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#1 | ||
Curmudgeonly Wordwraith
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Ensconced in curmudgeonly pursuits
Posts: 2,515
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And your little sister's immaculate virginity wings away on the bony shoulders of a young horse named George who stole surreptitiously into her geography revision. Last edited by Morthoron; 04-14-2008 at 07:35 PM. |
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#2 |
Princess of Skwerlz
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: where the Sea is eastwards (WtR: 6060 miles)
Posts: 7,500
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Thank you for explaining your point of view more precisely, Morthoron - that helps clarify it for me.
Legate, Bb, Ibri, I was thinking along similar lines, and it's interesting to discuss various possibilities!
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'Mercy!' cried Gandalf. 'If the giving of information is to be the cure of your inquisitiveness, I shall spend all the rest of my days in answering you. What more do you want to know?' 'The whole history of Middle-earth...' |
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#3 | |
Cryptic Aura
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 6,003
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There's one aspect of the Tom and Goldberry as nature spirits theory that I don't think has been addressed. When the Valar departed Middle-earth, they left it in Melkor's control. Sometimes Yavanna and others attempted to mend the effects of this evil presence, but their efforts were sporadic and did not extend over all of Arda. So, if Arda is marred, if Middle-earth is tainted by the evil and chaos of Melkor, does that not mean that all of the natural world is fallen? Nature cannot therefore be either neutral or positive, but must be something to be fought against, for fear of succumbing to Melkor's taint. And even with the defeat of Melkor, was this pollution repaired? I don't think so but perhaps there is some archane comment in one of the secondary sources that addresses this point. So, if Goldberry (and Tom) are spirits of the natural world, are they part of this marring? The violence in ATB suggests as much, while the domestic peace of LotR would suggest something else.
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I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. |
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#4 |
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Back on the Helcaraxe
Posts: 733
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Is Tom a part of the natural world, meaning sprung of the incarnate world that Melkor marred? I've never thought so. That the Ring has no power or hold on him at all suggests that he comes of untainted roots, sent to or placed in Middle-earth with some other purpose to which he is so singularly dedicated, anything else is of little or at best temporary importance to him.
It's because of this (and his claim to be "oldest and fatherless," not to mention his query, "Who are you, yourself, alone, and nameless?") that I believe he's an Ainu. As I have studied Tolkien's works over the years, I've wondered if what he is is a Maia of Yavanna, sent to ME long ago, perhaps to check up on things for her, and/or to remain there as a guardian, before the awakening of the Eruhini. What tends to support this possibility (at least in my pointed little head ![]() So when I consider Yavanna's servant, Aiwendil, and what became of him... it looks not unlike the situation of Tom. Aiwendil became so enamored of the kelvar and olvar of ME, he forgot about his greater mission, spent more and more time around his home in Rhosgobel, and in the end did not return to Valinor (as Tolkien tells us in his poem fragment, "Wilt thou learn the lore/of five who came from a far country?/Only one returned..."). Tom is remarkably similar. He loves the land that is his domain, and all that is in it, and he does have knowledge of the world beyond it, but he will not leave it. It seems rather unlikely that the Old Forest is a place of such incredible importance that it truly requires a powerful guardian -- at least now. Perhaps once, it did, or perhaps once, Tom had a mission and a purpose that extended well beyond it. Orome and Yavanna did indeed appear to be the two Valar who showed the most interest in ME before the awakening of the Elves, and they also seem to be the ones who did the most active searching for them. If Orome himself would go to ME, hunting the monsters of Melkor and searching for signs of the Children, might not Yavanna have sent her own servants on a similar mission? Tom, I think, was one of them who became like Aiwendil: he so loved the world he had been sent to help, he put down roots of his own, and now will not leave the place he has made for himself. If I were to try to compare Goldberry to any Maia we know, it might well be Uinen, for, aside from her appellation as the "River-daughter," she seems to be a calming influence on Tom, much as Uinen is to Osse, a gentler, more accessible -- more "normal," if you will -- presence that tones down what might be seen as his excesses. Well, it's just theory, but most of it has been bouncing about in my brain for some years. Just another two cents.
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Call me Ibrin (or Ibri) :) Originality is the one thing that unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of. — John Stewart Mill |
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#5 | |
Illustrious Ulair
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: In the home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names,and impossible loyalties
Posts: 4,240
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One of Tolkien's most annoying habits was continually coming up with concepts which had a major effect on the Secondary World & presenting them as 'givens' of M-e but not actually developing, or properly integrating them - & in many cases that's because those ideas conflict with each other to such a degree that they can't be integrated. Or in short - see me sig... |
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#6 | ||
shadow of a doubt
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Back on the streets
Posts: 1,125
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But as Ibrin noted, Tom seems to be 'untainted' however as the ring has no power over him or tempts him in any way. As for the Goldberry's connection with Ulmo I can't think of anything clever to say. ![]()
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#7 | |
Cryptic Aura
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 6,003
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Great replies here! Sadly, I have very little time right now to do them all justice.
I can see Ibrin's idea of Tom being similar to Aiwendil/Radagast but I still have difficulty seeing how Goldberry could fit into that kind of schema. I've found an online copy of ATB so I'll quote some of it here: Quote:
She also belongs to an underworld, the deep, deep waters of the river/pond. And Tom comes and abducts her away from her mother. It is almost as if Tolkien here were reversing the traditional mythology of Persephone and Demeter, but instead of becoming the mistress of the Underworld/Hades, Goldberry is kidnapped to the above ground and happy world of Tom. And even as she is said, in the Letters, to be Mistress of the Seasons, unlike Persephone, she apparently never returns to her mother even seasonally, although Tom does bring her mementoes and tokens of her underworld existence. She is told to forget good old mum, who remains behind in the underworld mourning the loss of her daughter. Is this a primal scene of patriarchial domination of matriarchial society? of men over women? What part of the song of creation is this? okay, me gots to go.
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#8 |
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Back on the Helcaraxe
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If I'm not mistaken, doesn't the presentation of the ATB suppose that it was probably written by Hobbits (most specifically, Bilbo and possibly Frodo)? While they were both more learned in Elvish lore than other Hobbits, there was much I'm sure they didn't know. Not to mention Bilbo's fondness for poetry, which often leans one in the direction of what sounds good rather than what presents an accurate picture of historical fact. It's not much to go on, alas. What is fact, what is fantasy? Enquiring minds want to know, but may never have an answer.
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Call me Ibrin (or Ibri) :) Originality is the one thing that unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of. — John Stewart Mill |
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#9 | ||||||
Cryptic Aura
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 6,003
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But alas, alas! If all we have are hobbit translators for LotR and ATB, what works does that leave us with with any hope of--dare I say it--'canonicity'? Only I suppose those edited by Christopher Tolkien, whose work very much doesn't fall prey to poetry but is the very stuff of impeccable scholarship. ![]() Quote:
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http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showpos...6&postcount=52 Frankly, and I shall be serious now, I think as Tolkien was just starting work on the sequel to TH he hankered after not only his thoughts about his composition of his children's bedtime story but also other writings he made for his children. And voila! There were Tom and Goldberry in LotR. I rather suspect there is a missing story which Tolkien wrote for his children about balrogs, and in the telling of it he had to entertain ever so many questions from his children, who clearly knew of Smaug's wings, about whether balrogs had wings, that the good father was prompted to make said appendenges as enigmatic in LotR as they were in this story as well. ![]()
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I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. |
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#10 |
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Back on the Helcaraxe
Posts: 733
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Hmm, it's been so long since I read ATB, I shall have to add the amusing introduction to the list of reasons to dig out my office!
![]() On the whole, though, I enjoy the speculation over these vague and sometimes contradictory questions that seem to have no hard-and-fast answers (and for the record, my personal feeling about balrogs is that they do have literal as well as metaphorical wings -- it's hard to spread a metaphor to the walls -- but that they are there only for show, an aspect of a chosen Maia form intended to strike fear into the hearts of foes by making them appear bigger and more powerful and thus more terrifying, thus also making them the largest "penguins" of ME, flightless). Everyone will come up with answers that make sense to them, if they feel they need an answer, and if they don't, all well and good, too. "Canon," I think, doesn't need an absolute answer for everything. Facts may provide proof, but they so seldom fire the imagination, IMHO. Arguments, oh, yes. I cannot help but think of friends I used to have who were armchair historians, sharing their love of history -- until they hit upon a subject for which one's preferred favorite source conflicted with the other's preferred source. More than just flames always ensued, and in the end, nothing was resolved because they couldn't even agree to disagree. Much better, I think, to endlessly speculate, and agree that there is no one answer, because the only source who could have provided one is no longer with us, and did not leave that desired answer behind.
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Call me Ibrin (or Ibri) :) Originality is the one thing that unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of. — John Stewart Mill |
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#11 | |
Flame Imperishable
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Right here
Posts: 3,928
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They are opposites, yet the same and they balance each other out.
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#12 |
Illustrious Ulair
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: In the home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names,and impossible loyalties
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There is a third Bombadil poem which Tolkien didn't include in AoTB. It appeared in a 1969 collection called 'The Young Magicians' (story here: http://bromwell.dpsk12.org/stories/storyReader$179 )
ONCE UPON A TIME Once upon a day on the fields of May there was snow in the summer where the blossom lay; the buttercups tall sent up their light in a stream of gold, and wide and white there opened in the green grass-skies the earth-stars with their steady eyes watching the Sun climb up and down. Goldberry was there with a wild-rose crown, Goldberry was there in a lady-smock blowing away a dandelion clock, stooping over a lily-pool and twiddling the water green and cool to see it sparkle round her hand: once upon a time in elvish land. Once upon a night in the cockshut light the grass was grey but the dew was white; shadows were dark, and the Sun was gone, the earth-stars shut, but the high stars shone, one to another winking their eyes as they waited for the Moon to rise. Up he came, and on leaf and grass his white beams turned to twinkling glass, and silver dripped from stem and stalk down to where the lintips walk through the grass-forests gathering dew. Tom was there without boot or shoe, with moonshine wetting his big, brown toes: once upon a time, the story goes. Once upon a moon on the brink of June a-dewing the lintips went too soon. Tom stopped and listened, and down he knelt: "Ha! Little lads! So it was you I smelt? What a mousy smell! Well, the dew is sweet, so drink it up, but mind my feet!" The lintips laughed and stole away, but old Tom said: "I wish they'd stay! The only things that won't talk to me, say what they do or what they be. I wonder what they have got to hide? Down from the Moon maybe they slide, or come in star-winks, I don't know:" once upon a time and long ago. |
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#13 | ||
A Voice That Gainsayeth
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: In that far land beyond the Sea
Posts: 7,431
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Now to the second one, which I find very interesting. Tom is all right - but what about Goldberry? If she were a Maia, then it's again all right, as the would not be "marred" in any way (or would she?). If she were a daughter of Ossë and Uinen, still okay. If she were a daughter of Ossë&Uinen's child and something else (a spirit of the river, something like an Ent? An Elf? ![]() However, one more thing about the nature of water. Even assuming that Goldberry is in some way coming out of water, her profile would still be quite fine! Why? Because water, out of all materials of Arda, was closest to the Music, and it is overall presented as something positive (Melkor wished to destroy it; Black Riders could not cross the water !!! etc.). And as to her "sinisterness" and the relationship of Tom and her, as presented in the Adventures of TB, like I said, Bêthberry, I think you are unnecessarily sharpening the point. Let us not forget that it is a poem, and a hobbit poem, a playful poem (definitely), and actually I had always the impression that it's the other way around: not like that by putting in the same line with other creatures threatening Tom, Goldberry would be made something sinister, but oppositely, the Barrow-Wight and Old Man Willow put in line with such creatures like Goldberry or some badger ( ![]() Last, as a related thing to Goldberry-Tom relationship in the poem, I would link here to Mr.Hookbill's thoughts posted here, which I find very good, very interesting and inspiring.
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"Should the story say 'he ate bread,' the dramatic producer can only show 'a piece of bread' according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general and picture it in some form of his own." -On Fairy-Stories |
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#14 | |
Flame Imperishable
Join Date: Dec 2007
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#15 | |
Illustrious Ulair
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: In the home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names,and impossible loyalties
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lintips
Going back to the Bombadil poem I gave earlier, & taking this off at a tangent - does anyone have any idea what a lintip is/was
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The '-ips' ending recalls the mewlips of course, but I can't find any mention of them in any other writing by Tolkien. |
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#16 | |
A Voice That Gainsayeth
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: In that far land beyond the Sea
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Due to an internet shortage, posting one thing I almost posted several days ago, and a short reply to one thing directly responding to my quote, I will read the new posts properly as soon as I have time, and hopefully contribute somehow...
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Even that would be possible. In my opinion, maybe, why not? Depending of course on the thing, that Goldberry is not just water. In any case, water may be, for example, poisoned, but that's rather "destroying" it (cf. Ulmo's words about his powers leaving the waters of Middle-Earth).
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"Should the story say 'he ate bread,' the dramatic producer can only show 'a piece of bread' according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general and picture it in some form of his own." -On Fairy-Stories |
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