61-592: Tom Bombadil is a character in J. R. R. Tolkien 's legendarium . He first appeared in print in a 1934 poem called " The Adventures of Tom Bombadil ", which also included The Lord of the Rings characters Goldberry (his wife), Old Man Willow (an evil tree in his forest ) and the barrow-wight , from whom he rescues the hobbits . They were not then explicitly part of the older legends that became The Silmarillion , and are not mentioned in The Hobbit . Bombadil
122-656: A Jungian perspective in The Individuated Hobbit: Jung, Tolkien, and the Archetypes of Middle-Earth (1979). O'Neill finds Bombadil to be the manifestation of the Self archetype and a vision of man's beginning and destiny: A common and potent archetype is Original Man, which Jung often calls Anthropos , emerging as a conscious representative of the Self. Bombadil, despite his apparently humble digs in
183-622: A frame story that changed over the years , first with an Ælfwine-type character who translates the "Golden Book" of the sages Rumil or Pengoloð; later, having the Hobbit Bilbo Baggins collect the stories into the Red Book of Westmarch , translating mythological Elvish documents in Rivendell . The scholar Gergely Nagy observes that Tolkien "thought of his works as texts within the fictional world " (his emphasis), and that
244-488: 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" In The Fellowship of the Ring , Tom Bombadil helps Frodo Baggins and his Hobbit companions on their journey to destroy
305-603: A long dagger taken from the treasure in the barrow . He refuses to pass the borders of his own land, but he directs them to the Prancing Pony Inn at Bree . Towards the end of The 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
366-434: A mythical Age there must be some enigmas, as there always are. Tom Bombadil is one (intentionally)". In a letter to Stanley Unwin , Tolkien called Tom Bombadil the spirit of the vanishing landscapes of Oxfordshire and Berkshire . However, this 1937 letter was in reference to works which pre-dated the writing of The Lord of the Rings . Tolkien said little of Tom Bombadil's origins, and the character does not fit neatly into
427-569: A publisher would take it, and notes that Tolkien was a perfectionist, and further that he was perhaps afraid of finishing as he wished to go on with his sub-creation , his invention of myth in Middle-earth. Tolkien first began working on the stories that would become The Silmarillion in 1914. His reading, in 1914, of the Old English manuscript Christ I led to Earendel and the first element of his legendarium, "The Voyage of Earendel,
488-582: A scholarly area of study soon after his death. A legendarium is a literary collection of legends . This medieval Latin noun originally referred mainly to texts detailing legends of the lives of saints . A surviving example is the Anjou Legendarium , dating from the 14th century. Quotations in the Oxford English Dictionary for the synonymous noun legendary date from 1513. The Middle English South English Legendary
549-414: A semi-chronological and semi-complete narrative of the mythical world and its origins. The sales were sufficient to enable him to work on and publish many volumes of his father's legendarium stories and drafts; some were presented as completed tales, while others illustrated his father's complex creative process. Tolkien research , a continuing examination of Tolkien's works and supporting mythology, became
610-484: A sequel to The Hobbit . Tolkien began to revise the Silmarillion, but soon turned to the sequel, which became The Lord of the Rings . Writing The Lord of the Rings during the 1940s, Tolkien was attempting to address the dilemma of creating a narrative consistent with a "sequel" of the published The Hobbit and a desire to present a more comprehensive view of its large unpublished background. He renewed work on
671-465: 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
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#1732780642866732-594: Is "as well as ever", "quite untroubled" and "not much interested in anything that we have done and seen", save their visits to the Ents . At the very end of The 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 Bombadil in his dream of the second night. Tolkien stated that he invented Tom Bombadil in memory of his children's Dutch doll . His Bombadil poems far pre-date
793-407: Is an example of this form of the noun. Tolkien described his works as a "legendarium" in four letters from 1951 to 1955, a period in which he was attempting to have his unfinished Silmarillion published alongside the more complete The Lord of the Rings . On the Silmarillion, he wrote in 1951, "This legendarium ends with a vision of the end of the world, its breaking and remaking, and the recovery of
854-643: Is based on my view: that Men are essentially mortal and must not try to become 'immortal' in the flesh", and in 1955, "But the beginning of the legendarium, of which the Trilogy is part (the conclusion), was an attempt to reorganise some of the Kalevala ". "Tolkien's legendarium" is defined narrowly in John D. Rateliff 's The History of The Hobbit as the body of Tolkien's work consisting of: These, with The Lays of Beleriand , written from 1918 onwards, comprise
915-535: Is best known from his appearance as a supporting character in Tolkien's novel The 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 the Old Forest . The idea for this meeting and the appearances of Old Man Willow and the barrow-wight can be found in some of Tolkien's earliest notes for a sequel to The Hobbit . Bombadil
976-474: Is challenged by various river residents on his journey, including birds , otters , and Hobbits, but charms them all with his voice, ending his journey at the farm of Farmer 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 Norse lay of Ótr , when Bombadil threatens to give
1037-551: Is mentioned, but not seen, near the end of The Return of the King , where Gandalf plans to pay him a long visit. Tom Bombadil has been omitted in radio adaptations of The Lord of the Rings , the 1978 animated film , and Peter Jackson's film trilogy , as nonessential to the story. Commentators have debated Bombadil's role and origins. A likely source is the demigod Väinämöinen in the Finnish epic poem Kalevala , with many points of resemblance. Scholars have stated that he
1098-561: Is one of the Maiar , angelic beings sent from Valinor . The Tolkien scholar and philosopher Gene Hargrove argued in Mythlore in 1986 that Tolkien understood who Bombadil is, but purposefully made him enigmatic. Hargrove suggested that Tolkien left clues that Bombadil is one of the Valar , a god of Middle-Earth, specifically Aulë , the archangelic demigod who created the dwarves . Along with
1159-526: 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
1220-513: Is the spirit of a place, a genius 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 Adventures of Tom Bombadil " The original version of Tolkien's poem "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil"
1281-452: 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. 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 a barrow-wight . After rescuing them, Tom gives each Hobbit
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#17327806428661342-554: The Book of Exodus , an idea which Tolkien denied as an influence. The Tolkien scholar David Elton Gay writes that Tolkien was inspired by the poetry of the Kalevala , Elias Lönnrot 's 1849 collection of Finland's oral tradition. Gay suggests with a detailed comparison that Tom Bombadil was directly modelled on the Kalevala 's central character, the demigod Väinämöinen . The Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger writes that if there
1403-569: The One Ring , whose only purpose is power and domination. Jane Beal, in the Journal of Tolkien Research , writes that Bombadil can be considered using "the four levels of meaning found in medieval scriptural exegesis and literary interpretation". These are different ways of understanding a text, rather than necessarily contradicting each other. The psychologist, fiction author and camouflage expert Timothy R. O'Neill interpreted Bombadil from
1464-508: The Silmarilli and the 'light before the Sun'"; and in 1954, "Actually in the imagination of this story we are now living on a physically round Earth. But the whole 'legendarium' contains a transition from a flat world ... to a globe ". On both texts, he explained in 1954 that "... my legendarium , especially the 'Downfall of Númenor ' which lies immediately behind The Lord of the Rings ,
1525-510: The fays , spirits, and elementals (including the Maia ): "Thus Melian is a 'fay', (as, in all probability, are Goldberry and Bombadil; the one a nymph, the other a genius loci )". The later poem "Bombadil Goes Boating" anchors Bombadil in Middle-earth, featuring a journey down the Withywindle to the Brandywine river, where Hobbits ("Little Folk I know there") live at Hays-end. Bombadil
1586-522: The Evening Star", is from 1914; he revised and rewrote the legendarium stories for most of his adult life. The Hobbit (1937), Tolkien's first published novel, was not originally part of the larger mythology but became linked to it. Both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (1954 and 1955) are set in the Third Age of Middle-earth , while virtually all of his earlier writing had been set in
1647-509: The Evening Star". He intended his stories to become a mythology that would explain the origins of English history and culture, and to provide the necessary "historical" background for his invented Elvish languages . Much of this early work was written while Tolkien, then a British officer returned from France during World War I, was in hospital and on sick leave. He completed " The Fall of Gondolin " in late 1916. He called his collection of nascent stories The Book of Lost Tales . This became
1708-418: The Finnish epic, the Kalevala ; or of St Jerome , Snorri Sturlusson , Jacob Grimm , or Nikolai Gruntvig, all of whom Tolkien saw as exemplars of a professional and creative philology. This was, Nagy believes, what Tolkien thought essential if he was to present a mythology for England , since such a thing had to have been written by many hands. Further, writes Nagy, Christopher Tolkien "inserted himself in
1769-599: The Old Forest, is the prototype of the Children 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." 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." Robert Foster , author of an early guide to Middle-earth, suggested in 1978 that Bombadil
1830-630: The Ring. 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. Tom first appears when Merry and Pippin are trapped in the Old Forest by Old Man Willow, and Frodo and Sam cry for help. Tom commands Old Man Willow to release them, singing him to sleep. The Hobbits spend two nights in Tom Bombadil's house, which serves as one of Frodo's five Homely Houses . Here it
1891-467: The Rings parodies Tom Bombadil as " Tim Benzedrine ", a stereotypical hippie married to " Hash - berry ". One of his songs is rewritten as: Toke -a-lid! Smoke-a-lid! Pop the mescalino ! Stash the hash! Gonna crash ! Make mine methedrino ! Hop a hill! Pop a pill! For Old Tim Benzedrino! Tolkien%27s legendarium Tolkien's legendarium is the body of J. R. R. Tolkien 's mythopoeic writing, unpublished in his lifetime, that forms
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1952-401: The Rings , did he realise the significance of hobbits in his mythology. In 1937, encouraged by the success of The Hobbit , Tolkien submitted to his publisher George Allen & Unwin an incomplete but more fully developed version of The Silmarillion called Quenta Silmarillion . The reader rejected the work as being obscure and "too Celtic ". The publisher instead asked Tolkien to write
2013-737: The Rings Trading Card Game by Decipher, Inc. (part of the trilogy's merchandise). The model portraying Bombadil on this card is Harry Wellerchew. Bombadil is a non-player character in the MMORPG game The Lord of the Rings Online , serving as a main character in Book 1 of the epic quests. Bombadil appears as a playable character in the LEGO The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit video games. He has no impact in
2074-405: The Silmarillion after completing The Lord of the Rings , and he greatly desired to publish the two works together. When it became clear that would not be possible, Tolkien turned his full attention to preparing The Lord of the Rings for publication. John D. Rateliff has analysed the complex relationship between The Hobbit and The Silmarillion , providing evidence that they were related from
2135-636: The adventures in Crickhollow, the Old Forest, and the Barrow-downs, Bombadil is omitted from Peter Jackson's interpretation of The Lord of the Rings . 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 showing Saruman 's capture of Gandalf. Bombadil has appeared in other radio and film adaptations. He
2196-463: The background to his The Lord of the Rings , and which his son Christopher summarized in his compilation of The Silmarillion and documented in his 12-volume series The History of Middle-earth . The legendarium's origins reach back to 1914, when Tolkien began writing poems and story sketches, drawing maps , and inventing languages and names as a private project to create a mythology for England . The earliest story, "The Voyage of Earendel,
2257-507: 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
2318-509: The core episodes and themes of The Silmarillion which were not abandoned in his father's constant redrafting of the work. The scholars Verlyn Flieger and Carl F. Hostetter edited a scholarly collection " Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth ". Flieger writes that "...the greatest [event] is the creation of the Silmarils, the Gems of light that give their names to
2379-555: The different "phases" of Tolkien's Elven legendary writings, posthumously edited and published in The Silmarillion and in their original forms in Christopher Tolkien's series The History of Middle-earth . Other Tolkien scholars have used the term legendarium in a variety of contexts. Christopher Tolkien's introduction to The History of Middle-earth series talks about the "primary 'legendarium'", for
2440-626: The editor, Christopher Tolkien." Dickerson and Evans use the phrase "legendarium" to encompass the entirety of Tolkien's Middle-earth writings "for convenience". This would encompass texts such as the incomplete drafts of stories published before The History of Middle-earth in the 1980 Unfinished Tales . Shaun Gunner of The Tolkien Society has called the 2021 collection of Tolkien's previously unpublished legendarium writings The Nature of Middle-earth , edited by Carl F. Hostetter, "an unofficial 13th volume of The History of Middle-earth series". Unlike " fictional universes " constructed for
2501-542: The first two ages of the world. The Lord of the Rings occasionally alludes to figures and events from the legendarium to create an impression of depth , but such ancient tales are depicted as being remembered by few until the story makes them relevant. After The Lord of the Rings , Tolkien returned to his older stories to bring them to publishable form, but never completed the task. Tolkien's son Christopher chose portions of his late father's vast collection of unpublished material and shaped them into The Silmarillion (1977),
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2562-589: 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 the Tower Hills and speaks of "Tall Watchers by the Ford, Shadows on the Marches". 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
2623-445: The idea of multiple 'voices' who collected the stories over the millennia. When Tolkien published The Hobbit in 1937 (which was itself not originally intended for publication, but as a story told privately to his children), the narrative of the published text was loosely influenced by the legendarium as a context, but was not designed to be part of it. Carpenter comments that not until Tolkien began to write its sequel, The Lord of
2684-507: The letter to a renunciation of control, "a delight in things for themselves without reference to yourself," "Botany and Zoology (as sciences) and Poetry". 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" (in The Oxford Magazine ) "and wanted an 'adventure' on the way". Tolkien commented further that "even in
2745-671: 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. He appears, too, on a "God" type card in the Magic: The Gathering expansion The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth . The 1969 Harvard Lampoon novel Bored of
2806-641: The name for the first two volumes of The History of Middle-earth , which include these early texts. Tolkien never completed The Book of Lost Tales ; he left it to compose the poems " The Lay of Leithian " (in 1925) and " The Lay of the Children of Húrin " (possibly as early as 1918). The first complete version of The Silmarillion was the "Sketch of the Mythology" written in 1926 (later published in Volume IV of The History of Middle-earth ). The "Sketch"
2867-623: The narrative framing device of an Anglo-Saxon mariner named Ælfwine or Eriol or Ottor Wǽfre who finds the island of Tol Eressëa , where the Elves live, and the Elves tell him their history. He collects, translates from Old English , and writes the mythology that appears in The History of Middle-earth . Ælfwine means "Elf-friend" in Old English; men whose names have the same meaning, such as Alboin, Alwin, and Elendil , were to appear in
2928-508: The nature of evil in Arda , the origin of Orcs , the customs of the Elves , the nature and means of Elvish rebirth, the "flat" world, and the story of the Sun and Moon. In any event, with one or two exceptions, he made little change to the narratives during the remaining years of his life. The scholar Verlyn Flieger writes that Tolkien thought of his legendarium as a presented collection, with
2989-573: The overlapping of different and sometimes contradictory accounts was central to his desired effect. Nagy notes that Tolkien went so far as to create facsimile pages from the Dwarves' Book of Mazarbul that is found by the Fellowship in Moria . Further, Tolkien was a philologist ; Nagy comments that Tolkien may have been intentionally imitating the philological style of Elias Lönnrot , compiler of
3050-542: 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. Bombadil makes it clear that he found Goldberry in the Withywindle river, calling her "River-woman's daughter". The Tolkien scholar John D. Rateliff suggests that, at least in terms of Tolkien's early mythology, she should be seen as one of
3111-445: The purpose of writing and publishing popular fiction, Tolkien's legendarium for a long period was a private project, concerned with questions of philology , cosmology , theology and mythology. His biographer Humphrey Carpenter writes that although by 1923 Tolkien had almost completed The Book of Lost Tales , "it was almost as if he did not want to finish it", beginning instead to rewrite it; he suggests that Tolkien may have doubted if
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#17327806428663172-473: The start of The Hobbit ' s composition. With the success of The Lord of the Rings , Tolkien in the late 1950s returned to the Silmarillion, planning to revise the material of his legendarium into a form "fit for publication", a task which kept him occupied until his death in 1973, without attaining a completed state. The legendarium has indeed been called "a jumble of overlapping and often competing stories, annals, and lexicons." Much of his later writing
3233-505: The two unfinished time travel novels, The Lost Road in 1936 and The Notion Club Papers in 1945, as the protagonists reappeared in each of several different times. There is no such framework in the published version of The Silmarillion , but the Narn i Hîn Húrin is introduced with the note "Here begins that tale which Ǽlfwine made from the Húrinien ." Tolkien never fully dropped
3294-544: The whole legendarium", equating the legendarium with the Silmarillion (which with italics denotes the 1977 book published under that name, and without italics means the larger body of un-edited drafts used to create that work). In the J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia , David Bratman writes that " The History of Middle-earth is a longitudinal study of the development and elaboration of Tolkien's legendarium through his transcribed manuscripts, with textual commentary by
3355-553: The writing of The Lord of the Rings , into which Tolkien introduced Tom Bombadil from the earliest drafts. In response to a letter, Tolkien described Tom in The 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
3416-555: Was a 28-page synopsis written to explain the background of the story of Túrin to R. W. Reynolds, a friend to whom Tolkien had sent several of the stories. From the "Sketch" Tolkien developed a fuller narrative version of The Silmarillion called Quenta Noldorinwa (also included in Volume IV). The Quenta Noldorinwa was the last version of The Silmarillion that Tolkien completed. The stories in The Book of Lost Tales employ
3477-489: Was an opposite to Sauron in The Lord of the Rings , it would not be Aragorn , 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. 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
3538-442: Was however concerned more with the theological and philosophical underpinnings of the work, rather than with the narratives themselves. By this time, he had doubts about fundamental aspects of the work that went back to the earliest versions of the stories, and it seems that he felt the need to resolve these problems before he could produce the "final" version of The Silmarillion . During this time he wrote extensively on such topics as
3599-678: Was played by Bernard Mayes , who also voiced Gandalf. He was included, along with Goldberry and the Barrow-wight, in the 1991 Russian adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring , Khraniteli . Tom Bombadil is portrayed by Rory Kinnear in the second season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power . Although Bombadil was not portrayed in Ralph Bakshi's or Jackson's films, a Tom Bombadil card exists in The Lord of
3660-422: Was played by Norman Shelley in the 1955–1956 BBC radio adaptation of The Lord of the Rings , a performance that Tolkien thought "dreadful"; in his view even worse was that Goldberry was announced as his daughter and Willowman "an ally of Mordor (!!) " (his emphasis). He was portrayed by Esko Hukkanen in the 1993 Finnish miniseries Hobitit . He appeared, too, in the 1979 Mind's Eye recordings , where he
3721-572: Was published in 1934 in The Oxford Magazine . The poem depicts Bombadil as a "merry fellow" living in a small valley close to the Withywindle 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-spirit Old Man Willow , the Badger -folk and a barrow-wight , attempt to capture Bombadil for their own ends. However, they quail at
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