Bombadil...theories? The Ring had no effect on him!

[Gordis]

Who said it was Saruman who brought the snow down on the fellowship? I mean in the books...


It has been discussed at lenght here
I shall bump this thread.

[EllethValatari]

Originally Posted by ringbearer

Not enough said about him in LOTR as far as I'm concernd. Elrond called him "Eldest" or something like that. Is he a Maiar?Valor in disguise? Exiled from Valinor? Not of this (Middle)Earth?
Any theories?

Theories? No...but I do have a couple quotes from Tolkien himself. When I read TB's chapters in FotR I was mad because he didn't make any sense...so I did some research. When I came across this thread, I decided to go resurrect that research. Anyways, here it is-Tolkien on Bombadil:

In response to a letter Tolkien received from one of his readers, he described Tom's role in The Lord of the Rings:

Tom Bombadil is not an important person -- to the narrative. I suppose he has some importance as a 'comment.' I mean, I do not really write like that: he is just an invention (who first appeared in The Oxford Magazine about 1933), and he represents something that I feel important, though I would not be prepared to analyze the feeling precisely. I would not, however, have left him in, if he did not have some kind of function.

I might put it this way. The story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad side, beauty against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against kingship, moderated freedom with consent against compulsion that has long lost any object save mere power, and so on; but both sides in some degree, conservative or destructive, want a measure of control. But if you have, as it were, taken 'a vow of poverty', renounced control, and take your delight in things for themselves without reference to yourself, watching, observing, and to some extent knowing, then the questions of the rights and wrongs of power and control might become utterly meaningless to you, and the means of power quite valueless.

It is a natural pacifist view, which always arises in the mind when there is a war… the view of Rivendell seems to be that it is an excellent thing to have represented, but that there are in fact things with which it cannot cope; and upon which its existence nonetheless depends. Ultimately only the victory of the West will allow Bombadil to continue, or even to survive. Nothing would be left for him in the world of Sauron.

I didn't cite these in my research..

As for Tom Bombadil, I really do think you are being too serious, besides missing the point... He is master in a peculiar way: he has no fear, and no desire of possession or domination at all. He merely knows and understands about such things as concern him in his natural little realm. He hardly even judges, and as far as can be seen makes no effort to reform or remove even the Willow.

I don't think Tom needs philosophizing about, and is not improved by it. But many have found him an odd or indeed discordant ingredient. In historical fact I put him in because I had already 'invented' him independently... and he wanted an adventure on the way. But I kept him in, and as he was, because he represents certain things otherwise left out.

I do not mean him to be an allegory -- or I should not have given him so particular, individual, and ridiculous a name... [he is meant as] a particular embodying of pure (real) natural science: the spirit that desires knowledge of other things, their history and nature, because they are 'other' and wholly independent of the inquiring mind, a spirit coeval with the rational mind, and entirely unconcerned with `doing' anything with the knowledge...

Also Tom Bombadil exhibits another point in his attitude to the Ring, and its failure to affect him. You must concentrate on some part, probably relatively small, of the World (Universe), whether to tell a tale, however long, or to learn anything however fundamental -- and therefore much will from that 'point of view' be left out, distorted on the circumference, or seem a discordant oddity. The power of the Ring over all concerned, even the Wizards or Emissaries, is not a delusion -- but it is not the whole picture, even of the then state and content of that part of the Universe.


Hope this helps clear it up...I also have an essay on TB but it's too long to put in this post...is there any way to put in a pdf file?

[elrosofbc2010]

I'm going to take a slightly different track to answering this question. There've been lots of interesting theories on what he might be in the context of Middle Earth, some of which I agree with, many of which I don't, though my issues have largely been mentioned by others, so I won't bother repeating them.

Instead, what follows is a bit (certainly not the whole story) about who outside of Middle Earth may have contributed to his character...

... Unraveling what may have gone into the character of Tom Bombadil is like trying to unravel a ball of yarn with a cat’s claws still stuck in it. Tolkien himself said of Bombadil that “even in a mythical age there must be some enigmas, as there always are. Tom Bombadil is one (intentionally).”[Letters] Piecing together Tom’s existence appears to be quite a hopeless task, then, if Tom’s existence is meant to be a mystery. Nevertheless, there is an interesting Celtic flavor to Tom’s character that merits discussion. As was previously noted, his spouse, Goldberry, seems to show heavy Celtic influence as a localized river-deity. With a Celtic spouse, it would be negligent not to look at Tom with the idea that he, too, may have some Celtic influences at play. Enigmatic though he may be, the thought is encouraging. After all, Tolkien himself said that Tom represented “the spirit of the (vanishing) Oxford and Berkshire countryside,” making him a sort of nature spirit tied to a specific place, a phenomenon that occurs with some frequency in the Celtic tradition. While this is not a solely Celtic occurrence, Tom’s roots go much deeper than that.

In The Lord of the Rings, Elrond refers to him as “Iarwain Ben-adar,” which in Elvish means “old” and “fatherless,” fitting as Tom claims himself to be “eldest.” However, since the Elvish language is based on Welsh, it makes sense to look at the name as Welsh as well. In such a case, it could be etymologized as “henseed head-of-birds”: iar means “hen”; gwain means “seed or nut”; adar is the plural of aderyn, “bird”; and pen means “head.” Alternately, the -wain may be comparable to the second element in the Welsh name Owain, which may be derived from the Celtic Esugenus (“born of the god Esus”), in which case Tom’s first name would be something like “chicken-child.” So, then, we have arrived at a version of Tom’s name that means either “chicken-child” or “henseed head-of-birds.” While this sort of naming is typical (and unsurprising) among the Middle Welsh narratives Tolkien studied as an undergraduate, it is not insignificant. In fact, being able to etymologize Tom’s name to this particular translation is potentially very significant. The Welsh etymology of his name (which can be attributed to Leslie Ellen Jones) connects him to an important Welsh-Celtic figure: the poet Taliesin.

The story of Taliesin’s birth is a tricky one: before he was Taliesin, he was a little boy named Gwion Bach. Gwion was hired by the witch Ceridwen to watch a cauldron that, after a year of boiling, produced a drop of wisdom. Now, Ceridwen intended to bestow that drop on her hideous son to compensate for his looks. Unfortunately, Gwion accidentally consumed the drop, obtaining for himself that wisdom. Knowing that Ceridwen would try to kill him, Gwion fled. After a lengthy chase full of shape-shifting, in an attempt to hide, Gwion runs into a barn and changes himself into a grain. Ceridwen, knowing what he’s done, changes into a chicken and eats the grain. At this point, she carries him inside her for nine months and then gives birth to him. He is, however, so beautiful that she cannot bear to kill him or see him come to harm, so she seals him in a watertight skin bag and throws him in the sea. When he is pulled out by a spendthrift son of a Welsh noble, Elphin, he comes out of the skin bag singing consolation to Elphin (despite being only three days old).

From this story, then, Taliesin is both chicken-feed and chicken born, evoking similarities to the etymology of Tom’s name. He is also a singer, and as is seen later in the story, he has a seemingly magical command of language such that the words he speaks actually have power over reality itself. Hence, it is possible for him “to have sung a song at that moment that resulted in the opening of the fetters from around his [Elphin’s] feet.” [Ford, The Mabinogi]. Remarkably, Tom has the same power over language, as evidenced when Frodo and Sam appeal to him for help with Old Man Willow and he responds by saying “That can soon be mended. I know the tune for him. Old grey Willow-man! I’ll freeze his marrow cold, if he don’t behave himself. I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. Old Man Willow!” (Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings). Sure enough, Tom trots off and, through song, releases the imprisoned Merry and Pippin from the grips of Old Man Willow. A similar scene of song releasing bonds, of song and language literally having power over reality, connects both Tom and Taliesin beyond the already remarkable similarities of chicken-feed and chicken-born.

A final point of similarity between Tom and Taliesin can be seen in Tom’s boast that “Tom was here before the river and the trees… when the Elves passed westward, Tom was here already, before the seas were bent. He knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless – before the Dark Lord came from Outside” [Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings] when it is compared with Taliesin’s insistence that
I was with my lord
in the heavens
When Lucifer fell
into the depths of hell;
I carried a banner
before Alexander;
I know the stars’ names
From the North to the South… [Ford, The Mabinogi]
Both boasts revolve around a claim to eternal knowledge – both characters insist they are as old (or older) than existence itself. Both refer to stars and fallen lords (Lucifer or The Dark Lord). Both boasts can be seen as a final strand connecting these two chicken-born heroes...

[Noble Elf Lord]

What about Kalevala and Väinämöinen?

[EllethValatari]

Did my citations two posts up help clear things up at all?

[Galin]

Originally Posted by elrosofbc2010

In The Lord of the Rings, Elrond refers to him as “Iarwain Ben-adar,” which in Elvish means “old” and “fatherless,” fitting as Tom claims himself to be “eldest.” However, since the Elvish language is based on Welsh, it makes sense to look at the name as Welsh as well. In such a case, it could be etymologized as “henseed head-of-birds”: iar means “hen”; gwain means “seed or nut”; adar ...

Tolkien loved Welsh phonology and purposely desired that Sindarin should have a similar 'taste,' but that said we should be careful about these types of connections, I think. There is a letter in which Tolkien notes, concerning Sauron, for example...

'(...) To take a frequent case: there is no linguistic connexion, and therefore no connexion in significance, between Sauron a contemporary form of older *Thaurond- derivative of an adjectival *thaurā- (from a base THAW-) 'detestable' and the Greek (characters I can't reproduce here) 'a lizard'.' JRRT Letter 297

So it's not necessarily an easy task 'sourcing' Tolkien by noting seeming connections with respect to Elvish names and words or names in Primary World languages.

[elrosofbc2010]

Galin,

I agree. And I'm not suggesting that such sourcing is proof of anything. Having noted that Tolkien did desire Sindarin to have a taste similar to Welsh, however, I do think it is an interesting exercise to 'source' the name, as you say, and see where it leads you. Often times it leads nowhere - and even when it does lead somewhere, it doesn't mean it's accurate. However, it's still a fun exercise, and in Tom's case it was particularly interesting in light of the fact that there are other similarities between him and Taliesin (although, again, I stress: Unraveling what may have gone into the character of Tom Bombadil is like trying to unravel a ball of yarn with a cat’s claws still stuck in it)