# Treant - Creature: Plant - Date: 1954 - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/treant/ > Tolkien's slow, shepherding Ents walked out of Fangorn and into Chainmail and D&D, where a legal letter turned them into treants — the name every fantasy game has used for a walking tree ever since. **Why it matters:** The treant is the most visible scar of the Tolkien rights dispute: a creature whose very name records the moment D&D had to stop borrowing Middle-earth's vocabulary and invent its own. ## Quick answers **Where does the Treant come from?** Tolkien's Ents (The Two Towers, 1954), renamed by D&D in the 1970s. **When did the Treant first appear?** 1954, in The Two Towers. **How did the Treant get into games?** Key appearances: Chainmail Fantasy Supplement (1971), Original D&D boxed set (1974), Monster Manual (1977), Warcraft III (2002) and Heroes of Might and Magic V (2006). **Why is the Treant significant?** The treant is the most visible scar of the Tolkien rights dispute: a creature whose very name records the moment D&D had to stop borrowing Middle-earth's vocabulary and invent its own. ## Origins Tree spirits are ancient — Greek dryads, Norse and Celtic sacred groves, the foliate Green Man of medieval carving — but the walking, talking tree-giant of modern fantasy has a single author. [J. R. R. Tolkien](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/j-r-r-tolkien/) found the word in Old English, where *ent* meant "giant": the [Beowulf](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/beowulf/) poet and other Anglo-Saxon writers called ancient ruins *enta geweorc*, "the work of giants". He found the idea, by his own account, in disappointment. In *Macbeth*, Birnam Wood "comes" to Dunsinane only because soldiers carry branches as camouflage; Tolkien wanted a story in which the trees really did march to war. The Ents arrived in *The Two Towers*, the second volume of [The Lord of the Rings](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-lord-of-the-rings/), published in November 1954. Their leader Treebeard, some fourteen feet tall and the oldest living thing that walks in Middle-earth, is a shepherd of the forest: slow to speak and forever warning others not to be "hasty", mourning the Entwives lost long ago, and terrible once roused. The Ents' assault on Saruman's fortress of Isengard is one of the great reversals of the book, and a lament for the English woodland Tolkien watched disappear in his own lifetime. ## Into the dungeon Fantasy gaming took the Ents almost immediately. [Gary Gygax](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/gary-gygax/)'s Fantasy Supplement for [Chainmail](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/chainmail/) (1971) fielded ents alongside hobbits and [balrogs](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/balrog/), and the first printings of [Dungeons & Dragons](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/original-dungeons-and-dragons/) (1974) described ents as lawful, tree-like creatures able to command trees. Then the lawyers noticed. The film and merchandising rights to Tolkien's books had passed to Saul Zaentz in 1976, and his Tolkien Enterprises objected to TSR's use of Middle-earth names (see [The Tolkien Rights Saga](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/tolkien-rights-saga/)). Accounts of the timing differ — one version cites a cease-and-desist over "ent" as early as 1975, while most histories connect the renamings to the objections of around 1977 — but the outcome is not in doubt. Hobbits became [halflings](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/halfling/), and ents became treants, the name they carry in the 1977 *Monster Manual* of [Advanced Dungeons & Dragons](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/advanced-dungeons-and-dragons/) and every edition since. The new word proved more useful than the old. "Treant" was generic, unowned and self-explanatory, and it spread to every game that wanted a walking tree. In [Blizzard](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/blizzard-entertainment/)'s *Warcraft III* (2002), night elf Keepers of the Grove summon treants to fight, a spell carried into [World of Warcraft](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/world-of-warcraft/); the [Heroes of Might and Magic](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/heroes-of-might-and-magic/) series recruits them for its sylvan towns. Middle-earth's own games, licensed at last, could call their creatures Ents again, as [The Lord of the Rings Online](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-lord-of-the-rings-online/) does when players reach Fangorn Forest. ## Variations The treant family runs from benign to baleful. The **shepherd** treant, Tolkien's model, guards the forest and wakes only when it is threatened. The **awakened grove** — Tolkien's Huorns, D&D's animated trees — is the forest itself turned hostile. Darker games offer **blighted** or corrupted treants, trees twisted by necromancy. Even the silhouette has become contested property: when [Heroes of Might and Magic V](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/heroes-of-might-and-magic/) (2006) went from beta to retail, its treants were redesigned to walk on four legs because of copyright worries — proof that thirty years after the first renaming, a walking tree can still look a little too much like Treebeard. ## Migration - 1000: Beowulf and Old English verse — The poets' 'enta geweorc', 'the work of giants', gives Tolkien the word ent; the manuscript is dated only approximately. - 1954: The Two Towers — Treebeard and the Ents of Fangorn march on Isengard, the tree-war Tolkien wished Shakespeare had given Macbeth. - 1971: Chainmail Fantasy Supplement — Ents take the field as a wargame troop type. - 1974: Original D&D boxed set — Ents appear as lawful, tree-like creatures able to command trees. - 1977: Monster Manual — Renamed 'treant' after Tolkien rights holders objected, the creature settles into its permanent D&D form. - 2002: Warcraft III — Night elf druids and Keepers of the Grove call up treants, a summon Blizzard carried into World of Warcraft. - 2006: Heroes of Might and Magic V — The sylvan treants are redesigned between beta and release over copyright worries. ## Facts - Tolkien took 'ent' from an Old English word for 'giant', as in the poetic phrase enta geweorc, 'the work of giants'. - Tolkien said he was disappointed by Macbeth's Birnam Wood, which 'comes' to Dunsinane only as soldiers carrying branches; he wanted trees that really went to war. - Treebeard is described as about fourteen feet tall and called the oldest living thing that walks in Middle-earth. - Chainmail's 1971 fantasy supplement fielded ents alongside hobbits and balrogs; the first D&D printings still used the word. - Accounts differ on when the name changed: one cites a 1975 cease-and-desist, others Tolkien Enterprises' objections around 1977. - Heroes of Might and Magic V's treants were made four-legged between beta and retail because of copyright concerns. ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ent) - [Wikipedia: Middle-earth Enterprises](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle-earth_Enterprises) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.