The Trickster's Consort

[littlemanpoet]

Nilpaurion Felagund:

Because of this, now I think Goldberry has something to do with Uinen, whose hair is spread throughout the waters of Middle-earth.

I have always felt that Goldberry as River-daughter had to do with Uinen; ever since I first read The Silmarillion. Does it make Goldberry a Maia? Maybe. If she's a daughter of the river, which is feminine, does she have a father? Does she need one? Who can say? One of those mysteries. Is she perhaps a lock of Uinen's hair, come to life?

Lalwendé:

But is Goldberry treacherous in any way? Does she 'lure' Tom? And does she lure him into a negative situation?

Have you read the two Adventures of Tom Bombadil poems? In the first one, Goldberry trickes him, pulling on his beard that dangles over the Withywindle (that she is apparently swimming or living in, and steals his hat. Is she flirting?

Back to her mother's house in the deepest hollow
swam young Goldberry. But Tom, he would not follow;

This suggests that Goldberry is trying to lure Tom to her mother's house, whatever that might mean.

[Nilpaurion Felagund]

I wonder: are there any instances in Middle earth of hostile water forces? (Bb)

Could the Withywindle be considered a hostile water force?

[davem]

Of course, there was speculation that Gollum was a tricster figure. I suppose we have two possibilities for his 'consort' - Shelob & his Grandmother. What interests me is that just as Tom manifests some of the positive aspects of the Trickster, his consort is a positive figure, while Gollum & Shelob seem to represent the negative aspects.

I wonder if we're dealing with 'Pagan' ideas/symbols as seen from a 'Christian' perspective. The old archetypes don't appear in their pure form but as split into their positive & negetive aspects - as we have the splitting of Odin into positive - Gandalf/Manwe - & negative - Sauron/Saruman. Or the 'good' king/bad king split in Theoden/Denethor.

The four-way 'split' of the trickster-consort pair into positive male-female & negative is interesting. Another thing that occurs is that Tom/Goldberry are childless while Shelob seems incredibly fecund - though she does tend to eat her brood. Gollum also is stated to have taken babies from their cradles to eat. So, the positive dyad seems not to reproduce, & children are absent from their world, while the negative dyad (the female aspect of it at least) reproduces almost uncontrollably but consumes its young....

& I have no idea where I'm going with this, so I'll stop now.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by LmP

Have you read the two Adventures of Tom Bombadil poems? In the first one, Goldberry trickes him, pulling on his beard that dangles over the Withywindle (that she is apparently swimming or living in, and steals his hat. Is she flirting?

Back to her mother's house in the deepest hollow
swam young Goldberry. But Tom, he would not follow;

This suggests that Goldberry is trying to lure Tom to her mother's house, whatever that might mean.

Tom Bombadil is the Master. No one has ever caught old Tom walking in the forest, wading in the water, leaping on the hill-tops under light and shadow. He has no fear. Tom Bombadil is master

Yet it seems that Goldberry wants to make out that Tom has somehow tamed or captured her. Which is the truth? Who captured who?

In folk tales, female water spirits do seem to have a malevolent side, so perhaps Goldberry did have this, but somehow Tom was able to tame her where other 'men' would have failed, possibly as he is no 'mere mortal' himself. Goldberry could have been some kind of 'lure' to tempt mortals into the water, whereupon they would be taken to her mother. However, the idea of her mother is interesting, as it could mean just another aspect of Goldberry herself. When tempting mortals into following her she could be young and beautiful, but as soon as they have been trapped she could become the more sinister 'mother' figure herself.

Originally Posted by davem

Another thing that occurs is that Tom/Goldberry are childless while Shelob seems incredibly fecund - though she does tend to eat her brood.

I wonder how Shelob reproduced? In nature, male spiders are sometimes smaller than the female, and she will often eat her mate once she is through with him. Only the strongest of the brood of such creatures will escape being eaten by the mother, surely the ultimate survival of the fittest? A mother who eats her own children is wholly unexpected, and the very opposite of what we would find acceptable, so there could be something of the trickster in Shelob and others like her.

Tom and Goldberry seem to represent nature itself (as do the Ents, who are also lacking any Entings). This might mean that their very nature represents fertility itself so children would not be necessary or expected.

[Eruanna]

I have never had the sense of any 'menace' coming from Goldberry. She does seem to flirt with him, though, in order to attract his attention. There is an old saying (or perhaps it's a song) that 'a boy chases a girl, until she catches him'
Tom, on the other hand, always seems to me to have an underlying power, a sense of danger. That perhaps he is not as innocent as he first appears.

This lack of children is an interesting point. Apart from human and hobbit children are any mentioned?
The ents are unable to reproduce because of the disappearance of their entwives. The elves seem to have had their children long ago and no 'new' offspring seem to be around. I remember reading that elves could delay reproduction in times of war/trouble; but is there something else here?
The elves, knowing that they will soon be gone, are no longer 'investing' themselves in Middle-earth, there is no future for them there.
The dwarves seem to have very few females. Although we have 'son of...'etc, they are all adults and no actual children are mentioned.
Tom and Goldberry have 'retired' into their own little world of the forest and surrounding area. Perhaps, as Lalwendë says, representing nature, they have no need to reproduce. There is also the question that being immortal there is no urge to 'leave behind' a family for posterity, but then that theory doesn't work for the elves.
Are the older races of Middle-earth heading for eventual extinction? Is it truly Man's time? If that is so then Middle-earth will be the poorer for it.

[Bêthberry]

Possibly Tolkien felt that the reproductive imperative was adequately--or perhaps we might even say supremely--represented by Sam and Rosie.

The tone used for Tom and Goldberry is, to my mind, markedly different in the poem collection [i]The Adventures of Tom Bombadil[/b] than in LotR. In the poems, perhaps because of the faint echo of ancient ballads and lyrics, there is a slighly suggested menace. This could well represent Tolkien's very prevalent habit of progressively rewriting and or over writing, the palimpsest, as I have called it elsewhere. After all, look at how many versions of Galadriel we have!

'Go out! Shut the door, and never come back after!
Take away the gleaming eyes, take your hollow laughter!
Go back to grassy mound, on your stony pillow
lay down your bony head, like Old Man Willow,
like young Goldberry, and Badger-Folk in burrow!
Go back to buried gold and forgotten sorrow!

This is spoken to the Barrow-Wight, so clearly Goldberry here is linked with the dangerous if not hostile elements in Tom's world. I have always found, as well, that Tom's 'catching' of Goldberry carries something of the abduction of Persephone as well.

He [Tom] caught her, held her fast! Water-rats went scuttering
reeds hissed, herons cried, and her heart was fluttering.
Said Tom Bombadil: 'Here's my pretty maiden!
You shall come home with me! The table is all laden:
yellow cream, honeycomb, white bread and butter;
roses at the window-sill and peeing round the shutter.
You shall come under Hill! Never mind your mother
in her deep weedy pool: there you'll find no lover!'

Nil, good call on the Withywindle! I would think that the malevolence of this river is part of the general dangerous ground of the Old Forest, but I think it certainly is a way to carry over the slightly menacing tone from the poems into the LotR while 'sanitising' the characterisation of Tom and Goldberry.

And, while I know how much davem enjoys free-from associations, I myself would hesitate to ascribe a 'consort' to Gollem. I grant that there are trickster elements in his depiction, but there is no literal pairing of him with a partner. After all, he seems quite wrapped up in his own Smeagol/Gollem relationship!

[littlemanpoet]

Eruanna:

This lack of children is an interesting point. Apart from human and hobbit children are any mentioned? The ents are unable to reproduce because of the disappearance of their entwives. The elves seem to have had their children long ago and no 'new' offspring seem to be around. I remember reading that elves could delay reproduction in times of war/trouble; but is there something else here? The elves, knowing that they will soon be gone, are no longer 'investing' themselves in Middle-earth, there is no future for them there. The dwarves seem to have very few females. Although we have 'son of...'etc, they are all adults and no actual children are mentioned. Tom and Goldberry have 'retired' into their own little world of the forest and surrounding area. Perhaps, as Lalwendë says, representing nature, they have no need to reproduce. There is also the question that being immortal there is no urge to 'leave behind' a family for posterity, but then that theory doesn't work for the elves. Are the older races of Middle-earth heading for eventual extinction? Is it truly Man's time?

davem:

So, the positive dyad seems not to reproduce, & children are absent from their world, while the negative dyad (the female aspect of it at least) reproduces almost uncontrollably but consumes its young...

This reproduction issue fascinates me. Everything that is evil seems to spawn at an incredible pace .... as long as the will of a sufficiently puissant evil power stands behind it. Everything that we associate with "Faerie" - Elves, Ents, Dwarves, Tom & Goldberry - either have no offspring or have ceased to issue. Only Man continues. This "death of Faerie" was one of Tolkien's themes, was it not? So I suppose, then, the Galadriel-blessed year of 1420 was a last gasp of Faerie before it began to dissipate in the Fourth Age?

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Nil, good call on the Withywindle! I would think that the malevolence of this river is part of the general dangerous ground of the Old Forest, but I think it certainly is a way to carry over the slightly menacing tone from the poems into the LotR while 'sanitising' the characterisation of Tom and Goldberry.

Malevolent, or just dangerous?

I wonder if it is exactly proper to classify the Withywindle, indeed the entire Old Forest, as evil. Certainly, it bears malice to the Hobbits (and others, it would seem), and it is self-serving, and definitely wild, but can we really call it evil?

It is much like the dark parts of Fangorn that Treebeard refers to, and I believe that the connection is even made by the old Ent. Yet does anyone ever say that parts of Fangorn are evil?

Certainly, there is danger to the Old Forest. It is not a "nice" place, or a "safe" place, and it works actively against those it does not welcome. But does this make it evil, or is it more representative of the 'wildness' of nature?

Actually, come to think about it, I'm seeing a lot of parallels between the Old Forest and Caradhras. Something to think on, anyway...