Carnimírië

A combination of Elvish words that together form a name meaning 'red-jewelled' or 'adorned with red jewels'. This was one of various poetic names used by the Ent Bregalad (or Quickbeam) for the trees commonly known as rowan or mountain ash. The name comes from the berries of the rowan tree, which grow in scarlet clusters during the autumn.

Rowans are trees that prefer to grow on the slopes of hills and mountains. During the First Age, they are recorded as being found on the lower slopes of Amon Rûdh, and in later Ages they grew on the high hill of Amon Hen, and also in the heights of the Misty Mountains that looked over Fangorn Forest. In the mountains, these rowans grew beside birches, and below the pines that preferred higher slopes still.

The rowans above Fangorn Forest were in the care of the Ents, and particularly Bregalad, whose Ent-house was surrounded by a ring of the trees. In fact the translated version of Bregalad's name, 'Quickbeam', is also an old name for the rowan tree. Given this deep connection, it was a great grief to Bregalad when Saruman sent his Orcs seeking wood, and they cut down many of the carnimírië trees in the valleys above Isengard. So great was Bregalad's anger at this that he 'hastily' decided that Saruman should pay for the destruction his Orcs had wrought, without first taking part in the long discussions at the Entmoot.

Brelagad's carnimírië were avenged when the Ents attacked Isengard and overthrew its defences, and Bregalad charged after Saruman himself. The 'tree-killer' (as Bregalad called him) escaped into his impregnable tower of Orthanc before he could be captured, but the Ents were able to hold him there until after the War of the Ring. So the red-jewelled carnimírië trees, and Bregalad's fury at their loss, played their own small role in the overthrow of Isengard.