Old Man Willow
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In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, Old Man Willow is a fictional character, appearing in The Lord of the Rings. He was a willow in the Old Forest from which much of the Forest's hatred of walking things came. He might have been an Ent, or possibly a Huorn, as the Old Forest was originally part of the same primordial forest as Fangorn.
Tom Bombadil had power over Old Man Willow, and checked the evil as much as he could, or was willing.
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[edit] The Fellowship of the Ring
Old Man Willow cast a spell on the hobbits (Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin), causing them to feel sleepy. Merry and Pippin go to lean against the trunk of the willow and fall asleep, while Frodo sits on a root to dangle his feet in the water, before he also falls asleep. The willow then traps Merry and Pippin in cracks of its trunk and tips Frodo into the stream, but the latter is saved by Sam, who, suspicious, manages to remain awake. After Frodo and Sam talk about possibly burning the tree so that it is frightened enough to release the others, Merry yells from inside to put the fire out at the risk of the tree squeezing them to death. They are saved by the timely arrival of Tom Bombadil who 'sings' to the ancient tree to release Merry and Pippin. The tree then ejects the two hobbits.
[edit] Background
According to Tom Bombadil, of the corrupted trees of the Old Forest, "none were more dangerous than the Great Willow; his heart was rotten, but his strength was green; and he was cunning, and a master of winds, and his song and thought ran through the woods on both sides of the river. His grey thirsty spirit drew power out of the earth and spread like fine root-threads in the ground, and invisible twig-fingers in the air, till it had under its dominion nearly all the trees of the Forest from the Hedge to the Downs."[1]
This description and its context make it clear that the Great Willow was originally a tree, despite its evident malicious sentience and power.
[edit] Portrayal in adaptations
Although this scene didn't appear in the 2001 movie adaptation, a very similar episode with hobbits being swallowed by a tree was included in the extended DVD edition of the second film where Merry and Pippin are attacked by a Huorn in Fangorn forest. In this interpretation Tom Bombadil's lines are spoken by Treebeard.
In the MMORPG Lord of the Rings Online, a quest to gather lilies for Goldberry at the foot of Old Man Willow is given to the player by Bombadil, who warns that the tree will "sing you right to sleep".
