The Wisdom of the Shire

When Old Man Willow, the vindictive tree who lives in the Old Forest at the edge of the Shire, traps Merry and Pippin inside his gnarled trunk, we are introduced to a crucial aspect of Middle-earth: the Hobbits (and other sentient creatures who inhabit Tolkien’s world) are in a unique relationship with the natural world—a relationship where the scales could tip in either direction.*

In our world we like to believe we are the masters of nature. In Middle-earth, however, the wise know better. Here, nature can fight back.

Trees held great import for Tolkien. When he was a child he enjoyed having long conversations with favorite trees. Later in life, in a moment of exasperation, he wrote he would welcome Ragnarok (the mythological apocalyptic battle between the Norse gods) if only it would wipe out all the ugliness of our industrialized world and bring back his beloved and diminishing forests.

It is no small wonder that trees play momentous roles in Tolkien’s stories, both as living characters and as symbols. Mirkwood, the Old Forest, Lothlórien and Fangorn are more than just set pieces for the action—they’re epicenters of mystery and magic with rich histories hearkening back to the genesis of Middle-earth.

Tolkien’s Ents are some of the oldest inhabitants of his fantasy world, and some of the strangest as well. They were created by one of the Valar (the ancient demigods of Middle-earth) to serve as protectors of the forests. Later, the Elves taught the Ents to speak (apparently because the Elves just loved to chat with trees and finally wanted them to start saying something back). The Ents wandered the woodlands of Middle-earth—like humungous and powerful forest rangers in a national park.*

At some point the Ents lost contact with the females of their species and became isolated from the rest of Middle-earth as the great forests shrank over the millennia, remaining only in their stronghold of Fangorn. Here they live in a sort of egalitarian society similar to the Hobbits with Entmoots* being their primary method for communicating with one another. It’s at one of these gatherings where they make the collective decision to attack Saruman’s stronghold at Isengard, thus turning the tide of the War of the Ring.

Treebeard tries to impress upon Merry and Pippin (who come under his care when they escape from the band of Orcs who’ve captured them) the importance of not being too hasty. To the Ents there is a particular kind of insufferable foolhardiness in being impatient and impetuous. The Ents live as long as the longest-lived trees, after all, and plan for hundreds of years in the future rather than merely reacting to what is happening at this instant. In this respect the Ents are masters of sustainability.* A hundred years is nothing to them.

We humans could learn a lot from this kind of far-reaching vision. In our world it seems like corporations and politicians are far too eager to sacrifice the last remaining wilderness areas around the globe to tap cheap carbon fuel sources to run insatiable factories. Oil and coal companies are just like the corrupted wizard Saruman who cuts down Fangorn Forest to fuel the twisted machines he’s built inside the black walls of Isengard.

When Legolas enters Treebeard’s forest of Fangorn for the first time his Elven nature-empathy meter goes off the charts. He feels the living presence of the trees so strongly it takes his breath away. He perceives an overwhelming force of primeval memories. The forest thinks. And he can sense an anger growing here—a mounting fury in response to the evil that’s wreaking havoc outside of this woodland realm. Legolas, we learn later in the story, can actually understand what trees are thinking if he is only given enough time to commune with them. If only we could listen to our own natural world in the same way.

Lothlórien is another tree-filled wonder. When Frodo is brought to the last bastion of the Noldor* in Middle-earth he is overcome by the sight of the towering silver mallorn trees. Everything appears magnificent and radiant to his eyes, as fresh and new as if it had been suddenly created at that moment, and yet at the same instant as old as time itself. Sam describes it best when he says in awe, “It’s like being inside a song.”

There are places like this in our world that are filled with trees so fantastically beautiful they defy reason. Anyone who has stood beneath the towering redwoods of Stout Grove in Northern California, or gone “leaf-peeping” in Vermont during autumn have a sense of what the Hobbits were feeling. The sensation is something akin to a spiritual epiphany. And the sound of tree limbs creaking and swaying in the wind is indeed like being inside a song of the earth.*

In his essay “On Fairy-Stories” Tolkien wrote about the importance of fairytales in his own childhood because they gave deep and magical meaning to commonplace things he might have overlooked in everyday life, such as trees. Think of all the tropes from history associated with this simple word: the tree of life, family tree, tree of knowledge. The word “tree” for Tolkien meant more than just a big plant that sprouts from the earth. It was a living thing firmly rooted to the history and mythos of humanity (and therefore it had to play a great part in the history of his invented realm).

In the story of Middle-earth’s ancient origins, as told in Tolkien’s epic tale The Silmarillion, one of the first violent acts perpetrated by the evil demigod Melkor (the master of Sauron) is to destroy the two gigantic radiant trees that light up the world of the Undying Lands. In an act of jealousy and hatred he stabs the two trees with his spear, then orders his giant spider to suck out the sap and refill them with its toxic poison. The trees, needless to say, never recover. It’s Melkor’s equivalent of causing a nuclear meltdown.*

The Gondorians plant a descendent from a cutting of one of these beauteous trees high atop the citadel of Minas Tirith to serve as the symbol of their people. The White Tree, as it is called, flourishes for years, until at last it too withers and dies after the passing of the last King of Gondor. After Aragorn claims the throne, Gandalf takes him up to the nearby mountains where he shows him a sapling growing in the snow—a scion of this long-dead tree miraculously poking through the crust of ice. Aragorn replants the tree in place of the dead one. It’s an allegory of renewal and rebirth for the New Age of Middle-earth.

At the climax of The Two Towers the Ents are forced to make a fairly quick decision (which goes against every fiber of their fibrous beings) to defend their beloved forest from the axes of the White Wizard’s Orcs. Saruman has been cutting down their beautiful groves. They’ve seen the desolation near Isengard. Treebeard says that Saruman has “a mind of metal wheels.” The wizard cares not for growing things, and what’s worse, he’s been meddling with Orcs—changing them so they no longer fear to walk in daylight. Saruman is practicing genetic engineering! Isengard is the Monsanto of Middle-earth.*

Treebeard rebukes himself for not acting sooner. He’s grown complacent, he realizes, and let Saruman get away with one outrageous desecration of nature after another. The Ents storm Saruman’s walls, ripping apart stone “like bread-crust” and squashing the enemy underfoot, then destroy a dam, flooding Isengard and putting out the wizard’s furnace fires once and for all. The revenge of the Ents is terrifying and swift. Saruman should have known better than to kill trees protected by the great shepherds of Fangorn.

In our own lives the natural world is under assault. Our watersheds and forests (and we humans) are being poisoned by heavy metals from coal-fired power plants around the world, and global climate change is increasing due to our reliance on carbon-based energy sources. If we don’t change our ways, our trees might finally get fed up and come after us like an army of enraged Ents.

There are people who put themselves on the line, however, and challenge the status quo of the Sarumans of our world. Like Julia Butterfly Hill, a fan of The Lord of the Rings as well as trees, who lived in the top of a 180-foot tall redwood for over two years to keep it from getting cut down. Or the former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed, who was named a Champion of the Earth for his efforts to educate the global community about climate change, showing his vanishing island archipelago to the world—a compelling symbol of the threat of rising sea levels.

These two people have made a difference in a big way. But you can do your part without living in a tree or traveling the world as a diplomat of change. Find out what the environmental issues are in your area. Hold your city and county council members to a high standard, as well as your state legislators, governor and senators. Write an opinion piece (op-ed) for your local newspaper about issues that concern you, and call your representatives to let them know how you—one of their valued constituents—feel about what’s going on in your region. Use social media sites to inform your friends about the real news that’s happening in the world, not just what the media chooses to filter your way.

At the end of The Two Towers Frodo and Sam are just about to enter the Land of Mordor when they pass through a place called the Crossroads—the easternmost edge of the Realm of Gondor. Here stand a line of ancient trees, their tall tops blackened from repeated lightning strikes (courtesy of the evil magic of Sauron). But though the tops are dead and twisted, Frodo observes, there is still life in these august entities standing like sentinels of resistance to the evil of Mordor.

These are the last trees they will see on their journey to Mount Doom. There are no trees growing in Mordor, only brambles and thickets—the same invasive plants that take over lands in our own world after a clear-cut. After the Ring is destroyed, Sam and Frodo fall into unconsciousness on the ruined slopes of Mount Doom. They’re rescued by the eagles and carried far away from the desolate lands.* The very first thing Sam sees when he opens his eyes are the beautiful swaying boughs and branches of beech trees in daylight. He feels wonderful, he says, like “the sun on the leaves!”

The Wisdom of the Shire Tells Us …

“Heed the advice of Ents and never be too hasty, but like them act swiftly in defense of what you believe is right.”