LotR -- Book 1 - Chapter 07 - In the House of Tom Bombadil

[davem]

Originally Posted by Esty

This is tom Bombadil's Chapter!

Well that's as may be, but lets not forget his 'pretty lady'!

I suppose the major character here, at least the one whose presence dominates this chapter, is Tom, but while a great deal has been written about him, his wife, Goldberry seems to have been pushed into second place. She is perhaps too mysterious, yet her presence runs through this chapter like an undercurrent - no pun intended (ok, who am I kidding, it was a pun,, & it was intended!).

Goldberry is the first person we meet in this chapter:

In a chair, at the far side of the room facinng the outer door, sat a woman. Her long yellow hair riippled down her shoulders, her gown was green, green as young reeds, shot with silver like beads of dew, & her belt was of gold, shaped like a chain of flag-lillies set with thee pale blue eyes of forget-me-nots. About her feet in wide vessels of green & brown earthen ware, white water lillies were floating, so that she seemed to be enthroned in the midst of a pool’

It is Goldberry who welcomes the guests into the house, & closes the door, shutting the night, & its terrors, out It is also Goldberry who recognises Frodo as an ‘elf friend’ & assures the hobbits of their safety:

’Have peace now,’ she said, ‘until the morning! Heed no nightly noises! For nothing passes door & window here save moonlight & starlight & the wind off the hilltop. Good night!’ She passed out of the room with a glimmer & a rustle. the sound of her footsteps was like a stream falling gently away downhill over cool stones in the quiet of night.

Its also from Goldberry that we learn of Tom’s nature:

Tom Bombadil is the Master. No-one has ever causght old Tom walking in the forest, wading in the water, leaping on the hilltops under light & shadow. He has no fear. Tom Bombadil is master.

Goldberry is so beautiful that Frodo is overwhelmed, & finds himself repeating Tom’s own song about her. She seems to have control of the elements - the hobbits are forced to remain a full day in Tom & Goldberry’s house, because of the torrential rain, which Tom explains is due to it’s being ‘Goldberry’s washing day, & her autumn cleaning.

Yet, if we look for accounts of Goldberry, attempts to understand her nature, we find very few. Tolkien himself, in letter 210 says of her: ‘Goldberry represents the actual seasonal changes in such lands.’ Not much insight there, though.

In their scholarly study, The Uncharted Realms of Tolkien, Alex Lewis & Elizabeth Currie offer an explanation of her as a ‘River lady’ like the dangerous figures of English folkore, Jenny Greenteeth & Peg Powler, who seek to drag the unwary traveller underwater & drown them. Yet, in a book which expends a fulll fifty pages on ‘Tolkien & the Woman Question, analysing the characters of Galadriel, Eowyn & Erendis, all they can manage to say about Goldberry (in a chapter dedicated to Tom, by the way!) is:

Tom captures & marries Goldberry (I’ve given quotes from the relevant verses of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil in the last thread, where she first attempts to drown Tom, & then is captured & married by him, but I’ll repeat them at the end of this post, for the sake of ‘completism’), in a clear & ingenious transformation of the ‘fairy bride’ stories so widespread in the British Isles. Once removed from the river, Goldberry is literally domesticated; dwelling in a house, part of a family (however unconventional) she is tamed & becomes as beautiful & useful as clean, safe water from a well or a tap, far removed from the unpredictable, wild & murky waters outside. It is her mother who is left the spirit of the river, mourning her bereavement, as untamed & dangerous as ever. Goldberry, on the other hand, is treated here more as if she was one of the ‘Lake Maidens’ of Welsh tradition. The poem is not explicit, but it sounds as if Goldberry never returns to the wild water she was dragged from, which would fit the ‘fairy bride’ motif.

Leaving aside the question of exactly how ‘safe’ & ‘domesticated’ Goldberry really is - which personally I would question, as I wouldn’t feel happy getting on the wrong side of her, & of whether the writers are correct in their assumption that ‘Goldberry never returns to the wild water she was dragged from’ - Tom tells the hobbits:

...for now I shall no longer
go down deep again along the forest water,
not while the year is old. Nor shall I be passing
Old Man Willow’s house this side of spring-time,
not till the merry spring, when the River-Daughter
dances down the withy-path to bathe in the water.

This still doesn’t take us much farther in understanding what she ‘means’ as a character. However, I have managed to find an essay, by Deirdre Green, Higher Argument: Tolkien & the Tradition of Vision, Epic & Prophecy, in the Proceedings of the 1992 Centenary Conference collection:

The dwelling has low roofs, indicating simple humility; it is filled with light, suggesting spiritual good; the furnishings & the candles are of natural materials, connoting rural closeness to nature. Goldberry’s chair, far opposite the door, suggests a throne in a reception hall. Her yellow hair, suggests innocence & goodness; it is yellow rather than gold, emphasising her unassuming nature. Her gown associates her with lush, young vegitation. Her belt is the gold of purity & sovereignty, but it celebrates in iits floral design the eternal, cyclical triumph of nature. She is encircled by water & flowers, symbols of purity & fertility. As a whole, the image asserts Goldberry as a queen or a local deity, whose power derives from nature; she is associated with water, morning, & spring, & so belongs to the germinating, birthing, & burgeoning segment of the nature cycle. The reader is left with the impression that her power is so fundamental that there is no need for any display of sovereignty; Goldberry’s power is that of earth, water & warmth. Tolkien has combined the complex symbolism od the elaborate pictorial images of Spenser & Milton with observation of real things found in this world to produce a plausible image of great illustrative significance; again he has taken the effects of older literature & shaped them to more modern literary taste

Yet she seems more than all that, because, while all those quotes can give us some insight into her ‘symbolism’, they don’t account for her character, her loving, welcoming, protective nature, her concern for the hobbits, which she displays at he beginning of the next chapter, when she sees them off on their journey.

If anyone knows of a study of Goldberry I’d be interested. She has been overshadowed by Tom (but who wouldn’t be?) for too long.


(Relevant verses about Golberry from The Adventures of Tom Bombadil:
Old Tom in summertime walked about the meadows
gathering the buttercups, running after shadows,
tickling the bumblebees that buzzed among the flowers,
sitting by the waterside for hours upon hours.

There his beard dangled long down into the water:
up came Goldberry, the River-woman's daughter;
pulled Tom's hanging hair. In he went a-wallowing
under the water-lilies, bubbling and a-swallowing.

'Hey, Tom Bombadil! Whither are you going?'
said fair Goldberry. 'Bubbles you are blowing,
frightening the finny fish and the brown water-rat,
startling the dabchicks, and drowning your feather-hat!'

'You bring it back again, there's a pretty maiden!'
said Tom Bombadil. 'I do not care for wading.
Go down! Sleep again where the pools are shady
far below willow-roots, little water-lady!'

Back to her mother's house in the deepest hollow
swam young Goldberry. But Tom, he would not follow;
on knotted willow-roots he sat in sunny weather,
drying his yellow boots and his draggled feather.

**********************************************

Wise old Bombadil, he was a wary fellow;
bright blue his jacket was, and his boots were yellow.
None ever caught old Tom in upland or in dingle,
walking the forest-paths, or by the Withywindle,
or out on the lily-pools in boat upon the water.
But one day Tom, he went and caught the River-daughter,
in green gown, flowing hair, sitting in the rushes,
singing old water-songs to birds upon the bushes.

He caught her, held her fast! Water-rats went scuttering
reeds hissed, herons cried, and her heart was fluttering.
Said Tom Bombadil: 'Here's my pretty maiden!
You shall come home with me! The table is all laden:
yellow cream, honeycomb, white bread and butter;
roses at the window-sill and peeping round the shutter.
You shall come under Hill! Never mind your mother
in her deep weedy pool: there you'll find no lover!'

Old Tom Bombadil had a merry wedding,
crowned all with buttercups, hat and feather shedding;
his bride with forgetmenots and flag-lilies for garland
was robed all in silver-green. He sang like a starling,
hummed like a honey-bee, lilted to the fiddle,
clasping his river-maid round her slender middle.

Lamps gleamed within his house, and white was the bedding;
in the bright honey-moon Badger-folk came treading,
danced down under Hill, and Old Man Willow
tapped, tapped at window-pane, as they slept on the pillow,
on the bank in the reeds River-woman sighing
heard old Barrow-wight in his mound crying.

Old Tom Bombadil heeded not the voices,
taps, knocks, dancing feet, all the nightly noises;
slept till the sun arose, then sang like a starling:
'Hey! Come derry-dol, merry-dol, my darling!'
sitting on the door-step chopping sticks of willow,
while fair Goldberry combed her tresses yellow.