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Voronwë_the_Faithful
Valinor
Sat, 10:07pm
Post #1 of 12
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Highly surprising new letter from Tolkien
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This is so shocking that I was tempted to check the calendar and make sure that it wasn't actually April 1. In a typed letter signed by Tolkien (and with handwritten notes from him) being auctioned off by Christies, Tolkien confirmed that the "walking Elms" seen outside the Shire by Sam's cousin were Ents (not Entwives) sent by Gandalf to watch over the Shire.
Typed letter signed ('J.R.R. Tolkien') to Jenny Hall, 76 Sandfield Road, Headington, 28 February 1966.
'But very bright were the stars upon the margin of the world, when at times the clouds about the West were drawn aside.'
The Hall of Fire
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Maciliel
Valinor
Sun, 12:01am
Post #2 of 12
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wow! very surprised ents and not entwives
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wow! very surprised ents and not entwives.
what a find!
cheers --
.
aka. fili orc-enshield
+++++++++++++++++++
the scene, as i understand it, is exceptionally well-written. fili (in sort of a callback to the scene with the eagles), calls out "thorRIIIIIIN!!!" just as he sees the pale orc veer in for the kill. he picks up the severed arm of an orc which is lying on the ground, swings it up in desperation, effectively blocking the pale orc's blow. and thus, forever after, fili is known as "fili orc-enshield."
this earns him deep respect from his hard-to-please uncle. as well as a hug. kili wipes his boots on the pale orc's glory box. -- maciliel telpemairo
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Silvered-glass
Rohan
Sun, 12:19am
Post #3 of 12
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I'm kind of wondering whether it has become economical to forge "authentic" Tolkien letters, especially ones with explosive lore content.
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CuriousG
Half-elven
Sun, 12:21am
Post #4 of 12
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"As can be gathered from Treebeard's conversations with M. and P., he knew a lot more about events than they guessed, and more about hobbits than he pretended to"
This is the same Treebeard who was so confused by hobbits that he made a big fuss about adding them to the old songs about sentient creatures that they were missing from? And he repeatedly asked them if they had seen Entwives around the Shire-adjacent lands, when he had Ents patrolling those lands???
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CuriousG
Half-elven
Sun, 12:22am
Post #5 of 12
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I keep saying, "It's Christie's, they're experts at dealing with forgeries, but still..."
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Sun, 12:57am
Post #6 of 12
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I feel a bit silly now for insisting for years now that Cousin Halfast had most likely spotted a troll, ogre or giant rather than a literal "Tree-man". I'm sorry I doubted you, Hal!
“Hell hath no fury like that of the uninvolved.” - Jenny Blake Isabella
(This post was edited by Otaku-sempai on Sun, 1:04am)
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GreenHillFox
Bree
Sun, 10:22am
Post #7 of 12
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The content of it seems indeed too absurd to be genuiine...! 
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Voronwë_the_Faithful
Valinor
Sun, 1:23pm
Post #8 of 12
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He is also the same Treebeard who ...
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... pretended that the did not know that Gandalf was still alive, but he full well did know that.
'But very bright were the stars upon the margin of the world, when at times the clouds about the West were drawn aside.'
The Hall of Fire
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Sun, 4:55pm
Post #9 of 12
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It is of course the best possible punchline to nobody in Hobbinton wanting to believe Sam's account of what Hal saw.
(Assuming it is all genuine and so on) I wonder at what point Tolkien decided this was what Hal saw? When he was revising Book I? I think that when this passage was first drafted Tolkien had vague ideas about 'tree men' but ents as we were to come to know them had yet to be made up. Therefore at the point Tolkien first wrote this bit down, Hal couldn't have seen an ent because ents didn't exist yet.
Or much later (maybe even, he decided this in response to that particular bit of fan mail asking about this loose end)?
My reading of Treebeard is that he would be entirely capable of not happening to mention what he knew about hobbits, all the better to check who M&P were and to get information from them. I think book-Treebeard is very cautious but very canny. The PJ movie simplified things by making him a silly old fool who needs M&P to make him see how the outside world is, but that didn't work for me. My reading has always been that he knows a lot about what is going on, but the problem is whether to do anything about it.
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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Voronwë_the_Faithful
Valinor
Sun, 7:31pm
Post #10 of 12
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Tolkien's handwriting is very distinctive
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As surprising as the content is, I have little doubt as to the authenticity of the letter, and there does not appear to be any questions being raised among those who would know (e.g., the Tolkien collector's community, and the Tolkien scholarship community).
'But very bright were the stars upon the margin of the world, when at times the clouds about the West were drawn aside.'
The Hall of Fire
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No One in Particular
Lorien
Sun, 11:39pm
Post #11 of 12
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to me to be one of those cases where he "knew his audience". In any case, even if JRRT changed his mind later, or just forgot as he got older, it does not jibe with Treebeard thinking M & P were just small Orcs and almost treading on them, or having to have their existence explained to him.
While you live, shine
Have no grief at all
Life exists only for a short while
And time demands an end.
Seikilos Epitaph
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Silvered-glass
Rohan
8:32pm
Post #12 of 12
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The possibility of forging handwriting is a well-attested historical fact
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So we would need a skilled forger who has a sample of Tolkien's handwriting and knowledge of unsolved mysteries that are of interest to the fandom. The auctioning of that previous letter provides a proof of potential financial gain to be made. The forger claiming to have found the letter in the old papers of a dead relative who had presumably received it through mail directly from Tolkien himself would be chain of custody enough.
What strikes me about the letter is how it appears to have been planned in a way to make it particularly enticing for fans while still being short enough to minimize the difficult task of writing like Tolkien - a task in which I feel like the letter isn't entirely successful. Tolkien never in his published letters revealed plot secrets in the manner the new letter does or pretends to do.
Also, the idea that the mysterious walkers were Ents keeping an eye on the Shire because they had been requested to do so by Gandalf runs into numerous issues including ones not mentioned by the previous posters. We would probably need to treat the Ents as a sort of supplemental Rangers interested in preventing border incursions by goblins or the Lossoth rather than anything to do with the actual plot of the novel.
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