My goodness, Nar, you are quite right. (You fooled me completely by jumping onto Gandalf's smoke-ship and sailing it around-- I was sure that was Bethberry.) I do apologize for the confusion.

(By the Bye, Nar, Did you ever have any further thoughts re: Sindo? Please PM me if you did, I've been wondering!)

Now there's an interesting juxtaposition: Tom Bombadil applicable as an Adam figure, and Tom Bombadil having a pagan aspect to him. I like the combination, even if they do seem contradictory on the face of it. Harking back to a not so recent post anymore, Tom is perhaps an Adam type who became pagan because English speakers were pagan. But I think there's more. I don't think you can have a true Adam without a pagan component. Wow! Now, isn't this a major tangent? But maybe not. Perhaps, what starched shirt xians call pagan is actually being in tune with the natural world, which we are given to understand, our Adams or whoever our history calls them, were. Somehow this does have something to do with why it FEELS different near the Shire, but I'm just brain gushing at the moment and can't see it clearly. Can anybody help?

Littlemanpoet. Adam having a Pagan element or dimension. Depends how deep you want to go. It's also dependent on your understanding of Pagan. Paganism has different forms, from the primal Shamanic tradition, which Tom seems to partake of, to the Highly developed 'mysteries' of the classical world, or the Druids, which he doesn't. In other words, you have to define your concept of 'Pagan' before you can ask whether there's a Pagan dimension to Tom.
Maybe you also have to define what you mean by 'different' before you can get an answer as to why its 'different' near the shire!

Actually, LMP, there is a specific connection between Adam, Paganism & the Traditional Elves & Faeries of folk belief. Its too heavy to go into on a Tolkien site. If anyone is interested, look up The UnderWorld Initiation, Earthlight & Power Within The Land, all by RJ Stewart, or try his Dreampower website.

Yes, davem, the particular "pagan" I was thinking of was . Thanks.

As to "different", I prefer to keep the term loose; it helps engender interest in the topic to have a somewhat general topic title. Besides, it allows others to think "outside the box" along with me.

Could you PM me the link to the website you named?

[ October 17, 2002: Message edited by: littlemanpoet ]

LMP, web address for RJ Stewart's site is www.dreampower.com/
This is a site that deals with pagan themes, but the major stuff is in the 3 books I gave. Principally, he is a shamanic teacher, working with the Celtic Faerie Traditions. What that means is that in the Pagan Traditions of the Celts, Faeries & Elves are considered real, contactable beings. Speaking personally, & whether you believe this or not, using the techniques in Stewarts books, I have had experiences of contact with these beings, who are both like & unlike Tolkien's Elves. They are beings of the Land. I won't go into too many details, but if you follow some of the visualisations in the books & on the web site, you might start to get some understanding of 'why it feels different near the shire'.
As I say, this is too far off from a Tolkien site. But lets just say, not EVERYTHING Tolkien wrote is just fantasy, there are Elves out there. I speak from experience.null

Hmmm. This reminds me of Jung's darker side. Yes, I'm well aware of what you're talking about. I've had my share of experiences. Frankly, this feels nothing like what I FEEL in Tolkien. What I'm talking about has little to do with occultic practices (which I do not mean to demean or cast aspersions upon by so naming them). Tom and Goldberry don't feel heavy with recondite power. I had to look that word up after I used it, I don't know where it came from, but it was right-on. T & G are what they are, having no need for shadows and intermediary ritual. In fact, the sense I get from R.J. Stewart is more akin to the sense I got reading of the Nine Ringwraiths on Weathertop. Not to say evil, necessarily, but heavy with spiritual weight and reverberating with spiritual tembre. Recondite power. It feels foreign, alien, other, whereas Tom and Goldberry feel like home, boots and coat, land and river, cup and bowl, bread and wine. Wholesome.

T & G are Time and Place. Yes, Nar, I like that. I still don't know why, completely, though your development of the idea is fetching and creative and rings true.

[ October 17, 2002: Message edited by: littlemanpoet ]

Lmp. As I said, its out of the range of a Tolkien site. But you asked about Adam & Paganism. The site is very limited in comparison with the author's books, especially Earthlight. I suspect you've skimmed the surface of the site, seen the Tarot images etc, & dismissed the whole thing. Most of Stewart's work is based in the celtic shamanic & Faerie traditions, which is a Living Inner Tradition, with its roots in the same sources as Tolkien himself used. You may, validly, feel that the Pagan Traditions are not for you. But the links to the Traditions behind Tolkien's sources are there, more & deeper than I think you realise from what you say. As John Crowley said in his novel Aegypt 'There's more than one history of the world'. What I feel uncomfortable about is having my spiritual path dismissed as 'dark & dangerous' by people with a superficial knowledge of it - this isn't meant as a personal attack, so please don't take offence - its more of a 'general' attack! Tolkien's works are a modern manifestation of ancient Traditions, with deep roots. The same Traditions are also manifestng in the modern Pagan movement. Its not a coincdence. But I do feel this is way off track now, & its not worth following any further.

Spring thaw is on its way, whispering that deeper in the woods there are songs to be sung and dances to be danced if only I knew what they were...

"For he comes, the human child,
To the water and the wild."

The Journey of Desire; the Sacred Romance; Wild at Heart; it's time I read Eldredge's books again... before the peep-frogs start to sing.

"For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green."

Can't wait to see this season's green! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

I went tramping, the day before yesterday. Trespassing, actually, the land is posted... [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img] but I had Frodo on the brain, and how he loved tramping around the Shire. I live in New England; it ought to be prime tramping territory. It's wild, certainly; but it's also largely private. People buy up the wilderness in order to protect it, and then of course they don't want you hiking through it.

So I brought m'dawgs, ducked my head as I passed the glaring, white "POSTED" signs, and walked a bit. It was a start. No Bombadil sightings, no Gildor. Not yet. Not even an Old Man Willow, although there was one tree that reminded me of the hobbits taking refuge under the roots, only much smaller...

Next trip will be a couple of miles away, in some open woods (open to hikers and hunters, not descriptive of the growth, I mean.) There I will resume my search for... something. Faerie, faraway song and dance, a glimpse of Bombadil or Gildor, but thinking more of Smith, and his Queen of Faerie.

lmp, the idea of "writing serious fantasy" has not faded. I just haven't found the start of the path into Faerie yet. The road goes ever on and on, but the beginning of the path eludes me at the moment.

I'm looking, though.

"For he comes, the human child..."

[ March 21, 2003: Message edited by: mark12_30 ]

Remember though Mark that while the path eludes you now:

Perhaps someday we will all find that path, and wonder down it through Hobbiton and Bywater, and out into the wide wide world.

'Till then,
Iarwain