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

[Aiwendil]

Mark12_30 wrote:

Personally, I see no problem with Tom being 'Naturally Supernatural', and having a 'naturally supernatural' power over the Barrow-Wight. In the same vein, the elves' magic is more like Art; it is Natural; it is not about Power, yet it is Powerful.

Yes, to a degree I can accept this. But something still makes me uneasy. There is, I think, throughout the Legendarium a contrast drawn between the natural and the artificial, between Nature and Art. It is the difference between the Avari and the Noldor, the difference between Gandalf and Saruman, the difference between Ulmo and Aule, the difference between Finarfin and Feanor. The Elves' magic is Art, which is to say "artificial" - i.e. works of artifice, of skill. Now I don't see any problem with the Elves also appreciating and representing the Natural side of things - no real person can be all artifice or all nature. But I had thought of Tom as representing the purely Natural, without any of the "learned", without any of the curwe so prized by Aule and Feanor. And I think that the simple and obvious fact that he has a power of command over the Barrow-wight poses problems for that view. Also, there's his singing - indeed, it seems unlikely that anything in Arda could be completely devoid of connections with Art, since the world was created in the Ainulindale.

Sorry if that's not very coherent; I'm thinking and typing at the same time.

[HerenIstarion]

Aiwendil - Art as it is forms a part of Nature. After all, the Nature itself is created = act of art. Art rightfully employed = sub creation = imitation of the first Act of Art. Only perverted art, one not conforming to natural pattern, is opposed to Nature.

Besides, it may be argued that only humans when dead leave Nature behind, as they leave the Circles of the World. All else, including ghost world of wraiths, is inside it, though on different plane. Hence, only Supernatural acts (=miracles) are those coming outside of it - i.e. interventions of Eru - Numenor case, resurrection of Gandalf, and the case of Bilbo finding the Ring. Even in those cases, pattern is natural - the island is overflowed, the body is not destroyed, the finding of the ring is, well, just chance-finding.

Dratted lack of time, so I must refer you to, instead of developing it on the spot:

Evil Things
Acceptance of Mythology

Those do not deal directly with the issue in hand, but touch upon it as well

cheers

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Aiwendil, Mark and HI: very interesting take on the relation of Art and Nature here. I agree with HI, however, that in ME Nature (ie the created world) takes 'precedence' over Art (ie the practice of the created beings who form a part of Nature). In his works, I think that Tolkien recovered a much more substantive and meaningful conception of Nature: not just trees and hills and all the stuff 'out there' or 'outside' the human, but the sum total of creation, which includes humanity and our own acts of creation, or Art.

Shakespeare put it best in The Winter's Tale:

Yet nature is made better by no mean
But nature makes that mean; so over that art
Which you say adds to nature, is an art
That nature makes.

This is why things like Rings and Barrow-Wights (which are the result of Art, be it the art of Ringmaking or the art of magic) are irrelevant to Tom and Goldberry, who embody the Nature from which all Arts spring.

Rimbaud: I like your football analogy for the eucatastrophe of Tom's appearance, not in the least because it shows the ultimate paradox of Tolkien's attempt to embody nature: Tom's existence as a part of nature is made possible only through Tolkien's art!

[Aiwendil]

Heren Istarion wrote:

Art as it is forms a part of Nature. After all, the Nature itself is created = act of art. Art rightfully employed = sub creation = imitation of the first Act of Art. Only perverted art, one not conforming to natural pattern, is opposed to Nature.

I'm not sure that I agree. Art is artifice - it is by definition artificial. And throughout the Legendarium there is a contrast drawn between Art (craft, skill, lore) and . . . well, something else - I'm not sure whether to call it "nature" or "wisdom" or what. The Noldor, Aule, Sauron, Saruman, Feanor - they all exemplify the Art side of things. I'd say that Gandalf, the Vanyar, Yavanna, and Ulmo, among others, exemplify the other side. Remember Aule's words to Yavanna about the Dwarves - "Nonetheless, they will have need of wood." So there is some kind of opposition between the world of skill and the world of growing things.

But perhaps the opposition I'm seeing is not to be thought of as one between Art and Nature, but rather between Art and something else.

[davem]

He made no secret that he owed his recent knowledge to Farmer Maggot, whom he seemed to regard as a person of more importance than they had imagined. 'There's earth under his old feet, & clay on his fingers; wisdom in his bones, & both his eyes are open.' said Tom

So, what was Tom's relationship to Old Maggot?

Tom slumped along the road, as the light was failing.
Rushey lamps gleamed ahead. He heard a voice him hailing.
'Whoa there!' Ponies stopped, wheels halted sliding.
Tom went plodding past. never looked beside him.

'Ho there! beggarman tramping in the Marish!
What's your business here? Hat all stuck with arrows!
Someone's warned you off, caught you at your sneaking?
Come here! Tell me now what it is you're seeking!
Shire-ale. I'll be bound, though you've not a penny.
I'll bid them lock their doors, and then you won't get any''

'Well, well. Muddy-feet! From one that's late for meeting
away back by the Mithe that's a surly greeting!
You old farmer fat that cannot walk for wheezing,
cart-drawn like a sack, ought to be more pleasing.
Penny-wise tub-on-legs! A beggar can't be chooser,
or else I'd bid you go, and you would be the loser.
Come, Maggot! Help me up! A tankard now you owe me.
Even in cockshut light an old friend should know me!'

Laughing they drove away, in Rushey never halting,
though the inn open stood and they could smell the mailing.
They turned down Maggot's Lane, rattling and bumping,
Tom in the farmer's cart dancing round and jumping.
Stars shone on Bamfurlong, and Maggot's house was lighted;
fire in the kitchen burned to welcome the benighted.

Maggot's sons bowed at door, his daughters did their curtsy,
his wife brought tankards out for those that might be thirsty.
Songs they had and merry tales the supping and the dancing;
Goodman Maggot there for all his belt was prancing,
Tom did a hornpipe when he was not quaffing,
daughters did the Springle-ring, goodwife did the laughing.

When others went to bed in hay, fern, or feather,
close in the inglenook they laid their heads together,
old Tom and Muddy-feet, swapping all the tidings
from Barrow-downs to Tower Hills: of walkings and of ridings;
of wheat-ear and barley-corn, of sowing and of reaping;
queer tales from Bree, and talk at smithy, mill, and cheaping;
rumours in whispering trees, south-wind in the larches,
tall Watchers by the Ford, Shadows on the marches.

Old Maggot slept at last in chair beside the embers.
Ere dawn Tom was gone: as dreams one half remembers,
some merry, some sad, and some of hidden warning.
None heard the door unlocked; a shower of rain at morning
his footprints washed away, at Mithe he left no traces,
at Hays-end they heard no song nor sound of heavy paces.

Bombadil goes Boating

We seem to have an interchange of news - though not set out so clearly; if we highlight what seems to be Tom's contribution its a bit clearer:

old Tom and Muddy-feet, swapping all the tidings
from Barrow-downs to Tower Hills: of walkings and of ridings;
of wheat-ear and barley-corn, of sowing and of reaping;
queer tales from Bree, and talk at smithy, mill, and cheaping;
rumours in whispering trees, south-wind in the larches,
tall Watchers by the Ford, Shadows on the marches.

Tom informs Maggot of the unnoticed 'mysteries' all around him, while Maggot tells Tom the local gossip. Of course, at one point, Maggot was to have been a creature like Tom, so he goes through a very strange process of evolution - first a violent thug, then, briefly, a supernatural being like Tom, finally ending up a friendly hobbit. We could speculate that Tom's speech to the hobbits praising Maggot, arose out of the 'middle' period, as the Maggot we have in the book, while worthy, doesn't seem all that 'wise'. Yet it may be that his wisdom comes from his listening to Tom, while Tom seems to have learned a lot of what he considers to be 'valuable' information from Maggot. What does this tell us about Tom's values? Maggot simply relates his experiences of the everyday comings & goings of ordinary hobbit folk. Tom seems the spirit of wild, uncontrolled nature, yet the day to day wisdom he passes to Tom make him seem a fellow worthy of respect - are we seeing a kind of ideal relationship between the wild & the tamed, one that the Ents & the Entwives could never manage, & so brought about their destruction? Perhaps we can see Tom & Maggot as complementary 'reflections' of each other.

Which brings something else to mind - we've spent a lot of time exploring Goldberry's character, but why have we ignored Mrs Maggot? She tends the house, the fire, provides the food & ale - she also is a mother, a nurturer & provider, & also seems to be the one running the family - her final words telling Maggot to take care:

'You be careful of yourself, Maggot!' she called. 'Don't go arguing with any foreigners, & come straight back!'

[Lalwendë]

For my own part, I don't see any problem with Tom being a nature spirit and him being able to control the Barrow-Wight. If Tom is indeed some kind of personification of the 'old' god, then I would see him as having the potential for power over whatever may be within the landscape. After all, those entombed within the Barrow Downs ( ) are now dead, and part of the earth itself. We see how the Downs have a strange power or force impelling the hobbits to go where they ought not, and this suggests that the Wight could be just another aspect of that force or energy of nature which Tom can control. Davem says many posts back that the rhyme Tom teaches the hobbits is almost an invocation; I think Tom knows full well that the Downs have some kind of terrible force, and he wants them to be able to use his 'counter-force'.

Hmmm, it's hard to explain, this line of thought, but to add, I see the Barrow-Wight as something apart from other 'otherworldly' (for want of a better word) forces, such as the Wraiths and Elves. The Wight is a creature seemingly bound to his Barrow, and hence, to the land.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

When I began to read the next chapter, I glanced at the opposite page, the end of this chapter, and a detail caught my eye. Tom is warning the hobbits against the Barrows and the Wights and:

advised them to pass barrows by on the west-side, if they chanced to stray near one.

I have a vague memory of a discussion on that thought some time back, but don't remember which thread it was. To pick up that question here - why on the west-side? What significance does that advice have? Does it have something to do with Valinor being in the west?

Of course, since it was foggy when they got there, I don't suppose that the hobbits would have known where west was, even if they had seen the barrows...

[Aiwendil]

Does it have something to do with Valinor being in the west?

That's what I've always assumed. West is the Good direction in Tolkien's mythology, apparently because that's where the Valar chose to dwell after the destruction of the Lamps - a west wind is always a good thing, for example. It seems to me that this is simply a result of the geography of Europe. To a European, west is the direction of the Sea and of sea-longing - just as here on the east coast of the U.S. I've always thought of east as the good or special direction. A large part of the feeling of the west in the Legendarium can be summed up in the image of a person standing on the shore, gazing westward toward Valinor.

Of course, in C.S. Lewis's Narnia books, east is the Good direction, which would seem to blow a hole in my theory.