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Old Man Willow
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Home(s)
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Language(s)
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Valarin; Treeish
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People
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time period
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Gender
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Male
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A Powerful earth-bound spirit of the Old Forest , this evil animate tree had much power over the other awakened trees of the Old Forest of Eliador (in Cardolan, near the Shire). It hated all living,fire-using creatures and sought to destroy them. Old Man Willow had a "singing" magic- produced by waving its fronds and branches, causing the air to sigh and whistle through them.It generally used this sound as a Sleep spell , persuading victims to fall asleep within reach of its twining roots or the gaping cracks in its trunk. Then it disposed of them by throwing them into the nearby River Withywindle to drown or by drawing them into its trunk and crushing them, thus providing itself with fertilizer. Alternatively,it could use Confusion or Fear spells to distract or drive off its foes.
According to Tom Bombadil, at the dawn of time in Middle-earth, long before even the Awakening of the Elves, trees were the only inhabitants of vast stretches of the world. Because the Elves awoke far in the East, it was still a considerable time before any other beings spread into the vast primeval forests of western Middle-earth. A handful of trees survived from this time until the present day, who were angered at the encroachment of Elves and Men and their dominion over the earth; trees who bitterly remembered a time long ago when they were as Lords of vast regions of the world. Bombadil related that of the corrupted trees of the Old Forest, "none were more dangerous than the Great Willow; his heart was rotten, but his strength was green; and he was cunning, and a master of winds, and his song and thought ran through the woods on both sides of the river. His grey thirsty spirit drew power out of the earth and spread like fine root-threads in the ground, and invisible twig-fingers in the air, till it had under its dominion nearly all the trees of the Forest from the Hedge to the Downs."
Notes[]
It seems that Old man willow had not always been the way he had become and at some time he and Tom Bombadil even had shared a sort of friedship,or jocular rivalry.From Bombadil's point of view Old man willow was still not even evil in the first sense but rather angry, grumpy and ignorant, why he treated the dangerous earth-demon as a mischievous , naughty neighbour rather than as an enemy.
References[]
- MERP:Creatures of Middle-Earth