Old Forest
The Old Forest lay near the centre of Eriador, a large region of north-west Middle-earth. It covered about 1,000 square miles or some 2,600 km2. The forest bordered on the east by the Barrow-downs, a hilly area dotted with ancient burial mounds. In the north it reached towards the Great East Road, and in the west and south it approached the Brandywine river. The Withywindle, a tributary of the Brandywine, ran through the heart of the forest. This valley was known as the Dingle. The landscape aligned so that any strangers attempting to traverse the forest were funnelled towards the Withywindle. They ended up in the clutches of Old Man Willow in particular. Many trees were covered with moss and slimy shaggy growths. Beeches and alders were found here and there in the forest. Willows dominated along the Withywindle.
A malign tree-spirit named Old Man Willow grew beside the River Withywindle in the centre of the forest. He cast a spell on hobbits and trapped two of them. Tom Bombadil rescued the captured travelers from his grasp. Old Man Willow appeared physically as a large willow tree but spread his influence throughout the entire woodland. His grey thirsty spirit drew power out of the earth and spread like fine root-threads in the ground. Invisible twig-fingers extended into the air until he had dominion over nearly all the trees from the Hedge to the Downs. He possessed powers including hypnosis and the ability to move his roots and trunk. Some characters speculated he might have been related to Ents or possibly Huorns. Unlike those beings, he remained rooted in place without the ability to move from one location to another. Tolkien made a drawing of Old Man Willow while writing the chapter on the Old Forest. The sketch showed a face just visible above an arm-like branch.
Gorhendad Oldbuck and his clan of Hobbits settled Buckland and began to encroach upon the Old Forest. They re-awakened hostility that had first been aroused back in the Second Age. The settlers soon found themselves under threat from the forest itself. Trees swayed when there was no wind and whispered at night. They daunted intruding hobbits by tripping them and dropping branches. Deep within the Old Forest lay the Withywindle Valley, the root of all terrors. The Bucklanders planted and maintained a great Hedge along Buckland's eastern border. This barrier ran right along the edge of the forest for many generations before the War of the Ring. At length the Hedge came under attack by the forest itself. Trees began to plant themselves against the Hedge and lean over it. To counter this attack, hobbits cleared a narrow strip of land on the outside of the Hedge. They felled and burned many trees to create what later became known as the Bonfire Glade. The ruling family of Buckland, the Brandybucks, owned a private gate in the Hedge. Merry Brandybuck held a key to that gate during the War of the Ring.
The Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger observed that the Old Forest contradicts Tolkien's protective stance for wild nature. In an early draft from 1938, the Willow tree and the Old Man character had not yet become a single indivisible being. Instead, Tolkien wrote how that grey thirsty earth-bound spirit had become imprisoned in the greatest Willow of the Old Forest. In Manuscript B dated 1943, Tolkien linked a tree and a spirit which was non-incarnate mind. He solved the problem of how a spirit might become trapped by turning them into one entity at once a tree and a malevolent spirit. Old Man Willow first appears as a predatory tree in the 1934 poem The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. Matthew Dickerson notes in the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia that Old Man Willow is a prime example of corrupted trees. Tolkien wrote that all inhabitants of Ea can be corrupted and even trees may go bad. The Return of the Shadow documents how the character developed over time.
Frodo describes the forest as the shadowed land in the text. Tom Shippey draws on this context to suggest the forest could be an allusion to Death. John Garth writes that the name Old Forest seems plain but is pregnant with meaning. Forest derives from medieval Latin forestem silvam meaning the outside wood. It comes from Latin foris meaning out of doors. This glosses as unfenced woodland yet the Old Forest is very emphatically fenced out by a strip of scorched earth and a high hedge. Scholars have compared the Old Forest to Old England in John Buchan's 1931 The Blanket of the Dark. Peter Bohun disappears in the English Midlands around Evesham in that novel. The West Midlands were beloved by Tolkien because his maternal family, the Suffields, came from this area. Verlyn Flieger also noted that Bucklanders cutting hundreds of trees along the Hedge resembles destruction caused by Saruman's orcs.
The forest appears in the video game The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. In the MMORPG Lord of the Rings Online, a quest gathers lilies for Goldberry at the foot of Old Man Willow. Bombadil warns players that the tree will sing them right to sleep. Along with the adventure in Crickhollow, Tom Bombadil, and the Barrow-downs, the Old Forest is omitted from Peter Jackson's interpretation of The Lord of the Rings. The chapter titled The Old Forest first appeared in print in 1954 within book one of The Fellowship of the Ring. A fold-out map in the first edition of Unfinished Tales shows the forest on the right side of the Shire. This map has a larger scale than the equivalent map in The Lord of the Rings hardback version.
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Common questions
Where is the Old Forest located in Middle-earth?
The Old Forest lay near the centre of Eriador, a large region of north-west Middle-earth. It covered about 1,000 square miles or some 2,600 km2 and bordered on the east by the Barrow-downs.
Who is Old Man Willow in the Old Forest?
Old Man Willow was a malign tree-spirit named after the River Withywindle in the centre of the forest. He appeared physically as a large willow tree but spread his influence throughout the entire woodland to trap travelers with hypnosis.
When did the hobbits settle Buckland near the Old Forest?
Gorhendad Oldbuck and his clan of Hobbits settled Buckland and began to encroach upon the Old Forest during the Second Age. They re-awakened hostility that had first been aroused back in the Second Age when they started cutting trees along the Hedge.
What happened to the Great Hedge protecting Buckland from the Old Forest?
Trees began to plant themselves against the Hedge and lean over it before the War of the Ring. To counter this attack, hobbits cleared a narrow strip of land on the outside of the Hedge and felled many trees to create what later became known as the Bonfire Glade.
How does the name Old Forest relate to its meaning in Latin?
The word Forest derives from medieval Latin forestem silvam meaning the outside wood. It comes from Latin foris meaning out of doors which glosses as unfenced woodland yet the Old Forest is very emphatically fenced out by a strip of scorched earth and a high hedge.
In what year did the chapter titled The Old Forest first appear in print?
The chapter titled The Old Forest first appeared in print in 1954 within book one of The Fellowship of the Ring. A fold-out map in the first edition of Unfinished Tales shows the forest on the right side of the Shire with a larger scale than the equivalent map in The Lord of the Rings hardback version.
All sources
22 references cited across the entry
- 1harvnbTolkien, 1954a
- 2harvnbTolkien, 1954a p. book 2, ch. 2 "[[The Council of Elrond]]"Tolkien, 1954a
- 3bookEnts, Elves and EriadorMatthew Dickerson et al. — University Press of Kentucky — 2006
- 4harvnbTolkien (1977)Tolkien — 1977
- 5harvnbTolkien (1980)Tolkien — 1980
- 6harvnbCarpenter (2023) p. #339 to the editor of ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'', 30 June 1972Carpenter — 2023
- 7harvnbTolkien (2014)Tolkien — 2014
- 8bookChapter 9. Tolkien and Trees J. R. R. Tolkien The Hobbit and the Lord of the RingsShelley Saguaro et al. — Palgrave Macmillan (New Casebooks) — 2013
- 9bookJ.R.R. Tolkien : artist & illustratorWayne Hammond et al. — HarperCollins — 1995
- 10bookJ.R.R. Tolkien EncyclopediaMatthew Dickerson — Taylor & Francis — 2013
- 11encyclopediaLiterary Influences: Nineteenth and Twentieth CenturiesDale Nelson — Routledge — 2013
- 12bookThe world of the rings : language, religion, and adventure in TolkienJared Lobdell — Open Court — 2004
- 13bookJ.R.R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances: Views of Middle-earthVerlyn Flieger — Greenwood Publishing Group — 2000
- 14journalHow Trees Behave-Or Do They?Verlyn Flieger — 15 October 2013
- 15harvnbCarpenter (2023) p. #212 to Rhona Beare, unsent draft, 1958Carpenter — 2023
- 16encyclopediaOld Man WillowMatthew Dickerson — Routledge — 2013
- 17bookTolkien and the Study of His Sources: Critical EssaysMark T. Hooker — McFarland — 2011
- 18harvnbShippey (2005) p. chapter 6Shippey — 2005
- 19bookThe Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien: The Places that Inspired Middle-earthJohn Garth — Frances Lincoln Publishers & Princeton University Press — 2020
- 20webThe Fellowship of the Ring Preview (Xbox)Gerald Villoria — GameSpot — 16 June 2002
- 21webA Hero's Guide to the Old Forest18 February 2009
- 22bookPicturing Tolkien: Essays on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings Film TrilogyJohn D. Rateliff — McFarland & Company — 2011