. There was legal structures around this in the sort of Anglo-Saxon world. So this and you still find places called something moot here as a sign of there used to be a moot held there regularly, here as a sign of there used to be a moot held there regularly. 40:26 In this case we're going to where the Ents hold their moot, which is a place called Dern Dingle. As we go there, there is another evocation of how Treebeard walks along, humming all the time. He doesn't speak, he rumbles and hums to the trees. I'm not sure what they were saying in terms of biology in Tolkien's day, but certainly people who deal with trees these days talk about the signals and the interconnectivity of trees, that in a way, a forest is a whole living organism. So Tolkien's ahead of the game there in sort of sensing that the trees were in communication with each other and the fact that this is in daylight and there are so many different contrasts. We go from nighttime to daylight up mountains. It shows you. 41:16 Please read the book, because filmmakers take shortcuts. The whole of the Entish bit is mainly in Gloom and Twilight. It makes it easier to do the well, it's not easy, but it makes it a little bit easier to do the CGI. There's such a richer diet when you read the Ents in this chapter than watching a brief episode in a film when we meet other Ents. That's very exciting because Tolkien has set himself a rule that Ents are like trees, but they're as different as trees are from other trees, which gives us a whole range of descriptors for the different trees. And if you're wanting to write a fantasy world this is part of the fun you set yourself a rule about a race or a magic and then you just run with what that would imply. So if Ents are like trees, it means that you're going to have a tiny little willow tree like a dwarf willow, but you're also going to have a majestic Douglas fir, so you've got the whole range to play with. So rules are vital to fantasy to make the fantasy work, but also great fun to play with. 42:32 Another, I keep mentioning the film. I was sort of pleased with the way they did the Ents, but also disappointed. Pleased with the way they did the Ents, but also disappointed. So for example, here, in order to propel the narrative on, merry comes across as being quite rude and sort of get a move on. Here the hobbits are more, they are the necessary spark that lights this fire, but they are also guests and they wait for the Ents to move at their own pace. So there isn't that tension and that annoyance that you get in the film version, though Merry in this version does mention that Ents aren't as safe or funny as they seem, and Pippin has this very telling comparison between the difference between an old cow chewing in a field and a charging bull. And we also have a reminder here of the longing for their companions because they feel outsiders in this Ent world. 43:35 There's a short series of I think it's a day and a night where they stay with Bregolad, and Bregolad it has already made his mind up he's called Quickbeam. So Tolkien has chosen a tree that sounds hasty and, unlike Treebeard, bregolad takes them hand in hand as they walk around his favorite places and go to his home. He is differentiated from Treebeard by being, I would say, the merry ent. All that day they walked about in the woods with him singing and laughing, for Quickbeam often laughed. He's got that youthful, prime-of-his-life energy. But he too lapses into poetry. 44:22 I'm not sure about this poem. I do love Tolkien's poetry but this particular one does sound well. The declaration of O may fit with the sort of hollow sound of an ent, hoot bellow, but it also sounds easily parodied. But anyway, it's a poetry about a lament for lost trees. O, rowan, dead upon your head, your hair is dry and grey, your crown is spilled, your voice is stilled forever and a day. So we're with lots of internal rhymes there. So we're with lots of internal rhymes there. I don't know, not my favourite of Tolkien's poetry. I must admit One more writing point here. 45:08 If you're going to say, and they waited, and they waited, make each moment of waiting seem a bit flavoured a bit differently. So, for example, a second night came and still the Ents held conclave under hurrying clouds and fitful stars. So there we've got the pathetic fallacy. A pathetic fallacy is where you project onto the outside world, particularly weather, that it's what you're feeling. So say, if you're feeling sad and it's raining, pathetic fallacy is that it's crying. It's not really a fallacy in that it's crying. It's not really a fantasy in Middle Earth, though, hurrying clouds and fitful stars may reflect the mood of the hobbits. But there is a sense that the whole of nature in Middle Earth is an emotional landscape. So it perhaps doesn't quite follow the same thing of our real world version of pathetic fallacy. But anyway, the harmony between what the hobbits are feeling and what's going on in the world is a shorthand to giving you a sense of the anticipation and the difficulty of waiting. 46:19 And then we get to finally part, the sixth part, where the March of the Ents finally happens. This is a fulfillment of Tolkien's childhood dream when he read Macbeth. He didn't like the way the prophecy of the woods marching on Macbeth's castle was fulfilled, which turned out to be soldiers with branches in their helmets. He wanted the woods to actually walk and so he makes them walk. We've got a marching poem here which the sounds of it all these poems, the Entish poems, really work on sound, so they should be read aloud, I think, rather than just I read. It's the sounds of drums and booms, and because we've had to wait quite a long time in this chapter it comes as a release. 47:15 It seemed now as sudden as the bursting of a flood that had long been held back by a dyke the bursting of a flood that had long been held back by a dike. And as they walk, mary and Pippin go back to sit on Treebeard's shoulders. We get a fascinating little bits of lore. We hear that trolls are counterfeit Ents, which we might not have known before this point, and also we get the mood on which they are marching into battle, Treebeard. He looks sad but not unhappy. It's a kind of Ragnarok spirit, where the point isn't winning the fight, it's about fighting on the right side. So they know, or Treebeard knows, that this may be the last march of the Ents, but they are actually on the right side by doing this. And we get the suggestion of the Macbeth fulfilment here. What we now later learn are called horns are joining them, the trees are moving in behind to swell their army. 48:19 And after this magnificent chapter which ends with this trumpet call and the march and the sound, it goes silent and you get the dramatic end with Treebeard saying night lies over Isengard. We are on the eve of the battle. We've reached our target. We are on the eve of the battle. We've reached our target and that, dramatically, is where Tolkien cuts away and takes us back to the other characters. Leave the suspense, make us wait for the payoff. What happens to the Ents? And we won't find out for quite some time. 49:15 - Speaker 2 (None) Thank you for listening thanks for listening to Mythmakers podcast brought to you by the oxford center for fantasy. Visit oxfordcenterforfantasy.org to join in the fun. Find out about our online courses, in-person stays in Oxford, plus visit our shop for great gifts. 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