Excellent discussion, especially regarding Goldberry. I see her now in a completely new light.
That said, I've been thinking about the lack of symmetry in the hobbits's dreams. In the encounter with Old Man Willow, Merry and Pippin are trapped inside the tree, and Frodo is almost drowned. Sam is not attacked. I assume that Tolkien wanted to have Frodo almost drowned so that he would be available later to help the others (along with Sam). If he were one of the twain trapped within Old Man Willow, this may have been more difficult.
During the first night at Tom's and Goldberry's house, three of the four hobbits have nightmare-like dreams. Frodo dreams of the Black Riders, as that's what's on his mind. Sam does not dream. The other two:
Quote:
At his side Pippin lay dreaming pleasantly; but a change came over his dreams and he turned and groaned. Suddenly he woke, or thought he had waked, and yet still heard in the darkness the sound that had disturbed his dream: tip-tap, squeak: the noise was like branches fretting in the wind, twig-fingers scraping wall and window: creak, creak, creak. He wondered if there were willow-trees close to the house; and then suddenly he had a dreadful feeling that he was not in an ordinary house at all, but inside the willow and listening to that horrible dry creaking voice laughing at him again. He sat up, and felt the soft pillows yield to his hands, and he lay down again relieved. He seemed to hear the echo of words in his ears: ‘Fear nothing! Have peace until the morning! Heed no nightly noises!’ Then he went to sleep again.
It was the sound of water that Merry heard falling into his quiet sleep: water streaming down gently, and then spreading, spreading irresistibly all round the house into a dark shoreless pool. It gurgled under the walls, and was rising slowly but surely. ‘I shall be drowned!’ he thought. It will find its way in, and then I shall drown.’ He felt that he was lying in a soft slimy bog, and springing up he set his fool on the corner of a cold hard flagstone. Then he remembered where he was and lay down again. He seemed to hear or remember hearing: ‘Nothing passes doors or windows save moonlight and starlight and the wind off the hill-top.’ A little breath of sweet air moved the curtain. He breathed deep and fell asleep again.
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I can understand Pippin's dream; his horrible experience is on the tip of his brain. Merry's? Why would he have what to me should be Frodo's dream? Wasn't Merry one of those hobbits that would get his feet wet? Was another dream like Pip's too repetitious, and the one that may have originally been conceived for Frodo substituted?