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DGHCaretaker
Rohan
Fri, 5:28pm
Post #26 of 42
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I just couldn't figure out what would have been Gandalf's reason to send agents to the North Moors... You might want to think in terms of the real Tolkien rather than the fictional Gandalf. The real Tolkien as an author would have needed to think in terms of the fictional Gandalf. Part of being an author is considering the motivations of each character in the story and making sure that they each make sense from the character's own point of view. Not doing so leads to internal inconsistencies and worse.
Yes, I'm aware of organic writing, and the romantic notion that characters live on their own. I'm not a believer that you can separate the dancer from the dance. I believe this particular issue is viewed better through Tolkien's lens since it apparently is in no text other than a real-world personal letter to a young girl.
(This post was edited by DGHCaretaker on Fri, 5:30pm)
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Fri, 6:31pm
Post #27 of 42
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I note that Hal's adventure happens 'not long back' from Sam's account of it in the pub:
All right,’ said Sam, laughing with the rest.
‘But what about these Tree-men, these giants, as you might call them? They do say that one bigger than a tree was seen up away beyond the North Moors not long back.’
‘Who’s they ?’
‘My cousin Hal for one. He works for Mr. Boffin at Overhill and goes up to the Northfarthing for the hunting. He saw one.’
‘Says he did, perhaps. Your Hal’s always saying he’s seen things; and maybe he sees things that ain’t there.’
‘But this one was as big as an elm tree, and walking –walking seven yards to a stride, if it was an inch.’
‘Then I bet it wasn’t an inch. What he saw was an elm tree, as like as not.’
LOTR CH2
Sam's discussion happens the day before Sam is apprehended evesdropping on Frodo's conversation with Gandalf (in which the Ring is positively identified and Frodo takes on the Quest to destroy it).
That's some years after the Long Expected Party, and Sam's conversation is an example of how refugees and other unusual visitors are turning up in the Shire, and this is getting through even to the less aware hobbits.
So I think there ought to be time for Gandalf to have become gravely alarmed by Bilbo's behaviour at the party, and also concerned that the Shire was being watched by outside forces (Saruman, it turns out). Gandalf cannot, I think, be too clear on who that other party taking an interest is, nor what they know, or might be about to do.
That's as far as analysis of the text takes us, I think.
As I've said already, what the ents have been asked to do beyond the North Moors is just a matter of speculation. I don't see an literary criticism style way of choosing between rival ideas, provided none of them contradict the text. And if the text can be contradicted or re-interpreted then I'm not sure what the rules are any more.
So this is where it becomes a matter of each person's ideas, whims, way of looking at things etc.
Invited to speculate, my own off-the-cuff guess would be that Gandalf might be thinking back to the Battle of Greenfields, in which goblins invaded the North farthing. Now of course that event is recounted as the set-up that leads to a joke about the game of golf. So maybe there’s no need to take it too seriously. Alternatively, you could think that if it is historical fact (to Gandalf etc.) that the Shire had been attacked in this way in the past, then a similar attack might be a concern. And then an ent or two would be able to watch for, survive an encounter with, or even deal on the spot with a bit of goblin or orc trouble. For example, a goblin or orc band sent to snatch the thing that Frodo has got. An ent, in my imagination here, needs neither man-food nor shelter and can move across country quickly. And so might not be such a silly choice to patrol open country for long periods without needing relief or supply.
What's in it for the ents? Maybe an opportunity to carry on the search for the entwives, in some promising countryside.
And of course I have absolutely no idea whether Tolkien was thinking along those lines (and no way, I think, of ever finding out).
I think I'll call the ent Hal sees 'Dave'. That's because it's highly irregular that Hal sees him.
OK, maybe not Dave.
But I'm probably done with this idea anyway, so I'll leave it as a sort of mathom to anyone who wants it, and they can call the ent something they like.
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
(This post was edited by noWizardme on Fri, 6:34pm)
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Silvered-glass
Rohan
Fri, 6:38pm
Post #28 of 42
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I just couldn't figure out what would have been Gandalf's reason to send agents to the North Moors... You might want to think in terms of the real Tolkien rather than the fictional Gandalf. The real Tolkien as an author would have needed to think in terms of the fictional Gandalf. Part of being an author is considering the motivations of each character in the story and making sure that they each make sense from the character's own point of view. Not doing so leads to internal inconsistencies and worse. Yes, I'm aware of organic writing, and the romantic notion that characters live on their own. I'm not a believer that you can separate the dancer from the dance. I believe this particular issue is viewed better through Tolkien's lens since it apparently is in no text other than a real-world personal letter to a young girl.
For example, to write The Lord of the Rings Tolkien would have needed to think what Gandalf thinks that Sauron thinks that Gandalf thinks that Sauron thinks. The book narrative demonstrates that Tolkien truly did think in such a fashion. The entire justification for the ring quest relies on such thinking, because both Gandalf and Sauron are both meant to be intelligent characters plotting against each other.
So, Tolkien thinks that Gandalf thinks that Sauron thinks that Gandalf thinks that Sauron thinks that he wants to reclaim the One Ring and conquer the world. Therefore Tolkien thinks that Gandalf thinks that Sauron thinks that Gandalf thinks that he doesn't want for Sauron to conquer the world and that the right course of action would be to either hide the Ring or to claim the Ring to use it against Sauron, because Tolkien thinks that Gandalf thinks that Sauron thinks that the Ring is impossible to destroy and that Gandalf knows this and wouldn't try. So Tolkien thinks that Gandalf thinks that going to Mordor and throwing the Ring to Mount Doom just might work because Sauron wouldn't expect it. And so Tolkien gives Gandalf dialogue explaining the previous, and the plot of the book finds its shape.
This may sound complicated in how I explained it, but it's really a fundamental issue that all writers need to take into account to write proper characters and plots..
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Silverlode
Forum Admin
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Fri, 10:34pm
Post #29 of 42
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My mind goes in a different direction
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I was wondering about trolls. Ents would be good guardians against trolls.I believe Treebeard is even described as being "almost troll-like" himself. The north moors are listed as the Ettenmoors on the map ("etten" meaning "giant" or "troll"). And in The Hobbit, the three trolls they encounter in the Trollshaws had come down from the north in search of food. They had already attacked some isolated settlements before the dwarves and Bilbo encountered them. Perhaps Gandalf sent some Ents to patrol the North Downs to keep more such incidents from occurring. Gandalf and the Rangers have been keeping a guard on the Shire and the remnants of Arnor for a long time, after all, and the 60 years between Bilbo's adventure and the beginning of Frodo's are nothing much to an Ent (or to Gandalf).
Silverlode
Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Sat, 1:19am
Post #30 of 42
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I was wondering about trolls. Ents would be good guardians against trolls.I believe Treebeard is even described as being "almost troll-like" himself. The north moors are listed as the Ettenmoors on the map ("etten" meaning "giant" or "troll"). And in The Hobbit, the three trolls they encounter in the Trollshaws had come down from the north in search of food. They had already attacked some isolated settlements before the dwarves and Bilbo encountered them. Perhaps Gandalf sent some Ents to patrol the North Downs to keep more such incidents from occurring. Gandalf and the Rangers have been keeping a guard on the Shire and the remnants of Arnor for a long time, after all, and the 60 years between Bilbo's adventure and the beginning of Frodo's are nothing much to an Ent (or to Gandalf). The North Moors are part of the Shire, in the Northfarthing. The Ettenmoors are hundreds of miles to the east, at the base of the Misty Mountains north of Rivendell. The Trollshaws are likewise in the vicinity of Rivendell.
“Hell hath no fury like that of the uninvolved.” - Jenny Blake Isabella
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Silverlode
Forum Admin
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Sat, 4:20am
Post #31 of 42
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Well, this is what happens when I try to comment without my books at hand. 
Silverlode
Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Sat, 10:22am
Post #32 of 42
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Why not trolls though (now that little geographical confusion is cleared up)? At least as a plausible threat for Gandalf to consider, and send Dave the Ent to counter.
"The Dark Tower had been rebuilt, it was said. From there the power was spreading far and wide, and far away east and south there were wars and growing fear. Orcs were multiplying again in the mountains. Trolls were abroad, no longer dull-witted, but cunning and armed with dreadful weapons. And there were murmured hints of creatures more terrible than all of these, but they had no name."
World news/Rumour mill information as gathered by an increasingly restless Frodo at the start of Ch 2 (My italics. Sam's account of what Hal saw starts in the next paragraph of Tolkien's text).
If the idea of this increasingly fan-fictionalised backstory is that Gandalf is worried about some of these creatures being used by Sauron (he doesn't yet know about Saruman) to get this worrying thing that Frodo has, then I suppose we're imagining trolls (or orcs, etc...) as military units being moved around to do something, and perhaps do it with plausible deniability. So one might choose to think that locations where things are endogenous stops mattering.
I'm amused to see that such reasoning fabulating makes Dave an irregular.
Anyway, anything you like from my point of view...provided the ent is called Dave. 
If there's a second ent, he could 'logically' be called Chas, if you like.
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
(This post was edited by noWizardme on Sat, 10:36am)
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Sat, 10:49am
Post #33 of 42
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So one might choose to think that locations where things [trolls] are endogenous stops mattering.
Do trolls have endogenous zones? Or is that a Rule 34 thing and we wouldn't want to know?
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Sat, 12:04pm
Post #34 of 42
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I wonder what other surprising letters might turn up?
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Moreover, the provenance of this letter was very easy for Christies to verify, because it was put up for sale by the recipient herself. The head of the TolkienGuide (who goes by Trotter), shared a blog post with some very helpful details about who Jenny Hall is.
Quote
What do we know about Jenny? She seems to have been one of the older pupils at Howe Dell Primary School in Old Rectory Drive, Hatfield. On a community website (Our Hatfield) Jenny’s brother Bob wrote this on the page about the school: “My two younger sisters and I all went to Howe Dell in the 1960s although I was only there for two years before moving on to Hatfield School. We were Bob, Jenny and Kitty Hall and we lived at 15, Hillcrest.” So the percipient Jenny seems to have under eleven when she wrote to the author with her pertinent questions about place name inspirations, and about whether the “walking elms” in ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’ were entwives.
The author of that blog, Chris Lovegrove, helpfully links to the Howe Dell Primary School site where Jenny Hall's brother's comment can be found
The fact that it was a letter to a child younger than 11 would help explain why the letter is more short and to the point than some of Tolkien's other letters. And it removes any doubt as to the likelihood that the recipient was still alive and available to be the source of the sale: if she was under 11 in 1966, she would only be around 70 years old now.
I suppose there could be other fans round about Jenny Hall's age who wrote to Tolkien and got some interesting reply in a letter which is as yet unknown even to the experts at TolkienGuide.
As Jenny's generation ages and dies away maybe we will see more treasured letters either coming up for auction or being donated to centres of Tolkien study.
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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Felagund
Gondor
Sat, 6:53pm
Post #35 of 42
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What a lovely find, for all concerned! And awesome, after all these years, that such a treat has come to light, with direct application to one of the many Middle-earth mysteries and debates. I also had to check my calendar for 1 April fun, after the story broke, and was delighted that this very much appears to be what it says on the tin.
I've loved the thread that has ensued (let's call it The Life & Times of Dave), especially in consideration / speculation as to whether Tolkien was being retroactive in his Dave Deployment or he had always (or at least long) considered the tree-man of the North Moors to be an Ent. On the subject of 'when', I spotted on the Tolkien Gateway a reference to a February 1964 letter (TCG Letter #544), from Tolkien to one James Heaf, which indicates that he did not think the tree-man was an Entwife but rather likely a troll. This suggests Tolkien may have changed his mind between 1964 and 1966. Or perhaps he merely forgot or revised whatever his intent was in the context of the book itself.
I note that the coverage of the story by at least one Welsh online new site focuses almost exclusively on the Crickhollow bit of the letter, celebrating Tolkien's acknowledgement that he borrowed the name from Crickhowell, in Powys (then Brecknockshire).
Welcome to the Mordorfone network, where we put the 'hai' back into Uruk
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Felagund
Gondor
Sat, 7:01pm
Post #36 of 42
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Entish swings and Trollish roundabouts
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I remember that discussion! May 2024, apparently.
And I feel remiss for not having spotted the Tolkien / Heaf letter (mentioned in my post above), which the Christie's website tells me has been public knowledge since 1997. That letter includes this line:
I do not think it was an Entwife which Hal saw on the North Moors. Perhaps it was a troll."
I would have been less Entish and more Trollish back in 2024, if I'd known about the Heaf letter. Only to revise my view now having seen the Tolkien / Hall letter!
Welcome to the Mordorfone network, where we put the 'hai' back into Uruk
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Silverlode
Forum Admin
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Sat, 9:27pm
Post #37 of 42
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Aragorn did say that Butterbur "lives within a day's march of foes that would freeze his heart, or lay his little town in ruin, if he were not guarded ceaselessly".
The peace and safety of the Shire isn't due to a lack of serious dangers nearby, even though their exact nature isn't clarified for us. Trolls and orcs and wargs (oh my!), none seem entirely out of the question.
I wonder if the Rangers were aware of Dave, or if he was on Gandalf's payroll entirely. And what was the inducement, aside from general goodwill? Perhaps Dave, like Treebeard, thought the Shire seemed like the sort of place the Entwives would like and was hopeful of finding some while he was there.
Silverlode
Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.
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Voronwë_the_Faithful
Valinor
Sun, 3:12am
Post #38 of 42
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I find it particularly interesting that in that letter, Tolkien recommended that Heaf read his unpublished book The Silmarillion to learn more about the overthrow of Morgoth, suggesting that he thought at that time that it would be published soon. Alas, less than five months later, Tolkien wrote again to Heaf saying that at that point he regretted that The Silmarillion might not be in print for some time to come because of various other commitments that he had, including publishing his translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knights and Pearl.
'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, 8:28am
Post #39 of 42
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Even more fun! Thoughts about 'Word of God' and fanthropology
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I didn't know about the Heaf letter (in which it seems Tolkien hadn't yet settled on the idea that Hal saw Dave the ent, and suggests the sighting might have been a troll).
This, I think might be a memorable example of how we fans can have impossible expectations of our small-c creators of secondary worlds. I find it easy to imagine how quickly a complex secondary world becomes well nigh impossible to keep consistent because anything new you think of is so likely to contradict or raise questions about something else you invented earlier. This wouldn't matter so much if there were not many fans who would like to think about, understand or know the answer to just about any aspect of the imaginary secondary world, and perhaps would ideally like there to be an official answer in the back of the book for absolutely everything.
And so what TV tropes calls 'word of god' ...
A statement regarding some ambiguous or undefined aspect of a work, the Word of God comes from someone considered to be the ultimate authority, such as the creator, director or producer. Such edicts can even go against events as were broadcast, due to someone making a mistake. TV Tropes https://tvtropes.org/...i.php/Main/WordOfGod
But I note this simple idea of the 'word of god' becomes the amusingly titled 'flip flop of god' (nothing to do with sandals!) or any of these other things:
...the case of a Flip-Flop of God (where the creator keeps changing their mind on what isn't made explicitly canon by the actual work or multiple creators have different viewpoints on the work's unexplained details), Shrug of God (where the creator chooses to let the fans come to their own conclusions due to either indifference or not being sure themselves) or Writer Conflicts with Canon (where what the creator says is canon is paradoxically contradicted by what is explicitly shown in the actual work). Cases of God deliberately misleading the audience go under Lying Creator or Trolling Creator. And then there are cases of fans either misinterpreting or just making up Word of God, resulting in God Never Said That. Diagnosis of God (the creator confirming a character to have or not have a particular affliction or condition) and Word of Gay (the creator confirming a character's sexual orientation to not be straight) are subtropes. Compare All There in the Manual. Contrast Death of the Author (the argument on whether the creator's opinion on the work is actually worthy of merit), and What Could Have Been (where circumstances result in a work being made somewhat different from how it was originally planned to be). See also: Canon Discontinuity (where a series installment is confirmed to be non-canon), Creator Worship (where fans have a high opinion on the creators of their favorite works), Broken Base (where members of a fandom disagree on whether an aspect of a work is good or bad, some cases of which may involve whether they agree with what the creator has to say), and Revision (adding new information to the backstory that doesn't directly contradict established canon). TV tropes ibid
A lot of this is about what I've come to think of as "fanthropology": given all the various things that fans could believe about the favourite work, what do people choose to believe and why (and why not something else)? And what behaviours do these beliefs lead to?
The anthropology of fandom, if you wish. But very much like modern anthropology (in which everyone is assumed to have a view worthy of consideration, if you can understand there premises; whether or not you choose to agree with their point of view) rather than the discredited Nineteenth century version in which someone -- perhaps in a solar topee and safari suit -- makes earnest but maybe amused notes about a people they consider beneath them.)
(...but! but! Dave the ent is real! I'm not going to have him forced to bough out just because of some stupid Heaf letter!!! )
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
(This post was edited by noWizardme on Sun, 8:32am)
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Sun, 9:28am
Post #40 of 42
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"there ain't no elm tree on the North Moors."
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A thought about Sam's failure to get Ted to take Hal's account seriously:
[At The Green Dragon, April TA 3018. Sam has wanted to discuss dragons, but Ted has scuppered that by turning it into a joke. Sam tries again:]
All right,’ said Sam, laughing with the rest.
‘But what about these Tree-men, these giants, as you might call them? They do say that one bigger than a tree was seen up away beyond the North Moors not long back.’
‘Who’s they ?’
‘My cousin Hal for one. He works for Mr. Boffin at Overhill and goes up to the Northfarthing for the hunting. He saw one.’
‘Says he did, perhaps. Your Hal’s always saying he’s seen things; and maybe he sees things that ain’t there.’
‘But this one was as big as an elm tree, and walking –walking seven yards to a stride, if it was an inch.’
‘Then I bet it wasn’t an inch. What he saw was an elm tree, as like as not.’
'But this one was walking, I tell you; and there ain't no elm tree on the North Moors.'
'Then Hal can't have seen one,' said Ted. There was some laughter and clapping: the audience seemed to think that Ted had scored a point.
[Sam still won't give up wanting to talk seriously about the mysteries of the outside world, and moves on to 'queer folk crossing the Shire and elves sailing west. but I don't need to quote the rest of the conversation here]
LOTR CH2 [my bolds]
I'm remembering that elms were, in Tolkien's time one of the most spectacular trees in England, capable of growing to 100 ft, or about 30 hobbits laid end to end*.
I wonder whether Tolkien decided to make what Hal saw an elm because he wanted a spectacular tree.
Another possible point:
Elm grows best in well-drained soil in hedgerows and woodland. It can usually tolerate a range of pH levels in soil. English elm once dominated the British landscape but has been ravaged by Dutch elm disease since the 1960s. Now it is only found occasionally in hedgerows or woodland, mainly in England and Wales. Elm, English ( Ulmus procera) a-z of British Trees article by The Woodland Trust
So I think Sam is quite right - there shouldn't be an elm growing on a moor. I think Tolkien would have known this. I think Tolkien is careful about his trees.
Ted of course just wants to dismiss it all as a joke and an opportunity to entertain the company at Sam's expense. But among the contrasts between Sam and Ted we see here, maybe we are also seeing a difference in knowledge of or sensitivity to the natural world.
I'm reminded of something William Blake said:
The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity, and by these I shall not regulate my proportions; and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself. As a man is, so he sees.
– William Blake, from his communications with the Reverend John Trusler, 1799
If so it's a difference between Sam and Ted that events will amplify. One of Sam's visions in Galadriel's mirror:
'Hi!' cried Sam in an outraged voice. 'There's that Ted Sandyman a-cutting down trees as he shouldn't....I wish I could get at Ted, and I'd fell him!
The Mirror of Galadriel
---* I decided not to google whether about 30 hobbits could be laid end to end, as I expect that would be Rule 34 stuff and I wouldn't want to know.
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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Silvered-glass
Rohan
Sun, 3:20pm
Post #41 of 42
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Not an elm. Bigger than an elm.
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I'm remembering that elms were, in Tolkien's time one of the most spectacular trees in England, capable of growing to 100 ft, or about 30 hobbits laid end to end*.
I wonder whether Tolkien decided to make what Hal saw an elm because he wanted a spectacular tree.
An important point is that Hal didn't claim that he saw a walking elm. Ted the skeptical non-witness is the person who brought elms into the discussion.
Hall claims that he saw a giant something and that he saw "one bigger than a tree". Elms are trees. By extension, the thing Hal saw should then also be bigger than an elm. Ents are tall, but there are no indications that they are quite that tall unless Hal was mistaken about the size.
So, by a process of elimination and assuming Hal was a reliable witness, the thing Hal would have to be a Giant. We know very little about Middle-earth Giants. Maybe the one in the North Moors had wandered in from the Misty Mountains.
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Sun, 5:19pm
Post #42 of 42
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The quote is ‘But this one was as big as an elm tree, and walking –walking seven yards to a stride, if it was an inch.’ (regarding what Sam says Hal saw).
But Sam also does say earlier ‘But what about these Tree-men, these giants, as you might call them? They do say that one bigger than a tree was seen up away beyond the North Moors not long back.’
(my italics both times)
(I quoted the full passage here already if any more of it is needed. )
Bigger than a tree. As big as an elm tree. Tree-men. Giants.
Vagueness.
Which is entirely reasonable for literary effect: Sam, I think, is talking about things he'd dearly like to exist but which he has not yet had a chance to experience except in tales. And in reports like Hal's, which mainstream hobbit culture regards like modern Western mainstream culture might regard someone saying they'd seen a unicorn or fairies or aliens.
Sam, it seems, is nearly as cracked as a Baggins. Which will turn out to be important when he gets a chance to go away with Mr Frodo. But it's good writing, I think, that he sounds a bit bonkers here with lots that Ted can niggle at and the other drinkers laugh at. For those purposes, I agree Hal claiming he'd seen a giant would work just as well.
These needs of the fiction makes the passage far from ideal as one on which to extract 'lore' (or at least I think so).
But, to see what close reading of the text supports - I think there's an ambiguity is over whether the tree men are being described: - as giants, adjective (They are tree-men. Tree-men are really big and thus are described as giants) or;
- as giants, noun. They are giants. Giants are a distinct kind of creature or person in Middle-earth about which (or whom) we have almost no information.
- Maybe Giants are also sometimes called 'tree-men' by hobbits, because the biggest thing hobbits are used to seeing is a tree.
- Or maybe at first Sam is thinking about various different reports of (a)Tree-men and (b) giants but then focuses in on what cousin Hal told him.
Hammond and Scull's Reader's Companion is fun on this, but does not clear up the above query.
Reader's Companion notes that "As first written in draft, Sam spoke of 'giants...nigh as big as a tower or leastways a tree' So maybe Tolkien was thinking of a giants (noun) at one time. Though perhaps someone could hold out for giants (adj) even there. But anyway, that was in draft.
Among the other Hammond and Scull notes on this passage is one for
'Seven yards to a stride - if the 'giant' is an Ent then this is an exaggeration: a true Ent-stride measures four feet (see note for p470)'
Looking at the note for p470, It seems that Tolkien made various calculations about lengths and speeds of ent strides and the velocity of ents walking or charging.
But how fast can Dave run when he has gastro-ent-eritis? Maybe that is what looks like a seven-yard stride
This eliminates an ent, or not, depending on which bits of Hal's report we take literally and which we're willing to dismiss as exaggeration or distortion.
As to Letters as a source, We've seen that in 1964 someone writes to Tolkien to ask him what Hal saw and Tolkien suggests maybe a troll. In 1966 he writes the Highly Surprising Letter of this discussion, saying it was an Ent. Maybe, for all I know, had someone written to Tolkien in 1968, he'd have agreed it was a giant.
Or, maybe that did happen, and that letter will come up for auction soon? 
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
(This post was edited by noWizardme on Sun, 5:23pm)
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hmmm?
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