Bombadil certainly, but I would disagree on elves’ ears and possibly balrog wings. Nobody in Middle-Earth knows what the deal is with Old Tom, but anyone who’s ever met an elf knows what their ears look like. Likewise, in principle at least, anyone who’s ever seen a balrog, though that’s a lot fewer people, and I can’t blame them if they weren’t paying close attention to detail at the time.
Go easy on the puns there, or 'Mika will sic the copse on us. 
Manzanita stop reading this thread.
I too pine for the resolution about the Ent wives, but considering how much great stuff he did provide us, it kinda makes me feel like I’m complaining that they’re out of boysenberry crepes at the buffet after I’ve gone back to the fill my plate 5 times without tasting the same thing twice.
Excellently put!
With Tolkien you get background behind the action, and when you poke away at the background you get more background, and after you’ve scraped that away there’s more background… whereas with some other fantasy authors you’re lucky if there isn’t blank white paper with a visible watermark between the cartoon figures and their speech bubbles. I know which I prefer.
Manzanita?
It’s a tree with unusually lovely wood, hunted to near extinction in California years ago. Manzanita trees have made an excellent come back after being placed on the do-not-touch list.
There’s no doubt that Tolkien was from a generation and background that did not see female characters as overly interesting.
In addition, his academic focus on Anglo Saxon and related literature, such as Nordic … what is the word, well tales… - and desire to reproduce a sort of modern version also influenced him. One can’t say that Beowulf is exactly teeming with female characters that the 21st century sensibilities might desire.
Hunt?
Cut, harvest, but hunt?
Trees were more ambulatory then.*
*Not really.
There are some 60 species of manzanita and the kind I’m familiar with way up on the northern coast of CA is extremely prolific and is considered a fire hazard if too close to structures because it can get so dense and burns so hot. It is literally everywhere.
I was trying to make the joke TWDuke elaborated on, but yes, hunted in the sense that Manzanitawas rare, and you had to search for it back in the 1970’s.
ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies is probably referring to the Pallid Manzanita, which is a fire hazard. There’s an ongoing compromise between species survival and fire abatement.
At least one Entwife made it as far west as California, and settled down with a nice mountain, who often posed for pictures.
[continued apologies for hijack] The stuff that grows everywhere up in Humboldt County isn’t Pallid. I’m till trying to confirm the specific epithet of the one I’m talking about. It has been a looong time since I took my last Botany class. I’m fairly sure all of the manzanitas burn really well, it is a hardwood. I just want to put forth the notion that some of the varieties in certain areas are far from endangered and are purposefully removed to mitigate wildfire danger in inhabited rural areas and harvested for firewood with clear consciences, even by many a tree-hugging hippie.[/hijack]