I Found the Entwives!

[Elu Ancalime]

Funny tha t Teleporno hasnt responded to it....
________
Richard lukins

[Alkanoonion]

I remember seeing that “Can you find the Entwives?” topic on Minas Tirith back in 2003

After reading that post I went back and reread the book and failed to find any mention apart from one of the hobbits claiming to see a tree like creature.

I myself think that the original poster was just looking to get attention and pump up his post count. My question is why would you make such a statement and fail to give us proof

Quote”

Congratulations, you've made a compelling argument to NOT post my discovery here.

And true enough to my word, I have already narrowed it down sufficiently that careful readers should be able to find them now that they suspect they're there.

/end quote

If he had indeed found them he would have told us all exactly what paragraph he was reading.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Bear with me...this may be long. Michael Martinez, who is far more knowlegable than I, posted on the Minas Tirith forum and couldn't make head or tail of Teleporno. However, I think I've dredged up enough to convince me he did find something and I don't agree with it (whatever "it" is).

Here is some more information on Teleporno from the Land of Rohan website: here. Both Minas Tirith and Rohan contain a reference to Kansas. (Did anyone say Wizard of Oz? ) For some reason, this particular thread in Rohan is not accessible through the link Ardamir originally provided for us. I found it through google.

The place I'm writing from looks a lot like Lothlorien in the Peter Jackson extended DVD release of the film of FotR. It's a large hill with beautiful trees. It's even got it's own mythical name, Mount Oread. I work for the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. It's about a half-hour drive from downtown Kansas City, Missouri, hometown of jazz hero Charlie Parker.

I received a bachelor's degree in English and Film Studies at KU in 1992. Some of my coursework included study of Old English (a grad class) and fantasy literature. I also read lots of mythology and ancient heroic writing, from Egil's Saga to Beowulf to The Kalevala to the Eddas.

Of Tolkien, I've read
The Hobbit: at least four times, first time at age 10; just reread it over the weekend in about ten hours;

Lord of the Rings: At least six times, first time around age 13, just started it again today;

The Silmarillion: Three times. Finished it in December;

Unfinished Tales: Once, finished it Friday;

Lost Tales, Vol. I: Once, in the mid-eighties in hardback;
Lost Tales, Vol. II: Partially read;
Lays of Beleriand: Partially read;
Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien: Once, rereading again.

My first inclination was to assume that this person never found anything about the Entwives and was merely posting to irritate the posters at Minas Tirith. But looking at what we know about his credentials from the post above, his knowlege of sources (though not the greatest, he knew something), and also an anlysis of his other posts, I've come to believe that he thought he'd found something. It wasn't purely a joke.

I have no idea what he found re the Entwives but his posts point consistently to an approach he is taking---both in terms of the Entwives and the few other posts that are on these sites. He thinks that Tolkien uses hidden jokes, conscious allusions to other authors, and bases some of his characters on real people. He actually spells out some of these supposed links not re the Entwives but in other posts he's written re other scenes and characters in Tolkien.

Here's a post from Jan 2003 on Minas Tirith that gives a hint of this.

Aiwrendel is correct according to my reading. And the Shakespeare stuff is clearly present throughout Tolkien (he was 'recording' the lost mythology of England, after all):

Ents = Wood coming to Dunsinane (Macbeth); and
Aragorn = Reluctant king in waiting (King Henry IV Part One) are two that are very obvious. Back when I was a college student studying Shakespeare I noticed many references JRRT made to WS, as well as Chaucer, Mallory, Beowulf, and Milton, to name a few.

The reference of being "born of no woman" is to Julius Ceasar. The reverse, "slain by no man" (sic) is clearly his little joke. Prof Tolkien did have to earn the respect of his Oxford cronies, after all!

We can see from this that Teleporno had a thing about Tolkien making "little jokes" and that these jokes are hidden. In this regard he also seems to be searching for allusions that JRRT made to other authors. This all ties in nicely with what he said on the Minas Tirith thread re the Entwives......references to jokes and hidden things. My inclination then is that Teleporno was following a particular train of thought in all his posts, and, using particular techniques he favored, he did think he'd discovered "something" concerning the Entwives.

Tolkien does not say "here are the Entwives." But he does, I think, make a very deliberate joke.

I decided it is such a pleasant little mystery that to detail it all would be to spoil it for you, sort of like answering a riddle you should figure out yourself.

It also, to me, now means I must reread the books all over yet again (no pain there!) to see how many other hidden things the Professor put in there.

I think his posts on Tom Bombadil are also a key. There's nothing new here in terms of content but Teleporno is insistent that JRRT based many characters on actual people. (We'll see this same suggestion later in the Entwife thread.) See here on a non- entwife reference:

I'm rather new around here, but I've been reading Tolkien for twenty-five years. So when I found this thread I thought I'd drop in my favorite theory about Tom, but Ensa Lucis already said it here in May 2001.

Tom is the author himself. He's in the center of the world, yet removed. He's old both among Tolkien's characters, having been dreamt up by JRRT around 1907 (if memory serves). And JRRT knew that when he died, although his Middle-Earth stories would survive, the world would cease to be revealed since he was it's sole creator. So, Tom and Ronald are both "last as they were first".

Plus, all the "Goldberry is waiting" lines make me think about a busy academic whose hobby was writing, but was yet a devoted husband. Goldberry is Mrs. Tolkien.

I've always guessed that JRRT based many of his characters on actual people, although I've never read of who they might've been. Radagast might be Charles Williams. Whoever Saruman was, Tolkien clearly developed contempt for him!

I do not believe for one minute that Tolkien based his characters on real people and put them as hidden jokes into the text, but that is what Teleporno seems to be hinting at, whether we're talking about Entwives or other characters. Take a look at this reference regarding the Entwives. The Ents are Tolkien's academic friends and the Entwives some sort of suffragists who won't put up with the baloney of cloistered academics. This was posted months afterward on both Rohan and M.T. and is the most explicit statement we have from him concerning the identity of the Entwives.

It's a joke I'm sure some of Tolkien's cronies got, especially his cloistered academic friends parodied (and ennobled) by the Ents. Think of British women in the early 20th century...Suffragists...women who wouldn't put up with foolish, boorish men...

Read The Two Towers and closely note clusters of words.

I can't say anymore and keep the joke secret. It's there. I'm certain.

Where does all this lead? Ahem.....on the basis of the scholarly evidence available, I would say this. The poster Teleporno uses a consistent approach in both the Entwife and non-Entwife threads. Therefore, it is not a total spoof: he thought he found something using the same approach he'd taken on his other posts: hidden jokes, allusions to real people and/or other authors. For some reason, probably because he enjoyed seeing people squirm, he preferred not to spell out his findings.

I, for one, think that his idea of allusions to real people is hokum. His earlier reference to Charles Williams as Radagast is double hokum! Moreover, I simply do not accept his bald analogy that Ents are a parody of Tolkien's academic friends. And since I can't accept his characterization of the Ents, I also can't accept the other half of the equation: his views on the Entwives (whatever or wherever they are)! This gets us into another level of contention. There has been much conversation on this website as to whether Tolkien appreciated or engaged in parody. Teleporno strongly suggest that the Ent/Entwife paradigm is some sort of parody. I, for one, do not believe that.

Am I barking up the wrong tree? (Let's just hope I'm not tugging at an Entwife's skirt!) I am also at a total loss as to those "cluster of words".

[Morsul the Dark]

no i dont have a clue to a passage but i do have another theory as opposed to making anopther thread ill add it here

ents and darves hate each other....yet dwarf women and entwives are amazingly rare is it possibly frusterated with their male counterparts dislike for each other the women of these two races went to leave in harmony somwhere?

[Ardamir the Blessed]

eowyntje:

I was the one who wrote (or is actually writing) and posted the essay on Minas Tirith. I have not found what Teleporno claimed to have found, but I have made a lot of research on Entwives, and present my findings in my essay, which is still under work. My user name on Minas Tirith is Herendil, Teleporno and I are not the same person.


Child of the 7th Age:

I agree with you that Teleporno has a tendency of finding hidden jokes in Tolkien, and that he probably did think that he found a joke concerning the Entwives, whether it really is a joke or not.

However, he is right about the fact that the Ents were partly inspired by the Great Birnam wood in Macbeth; Tolkien himself tells us that:

Letter #163, note:

Their [the Ents’] part in the story is due, I think, to my bitter disappointment and disgust from schooldays with the shabby use made in Shakespeare of the coming of 'Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill': I longed to devise a setting in which the trees might really march to war. And into this has crept a mere piece of experience, the difference of the 'male' and 'female' attitude to wild things, the difference between unpossessive love and gardening.

Also note the last passage - it might hint at a parody of Tolkien's academic friends and their wives.

It does seem that Tolkien put some traits of the Inklings into the Ents (especially Treebeard). Perhaps the Entmoot was a parody of their meetings at The Eagle and Child.

Biography:

When eventually he [Tolkien] came to write this chapter [LR, ‘Treebeard’] (so he told Nevill Coghill [a member of the Inklings]) he modelled Treebeard’s way of speaking, ‘Hrum, Hroom’, on the booming voice of C. S. Lewis.

Treason of Isengard, ‘Treebeard’:

There are some small particular points worthy of mention in this first part of the chapter. In the fair copy corresponding to TT pp. 66 – 7 … his [Treebeard’s] ejaculation 'Root and twig! ' replaced 'Crack my timbers!'

A note on this:

A pencilled note on the fair copy says that 'Crack my timbers' had been 'queried by Charles Williams'. The same change was made at a later point in the chapter (TT p. 75).

Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams were all members of the Inklings. In my opinion it is not that farfetched then to suspect that the Entwives were a 'parody' of their wives.

[Alkanoonion]

I Disagree with 1 point

Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams were all members of the Inklings. In my opinion it is not that farfetched then to suspect that the Entwives were a 'parody' of their wives.

Would this not be the other way around? With the Inklings all meeting in The Eagle and Child for a regular drink and discussion, it should have been the wives looking for the men (or entwives looking for the ents)

Also from your post on mt

Tolkien made this ‘assumption’ about the Entwives in Letter #144:
quote:

I think that in fact the Entwives had disappeared for good, being destroyed with their gardens in the War of the Last Alliance (Second Age 3429-3441) when Sauron pursued a scorched earth policy and burned their land against the advance of the Allies down the Anduin …

I was going to post that this says all that needs to be said that the entwives are no more.

I have been thinking… no really I have…


Could the disappearance of the entwives be a link to what was happening to Tolkien in his life at that time?

I ask this because Tolkien was fighting in the war, and was separated from his loved ones? Could this be the true reason? The letter 144 says that

I think that in fact the Entwives had disappeared for good, being destroyed with their gardens in the War of the Last Alliance (Second Age 3429-3441) when Sauron pursued a scorched earth policy and burned their land against the advance of the Allies down the Anduin …

If the Ents lost the Entwives was this a mirror of Tolkien and his loved ones?

I so want to read more of that letter but I need to wait for payday to get a copy

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Ardamir the Blessed

However, he is right about the fact that the Ents were partly inspired by the Great Birnam wood in Macbeth; Tolkien himself tells us that:

Yes, and I think most Tolkien fans around here (those who have read your quoted letter anyway) were familiar with that fact...

What I fail to see here, is a connection between INSPIRATION (as between Birnam Wood and the Ents) and anything to do with WILD GOOSE CHASES. Quite frankly, I am highly skeptical that Tolkien would have written any clues into his story regarding the Entwives. He was a good deal more enamoured of leaving some things complete mysteries, such as Tom Bombadil, than he was of private in-jokes, clues, and hidden messages. When he felt the urge to explain something, or fit in a new historical explanation, he did so completely straightforwardly, albeit in his usual, alternate-versions/indecision mode of draft writing. As examples, I point you towards the cats of Queen Beruthiel and the "rods of the Five Wizards". Both are completely anomalous terms insofar as we know anything of their origin with regards to the text of the Lord of the Rings, but when Tolkien sat down to think up and explanation, he did not try to hide it whatsoever in his text elsewhere.

[Ardamir the Blessed]

Alkanoonion posted:

With the Inklings all meeting in The Eagle and Child for a regular drink and discussion, it should have been the wives looking for the men (or entwives looking for the ents)

I think that Tolkien was so often away at such meetings that his wife started to feel bad about it.

Biography:

Even then, family life never entirely regained the equilibrium it had achieved in Leeds. Edith began to feel that she was being ignored by Ronald. In terms of actual hours he was certainly in the house a great deal: much of his teaching was done there, and he was not often out for more than one or two evenings a week. But it was really a matter of his affections. He was very loving and considerate to her, greatly concerned about her health (as she was about his) and solicitous about domestic matters. But she could see that one side of him only came alive when he was in the company of men of his own kind. More specifically she noticed and resented his devotion to Jack Lewis.

Of course, she did not leave him, like the Entwives left the Ents. Perhaps Tolkien took his relationship problems one step further in the Ents-Entwives relationship.

I was going to post that this says all that needs to be said that the entwives are no more.

I know that the letters about Entwives may be interpreted as indicating fairly strongly that the Entwives are dead, but I think that it is quite an 'amateurish' approach only to rely on these letters without bothering to check for hints about Entwives in the narrative.

Could the disappearance of the entwives be a link to what was happening to Tolkien in his life at that time?

I ask this because Tolkien was fighting in the war, and was separated from his loved ones?

Tolkien 'invented' the Entwives in the 40s, but he did not fight in WW II - therefore I am pretty certain that the Entwives do not have anything to do with that war. He did fight in WW I, but he had not come up with the Entwives at that point, only 'proto-Ents', it seems.


Formendacil posted:

Quite frankly, I am highly skeptical that Tolkien would have written any clues into his story regarding the Entwives. He was a good deal more enamoured of leaving some things complete mysteries, such as Tom Bombadil, than he was of private in-jokes, clues, and hidden messages. When he felt the urge to explain something, or fit in a new historical explanation, he did so completely straightforwardly, albeit in his usual, alternate-versions/indecision mode of draft writing.

It seems that there are quite a few elements in Tolkien's writings of which there is not any explicit description. There are hints scattered throughout the texts that you have to piece together in order to get a better view of Tolkien's thinking, and there might be some things that Tolkien came up with but never wrote down, but they still work within and are a part of what he did write down. Actually, if everything were explicitly clear in his texts, we would not have these discussions, would we?

But I realise that some sort of a hidden joke would be different. However, the investigations of Child of the 7th Age have made me almost convinced that Teleporno at least thought that he had found something that he called a 'joke'.

He posted on MT:

The reference of being "born of no woman" is to Julius Ceasar. The reverse, "slain by no man" (sic) is clearly his [Tolkien's] little joke.

I am thinking that the joke could be a similar "reverse joke" - I checked all the famous Shakespeare quotes, but none of them looked familiar. But the joke does not necessarily have to be a reverse Shakespeare quote, it could be of someone else too. Maybe C.S. Lewis or Charles Williams?


Some weeks ago I sent an e-mail to Teleporno regarding his discovery, but have not received any reply.