still, the fact that Tom simply found her one day near the river seems to suggest that she was younger...
he was Master of his domain, and would have probably her presence if she had been there before

also, the point made by Boromir88 is very good, another fact that shows the same thing is that Bombadil is unaffected by the Ring, and so many of the laws of Middle-earth are not valid in his case

I'll leave the two 'Berries' to themselves :p . I'm afraid whatever I say about her would probably simply be made up. :rolleyes:

TM, ahh an excellent point about the Ring. I was going to bring that up as I forgot in the last post...alas you got to it before I did. :smokin: Anywho, nice find. Gandalf and Saruman are Maiar, yet they still show the effects of the Ring. Gandalf may have been able to resist it, but he definitely feared possessing the Ring know what effect it would have on him. Where Tom B, simply just doesn't fit in with the rest of the 'Middle-earthians' when it comes to the Ring...as he shows no effect to it at all! Therefor I think are Bombadil isn't from Middle-earth he just happens to be residing there at the time being. Again, nice find.

Tom himself said:

If he said himself that his name is the only answer it clearly means that the passing of time, or of events in the outside world clearly don't affect him in his own little domain. However, he clearly is not immune to all that is of Middle-earth, as he clearly has feelings and needs.

I always thought...why does Tom Bombadil need to eat ?

But please, don't answer that, I don't want to completely turn this thread into another TB discussion. :p

Well there's not much of a discussion left here anyway eh? I mean "Tom remembers the first raindrops" that means he was there when middle earth was creatted, and that means before the elves....

Wasn't Tom Bombadil the oldest person? He said that he was there before everything. However, since Treebeard is an ent, doesn't that make him pretty frickin' old since he's been in Middle-Earth since it's creation.

If you would have taken the effort of reading the posts in front of you, you would have red it is lituarily said that Tom is the oldest

Arguably Bombadil.

It cannot be Tom Bombadil.

We only have his ramblings about being the eldest and remembering the first raindrops to support the theory, which is a shaky foundation at best. Also we don't even know what he is. . . if he is a deity does he still count as a person?

At least we know something about Cirdan.

I agree with you, Rune. It would be Cirdan, as defined by "person". We are not altogether sure what Bombadil "is".

Since we don't know who/what "is" Bombadil, we can't really place him anywhere on the timeline. I remember reading somewhere in The Sil that the Ents appeared around the same time as Elves were born, which would make Treebeard one of the oldest (if you count him as a person). Cirdan is definitely the oldest Elf. If we count ainur to be "people", they are older than all the rest, except for Eru. :D

I thought I recall Bombadil implying that he was there before the Ents? If T.B. is a person, then aside from the Ainur and Eru, he'd be the oldest. But...are Ents really 'people'? :p

Maybe we should get a clear definition about which creatures we are talking about. . .

Anyways no matter what Tom Bombadil should be left out, I don't believe we have anything that determines his age. Maybe he is just a madman who is immune to magical rings.