LotR -- Book 1 - Chapter 07 - In the House of Tom Bombadil

[Hookbill the Goomba]

I agree with a lot of that, Aiwendil, and have often considered it.
it always seems that east is where darkness lies in Tolkien. Save that in the earlier days Melkor dwelt in the north in Angband, so that may be an exception.
We see that the Old forest was on the Eastern side of the shire, the Barrow downs (not entirely evil ) was east of Bombadill's house and Mordor is often referred to as the east. Boromir's dream counts for this,

In that dream I thought the eastern sky grew dark and there was a growing thunder, but in the West, a pale light lingered, and out of it I heard a voice...

Here again the East is the place where the darkness seems to be, and the west is where hope and goodness comes from.
I always found it interesting how there are two ends of this spectrum... in the North West of middle Earth is the Shire, here there is a pace loving folk with goodness spewing out of their ears. Moreover almost diagonally opposite in the South east there is Mordor with black malice and nastiness.
Any thoughts?