Tree imagery is so ubiquitous in Tolkien’s Middle-Earth that it can be easy to lose sight of what each instance means. The Ents, ancient and wise shepherds of the forests, embody trees as things enduring and mysterious in a way that feels inaccessible to those who live among them. And their resistance to Sauraman and his destructive forces at Isengard seems to suggest either a normative claim that nature ought to be left alone—their destruction being ultimately downwind of Sauron’s evil influence on the self-styled Wizard of Many Colors—and/or that it is folly to think that nature can be destroyed without consequence. Perhaps not dissimilarly, the threat posed to the hobbits by Old Man Willow as they first leave the Shire and enter the mythic world beyond positions trees as a symbol of an untameability in nature, even if Tom Bombadil—whatever it is he may be—comes along and chastises Old Man Willow into compliance. Meanwhile, in the twin trees of Valinor, trees seem to represent goodness, emitting light that stands in opposition to the darkness of the world, an image that Tolkien uses frequently to symbolize evil. Their descendant in the White Tree of Gondor, meanwhile, seems to represent salvation, both as its image is emblazoned on Aragorn’s heraldry as he approaches Minas Tirith in its time of need and as its restoration represents the titular return of the king. And yet the instantiation of the light that Telperion and Laurelin gave off—the Silmarils—seems to stand largely as objects of folly and temptation. In this vast confusion of images, it seems that trees represent something wholly different to Tolkien in almost every instance. Looking at the history of trees as symbols, however, helps to illustrate that this may not be the case. Rather, trees to Tolkien appear to represent various aspects of the divine in all its forms.
It is helpful to survey the way in which trees have been used throughout history to represent certain things. For the Greeks and Romans, specific varieties of trees were planted at temples to represent the different gods that were to be worshipped there. The trees were not supposed to be manifestations of those gods in a direct sense, but they did reflect something about their character and held symbolic significance, as epitomized in the laurel leaves of Nike/Victoria, the goddess of victory, crowning triumphants. For the Norse, the entire world was built around one great tree, Yggdrasil, that existed at the center of the universe and gave substance to all Creation. The tree superseded the personae of the individual gods of the Norse, the Aesir, and allowed for them to have life too. Insofar as there is a parallel between the Norse Aesir and Tolkien’s Valar and Maiar as gods, elementals, or angels, Yggdrasil seems in some ways to parallel Iluvatar, Tolkien’s God figure, or at least the world, Arda, His chief creation. Its strength, splendor, and steadfastness draw clear parallels between God and trees.
In Judeo-Christian tradition, as well, trees are closely linked to the divine. Some older Christian tales, such as the poem “The Dream of the Rood,” which features the cross upon which Christ was crucified telling of the glory of his sacrifice, place great emphasis on the tree that hosted what is perhaps the single most important moment in Christian theology, at least after Creation itself. Perhaps the most striking parallel, however, is that between Laurelin and the golden Menorah (or candelabrum) described in Exodus, both described as golden trees of light. The Menorah was to be wrought of gold and made to resemble a tree in its branches (Exodus 25:31–40). It was placed in the Temple at Jerusalem both to illuminate the inner sanctum and to serve as a reminder of God’s constant presence there through an ever-shining light. Laurelin, too, is a golden tree that emits light, glorifying Creation and driving off the fallen, becoming a target of the evil Melkor when he wants to strike back at his fellow Valar. Even if Telperion is not clearly representative of Iluvatar/God, unlike the Menorah, its opposition by those who are against Him suggests at least some association. These trees, at least, seem certainly to be symbols of the divine.
But not all instances of trees, in both Tolkien and Scripture, are so clearly positive. But it should be remembered that the forbidden trees in the Garden of Eden, eating from one of which led to the Fall of Man, were also manifestations of divine aspects in themselves, just taken in spite of divine will. Surely the Trees of Knowledge and Life represented attributes that applied to God. They are not in themselves sinful, but their violation was. This is, after all, at least the way that St. Augustine seems to conceptualize sin: as a violation of the divine or its will. Thus, it does not break the parallel between trees in both corpora that the Silmarils led Feanor and others into folly despite being, in a meaningful sense, fruits of the divine trees. If anything, the folly inspired by just such trees strengthens the parallel. The image of two holy trees in Valinor closely resembles that of two in Eden. Drawing this parallel more exactly would require a closer reading that is beyond the scope of this reflection, but it is difficult to imagine that Tolkien was not aware of it when he was writing The Silmarillion.
Indeed, the fact that the relationship between the Silmarils and the trees of Valinor as objects of folly akin to the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge helps demonstrate how all the seemingly confused traits detailed above are indeed best understood as attributes of the divine. In addition to showing beauty that can lead people with free will to fall if they do not pursue it properly, the salvation represented by the White Tree of Gondor, in both its physical reappearance in Gondor and symbolically in Aragorn’s heraldry, is easy to connect with images of the divine as a savior. So too for the ancient majesty and mystery—and the benevolence—of Treebeard and the Ents at Fangorn. Their assumption, too, of agency in the will of nature also seems to point to God’s demonstration of His wrath when His will is too severely violated. This particular aspect of God as wrathful is more closely associated with His “Old Testament” appearance, but it should be remembered that if Middle-Earth exists in anything resembling Tolkien’s Catholic cosmology, this is still the form of God that operates until a much later age. Indeed, it appears that trees throughout Tolkien’s corpus represent various aspects of the divine appearing throughout the main narrative of The Lord of the Rings and elsewhere. Providence does not clearly feature much in Tolkien’s stories, but perhaps the image of the tree—greater and older than man, wiser and kinder, and yet unknowable even if vulnerable to folly and greed at human hands—is how people relate to God in their real lives anyway.
— JZ
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