Ents

Ents, also known as Onodrim (Tree-host) by the Elves, were a very old race of Middle-earth. They were apparently created at the behest of Yavanna after she learned of Aulë's children, the Dwarves, knowing that they would want to fell trees. Becoming "shepherds" of the trees, they protected certain forests from Orcs and other perils. The Elves had tales of teaching the trees and Ents to talk: although the Ents were sapient beings at the time, they did not know how to speak until the Elves taught them. Treebeard spoke of the Elves "curing the Ents of their dumbness", an unforgettable gift. They were the second of the Free Peoples of the World.
== Description ==
Ents were tree-like creatures who over millennia became more and more like the trees they herded. They varied in height, size, colouring, and number of fingers and toes. An individual Ent usually resembled the species of tree they guarded. For example, Quickbeam guarded rowan trees and resembled them closely (tall and slender, etc.).
Ents were very strong, as recounted by Merry and Pippin: "Their punches can crumple iron like tin, and they can tear apart solid rock like breadcrusts." In the Third Age, the forest of Fangorn was supposedly the last remaining residence of Ents, though Huorns still dwelt in other places such as the Old Forest.
== History ==
Evidence of the origin of the Ents can be found in the Valaquenta, in an exchange between Yavanna (a queen of the Valar, "...lover of all things that grow in the earth.") and Manwë ("...the first of all Kings: lord of the realm of Arda."), after Yavanna's spouse Aulë secretly endeavors to create the Dwarves. Aulë reminds her that the children of Ilúvatar (Elves, Men and now Dwarves) will exploit her creations for their own benefit, "though not without respect and gratitude." The defenselessness of her realm moves Yavanna to plead with Manwë: "My heart is anxious, thinking of the days to come. All my works are dear to me... Shall nothing that I have devised be free from the dominion of others?” Manwë responds by asking, of all she holds dear, what she would have preserved against exploitation, and she answers: "...the Kelvar can flee or defend themselves, whereas the Olvar that grow cannot. And among these I hold trees dear... Would that the trees might speak on behalf of all things that have roots, and punish those that wrong them!” Manwë, while deliberating, was overcome by a vision of the Music of the Ainur, and granted her request: "Behold! When the Children awake, then the thought of Yavanna will awake also, and it will summon spirits from afar, and they will go among the kelvar and the olvar, and some will dwell therein, and be held in reverence, and their just anger shall be feared." Yavanna returns to her spouse Aulë and reports: "Eru is bountiful. Now let thy children beware! For there shall walk a power in the forests whose wrath they will arouse at their peril." He responds ominously: "Nonetheless they will have need of wood."
Almost nothing is known of the early history of the Ents — they apparently lived in and protected the large forests of Middle-earth in the Years of the Trees of the First Age, and they briefly appeared in tales of the last six centuries of the First Age, attacking a band of Dwarves at the Battle of Sarn Athrad, supposedly having been summoned by Beren and Lúthien. Treebeard told of a time when all of Eriador was one huge forest and part of his domain, but these immense forests were cut by the Númenóreans of the Second Age, or destroyed in the calamitous War of the Elves and Sauron of the 17th century of the Second Age. Treebeard's statement is also supported by remarks that Elrond made at the Council of Elrond. Elrond said that "Time was once when a squirrel could carry a nut from tree to tree from Rivendell to the Great Sea...", further indicating that all of Eriador was once a single vast primeval forest, of which Fangorn Forest was just "the eastern end of it" according to Treebeard.
Treebeard boasted to Merry and Pippin about the strength of the Ents. He said that they were much more powerful than Trolls, which Morgoth (in the Elder Days or First Age) supposedly made as imitations of the Ents, but did not come near to their power. He compares this with how Orcs were Morgoth's imitation of Elves. There used to be Entwives (literally "ent-women"), but they started to move farther away from the Ents because they liked to plant and control things, so they moved away to the region that would later become the Brown Lands across the Great River Anduin. This area was destroyed by Sauron, and the Entwives disappeared. The Ents looked for them, but have never found them. It is sung by the Ents that one day they would find each other, once they would have lost all else. When Pippin and Merry tell Treebeard about the Shire, Treebeard says the Entwives would like that land. It is safe to say that with no Entwives and their slow decline with time, numbers of the Ents had dwindled by the end of the Third Age. According to Treebeard there are no Entings upon Middle-earth at the time of the Third Age, and there have not been any for quite some time. And there will never be any more Entings afterwards either, "as there are no Entwives". What exactly happened to the Entwives was something J.R.R. Tolkien wanted to keep a mystery, but in one of his letters, he wrote that he believed that the Entwives were all slain by Sauron as collateral damage in the War of the Last Alliance. While some could have survived, those that did likely either fled east or became enslaved by tyrants for economical and agricultural purposes., Letter 144
In , the Ents — usually very patient, deliberate beings — became angry at Saruman at last, whose army had been cutting down a large number of their trees. They convened an Entmoot, a meeting of the Ents of Fangorn Forest at Derndingle to discuss the argument of going to war.
After a lengthy deliberation of three days (which from the perspective of the Ents was a very quick debate), they reached the conclusion to head toward it and destroy it. Led by Treebeard, the oldest Ent, and accompanied by the hobbits Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took, they did so and trapped Saruman in the Tower of Orthanc. During this assault, they destroyed the dams built by Saruman's minions and thereby flooded the place. Following this, the Ents intercepted Orcs invading the Wold of Rohan, and sent them fleeing.
After the War of the Ring, the Ents were gifted Nan Curunír by King Elessar in gratitude for their aid. They moved many of their trees there and the place became known as the Watchwood and the Treegarth of Orthanc.
== Language ==
Ents spoke words of a slow and exhaustive vocabulary. In fact, Old Entish appears to be based on an ancient form of Common Eldarin, later enriched by Quenya and Sindarin, though including many unique 'tree-ish' additions.
Originally, the Ents had a language of their own, described as long and sonorous; it was a (like ). It is unknown if a non-Ent could even pronounce Old Entish correctly: it was filled with many subtle vowel shades, and was very long-winded. Only Ents spoke it, not because they kept their language a secret, as the Dwarves did with Khuzdûl, but because no others could master it. The Huorns and trees of Fangorn Forest could understand Old Entish and converse with the Ents and each other with it. The only extant sample, a-lalla-lalla-rumba-kamanda-lindor-burúme, the word for hill (or possibly even just part of the name of a specific hill), was described as a very inaccurate sampling. Even the Elves, master linguists, could not learn Old Entish, nor did they attempt to record it due to its complex sound structure. The grammar structure of Old Entish was also quite bizarre, often described as a lengthy, long-winded discussion of a topic. There may not even have been a word for yes and no: such questions would be answered by a long monologue on why the Ent in question did or did not agree with the Ent who asked the question. The Ent Quickbeam was regarded as a very "hasty" Ent for answering a question before another Ent had finished: the end may only have been another hour away. Ents as a rule would say nothing in Old Entish unless it was worth taking a long time to say. For everyday language function, they usually resorted to Quenya and Westron.
Due to contact with the Elves, the Ents learned much. The Ents found the Elvish Quenya to be a lovely language, and adapted it after their fashion to everyday use. However, they basically adapted Quenya vocabulary to Old Entish grammatical structure. Thus, the words that characters such as Treebeard spoke around other races were easily translatable. However, in context, they formed lengthy run-on sentences of redundant adjectives that could still stretch well over an hour in length. For example, when Treebeard essentially wanted to tell Merry and Pippin, "There is a shadow of the Great Darkness in the deep dales of the forest", he literally said, "Forest-golden-leaves, deep-dales-winter, forest-many-shadowed, deep-valley-black". Even when speaking the Common Speech, Westron, Ents fell into the habit of adapting it into their grammatical structure of repeating compound adjectives used to express fine shades of meaning.
The Elvish name for Ents is Onodrim, the singular being Onod.
Tolkien later noted that the Destruction of Isengard by the Ents was based on his disappointment in Macbeth; when "Birnham Wood is come to castle Dunsinane", Tolkien was less than thrilled that it amounted to men walking on stage with leaves in their hats. He decided that when he did that scene for himself, he'd do it right.
== Etymology ==
The word Ent was taken from Anglo-Saxon, where it means "giant". Tolkien may have extracted the word from the Anglo-Saxon poetry fragments orþanc enta geweorc = "work of cunning giants" and eald enta geweorc = "old work of giants", which described Ancient Roman ruins; see Orthanc. In this sense of the word, Ents are probably the most ubiquitous of all creatures in fantasy and folklore, perhaps second only to dragons. The word ent, as it is historically used, can refer to any number of large, roughly humanoid creatures, including, but not limited to, giants, trolls, Orcs, and even Grendel from the epic poem Beowulf.
In this meaning of the word, Ents are one of the staples of fantasy and folklore/mythology, alongside wizards, knights, princesses, and dragons, although modern English-speakers would probably not call them by their traditional name.
Tolkien's Ents are very different from traditional Ents, appearing as humanoid trees. They appear to have been inspired by the talking trees of many of the world's folklores. See for more information.
As with hobbit, ent is a term that in modern times is almost exclusively connected with J.R.R. Tolkien, and the usage of the term seldom evokes in people its earlier meanings.
== In adaptations ==
=== In The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power ===
Ents are featured in the of capturing those who wander into their forest somewhere north of Pelargir. They are portrayed similarly to the ones in the , but a bit more dynamic and not as slow in their speech. An entwife is also possibly shown. They use cages set atop trees that use branches as bars that enclose the prisoners.
== Ent-like beings in other fiction ==
* In fantasy and role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, EverQuest, Magic: The Gathering, and the Warcraft PC game series, Tolkien-like ents are known as treants or treefolk, for copyright reasons (much like hobbits are only referred to as halflings in Dungeons & Dragons and EverQuest).
** In the video game Dota 2, Treant Protector's appearance, name, and voice are based heavily on Treebeard, the eldest of the Ent race.
** Tolkien-like Ents are also depicted in the MMORPG of RuneScape (in the form of Spirit Trees planted by gnomes), as well as the real-time strategy game Myth: The Fallen Lords. In all their incarnations, these tree-people are very close in spirit to their Tolkien-esque forebears, although Dungeons & Dragons has also explored the concept of corrupt trees and tree-like monsters (akin to Old Man Willow and the Huorns of Fangorn).
** Somewhat akin to Ents are the ancients portrayed in the Warcraft universe.
* In the Dragon Age series there are tree-like creatures called sylvans, but these are simply trees possessed by malevolent spirits.
* In the video game Okami, there are cursed trees that attack by throwing poisonous fruit. However, these trees are merely possessed by dark magic and return to being normal trees once bloomed with the celestial brush.
* In the Harry Potter series, the Whomping Willow is a tree that seems to have a mind of its own and will attack anything that comes near it.
* The game Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim features daemonwoods, enchanted tree spirits that guard enemy lairs and attack player-characters that get too close.
* A tree-like Jedi appears in the Star Wars: Young Jedi Knights novels.
** The species that the Jedi belonged to, the neti, were a species of tree-like shapeshifters that could assume their true, more tree-like form or a more humanoid form.
* C.S. Lewis, one of Tolkien's friends, included sentient trees in his Chronicles of Narnia. Treebeard, however, was based upon Lewis himself.
* A game called Heroes of Might and Magic III uses Tolkien-like ents, called dendroids, as units that one can use in battle. From Heroes of Might and Magic V and onward, they are referred to as Treants.
* In The Wheel of Time series, the being known as "Someshta the Green Man", a nym, is very similar to an Ent in both appearance and attitude, in that he was a guardian of greenery in the story and his people worked to bring plants and trees to greater life.
* In the MMORPG Realm of the Mad God, Ents, Ent Ancients, and Ent gods are all enemy monsters.
* In the Elder Scrolls series, spriggans bear some resemblance to Ents; e.g., being made of tree bark, having the ability to blend into or with trees and forests, and being considered by many as the guardians of Tamriel's forests.
* In the film Maleficent (2014), a tree army similar to Ents defend the homeland of the fairies when humans come to take the riches that are held in their kingdom.
* The Marvel tree-character Groot bears many similarities to Ents.
* In the game League of Legends there are two characters that resemble Ents: Maokai and Ivern.
* In the video game Borderlands 2; the DLC "Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep" features an enemy called Treants.
* In the video game World of Warcraft, there are several entities that resemble Ents, called Treants. There was also a mount released in 2021 called Wandering Ancient Mount that resembles them.
*In the MOBA Smite, the Roman nature god Sylvanus has a Ent-like tree friend named Grover, serving as his mount and bodyguard. The hero shooter Paladins: Champions of the Realm also has a treant named Grover as a playable character. Though they share a name (both games being from Hi-Rez), Paladins' Grover isn't affiliated with any god and can talk, unlike Smite's Grover.
== Translations ==
Foreign Language 	Translated name
Amharic 	ዐንጽ ?
Arabic 	إينت
Armenian 	Ենծ
Belarusian Cyrillic	Энты
Bengali 	এন্ত্স
Bosnian 	Enti
Bulgarian Cyrillic 	Ентите
Burmese 	ဧန္တ္သ္
Chinese 	樹人
Croatian 	Enti
Czech 	Enti
Danish 	Enter
Dutch 	Enten
Español 	Ente
Finnish 	Entit
Georgian 	ენტები
Greek 	Εντσ
Gujarati 	ઍન્ત્સ
Hebrew 	רועי-עצים
עצנים
אנטים
Hindi 	एन्त्स
Japanese 	エント
Kannada 	ಏನ್ತ್ಸ್
Kazakh 	Ентс (Cyrillic) Ents (Latin)
Kyrgyz Cyrillic 	Энтс
Macedonian Cyrillic	Ентс
Malayalam 	എന്റുകൾ
Marathi 	एन्त्स
Mongolian Cyrillic 	Ентс
Nepalese 	एन्त्स
Pashto 	ېنتس
Persian 	هنتس
Polish 	Entowie
Punjabi 	ਏਨ੍ਤ੍ਸ
Romanian 	Enți
Russian 	Энты
Sanskrit 	एन्त्स्
Serbian 	Ентс (Cyrillic) Ents (Latin)
Sinhalese 	ඒන්ත්ස්
Slovenian 	Entje
Swedish 	Enter
Tajik Cyrillic 	Ентс
Tamil 	ஏந்த்ஸ்
Telugu 	ఏన్త్స
Thai 	เอ๊นท์
Turkish 	Entler
Ukrainian Cyrillic 	Ентс
Urdu 	اینٹ
Uzbek 	Енц (Cyrillic) Ents (Latin)
Yiddish 	ענץ
== References ==
Category:Articles with unsourced statements
 
Category:Races
Category:The Rings of Power creatures
ca:Ent
de:Ents
es:Ents
fi:Entit
fr:Ents
he:אנטים
it:Ent
pl:Entowie
ru:Энты