# LOTR: What did Sam's cousin see **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 6, 2004, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-did-sams-cousin-see/223104 "2004-01-06T23:25:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2004, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-did-sams-cousin-see/223104/21 "2004-01-08T18:48:53Z")
Or it could have been a giant and just as tall as a tree. Do we know if Tolkein had planned the hobbits to meet ents when he started writing? I’m not sure, though you’d have thought the old forest would be slightly different if so. If he hadn’t then it makes sense for him to have seen something from the forest. OTOH I seem to recall the impression that things were fleeing past the shire from turmoil in the east, which would suggest something less local. ---
**Author:** ![paperbackwriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@paperbackwriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paperbackwriter)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2004, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-did-sams-cousin-see/223104/22 "2004-01-08T23:48:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Shade \* > \*\*Or it could have been a giant and just as tall as a tree. > > Do we know if Tolkein had planned the hobbits to meet ents when he started writing? I’m not sure, though you’d have thought the old forest would be slightly different if so. If he hadn’t then it makes sense for him to have seen something from the forest. > > OTOH I seem to recall the impression that things were fleeing past the shire from turmoil in the east, which would suggest something less local. \*\* Don’t forget that Tolkein did not write LoTR from front to back. He wrote bits and pieces and went back over the whole thing numerous times. He easily could have written about the Ents and Huorns and then gone back and added this scene to foreshadow them. Whether he was planning at the beginning of the writing process for the hobbits to wind up in Fangorn doesn’t enter into it. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2004, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-did-sams-cousin-see/223104/23 "2004-01-09T00:00:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by C K Dexter Haven \* > \*\*\<\< I had always figured that it was a setup for Old Man Willow, Huorns, and Ents. \>\> > > I agree, it’s to let you know that there are strange things out there away from the comfort of the Shire, and to foreshadow all the live trees. \*\* Also, it sets up the attitude of the rest of the Shire, which tends to the insular and naive. “Giant walking trees? In the Shire? Nonsense. That sort of thing only happens near big folk communities. Hal must have been drinking again.” ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2004, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-did-sams-cousin-see/223104/24 "2004-01-09T00:24:21Z")
I always assumed it was an Ent, too, since the Huorns are kinda lethargic and the Entwives are nowhere to be seen. And good insight **CKDex** and **Miller** , I must say. ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2004, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-did-sams-cousin-see/223104/25 "2004-01-09T01:35:57Z")
Remember, everyone, Treebeard mentions that Fangorn forest, in Ye Olden Golden Dayse, used to cover far more area, extending as far up as the Shire. It was even mentioned that the Old Forest could’ve been part of Fangorn forest at one point. With that in mind, I think it’s pretty clear that Tolkien meant to imply that it was Jimmy Hoff… I mean, an Entwife. ---
**Author:** ![sjc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e5b9ba/32.png) [@sjc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sjc)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2004, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-did-sams-cousin-see/223104/26 "2004-01-09T03:35:16Z")
I read the books by christopher tolkein that reprinted some of the early drafts of the LOTR and described the process of writing the books. I don’t remember if he had that part in the early drafts, but I do remember that Treebeard was originally going to be evil (or at least bad) and Frodo was going to encounter him and not Merry and Pippen. I think he may have written the story of the walking tree before he had thought of putting Treebeard in. Maybe not though. I wish I had the books nearby but I don’t. ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2004, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-did-sams-cousin-see/223104/27 "2004-01-09T04:27:55Z")
> [@](#): > > think he may have written the story of the walking tree before he had thought of putting Treebeard in. Tolkein delayed the production of his story by several months to check and see if the phases of the Moon were as he described at the various latitudes. I don’t think he would have forgotten that he “accidentally” put in a major foreshadowing. ---
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2004, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-did-sams-cousin-see/223104/28 "2004-01-10T02:58:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Stonebow \* > \*\*I had always figured that it was a setup for Old Man Willow, Huorns, and Ents. > > I seem to remember reading somewhere in - either in the Appendies or Tolkien’s letters, that the Ent-Wives are actually dead, having been destroyed by Sauron in the last war. They were where the ‘Brown Lands’ are at the time of LOTR. \*\* You got it from Letters, #144 to be exact. It was written during the proofing stage to one of the proof readers Naomi Mitchison. She had apparently become quite enamoured with the books and had written a bunch of questions. It is one of my favorite letters. Here is the relavent portion about entwives. > [@](#): > > I think that in fact the Entwives had disappeared for good, being destroyed with their gardens in the War of the Last Alliance (Second Age 3429-3441) when Sauron pursued a scorched earth policy and burned their land against the advance of the Allies down the Anduin (vol. II p. 79 refers to it2). They survived only in the ‘agriculture’ transmitted to Men (and Hobbits). Some, of course, may have fled east, or even have become enslaved: tyrants even in such tales must have an economic and agricultural background to their soldiers and metal-workers. If any survived so, they would indeed be far estranged from the Ents, and any rapprochement would be difficult – unless experience of industrialized and militarized agriculture had made them a little more anarchic. I hope so. I don’t know. As for Hal’s walking Elm? I tend to think that in-story it was an escapee from the old forest. And out of story I agree with **CKDex** , it was a bit of foreshadowing of both the Old Forest and Fangorn as well as a glimpse of the wilder world outside the Shire. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2004, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-did-sams-cousin-see/223104/29 "2004-01-10T09:08:18Z")
I think he saw the ingenue hippopotamus from _Meet the Feebles._ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-did-sams-cousin-see/223104.md?page=1)