I Found the Entwives!

[Alcuin]

The argument that there was an Entwife at the top of the cliff in the Emyn Muil is, as far as I can determine, the only time an Entwife might have appeared in the text.

For reference, however, careful reading will reveal that Aragorn’s deduction about why the Ringwraiths did not again attack Frodo immediately after stabbing him on Weathertop was in error: he believed that the Nazgûl thought Frodo mortally wounded and unable to flee, when in fact Tolkien’s notes (Reader’s Companion, p. 180) show that the Witch-king

…was actually dismayed. He had been shaken by the fire of Gandalf, and began to perceive that the mission on which Sauron had sent him was one of great peril to himself both by the way, and on his return to his Master (if unsuccessful)… [A]bove all the timid and terrified Bearer had resisted him, had dared to strike at him with an enchanted sword made by his own enemies long ago for his destruction. Narrowly it had missed him. How had he come by it – save in the Barrows of Cardolan. Then he was in some way mightier than the B[arrow]-wight; and he called on Elbereth, a name of terror to the Nazgûl…

Escaping a wound that would have been as deadly to him as the Mordor-knife to Frodo (as was proved at the end), he withdrew and his for a while, out of doubt and fear both of Aragorn and especially of Frodo.

But if you check Hammond & Scull for Tolkien’s notes on the Entwives, the operative citation (p. 387) is to quote the same two letters I have already mentioned.

So there’s nothing in the Letters, nothing in the drafts, and nothing in the notes about the stump being an Entwife; in fact, Tolkien says on at least two separate occasions that he does not believe they will ever be found. When he discusses Tom Bombadil, a similar reader’s favorite, he is deliberately coy and evasive; but in discussing the Entwives, his tone is downbeat and rather final.

Arguing for the stump as an Entwife is a mental exercise – “worth a good essay” – but I believe it has no textual basis. Now can anyone cite any text – notes, letters, Christopher Tolkien’s editorial comments are all fair game – that can give any basis to the speculation?

Or must it remain nothing but speculation and innuendo, with no real substance in the corpus to back it up?

And I still see no “hidden jokes” in any of this, except the name “Teleporno”.