Tom Bombadil

[Halfir]

It is important to see where Tom appears in the FOTR. He appears before the fellowship has been created and at the beginning of the hobbits' journey. His imagery, and that of his consort - Goldberry, is redolent of nature. He does not seek to control, although he is the Master of an area that Gandalf later tells us he has defined for himself and outside whose boundaries he will not step. He prevents Old Man Willow and the Barrow -Wight from interfering with the quest of the hobbits, but he is not himself part of that quest, and his intervention is not to control but to prevent control of others. His clothing, songs, rhymes and character are eccentric and free, like nature, and he clearly sits outside the standard hierachy of ME. He is like a humanized version of Hern the Hunter - without the antlers and the savagery, or like The Green Man - both major personae in Celtic mythology. As Goldberyy says 'He is". Both in FOTR and in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil he shows a total affinity with nature, and a total mastery of it, but with no desire to control it other than when it impedes him e.g. he extricates himself from Goldberry, Old Man Willow, a family of badgers, and a Barrow Wight because they are trying to "catch" him and interfere with his wanderings - and he does this by song and rhyme - for his songs are stronger. He is the epitome of nature, but nature humanized by Tolkien through the domesticity of the English countryside.