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Originally Posted by Inziladun
Also, having finally acquired HOME #1, I recall that in the early drafts of LOTR, Farmer Maggott was to have been related to Bombadil in some way. That would have take away from Tom's singularity in the ME cosmology. . . .
Or, was Tom (with Goldberry too, perhaps) part of some other race that was largely unknown to Middle Earth's primary historians, the Eldar? It's possible, at least.
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I'm also a recent (well, within the last two years) convert to the early HoMe books. BoLT, vol 1 has this early version of the Coming of the Valar. (And this is related to a paper I wrote last summer about the Bombadils.)
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Originally Posted by BoLT, vol 1, p. 660
About them [ie, the Yavanna and Aule] fared a great host who are the sprites of trees and woods, of dale and forest and mountain-side, or those that sing amid the grass at morning and chant among the standing corn at eve. These are the Nermir and the Tavari, Nandini and Orossi, brownies, fays, pixies, leprawns, and what else are they not called, for their number is very great: yet must they not be confused with the Eldar, for they were born before the world and are older than its oldest, and are not of it, but laugh at it much, for had they not somewhat to do with its making, so that it is for the most part a play for them; but the Eldar are of the world and love it with a great and burning love, and are wistful in all their happiness for that reason.
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Of this passage, Christopher Tolkien comments:
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Originally Posted by Notes to the Coming of the Valar, BoLT, I, p. 80
Particularly interesting is the passage concering the host of lesser spirits who accompanied Aule andPalurien, from which one sees how old is the conception of the Eldar as quite dissimilar in essential nature from 'brownies, fays, pixies, leprawns', since the Eldar are 'of the world' and bound to it, whereas those others are beings from before the world's making. In the later work there is no trace of any such explanation of the 'pixie' element in the world's population: the Maiar are little referred to and certainly not said to include such beings as 'sing amid the grass at morning and chant among the standing corn at eve.'
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It seems to me that Tom and Goldberry could very well be such as sing amid the grass (well, Tom sings amid the trees) and chant among the standing corn (Goldberry dances in the grass).
Christopher Tolkien does not say when Tolkien Sr. made the changes to the Silm material, but it certainly seems to me that there is much in the enigmatic Tom and Goldberry that fits this early concept of fays who existed before the world was made. That would certainly explain the point about Tom's age.