Far away, deep, deep in the forest, and yet so close by are the
trees; ever thought of them? No, not as in a fireplace!!!....This is a
tale of a living one, better said a moving one. Yes, not all trees are
stuck to the ground like seemingly dead objects.
Tom Bombadil, bored by his eternal existence and immortality and
cursing the Valar about this, was headed towards a large forest of
Middle-earth - also known as Fangorn. He was searching for the new
intelligent beings now in the world as rumored to him by several stars,
hoping for something of interest.
On a small hilltop near some small birches, a mighty and fearsome tree arose from the distance.
As open and fearless as Tom was, the opposite the tree creature was. As
it carefully approached Tom, from it a loud hoom boom sound came forth.
"Rooom boo dooo booom boom do-boom bom boo Om?" it asked.
With a big smile on his face, Tom answered, "Hoom! boom booom bo booom dooo boo!"
For the convience of the non-ents among us readers, the rest will be
translated to the normal speech, since not many walking under the sun
master these days the Entish language.
After what some of us might consider a rather long introductory chat of
over three days, including why and how, Tom and Fladrif (for this tree
had a name) continued to walk towards the birches. They came to a
second tree that was tall, slim and as beautiful as a tree can be, with
long, light green leaves rrrooovvvs sooom boo doooo... (Please pardon
the lapse back into Entish, but she deserved at least a few proper
words.) Salicaceae was her name, although in the language of the quick,
such as mankind, it would have been "the beautiful willow". For Tom, it
felt like a privileged view into the supernatural, seeing this
tree-creature in the dark, dark woods. Her beauty alone might have
created the mini-garden inside the forest, with its carefully tended
flowers dwelling there.
In the middle was (yet another tree, I hear you thinking!) a tub of ent
draught. This tub was about three Bombadils long and one high. Fladrif
gazed proudly down by the tub. On a pile of dirt stood a very very very
very tiny tree, as high as one hobbit, had Fladrif known what a hobbit
was. This small treeish thingy was alive! Little boom sounds came forth
from it, as it joyfully threw ent draught around, even over the guest.
"Stop that," Salicaceae said, moving her branch towards him to
correct...and yet this little one was quick and bit into the branch
with his small but fearsome teeth.
A hooming Fladrif boomed forth, "From now on this little one will be
called Quickbeam!" He spoke so loudly that the little one rolled
over.
This was literally roots up!
Rumors go that not long after Quickbeam was full grown Salicaceae left
the forest and it is told that due to that incident she was so
impressed by Tom that she followed him. Maybe she became treeish on a
very well known spot....Who knows.....