The Old Forest lay near the centre of Eriador, a large region of north-west Middle-earth. The forest's river, the Withywindle, flows into the River Brandywine. Scholars have discussed the symbolism of the Old Forest, likening it to 'Old England', and, given that the protagonist Frodo Baggins calls it 'the shadowed land', to Death.įurther information: Forests in Middle-earth Overview Sketch map of the Shire, with the Old Forest on the right. The scholar Verlyn Flieger has observed that the hostility of the Old Forest and of Old Man Willow contradicts Tolkien's otherwise protective stance for wild nature. A malign tree-spirit, Old Man Willow, grew beside the River Withywindle in the centre of the forest, controlling most of it. The hobbits of the Shire found the forest hostile and dangerous the nearest, the Bucklanders, planted a great hedge to border the forest and cleared a strip of land next to it.
Its first and main appearance in print was in the chapter of the 1954 The Fellowship of the Ring titled 'The Old Forest'. Tolkien’s fictional universe of Middle-earth, the Old Forest was a daunting and ancient woodland just beyond the eastern borders of the Shire. Old ForestĪ remnant of the primordial forests of Eriador
Not to be confused with Old growth forest.
