# Talk:Old Man Willow

From Karo6
RE: BACKGROUND -- Is Old Man Willow a Huorn? 
Tom tells the tale in Chapter 7 "In the House of Tom Bombadil":
Tom's words laid bare the hearts of trees and their thoughts, which were often dark and strange, and filled with hatered of things that go free upon the earth, gnawing, biting, breaking, hacking, burning: destroyers and usurpers. It was not called the Old Forest without reason ... and in it there yet lived, aging no quicker than the hills, the fathers of the fathers of trees, remembering times when they were lords. The countless years had filled them with pride and rooted wisdom, and with malice. But  none were more dangerous than the Great Willow: his heart was rotten, but his strength was green; and he was cunning, and a master of winds, and his song and thought ran through the woods on both sides of the river. His grey thirsty spirit drew power out of the earth and spread like fine root-threads in the ground, and invisible twig-fingers in the air, till it had under its dominion nearly all the trees of the Forest from the hedge to the Downs." (FotR, chpt 7 "In the Houe of Tom Bombadil," hb ver, p. 141) 
But, in an earlier version, we have the same general quote which has some significant data that was cut from the final, published LotR.
In a note from Chris Tolkien: "The passage concerning Old Man Willow was first written thus: 'Amongst his talk there was here and there much said of Old Man Willow, and Merry learned enough to content him (more than enough, for it was not comfortable lore), though not enough for him to understand how that grey thirty earth-bound spirit had become imprisoned in the greatest Willow of the Forest. The tree did not die, though its heart went rotten, while the malice of the Old Man drew power out of earth and water, and spread like a net, like fine root-threads in the ground, and invisible twig-fingers in the air, till it had infected or subjugated nearly all the trees on both sides of the valley.'" (History of the Lord of the Rings, part 1, "The Return of the Shadow," pp 120-21)
Apparently Old Man Willow was originally a composite creature, part evil "disembodied" spirit, and part a simple willow tree. No mention is made here of either Ents or their lesser sidekicks, the Huorns. From a note by CT, on p. 110, RotS, a general date for this early version is given as the summer of 1938, significantly before JRRT developed the vegetable-style Ents, and at a time when he was still playing around with the more traditional "anthropomorphic" Stone Giants, such as those found in The Hobbit.
If we accept JRRT at his word, I find it difficult to view Old Man Willow as even a potential Huorn.

It's been a number of years since I saw the cinematic cut, but I thought the scene with the willow took place only in the extended edition on DVD. If I'm right, this should be noted in the article. - Hayter 11:52, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Is any of the folklore that was listed under the title "trivia" actually relevant to the character?  I added the English folklore because it could actually be a source.  Goldfritha 04:36, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

moved to willow87.102.114.215 (talk) 23:12, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry - the title says it all, also tidied a bit. (see above)87.102.114.215 (talk) 23:12, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Infobox contains specualtion and original research, image is copyright. Don't accept fair-use criteria here.87.102.114.215 (talk) 23:19, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

"This description and its context make it clear that the Great Willow was originally a tree, despite its evident malicious sentience and power."
This statement is an opinion presented as a fact. Its apparent purpose is to influence the reader's formation of their own opinion about the facts presented.
The fact that Bombadil referred to old man willow as a "powerful singer" (a possible reference the Valar who sang the cosmos into existence) is conspicuously left out of the article.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.105.130.132 (talk) 01:49, 11 October 2011 (UTC) 

@Bless the lord oh my soul: has deleted images from this and at least 2 other Tolkien-related articles via mobile edits as of the time I write this comment. The edit comments don't provide any explanation for why the images have been removed from the articles. The other articles are Decline_and_fall_in_Middle-earth and Númenor. I'm not sure these edits should be reverted. I will leave similar comments on the other 2 articles. The edits should be reviewed by the community, in my opinion. Michael Martinez (talk) 00:30, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

They're unambiguously "unexplained deletion of content". I've reverted them and warned the editor. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:59, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
Noted. Thanks for the quick response. Michael Martinez (talk) 14:14, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

Sketch Map of The Shire.svg
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 19:15, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Hi Chiswick Chap I noticed there is some unsourced content in this Good Article, specifically in the Adaptations section. Fieryninja (talk) 23:17, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. One bit of IP-accretion removed; the rest is actually all Rateliff, but the same IP helpfully split the cited text into mini-paragraphs without repeating the ref ... fixed now. You only have to turn your back... Really the problem is that Wikipedia uses plain text and *separate* citations. In a well-designed system, there would be database objects which consisted of text, source, and other attributes indissolubly welded together. Then the addition of an unsourced object would be difficult and instantly flagged, and the splitting of an object, as here, would simply repeat the source. Chiswick Chap (talk) 06:05, 14 February 2024 (UTC)