Tom Bombadil – An Intriguing Answer !

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

What, this is still going?

Yes, and I believe the anagram for "What, this is still going?" can be translated into Sindarin with a translation back into Westron as "Wash, rinse, repeat."

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Yes, and I believe the anagram for "What, this is still going?" can be translated into Sindarin with a translation back into Westron as "Wash, rinse, repeat."

And it's all so unnecessary. Here is the clear answer to the Bombadil conundrum.

[Ivriniel]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

And it's all so unnecessary. Here is the clear answer to the Bombadil conundrum.

hahahahah *high five* - no, Inziladun, he wasn't the Witchking, he ate the Witchking. It's foretold in the Second Prophesy of Ungoliant, when Galadriel's daughter, Celebrian is proved to be an Orc. After Ungoliant vomits up the Silmaril and Sauron's eye is restored (by Unsight). Thence Ezellohar will spring for forth Morgoth, who shall vomit up the poison Ungoliant left behind.

--serious--

I've joined this late, but have been reading. It's an oldie but a goodie. Some say, even Bombadil was Eru (I've never bought that theory). Maia seems most likely. An immunity to the Ring seems to mean of greater Stature than Sauron, hence comments at the Counsel "he wouldn't understand the need".

Three words:

Immunity
Enigma
Nonchalance

And Deus Ex Machina. Why? Just an idea, Frodo's dream of Valinor near to Tom, who is Eldest.....And I'll suffix "yet in Middle Earth". Seemed to have been around when the Kelvar and Olvar were fashioned. The first acorn and raindrop thing.

Interesting article, in the opening post.

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Balfrog

Not sure what you are getting at here???? Yes, for sure different theories on Bombadil abound. In terms of what Priya Seth has produced, its definitely 'other stuff'. Because I can't find anything like it elsewhere.

My apologies if I wasn't clear. What I was meant is that at #32 you are, seemingly, trying to deflect criticism of Priya Seth's theory by pointing out that other, unrelated theories have flaws.

[Balfrog]

Nerwen – possibly that was the case.

Anyway - let's face it will be an uphill struggle to change mindsets in relation to 'Tolkien and allegory'. However I must say that I sympathize with Priya Seth - for as she states in the preface to Part II, we all may have been misled:

“The many self-mentions of Tolkien’s aversion to allegory have been a linchpin in our comprehension of Tolkien’s thought process to creationist writing. Yet for Bombadil researchers – it has in effect – drowned out two direct and indisputable remarks linking allegory to Tom. It is categorically the main reason why these two remarks in*Letter #153*get so little scholastic attention.”

Another interesting point on allegory that she makes is that:

“Tom is the only character in*The Lord of the Rings*ever referred to as an ‘allegory’ within any of the Professor’s correspondences. For that matter such an observation extends beyond*The Lord of the Rings*to also include*The Hobbit*and Silmarillion tales. On top of this, Tom is the only fictional being whom Tolkien stated never properly fitted into his sub-created world. He was the one individual he actively thought about tinkering with to bring into line with all the others.”*

That actually is quite remarkable.

I note that the Tolkien strongly implied on several occasions that the tale didn't contain conscious allegory. Yet nevertheless he was quite happy to bring in the poem of Fastitocalon into Middle-earth lore in the 1962 Adventures of Tom Bombadil. It is supposed to have been attributed to Sam Gamgee with its ultimate source unknown but from earlier times.

With the character Fastitocalon allegorized as Satan (maybe effectively Morgoth) per Letter #255 – without a shadow of doubt, his myth touched upon allegorical ideas.

[Faramir Jones]

Originally Posted by Balfrog

I note that the Tolkien strongly implied on several occasions that the tale didn't contain conscious allegory. Yet nevertheless he was quite happy to bring in the poem of Fastitocalon into Middle-earth lore in the 1962 Adventures of Tom Bombadil. It is supposed to have been attributed to Sam Gamgee with its ultimate source unknown but from earlier times.

With the character Fastitocalon allegorized as Satan (maybe effectively Morgoth) per Letter #255 – without a shadow of doubt, his myth touched upon allegorical ideas.

I think you made a mistake here with Fastitocalon, Balfrog. Sam is nowhere mentioned in connection with that poem; but he is in relation to Perry-the-Winkle and Cat. According to Tolkien in his role as 'editor':

No. 8 [Perry-the-Winkle] is marked SG, and the ascription may be accepted. No. 12 [Cat] is also marked SG, though at most Sam can only have touched up an older piece of the comic bestiary lore of which Hobbits appear to have been fond.

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Balfrog

I note that the Tolkien strongly implied on several occasions that the tale didn't contain conscious allegory. Yet nevertheless he was quite happy to bring in the poem of Fastitocalon into Middle-earth lore in the 1962 Adventures of Tom Bombadil. It is supposed to have been attributed to Sam Gamgee with its ultimate source unknown but from earlier times.

With the character Fastitocalon allegorized as Satan (maybe effectively Morgoth) per Letter #255 – without a shadow of doubt, his myth touched upon allegorical ideas.

But it's not Tolkien's allegory:

Originally Posted by JRRT

The poem on Fastitocalon is not like Cat and Oliphaunt my own invention entirely but a reduced and rewritten form, to suit hobbit fancy, of an item in old 'bestiaries'. I think it was remarkable that you perceived the Greekness of the name through its corruptions. This I took in fact from a fragment of an Anglo-Saxon bestiary that has survived, thinking that it sounded comic and absurd enough to serve as a hobbit alteration of something more learned and elvish

(...)


The notion of the treacherous island that is really a monster seems to derive from the East: the marine turtles enlarged by myth-making fancy; and I left it at that. But in Europe the monster becomes mixed up with whales, and already in the Anglo-Saxon? version he is given whale characteristics, such as feeding by trawling with an open mouth. In moralized bestiaries he is, of course, an allegory of the Devil, and is so used by Milton.

He's talking about how he borrowed the monster from Anglo-Saxon lore, where it apparently has that meaning. But, unless I am much mistaken, the poem "Fastitocalon" in "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil" describes a creature of Hobbit folklore- not one supposed to really exist in Middle-earth. That is, it's a fiction within a fiction. Now, in context "Fastitocalon" could in fact be allegorical without having any bearing on whether "The Lord of the Rings" or any actual characters therein are. In saying his story is not allegorical Tolkien does not logically rule out some Middle-earth cultures having the practice of creating allegorical works, since these would exist on a different level of (un)reality.

Hope I'm making sense here!

[Marwhini]

Has no one read Tom Shippey's account of Tom Bombadil in The Road to Middle-earth?

His account is one that I thought of in the 1980s when I was studying the works Joseph Campbell (briefly with Joseph Campbell):

That Tom Bombadil is a Spirit of Ëa that is a manifestation of Middle-earth wishing to know itself (as is Goldberry, but she is only a local manifestation of this sort: That of the Withywhindle's daughter).

Spirits of the sort that Tom Shippey attributes to Tom Bombadil occur in nearly every mythology on Earth, no less those of European, Germanic, and Nordic Myths (although it has been a long while since I went that far back into Northern European Mythology).

But this accounts for why the Ruling Ring does not affect him, as it would any Ainur (ruling out Tom, or Goldberry, being a Maiar or Valar), as he is not exactly the sort that seeks power over things, but instead only to know himself (and thus Arda/Middle-earth). This accounts for his ability to "name" things, and have those names stick to them, and have the "Naming" affect the thing so named, rather than the thing named having any effect over Tom. Basically, the Ruling Ring would not affect Tom unless Tom named it as affecting Tom. But since Tom only names What Is, and thew Ruling Ring has no effect on Tom, Tom can't name the ring as affecting him....

I wish that I could remember the name of the types of Spirits and/or Archetypes that Tom represents from Campbell's The Masks of God, vol 1: Primitive Mythology. But it has been over five years since I last read it, and not having a digital version of it, I can't as easily search the physical copy as I would a digital... But I know that the Archetype in question is detailed in that volume...

And.... This explanation fits with what we see of Tom Bombadil in Tolkien's other works dealing with him as well (and depending upon the Metaphysical and Ontological assumptions that are given for a consistent and unified Physics within Middle-earth/Arda/Ëa, that can fit these as well).

MB