towers

626 the two towers
few seemed more or less related to Treebeard, and reminded
them of beech-trees or oaks. But there were other kinds.
Some recalled the chestnut: brown-skinned Ents with large
splayfingered hands, and short thick legs. Some recalled the
ash: tall straight grey Ents with many-fingered hands and
long legs; some the fir (the tallest Ents), and others the birch,
the rowan, and the linden. But when the Ents all gathered
round Treebeard, bowing their heads slightly, murmuring in
their slow musical voices, and looking long and intently at
the strangers, then the hobbits saw that they were all of the
same kindred, and all had the same eyes: not all so old or
so deep as Treebeard’s, but all with the same slow, steady,
thoughtful expression, and the same green flicker.
As soon as the whole company was assembled, standing in
a wide circle round Treebeard, a curious and unintelligible
conversation began. The Ents began to murmur slowly: first
one joined and then another, until they were all chanting
together in a long rising and falling rhythm, now louder on
one side of the ring, now dying away there and rising to a
great boom on the other side. Though he could not catch or
understand any of the words – he supposed the language was
Entish – Pippin found the sound very pleasant to listen to at
first; but gradually his attention wavered. After a long time
(and the chant showed no signs of slackening) he found
himself wondering, since Entish was such an ‘unhasty’ language,
whether they had yet got further than Good Morning;
and if Treebeard was to call the roll, how many days it would
take to sing all their names. ‘I wonder what the Entish is for
yes or no,’ he thought. He yawned.
Treebeard was immediately aware of him. ‘Hm, ha, hey,
my Pippin!’ he said, and the other Ents all stopped their
chant. ‘You are a hasty folk, I was forgetting; and anyway it
is wearisome listening to a speech you do not understand.
You may get down now. I have told your names to the
Entmoot, and they have seen you, and they have agreed that
you are not Orcs, and that a new line shall be put in the old
lists. We have got no further yet, but that is quick work for