Trees, Light and the Sea in Tolkien's Work?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I've been thinking about the importance of trees in Tolkien's work.

There are, of course the Two Trees, which are the source of the light before the sun and the moon (unless you accept Tolkien's attempts to radically change his mythology late in his life, but the light of the Two Trees were still to be considered "holy"). It seems to me that most commentators have focused mostly on the light itself and given short shrift to the source of that light.

Then, there are the descendents of Telperion, eldest of trees: Galathilion, the white tree of Tirion, Celeborn, the white tree of Tol Eressëa, Nimloth, the white tree of Númenor, and finally the white trees of Gondor (both the original one planted by Isildur from a seedling of Nimloth, and the new one planted by Aragorn). What significance is there, if any, of the fact that only Telperion had "descendants" and that the silver tree, Laurelin, did not?

Then there is the fact that when Manwë asked Yavanna which of her realm she held dearest, she named trees as the dearest (that is a simplification, I know), and confirmed with Manwë that extraordinary steps would be taken to protect them.

Skipping to LOTR, there is of course the Party Tree, which I think has more significance then at first blush. Then there are the Mallorn's of Lothlórien (and of Númenor, and Tol Eressëa). And then the Mallorn which replaces the Party Tree, and all of the other trees that grow "as if time was in a hurry and wished to make one year do for twenty."

So my question is, is there any particular significance that trees play in Tolkien's work that runs through these different -- seemingly disparate -- references? Or is it just a question of Tolkien loving trees, and nothing more to it then that?

[ToshoftheWuffingas]

I remember posts on TORC that examined the concept of entangling forests. I think it quoted the song in the Old Forest, 'all woods must end.....for East or West all woods must fail' and used it for something like an analogy for entangling life and what is beyond. Can anyone remember that discussion?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

No. But it certainly is relevant.

[axordil]

For someone who didn't believe in allegory, JRRT was very fond of symbols. It kind of goes with the territory. And trees were for him, I think, a blending of the personal and the universal...he loved them for their own sakes from childhood, he loved what they represented in his life, and he mourned what their loss portended. But more than that, he understood from both his Christian roots and his study in pagan myth the deep resonance trees have had for people across cultures and centuries. From Eden to Asgard, there are trees that make the world what it is for Western civilization (not being Joe Campbell, I will limit myself to the world west of the Oxus ).

So yeah, trees and forests are omnipresent in his work. Only the Sea is as important a symbol.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And Light.

Great post, Ax. That is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping for.

[axordil]

And light, yes, thank you. And then there's the mixing of them...the light of the trees, the white tree passing over the sea from Númenor...and if we expand the sea to include water, the light of Galadriel, lady of the trees...

One of the most interesting thing about light in JRRT is that while darkness is of course its opposite, darkness is not the worst thing, just as barren desert is not the worst thing.

I think the corruption of light, as corruption of water or corruption of trees, is the moral nadir, symbolically. Think of the Morgul Vale, of the Old Forest, of the corpse-lights of the Barrows and the Dead Marshes.

[Maria]

I think he just liked trees.

Except willow trees....

[Inanna]

Trees definitely had a special place for Tolkien. Including all the Trees in the Middle-Earth work, there is "Leaf by Niggle" which has been one of my favorite stories of JRRT's.

However, maybe it was not of paramount importance to him. In a letter to Christopher, JRRT says:

Much though I love and admire little lanes and hedges and rustling trees and the soft rolling contours of a rich champain, the thing that stirs me most and comes nearest to my heart's satisfaction is space, and I would be willing to barter barrenness for it; indeed, I think I like barrenness itself, wherever I have seen it <snip> and if there was not bare rock and pathless sand and the unharvested sea, I should grow to hate all things green as fungoid growth

[axordil]

and if there was not bare rock and pathless sand and the unharvested sea, I should grow to hate all things green as fungoid growth

Indeed. I used to disdain the desert in favor of the forest...but while my heart may still be in the woods, there is a certain fundamental necessity to broad places with little to slow a photon down before it hits your retina.

[ToshoftheWuffingas]

The idea of the entangling woods as metaphor may come from Shippey.
Here is one reference.
http://www.theonering.net/perl/newsview/7/1037298965

[truehobbit]

At my first reading of LOTR, I almost put the book away during the chapter in the Old Forest, because I couldn't stand the idea of hostile trees, it made me angry to read about that.

I mean, the trees in the Old Forest have reason to be angry, but they are still depicted as 'the enemy'.

So - trees aren't only always the good things in Tolkien's tales and it would be interesting to look at the different aspects of trees.
I don't agree that the Old Forest has anything to do with a "moral Nadir", though.

Good idea for a topic, Voronwë, I think trees are definitely a vital part of Tolkien's world.

Ax, I must admit I don't quite understand what you meant to say they were symbolic of.

I think Tolkien, quite understandably, was in awe of trees. Seeing a living thing that continues for hundreds of years, that grows to amazing volume (and it doesn't even have to be a sequoia), that has more life in it than we'd think possible and may continue in the most untoward circumstances - of course that goes for many other things, but trees happen to be very visible.

I don't know a lot about the trees in the Sil, but I think the party tree is based on tradition. There used to be a "village tree" for people to gather, at least over here.

I think a main aspect of something like the party tree is that it's a single tree with no other trees around. Such trees grow to great beauty, and we can relate to them, but of course the more normal habitat of trees would be the forest, where they grow in great disorder and often hamper and cripple each other. We perceive this as negative, partly because we can't grasp and control it, partly because it really isn't peaceful and nice.
So, I think we have these two different kinds of trees in Tolkien's work, the single tree that you can watch and admire, and the mass of trees that can be overpowering and scary.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I found this article about "Tolkien and his trees" from a Catholic perspective. A little superficial, but still interesting.

http://www.catholicculture.org/highligh ... .cfm?ID=32

[Primula Baggins]

Around here it's common to have one lovely old tree left standing in the middle of a huge plowed field. Perhaps in older days the farmers liked having some accessible shade at lunchtime. But it makes for beautiful vistas, especially around now when the grass-seed fields look like immense, lush lawns.

The trees in the Old Forest struck me as more eerie than evil; they're unmoved by human or Hobbit concerns and resent intrusion.

[narya]

Tolkien had a great fondness for family trees and for the mythology that nobility is inherited. The White Tree of Gondor being a symbol of that.

[Primula Baggins]

He was also a great admirer of tallness for tallness' sake.

[Alatar]

Great post Hobby!

[Old_Tom_Bombadil]

It is clear that the Hobbitfolk love trees. One of the devices that Saruman uses against them in retribution for taking part in the destruction of Isengard is to cut down their favorite trees, including the beloved Party Tree. We learn of the Elves' great love of trees through Legolas.

But Tolkien's trees can also be menacing:

Tom's words laid bare the hearts of trees and their thoughts, which were often dark and strange, and filled with a hatred of things that go free upon the earth, gnawing, biting, breaking, hacking, burning: destroyers and usurpers. It was not called the Old Forest without reason, for it was indeed ancient, a survivor of vast forgotten fathers of the fathers of trees, remembering times when they were lords. The countless years years had filled them with pride and rooted wisdom, and with malice.

We see glimpses of a primordial Middle-earth when vast forests covered many hundreds of miles:

Time was when a squirrel could go from tree to tree from what is now the Shire to Dunland west of Isengard.

I have a friend, who like Tolkien was raised a Catholic, but she believes in reincarnation and speaks of it rather matter of factly. I know that there are people who sense having existed in previous lives, but I'm not one of them. However, I have thought that if Tolkien had lived a previous life he may have been a druid. Trees have special significance to the priests of Celtic Britain. Each type of tree has its own qualities and significance. One gets a sense of that when reading the passages devoted to Treebeard:

As they drew near the hobbits gazed at them. They had expected to see a number of creatures as much like Treebeard as one hobbit is like another (at any rate to a stranger's eye); and they were very much surprised to see nothing of the kind...A few seemed more or less related to Treebeard, and reminded them of beech-trees or oaks. But there were other kinds. Some recalled the chestnut: brown-skinned Ents with large splayfingered hands, and short thick legs. Some recalled the ash: tall straight grey Ents with many fingers hands and long legs; some of the fir (the tallest Ents), and others the birch, the rowan, and the linden.

Though Tolkien professed to "cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations", Tom Shippey, in J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, makes a case that Tolkien used (autobiographical) allegory himself, specifically in Smith of Wooten Major and Leaf by Niggle. While discussing the former Shippey states:

The birch, however, certainly had particular and personal symbolic meaning for Tolkien. It stood for philology. It stood for the 'B-scheme' of education which he introduced to Leeds, and tried to introduce to Oxford ('B' is for beorc, 'birch', in the Old English runic alphabet). He wrote a poem in Gothic in praise of the birch in Songs for the Philologists, and another poem in that collection praises the birch and the 'B-scheme' together--the last 'B-scheme' graduates took their BAs in 1983. In that poem the derided opponent of the 'B-scheme' is the modern-literature only 'A-scheme', represented by the oak (for in Old English 'A' is for ác)...

Some of my neighbors have lovely birch trees in their yards: tall, slender trees with white trunks. A couple of my neighbors, including the one on the opposite side of the street, have wonderful, majestic oaks. I've long loved these trees, they're common on the hillsides of California, and it saddens me a little to think that Tolkien may have had some animosity towards them for what they reprented.

[narya]

Actually, the trees do have eyes. I took this piccie of an alder yesterday.

[ToshoftheWuffingas]

More on Elves and woods: part of the hymn to Elbereth Gilthoniel.

'O Light to us that wander here
Amid the world of woven trees!

......
We still remember, we who dwell
In this far land beneath the trees,
Thy starlight on the Western seas'

A little ambiguous I think?

[truehobbit]

Thanks, Alatar!

Voronwë, I read that article, but didn't think it added much for a Catholic or Christian perspective. All it said on the point is that trees and water feature largely in the Bible, too - which isn't all that astonishing as water is a prime element for life (esp in arid zones), and trees also have always been seen as symbolic of life as such, for the reasons, I think (at least in part), that I gave earlier (again, esp so in arid zones).

I think that the trees that are threatening in Tolkien are not evil in the sense that Sauron is evil - they are threatening because they are wild. Untamed and not a part of a well-ordered world. As such, they also (being sentient) see this world as a threat to their world - and rightly so.

On the other hand, what I think is most interesting is the quote Tom just gave (don't remember where in the book it's from): the trees don't only defend themselves against the usurpers, they also suffer from pride and think that their way of living should be the only one. But this is really the same way their enemies think.

I guess you could say that domesticated trees have made a truce - they will grow where Men let them, or even yield fruit, and in turn those inhabitants of Middle-earth who are equally "domesticated" (like hobbits) will leave them unharmed.
But just as there are some Men who don't want any trees to get in the way (people of Saruman's ilk), so some trees don't want Men to get in the way.
It's only by each yielding a bit of their space that both can live together. At least I guess this would be the view of someone who preferred domesticated nature, as I think Tolkien did - for all his regrets about the vanishing of the Warwickshire countryside, this countryside was not exactly a jungle. Today, we would realise that having a tree here and there is not enough in terms of sharing space with trees. But in Tolkien's world, trees that come in forests are usually threatening.