Did Hal See An Ent Beyond The North Moors of the Shire?

Even Professor Tolkien wasn't sure what Sam Gamgee's cousin Hal saw when he was hunting at the top of the Northfarthing, looking across the lonesome North Moors. Sam's neighbors, of course, scoff at this report that his relative claims to have seen something like an elm tree striding across the land, because no elm trees grow there. They refuse to address the fact that it was walking. What do you think Hal saw? This new painting tells you the belief I cherish.

Why I'll always root for an Ent!

I confess, I have not given up on the Entwives. Given their preference for gardens and agriculture, my eyes turn to the Shire - once the fertile cornlands of the Great North Kingdom. I want to believe with all my heart that this same notion came to this lone Ent, and he went walking through every kind of grove and orchard in the less populous parts of Eriador seeking the Entwives.

Why did Hal think of an elm when he saw this giant figure moving across the moors? Perhaps the Ent had passed through an elm grove along the way, and if you look closely at the painting, you will see that his beard is trailing the lovely papery seed pods called samaras. Maybe elms did come to grow on the North Moors after he passed that way.

Wouldn't you love to know that this marvelous being came to some ruin of men and found an ancient orchard there, and in its midst, an Entwife who had become so tree-ish that only the eyes of her own kindred could distinguish her from the surrounding trees? Perhaps she had fallen into a very long sleep.

Absolutely none of this is canon, but it is precisely the sort of pleasurable meanderings the half-glimpsed, unsolved mysteries in Tolkien's brilliant legendarium invite. We can each make up our own minds to unanswerable questions.

A curious tale

Elm samaras

While I was working on this painting, something rather remarkable happened that I would like to share with you. Due to Dutch Elm disease, there are very few elm trees left in my part of the world. I know of only one stand of them, which is about a fifteen-minute drive from my home. I was deeply absorbed with my canvas, and needed to remind myself to get up for a walk. I went outside, and was pacing about the perimeter of my yard, when a fallow gold shimmer in the grass caught my eye. To my astonishment, an elm samara lay caught in the weeds. Just like Hal, I stopped in my tracks. Then, I planted it.

Faërie is never far away, and I felt exactly as if an Ent had come striding down my lane in California to encourage me in my work.

I believe Hal

Despite the fact that we hear about this episode while a young Sam is sitting in an inn, begging to hear exciting tales about dragons and such, I don't conceive of the Gamgees as especially fanciful folk. I can just imagine Hal taking this hunting break from his job at Mr. Boffin's at Overhill and feeling quite small out there in the vast, misty expanse of the Moors. The eerie cries of red grouse would have echoed off the rocks and in the wind. Then the ground would have begun to shake as something massive came towards him at "seven yards to a stride."

Of course, with hobbit nimbleness, Hal would have immediately disappeared behind the nearest outcropping of stone. He would have stared in utter awe, perhaps forgetting to breathe, in the heath-scented air while his quarry of birds flew off unheeded. He would have stood rooted to the ground until the giant passed and the earth ceased to tremble.

I think Hal was telling the truth, and thankfully, I can't really be proved wrong, nor do I have to convince anyone that I'm right. I just feel that an Ent was really there.

Even the smallest paragraph or a few stray words can add such exquisite detail to Middle-earth. Passages you may have overlooked across a dozen previous readings or more suddenly leap off the page, whisking you away to some little-visited corner of the Shire, suggestive of rich delights.

I hope you will delight in this video short in which I have tried to recreate the sensations I imagine Hal had during this unforgettable experience he later confided to cousin Sam. Can you imagine being there?