Editing Two Trees of Valinor (section)

=== The Dry Tree ===

{{see also|Dry Tree}}

Cynthia Cohen writes in ''[[Tolkien Studies]]'' that the White Tree of Gondor in ''The Lord of the Rings'' stands for "the deeper history of Men in Tolkien's [[Fictional universe|Secondary World]], reaching back to [its ancestors,] the Two Trees of Valinor".<ref name="Cohen 2009"/> During most of the action of the novel, the tree is dead, and has been for over a century<!--166 years-->, but all the same it serves as a symbol of Gondor's strength and national identity, and of hope for the Kingdom's renewal. She suggests that the White Tree parallels the [[Dry Tree]] mentioned in the 14th century text ''[[Mandeville's Travels]]''. The Dry Tree had been alive in the time of [[Jesus|Christ]], and was prophesied to come to life again when a "great lord from the western part of the world" returned to the [[Holy Land]], just as Aragorn brings the line of Kings back to Gondor. Cohen comments that the dead White Tree's replacement by a living sapling "upholds the metaphor of [[Resurrection of Jesus|resurrection]] and enables Tolkien to draw an implicit connection between Aragorn and Christ".<ref name="Cohen 2009"/> Finally, she remarks on the verse that Aragorn recites when he sees the White Mountains of Gondor: "West Wind blew there; the light upon the Silver Tree / Fell like bright rain in gardens in the Kings of old," which she states links Telperion, the Silver Tree of Valinor, to the White Tree. Since [[Tolkien's ambiguity|Tolkien has left it ambiguous]] whether the Silver Tree of the verse, the place where the West Wind blew, or where the "bright rain" fell, are [[Time in J. R. R. Tolkien's fiction|in long-ago Valinor or present-time Gondor]], the ancestry of the tree and the lineage of the Kings merge into a continuum.<ref name="Cohen 2009">{{cite journal |last=Cohen |first=Cynthia M. |year=2009 |title=The Unique Representation of Trees in 'The Lord of the Rings' |journal=Tolkien Studies |publisher=Project MUSE |volume=6 |issue=1 |pages=99–102 |doi=10.1353/tks.0.0041 |issn=1547-3163|hdl=10211.3/157628 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>

[[Patrick Curry]], in the ''J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia'', writes that the importance that Tolkien gives to the Two Trees shows "the [[Trees in Middle-earth|iconic status of trees]] in both his work and his life."<ref name="Curry2013">{{cite book |last=Curry |first=Patrick |author-link=Patrick Curry (author) |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B0loOBA3ejIC&pg=PA682 |chapter=Two Trees |editor-last=Drout |editor-first=Michael D. C. |editor-link=Michael Drout |title=[[J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia]] |year=2013 |orig-year=2007 |isbn=978-0-415-86511-1 |page=682|publisher=Taylor & Francis }}</ref> Richard Goetsch adds that the Two Trees are "central to many of the crucial plot developments of the entire saga, from the beginning of the First Age to the end of the Third Age", and further that they "function as the ultimate expression of the natural world in Tolkien's mythos."<ref name="Goetsch 2012">{{cite web |last=Goetsch |first=Richard A. |title=Environmental Stewardship in the Works of J. R. R. Tolkien |url=https://www.academia.edu/1825597 |publisher=Trinity Evangelical Divinity School |access-date=1 August 2023}}</ref>

<gallery class=center mode=nolines widths=200 heights=240>
File:Alexander and followers praying at Trees of Sun and Moon England 1333.jpg|[[Alexander the Great]] and followers kneeling in prayer at the Trees of the Sun and the Moon, under the guidance of a high priest. England 1333-c. 1340
File:Stone of Destiny 2018-07-24.jpg|Celtic symbol: The ''[[Lia Fáil]]'' on the hill of Tara
File:Akseli Gallen-Kallela - Sammon ryöstö.jpg|upright=0.5|Magical symbol in the ''[[Kalevala]]'': ''The Theft of the [[Sampo]]'' by [[Akseli Gallen-Kallela]], 1897
File:Trees of Sun and Moon and Dry Tree Rouen 1444.jpg|The [[Dry Tree]] with the [[Phoenix (mythology)|Phoenix]], flanked by the Trees of the Sun and the Moon. [[Rouen]] 1444-1445
</gallery>