About Ents

Ents were giants resembling trees.There duties were to guard the trees of the forests and protect them from the other races in MiddleEarth,a duty that they had unfortunately not been very successful at as the other races had an unquenchable desire for wood as a means of building material and for a source of cheap fuel. The Ents were created by Eru (the creator) at the request of Yavanna, one of the Valar when she learned that her spouses (Aule) children,the Dwarves, would have a great need for wood.It is stated that even though Ents were sentient beings they were without speech until taught how to do so by the Elves.Treebeard said the Elves "curing the Ents of their dumbness" was a great gift that could not be forgotten.Ents were tree-like creatures, having become like the trees that they shepherded. They varied in traits, from everything to height and size, colouring, and the number of fingers and toes. An individual Ent more or less resembled the specific species of tree that they typically guarded. For example, Quickbeam guarded rowan trees and thus looked very much like a rowan. In the Third Age of Middle-earth, the Forest of Fangorn was apparently the only place Ents still inhabited, although the Ent-like Huorns may still have survived elsewhere, as in the Old Forest. In the Fellowship Of The Rings it as told that trees of the old forrest tried to attack the hobbits homes and they had fought and burned a great number of the trees in the battle and then built a barrier in to keep them out,Frodo and company were assaulted bu Old Man Willow and were only saved by Tom Bombadil, so trees could at times fight back against other races of MiddleEarth.There used to be Entwives (literally "Ent-women"), but they started to move farther away from the Ents because they liked to plant and control things, so they moved away to the region that would later become the Brown Lands across the Great River Anduin. This area was destroyed by Sauron, and the Entwives disappeared. The Ents looked for them, but have never found them. It is sung by the Ents that one day they will find each other. In The Felllowship of the Ring Sam Gamgee says his cousin Hal saw treelike giant in the north of the Shire. When Pippin and Merry tell Treebeard about the Shire, Treebread says the entwives would like that land.. During the War of the Ring the Ents—usually a very patient, deliberate people—did become angry at Saruman, whose armies were cutting down large numbers of their trees. They convened an Entmoot, a meeting of the Ents of Fangorn Forrest at Derndingle.

The Tree Shepherds by TEd Naismith.

After lengthy deliberation (though from the perspective of the Ents, this was very quick action), they marched on Saruman's fortress at Isengard: the last march of the Ents. They were led by Treebeard, the oldest Ent, and accompanied by the Hobbits Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Tooj. They destroyed Isengard in an all-out assault and trapped Saruman in the tower of Orthanc. Tolkien later noted that the destruction of Isengard by the Ents was based off of personal disappointment in MacBeth, when "Birnham Wood is come to castle Dunsinane". Tolkien was less than thrilled that it amounted to men walking on stage with leaves in their hats; he decided that when he did the scene for himself, he would do it correctly.