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BROMWELL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL (214)
2500 East
Fourth Avenue,
80206-4214
(Columbine Street at East Fourth Avenue)

Telephone:
(303) 388-5969
Fax: (720) 424-9355
E-mail: Bromwell@dpsk12.org

Ms. Jody Cohn, Principal

The True Story of Tom Bombadil

Long before there was Bilbo Baggins or Frodo Baggins or Gollum, or even Sauron the Dark Lord or Gandalf the Grey, there was Tom Bombadil:

Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow,
Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow.
None has ever caught him yet, for Tom, he is the master:
His songs are stronger songs, and his feet are faster.

Those are Tom's own words, and in some ways there is no better explanation of him. But there are other descriptions of this puzzling and unusual character, and if they do not improve upon his own words, they do round out the picture a bit more. For instance, this is how he is described when he first meets the hobbits in The Lord of the Rings:

Suddenly, hopping and dancing along the path, there appeared above the reeds an old battered hat with a tall crown and a long blue feather stuck in the band. With another hop and a bound there came into view a man, or so it seemed. At any rate he was too large and heavy for a hobbit, if not quite tall enough for one of the Big People, though he made noise enough for one, stumping along with great yellow boots on his thick legs, and charging through grass and rushed like a cow going down to drink. He had a blue coat and a long brown beard; his eyes were blue and bright, and his face was red as a ripe apple, but creased into a hundred wrinkles of laughter...

Tom is discussed later in the same book at a gathering of the Wise in Rivendell, the refuge of the Elves. The wizard Gandalf says of him: "He is his own master... And now he is withdrawn into a little land, within bounds that he has set, though none can see them, waiting perhaps for a change of days, and he will not step beyond them."

And, for still another description, here is a note from J.R.R. Tolkien himself. In a letter to one of his admirers, he wrote: "Even in a mythical Age there must be some enigmas, as there always are. Tom Bombadil is one (intentionally)."

In keeping with this last characterization, Tom is never easily pinned down -- not even in Professor Tolkien's own writings. He has appeared in different ways in very different books. He has been presented in The Lord of the Rings of course, and in the poems in his own small book, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. But he has also appeared elsewhere: there are interesting passages pertaining to Tom in some of the professor's letters, as is shown above, and fascinating bits of poetry or narrative that were abandoned for one reason or another over the years. The reader who is interested in the curious character of Tom Bombadil has many places to investigate!

To begin with, you should know that Tom was not only "Eldest" (as he says to Frodo) in terms of the characters in The Lord of the Rings, he was also most certainly one of J.R.R. Tolkien's earliest literary creations. Tolkien's biographer, Humphrey Carpenter, relates that Tom was inspired by a Dutch doll that belonged to the professor's eldest son Michael. This doll was said to have looked very splendid (it had a real feather in its hat!) but Michael's brother John did not like it and one day stuffed it down the lavatory. The doll was rescued, and survived to become one of the heroes of the spontaneous stories that were told to the children at bedtime.

Occasionally, Professor Tolkien would record the stories that he made up for his children, although they were often left unfinished. Among these early stories is a tale about Tom Bombadil, set in "the days of King Bonhedig:"

Tom Bombadil was the name of one of the oldest inhabitants of the kingdom; but he was a hale and hearty fellow. Four foot high in his boots he was, and three feet broad. He wore a tall hat with a blue feather, his jacket was blue, and his boots were yellow...

This story never went any further, but Tom's spirit soon found expression in the professor's poetry. Years later, Christopher Tolkien found a scrap of paper with his father's note: "Date unknown -- germ of Tom Bombadil so evidently in mid 1930's." The verses on this paper describe Tom rowing down the river with "John Pompador" and singing a song:

Go, boat! Row! The willows are a-bending,
reeds are leaning, wind is in the grasses.
Flow, stream, flow! The ripples are unending;
green they gleam, and shimmer as it passes.

In 1934, Professor Tolkien published a poem about Tom in The Oxford Magazine. At first he had entitled it The History of Tom Bombadil, but then changed the title to The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. It is essentially the same poem that was published many years later as the title- piece in the collection The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and other verses from The Red Book.

This poem, of course, tells the story of Tom's first meeting with Goldberry, the River-woman's daughter, and ends with their marriage. In between, Tom is captured by Old Man Willow, ambushed by a family of badgers, and haunted by a Barrow-wight. But although he is caught off- guard in each of these encounters, Tom just has to take a moment to gather his wits, then declare himself and speak a few words to set matters straight.

The barrows of the Barrow-wight, by the way, were inspired by the historic burial mounds found on the Berkshire Downs, not far from Oxford where the Tolkien family lived.

Professor Tolkien went on to write many different poems and tales, including The Hobbit, his first really famous work. In 1937, when his publishers were inquiring about further writings to follow the success of The Hobbit, Tolkien sent them a copy of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. In an accompanying letter, he wrote directly of his own understanding of Tom's nature. "Do you think Tom Bombadil, the spirit of the (vanishing) Oxford and Berkshire countryside, could be made into the hero of a story? Or is he, as I suspect, fully enshrined in the enclosed verses? Still I could enlarge the portrait..."

This idea was never pursued, but Tom and Goldberry (and Old Man Willow and the Barrow-wights) eventually found their way into the story of The Lord of the Rings. It began as a deliberate sequel to The Hobbit but soon grew into a longer and much more complex and serious work. As is well-known, The Lord of the Rings tells the story of a great War of the Ring and the end of the Third Age of Middle-earth, especially as experienced by the hobbit Frodo and his friends. Tom Bombadil is featured in three chapters in The Lord of the Rings : "The Old Forest," "In the House of Tom Bombadil," and "Fog on the Barrow-downs."

In the first of these chapters, Frodo and his companions, Merry, Pippin, and Sam, become lost in the Old Forest as they try to find a short cut to Rivendell, the home of the Elves. The hobbits are on horse-back, but soon lose the trail and must struggle to lead their ponies between the trees. Hungry and tired, the four fall prey to Old Man Willow, but are rescued by Tom, who is bringing the last water-lilies of the season home for Goldberry.

Tom says: "Old Man Willow? Naught worse than that, eh? That can soon be mended. I know the tune for him," and he sings in a low voice into one of the willow's cracks it until sets the hobbits free. "You should not be waking. Eat earth! Dig deep! Drink water! Go to sleep! Bombadil is talking!"

Tom then tells the hobbits: "You shall come home with me...Time enough for questions around the supper table. You follow me as quick as you are able!" He leads them away, "hopping and dancing along the path eastward, still singing loudly and nonsensically." They lose sight of him in the gathering gloom of night-fall, but are able to follow his singing.

The next chapter tells of the comforts and delights the hobbits find "In the House of Tom Bombadil." While Tom tends to their ponies, the four hobbits are greeted warmly by Goldberry. "Come, dear folk!" she says, "Let us shut out the night! For you are still afraid, perhaps, of mist and tree-shadows and deep water, and untame things. Fear nothing! For tonight you are under the roof of Tom Bombadil." Here is how she is described:

In a chair, at the far side of the room facing the outer door, sat a woman. Her long yellow hair rippled down her shoulders; her gown was green, green as young reeds, shot with silver like beads of dew; and her belt was of gold, shaped like a chain of flag-lilies set with the pale-blue eyes of forget-me-nots. About her feet in wide vessels of green and brown earthen ware, white water-lilies were floating, so that she seemed to be enthroned in the midst of a pool.

The hobbits are overjoyed to see the supper she has prepared: yellow cream and honeycomb, and bread and butter, milk, cheese, and green herbs and ripe berries. But even in the midst of this welcoming, Frodo's curiousity about Tom prevails:

"Tell me, if my asking does not seem foolish, who is Tom Bombadil?"

"He is," said Goldberry, staying her swift movements and smiling.

Frodo looked at her questioningly. "He is, as you have seen him," she said in answer to his look. "He is the Master of the wood, water, and hill."

"Then all this strange land belongs to him?"

"No indeed!" she answered, and her smile faded. "That would indeed be a burden," she added in a low voice, as if to herself. "The trees and the grasses and all things growing or living in the land belong each to themselves. 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."

That night the hobbits are shown to comfortable beds, but dream strange dreams -- except for Sam, who sleeps like a log. The next morning the rains of autumn have begun. The hobbits see a strange sight that once again affirms the odd powers of their host:

Tom came trotting round the corner of the house, waving his arms as if he was warding off the rain -- and indeed when he sprang over the threshold he seemed quite dry, except for his boots.

After a wonderful breakfast, they settle around Tom to hear his tales:

He then told them many remarkable stories, sometimes half as if speaking to himself, sometimes looking at them suddenly with a bright blue eye under his deep brows. Often his voice would turn to song, and he would get out of his chair and dance about. He told them tales of bees and flowers, the ways of trees, and the strange creatures of the Forest, about evil things and good things, things friendly and things unfriendly, cruel things and kind things, and secrets hidden under brambles.

For a moment, Frodo shakes off the enchantment of these stories:

"Who are you, Master?" he asked.

"Eh, what?" said Tom sitting up, and his eyes glinting in the gloom. "Don't you know my name yet? That's the only answer. Tell me, who are you, alone, yourself and nameless? But you are young and I am old. Eldest, that's what I am. Mark my words, my friends: Tom was here before the river and the trees; Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn. He made paths before the Big People, and saw the little People arriving. He was here before the Kings and the graves and the Barrow-wights. When the Elves passed westward, Tom was here already, before the seas were bent. He knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless -- before the Dark Lord came from Outside."

In the evening, Goldberry also entertains the guests, in her own fashion:

After they had eaten, Goldberry sang many songs for them, songs that began merrily in the hills and fell softly down into silence; and in the silences they saw in their minds pools and waters wider than any they had known, and looking into them they saw the sky below them and the stars like jewels in the depths.

Late that night, Tom asks the hobbits to tell the story of their journey from Hobbiton. And, in an unexpected moment, he asks to see the Ring itself. Frodo is taken off-guard and hands the Ring to Tom almost before he has thought about it:

It seemed to grow larger as it lay for a moment on his big brown-skinned hand. Then suddenly he put it to his eye and laughed. For a second the hobbits had a vision, both comical and alarming, of his bright blue eye gleaming through a circle of gold. Then Tom put the Ring round the end of his little finger and held it up to the candlelight. For a moment the hobbits noticed nothing strange about this. Then they gasped. There was no sign of Tom disappearing!

Tom laughed again, and then he spun the Ring in the air -- and it vanished with a flash. Frodo gave a cry -- and Tom leaned forward and handed it back to him with a smile.

Finally, Tom teaches them a song to call him by, should they need further help while still within his borders. And he tells them not to be afraid -- "but to mind their own business" -- and especially, to avoid the barrows nearby.

Frodo again has a strange dream that night, though this one is beautiful and not troubling, as his first dream had been. He hears a sweet singing and sees a far green country "under a swift sunrise," and then he awakens to Tom "whistling like a tree-full of birds."

The rains have stopped, and the hobbits must be on their way. They say their goodbyes to their hosts and reluctantly ride off on their ponies. But in "Fog on the Barrow-downs," they soon become lost in the mist, and inadvertently head straight toward the one place Tom told them most to avoid.

The Barrow-downs are haunted by ancient and malevolent spirits, men who died in battle long ago. One of these takes the hobbits captive and carries them to a chamber deep within a barrow. It seems as though the Barrow-wight is preparing to murder the poor hobbits, or possibly to sacrifice them. Although bewitched along with his companions, Frodo struggles to escape. Suddenly he remembers the rhyme Tom had taught him, and calls it out.

In a moment Tom is there, pulling down the door to the barrow so that sunlight streams in. He sings a song to the Wight, commanding it to vanish, and of course it does exactly that. Then he and Frodo carry the other three out. Tom raises his right hand over them and revives them with another song. As they awaken, Tom is as jolly as ever:

One would have thought that nothing dangerous or dreadful had happened; and indeed the horror faded out of their hearts as they looked at him, and saw the merry glint in his eyes.

While they recover, Tom seeks out their ponies, who have fled. He soon returns with the ponies following in an obedient line. And there is a another pony, as well: old Fatty Lumpkin, Tom's own horse. "I seldom ride him, and he wanders often far, free upon the hillsides," Tom says. But he announces that he for now he will ride with the hobbits:

He laughed, and said that they were so good at losing themselves that he would not feel happy till he had seen them safe over the borders of his land. "I've got things to do," he said: "my making and my singing, my talking and my walking, and my watching of the country. Tom can't be always near to open doors and willow-cracks. Tom has his house to mind, and Goldberry is waiting."

Although he is never seen again by Frodo or his friends, Tom is not forgotten. He is particularly remembered by Sam Gamgee, who composes a poem in Tom's honor. The poem is The Stone Troll, of which Sam says, "It ain't what I call proper poetry, if you understand me: just a bit of nonsense." It was later included in the collection The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.

When the four hobbits arrive in Rivendell, a great meeting of the Wise is held and much important information is shared. Everyone is surprised to hear that Frodo and his friends have encountered Bombadil. The particular reaction of Gandalf, in fact, I have already presented in the beginning of this book. Master Elrond, the Elven lord, has this to say: "I had forgotten Bombadil, if indeed this is still the same that walked the woods and hills long ago, and even then was older than old. That was then not his name. Iarwain Ben-adar we called him, oldest and fatherless. But many another name he has since been given by other folk: Forn by the Dwarves, Orald by Northern Men, and other names beside. He is a strange creature..."

J.R.R. Tolkien was a linguist by profession before he ever became an author, and he created entire separate languages for the inhabitants of Middle-earth. Accordingly, "Iarwain Ben-adar" means exactly what Elrond says it means: it is Elvish for "oldest" and "father-less." "Orald," likewise, is Mannish for "very old." But the Dwarvish name "Forn" has not been deciphered by any of the critics or Tolkien-inclined linguists that I have read. Professor Tolkien's dwarves were ever a secretive race!

In an earlier version of the story of the meeting of the Wise, Professor Tolkien had written even more. Elrond says: "Why did I not think of Bombadil before! If only he was not so far away, I would go straight back now and consult him. We have never had much to do with one another up till now. I don't think he quite approves of me somehow. He belongs to a much older generation, and my ways are not his. He keeps himself to himself and does not believe in travel. But I fancy somehow that we shall all need his help in the end -- and that he may have to take an interest in things outside his own country."

Gandalf then adds: "He is a strange creature, and follows his own counsels, which few can fathom."

Tom is mentioned briefly much later in The Lord of the Rings when Pippin and Merry meet the Treebeard the Ent, and share with him news of their travels. "He was immensely interested in everything," the professor writes: "In the Black Riders, in Elrond, and Rivendell, in the Old Forest, and Tom Bombadil, in the Mines of Moria, and in Lothlorien and Galadriel." In fact, Tolkien had written further of Treebeard's interest in Tom Bombadil, but again these were comments that came to be later edited out of the finished story.

In this earlier version, Pippin asks Treebeard if he knows of Tom Bombadil, who "seems to understand trees" much in the manner of an Ent. Treebeard responds: "Tombombadil? Tombombadil? So that is what you call him. Oh, he has got a very long name. He understands trees, right enough; but he is not an Ent. He is no herdsman. He laughs and does not interfere. He never made anything go wrong, but he never cured anything, either. Why, why, it is all the difference between walking in the fields and trying to keep a garden; between, between passing the time of day to a sheep on a hillside, or even maybe sitting down and studying sheep till you know what they feel about grass, and being a shepherd." Ents are clearly and certainly shepherds of trees, he explains, although he adds, "We were like your Tombombadil when we were young..."

Finally, Tom is referred to once again by Gandalf, who earlier in the story had seemed somewhat wary of Bombadil. In one of the last chapters of the book, the old wizard rides homeward with Frodo and his companions. But instead of returning to the Shire with the Hobbits, he turns towards the Barrow Downs, and towards the house of Tom and Goldberry. He says: "I am going to have a long talk with Bombadil: such a talk as I have not had in all my time. He is a moss-gatherer, and I have been a stone doomed to rolling. But my rolling days are ending, and now we shall have much to say to one another."

Unfortunately, Professor Tolkien never wrote an account of this wonderful conversation! But as the years went by, he himself began to have interesting conversations with many fans who were curious about Tom -- conversations that took place through the mail. The Lord of the Rings had become, of course, a huge success. Tolkien received letters from readers all over the world. But unlike some famous authors, he took time to answer each letter personally, and sometimes at great length.

In one of these letters, he described Tom's role in The Lord of the Rings and how he fit with the rest of the story:

"Tom Bombadil is not an important person -- to the narrative. I suppose he has some importance as a 'comment.' I mean, I do not really write like that: he is just an invention (who first appeared in The Oxford Magazine about 1933), and he represents something that I feel important, though I would not be prepared to analyze the feeling precisely. I would not, however, have left him in, if he did not have some kind of function."

"I might put it this way. The story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad side, beauty against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against kingship, moderated freedom with consent against compulsion that has long lost any object save mere power, and so on; but both sides in some degree, conservative or destructive, want a measure of control. But if you have, as it were, taken 'a vow of poverty', renounced control, and take your delight in things for themselves without reference to yourself, watching, observing, and to some extent knowing, then the questions of the rights and wrongs of power and control might become utterly meaningless to you, and the means of power quite valueless...

"It is a natural pacifist view, which always arises in the mind when there is a war... the view of Rivendell seems to be that it is an excellent thing to have represented, but that there are in fact things with which it cannot cope; and upon which its existence nonetheless depends. Ultimately only the victory of the West will allow Bombadil to continue, or even to survive. Nothing would be left for him in the world of Sauron."

Later in the same letter, he adds a comparison of Tom to the Ents, along the same lines of the discussion between Treebeard and Pippin: "He is in a way the answer to them in the sense that he is almost the opposite, being say, Botany and Zoology (as sciences) and Poetry as opposed to Cattle-breeding and Agriculture and practicality."

In another letter, Professor Tolkien wrote to a reader offended by what he thought were religious overtones to Tom's characterization. Since Tom is described as "Master," he asked, and "Eldest", and "Fatherless," and seems to be possessed of great knowledge and power, wasn't Tolkien implying that Tom Bombadil is God? He responded:

"As for Tom Bombadil, I really do think you are being too serious, besides missing the point... He is master in a peculiar way: he has no fear, and no desire of possession or domination at all. He merely knows and understands about such things as concern him in his natural little realm. He hardly even judges, and as far as can be seen makes no effort to reform or remove even the Willow."

In this second letter, he again wrote that he did not like to examine Tom too closely:

"I don't think Tom needs philosophizing about, and is not improved by it. But many have found him an odd or indeed discordant ingredient. In historical fact I put him in because I had already 'invented' him independently... and he wanted an adventure on the way. But I kept him in, and as he was, because he represents certain things otherwise left out.

"I do not mean him to be an allegory -- or I should not have given him so particular, individual, and ridiculous a name... [he is meant as] a particular embodying of pure (real) natural science: the spirit that desires knowledge of other things, their history and nature, because they are 'other' and wholly independent of the inquiring mind, a spirit coeval with the rational mind, and entirely unconcerned with `doing' anything with the knowledge...

"Also Tom Bombadil exhibits another point in his attitude to the Ring, and its failure to affect him. You must concentrate on some part, probably relatively small, of the World (Universe), whether to tell a tale, however long, or to learn anything however fundamental -- and therefore much will from that 'point of view' be left out, distorted on the circumference, or seem a discordant oddity. The power of the Ring over all concerned, even the Wizards or Emissaries, is not a delusion -- but it is not the whole picture, even of the then state and content of that part of the Universe."

Such letters might have been the last jottings that Tolkien ever made about Tom, but something unexpected happened. At this stage in his career, he had retired from teaching, and was devoting himself to his last great book, The Silmarillion -- and this to the exclusion of almost all other work. But in 1961 his aunt, Jane Neave, then aged eighty-nine, wrote to ask him "if you wouldn't get out a small book with Tom Bombadil at the heart of it, the sort of size book that we old 'uns can afford to buy for Christmas presents."

Tolkien replied: "I think that your idea about Tom Bombadil is a good one, not that I feel inclined to write any more about him. But I think that the original poem... might make a pretty booklet of the kind you would like if each verse could be illustrated by Pauline Baynes. If you have not ever seen the original Tom Bombadil poem I will try and find it and have a copy made for you."

In a letter to another friend, he wrote: "I always like shrewd sound-hearted maiden aunts. Blessed are those who have them or meet them." He then went on to describe a trip with her years before, journeying on foot over the high passes of Switzerland, and noted that this experience in her company provided both inspiration and authenticity to his account of Bilbo's ascent of the Misty Mountains in The Hobbit.

He soon proposed the idea to his publishers: a small collection of poems with The Adventures of Tom Bombadil as the title-piece. They responded with enthusiasm. He sent them a batch of poems, stating that he had doubts about their worth but hoped that several might be "somewhat tidied up" enough to be presentable. "The harvest is not rich, for one thing there is not much that really goes together with Tom Bombadil."

But if he doubted the virtues of these poems, Professor Tolkien was eager to have the opportunity to work with Pauline Baynes again. He wrote: "If, however, you think any of them would make a book and might attract Pauline Baynes to illustrate them I should be delighted." Pauline Baynes had worked with him before on Farmer Giles of Ham. At that time he had written of her drawings: "They are more than illustrations, they are a collateral theme." For the work on the Bombadil poems, he wrote "I thought of you, because you seem to be able to produce wonderful pictures with a touch of 'fantasy', but primarily bright and clear visions of things that one might really see."

Of all the illustrators who have tried to capture Tom Bombadil or any other characters from the professor's writings, only Pauline Baynes had the benefit of direct advice from author himself. The two of them corresponded on the most minute details of the illustrations for the poems, even discussing the color of the feather in Tom's hat, and where that feather came from. But in his notes to Baynes, Tolkien added: "Do not be put off by this sort of thing unless it affects the picture! The inwardly seen picture is to me the most important. I look forward to your interpretation..."

Despite his earlier protest to his publishers, Tolkien was able to find suitable poems to round out the collection. In fact, some of them could very well have been of the kind recited by Tom or Goldberry to entertain Frodo and his friends. Several pieces actually came from The Lord of the Rings, but some were older poems that had been unpublished previously, and others were new poems written specifically for this volume.

Finally all the work was done and the book was ready to be published as The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and other verses from The Red Book. It included three poems about Tom himself. The first was the original Adventures of Tom Bombadil, rewritten in spots for this new appearance. The second was The Stone Troll, which (as I've already noted) had been presented by Sam Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings. And then there was a poem that was entirely new, entitled Bombadil Goes Boating.

This new poem is related closely to The Lord of the Rings. There, Tom shows that he knows much of the recent events in the Shire, thanks to a figure from Frodo's childhood: "He made no secret that he owed his recent knowledge largely to Farmer Maggot, whom he seemed to regard as a person of more importance than they had imagined." In the poem, Tom actually travels down the Withywindle to visit the Farmer and his family, singing and dancing late into the night.

There was also a mock-scholarly introduction, in which Tolkien notes that not only did the Buckland hobbits compose poetry about Tom Bombadil, "they probably gave him this name (it is Bucklandish in form) to add to his many older ones." But, he writes, "they had as little understanding of his powers as the Shire-folk had of Gandalf's: both were regarded as benevolent persons, mysterious maybe and unpredictable but nonetheless comic."

The book was issued just in time for Christmas, to the delight of Tolkien's aunt. The timing was fortunate, for she did not live to see another Christmas, but died the next year. The author himself turned once again to The Silmarillion, and worked on it throughout his own remaining years.

Professor Tolkien died in 1973 at the age of 81. The Silmarillion was finally published in 1977 and in the years since his son Christopher Tolkien has been editing his other papers and publishing them in chronological order. It is in these later publications that I've found some of the material here, such as the passages that were written for The Lord of the Rings but later edited out. As Christopher Tolkien continues his work, it may be that more Tom Bombadil material will come to light. In the meantime, Tom's story as we know it must conclude with the poem Once Upon a Time. which I found in a small paperback collection entitled The Young Magicians (published in 1969). The poem is a rare find, and the book in which it appeared has been out of print for many years. While the poem probably hasn't been entirely forgotten by Tolkien's publishers, it is certain to be unknown to most of his readers. It is presented it at the end of this essay.

Having traced these many quotes and citations about who Tom Bombadil is and how he did this or that, I am reminded of Professor Tolkien's own admonishment: "I don't think Tom needs philosophizing about, and is not improved by it." Reading through some of the harsh criticisms and wrong-headed questions he received (some are presented in The Letters of J.R. R. Tolkien by Humphrey Carpenter), it is easy to understand his position. Tom can embody many of the human qualities that are most fragile in the face of a ruthless kind of analysis -- especially in his sillier moments!

But, of course, he is not merely a silly character. As we have seen, Tom is so powerful that the Ring of the Dark Lord has no effect on him. And yet this power does not define him, either. He receives a number of surprises and set-backs from not only the Barrow-wights and Old Man Willow, but even from a family of badgers! Whenever and wherever Tom appears, he displays many such incongruities.

This is certainly a part of his charm, and it may be part of his secret, too. As I noted above, Tom can embody certain aspects of humanity, such as silliness. In this way, of course, he is like any character in any story or poem. But there is even more to it than that, I think, because of the very fact that he embodies so many qualities that are incongruous and contradictory. If there is really a secret to be found in all this, or a message to be discerned, it may have to do with this abundance of contradictions. I suspect, finally, that the paradoxes of his character echo the paradoxes of being human, and that is why Tom Bombadil can be so intriguing. We are all of us, at times, powerful, and victimized; clumsy, and graceful; wise, and forgetful; troubled, and full of joy.

Perhaps this also further clarifies Tolkien's distrust of analysis. The complexity that Tom presents cannot be analyzed or defined, because after all it is related to the very nature of the human spirit -- mysterious territory, indeed! This territory can be explored, certainly, and pondered -- but misdirected "philosophizing" will lead only to a dead end. Tom himself presents us with the one of the best ways of approaching any mystery: happily, and with great interest, and with a sense of celebration.

Professor Tolkien wrote that some of his readers found Tom to be "an odd or indeed discordant ingredient" in The Lord of the Rings. He even wrote this of himself: "I mean, I do not really write like that: he is just an invention." Now, of course, he did in fact "write like that" time and again, throughout almost forty years as a writer. Otherwise there would never have been a Tom Bombadil for us to consider! But this is another side of what Tom presents: even Professor Tolkien could be uncomfortable with him at times.

Nevertheless, we are all like Tom Bombadil and he is like us -- and more so, I believe, than the other, more traditional characters in The Lord of the Rings. We may not seem at all enigmatic to each other, as we pass on the street. Unfortunately, human relations often lack the kind of heightened awareness or the other dynamic qualities that can be found in literature. But to be human is in itself enigmatic, and to be alive means to be puzzled, and to be puzzling. When we are struck by Tom's oddity, and consider one of his paradoxes, it recalls the paradoxes we sometimes find in ourselves, or in each other...when we are lucky enough.

Or, to put it another way, here is a final description of Tom from the hobbit Sam Gamgee: "He's a caution and no mistake. I reckon we may go a good deal further and see naught better, nor queerer." Although this observation is expressed in the typically comic language of hobbits, it is meant, I think, as the highest kind of praise.

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 n 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 listenes, 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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