(Silly) What is an acid ent anyway?

[Menolly]

Inspired by discord conversation, @Elvheimdros noticed that the word "accident" looks a lot like "acid ent." So then I wondered: what exactly would an acid ent be anyway? Is it an ent with a particularly acerbic personality? Do they secrete some sort of acidic sap?

Then @Dimcairien Luiniel pondered whether an ent on an acid trip would secrete acidic sap.

Then @Zôrzimril pointed out that this would make an excellent silly lore topic (ok, maybe I added the word excellent).

So, what are your thoughts on acid ents?

[Zôrzimril]

Definitely excellent

My head went straight to an acid trip, for what it's worth

[Dimcairien Luiniel]

So I googled acid sap and there is a tree that can kill you if you touch it or stand under it. It sounds like one pissed off Ent to me.

Manchineel Tree

[Dwim]

Yes, an acid trip is straight where my mind went to as well.

The thought of Ents on acid gels nicely with LotR's connection to the psychedelic counterculture of the 60's.

And if they were always tripping out it explains why they took so long to form sentences and actually do anything.

[Boromir88]

As @Dwim says it might explain a lot of things...

[Chrysophylax Dives]

I'm not sure an ent on acid would be all that different to an ent not on acid.

[Silky Gooseness]

Would it be more or less hasty?

[Androthelm]

Far, far, far less hasty @Sil Denafil is my vote.

Although I'll note, since @Dwim did raise the connection between acid ent and LoTR's profound countercultural influence in the '60s, there is definitely an... interesting application of "entdraught", I think, in talking about the Kesey acid kool-aid "tests".

[Lail]

Whoa that is intense. I will be adding the Manchineel Tree to my list of "weird things in nature that can kill you list" along with the cone snail.

I too immediately thought of ents on an acid trip. But since it opens your mind to new experiences, maybe they'd be more willing to be hasty...?

[Menolly]

Ok, the manchineel tree is terrifying. I'm sort of relieved I didn't know it existed when I lived in Florida.

There's something to this whole ents-on-acid thing. Maybe they learned the trick of it from Tom Bombadil.

[Androthelm]

I'd just like to throw this out on the (late tangent) topic of spooky trees but I've just been working with the Pushkin poem Анчар for class and it deals with a tree which is pretty poisonous in the real world and very poisonous in legend -- the Upas Tree.

[Dwim]

@Androthelm it's funny you mention that, as I was only reading John Howe's recent blog post on the same topic of the Upas Tree just the other week: https://www.john-howe.com/blog/2020/05/ ... ge-boughs/

I was fascinated by the post, and I was transfixed by the gloomy piece of art by Francis Danby which inspired the post.

[Androthelm]

@Dwim thank you for that connection! That's a gorgeous piece of art. If you're interested in some further poetic / literary uses of the Upas Tree, I recommend its Wikiquote page. It has fascinated a number of artists, especially Europeans who aren't dealing with the actual invasive species so much as a dangerous image.

Translating (roughly! you'll forgive my lack of meter or rhyme, I'm still working) Pushkin describes the way the "Anchar" (a word he sort of made up) Tree affects the world around it...

A bird will never fly to him
nor tiger charge--only black wind
will crash into the tree of death
and soar away, made pestilent.

Grim stuff indeed.

[Dwim]

@Androthelm, those pestilent black winds have taken us on quite a tangent away from the acid Ents!

From the Wikiquotes page you linked, this would be my favourite:

If you... go on killing everyone you meet till people begin to think you're first cousin to an upas tree, naturally you're found out in the end.
Dorothy L. Sayers, Unnatural Death (1927).

Anyway, yes, tangents.

[Androthelm]

Listen, an Acid-ent with Upas-poison in his veins? Which burns away the environment around him... That sounds like a work of Melkor, if ever I've heard it. Imagine if that had been what the "twisted version" of ents were, instead of the trolls.

Almost as terrifying as our tangents

And yes, there's some good Hobbit-sense in that quote there.