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Who has ever heard of Tree people?


HeathenRoyalty

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Anyone have any stories of Tree people? If so, tell me what you have.

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More or less like the ents.

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Aside from skin diseases that makes the sufferer's skin have a bark like appearance, I can't say I have outside of some old mountain folk stories, or Tolkien

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except for the fact they don't talk.

So there are folk tales of tree people? Could you give me some links?

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Not that I know of man, I'm like 2 generations away from being some hatfeild-mccoy level hick.

the people I've talked to wouldnt know what to think of a computer.

so unless theres other stories like it, i doubt youll find these

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I only remember seeing actual plant-tree people in D&D and in LotR.

I do believe I've read myths of giants or trolls that look like trees due to plants and trees growing on them however. Mostly Norse myth and maybe Germanic also.

Edited by DieChecker
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Tolkien's Ents, unlike the dwarves, elves and other creatures, do not have a mythological background, as far as I know. However, there is rich folklore and mythology concerning spirits inhabiting trees, such as the greek dryads, or the spirits that inhabit certain trees in germanic mythology.

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Didn't Tolkien call them the tree elves? Silvan folk?

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Didn't Tolkien call them the tree elves? Silvan folk?

Silvans were Elves that stayed in Middle-Earth after the race was originally called back to the home of their creators. They tended to stick to the woods but otherwise weren't linked to them in any particular manner.

And they sure as hell weren't baking cookies.

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Tree spirits, sometimes called 'Dryads', are ancient and venerable beings. Beneath their spreading green boughs a simple air of sacredness and stillness can be found. Even the deva of a small sapling, via the hive consciousness of all trees of which it is a tiny part, can be very wise & powerful. Although they can assume many forms, Dryads are often human-like, albeit sometimes much taller. Venerated by the Druids, Trees are perhaps the most powerful beings on the spiritual realm. When gathered together they form the sacred groves of antiquity, hallowed cathedrals of nature, where all living things may find their home.

- From a Boook I've got.

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My grandpa told me tales of critters of the woods or wee folk when I was a toddler. Like wild men of the woods that were at one with the trees. I guess more like tree spirits than trees that are people. He also talked about trees able to grab men, or moss stones being forest watchers too. Not too sure if he just had a bunch of stories to keep me out of the woods, or if they were actual folklore he was recounting.

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Well this one's not so much a tree person as it is a man-eating tree, but there's the ya-te-veo said to live in Africa and Central America. Biologist J. W. Buel wrote about it in his 1889 book "Sea and Land". Not very believable, especially since there are pretty much no reports of it besides this.

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Anyone have any stories of Tree people? If so, tell me what you have.

Yeah, apparently there was a leprechaun in a tree (or a crack head).

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Thanks everyone for the info!! It is much appreciated.

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Well this one's not so much a tree person as it is a man-eating tree, but there's the ya-te-veo said to live in Africa and Central America. Biologist J. W. Buel wrote about it in his 1889 book "Sea and Land". Not very believable, especially since there are pretty much no reports of it besides this.

The stories I have seem to die out around the time I became a teenager. And they were told to me by my grandmothers and some of my aunts and uncles. I knew with almost 100% certainty that my father and mother had stories, but seeing as I was still young, I guess they didn't want to scare me out of the woods that bad. What I remember of the stories, it seems that the trees weren't actually people. They would come alive and try to harm or kill any trespassers. The moral that I always gathered from those stories was, never go in the woods alone. I still have to do some research about them to see what, if any, corroboration I can find.

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Didn't Tolkien call them the tree elves? Silvan folk?

He called them Tree Herders, or Shepards of the Forests. They were able to "rouse" a tree and give them mobility and thought, for a time. They were the "children" of Yavanna, who was in charge of plants. The Trolls were made in copy of them.

There used to be Ent Wives, who tended to the small (non-tree) plants, but somewhere in history the Ents and the Wives lost each other and at the time of the Lord of the Rings, the Ents were a dying race.

EDIT: Weren't there legends of Green Men who were made of branches and vines? That could be a Tree Man.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Man

Edited by DieChecker
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He called them Tree Herders, or Shepards of the Forests. They were able to "rouse" a tree and give them mobility and thought, for a time. They were the "children" of Yavanna, who was in charge of plants. The Trolls were made in copy of them.

There used to be Ent Wives, who tended to the small (non-tree) plants, but somewhere in history the Ents and the Wives lost each other and at the time of the Lord of the Rings, the Ents were a dying race.

EDIT: Weren't there legends of Green Men who were made of branches and vines? That could be a Tree Man.

Yavanna had requested the Ents be made upon learning that the Dwarves, children of Aulë, were cutting down trees. The Ents were to protect the forests from Orcs, Dwarves and others. I believe they appeared at the same time as the Elves and are among the oldest races of Middle Earth. While the Ents were sentient, it was the Elves who taught them to speak.

The Green Men is a somewhat common motif in sculptures or drawings and is usually a face made of intertwining branches, vines and leaves. Usually to symbolize rebirth and the spring cycle of growth.

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Yavanna had requested the Ents be made upon learning that the Dwarves, children of Aulë, were cutting down trees. The Ents were to protect the forests from Orcs, Dwarves and others. I believe they appeared at the same time as the Elves and are among the oldest races of Middle Earth. While the Ents were sentient, it was the Elves who taught them to speak.

The Green Men is a somewhat common motif in sculptures or drawings and is usually a face made of intertwining branches, vines and leaves. Usually to symbolize rebirth and the spring cycle of growth.

I know in many neo-pagan beliefs the Green Man is considered an actual entity. And in many works of Fiction, like Wheel of Time Series, the Green Men are made of plants and branches.

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I know in many neo-pagan beliefs the Green Man is considered an actual entity. And in many works of Fiction, like Wheel of Time Series, the Green Men are made of plants and branches.

Unfortunately I have not read the Wheel of Time series, though I've had many people say they are excellent.

The Green Men were considered to a spirit of nature, something like a woodwose if I recall.

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Unfortunately I have not read the Wheel of Time series, though I've had many people say they are excellent.

I liked the series very much. But 15 books (which are twice as thick as a normal fiction paperback) is a lot to read. Too many plotlines, too many characters.... but a very good story.

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Not exactly what you are looking for: Chichiricu(Kind of like spirits of dwarves who only manifest next to a certain specific kind of tree)

Interestingly close to what you are looking for: Gurufinda(The guardian spirit of the woods.. who has a humanoid appearance but his body is entirely made of foliage/etc.)

Happy reading.

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