Apparent contradictions, Drout notes, tend to give readers the impression of a real and complex history, since they may assume that an omniscient author can make a fictional story wholly consistent. Among the examples he gives are that Tolkien stated that Elves rode without either a saddle or a harness, but the Elf-lord Glorfindel's horse is described as having both bit and bridle, and Glorfindel says he will shorten his horse's stirrups for the Hobbit Frodo. In another case, Tolkien intentionally did not edit away the contradiction between Tom Bombadil's claim that he was Eldest ... here before the river and the trees; Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn, and Gandalf's description of the Ent Treebeard that Treebeard is Fangorn, the guardian of the forest; he is the oldest of the Ents, the oldest living thing that still walks beneath the Sun upon this Middle-earth.