# Who is 'Old Man Willow'?



## Úlairi (Feb 27, 2002)

I wonder... who is 'Old Man Willow' could it be possible that he is a bad ent? Or is he an enigma just like good old Tom?!


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## ssgrif (Feb 27, 2002)

I think it was just a form of tree, not sure that he was actually an Ent. Just a simple Willow that hated things with legs, rambling through its forest.


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## Goro Shimura (Feb 27, 2002)

No, I don't think he was an ent.

Like Treebeard said some ents get treeish while some of the trees begin to turn entish.


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## Camille (Feb 27, 2002)

Can he be an Ucorno?? At the TTT Treebear said to merry and Pipin that the ucornos were ents or beings dont remember that are more like a tree now and that they have a bad black heart!! When the Ents helped the rohan people and went to Isengard the forest followed them and this forest was ucornos, maybe 'Old Man Willow' is an ucorno. 
Pd. I used the ucorno word because in my copy of TTT is not in English so I dont know the actual english word for ucorno but I think you know what I meant


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## Goro Shimura (Feb 27, 2002)

Perhaps Ucorno is Spanish for "Huron."


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## DGoeij (Feb 27, 2002)

Well, Treebeard (Tom too?) mentions the connection between the Old Forest and Fangorn. So I guess calling Old Man Willow a Huron can't be very wrong.


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## Camille (Feb 27, 2002)

Huron yes.. it is an Ucorno, thanks Goroshimura


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## Legolam (Feb 27, 2002)

Don't you mean a Huorn?


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## Goro Shimura (Feb 27, 2002)

Thanks, Pontifex-- I mean Legolam.

Isn't that Legolas??


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## 7doubles (Feb 28, 2002)

tom states, he's the river dauters father, in likeness to goldberry's figure and fruit.


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## DGoeij (Feb 28, 2002)

7doubles, what do you wish to say? I don't get it.

And I should have said Huorns, Hurons is a tribe out of 'last of the Mohicans'. Silly me.


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## Camille (Feb 28, 2002)

MMM now I am confused, the wird is Huron, Huorns, Hurons ???
and 7 doubles, by "he's the river dauters father" you mean old man willow?


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## DGoeij (Feb 28, 2002)

One Huorn, two Huorns. Trees that have become 'Entish' and Ents that have become 'treeish'. And anything in between I guess.


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## Camille (Feb 28, 2002)

thanks DGoeij !!


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## 7doubles (Feb 28, 2002)

old MAN willow, goldberrys father so lets not worry toms head with bother.


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## Lantarion (Feb 28, 2002)

I think Old Man Willow was a Huorn, but he had perhaps drifted away from 'Entish' society and had been isolated in his own little forest for so long that he had adopted new, selfish ways of living (ie. he had become cruel and evil). 
Thank you for the mix up, Goro.  Legolam is the name of Legolas in 'Bored of the Rings'.


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## DGoeij (Feb 28, 2002)

Good old Tom says a heck of a lot of things, but Old Man Willow, Goldberry's dad?

Well, she is the daughter of the river, as far as I remember. I'll re-read the chapters on Tom and Goldberry.


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## Camille (Feb 28, 2002)

yeah!! I do not think so either, Goldberry was daughter of the river was'nt she?


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## DGoeij (Mar 1, 2002)

Well, I've re-read the chapters, but I cannot find any mentioning of Old Man Willow being Golberry's old man.
Tom definately tells the hobbits Old Man Willow is one of the oldest trees in the Old Forest, and a very wicked one, with a black hearth.


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## ssgrif (Mar 1, 2002)

Old Man Willow had a black fireplace? I must have missed that part of the book...


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## Lantarion (Mar 1, 2002)

LOL. I thought I was the only one nitpicky enough to take things literally! (I'm sure DGoeij meant 'heart'.)


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## Úlairi (Mar 1, 2002)

*Thanks*

   Thanks guys! Yes, I looked it up and Huorn is the correct term! Perhaps we have solved another of Tolkien's mysteries!!!


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## DGoeij (Mar 4, 2002)

That wicked old willow was so bad he even burned other trees. 

LOL, I messed up, sorry.


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## Ardamir the Blessed (Jan 3, 2004)

*The Witch-king rousing OMW?*

I found something interesting in UT, _The Hunt for the Ring_:


> He [the Witch-king] had known something of the country [the Shire] long ago, in his wars with the Dúnedain, and especially of the Tyrn Gothad of Cardolan, now the Barrow-downs, *whose evil wights had been sent there by himself*.





> In notes on the movements of the Black Riders at that time it is said that the Black Captain stayed there for some days, and the Barrow-wights were roused, and *all things of evil spirit, hostile to Elves and Men, were on the watch with malice in the Old Forest* and on the Barrow-downs.


Maybe the Witch-king roused Old Man Willow and the other huorns in the Old Forest? Maybe an evil spirit out of Angmar housed in OMW?


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## The Tall Hobbit (Jan 5, 2004)

From The History of Middle Earth Vol 6: 



> Amongst [Tom's] talk there was here and there much said of Old Man
> Willow, and Merry learned enough to content him (more than
> enough, for it was not comfortable lore), though not enough for
> him to understand how that grey thirsty earth-bound spirit had
> ...


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## Barliman Butterbur (Jan 5, 2004)

Úlairi said:


> I wonder... who is 'Old Man Willow' could it be possible that he is a bad ent? Or is he an enigma just like good old Tom?!



He is as Tolkien wrote him. Come to think of it, it could have been Abercrombie Fafoofnik, who used to live in the Eastfarthing.

Lotho


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## Úlairi (Jan 5, 2004)

Judging from the demeanour of my posts, I would have to say that this thread is well over two years old, when I wasn't very well-versed in the world of Tolkien. Why bring up a thread this old?  Who was it? Let me see...

Herendil! A good post, one of which I knew of, but mate, this thread is a relic!


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