Forests appear repeatedly inJ. R. R. Tolkien'sfantasy world ofMiddle-earth. InThe Hobbit,Bilbo Baggins and party have adventures in the Trollshaws and inMirkwood. InThe Lord of the Rings,Frodo Baggins and his companions travel through woods inThe Shire, and are pursued byBlack Riders; to evade them, the party enters the fearedOld Forest, where they encounter other hazards. Later the Fellowship comes to the Elvish forest realm ofLothlórien; and after the Fellowship has split up, Frodo andSam Gamgee travel throughIthilien with its Mediterranean vegetation, whileMerry Brandybuck andPippin Took enter the ancient forest ofFangorn. The Riders of Rohan, on their way to war, are allowed to travel on a secret road through another ancient forest, that of theDrúedain or woses.The Silmarillion, too, features several forests, both inBeleriand which is home to places like the Elvish forest realm of Doriath, protected by the magic ofMelian theMaia, and in the south ofValinor, where theValar liked to hunt in the woods ofOromë.

Critics note that Middle-earth was set in the distant past, when primeval forests still existed. Forests play varying roles in his books. InThe Hobbit, Mirkwood is the dark forbidding forest offairy tale. InThe Lord of the Rings, scholars suggest that the forests symbolise natureas opposed to industrialisation, but also embody links tofairy tale andfolklore, and carry a psychological message.

J. R. R. Tolkien was a scholar of English literature, aphilologist andmedievalist interested in language and poetry from theMiddle Ages, especially that ofAnglo-Saxon England and Northern Europe. His professional knowledge of works such asBeowulf shaped his fictional world ofMiddle-earth, including his fantasy novelThe Lord of the Rings.^{[T 1][1]} Middle-earth, or more precisely the world ofArda, represents whatPaul Kocher has called "our own green and solid Earth at some quite remote epoch in the past."^[2]

Tolkien makes use of forests acrossMiddle-earth, from theTrollshaws andMirkwood inThe Hobbit, reappearing inThe Lord of the Rings, to theOld Forest,Lothlórien,Fangorn, and the Mediterranean forest inIthilien, all of which feature in chapters ofThe Lord of the Rings, and the great forests ofBeleriand, a region of the west of Middle-earth, lost at the end of the First Age, andValinor, the blessed realm, mentioned inThe Silmarillion. Indeed, while Middle-earth was still "in a twilight under the stars", the "oldest living things had arisen: ... on earth, the shadows of great trees".^{[T 2]}

• The major forests of Middle-earth, mapped. Forests are shown in green.
• 
  Sketch map ofBeleriand in theFirst Age
• 
  Sketch map of the north-west ofMiddle-earth at the end of theThird Age

Bilbo and his party travel from his home inthe Shire into the wild, encountering theTrolls in the Trollshaws, a wooded region, lying north of the East Road between the riversHoarwell andBruinen. Described as "the Trolls' wood" in the main text, the name "Trollshaws" is derived fromtroll andshaw, an archaic term for a thicket or small wood.^[3]

After crossing theMisty Mountains and the Great River (Anduin), the party run into difficulty inMirkwood, a vast and dark forest with stands offir trees, and in other places ofoak andbeech.^[4] The wizardGandalf calls it "the greatest forest of the Northern world."^{[T 3]} Before it was darkened by evil, it had been called Greenwood the Great.^{[T 4]}

InThe Lord of the Rings,Frodo Baggins and his companions travel through familiar woods inThe Shire, and are pursued byBlack Riders; to evade them, the party decides to enter theOld Forest.^{[T 6]} It is anancient woodland just beyond the eastern borders ofthe Shire, and somewhat feared by most of the Shire's inhabitants.Merry Brandybuck, who lives in Buckland near the Old Forest, knows a little more than the otherHobbits, but none of them are prepared for what happens to them when they try to cross the forest.^{[T 5]}

Lothlórien is the enchanted realm of theElves who remain in Middle-earth in the Third Age.^{[T 7]} Its forests include a stand of tallMallorn trees,^{[T 8]} in which the Elves live on high platforms in their tree city of Caras Galadhon.^{[T 9]} The forest, unlike the rest of Middle-earth, has "no stain", remaining as things were before the Marring of Arda, and seemingly shining with its own golden light.^[5]

Merry Brandybuck andPippin Took enter the ancient forest ofFangorn, at the southern end of the Misty Mountains. It shares its name with the leader of theEnts, ancient treelike giants who live there, herding the trees.^{[T 10]} Some of the trees, Huorns, are awakening,seemingly becoming sentient, and becoming more like Ents, or are Ents who are falling asleep and becoming more "treelike".^{[T 11]}

Frodo andSam Gamgee travel through the fertileIthilien, far to the south of the Shire; it still has attractive Mediterranean forest, despite its proximity to the evil land ofMordor.^{[T 12][T 13]} Critics havenoted its resemblance to Italy, both in latitude and in its Mediterranean vegetation:^[6][7] "Many great trees grew there, ... and groves and thickets there were oftamarisk and pungentterebinth, ofolive and ofbay; and there werejunipers andmyrtles".^{[T 13]}

The forest of theDrúedain is ancient, populated by a race who resemble the mythologicalwoodwoses, the wild men of the woods of Britain and Europe, and who are named as woses by theRiders of Rohan. The woses, angered by the actions of the enemy, allow the Riders to travel on a secret road through their forest.^{[8][T 14]}

Beleriand's major forests include the Forest of Brethil, the Elvish forest realm ofDoriath, home to theSindar, and the great southern forest of Taur-im-Duinath, occupying much of East Beleriand.^{[T 15]} Doriath is protected by the "girdle ofMelian", a magical defence aroundThingol's forest kingdom.^[9]

The southern part of the blessed realm ofValinor contains the Woods ofOromë, where theVala liked to hunt.^{[T 16]}

Michael Brisbois, writing inTolkien Studies, comments that inThe Lord of the Rings, the mainly broadleaf or mixed forests, with coniferous forests on higher ground as at Rivendell and southern Mirkwood, are realistic enough to lead the reader through into "the hyperreal" and then into "the fantastic".^[10] For the Tolkien scholarTom Shippey, the mention of Mirkwood is an echo of theNorse mythology of theElder Edda, with the pathless forests of the North over theMisty Mountains mentioned in one of the poems in theEdda, theSkirnismal.^[11] Tolkien used the name Mirkwood also of Taur-nu-Fuin in Beleriand (in Dorthonion, to the east ofGondolin), in the view of Tolkien's biographerJohn Garth "deliberately entangl[ing] the two forests."^[12]Damian O'Byrne writes that "the forests of Middle-earth possess a dark agency of their own; they are malevolent places where paths 'shift and change from time to time in queer fashion'", while Taur-nu-Fuin is "a region of such dread and dark enchantment that even the Orcs would not enter it unless need drove them".^[13]

The Tolkien scholars Shelley Saguaro and Deborah Cogan Thacker state that Mirkwood's role inThe Hobbit is both to be the dark forbidding forest of fairy tale as Bilbo pursues hisquest as in "a classicalquest narrative", and to have the familiar qualities of a real wood. The forests and trees ofThe Lord of the Rings are, however, "much more complex": trees may change, whether by being "woken up by Elves" as were theEnts, or "going bad" like some of the trees in the Old Forest.^[14] Saguaro and Thacker note that forests recur in fairy stories, as places where the protagonist becomes lost, where witches and woodcutters and wolves live. They recall that inTree and Leaf, Tolkien's account of fairy tales, such stories are in his words "unanalysable ..outside Time itself maybe". Saguaro and Thacker mention thepsychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim's interpretation, that going into the forest "signifies a psychoanalytic space – a place separated from everyday experience in which to be lost is to be found",^[14] and Jack Zipes's alternative view, based on his analysis of theBrothers Grimm, that the forest makes enchantment possible, because the conventions of society do not apply there.^[14]

Tolkien's biographerJohn Garth writes that the great forests, the "tree-woven lands" of Middle-earth, symbolise natureas opposed to development and industrialisation, "against the axe and furnace".^[12] Tolkien's own position was that the primeval human understanding is, as he wrote in his 1964 bookTree and Leaf, "communion with other living things", now lost.^[14] The Tolkien scholarPaul Kocher states that Middle-earth is meant to be the Earth itself in the distant past, when the primeval forests still existed, and with them, a wholeness that is also now lost. He adds that a forest like Fangorn "may be dire and mysterious but its trees are the sameoaks,chestnuts,beeches, androwans that make up our woods."^[15]Saguaro and Thacker write that while it might seem that Tolkien is using forests mainly to represent the natural world, as against the industrial modern world, they are rather "a multi-layered portrayal, with subtle links tofairy tale andfolklore, and complex psychological symbolism."^[14]

• Aracil, Leticia Cortina (2019). "8. Shadow Shrouds and Moonlight Veils the Forest as an Existential Scene in Tolkien's Legendarium". In Hackett, Jon; Harrington, Sean (eds.).Beasts of the Forest: Denizens of the Dark Woods.Indiana University Press. pp. 119–132.ISBN 978-0-8619-6959-3.
• Brisbois, Michael J. (2005). "Tolkien's Imaginary Nature: An Analysis of the Structure of Middle-earth".Tolkien Studies.2 (1). Project MUSE:197–216.doi:10.1353/tks.2005.0009.ISSN 1547-3163.S2CID 170238657.
• Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. (2023) [1981].The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien: Revised and Expanded Edition. New York:HarperCollins.ISBN 978-0-35-865298-4.
• Garth, John (2020). "Tree-woven Lands".The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien: The Places that Inspired Middle-earth. London:Frances Lincoln Publishers. pp. 112–131.ISBN 978-0-71124-127-5.
• Fonstad, Karen Wynn (1991).The Atlas of Middle-earth. Boston:Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.ISBN 0-618-12699-6.
• Kocher, Paul (1974) [1972].Master of Middle-earth: The Achievement of J.R.R. Tolkien.Penguin Books.ISBN 978-0-14003-877-4.
• O'Byrne, Damian (2019). "9. The Fiendish Forests of Middle-earth: Tolkien's Trees as Ominous Adversaries". In Hackett, Jon; Harrington, Sean (eds.).Beasts of the Forest: Denizens of the Dark Woods.Indiana University Press. pp. 133–146.ISBN 978-0-8619-6959-3.
• Shippey, Tom (2005) [1982].The Road to Middle-Earth: How J. R. R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology (Third ed.).HarperCollins.ISBN 978-0-261-10275-0.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1937).Douglas A. Anderson (ed.).The Annotated Hobbit. Boston:Houghton Mifflin (published 2002).ISBN 978-0-618-13470-0.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1954a).The Fellowship of the Ring.The Lord of the Rings. Boston:Houghton Mifflin.OCLC 9552942.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1954).The Two Towers.The Lord of the Rings. Boston:Houghton Mifflin.OCLC 1042159111.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1955).The Return of the King.The Lord of the Rings. Boston:Houghton Mifflin.OCLC 519647821.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1977).Christopher Tolkien (ed.).The Silmarillion. Boston:Houghton Mifflin.ISBN 978-0-395-25730-2.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1980).Christopher Tolkien (ed.).Unfinished Tales. Boston:Houghton Mifflin.ISBN 978-0-395-29917-3.
• Williams, Hamish, ed. (2021).Tolkien and the Classical World. Zurich:Walking Tree Publishers.ISBN 978-3-905703-45-0.OCLC 1237352408.

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