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tarcolan
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Post Active trees in folklore
on: August 18, 2012 01:52
Did Tolkien invent active trees? Does anybody know of any other examples? I can only think of a talking tree in the Kalevala.
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Erucenindë
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Post Re: Active trees in folklore
on: August 18, 2012 07:05
Well, what about the ents? I count them as trees. And the huorns, which couldn't speak, but could move. Also, Old Man Willow.
cirdaneth
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Post Re: Active trees in folklore
on: August 18, 2012 10:45
I think that's what Tarcolan means,Erucenindë. They were Tolkien's inventions, but was there any prior example in either literature or folklore. I can't think of one at the moment, except ...

The Song of the Rood: an ancient poem in which the wood of Christ's cross tells of it's life as a tree prior to the crucifixion. Personally I believe he was influenced by this.
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Post Re: Active trees in folklore
on: August 18, 2012 05:14
Oh I see. I read that wrong. I can't think of any examples, but I'm not very familiar with folklore.
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Post Re: Active trees in folklore
on: August 20, 2012 04:45
The first trees that came to me were the Fighting Trees from L. Frank Baum's Wonderful Wizard of Oz (book- not the Movie). But Wikipedia lists earlier Talking Trees going right back to ancient Greece.
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Post Re: Active trees in folklore
on: August 21, 2012 05:55
We need to 'branch' out to get at the 'root' of the matter...

... and possibly award the 'silvan medal' to the person who branches out the furthest, if not the gold.

I couldn't help myself.
tarcolan
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Post Re: Active trees in folklore
on: August 21, 2012 11:38
Oho! I didn't twig at first. Tree-mendously ent-ertaining. But have a heart, wood you like to leaf through some books for us? We bough to your superior wisdom.

Talking trees are pretty universal but most of them concern a spirit living in the tree. Moving trees seem to be much rarer in ancient myths and stories. I'll keep searching.
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cirdaneth
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Post Re: Active trees in folklore
on: August 22, 2012 10:39
How about the Cad Goddeu (Battle of the Trees)? It's a medieval Welsh poem from the Book of Taliesin. In it, the wizard Gwydion gets the forest trees to fight as an army.
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Post Re: Active trees in folklore
on: August 22, 2012 07:00
There are evil forest trees in old central European and Russian fairytales.
---------- Image "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit
cirdaneth
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Post Re: Active trees in folklore
on: August 22, 2012 07:59
Of course. I'd forgotten abou them. Are ther any benevolent ones too?
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Post Re: Active trees in folklore
on: August 27, 2012 12:32
I can't recall, it's been long since I read fairy-tales. I believe there were some nicer trees with a will of their own, but those didn't move, just deliberately hid people from enemy eyes. I'll post here if I come across a particular tale.

I don't know if these count, but there are quite a few stories in old legends and tales about people who turned, or were turned, into trees, retaining their emotions but not being able to move from their spot, just wave their leaves around, make sounds, and the like.
---------- Image "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit
tarcolan
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Post Re: Active trees in folklore
on: August 28, 2012 12:11
I found an old translation of Cad Goddeu on t'internet but it's a bit confusing, as though the translator just did a word for word swap without really understanding it. I'll have to find a more sympathetic version. There's supposed to be tree warriors in the Mabinogion but I can't find them.
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cirdaneth
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Post Re: Active trees in folklore
on: August 28, 2012 10:46
You can read Robert Graves' take on the Cad Goddeu in his book "The White Goddess" a book that I enjoyed immensley though rather demanding.

Be aware however that Tolkien declared that Graves was "an a*s" (meaning a member of the donkey/mule family) i.e. brainless idiot.
tarcolan
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Post Re: Active trees in folklore
on: August 28, 2012 09:58
Thanks cirdaneth, I was wondering about that one. I've also read less than flattering remarks about Mathews' book 'The Last Celtic Shaman' on the greenmanreview website, but I suppose I should check them all out. Have you come across M. Pennar's translation, Poems-Taliesin?
It would seem that Tolkien was influenced by this work, even though he stated a dislike for Celtic tales. Maybe it was the Irish ones.
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Post Re: Active trees from the bible
on: September 03, 2012 08:16
Tolkien was a Catholic and may well have being influenced by scriptures from the bible. Two verses that come to mind

Isaiah 55 v 12- for ye shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace. The mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

Psalm 148 v 9 calls for praise from all of God's creation including the Mountains and all hills, fruitful trees and all cedars.

I think the theme here would be all creation singing in unison and praise to God. If It could also mean musical instruments be hewn from trees to create melodic and joyful tones.


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Post Re: Active trees in folklore
on: October 05, 2012 09:49
I read in a biography that Tolkien was impressed by the Birnam Wood scene from Macbeth, but he was disappointed that the fighting trees were actually humans dressed up. So he might have created the Ents to improve on that.
tarcolan
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Post Re: Active trees in folklore
on: October 06, 2012 12:44
Yes he did Bartimaeus. Maybe Shakespeare read Taliesin.
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cirdaneth
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Post Re: Active trees in folklore
on: April 07, 2013 06:51
Shakespeare almost certainly knew of Taliesin ... and the Mabinogion. After all, the Tudors were Welsh. Tolkien used multiple influences and melded them into his own legendarium. I have just come across this song, in which wood-elves are angered by the felling of forest by a mortal. Originally Danish, and remember Tolkien favoured Northern European myths. I suspect that, like Beowulf and other pre-Christian poems, this has been tinkered with. The elves have been given tails and are presented as demonic and frightened off by the sign of the cross. My guess is that the original saw the elves victorious. http://mainlynorfolk.info/steeleye.span/songs/sevenhundredelves.html
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Post Re: Active trees in folklore
on: April 07, 2013 09:43
The only living tree in mythology that I can think of is the Tree of Life with I think...Norse Mythology. I could be wrong, but that's the only one of significance that I can think of.
'If they have a fault it is distrust of strangers. Though their magic was strong even in those days they were wary. They differed from the High Elves of the West, and were more dangerous and less wise.' ~ Flies and Spiders The Hobbit
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HuldahMaria
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Post Re: Active trees in folklore
on: April 07, 2013 10:14
I believe the Babayagah, which I probably spelled totally wrong, in Russian folk tales lived in a tree that could walk around. I think she's the one who is supposed to eat lost children.
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tarcolan
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Post Re: Active trees in folklore
on: April 08, 2013 04:54
Nice one cirdaneth. No-one cares for the trees any more. These elves sound a lot like the Wood Elves in the Silmarillion, angry when Men came and started chopping down trees and hunting.

Lastiel, the tree of life, or world tree, is an ash called Yggdrasil. It isn't really active though, in the sense of moving around and having an identity or personality.

HuldahMaria, I can't find any story where Baba Yaga lives in a moving tree. Mostly it's a hut stood on chicken legs. Have you got a reference to it?
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Post Re: Active trees in folklore
on: April 08, 2013 05:50
Legend has it that many springtimes ago, tiny kittens were cast into a river by a cruel farmer. The mommy cat was crying on the shore as she watched her kittens drowning. Willow trees at the water's edge heard the mommy cat crying for her babies and in pity, the trees lowered their branches into the water. The kittens climbed up and were saved. As a reward for this, every spring, tiny furry buds resembling kittens grew on the trees. The willows were ever after known as Pussy Willows.
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Lastiel Rusc
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Post Re: Active trees in folklore
on: April 08, 2013 09:46
Ah, ok I wasn't sure. All I knew is that it is an important tree to some.
'If they have a fault it is distrust of strangers. Though their magic was strong even in those days they were wary. They differed from the High Elves of the West, and were more dangerous and less wise.' ~ Flies and Spiders The Hobbit
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Lindarielwen
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Post Re: Active trees in folklore
on: April 10, 2013 09:21
There are several versions of this story. Long ago when the Spaniards came to Florida, they were greeted by our native people, the Seminoles. There was a cruel soldier named Gomez who lusted after a beautiful Seminole maiden. He pursued her relentlessly and finally could no longer accept her rejection. Gomez chased the young maiden through the forests and trees until she could not run anymore. She climbed the low hanging branches of a Live Oak tree to hide but to no avail. Gomez saw her and began to climb after her. Higher and higher she went until she reached the top. He was right behind her. She had nowhere to flee so she jumped into the rushing river below and got away. Gomez went to jump after her but the tree, wanting to help the maiden, reached out its branches and caught him by his long beard. He struggled and struggled but the tree held him fast. The tree never let him go and he died in the branches. To this day, you can see his beard growing in the branches of the Live Oak trees.
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cirdaneth
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on: March 18, 2014 04:15
What a magnificent image! In Tolkien's teens and twenties there were a lot of popular songs based on Native American themes. Or at least what Europeans imagined those themes to be. Some did touch on genuine folk-tales. I don't know any with trees, but there were definitely some where star-crossed lovers cast themselves into waterfalls. Tolkien will have heard them sung and played in the trenches. Did they inspire the death of Turin and Niniel I wonder? One of the popular 'Indian' songs of the day was Pretty Redwing whose tune was used by the men to sing ...

And the moon shines bright on Charlie Chaplin
His boots are crackin'...For want of Blackin'
And his old dusty coat is needin' mendin'
Before they send him
To the Dardanelles

[Edited on 03/18/2014 by cirdaneth]
Eusonia
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on: March 31, 2014 12:28
Some of the more well known talking trees:
The Greek Talking Elm: Philostratus spoke about two philosophers arguing beneath an elm tree in Ethiopia which spoke up to add to the conversation.
The Indian Tree of the Sun and the Moon: Told the future. Two parts of the tree trunk spoke depending on the time of day; in the daytime the tree spoke as a male and at night it spoke as a female. Alexander the Great and Marco Polo are said to have visited this tree.
The weeping Date palm tree: The Prophet Muhammad, when delivering his sermons used to stand by or lean on a date palm tree. When a pulpit was built elsewhere and Muhammad started to give his sermon from the pulpit, the tree began to cry like a child. Muhammad then descended from his pulpit and consoled the tree by embracing it and stroking it. The Prophet said, "It was crying for (missing) what it used to hear of religious knowledge given near to it." This incident is recorded in the authentic Islamic Hadith traditions and is said to have been witnessed by everyone present at the congregation.
Oracular Trees are sometimes attributed with the ability to speak to individuals, especially those gifted in divination. In particular, Druids were said to be able to consult Oak trees for divinatory purposes, as were the Streghe with Rowan trees.
In Ireland a tree may help a person look for a leprechaun's gold, although it normally does not know where the gold is.
In Dante's Inferno, the protagonists (Dante and Virgil) speak with suicides who have been turned into trees in Hell.
The Forest of Fighting Trees in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz attack the Scarecrow. In the 1939 film version, apple trees become annoyed with Dorothy when she picks an apple from one of them. The Scarecrow helps by provoking the trees into throwing their apples at him, which Dorothy can then collect.
In Hugh Lofting's 1928 novel Doctor Dolittle in the Moon, the lunar flowers and trees are intelligent and capable of communication by using scents, the sounds of wind through branches, etc.
The novel A Spell for Chameleon by Piers Anthony includes the character Justin Tree, a talking tree. The character returns in Zombie Lover and Swell Foop.
The 1986 film Three Amigos features an encounter between the main characters and the Singing Bush.
In the Disney movie Pocahontas, the heroine is advised by a tree known as Grandmother Willow.
In the first season episode "The Son Also Draws" of the Fox animated comedy Family Guy, Peter and Chris Griffin go on a vision quest and hallucinate talking to trees.
In The Legend of Zelda series, the Great Deku Tree is a massive sentient tree who helps Link in his quests, and also serves as the guardian of the forest/earth.
In the Fallout video game series, Harold is a character who has, through viral mutation/radiation poisoning, become symbiotically combined with a tree. Harold is a recurring character in the series, and begins as a mutated human with a small tree growing out of his head, but later resembles a fully grown tree with a wooden human form embedded in it.
In the 2012 Odd Future mixtape OF Vol. 2, talking trees are alluded to in songs including Analog 2 and White.
In the Saga of Seven Suns written by Kevin J. Anderson, a world-forest known as the Verdani reside on the planet Theroc. These living trees share a joint consciousness and commune with the human inhabitants through the transformation of some humans into "Green Priests".
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Post Active trees in folklore
on: March 31, 2014 01:10
tarcolan said:Did Tolkien invent active trees? Does anybody know of any other examples? I can only think of a talking tree in the Kalevala.


The Kalevala is definitely a hot trail. Were the trees there portrayed as good or evil? In earlier manuscripts for LotR it is a hostile Treebeard rather than Saruman who imprisons Gandalf.
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tarcolan
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on: April 20, 2014 11:27
I get the feeling that the Taliesin poem in which trees go to the battle could be more a metaphor or allegory. The text is difficult to untangle.

I have found a tale in Alan Garner's 'Collected Folk Tales' called The Wonderful Wood. The trees close in on a group of knights and kill them to protect a great oak that they would fell. It reminded me of the Huorn's wood at the Deeping Coomb and also shades of the Old Forest. Unfortunately there is no reference as to its source.
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