How many Huorns ? - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Animalmother · 01-29-2007, 06:02 PM

How many Huorns were there at the Deeping Coomb, and perhaps other places?

Tolkien tells us there were about forty-nine ents at the entmoot in Fangorn before the storming and drowning of Isengard. There are only a few clues about Huorn numbers, e.g., they filled the Deeping Coomb and devoured thousands of orcs. The exact geography of the Deeping Coomb and Helm's Deep is unclear. One map makes out the Deeping Coomb as at least twenty square miles area, but there are other maps which I have not seen.

It seems a handful of ents could shepherd large numbers of Huorns. As the ents were the Shepherds of the Trees, another clue would be the number of sheep a single shepherd can manage. If a shepherd can manage 200 sheep, that would give us a population of about 10,000 herdable Huorns. That is too few to fill the Deeping Coomb. If there were 300 Huorns per acre, about 180,000 Huorns would be required to cover one square mile.

I'm baffled.

01-29-2007, 06:02 PM	#1
Animalmother Pile O'Bones Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 14	How many Huorns ? How many Huorns were there at the Deeping Coomb, and perhaps other places? Tolkien tells us there were about forty-nine ents at the entmoot in Fangorn before the storming and drowning of Isengard. There are only a few clues about Huorn numbers, e.g., they filled the Deeping Coomb and devoured thousands of orcs. The exact geography of the Deeping Coomb and Helm's Deep is unclear. One map makes out the Deeping Coomb as at least twenty square miles area, but there are other maps which I have not seen. It seems a handful of ents could shepherd large numbers of Huorns. As the ents were the Shepherds of the Trees, another clue would be the number of sheep a single shepherd can manage. If a shepherd can manage 200 sheep, that would give us a population of about 10,000 herdable Huorns. That is too few to fill the Deeping Coomb. If there were 300 Huorns per acre, about 180,000 Huorns would be required to cover one square mile. I'm baffled.