Tom Bombadil

[Halfir]

Gayalondiel: those of us who are'trueseekers' after Tom will never be angered by the heretical views put forward by so many, and argued so cogently, if erroneously! The 'Tom is Aule' reference that you seek I suspect is: http://www.cas.unt.edu/~hargrove/tombomb.html
It is an excellent essay by Gene Hargrove entitled "Who is Tom Bombadil?"

Hargrove does an firts rate job in reviewing - and demolishing many of the less plausible Bombadil theories , but fails to persuade, in my opinion, that Tom is Aule and Goldberry Yavanna- particularly as he is very selective in the textual support he uses. i.e. he omits text that gainsays his argument.

What I find most interesting about most of the theories about Tom is that they show a complete ignorance of text and textual context referring to him (Hargrove and a few others excepted). A few odd lines are quoted and QED is written as if some truth has been unveiled. If you read ALL the context of Tom in LOTR and look at other writings about him, the truth of his persona shines through, and it is most certainly not that of a ME standard figure.

Moreover, far too many focus on the 'who' question and omit to ask what the significance of Tom's role is in LOTR and why he occurs at that particular point in the story.