Bree-land Deed: Flowers of the Old Forest
“Old tales tell of eight Entwives who passed from the south into the Old Forest, never to be seen again. Could they be true?”
Flowers of the Old Forest is a Bree-land Deed that will give you the Virtue trait Idealism +1 when completed.
To complete this deed you must find and use (i.e. activate) eight flowers scattered throughout the Old Forest.
- Rhosthon’s Flower (32.0S, 61.0W)
- Neldorlas’ Flower (30.6S, 57.3W)
- Dorollin’s Flower (34.2S, 60.1W)
- Cordofoneth’s Flower (32.6S, 59.3W)
- Lenhwest’s Flower (33.3S, 57.5W)
- Silloth’s Flower (35.2S, 56.9W)
- Braiglad’s Flower (32.1S, 58.4W)
- Merllif’s Flower (35.3S, 58.3W)
These eight flowers are named for the eight Entwives who fled into the Old Forest. After activating each flower you will be told the story of the Entwife it represents.
Lore: The Entwives
The following passage is from Chapter 4 of Tolkien’s The Two Towers. They are the Ent Treebeard’s account to Merry and Pippin of the Entwives (pages 99-100) which I have broken up for readablity:
“When the world was young, and the woods were wide and wild, the Ents and the Entwives- and there were Entmaidens then; Ah! The loveliness of Fimbrethil, of Wandlimb the lightfooted, in the days of our youth! They walked together and they housed together. But our hearts did not go on growing in the same way; The Ents gave their love to things that they met in the world, and the Entwives gave their thoughts to other things, for the Ents loved the great trees, and the wild woods, and the slopes of the high hills; and they drank of the mountain-streams, and ate only such fruit as the trees let fall in their path; and they learned of the Elves and spoke with the trees.
But the Entwives gave their minds to the lesser trees, and to the meads in the sunshine beyond the feet of the forests; and they saw the sloe in the thicket, and the wild apple and the cherry blossoming in spring, and the green herbs in the waterlands in summer, and the seeding grasses in the autumn fields. They did not desire to speak with these things; but they wished them to hear and obey what was said to them. The Entwives ordered them to grow according to their wishes, and bear leaf and fruit to their liking; for the Entwives desired order, and plenty, and peace.
So the Entwives made gardens to life in but we Ents went on wandering, and we only came to the gardens now and again. Then when the Darkness came into the North, the Entwives crossed the great river, and made new gardens, and tilled the fields, and we saw them more seldom. After the Darkness was overthrown the land of the Entwives blossomed richly, and their fields were full of corn.
Many men learned the crafts of the Entwives and honored them greatly; but we were only legend to them, a secret in the heart of the forest. Yet here we still are, while all the gardens of the Entwives are wasted. Men call them the brown lands now.
I remember long ago, in the time of the war between Sauron and the men of the sea, desire came over me to see Fimbrethil again. Very fair she was still in my eyes, when I had last seen her, though little like the Entmaiden of old. For the Entwives were bent and browned by their labor; their hair parched by the sun to the hue of ripe corn and their cheeks like red apples. Yet their eyes were still the eyes of our own people.
We crossed over the Anduin and came to their land; but we found a desert: it was all burned and uprooted, for war had passed over it. But the Entwives were not there. Long we called, and long we searched; and we asked folk that we met which way the Entwives had gone. Some say they had never seen them; and some said that had seen them walking away west, and some said east, and others south. But nowhere we went could we find them.
Our sorrow was very great. Yet the wild wood called, and we returned to it. For many years we used to go out every now and then and look for the Entwives, wailing far and wide calling their beautiful names. But as time passed we went more seldom and wandered less far. And now the Entwives are only a memory for us, and our beards are long and grey.”
Its impossible to see the flower location with the GPS map.