The River Mother???

[Morgoth the Great]

i have searched for this and nothing came up, so apologies if it has been posted about before. I was reading through the Fellowship of the Ring the other day and i got to Bombadil and Goldberry. It struck me as odd that she was the "River Daughter". I then today asked a friend if he knew who the "River mother" was, for if Tom is the lord of nature in his forest(and perhaps beyond) then surely Goldberry would be the river mother, not river daughter. i was wondering why Tolkien calls her the River Daughter, and if this is the case, who is the River Mother? is it just a way of saying she is directly sent from nature? that was my thoughts, but i thought i would check with the learned on here.

[Amarie of the Vanyar]

The River-woman is Goldberry's mother. There is no River mother as far as I know smilies/wink.gif

[Secret Fire]

There is a distinct possibility that Goldberry is a maia under Ulmo to whom he gave the rivers as ehr domain (or that Goldberry's mother was that maia), adn Tom married her. Her relationship with Tom has nothing to do with her status in ea, but it only says that he married her. smilies/biggrin.gif

[QuickSlash]

Amarie of the Vanyar, who's the River-woman, then? Sounds familiar, but doesn't sound like Tolkien.

[Liriodendron]

I imagine the river itself, as mother...Golberry is "her" daughter. The river mother is the river....Goldberry steps out as a "bodied" daughter form of this female river essence, for Tom, of course. This is just my imagination. It would make a lovely water color! smilies/smile.gif

[Finwe]

Goldberry is the daughter of the River-woman, the mysterious water spirit of the Withywindle. That's just about all the concrete information that we know about the River-woman.

[Bêthberry]

In addition to the appearances in LOTR, Goldberry is mentioned in the verse sequence called The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, found in Tales of the Perilous Realm. These are mainly nonsense verse, but there is a Preface in which Tolkien parodies the academic style of research and sources. There, he says the verses were written by hobbits and are "on the surface, lighthearted and frivolous", representative of hobbit fondness for "rhyming and metrical tricks".

In the poem of the same name, we are told how Tom first saw Goldberry, "the River-woman's daughter" in the Withywindle. Coyly, she would swim away from him, but one day he caught her sitting in the rushes and brought her back to marry her "under the Hill." Tom told Goldberry, "Never mind your mother/ in her deep weedy pool: there you'll find no lover."

Tolkien refers to Goldberry's association with seasonal change in letter #210: "Goldberry represents the actual seasonal changes in such lands." Thus, her 'washing day' which brings the rain to keep the hobbits a day longer with Bombadil.

I personally think she represents Tolkien's effort to write a Persephone myth without the recourse to her abduction by Pluto and journey in the Underworld.

Oh, and by the way, for my RPG character, she's "Mum." smilies/wink.gif

[Finwe]

Hmmm... that is an interesting possibility. But Goldberry seems too, well, happy to be the Middle-earth equivalent of Persephone.

[davem]

Interesting investigation of this subject in:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0954320700/ref=sr_aps_books_1_1/202-8273945-1518215

The authors relate the River Woman with various river spirits/hags, like Jenny Greenteeth or Peg Powler:
http://kaedrin.com/ia/beings/powler.html

This connects her to one of the oldest figures in British Folklore

[Bêthberry]

Finwe, I think you are right that Tolkien's Goldberry lacks the darkness of the Greek myth's Persephone, but I think that was deliberate on his part, to write the myth without equating seasonal change with the underworld, as something hellish.

davem, those are interesting links. Can you tell me more about the book? The Amazon link didn't provide any summary about it. And for me to order from the UK is very expensive. Also, I would like to ask you to put that link up on the Rohan RPG resource thread, which is in the Rohan forum, down in the role playing section. It complements nicely a link I put there to 'Mysterious Britain.' Thanks in advance!

[Finwe]

True, but to me, Tom Bombadil is a bit of a sinister character. Underneath that laughing, jolly exterior, there just seems to me that there are a few sinister undercurrents. Or perhaps I'm reading too into his powers and such. That usually ends up being the case with my more far-fetched ideas.

[Liriodendron]

Ha! I like that. smilies/smile.gif I could put a little shadow in Tom also. Anyone who has been around that long would have to have some "dark" moments. Maybe? I always get goosebumps when he puts the ring on and nothing happens. I think that's scary! smilies/eek.gif

[davem]

Bethberry -

I've placed that link - in the right place I hope!

As far as the book goes, try here:
http://home.insightbb.com/~sauron/UnchartedRealms.htm

I heard Alex Lewis discussing the first chapter of this book at Oxonmoot last year - & I am the proud owner of a signed first edition - though someone at Oxonmoot did suggest that the signed copies would outnumber the unsigned!

This year we were treated to the said Alex, & Ted Naismith (yes, the Ted Naismith singing one of Alex's songs, about the crossing of Helcaraxe.

[ November 13, 2003: Message edited by: davem ]

[davem]

Anyone think the idea of the River Woman & Old Man Willow symbolising the female & male aspects of the Old Forest is completely ridiculous? - (it just occurred to me, but it would make OMW Goldberry's Dad!)

Don't know if anyone else has thought of this before.

[Finwe]

I don't think that Old Man Willow was Goldberry's dad, but I agree that they personify different aspects of a forest. Goldberry is the personification of all that is light and happy, like clearings, glades, and grottoes. Old Man Willow is the more sinister personification of the shadowed trees shutting out all sunlight, treacherous roots, and hidden hollows.

[lore_master]

i think that Gold-berry would be the greek/roman equivelent to Aphrodite/Venus. being that no one REALLY knows who her parents were. Venus also was born form the sea/river.

[Finwe]

True, but Aphrodite/Venus has very violent beginnings. According to some legends, when Cronus threw his father, Uranus's hacked-off genitalia into the Ocean, Aphrodite rose out of the resulting foam. According to other stories, she is the daughter of Zeus and a Titaness named Dione.

I really don't think that Goldberry could be compared to Aphrodite. I could see her being compared to a Nereid or another sea nymph, though.

[THE Ka]

Well, i will have to say that your answers are far greater than mine. when I first came apon " the river daughter" in tolkien's books i always saw her as a Nymph. I also saw Bombadil as the oh-so-famous Celtic Greenman, who was the Celt's "pan" or master of nature and the cycles of the seasons. If we remember what a Nymph is, it is entirely Greek in origin. So, as i see it (and you don't have to believe a word is say), she was like the Greek Nymphs. In Greek mythology Nymphs are always seen as beautiful maiden's of nature. Most of the Nymph's in Greek myths were water nymphs. It was always said that if a man wished to marry or carry off one of them he would have to be weary of their river god father's anger and rage. But, just like the Greeks Tolkien seems to give us no clues as where their mothers came from or who they where.

ok, i hope you are happy. that's one of the best answers i've got smilies/smile.gif smilies/wink.gif


"Pan, the Great god of nature, was not a hansome god. He had goat's legs, pointed ears, a pair of small horn's, and he was covered all over with dark, shaggy hair. He was so ugly that his mother, a nymph, ran away screaming when she first saw him. But his father, Hermes, was delighted with the strange looks of his son. He carried him up to Olympus to amuse the other gods and they took them into their hearts."
- Daulaires Book of Greek Myths

[Bêthberry]

There are some fascinating speculations going on here in this thread, but perhaps we need to think about the rationale for accepting associations here.

When we see similarities and correspondences, what do we do with them? How do we know which might be reasonable and which might be unsuitable?

I would suggest several things. First of all, we can check through Tolkien's Letters to see what ideas he might have had. We do not have a definitive, completely reliable, edition of his letters, and there are certainly many occasions when an author's statements about things can be shown to be in error. (Sorry, this is not an attack on Tolkien, but a reminder that, when people discuss literature these days, they often say that authors are dead--meaning that meaning in a published text is beyond the control of the author.)

We can go back to the text in question and consider the points of similarity, either literally or symbolically.

When we do this, I think it can be seen that the idea of the River Woman being related to the ancient mythological river figure has some merit or possibility. There is some consistency of characteristics between the woman identified as Goldberry's mother in Perilous Realms and the figure described in davem's link. Clearly the river is a dangerous place and Tom has his troubles with it. The river is also a safe place for Goldberry and it is only when she places herself on the boundary between the river and the land--on the rushes--that Tom is able to 'catch' her.(Boundaries are always dangerous places.) There is some suggestion that this is not a mutual decision, some suggestion that Tom is the active instigator here, with some similarities to Persephone's abduction:


He caught her, held her fast! Water-rats went scuttering
reeds hissed, herons cried, and her heart was fluttering....
Never mind your mother
in her deep weedy pool: there you'll find no lover.

Yet the imagery here is not from the upper world to the underworld, but from below waterworld to the upperworld. There are no clear descriptions of the River-woman, so it is not possible to find many similarities here, yet the possibility is suggestive, very suggestive, of a figure from mythology who stimulated Tolkien's imagination.

For the similarities to Persephone, we have Tolkien's letter (again, not an unassailable position) and the behaviours of Goldberry, dancing in the rain on her 'washing day', a link between the character and at least changes in the weather. There is some sense that Tom has taken Goldberry away from her mother's domain and also that Goldberry remains associated with some element important to her mother--water.

With the suggestion that the River-woman is the female principle and the willow the male, I would comment only on a general similarity here of images and figures, although the actual identification of symbols is notoriously slippery. On the surface, it does not seem improbable, but whether Tolkien's text clearly suggest this--or wheather it is rather an extrapolation--can be argued, I think.

As for the suggestion that Goldberry is Venus, I would point to the very, very different contexts in which the classical Venus is placed. Is Goldberry a female figure of sexual desire, of lust? It is true that Frodo is very moved by her--we could almost say enamoured--but the desire and the relationship is so lightly developed that the suggestion of similarity to the goddess of sexual desire sounds untenable. Clearly there is an attraction for Frodo, but whether Goldberry herself has any of the characteristics of the classical Venus is, I think, unlikely.

There is a playfulness in the Old Forest, playfulness of both good and evil, which is important. Yet the Old Forest clearly is not a place of the underworld, of Hades, of hell. The frights and horrors of it are not devilish enough. something else is going on, here, I think, in Tolkien's sense of just what the Old Forest is. Is it Eden? Well, we know enough to understand that it is a place which is not permanently nor supremely perfect and without harm. And we know enough to understand that the person who rules it has a very certain degree of self-control.

[davem]

My suggestion of the River Woman & Old Man Willow symbolising the Female & Male aspects of the Old Forest wasn't meant to be a 'definitive' statement. It had occurred to me just before I posted! But at the same time, we can't judge either of these beings as 'evil' - the figures of Peg Powler & Jenny Greenteeth are not 'evil' in folkore accounts - they are dangerous, their 'infamy' serves as a warning to the unwary.

As far as OMW goes - surely we can understand his reaction to the Hobbits, who as Merry has said, have been hacking down trees. Probably OMW sees Hobbits in the same way as Treebeard sees Orcs - but, of course, the Red Book is written by Hobbits, so when Hobbits hack down & burn trees, they must have a good reason & be in the right. However, when Orcs or Ruffians cut down trees the Hobbits care for then the Trees are justified in taking revenge!

If we lose the idea of OMW being 'evil' is it going too far to suggest that there may have been something in the back of Tolkien's mind about OMW & RW symbolising the 'primal parents?

[Finwe]

Hmmm... that is an interesting possibility.


In many creationist myths, the father is constantly jealous of his children, and even seeks to kill them. It is the mother who has to step in to protect them and/or avenge them. The Uranus/Gaea myth is an excellent example. When Uranus saw the Cyclopes and Hundred-Handed Ones (who were his "uglier" children, compared to the Titans), he either pushed them back into their mother's womb (OUCH!!!!!) or sent them to Tartarus. Gaea (obviously in a LOT of physical and emotional anguish) persuades her youngest son Cronos, leader of the Titans, to ambush Uranus, and cut off his *cough cough* genitalia with a sickle (given by her). Thus, her children were avenged. I think that story can be applied to the sort of "relationship" between OMW and RW. RW (and Goldberry, along with Tom) help protect the denizens of the forest and hapless wayfarers from OMW and his "evil" Minion-Trees. In a sense, it is the Uranus/Gaea myth repeating itself.

[Amarie of the Vanyar]

Not exactly primal parents; for me they represent primal forces, primal spirits of nature smilies/wink.gif

[Finwe]

Nature is a sort of "primal parent" though. Why else do we call her "Mother Nature" and other names like that? Humankind considers her our mother (or at least SOME of us do, apparently those awful logger/forest-destroyer chappies don't) because she "gave birth to us" (enabled the evolution of the human race) and "protected" us (sustained our survival by keeping a relatively steady environment).