The Awakening of the Ents

The Awakening of the Ents marks the moment when the oldest living things in Middle-earth, the shepherds of the trees, abandon their long neutrality and take up arms. For countless ages the Ents had been a reclusive, unhurried people, concerned only with their forests and their lost Entwives. But the wanton destruction of their trees by Saruman's orcs, and the treachery of a neighbor they had once trusted, finally stirred their deep, slow wrath into a flood that would sweep over Isengard and change the fate of the West.

The Gathering at Derndingle

The awakening began with the Entmoot, a great gathering of Ents called by Treebeard at Derndingle, a vast bowl-shaped dingle in the heart of Fangorn. Merry and Pippin, who had been brought there by Treebeard, witnessed the slow, solemn assembly of some two dozen Ents, each as different from the others as one tree is from another. The Ents spoke in their own long, sonorous language, a tongue so unhurried that Pippin wondered if they had yet got further than 'Good Morning.' For three days the Ents debated, weighing the news of Saruman's axes and the orc-work that had ravaged their borders. Treebeard, the eldest and chief of the Ents, had been roused by the hobbits' tale, and he worked to kindle the same fire in his kin, though he knew that to rouse the Ents was to risk their doom.

The March to War

On the third day, the Ents' voices rose to a great clamour, and then fell silent. When they emerged from the Moot, they were transformed. With a crash of trumpeting shouts, they began to march, singing a war-song that shook the trees: 'We come, we come with roll of drum: ta-runda runda runda rom!' Treebeard carried the hobbits on his shoulders at the head of the company, and behind them the very forest seemed to move, for the Huorns, the dark and dangerous tree-like creatures, were also stirring, wrapping themselves in shadow and following the Ents to war. The Ents marched through the night, and as they descended into Nan Curunír, the Wizard's Vale, they were joined by hundreds of Huorns, until the whole valley was filled with a rustling, creaking host.

The Destruction of Isengard

At Isengard, the Ents found the gates shut and the tower of Orthanc manned by Saruman's servants. When Treebeard hammered on the doors and called for Saruman, he was answered with arrows and stones. The Ents, though pierced with shafts, were not seriously harmed, and their anger grew. With their immense strength, they tore the great gates from their hinges and began to pull down the walls, their fingers and toes gripping the rock like roots. Saruman, who had emptied Isengard to send his army against Rohan, fled in panic to the tower, and the Ents, enraged by the fires and foul fumes that Saruman loosed upon them, went mad. They stormed around Orthanc, hurling boulders and tearing up the plain, but the black rock of the tower itself proved unbreakable. Treebeard, keeping his head, called them off and set them to a more deliberate work: they dammed the Isen and turned its waters into the ring of Isengard, flooding the underground chambers and drowning the remaining orcs. By morning, Isengard was a steaming, ruined pool, and Saruman was trapped in his tower.

The Significance of the Awakening

The Awakening of the Ents was a turning point in the war. It destroyed the power of Saruman, who had been a threat to Rohan and a potential ally of Mordor, and it came at the very moment when the Rohirrim were hard-pressed at Helm's Deep. The Huorns, who had marched with the Ents, descended upon the battlefield and annihilated the orc host that had broken through the Deeping Wall, a deed that seemed like wizardry to the men of Rohan. Gandalf, who had foreseen the Ents' awakening, told the hobbits that their coming was like the falling of small stones that starts an avalanche. The Ents themselves knew they were marching to their doom, but they chose to act, for as Treebeard said, 'If we stayed at home and did nothing, doom would find us anyway.' The awakening was a last, desperate act of the ancient world, a reminder that even the most patient and peaceful of beings could be roused to terrible wrath, and that the fate of Middle-earth depended not only on the great powers but on the small and the forgotten.