"Tom was here...before the Dark Lord"

[Radaghast]

To which Dark Lord does Tom refer? There is apparently some speculation over whether he means Morgoth or Sauron. However, Tom refers to things that are specifically associated with the eastern half of Middle-earth, i.e the one that remained above water, namely hobbits, Barrow-wights and -mounds and Elves going west. Here's the full quote for context:

Mark my words, my friends: Tom was here before the river and the trees; Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn. He made paths before the Big People, and saw the little People arriving. He was here before the Kings and the graves and the Barrow-wights. 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.’

Also, Tom says he "was here", which suggest that tiny area of Middle-earth known as the Old Forest. Also, I don't think Morgoth ever went so far east, whereas Sauron did, to escape Valar justice. But it also raises some questions, such as, if Tom means the Old Forest, was the eastern half of Middle-earth once uninhabited, even by plants? It's all a bit ambiguous, as Tolkien was wont to be.

Anyway, I'm curious to know if anyone else has any thoughts on this.

 

[Bomb_Tombadil]

What an interesting question! Thank you for posing a lovely thinker...
I think all your points are good ones, but myself I'm tempted to read the referent as Morgoth. I'd base this on:

-The first raindrop. I seem to remember a passage where Ulmo, near the start of the world, thanks Iluvatar for the gift of his friendship with Manwë. This friendship has given rise to rain (born of water, dispersed by wind), a thing neither of them alone had the vision to imagine. Rain, therefore, began very, very early, and was not a Morgothish corruption of anything.

-I read the Big People as being the Valar (who are, after all, personal entities, "people"), and the Little People as being the Children of Iluvatar. Hobbits aren't smaller than dwarves (are they?), and dwarves were there from even before the Elves.
The Valar took a certain amount of time to explore the remade world after the first war with Morgoth, didn't they?

-The Elves passing west is referred to as a past event, not present. He doesn't say, "when the elves started passing west". I read this as referring to the great journey from Cuiviénen, rather than the general trickle homeward.

-The dark under the stars was never fearless, except in the very, very beginning, before the descent of the Powers from Iluvatar's throne into Eä. Even when the Elves awoke in the far East (and passed through all the intervening territory on their way West) there was fear and terror, because of Morgoth. And Tom's phrasing ("the dark was fearless") strikes me as meaning "before anything to be afraid of came into the dark", rather than "before anyone was there to be afraid of it".
That time period also chimes with Tom's emphasis on dark, because it was then permanently dark and starry. During Sauron's time (1) daytime and nighttime were both scary in places he controlled, but (2) neither daytime nor nighttime was threatened by him on Tom's own particular patch. Both of these make the phrasing difficult to parse, if referring to the Third Age.

-I read "Outside" as meaning, outside Arda. It could mean "outside this region", even with the capital letter...but a more natural phrasing, in that context, would be "overseas" or "unknown parts" or "beyond", don't you think? "William the Conqueror invaded England from Outside" feels not-quite-right, to me...

(I realize that the first few points only argue for Tom's existence before Morgoth, rather than arguing that he is referring to Morgoth; but I think the last two bear directly on the question).

"I was here" could simply mean "I existed", just as an Oxford professor might say, "the coelacanth was here before mankind" and not be wrong, even if no coelacanths personally visited Oxford.

Bomb Tombadil's way of thinking is, however, the precise inverse of Tom Bombadil's, so I am sure to be very minutely and precisely wrong on each point!

 

[Radaghast]

Hobbits aren't smaller than dwarves (are they?), and dwarves were there from even before the Elves.

Depends on the meaning of "there". Aulë crafted the Dwarves before the Quendi awakened but were not allowed to inhabit the land before that.

Bomb Tombadil's way of thinking is, however, the precise inverse of Tom Bombadil's, so I am sure to be very minutely and precisely wrong on each point!

Not every point 😛. Seriously, though, you've made some good points. And there's one thing I didn't really notice before, namely Tom's mention of the seas being bent, an obvious reference to Eru making Arda into a globe. This doesn't really indicate which Dark Lord he's talking about but it is worth mentioning, and it's a point I'll come back to.

One thing I suspect rather strongly is that Tom Bombadil is kind of sly wink on Tolkien's part. When Tom says he was the first this seems like a reference to the fact that he was the first Tolkien character (along with Goldberry, Old Man Willow and a "barrow-wight") to appear in print, three years before the publication of The Hobbit. I would suspect Tolkien even created Tom before Bilbo, though I have seen nothing to confirm that, and I have found nothing to indicate when Tolkien started writing those The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.

But the existence of The Lord of the Rings , and probably the eastern half of Middle-earth in which it takes place, owes its existence to the success of The Hobbit. This part of Middle-earth is not, unless I am much mistaken, not alluded to in the First Age stories, which suggests it didn't exist at the time Tolkien was writing them, which then suggests it didn't come into being till after The Hobbit was written, became a success and demanded a sequel. That of course led to The Lord of the Rings and its mythology, both within the book and outside it to round it all out.

Tom (whose creation was inspired by a Dutch doll owned by his son Michael who liked it so much he tried to flush it down the loo) of course, precedes all of this mythology, including Second Age stuff Tolkien formulated to help bridge the gap between the First and Second Ages, hence why Tom says he was "here before the seas were bent". And when he says he was here before "the first raindrop and the first acorn" I have to wonder if Tolkien was not being "meta" here and wasn't being literal. And, similarly, he, as a character, was there before the "little People" and "Kings", though maybe not so much the Barrow-wight, if one exists in AoTB and I'm a little iffy on the Elves going westward bit.

In any case, Tom is an enigma, one that Tolkien really wanted to write a prose book for. Either he had no ideas for a central plot concerning Tom or was preoccupied with writing a sequel about hobbits (which is what people wanted) and had no time to write a Tom-centric book (plus he was still straightening out and developing "The Silmarillion). But Tolkien still wanted to put Tom in a story so he simply plunked him into LoR, logic be damned. And Tolkien of course refused to define what Tom was. Probably because he had no definition for Tom himself. He liked Tom to be someone without a type and just liked the character a lot. And, just as Tom is a mystery, so is his speech, cryptic and not that easy to decode. Tom's own existence within Middle-earth doesn't make sense so why should anything he say be taken at face value?

 

[Elthir]

(. . .) And there's one thing I didn't really notice before, namely Tom's mention of the seas being bent, an obvious reference to Eru making Arda into a globe

The use of the word bent reminds me of the following saying of some of the Númenóreans, after Númenor/Anadûnê fell into the Sea: "All the ways are bent that once were straight."

Of course, according to The Drowning of Anadûnê (Sauron Defeated) it was only a belief of these Men (who said this) that the world had been made round (by Eru) at this time, because even many of the Faithful found it hard to believe -- as the Elves taught them -- that the world had always been round.

And yes, you're right: I didn't have to, but I did

 

[TrackerOrc]

But Tolkien still wanted to put Tom in a story so he simply plunked him into LoR, logic be damned. And Tolkien of course refused to define what Tom was. Probably because he had no definition for Tom himself. He liked Tom to be someone without a type and just liked the character a lot. And, just as Tom is a mystery, so is his speech, cryptic and not that easy to decode. Tom's own existence within Middle-earth doesn't make sense so why should anything he say be taken at face value?

This is why I've never been able to wrap my head around Bombadil.
He seems to have been around for ever, yet what does he actually do? What is his point, if you like?
He just seems to be there for the sake of being there, which I find baffling.

 

[HALETH✒🗡]

what does he actually do?

He is retired and looks after the forest.

 

[Radaghast]

This is why I've never been able to wrap my head around Bombadil.
He seems to have been around for ever, yet what does he actually do? What is his point, if you like?
He just seems to be there for the sake of being there, which I find baffling.

Yeah, Tom's an odd one alright. He's a character created based on toy that his son had (and tried to flush down the loo) that Tolkien wanted to put in a story. He chose to put him in The Lord of the Rings even if he seemed discordant.

Story-wise, he gives the hobbits some respite from their pursuit by the Ring-wraiths and gives them weapons from a burial mound, one of which proves useful later.

 

[d4rk3lf]

To which Dark Lord does Tom refer? There is apparently some speculation over whether he means Morgoth or Sauron.

Sorry I didn't read all the replies, but for this specific question, I think he surely meant Morgoth... I mean... before Morgoth.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I remember reading in LOTR, that he mentioned that he was on M.E. watching first seed growing to first tree... or something like that.
So, he couldn't mean Sauron.

He is retired and looks after the forest.

I guess.. You can put it that way.

In my mind he was always a Dark Lord for poor mushrooms.
First, pulling them out from their roots, in their sweet comfy places... essentially like pulling body out, and leaving legs in the ground.
And then. what he do with them afterwards? When they are tortured, and barely alive?
He eats them!
He freaking eats them... along with his witch.. what was her name.. gold.. something?

No, no.. you believe what you want. but this not sounds good to me at all.
I mean.. what's next? After pulling their body from their legs, maybe throw them in a hot pan full with hot oil, and burn them to their death before eating them?
I'll shut up now.
I don't want to give to Tom, or any freak out there, some new ideas.

 

[Radaghast]

Sorry I didn't read all the replies, but for this specific question, I think he surely meant Morgoth... I mean... before Morgoth.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I remember reading in LOTR, that he mentioned that he was on M.E. watching first seed growing to first tree... or something like that.
So, he couldn't mean Sauron.

Maybe, and I myself have long assumed he meant Melkor, but something has always seemed strange about Tom's words, how he refers to himself as "Eldest". What could he mean by that? Obviously he can't mean he's older even than Eru or the Ainur (also, Celeborn calls Treebeard 'Eldest' making things less clear). So he must mean something else. The more I thought about it the more I came to wonder if Tom means "first" in a 'meta' sense, not a literal one, in regards to this part (or half) of Middle-earth, a part that didn't exist when Tolkien first started writing "The Silmarillion" and probably not until he decided to fold The Hobbit into the legendarium. TH, of course, was originally not even supposed to be part of the legendarium; it was only added after it was a bestseller and Tolkien saw it, and even more so the sequel, as an opportunity to at least introduce the world to the world he'd been creating since his youth. To imagine that Tom was there at the Ainulindalë (as many no doubt do) seems to me highly dubious. I don't believe Tom is an Ainu and I don't think Tolkien meant for him to be.

Anyway, just a theory of mine. I don't expect anyone else to subscribe to it (or even understand it). But it's the only one that makes Tom's words make sense to me. And he, being an enigma himself, would logically say words that are cryptic and enigmatic.

 

[Olorgando]

Tom is called eldest - and also "fatherless". As are the Ainur, except that all sentient beings are Eruhini, Elves and Men being called so specifically within Arda.
"Ilúvatar" - that second element seems too close to modern German "Vater" to be a coincidence in the writings of one of the premier philologists of Germanic languages of his time.
Note that in the Music of the Ainur, Eru proposed themes, which the Ainur then elaborated.
With one (specifically stated) exception: the theme of the Eruhini proper as the Children of Eru to come forth in Arda.
What I could imagine is that there were other parts of the themes Eru proposed that the Ainur left alone.
Tom Bombadil could be one of them, so in that sense closely related to the Ainur.
But!
He would then come into being with Eru's declaration "Eä" - and would be older in Arda than any of the Valar and Maiar, those Ainur who only descended into Arda after its, and Tom's, creation.
I'm not claiming this to be an original thought of mine.
Tom Bombadil is the other 9,000-pound gorilla in JRRT legendarium discussions, besides Balrog wings.
I'm sure I've read something similar to my above proposal in one of the countless TB threads, possibly even in one here in TTF. I'm just too lazy to look for it right now - though searching TB threads here could easily defeat the anything-but-lazy. 😬🥶🤯

 

[TrackerOrc]

Yeah, Tom's an odd one alright. He's a character created based on toy that his son had (and tried to flush down the loo) that Tolkien wanted to put in a story. He chose to put him in The Lord of the Rings even if he seemed discordant.

Story-wise, he gives the hobbits some respite from their pursuit by the Ring-wraiths and gives them weapons from a burial mound, one of which proves useful later.

Oh yes, He moves the story along a little bit, but I suppose I meant more along the lines of what does he do for the aeons he seems to have been around?

And doesn't Gandalf tell Theoden that when he meets Treebeard he will be meeting the oldest of all living things (The Road to Isengard)? Where does Bombadil fit in with this?

An utterly baffling character to me!

 

[Deimos]

Letter 125:
He is “not an important person – to the narrative”, even if “he represents something that I feel important, though I would not be prepared to analyse the feeling precisely. I would not, however, have left him in, if he did not have some kind of function.”
Tolkien goes on at some length about his function.... read the letter.

Also, another letter (not in the original edition of The Letters but probably in the new edition) ...to a Professor Mroczkowski:

I am grateful for what you say of my opus, and I think you are right: this simultaneity of different planes of reality touching one another and so affecting others, but tangentially, was part of the not so much intended, but deeply felt idea that I had. In the case of the Elves this is explicit (I 93-94). Beyond that too I feel that no construction of the human mind, whether in imagination or the highest philosophy, can contain within its own ‘englobement’ all that there is, or even reduce all that the constructor knows to part of his construction. There is always something left over that demands a different or larger construction to ‘explain’ it or relate it to the rest.** It is like a ‘play’, in which, hardly obvious enough perhaps to disturb attention or create the spell for a spectator, there are noises that do not belong, chinks in the scenery that let out a gleam which is not pertinent. They can only be explained, or related to the ‘play’ by reference to a different world and plane; that of the author and producer and his servants: stage-hands and lighting-experts. This is why I left Tom Bombadil in and did not ‘tinker’ with him though much tempted to do so in the ‘Council of Elrond’, to bring him into the historical pattern. I have received a number of queries (puzzled or actually querulous) about him. The truth is that, as far as I was concerned, he just walked in, at the necessary point, and behaved as he would. But he does not belong to [the] main pattern – even if, since he co-existed, he affects it – and it would involve a larger and different ‘history’ to account for him. He was wholly unaffected by the Ring, and could juggle with it contemptuously — though he did not like it. He was therefore wholly outside the closed circle of power and domination and hostilities in which all the other creatures are enmeshed. He could have been ‘called to order’ by cutting out or altering the passage on I 144; but I could not do that. I know he behaved like that, and to deny it, for the sake of consistency, would be wrong, and the ‘consistency’ less real than the mystery. ...’” [Emphasis added]

**“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

 

[Elthir]

"Ilúvatar" - that second element seems to close to modern German "Vater" to be a coincidence in the writings of one of the premier philologists of Germanic languages of his time.

I can't speak to what was in Tolkien's mind when he coined the name (and certainly he would be aware of the German word here, as you say), but in the language concerned at least, technically, the second element is Q. atar "father", noting also Tom's name (with cognate adar) Iarwain Ben-adar, the end part meaning "without father".

I know you know this Gando, but possibly for those not interested in Quenya.

I think they use the form Adar in some show too; whoever "they" are.

 

[Radaghast]

I can't speak to what was in Tolkien's mind when he coined the name (and certainly he would be aware of the German word here, as you say), but in the language concerned at least, technically, the second element is Q. atar "father", noting also Tom's name (with cognate adar) Iarwain Ben-adar, the end part meaning "without father".

I know you know this Gando, but possibly for those not interested in Quenya.

I think they use the form Adar in some show too; whoever "they" are.

 

[TrackerOrc]

The truth is that, as far as I was concerned, he just walked in, at the necessary point, and behaved as he would.

So even Tolkien couldn't get his head around who bombadil was! I'm in very good company at least.

 

[Deimos]

So even Tolkien couldn't get his head around who bombadil was! I'm in very good company at least.

Oh, he was very clear about it; i.e., that Tom was an "anomaly" (his word) that even he couldn't explain.
There's a good size entry in the index of his Letters (original ed.) on Tom.
I'm guessing that the new edition has some additional info on Tom; for certain it will include the Mroczkowski letter (quoted above)

 

[TrackerOrc]

Oh, he was very clear about it; i.e., that Tom was an "anomaly" (his word) that even he couldn't explain.
There's a good size entry in the index of his Letters (original ed.) on Tom.
I'm guessing that the new edition has some additional info on Tom; for certain it will include the Mroczkowski letter (quoted above)

It's bizarre to me that an author as skilled as Tolkien seems to have created a character that he can't explain! It's probably Meta or something.

 

[Radaghast]

I think he did explain it as, basically, "Here is a character I wanted to put in a story. I don't care if he doesn't make sense."

 

[Olorgando]

It's bizarre to me that an author as skilled as Tolkien seems to have created a character that he can't explain! It's probably Meta or something.

The Tom Bombadil episode entered while JRRT was still writing a "New Hobbit", so Tom would not be so anachronistic in that kind of setting.
What was to become Strider / Aragorn was a Hobbit Ranger (!!!) named Trotter in the first phase of writing, which reached at least as far as Rivendell (see volumes 6 to 8 and part of 9 in Christopher Tolkien's "The History of Middle-earth" aka HoMe). JRRT even retained the nickname Trotter for a long time after this ranger had become the hidden king Aragorn. JRRT continuously had to adapt earlier writing to the work in progress and then the completed work - but he left Tom in, possibly with some impish delight at what he guessed rightly would cause confusion and endless discussion since.

 

[TrackerOrc]

I think he did explain it as, basically, "Here is a character I wanted to put in a story. I don't care if he doesn't make sense."

Well I'm just about to re-read the relevant Bombadil chapters, so I'll see how well Tolkien succeeded in him not making any sense!