- "You see, we lost the Entwives."
- —Treebeard in The Two Towers
Entwives were female Ents.
They were put upon the earth by Yavanna to protect her trees along with their husbands the Ents. According to Treebeard, Fimbrethil was the most beautiful of the Entwives. However, prior to the Third Age, the Entwives abandoned the Ents in order to start a garden east of Fangorn Forest in what became the Brown Lands; following the end of the Second Age, they disappeared. When Treebeard went searching for them, he could not find them.
Description[]
The Entwives are described by Treebeard as having "hair parched by the sun to the hue of ripe corn and their cheeks like red apples. Yet their eyes were still the eyes of our own people," yet little else is known of their appearance. Like the males they looked after the growing things of Middle-earth, but Entwives preferred smaller plant life such as: small trees, grasses, fruit trees, flowers, and vegetables, while males tended the larger trees.[citation needed]
History[]
Like all Ents they tended their lands in the vast primordial forests of Middle-earth throughout the Elder Days, but sometime in the distant past, possibly starting in the Second Age, they became estranged from their husbands. They moved further east, crossing the Anduin and began living in what became the Brown Lands, tending lush gardens; However with the rise of Sauron throughout the Second Age these lands were destroyed. After that they disappeared and everything about them was the subject of rumor and conjecture, being remembered only in the songs of Men and Elves.
What actually happened to the Entwives was something Tolkien wanted to keep a mystery, but in one of his letters, he wrote that he believed that the Entwives were wiped out by Sauron as collateral damage during the War of the Last Alliance. While some could have survived, those that did likely either fled east or became enslaved by tyrants for economical and agricultural purposes.[1]
In adaptations[]
Peter Jackson's The Two Towers[]
In The Two Towers, Treebeard tells Merry and Pippin about the Entwives and how they became lost to them. He also asks them if there are Entwives living in the Shire. When the hobbits ask what they looked like, so as to answer his question, he says he doesn't remember.
Middle-earth: Shadow of War[]
In Middle-earth: Shadow of War, the sequel to Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, produced by Monolith Studios, the forest spirit Carnán strongly resembles the description of an Entwife and shares their characteristic of being a protector of life, though she's never confirmed to be one.
Translations[]
Foreign Language | Translated name |
Arabic | زوجات إينت |
Azerbaijani | Ent arvadları |
Basque | Ent emazteak |
Bulgarian Cyrillic | Ентруги |
Danish | Entkoner |
Catalan | Ent-femelles |
Czech | Entky |
Dutch | Entvrouwen |
Estonian | Ent naised |
Finnish | Entvaimot |
French | Ents-femmes |
German | Entfrauen |
Hebrew | רעיות האנטים |
Hindi | एन्ट पत्नियाँ |
Icelandic | Ent eiginkonur |
Italian | Entesse |
Javanese | Ent garwane |
Kannada | ಎಂಟ್ ಹೆಂಡತಿಯರು |
Kyrgyz Cyrillic | Энт аялдар |
Latvian | Ent sievas |
Lithuanian | Ent žmonos |
Maithili | एंट पत्नी |
Polish | Żony Ent |
Portuguese | Entsposas |
Russian | Жёны энтов |
Spanish | Ent-mujeres |
Swedish | Entiskor |
Telugu | ఎన్ట్ భార్యలు |
Turkish | Ent eşleri |
Turkmen | Ent aýallar |
Uzbek | Ент хотинлари (Cyrillic) Ent xotinlari (Latin) |