Was there a stray ent near the Shire during The Lord of the Rings?

J.R.R. Tolkien's Ents show up for the first time in force in "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers," the second entry in the trilogy. They have a pivotal role in stopping the rogue Wizard Saruman. Their main role in the story plays out in the southern reaches of Middle-earth, but there is a brief mention of an Ent as far north as the Shire. That moment comes in the first book, "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," where Sam talks about "Tree-men" stalking along the edges of his homeland.

It turns out this is more than a vague comment. The original Tree-men line comes early in the book, when Sam debates with others at a local pub about sightings of oddities around the borders of the Shire. Sam (who is the true hero of "The Lord of the Rings," per Tolkien himself) points out that his cousin saw what he calls giant "Tree-men." He says these enormous beings have been spotted just north of the Shire, adding, "This one was as big as an elm tree, and walking -– walking seven yards to a stride, if it was an inch."

On the surface, this is simply a fun if somewhat cryptic comment. Sure, it could be an Ent, but is it? Are readers supposed to just guess? They had to back when the book was published back in July 1954, but, eventually, the author himself weighed in on the Ent question. Tolkien came right out and confirmed the identity of Sam's Tree-man in a letter to a fan years after "The Fellowship of the Ring" hit book stores.

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Tolkien's explanation for Ents near the Shire

In the same chapter that mentions "Tree-men," Gandalf tells Frodo that he was troubled by the necessary risk of leaving the One Ring in the Shire for so long. However, he adds the caveat, "Even when I was far away there has never been a day when the Shire has not been guarded by watchful eyes." Later in the story, we learn that Aragorn and the Rangers were key players in keeping watch over the Hobbit homeland, but it turns out there were Ents involved, too — and they're the same "Tree-men" Sam was talking about. In a letter on February 28, 1966, Tolkien answered a question about the Tree-men from a Jenny Hall, in which he said, "The walking elms were meant to be ents (but not entwives). Gandalf had asked one or two of them to keep a watch on the Shire, but he did not tell anybody about it."

That letter went up for auction in mid-2026, drawing fresh attention to the Tree-men comment. The explanation also fits in with another part of the story. Early in "The Lord of the Rings," Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin leave the Shire and take a shortcut through the nearby Old Forest. There, they meet Tom Bombadil and have a run-in with ghostly Barrow-wights. (This is the stuff Stephen Colbert's upcoming "Lord fo the Rings" movie will cover.) During this detour, they also encounter a "living tree" called Old Man Willow, who can't walk like an Ent, but is certainly alive, nimble, and dangerous. Tolkien's Tree-men explanation also connects to something Treebeard says in "The Two Towers" when he talks with Merry and Pippin about the Entwives and their homeland.

Ents and Entwives, what's the difference?

The careful clarification by Tolkien, even in a casual letter to a fan, about the fact that it was Ents and not Entwives near the Shire, is important. The Entwives are a mysterious part of "The Lord of the Rings." They are the "other half" of the Entish race. While Ents preferred the wild forests, Entwives liked to build well-ordered gardens. They taught other races of Middle-earth about agriculture and were respected and loved — until they suddenly disappeared. Even Tolkien didn't know exactly where they had gone. In 1954, he did say that they had moved east, not west (i.e., away from the Shire), during the Second Age of Middle-earth history, so long before "The Lord of the Rings" starts or even before the Shire became a formal geographic region.

Tolkien added that he thought the Entwives had disappeared, ending in an unknown tragedy. This is important, as even in the "Lord of the Rings" story, there are still many people, including the Ents, who are hopeful that they'll find the Entwives one day. On the surface, this makes walking "Tree-men" near the Shire a potential hint of where the Entwives might still be living. But, unfortunately, when the author wrote Jenny Hall over a decade later, he put the kibosh on any hope that the walking tree-giant near the Shire was actually an Entwife. Even so, it's a fun fact to know that Gandalf had Ents stationed around the Shire to protect Bilbo, Frodo, and their helpless Hobbit neighbors in the years leading up to the all-out war with Sauron and the great quest to destroy the One Ring.

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Read the original article on Looper.