View Single Post
Old 08-02-2004, 09:07 AM   #4
Bęthberry
Cryptic Aura
 
Bęthberry's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 6,159
Bęthberry is wading through snowdrifts on Redhorn.Bęthberry is wading through snowdrifts on Redhorn.Bęthberry is wading through snowdrifts on Redhorn.Bęthberry is wading through snowdrifts on Redhorn.
Boots

Quote:
They have an unusually modern combination of deep affection and strong independence, with not a shadow of subservience on Goldberry's part. This is a high ideal of marriage and a wonderful example!
Possibly, Estelyn, but let's not forget that this is a childless marriage.

I have to say that Martinez's words about the classic courtship ritual mirror my suggestion in the discussion last week on "The Old Forest" chapter that their relationship in the Bombadil poem represented "frisky play". (How about that. Quoting myself.) davem, your analysis of Goldberry is eloquent and very attractive and you are quite right to point out that she is often ignored in discussions of Tolkien's women. I think it is to the good to see the mythological predecesors for the River-Daughter and Goldberry in the

Quote:
the dangerous figures of English folkore, Jenny Greenteeth & Peg Powler, who seek to drag the unwary traveller underwater & drown them.
However, I think we also need to recognise the specific tenor of Tolkien's use of the figures. The danger is very much softened. There is in the Bombadil poem play and comedy rather than terror and I see nothing to suggest Goldberry's wish to drown Tom; she wishes merely to get his attention.

The other mythological legend which Goldberry suggests is that of Persephone and Demeter, the daughter stolen by the god of the underworld, leaving the mother so disconsolate that the fecundity of the natural world is disrupted. Here, it is the daughter, Goldberry, who controls weather, not her mother the River-Goddess. And here there is no sense that Goldberry, having eaten those three or four pomegranate seeds, is become the queen of the underworld. Instead, she becomes the woman who keeps the black dogs of night at bay--"Heed no nightly noises." Again, Goldberry is very powerful, but the connotations of darkness are removed from the literary archetypes to produce her.

This change reflects, I think, Tolkien's view of his art. His focus is upon how good triumphs over evil rather than upon evil itself. We do not see how Saruman became enmeshed with his studies; his fall is simply a "given" in the story. So, too, is the fall of the Black Riders. We do not know how they became ensnared, simply that they were.
It seems to me that Tolkien tames the legends, domesticates them, leaving us with, as davem has described, an elemental safe haven from which the Hobbits must face the quest before them.

This is looking far ahead, but what I have always regretted is that, when Gandalf says at the conclusion of the book that he wishes to visit Tom, there is no mention of Goldberry. This was likely Tolkien the author attempting to weave the Old Forest chapters back into his story, but his omission of Goldberry stands to me similar to the omission of Goldberry from the after-dinner talks with the Hobbits. Had Tolkien included Goldberry in Gandalf's final remarks, I would have been more inclined to accept unreservedly davem's reading of her.

Unless of course, this is where Fordim's idea, in last week's discussion, comes into play, that we ought always to speak and think of TomandGoldberry (no, no, not Tom and Jerry) rather than just Tom.
__________________
I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away.
Bęthberry is offline   Reply With Quote