Ent of their trees. They convene an Entmoot, a meeting of the Ents of Fangorn forest at Derndingle. After lengthy deliberation (three days; though from the perspective of the Ents this was almost no time at all), they march on Saruman's fortress at Isengard. Led by Treebeard, the oldest Ent, and accompanied by the hobbits, Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took, the Ents numbered about 50, plus an army of Huorns. They destroy Isengard in an all-out assault, ripping down the wall around it, eventually becoming so enraged that the power of their voices alone causes great destruction ("If the Great Sea
Samwise Gamgee and packing... Tolkien maps the gradual breakdown of restraint [through prolonged peril] until Sam can take Frodo in his arms and call him "Mr Frodo, my dear." " Tolkien wrote in a private letter: "My Sam Gamgee is indeed a reflexion of the English soldier, of the privates and batmen I knew in the 1914 war, and recognised as so far superior to myself". and elsewhere: "Sam was cocksure, and deep down a little conceited; but his conceit had been transformed by his devotion to Frodo. He did not think of himself as heroic or even brave, or in any