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

[Eönwë]

I think that Tom and Goldberry are the perfect couple, just as Tolkien wished lifewould be. They work together and understand each other. I think that Tom is meant to be the the perfect man and Goldberry the perfect woman. Tom has power, but he does not use it unless he needs to. He does not abuse it. He canget anywhere and help anyone, if they just ask. He is perfect. Goldberry is Tolkien's perfect woman. She is kind, and loving, and beautiful, but powerful, not a helpless person like so many women in the past.

I think that they are meant to be perfect, how nature made us, comparable to Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. Free of care, happy, together.

I think that Tom is not a nature spirit, rather, he is nature. He is part of the Music of the Ainur, which created the world. I think that is why he sings. Because he is part of the music, he can tap into it, reach into th music beyond the normal amount and use its power. He is very powerful. He is like the trunk of a tree from which power spreads out. He knows that the barrow wights are evil (maybe he made his land there to protect people, but then, why not just make his home in Mordor), so he Uses the Music.

I don't think he is more or less powerful than Sauron or Morgoth, I think he is on a different level. He can go onto Sauron's plane but he can just go to any dimension in his realm.

Tom Bombadil is a guardian of his realm, just as Melian was, but in a different way. Tom did not need to use enchantments, he just was. He did everything himself, and didn't just leave it to enchantments like the Maiar and Valar.

That is why Tom and Goldberry are Nature. If you look at the description of Goldberry (mentioned above numerous times so I will not repeat it here), you find out she is not like an elf. She is not like one of the Valar, or Maiar, or even Eldar. She is not a celestial being of other worlds. She is more mortal, yet immortal in a natural everlasting way, the way the cycles of he world happen: Spring, summer, autumn, winter, spring , summer, autumn, winter and so on, however she is not immortal in the way of a Valar, of a something unmovable and untouching, or immortal like, Eru, floating, creating, unmoving yet all- powerful. i think this is what Tolkien is trying to get across.


Tm Bombadil is the spirit of Arda and actually of Tolkien himself.

Some interesing (unanswered questions) about this chapter:

1. Is Tom the Guardian of the flame imperishable

2. Why are the vegetarian? (only eating cream and honey and such things (maybe they asked the animals to make these for them?)

3. Is Sam special? (Why doesn't he get a dream?)

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Eönwë, the vegetarian meal was something I also noticed at this reading - it reminds me of the meal Bilbo, Gandalf, and the Dwarves had at Beorn's home in The Hobbit. I wonder if it has something to do with Tom and Goldberry's attitude toward nature - they do not *own* any of it. Perhaps that precludes making a meal of living creatures. Tolkien must have had a reason for putting that in there, as it certainly did not reflect his own life style - he enjoyed his meat.

Admittedly I am not a big Tom Bombadil fan, but when reading the chapter this time, I found myself thinking how fascinating it would have been to be there with the Hobbits! Wouldn't you have loved to hear the stories of the early ages of Arda? He seems to go backwards in time with his tales.

I noticed a difference between Tom's poems - more nonsensical, light-hearted and folksy - and Frodo's lines in praise of Goldberry. To me, these are slightly reminiscent of the Elves' songs to Elbereth, a bit higher and nobler than Tom's sings, as befits an Elf-friend, perhaps.

Interesting that Frodo's question about Old Man Willow was answered in the morning rather than in the dark - much like Gandalf telling about the Ring, Wraiths, etc. in Bag End. "Such matters were best left until daylight," was what the Wizard said there. Tom says, "Some things are ill to hear when the world's in shadow." What would you imagine to be the reason for that?

Tolkien uses Tom's tales to build more suspense concerning the Barrow-downs. After all those warnings and precautions, it is narratively inevitable that something should happen there, don't you think?!

For those who thought Gildor should have helped the Hobbits more actively, here is mention of something he did - alerting Tom.

Did you notice that Goldberry withdraws early in the evenings, and the males carry on talking until late? I wonder why - does she need more sleep, or is there another reason?

One line impressed me this time, sticking with me for no apparent reason: "Tell me, who are you, alone, yourself and nameless?" (...so much so that I have taken it for my signature.)

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Addendum:

One word stood out for me this re-reading - penthouse! It sounds like a part of the house that is built on to it - does anyone know what the word means precisely in this context?

[Hookbill the Goomba]

A thought struck me.

While writing an essay on the Bombadil poem for university, I had to try and make some sort of interpretation of the character based on his actions. I was quite worried about this, seeing as any interpretation of Bombadil is bound to come up against opposition from a hundred other Tolkien fans.
But this thing struck me as a useful way of looking at him. Here is what I said...

The voice in the Bombadil poem is almost childish; it is very playful and rarely threatening. Even though some of the images are quite horrific; a tree that eats people and the ghostly Barrow Wight could well be terror inducing if allowed their share of description and development (which, by-the-by they get in The Lord of the Rings).
However, Tom seems to be able to deal with these horrors quite easily. His songs appear to have a certain power over them and even the badgers submit to his will when he sings. The picture we are left with is one of a very unusual character who, no matter what terrors await him, is able to deal with them calmly and efficiently. The lessons in this poem (I do not think they are the point of the poem at large, however) point towards a life where the horrors do not own people. The ending of the poem emphasises Tom’s attitude to life;

Old Tom Bombadil heeded not the voices,
Taps, knocks, dancing feet, all the nightly noises;
Slept till the sun arose, then sang like a starling:
‘Hey! Come derry-dol, merry-dol, my darling!’
Sitting on the door-step chopping sticks of willow,
While fair Goldberry combed her tresses yellow.

The impression we get of Bombadil’s home life is one of complete freedom, not enthralled by the terrors of the forest and even taking a previously threatening water spirit for his wife. The playful words of his nonsensical song empress upon us how startlingly strange he is. When we live in a world where the horrors (in Tolkien’s day, it may have been the threat of Hitler’s Germany) are broadcast to us daily, Tom’s attitude seems singularly unnerving. What some have dubbed the ‘childish innocence’ of the poem plays on this, exposing the fears as unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Not that Tom does not deal with the problems, but rather, does not let them dominate his life.

Now, with regards to this chapter in the book I think this still applies. Bombadil has this 'detached' attitude, the dangers of the wood don't scare him, nor do the Barrow Wights (we'll have to work harder, folks ). Whatever Tom is, his attitude is rather startling, isn't it? The only thing that worries him is damaging the water lilies, seemingly.

Any thoughts?

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Hookbill the Goomba

A thought struck me.

While writing an essay on the Bombadil poem for university, I had to try and make some sort of interpretation of the character based on his actions. I was quite worried about this, seeing as any interpretation of Bombadil is bound to come up against opposition from a hundred other Tolkien fans.
But this thing struck me as a useful way of looking at him. Here is what I said...

Now, with regards to this chapter in the book I think this still applies. Bombadil has this 'detached' attitude, the dangers of the wood don't scare him, nor do the Barrow Wights (we'll have to work harder, folks ). Whatever Tom is, his attitude is rather startling, isn't it? The only thing that worries him is damaging the water lilies, seemingly.

Any thoughts?

Well now, Hookbill, you've got me thinking of a whole new angle to our perennial question "Who or What is Tom Bombadil?" (btw, do you have any idea how easy it is and how many ways there are to mispell that name? Wait, I suspect you might.)

It's your bit about not being "owned" by terrors and trouble and tribulations that got me thinking about this concept of manhood. It's quite a feature in the literature just before Tolkien's time and there are two examples of it that are well known indeed. (As an aside, they garner just about as much ridicule and parody as Tolkien's Tom does.)

Originally Posted by [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invictus"

Invictus[/URL]]
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

This is just the last stanza that stands out so much to me. Why, Goldberry could verily have taken her words to Frodo about Tom from this stanza!

And just as yet another aside (of which this post seems to have many) here is a photograph of the author of Invictus, William Ernest Henley. Even granted that many late Victorian gentlemen were rather bushy-faced, his resemblance to many painters' depictions of Bombadil could well be one of those happy happenstances of cultural serendipity.



It must have been rather difficult to see the stiff upper lip under all that beard, but we must remember that not all expositors on this ideal of manhood wore full beards. I believe that Kipling, for one, sported only a remarkable mustache. And speaking of Kipling of course there is his remarkable expression of he who is not owned by anything. Note how the reward which Kipling suggests is the very power which Bombadil holds.

Originally Posted by [URL="http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_if.htm"

If[/URL]]
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

And isn't it just the thing for our four young hobbits at the start of all their adventuring to find a role model for stoic manly virtues? No wonder their post-prandial smokes and talks with Tom in the absence of Goldberry is so important!!

Yes, I think you've hit upon something here, Hookbill, and I don't think it's rock you've stubbed your toe on.

[Eönwë]

He is probably the only person who has power in lotr who is not affected by it.
Or rather, maybe he is affected by it, but just uses it in normal daily life.
But probably he always had it, and just decided to live as a normal person, except that the normal problems and troubles just don't happen. He just sort of averts the bad away so that he can do whatever he wants and lead a fun life.

[Rumil]

At the house of Tom Bombadil,

well probably about time I added my ha'penny worth of speculation to the (surely ultimately unknowable) in-story origins of Tom and Goldberry.

Of Tom, I must say I've had him down as a junior Maiar, or similar spirit of lesser degree. He seems to have been in Middle Earth for a very long time. I wonder if he was one of the 'staff' of the Valar (perhaps an understudy of Yavanna) who worked on forming Arda, but never left? By the third age he has become so attached to his patch that he now fulfils a role similar to the 'Genius loci' of classical mythology, the anthropomorphisation of a particular place. Though JRRT seems to have little truck with classical mythology I think such an idea was popular with many ancient peoples, especially the Celts.

The Forest appears to be Nature presented as 'red in tooth and claw' to a certain degree, the hobbits are not in a tamed landscape but in an ancient, wild survivor of ancient times, with danger as well as beauty. Is Old Man Willow any more to be blamed for seeking some extra nourishment than a Venus flytrap swallowing unwary insects?

Now Goldberry seems again to have a classical aspect, namely the naiads, water spirits of streams and rivers. Their counterparts, the tree-spirit dryads have been changed way out of recognition in LoTR into the ents. Again the naiads became genii loci and many Roman shines were built at springs. This survives in some little way today, for who has never thrown a penny into a wishing-well? Therefore Goldberry again could be a Maiar-esque spirit much like Tom.

Well, so much for my wittering. Down to the more concrete!

Further to the farming aspect of T&G we have candles, probably beeswax, blankets, likely wool (and mention of flocks of sheep on the Downs in times gone by) and the stone construction of Tom's house itself. So they had access to wool (could have kept sheep or maybe collected wool from the hedgerows etc where sheep tend to luxuriate in a good scratch in the spring). Also Tom must either have had a quarry or recycled building stone from the ruined settlements of the Dunedain. Mention is made both of a vegetable garden (beans on poles) and a flower garden.

Meanwhile, on Barrow-bypassing, here's the link that Esty mentioned above -
http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=1852

Now a thought which has never struck me before, (doh!). Tom fails to become invisible when he puts on the ring. Sauron, as far as I can make out, was not invisible during his epic battle with Elendil, Isildur and Gil-Galad on Mount Doom, though he was wearing the ring. This seems to argue that Tom and Sauron are at least similar types of beings, be that Maiar or related spirits. Perhaps invsibility was one of the things implied by Gandalf when he said that the ring would give power according to the stature of the wearer, ie to elect whether to be invisible or not when wearing the ring?

[mark12_30]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

... how fascinating it would have been to be there with the Hobbits! Wouldn't you have loved to hear the stories of the early ages of Arda? He seems to go backwards in time with his tales.

I've often felt the same. More detail, Professor. WHAT were those stories! But that's his style; wave a little at the ancient-ness of it, and you create the wonder. I wonder, all right, I wonder!

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

... Interesting that Frodo's question about Old Man Willow was answered in the morning rather than in the dark - much like Gandalf telling about the Ring, Wraiths, etc. in Bag End. "Such matters were best left until daylight," was what the Wizard said there. Tom says, "Some things are ill to hear when the world's in shadow." What would you imagine to be the reason for that?

Because it's scarier in the dark. THe ringwraiths wait to attack until dark because fear is stronger then. It makes their job easier.

Did you notice that Goldberry withdraws early in the evenings, and the males carry on talking until late? I wonder why - does she need more sleep, or is there another reason?

Maybe she's giving the men-folk some space. And maybe she's heard, or knows, those stories already... Maybe she's weaving their good-night-sleep over them. Or maybe she's preparing for her washing day.

One line impressed me this time, sticking with me for no apparent reason: "Tell me, who are you, alone, yourself and nameless?" (...so much so that I have taken it for my signature.)

True; if we are not part of some story, what are we?