Visible souls....

[littlemanpoet]

If he is a Hroa-less Fea (phrase used with compliments to davem ) then how did the Hobbits see him? Was this the nature of the magic of the Old Forest? If it did indeed enable the Hobbits to 'see' that which is not normally seen then I like that chapter even more than ever! - Lalwendë

This particular question reminds me of the medieval scholars in earnest discussion regarding how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.

Maybe I'm revealing my ignorance of this now famous osanwe document, but it seems to me that the best reading of any narrative written by Tolkien (or any storyteller for that matter) is to take it the way he wrote it rather than to speculate things that are not there. Hence, since the hobbits could see Tom Bombadil, he could not have been a hroa-less fea.

Does this mean that Tom is quite literally a part of the very fabric of Arda? If so it might tie in with my old ideas of him as relating to a figure such as The Green Man or the Horned God. - Lalwendë

Now, this seems much more likely to me. It's of a piece with how Tolkien wrote Tom and Goldberry, don't you think? I like your "old ideas" just fine.