The Destruction of Isengard

The destruction of Isengard was the work of the Ents, ancient tree-herds of Fangorn Forest, roused at last to war by the wanton felling of their trees and the treachery of Saruman. The assault began on the night of March 3, 3019, after the Entmoot at Derndingle had concluded. Treebeard led some fifty Ents, with hundreds of Huorns—dark, half-tree creatures—moving behind them like a rustling forest. They crept down a long ravine into the upper end of Nan Curunír, the Wizard’s Vale, and surrounded the northern side of Isengard before midnight. Saruman had emptied his stronghold, sending his army of ten thousand Orcs and Men to destroy Rohan, leaving the ring of Isengard nearly undefended.

The Breaching of the Walls

When the Ents reached the great gates, Treebeard hammered on them and called for Saruman, but received only arrows and stones from the walls. The Ents, impervious to arrows, began to warm to their work. They pushed, pulled, tore, shook, and hammered the gates until they lay in ruin within five minutes. Then they turned to the walls themselves, eating into the stone like rabbits in a sandpit. The few remaining rats in Isengard—Orcs and Men—bolted through every hole the Ents made, but the Huorns, a wood full of them all around the ring, caught most who tried to escape. Saruman fled in panic to Orthanc, barely reaching the tower before Quickbeam, a hasty Ent, could catch and strangle him.

The Flooding of the Ring

Once Saruman was safe inside Orthanc, he set his machinery to work, spouting fires and foul fumes from vents and shafts across the plain. Several Ents were scorched, and one, Beechbone, was burned like a torch by liquid fire. This sent the Ents into a fury. They roared and trumpeted, breaking pillars, hurling avalanches of boulders down shafts, and tossing slabs of stone into the air. But the tower of Orthanc, smooth and hard, defeated them; they could not crack it. Treebeard then called them off and set them to a different task. For two days the Ents and Huorns dug great pits and trenches, gathering all the waters of the Isen and every other spring and stream they could find. At midnight on March 4, they broke the dams and poured the gathered waters through a gap in the northern wall, down into Isengard. The flood filled the plain, hissing and steaming as it found its way into shafts and spoutholes, causing explosions and gusts of fire. By morning, Isengard was a huge, steaming, bubbling saucepan of water, with Orthanc rising like a dark island in the midst of a lake.

The Aftermath

When Gandalf, Théoden, and their company arrived at Isengard on March 5, they found the doors hurled and twisted on the ground, the great arch still standing but opening onto a roofless chasm. The ring beyond was filled with steaming water, a bubbling cauldron of wreckage. The tower of Orthanc stood, dark and tall, unbroken by the storm, with pale waters lapping about its feet. Merry and Pippin, who had been with the Ents throughout, greeted the company as doorwardens, sitting on a rubble-heap and smoking pipe-weed. Treebeard had taken over the management of Isengard, and the Ents kept watch over Saruman, who remained locked in Orthanc. The valley was later turned into a garden, the Treegarth of Orthanc, with orchards and a clear lake, but the tower itself was given back to the King, who entrusted its keeping to the Ents.