Where'd the Entwives Go? The Answer...

[Millane]

well i guess that is settled mind you i still like FB's theory... very good FiddlestickBundy very good.

[BeardofPants]

Footnote to Tolkien's Letters #131
The Hobbits are, of course, really meant to be a branch of the specifically human race (not Elves or Dwarves) - hence the two kinds can dwell together (as at Bree), and are called just the Big Folk and Little Folk. They are entiry without non-human powers, but are represented as being more in touch with 'nature' (the soil and other living things, plants and animals), and abnormally, for humans, free from ambition or greed of wealth. They are made small, little more than half human stature, but dwindling as the years pass) partly to exhibit the pettiness of man, plain unimaginative parochial man - though not with either the smallness or the savageness of Swift, and mostly to show up, in creatures of very small physical power, the amazing and unexpected heroism of ordinary men 'at a pinch'.

[Lief Erikson]

Well, these are a bunch of very imaginative and interesting theories. My own is that they live around or near Hobbiton, in the shire. I rather doubt that they are the Old Forest, but I think that they live in the general vicinity. In The Fellowship of the Ring, in one of the earlier conversations in Hobbiton, Sam has an argument with Ted Sandyman. In it, the fact that one, maybe two reliable hobbits saw a walking tree. I believe that this was an entwife, and the entwives had good reason to like that area, as some of the rest of you I think have pointed out. And besides, the ents didn't know about the existence of the hobbits, which implies that they never looked that far.

[Keith K]

I agree with Lief. Most of the clues to this mystery point to the Shire as the latest home of the remaining Entwives. The walking tree that was not a native species to the area "no elm trees in the Northfarthing" or something to that effect, is one clue. Treebeard saying that the Shire sounded like a place that the Entwives would be drawn to is another. The earlier suggestion that they were captured and turned into trolls has much merit as well. Perhaps the answer is that both of these outcomes occured. Those that escaped being 'trolled' hunkered down in the Northfarthing!

[bropous]

Tolkien himself, in the selection from Letter the irascible BoP posted, indicates in NO way that the Entwives headed northwest from Fangorn. He indicates an eastward trek, from the Anduin valley eastward, and in no way indicates even a hint of them moving off towards the Shire.

Based upon what Ronald himself wrote, theories that the Entwives ended up near the Shire are non-sequitur.

[BeardofPants]

You said it, Brop.

[Finglas]

Originally posted by bropous
Tolkien himself, in the selection from Letter the irascible BoP posted, indicates in NO way that the Entwives headed northwest from Fangorn. He indicates an eastward trek, from the Anduin valley eastward, and in no way indicates even a hint of them moving off towards the Shire.

Based upon what Ronald himself wrote, theories that the Entwives ended up near the Shire are non-sequitur.

It does seem logical that many of the entwives were either killed, enslaved, or turned into trolls by Sauron. That was what Tolkien speculated anyway. Nevertheless, it was only speculation. I think that since there is no contrary evidence, and given the 'walking tree' sighting in the Nothfarthing and the entishness of the Old Forest, the theory that at least a few of the entwives escaped to the Shire is not only completely possible but highly probable.

[Erawyn]

while Tolkien doesn't say that they went west, it is nice to think that the entwives were what Sam and others saw in the shire!

[Cirdan]

The quote does say that some may have survived. The last line, "I don't know", really leaves it open to any speculation, except maybe the hobbit thing. That's just crazy talk.

I wonder about the "walking tree" sighting as well.

[Firekitten2006]

Originally posted by Cirdan
That's just crazy talk.

ok....I'm going to forget that you are saying that a theory is crazy talk when you and other ppl are debating what happened to the Entwives. I mean, in books you really never know what happens to somethings. Its supposed to be like that.

[Cirdan]

Originally posted by Firekitten2006
ok....I'm going to forget that you are saying that a theory is crazy talk when you and other ppl are debating what happened to the Entwives. I mean, in books you really never know what happens to somethings. Its supposed to be like that.

Books? I have no idea what you mean.

[Entlover]

Originally posted by bropous
The Orcs were initially Elves who were taken and tortured, misshapen and twisted by Morgoth. . . . Sauron's final triumph over the Ents and Entwives was the foul offspring of nameless sires and Entwives, the hideous and massive Olog-Hai, which make their appearance at the Battle of the Morrannon. [/B]

It wasn't Mendel, I think, but another geneticist whose name escapes me, who cut the tails off innumerable generations of mice to prove that acquired traits cannot be inherited.
In other words, JRR to the contrary, there's no way Morgoth could have changed Elves into orcs by torture -- unless he used magic (which would be cheating, and all bets would be off). Neither could Sauron have derived olog-hai from Ents; (or hobbits from Entwives). Actually hobbits out of entwives is more possible than either of the above, but still unlikely. Ents are plants, right? Hobbits are mammals, like men.

[Valarauko5]

hmmm. I don't see why some of the Entwives couldn't have been turned into trolls and such, and yet some escape into the shire and some to the east. The lands to the east are never really talked about. But I really don't think they turned into Hobbits. That was great deduction though! *applauds loudly and honestly*

[The Dread Pirate Roberts]

Ents are not plants. They are man-like beings with plant-like properties or maybe plant-like beings with man-like properties.

I think a few Entwives may have survived but not in great numbers. I think an Ent or Entwife was seen in the Shire, as in Sam's tale. I also think there had to have been at least one lurking in Ithilien.

[Coffeehouse]

Tip: If you're curious about what happened to the Entwives, read Long Lost Leaves in the RPG thread. We'll be closing in on the answer within the next 6-12 months I think

[Varnafindë]

Originally Posted by Coffeehouse

Tip: If you're curious about what happened to the Entwives, read Long Lost Leaves in the RPG thread. We'll be closing in on the answer within the next 6-12 months I think

There could be reasons why our answer might not be considered canon, though

[Willow Oran]

It wasn't Mendel, I think, but another geneticist whose name escapes me, who cut the tails off innumerable generations of mice to prove that acquired traits cannot be inherited.
In other words, JRR to the contrary, there's no way Morgoth could have changed Elves into orcs by torture -- unless he used magic (which would be cheating, and all bets would be off). Neither could Sauron have derived olog-hai from Ents; (or hobbits from Entwives).

Unless by 'torture' he meant awful manipulation of their DNA. Given the semi-divine natures of the perpetrators, I wouldn't discount that.

Something else that should be recalled is that Tolkien only talked about the ents/entwives who dwelt EAST of the Misty Mountains. But it is likely that some of them once lived in Beleriand, and that those came into Eriador after the War of Wrath. There very likely were entwives, and ents, living ever more sleepy and enstranged from their eastern kin in or around the Shire, whose being there had nothing to do with escaping from Sauron. None of the other free races of Middle Earth ever existed as a population confined to a single location, not since the elves first started wandering away from Cuivenien, so why should we assume the ents did?