Fangorn Forest

Fangorn lies between the Misty Mountains and the Entwash, in the angle where Rohan meets the mountains. Isengard sits just over the ridge to the west, the Wold stretches east toward the Anduin, and the Limlight runs along the forest's northern edge toward Lothlórien. The Entwash rises among its trees, which is where the river gets its name.

This is old forest in a literal sense. The woods that once covered most of the west were cut and burned over thousands of years, and Fangorn is what is left of the eastern part, with the Old Forest near Buckland the shrunken western remnant. The trees here are not all asleep. Huorns, trees that have grown awake and mobile, stand among them, and Rohan's people avoided the eaves entirely.

Treebeard, Fangorn himself, is the oldest of the Ents and, Gandalf says, the oldest living thing that still walks under the sun. The Ents were made to shepherd the trees. Their loss of the Entwives, who went east to gardens that were later ruined, means there are no Entings and the race is ending.

Merry and Pippin escaped into Fangorn on 29 February TA 3019 as Éomer destroyed their captors, met Treebeard that same morning and were carried to Wellinghall. Their news about Saruman's felling of the forest brought on the Entmoot, three days of deliberation ending in a decision to march. On the night of 2 March the Ents reached Isengard and broke it, and a host of Huorns went south by night to Helm's Deep, where Saruman's fleeing army walked into the trees and none came out. Gandalf, returned as the White, had met Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli in this forest on 1 March, while the Entmoot was still sitting. None of it was planned by anyone on either side.

Events at this place

1. TA 3019, February 29 · The Lord of the Rings

   Merry and Pippin meet Treebeard

   The hobbits escaped into Fangorn on 29 February and were taken up by Treebeard, who carried them to his house at Wellinghall.

2. TA 3019, February 30 · The Lord of the Rings

   The Entmoot

   The Ents debated for three days at Derndingle and then resolved to march on Isengard, which they reached that night.

3. TA 3019, March 1 · The Lord of the Rings

   Gandalf returns

   Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli met Gandalf the White in Fangorn while tracking the hobbits, and learned he had been sent back.

4. TA 3019, March 4 · The Lord of the Rings

   The Huorns go to Helm's Deep

   A forest of Huorns moved south in the dark and destroyed Saruman's retreating army in the Deeping-coomb on 4 March.

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