— Ch. 1 · The First Hostile Shadow —
Old Man Willow.
~5 min read · Ch. 1 of 7
Frodo Baggins sat on a root to dangle his feet in the water beside the River Withywindle. The willow cast a spell that made him feel sleepy. He fell asleep while Merry and Pippin leaned against the trunk of the tree. They also drifted into unconsciousness as the wind rustled through the leaves. The great tree then trapped Merry and Pippin inside cracks within its bark. It tipped Frodo into the stream below. Sam Gamgee remained awake because he was suspicious of the tree's movements. He pulled Frodo from the water before the current could carry him away. The hobbits started a fire using dry leaves, grass, and bits of bark. They hoped the flames would frighten the ancient spirit. But Merry shouted from inside the trunk for them to extinguish the fire. The tree declared it would squeeze them to death if they did not stop. Tom Bombadil arrived singing to release the two trapped friends. The Great Willow ejected the hobbits back onto solid ground.
From Poem To Complex Spirit
A predatory tree appeared in a 1934 poem titled The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. This early version existed in The Oxford Magazine when it first published the work. Tolkien did not arrive at the malevolent Old Man Willow character until some years later. Verlyn Flieger notes that an early draft from 1938 treated the Willow tree and the Old Man as separate entities. In Manuscript B dated 1943, Tolkien linked a tree with a non-incarnate mind imprisoned within it. The grey thirsty earth-bound spirit had become trapped inside the greatest Willow of the Forest. Scholars document this evolution in The Return of the Shadow. Tolkien solved the problem by turning them into a single indivisible being. He made the tree and the spirit one entity rather than keeping them distinct. This transformation took place over many years of writing drafts.Sketches By The Cherwell
Tolkien created a careful pencil drawing while he wrote the chapter called The Old Forest. Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull describe this image as a fine example of his creative support drawings. A face can just be made out on the right-hand side of the tree above the arm-like branch. John Tolkien suggests the sketch was based on one of the few unpollarded willows on the River Cherwell at Oxford. The University Parks there hold trees similar to the one depicted in the artwork. The artist described it as a huge willow-tree old and hoary. To the hobbits in the story the tree seemed enormous though Hammond and Scull observe it does not look so large in the actual drawing. The pencil work captures the menacing posture of the character that would haunt readers for decades.