| Tom Bombadil | |
|---|---|
| Tolkien's legendarium character | |
 Tom Bombadil frees the Hobbits fromOld Man Willow. Scraperboard illustration byAlexander Korotich, 1981 | |
| First appearance | |
| In-universe information | |
| Aliases | Iarwain Ben-adar, Forn, Orald |
| Species | Undefined |
| Spouse | Goldberry |
| Book(s) | The Fellowship of the Ring (1954) The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (1962) Tales from the Perilous Realm (1997) |
Tom Bombadil is a character inJ. R. R. Tolkien'slegendarium. He first appeared in print in a 1934 poem called "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil", which includedThe Lord of the Rings charactersGoldberry (his wife),Old Man Willow (an evil tree inhis forest) and thebarrow-wight, from whom he rescues thehobbits.[1] They were not then explicitly part of the older legends that becameThe Silmarillion, and are not mentioned inThe Hobbit.
Bombadil is best known from his appearance as asupporting character in Tolkien's novelThe Lord of the Rings, published in 1954 and 1955. In the first volume,The Fellowship of the Ring,Frodo Baggins and company meet Bombadil in theOld Forest. The idea for this meeting and the appearances of Old Man Willow and the barrow-wight appears in some of Tolkien's earliest notes for a sequel toThe Hobbit.[T 1] Bombadil is mentioned, but not seen, near the end ofThe Return of the King, whereGandalf plans to pay him a long visit.
Tom Bombadil has been omitted inradio adaptations ofThe Lord of the Rings, the1978 animated film, andPeter Jackson's film trilogy, as nonessential to the story.
Commentators have debated Bombadil's role and origins. A likely source is the demigodVäinämöinen in the Finnish epic poemKalevala, with many points of resemblance. Scholars have stated that he is the spirit of a place, agenius loci.
Old Tom Bombadil was a merry fellow;
bright blue his jacket was and his boots were yellow,
green were his girdle and his breeches all of leather;
he wore in his tall hat a swan-wing feather.
He lived up under Hill, where the Withywindle
ran from a grassy well down into the dingle.
The original version of Tolkien's poem "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil" was published in 1934 inThe Oxford Magazine.[2] The poem depicts Bombadil as a "merry fellow" living in a small valley close to theWithywindle river, where he wanders and explores nature at his leisure. Several of the valley's mysterious residents, including the "River-woman's daughter"Goldberry, the malevolent tree-spiritOld Man Willow, theBadger-folk and abarrow-wight, attempt to capture Bombadil for their own ends. However, they quail at the power of his voice, which defeats their enchantments and commands them to return to their natural existence. At the end of the poem, Bombadil captures and marries Goldberry. Throughout the poem, he is unconcerned by the attempts to capture him and brushes them off with the power in his words.[3][4]
Bombadil makes it clear that he found Goldberry in the Withywindle river, calling her "River-woman's daughter".[4] The Tolkien scholarJohn D. Rateliff suggests that, at least in terms of Tolkien's early mythology, she should be seen as one of thefays, spirits, and elementals (including theMaia): "ThusMelian is a 'fay', (as, in all probability, are Goldberry and Bombadil; the one a nymph, the other agenius loci)".[5]
The later poem "Bombadil Goes Boating" anchors Bombadil inMiddle-earth, featuring a journey down the Withywindle to theBrandywine river, whereHobbits ("Little Folk I know there") live at Hays-end. Bombadil is challenged by various river residents on his journey, includingbirds,otters, and Hobbits, but charms them all with his voice, ending his journey at the farm ofFarmer Maggot, where he drinks ale and dances with the family. At the end of the poem, the charmed birds and otters work together to bring Bombadil's boat home. The poem includes a reference to the Norselay ofÓtr, when Bombadil threatens to give the hide of a disrespectful otter to the barrow-wights, who he says will cover it with gold apart from a single whisker. The poem mentions Middle-earth locations including Hays-end,Bree, and theTower Hills and speaks of "Tall Watchers by the Ford, Shadows on the Marches".[T 2][6]
There was another burst of song, and then 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 rushes 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. In his hand he carried on a large leaf as on a tray a small pile of white water-lilies.
—The Fellowship of the Ring, book 1, ch. 6, "The Old Forest"
InThe Fellowship of the Ring, Tom Bombadil helpsFrodo Baggins and his Hobbit companions on their journey to destroy the Ring.[T 3][T 4][T 5] Tom and his wife, Goldberry, the "Daughter of the River", still live in their house by the source of the Withywindle, and some of the characters and situations from the original poem reappear.[6]
Tom first appears whenMerry andPippin are trapped in theOld Forest by Old Man Willow, and Frodo andSam cry for help. Tom commands Old Man Willow to release them, singing him to sleep.[T 3]
The Hobbits spend two nights in Tom Bombadil's house,[T 4] which serves as one ofFrodo's five Homely Houses.[7] Here it is seen that the One Ring has no power over Bombadil; he can see Frodo when the Ring makes him invisible to others and can wear it himself with no effect. He even tosses the Ring in the air and makes it disappear but then produces it from his other hand and returns it to Frodo. The idea of giving him the Ring for safekeeping is rejected in Book Two's second chapter, "The Council of Elrond". Gandalf says that it is unwise to consider Tom as having power over the Ring and that rather, "the Ring has no power over him...". He suggests that Tom would not find the Ring to be very important and so might simply misplace it.[T 4]
Before sending the Hobbits on their way, Tom teaches them a rhyme to summon him if they fall into danger again within his borders. This proves fortunate, as the four are trapped by abarrow-wight. After rescuing them, Tom gives each Hobbit a long dagger taken from the treasure in thebarrow. He refuses to pass the borders of his own land, but he directs them to thePrancing Pony Inn atBree.[T 5]
Towards the end ofThe Return of the King, when Gandalf leaves the Hobbits, he mentions that he wants to have a long talk with Bombadil, calling him a "moss-gatherer". Gandalf says, in response to Frodo's query of how well Bombadil is getting along, that Bombadil is "as well as ever", "quite untroubled" and "not much interested in anything that we have done and seen", save their visits to theEnts. At the very end ofThe Lord of the Rings, as Frodo sails into the West and leaves Middle-earth forever, he has what seems to him the very experience that appeared to him in the house of Bombadilin his dream of the second night.[T 6]
Tolkien stated that he invented Tom Bombadil in memory of his children'sDutch doll.[9][a][10] His Bombadil poems far pre-date the writing ofThe Lord of the Rings, into which Tolkien introduced Tom Bombadil from the earliest drafts.[T 7] In response to a letter, Tolkien described Tom inThe Lord of the Rings as "just an invention" and "not an important person – to the narrative", even if "he represents something that I feel important, though I would not be prepared to analyse the feeling precisely. I would not, however, have left him in, if he did not have some kind of function." Specifically, Tolkien connected Tom in the letter to a renunciation of control, "a delight in things for themselves without reference to yourself," "Botany and Zoology (as sciences) and Poetry".[T 8] In another letter, Tolkien writes that he does not think Tom is improved by philosophizing; he included the character "because I had already 'invented' him independently" (inThe Oxford Magazine) "and wanted an 'adventure' on the way".[T 9]
Tolkien commented further that "even in a mythical Age there must be some enigmas, as there always are. Tom Bombadil is one (intentionally)".[T 8] In a letter toStanley Unwin, Tolkien called Tom Bombadil the spirit of the vanishing landscapes ofOxfordshire andBerkshire. However, this 1937 letter was in reference to works which pre-dated the writing ofThe Lord of the Rings.[T 10]
Tolkien said little of Tom Bombadil's origins, and the character does not fit neatly into the categories of beings Tolkien created. Bombadil calls himself the "Eldest" and the "Master". He claims to remember "the first raindrop and the first acorn", and that he "knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless—before the Dark Lord came from Outside". When Frodo asks Goldberry just who Tom Bombadil is, she responds simply by saying "He is". Some critics have taken this dialogue as a reference to God's statement "I Am that I Am" in theBook of Exodus, an idea which Tolkien denied as an influence.[T 9]
The scholar of folklore David Elton Gay writes that Tolkien was inspired by the poetry of theKalevala,Elias Lönnrot's 1849 collection of Finland's oral tradition. Gay suggests with a detailed comparison that Tom Bombadil was directly modelled on theKalevala's central character, thedemigodVäinämöinen.[11]
| Väinämöinen | Tom Bombadil |
|---|---|
| Oldest, immortal | |
| Lives in a small forested country that he controls but does not own | |
| Extremely close to his world, exemplifying "naturalness"[11] | |
| Fearless, because powerful | |
| Power through song and knowledge | |
| Sings for the pleasure of singing | |
| "Day by day he sang unwearied" | Mostly speaks through song |
| As oldest living being, he saw creation, heard names of all beings, knows songs of their origins, helped shape the land | "I am old, Eldest, that's what I am ... Tom was here before the river and the trees" "Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn"[T 4] |
The Tolkien scholarVerlyn Flieger writes that if there was an opposite toSauron inThe Lord of the Rings, it would not beAragorn, his battlefield opponent, nor Gandalf, his spiritual enemy, but Tom Bombadil, the earthly Master who is entirely free of the desire to dominate, and hence cannot be dominated.[12] The Christian scholar W. Christopher Stewart sees Bombadil as embodying the pursuit of knowledge purely for its own sake, driven only by his sense of wonder. In his view, this goes some way to explaining Bombadil's indifference to theOne Ring, whose only purpose is power and domination.[13]
| Sauron | Tom Bombadil | |
|---|---|---|
| Role | Antagonist | Earthly counterpart |
| Title | Dark Lord | "Master" |
| Purpose | Domination of whole of Middle-earth | Care forThe Old Forest "No hidden agenda, no covert desire or plan of operation" |
| Effect of the One Ring | "Power over other wills" | No effect on him "as he is not human", nor does it prevent him seeing someone who is wearing the Ring |
| How he sees the Ring | The Eye of Sauron desires to dominate through the Ring | Looks right through it, his "blue eye peering through the circle of the Ring" |
Jane Beal, in theJournal of Tolkien Research, writes that Bombadil can be considered using "the four levels of meaning found in medievalscriptural exegesis and literary interpretation". These are different ways of understanding a text, rather than necessarily contradicting each other.[9]
| Level | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Literal | Real world: a wooden doll that belonged to Michael Tolkien. Sub-created world: "Eldest". |
| Allegorical | Real world: the spirit of the vanishing English countryside. Sub-created world: a figure of the study ofZoology,Botany, andPoetry, parallel to the first,prelapsarian Adam.[b] |
| Moral | A storyteller, representative of Tolkien himself. |
| Anagogical | A figure of the second Adam,Jesus. |
The psychologistTimothy R. O'Neill interpreted Bombadil from aJungian perspective inThe Individuated Hobbit: Jung, Tolkien, and the Archetypes of Middle-Earth (1979).[15] O'Neill finds Bombadil to be the manifestation of theSelf archetype and a vision of man's beginning and destiny:[16]
A common and potent archetype is Original Man, which Jung often callsAnthropos, emerging as a conscious representative of the Self. Bombadil, despite his apparently humble digs in the Old Forest, is the prototype of theChildren of God, that Original Man and the template which will influence the final form of Man... he is the cosmic seed from which Man develops."[16]
The Tolkien scholar Patrick Grant notes that "Jung also talks of a common figure, the 'vegetation numen,' king of the forest, who is associated with wood and water in a manner that recalls Tom Bombadil."[17]
Robert Foster, author of an early guide to Middle-earth, suggested in 1978 that Bombadil is one of theMaiar, angelic beings sent fromValinor.[18]The Tolkien scholar and philosopher Gene Hargrove argued inMythlore in 1986 that Tolkien understood who Bombadil is, but purposefully made him enigmatic. Hargrove suggested that Tolkien left clues that Bombadil is one of theValar, a god of Middle-earth, specificallyAulë, the archangelic demigod who created thedwarves.[19][20]
Along with the adventures in Crickhollow, the Old Forest, and the Barrow-downs, Bombadil is omitted fromPeter Jackson's interpretation ofThe Lord of the Rings.[22] Jackson explained that this was because he and his co-writers felt that the character does little to advance the story, and including him would make the film unnecessarily long.Christopher Lee concurred, stating the scenes were left out to make time for showingSaruman's capture of Gandalf.[23][c]Bombadil has appeared in other radio and film adaptations. He was played byNorman Shelley in the 1955–1956BBC radio adaptation ofThe Lord of the Rings, a performance that Tolkien thought "dreadful"; in his view even worse was that Goldberry was announced as his daughter andWillowman "an ally ofMordor (!!)" (his emphasis).[T 11] He was portrayed by Esko Hukkanen in the 1993 FinnishminiseriesHobitit.[24] He appeared, too, in the 1979Mind's Eye recordings, where he was played byBernard Mayes, who also voiced Gandalf.[25]
He was included, along with Goldberry and the Barrow-wight, in the 1991 Russian adaptation ofThe Fellowship of the Ring,Khraniteli.[21][26]
Tom Bombadil is portrayed byRory Kinnear in the second season ofThe Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.[27][28][29]
Although Bombadil was not portrayed inRalph Bakshi's[30] or Jackson's films,[31] a Tom Bombadil card exists inThe Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game byDecipher, Inc. (part of the trilogy's merchandise). The model portraying Bombadil on this card is Harry Wellerchew.[32] Bombadil is anon-player character in theMMORPG gameThe Lord of the Rings Online, serving as a main character in Book 1 of the epic quests.[33]
Bombadil appears as a playable character in theLEGOThe Lord of the Rings andThe Hobbit video games. He has no impact in the main story for either game, as the games are direct adaptations of the Peter Jackson films rather than the original novels, but he later appears as an unlockable character in the Middle Earth hub world and can be used in free-play mode.[34][35] He appears, too, on a "God" type card in theMagic: The Gathering expansionThe Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth.[36]
The 1969Harvard Lampoon novelBored of the Rings parodies Tom Bombadil as "TimBenzedrine", a stereotypicalhippie married to "Hash-berry".[37] One of his songs is rewritten as:
Tolkien's inspiration for this character was a brightly-dressed, peg-wood, Dutch doll (with a feather in his hat!) that belonged to his second son, Michael.
Kirjafaneja riemastuttanee tieto, että Torikan versiossa nähdään myös Jacksonin hylkäämä Tom Bombadil Esko Hukkanen esittämänä.
Lyon, Patrick. 2026."Something Left Out": The Enigma of Tom Bombadil.Signum Press.
