I’m sure I read somewhere that there was a prophecy that Isengard would stand until the forest moved against it, or something to that effect. However, I cannot figure out where I got that from.

I thought it was actually the reason why he intentionally destroyed the forest. He was trying to prevent the prophecy while actually causing it.

Yet, I cannot find any proof of this. Did I just imagine this?

The image came from here.

  • Pons_Aelius@kbin.social
    4·
    1 year ago

    You may have picked it up from Shakespeare. In Macbeth, he is given the prophecy

    “Macbeth shall never vanquished be until
    Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill
    Shall come against him”

    Macbeth takes this to mean he is safe if the forest never grows near his castle.

    • Gandalf@hobbit.worldOPMEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      That’s amazing! You’re right, I must have read something like the following and combined the two in my mind.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare's_influence_on_Tolkien

      In a letter, he wrote of his “bitter disappointment and disgust from schooldays of the shabby use made in Shakespeare [in Macbeth] of the coming of ‘Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill’”. He attributed his creation of a world containing tree-giants or Ents to this reaction, writing “I longed to devise a setting in which the trees might really march to war.”

      • Pons_Aelius@kbin.social
        3·
        1 year ago

        Thanks for this. I was not aware of the direct attribution by JRR, but it doesn’t surprise me.

        So much of English lit is inspired by Shakespeare.