Tom Bombadil

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Belegorn

I can't recall right now, but I wonder if the Northern Sea-Kings were familiar with Bombadil, at least as familiar as he seemed with them. I don't think Aragorn spoke much of him, if at all, at the Council.

Tolkien pretends to translate some northern names in Middle-earth, by Norse (Scandinavian) names, whence the Dwarf names and Gandalf. On page 265 Elrond says:

But many another name he [Bombadil] has since been given by other folk: Forn by the Dwarves, Orald by northern Men, and many other names beside.

Hammond and Scull, in their The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion, page 128, write:

In Nomenclature (under Orald) Tolkien states that Forn and Orald ‘are meant to be the names in foreign tongues (not Common Speech)…. Forn is actually the Scandinavian word for “(belonging to) ancient (days)”…. Orald is an Old English word for “very ancient”, evidently meant [in The Lord of the Rings] to represent the names of the Rohirrim and their kin.’

This makes it clear that Bombadil was at one time more widely known, spoken of in many tongues. But nowhere is any mention made of this figure in connection with “the Northern Sea-kings”, which itself proves nothing.