What IS Tom Bombadil?

Illuin said:

Yeah, Radagast reminds me of Beavis on his way to save Butt-head from choking to death, but forgets about him when he spots some nachos (birds in Radagast's case).

Click to expand...

Somehow, he reminds me of a moth.

Illuin said:

Yeah, Radagast reminds me of Beavis on his way to save Butt-head from choking to death, but forgets about him when he spots some nachos (birds in Radagast's case). "Um...hahahahahahahahaha...um...hahah...ah...um...hahahaha...um..ah, oh yeah, um, Saruman wants you, um...hahaha...or...um, something like that, um...ah....hahahaha."

Click to expand...

"Beavis choked on chicken ..."

What of Tulkas? Has this been put forth, yet? I was reading the valaquenta and the laughter of Tulkas and how the evil parted before it reminded me of Bombadil

Prince of Cats said:

As far as I can tell Radagast was oblivious to the ring's reappearance

And who among the maiar have we seen to fall under spell like you suggest at sight of the ring? Gandalf saw it plenty of times and I'm pretty sure he's the only maia we see with the ring (other than Sauron of course) so I don't see any textual backup

I think it's also worth noting that the Istari were bound to their human-like forms and perhaps that affects their temptation. The only other Maia we see coming in contact with the ring is Sauron, who really doesn't count because 1.) he made it and 2.) was an evil dude from way back when he served Morgoth

I don't think Tom is Maia but I still don't have any proof

Click to expand...

Radagast didn't realize that the ring kept by the Bagginses was The One Ring, of course. Saruman eventually did, and he certainly wanted it. Gandalf, once he realized what it was, went from being merely suspicious to completely wary of it, refusing even to touch it. Had Radagast realized what was going on, it's likely that it would have begun to gnaw at him, and had he touched it somehow, I've no doubt that the Ring would have begun to work its will on him, successfully or not.

That the Ring had no effect on Tom is only noteworthy when it is put into the context that Tom knew exactly what he was dealing with. Certainly, considering the effect of the One Ring (and the lesser rings) on the other races of Arda, his reaction has to be considered anomalous. That gives credence to the idea that he is not, in fact, a Maia.

And let's not get whimsical and suggest that he's a Vala, either

Ciryaher said:

That the Ring had no effect on Tom is only noteworthy when it is put into the context that Tom knew exactly what he was dealing with. Certainly, considering the effect of the One Ring (and the lesser rings) on the other races of Arda, his reaction has to be considered anomalous. That gives credence to the idea that he is not, in fact, a Maia.

Click to expand...

I don't understand the logic in any of that, respectfully

To get back to basics:

At any rate he was too large and heavy for a hobbit, if not quite tall enough for one of the Big People

Click to expand...

NOT: Human, Hobbit

What's left that we know of? Vala, maia, dwarf, olifaunt, elf, ent, watcher of the keep ...

Can we discredit any of those? Is Tom really an olifaunt?

Well, according to Sam's poem, oliphants are as big as a house. Since Tom lives in a house, we can probably rule out oliphant.

Prince of Cats said:

I don't understand the logic in any of that, respectfully [/I]

Click to expand...

Tom knew the nature of the ring Frodo was bearing. It was the One Ring of Sauron, and he was aware of it as such. The fact that he was cognizant of the Ring's nature is important, because he had no desire at all for its power for any reason

Note, again, that Gandalf and Saruman (both Maiar) felt some level of desire for the Ring's power, and of the three Istari in Middle Earth, they were the only two to know about it. Clearly the Ring is able to sway Istari/Maiar, though--in Gandalf's case--the sway can be overridden by will. And it goes without saying that Sauron (another Maia) certainly wanted to have the Ring back.

Men, hobbits, dwarves, and elves are all described as having a draw to the Ring's power.

We can therefore rule out those mortal races as well as Maiar in terms of the nature of Bombadil. That is to say, he has to be something else entirely.

Well. We have Tom's own words to go by:

'Don't you know my name yet? That's the only answer. Tell me, who are you, alone, yourself and nameless? But you are young and I am old. Eldest, that's what I am. 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.'

Click to expand...

If anything, this for me confirms that Tom is a Maia - what else can he be? He is clearly not an Elf, as he does not count himself among them. He is not a Man, as he 'made paths before the Big People'. He is not an Ent, which are the eldest living things created by Yavanna. He is not a Vala, as they are all named and accounted for.
Thus when everything else has been discounted for, the remaining option must be valid - Tom should be numbered among the Maiar.

I disagree with the notion that Tom was immune to the Ring's Power. Gandalf refused to touch it not because he was afraid of the Ring, but because he was afraid of himself. He does mention that he would be tempted to use the Ring - for the cause of Good. I believe Tom's reaction was the other extreme because he was so sure of himself, he knew already that he did not want the power the Ring offered - he was content with what he had, he did not desire to change it.

Tom said:

'Don't you know my name yet? That's the only answer. Tell me, who are you, alone, yourself and nameless? But you are young and I am old. Eldest, that's what I am. 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.'

Click to expand...

By "Dark Lord" we can presume he means Sauron, a Maia (though it would make no difference if he meant Morgoth). Generally speaking, the Maiar arrived in Eä at the same time as the Valar. If Bombadil predates Sauron--a Maia--then he predates all Maiar and Valar. I can come to no conclusion from that--and from his behavior in regards to the Ring--except that he is a direct product of the Ainulindalë.

EDIT: It's hard to believe I first posted on this thread nine years ago.

I have the answer....

Bombadil is....

Drum roll please.....


















An enigma.
Tolkien says so himself.
He says more, but I'm too tired to look it up now.
But TB is basically the embodiment of Middle-earth come to life.

It just struck me that with Tolkien's Catholic background, Tom & Goldberry represent Adam & Eve if they hadn't fallen. And their little area with borders Tom won't pass represents The Garden of Eden.

Tom certainly isn't Maiar - I like the reasons mentioned and he isn't Vala either because Tolkien states repeatedly that the Valar 'withdrew from Middle-earth' as the Ages passed and became more distant. Tom being a Vala sitting right there near the East Road would go directly against that, wouldn't it?

Tom and Goldberry could be some sort of undefined Ainur like Ungoliant though too I guess if you need to catagorize everything. But that really is just semantics because ALL Maiar & Valar are Ainur before coming to Middle-earth........
All that changes is the title based on inherent level of spiritual power once they enter Arda.

But the embodiment of M-e works for me - I'll find the quote in the next few days if I remember. It's in The Letters somewhere.

Oh BTW; I'm sure "The Dark Lord" Tom is referring to is Melkor, not Sauron.....

After all, Arda was empty and formless when Melkor entered and made war with the Valar. We have no clue when Sauron entered, although it was perhaps the same time as the Valar at the beginning.

Is Tom Niggle?

He is!

Really that's the only answer given. And not in the religious "I Am" sort of way, but in the, "Who is Tom Bombadil? Tom Bombadil is Tom Bombadil" sort of way. Tolkien said Bombadil was intentionally ambiguous in origin, so I guess he wanted us to have this argument but there's never going to be a winner since it was never decided by the author (at least publicly).

However,

I've always been partial to the idea that Bombadil was the manifestation of the power that Eru Iluvatar put into manifesting Arda, and then retired there, just because its a nice thought. Of the choices given, I'd go with nature spirit, since Tolkien intended Tom to be "the spirit of the shrinking forests of Oxford" in his earliest incarnation. There are in fact lots of personalities in Middle earth who's origins aren't clear, and who don't fall into neat categories. Ungoliant is said to be the personification of night. Cruel Caradhras is written as if it has a malevolent spirit of its own, far older than Sauron, at least. On the nicer side you've got Tom, and of course you've got Goldberry, the river woman's daughter, so I'm guessing there's a river woman too.

adpirtle said:

Of the choices given, I'd go with nature spirit, since Tolkien intended Tom to be "the spirit of the shrinking forests of Oxford" in his earliest incarnation. There are in fact lots of personalities in Middle earth who's origins aren't clear, and who don't fall into neat categories. Ungoliant is said to be the personification of night. Cruel Caradhras is written as if it has a malevolent spirit of its own, far older than Sauron, at least. On the nicer side you've got Tom, and of course you've got Goldberry, the river woman's daughter, so I'm guessing there's a river woman too.

Click to expand...

The majority, with 90 votes, of the responses to the poll have been Nature/Earth Spirit too. A What? Earth Spirit? Nature Spirit? Are they among the Ainur? It wasn't Valar or Maiar that won the most votes. For Tolkien fans to be enthusiastic about Tom Bombadil they have to read at least the Lord of the Rings; those 90 votes weren't by new fans who were fresh from watching the films.

For me the question becomes, "What is a Nature Spirit in Middle Earth." In Tolkien's essay On Fairy-Stories he says that one of the vital elements of a story with Faerie is, to paraphrase simply, not to explain everything. I think Tom Bombadil is one of the most important characters in the LoTR and notable through the whole legendarium. His importance IME isn't as much due by helping the fellowship as it is for creating the environment for the reader. Tom, Goldberry and Old Man Willow, more-so than the barrows, create sprawling across the imagination an established, and an old, fascinating history behind not only Middle Earth but every pebble. I often call The Hobbit my favorite Tolkien story for how it creates that sense of a living, and old, world

Some good replies and information here. I've enjoyed the read. I would pull back back the curtain on the enigma in this way...

Tolkien's legendarium is woven into a creation myth. Within that myth, Ea, the World that Is, is quite a bit larger than Middle Earth, or even Arda. So of the spirits that entered a reality bound by the chords of the Great Music, I get the sense they were quite busy shaping stuff all over, from the walls of the Outer Dark to the inner seas. Only after Arda was created as a focal point for those efforts did the great enemies come and really start to disrupt things. So Tom could be a maia who took an early interest in Arda and poured his interest into the forests especially, prior to the arrival of the great power, Enemies or Valar.

Does that make him an earth spirit? It seems the maia often had specific interests, loosely grouped into a kind of kinship that caused them to organize under a greater maia, the greatest of which were called Valar. Tom appears to be relatively rare in that he had little interest in this organization and did his own thing. More than other spirits that are mentioned, his care, knowledge and therefore mastery is one of stewardship of the forests. Until he becomes a personification of those forests.

Ciryaher said:

By "Dark Lord" we can presume he means Sauron, a Maia (though it would make no difference if he meant Morgoth). Generally speaking, the Maiar arrived in Eä at the same time as the Valar. If Bombadil predates Sauron--a Maia--then he predates all Maiar and Valar. I can come to no conclusion from that--and from his behavior in regards to the Ring--except that he is a direct product of the Ainulindalë.

EDIT: It's hard to believe I first posted on this thread nine years ago.

Click to expand...

But he might be speaking about Middle-Earth instead of Eä. And Middle-earth was first created, then filled with forests and rivers, etc, and then Melkor appeared as a Dark Lord or a destructor. So maybe he could be a Maia that established himself in Middle-Earth right after its creation, though we could just especulate on what he did during the first battle against Melkor, which wouldn't have been a nice scenario to live, actually.

However, we know from the Valaquenta that not all the Vala and Maia arrived at the same time to Eä, because Tulkas arrived well after the others. This does not apply in this case, however, since Melkor went to Eä in the very beggining.

Honestly, he reminds me of Melian. She was obviously more powerful than the other Maia we see in LOTR, except maybe for Sauron, and unlike others she was not tempted by the Silmaril, which could be compared to the lack of interest on the ring that Bombadil shows. I think that this case could be similar: Bombadil might be a Maia that just goes to live in peace at some place of Middle-Earth, because we know how much the Ainur loved it when they first saw it in the music, and how even the Valar were deeply touched by its creation before the first battle.

However, if he predates creation, he can only be an Ainu, IMO.

Oh my...is this still up for debate?

Tolkien answered that question himself in one of his letters.

Below in blue, is a small piece of that letter. Can't remember wich letter it is from, but I'll look into it asap.

The essence of some of the letters : (...but please, do read them, in their full, yourselves...)


This question has been a widely debated, sometimes far too vehemently. Part of the difficulty is the complexity of Tom's literary history. Tom was originally a doll (with blue jacket and yellow boots) owned by Tolkien's son Michael. The doll inspired a story fragment, such as he often invented for his children's amusement. That fragment was in turn the basis for the poem "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil", published in 1933, which also introduced Goldberry, the barrow wights, and Old Man Willow (the poem was the source of the events in Chapters 6 through 8 of Book I). In a contemporary letter (1937) Tolkien explained that Tom was meant to represent 'the spirit of the (vanishing) Oxford and Berkshire countryside'.
(The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, no 19)

Tolkien introduced Tom into The Lord of the Rings at a very early stage, when he still thought of it as a sequel to the The Hobbit, as opposed to the The Silmarillion (the tone was changed during the first chapters of The Lord of the Rings). Tom fit the original (slightly childish) tone of the early chapters (which resembled that of the The Hobbit), but as the story progressed it became higher in tone and darker in nature. Tolkien later claimed that he left Tom in he decided that however portrayed Tom provided a necessary ingredient (see last paragraph). Some very cogent reasons are produced in a couple of wonderful letters.
(The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, 144 & 153)

Below in Blue : (The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien no 153)

Peeping-Tom said:

The essence of some of the letters : (...but please, do read them, in their full, yourselves...)

Click to expand...

c.f. posts #189ff ;*)

...sometimes it makes sense, reading a thread, before answering to it...

My own idea about Mr. Bombadil is that, he is not a person or a thing, but a thought. Tolkiens own thoughts...

Something that was there, before everything else...
Something that does not belong there...but can not be left out...

Bombadil is Tolkien...(as his sons doll, childish, harmless, joyfully)

Thousands, have read The Fellowship, and thousands have wondered about Tom Bombadil... and forever they will...

My idea, is just as good as yours...and your ideas, are just as good as mine...

Please, let Bombadil rest...he's an old man...:*p

Walter said:

c.f. posts #189ff ;*)

...sometimes it makes sense, reading a thread, before answering to it...

Click to expand...

Woops...:*p

Thanks Walter...

But it has become a fairly long thread...too long to read it all...;*)

Found this on the internet, makes perfect sence ofcours.

Sauron the Enemy is a merry fellow,
Bright red his Eye is, and his Ring is yellow.

Some time ago someone suggested that Tom Bombadil was really the Witch
King of Angmar. Now why not Sauron himself? He was a master
shapeshifter after all. After the Fall of Numenor, he could no longer
appear fair, but then Tom Bombadil was hardly so. Barad-dur was
enveloped in a dark cloud not to hide Sauron, but rather his absence.
The Eye was only a magical contraption to make it appear that someone
is at home - some security camera on steroids.

On one of his visits to Mordor, he forged another invisibility-granting
ring, just to fool his enemies. When the hobbits brought the true Ring
to him, he simply switched them - this was what really happened when he
made the Ring vanish.

This explains why Frodo handed the Ring to Tom so easily - no mortal
could withold it from Sauron. This also explains why the Nazgul didn't
try harder on Weathertop - it was only a feint. In fact, it is amazing
how many such near-disasters were avoided - the reason being that
Sauron wanted the Quest to "succeed". When the fake was thrown into the
Cracks of Doom, Sauron used the power of the Ruling Ring to destroy
Barad-dur (it was ugly anyway, and he got used to living in the Old
Forest), and to "switch off" the three elven rings, so they seemed to
have lost their power.

Why, having the One, he didn't move immediately to dominate all
Middle-Earth? Simple. He remembered what happened to Morgoth when he
thought he had already won. Sauron certainly didn't fancy Morgoth-style
pedicure. And his ambitions reached further than Middle-Earth alone.

The bearers of the Three sailed to Valinor, wearing rings under
Sauron's control. Turning Gandalf, Elrond and Galadriel into his
servants was probably more time-consuming than dominating mere men.
Sauron's apparent absence in Middle-Earth in later years is due to his
preoccupation with establishing a spy network in the Blessed Realm. But
sooner or later, he will again turn his attention to mortal lands...