North Moors

"What Hal saw beyond the North Moors" by Miriam Ellis

The North Moors lay along the northern border of the Shire in the Northfarthing.

Geography

The North Moors was located roughly fifty leagues (150 miles) north of the Marshes in the south. No elm trees grew in the North Moors, and it was the one region within the bounds of the Shire where heavy snowfalls were common.

History

Around the spring of T.A. 3018, Samwise Gamgee heard a rumor that his cousin, Halfast Gamgee, reported seeing Tree-men or giants away beyond the North Moors.

Inspiration

Assuming that Halfast's story is not a fanciful fabrication and he did see something strange, fans have connected the "tree-man" to the Ents (or Entwives) that appear later in the story. However Tolkien specifically mentioned that he had not invented the Ents before the moment he reached the chapter Treebeard and the "tree-man" reference was written before it. It was unknown whether Tolkien himself consciously considered such a connection, revisited the matter subsequently, or decided that Halfast should not be taken at his word. However, Tolkien once stated in a letter to James Heaf on 28 February in 1964 that he did "not think it was an Entwife which Hal saw on the North Moors" and suggested the possibility that the Tree-man may have been "a troll" of some kind. While trolls were never said to be capable of "walking seven yards to a stride", it is possible that some details of the sighting may have been exaggerated by Halfast.