Volume 11 Number 1 Article 20 Summer 7-15-1984 Trees in Tolkien, and What Happened Under Them Elizabeth Harrod Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Harrod, Elizabeth (1984) "Trees in Tolkien, and What Happened Under Them," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 11 : No. 1 , Article 20. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol11/iss1/20 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm Abstract Analyzes Tolkien’s use of trees as symbols, using terms from Jungian psychology, Mircea Eliade’s studies of myth, and Buddhism. Sees the four hobbits as representing different aspects of the ego in the journey toward self-hood and individuation. Additional Keywords Individuation in The Lord of the Rings; Jungian analysis of Irish mythology; Tolkien, J.R.R.—Objects—Trees; Trees in J.R.R. Tolkien This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol11/iss1/20 Trees in Tolkien, and What Happened Under Them Elizabeth Harrod Action righ tly renounced brings freedom: be used for good or for evil, the forest may represent Action righ tly performed brings freedom: the terrors and dangers of the Unconscious, and its Both are better healing forces. Than mere shunning o f action . Now, what does all this have to do with hobbits? The wise see knowledge and action as one: I have said that their journey is defined by the Tree- They see truly. symbol. To begin with, the story—not the journey, Take either path but the story —begins under the Party Tree. Bilbo's And tread it to the end: disappearance opens the way for the contents of the The end is the same. Unconscious, the Black Riders, to emerge. Look for a moment at another journey into the Unconscious which The Song o f God—Bhagavad-Gita began under a tree— the journey of Gautama as he sat under the Bodhi Tree.5 Here, in his long meditation, he battles the Lord of Death, who is unable to defeat Although Tolkien hated allegory and maintained him. Here the Way o f Perfection is revealed to him that his stories had no hidden meaning, he also and he becomes the Buddha. Like his journey, the maintained that myths were true.l I too hold that a journey of Frodo and his friends is not merely the myth is a story that is always true. In what follow s, hero's journey toward wholeness, but a journey along I try to disentangle part o f one o f the many true the way of non-attachment. They will bring about stories in The Lord of the Rings—the story of the order by relinquishing desire. soul's journey into the Unconscious and some of its adventures there. Most individuation journeys, that is toward psychic wholeness, are journeys in which the contents The tree is one of the great organizing principles of the psyche are united. The hobbits' journey is in The Lord of the Rings. Besides providing geography different. Just as in dreams, where the various and members o f the cast, it defines and clarifies the figures of the dream are fragments of the dreamer, the nature o f the hobbits' journey. Much o f the action various figures in The Lord of the Rings are fragments takes place among the trees, and they are symbols as of the Ego. But instead of struggling to unite, the well as facts in the story. figures separate, diverge, accomplish different tasks. What I want to do is follow these figures, using the Ambivalent and full o f meanings, the tree is a symbol of the Tree to understand some of these Ego rich psychic symbol. To begin with, it signifies the tasks. center, the world axis, which connects the realms of the spiritual, the physical, and the instinctual or The results of Bilbo's loosing of the Unconscious' unconscious.2 it has its roots in the underworld and contents upon the hobbit-Ego come slowly. It becomes holds up the heavens with its branches.(Ibid.) Its difficult to protect the bounds of the personality. vertical axis is the road of the loas or invisible "Queer folk" are crossing into the Shire. At last, in ones; its horizontal axis is the earthly, human world. the form of the Black Riders, they become such a Only at the point o f intersection, where human and threat that the journey toward wholeness-by-getting- divine axes meet, is contact with the divinities rid-of-wholeness has to begin. Pursued by the Black possible.3 Therefore, it is the point of entrance Riders, the hobbits flee the Shire into the into the Unconscious, and also the road up to the Unconscious. They leave at night, cross water, which spiritual. As a result, the tree is a symbol of is the ancient boundary between conscious and rebirth, of generation, of fertility. But because it Unconscious, and go into a stand of dry fir trees. reaches down into the underworld, and is nourished by Because the fir is an evergreen and because it points the dark, hidden waters, it is also a symbol o f death. upward, it is usually a symbol of regeneration.6 its triangular shape is frequently seen as feminine. Here The shape of the tree makes it at once masculine it is protecting, sheltering the hobbits among its andfeminine, with its phallic trunk and its leafy roots. But it is dry; there is no long-lasting life flowering and fruitful feminine crow n.4 But the trunk here. As Bilbo says, "It's a dangerous business, too is ambivalent; from it can be made coffin s and Frodo, going out of your door .... You step into* temples. Hollowed, it is womb and coffin, the the Road, and it you don't keep your feet, there is no sheltering and devouring mother (Cirlot, loc.cit.). knowing where you might be swept o f f to. Do you So it becomes a symbol of the sacred marriage, the realize that this is the very path that goes through uniting of opposites, and therefore the symbol o f the Mirkwood, and that if you let it, it might take you to Self which is the wholeness of the psyche. It unites the Lonely Mountain or even further and to worse the feminine earth, source and grave o f life, and the places?" masculine world of the spirit and the daylight in te lle c t. The second night the hobbits rest inside a huge hollow oak, which "could be entered by a great crack In itself then, the Tree is full of psychic energy on the side away from the road." Once again the tree --numen. And a wood or forest, being a collection of is a mother-symbol. But this time shelter is found on trees above an area of darkness becomes symbolic of the side away from the dangers of the road. At the Unconscious, filled with instinctual and spiritual twilight, as the stars come out, they return to the energies (Kalff, loc.cit). Since those energies may road. Soon they are frightened by the sound of Pap 48 pursuing riders. This time there is no shelter except The four companions leave on the next stage o f the the shadow under the trees. Fortunately, however, the journey, again in darkness. This time they have left pursuers are elves, whose song is of the White Lady. the Shire and their comfortable, familiar, largely conscious life, where the imagination has only a small O Light to us that wander here reach (Carpenter, p. 197). They cross another bar­ Amid the world of woven trees! rier, this time not a stream but an iron gate, which locks behind them with an ominous clang. Such In general, Tolkien's elves are spirit-symbols, barriers keep the Unconscious from overwhelming the bearers of light and wisdom. Their appearance at the Ego in its conscious life. So the deliberate entrance beginning of the journey is positive and reassuring; into the Unconscious is symbolized by the crossing of the Unconscious is not all negative. barrier symbols. We have seen how the hobbits must cross water and go through a gate. They will also Led by Cildor the elves protect the hobbits during enter through stone doors and pass barrier guardians the night, and guide them to a greensward, where they as they do in Moria and Mordor. break their journey. On three sides of the greensward is the forest; on the fourth side, the lands below are Having closed the gate behind them, the hobbits dim. The Ego has reached a resting place, but is are now in the Old Forest.