Derry Dol, Indeed

[thorondil]

You are right that Tom is an embodiment of the world, but not the whole world, only that part of the world. Tolkien says in Letter 19:

..Tom Bombadil, the spirit of the (vanishing) Oxford and Berkshire countryside...

That is why as Estelyn points out:

Out east my knowledge fails. Tom is no master of Riders from the Black Land far beyond his country. (Tom of himself in "Fog on the Barrow-Downs")

Tom is the Old Forest. He was there in the dark under the stars before the Dark Lord came from Outside, and will be there until the End.

But as Tolkien points out in Letter 153:

I don't think Tom needs philosophizing about, and is not improved by it.

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Well done, Burra.