Things of Middle-earth
Huorns
Type: Animals
Description:[Said Treebeard,] 'There are ... Ents and things that look like Ents but ain't, as you might say.'
The Two Towers, LoTR Book 3, Ch 4, Treebeard
'We came down ... into Nan Curunír, after night had fallen,' Merry continued. 'It was then that I first had the feeling that the Forest itself was moving behind us. I thought I was dreaming an entish dream, but Pippin had noticed it too. We were both frightened....
'It was the Huorns, or so the Ents call them in "short language". Treebeard won't say much about them, but I think they are Ents that have become almost like trees, at least to look at. They stand here and there in the wood or under its eaves, silent, watching endlessly over the trees; but deep in the darkest dales there are hundreds and hundreds of them, I believe.
'There is a great power in them, and they seem able to wrap themselves in shadow: it is difficult to see them moving. But they do. They can move very quickly, if they are angry. You stand still ... and then suddenly you find that you are in the middle of a wood with great groping trees all around you. They still have voices, and can speak with the Ents -- that is why they are called Huorns, Treebeard says -- but they have become queer and wild. Dangerous. I should be terrified of meeting them, if there were no true Ents about to look after them.
The Two Towers, LoTR Book 3, Ch 9, Flotsam and Jetsam
'Well, in the early night we crept down a long ravine ... the Ents with all their rustling Huorns behind. We could not see them, of course, but the whole air was full of creaking. ... They moved at a great speed as soon as they had left the hills, and made a noise like a rushing wind. ...
'... I believe that Huorns began to move south.... Their business was with Orcs I think. They were far down the valley in the morning; or any rate there was a shadow there that one couldn't see through. ...
'The air seemed hot and heavy; and it was full of rustlings, creakings, and a murmur like voices passing. I think that hundreds more of the Huorns must have been passing by to help in the battle. ...
'It must have been about midnight.... The Huorn-dark had passed, and the thunder had rolled away.'
The Two Towers, LoTR Book 3, Ch 9, Flotsam and Jetsam
Where before the green dale had lain, its grassy slopes lapping the ever-mounting hills, there now a forest loomed. Great trees, bare and silent, stood, rank on rank, with tangled bough and hoary head; their twisted roots were buried in the long green grass. Darkness was under them. Between the Dike and the eaves of that nameless wood only two open furlongs lay. There now cowered the proud hosts of Saruman, in terror of the king and in terror of the trees. ...
The Orcs reeled and screamed ... Wailing they passed under the waiting shadow of the trees; and from that shadow none ever came again.
The Two Towers, LoTR Book 3, Ch 7, Helm's Deep
They had little wood for firing, and none would have dared to take an axe to the strange trees, even if Gandalf had not warned them to hurt neither bark nor bough at their great peril.
The Two Towers, LoTR Book 3, Ch 8, The Road to Isengard
... in the middle night men heard a great noise, as a wind in the valley, and the ground trembled.... But in the morning ... the slain Orcs were gone, and the trees also. Far down into the valley ... the grass was crushed and trampled brown ... but a mile below the Dike a huge pit had been delved in the earth, and over it stones were piled into a hill. Men believed that the Orcs whom they had slain were buried there; but whether those who had fled into the wood were with them, none could say.... The Death Down it was afterwards called, and no grass would grow there. But the strange trees were never seen in Deeping-coomb again; they had returned at night.... Thus they were revenged upon the Orcs.
The Two Towers, LoTR Book 3, Ch 8, The Road to Isengard
Contributors: Elena Tiriel 31Dec04, 28Jan05, 20May05
