Old Forest

In <a href="/facts/J._R._R._Tolkien/41HPhk5C">J. R. R. Tolkien</a>’s <a href="/facts/Fictional_universe/ESj2DCy2">fictional universe</a> of <a href="/facts/Middle-earth/HCQrvKQe">Middle-earth</a>, the Old Forest was a daunting and <a href="/facts/Ancient_woodland/LSIb0Tmw">ancient woodland</a> just beyond the eastern borders of <a href="/facts/The_Shire/rEgaJC8m">the Shire</a>. Its first and main appearance in print was in the chapter of the 1954 <a href="/facts/The_Fellowship_of_the_Ring/7weHJwBP">The Fellowship of the Ring</a> titled "The Old Forest". The <a href="/facts/Hobbit/I8c6m2IE">hobbits</a> of the Shire found the forest hostile and dangerous; the nearest, the Bucklanders, planted a great hedge to border the forest and cleared a strip of land next to it. A malign tree-spirit, <a href="/facts/Old_Man_Willow/VXFUSeBK">Old Man Willow</a>, grew beside the River Withywindle in the centre of the forest, controlling most of it, though <a href="/facts/Tom_Bombadil/gWzTsN7w">Tom Bombadil</a> presides over the forest.
The scholar <a href="/facts/Verlyn_Flieger/BEQ38F43">Verlyn Flieger</a> has observed that the hostility of the Old Forest and of Old Man Willow contradicts Tolkien's otherwise protective stance for wild nature. Scholars have discussed the symbolism of the Old Forest, likening it to "Old England", and, given that the protagonist <a href="/facts/Frodo_Baggins/fQ3CvWH0">Frodo Baggins</a> calls it "the shadowed land", to Death.

Old Forest open-in-new

Old Forest