He’s one of the most enigmatic characters in all of Tolkien’s world. An ancient being
with untold power, he saves the hobbits from perils both natural
and unnatural. While he is most known for his appearance in The Lord of the Rings,
he would also feature in short tales where he encounters various hobbits and various dangers.
Today, on Nerd of the Rings, we cover the life of Tom Bombadil.
The origins and very nature of Tom Bombadil are unknown, though there are no shortage of theories.
The clues we get come from Tom himself, who says he was there before the river and the trees,
he remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn. His clues also tell us he lived in the
very same forest before the elves first marched from their awakening at Cuivienen,
long before the arrival of the exiles of Numenor and the evil spirits the Witch-king
would trap in the form of the Barrow-wights. But earliest of all, Tom says he was there
“before the Dark Lord came from Outside.” This describes when Melkor descended into Arda,
meaning that Tom has been around since before the Valar even came to the created world.
While we’ve discussed what this could mean regarding Tom’s nature before,
we will now turn to his known - and lesser known - adventures.
These adventures - told in The Lord of the Rings and The Adventures of Tom Bombadil,
offer a wonderful blend of the serious and comedic, as only Tom Bombadil could manage.
In Tolkien’s poem, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, we learn of the moment when Tom
met his Goldberry. This verse begins with the famous “Old Tom Bombadil was a merry fellow:
bright blue his jacket was and his boots were yellow” - the very lines Tom is singing when he
meets the hobbits. As he comes to the Withywindle River within the Old Forest, his beard hangs over
the water, when Goldberry, described as the river-woman’s daughter, pulls him in.
After Goldberry returns to her mother’s house, Tom takes a nap by Old Man Willow, who captures him in
his roots. Tom tells the tree to go back to sleep, and Old Man Willow lets him go. Tom continues to
have encounters with various creatures that either capture or otherwise antagonize him - badgers,
birds, fish, and even a barrow-wight. All in turn obey Tom when he orders them. The final
portion of the poem tells of the following morning as Tom returns to Goldberry and asks
her to marry him. They have a merry wedding, attended by the creatures of the Old Forest.
A second poem featuring Tom is called “Bombadil Goes Boating,” and while it is among many things
to be recorded in The Red Book after the War of the Ring, it likely refers to events long before
Bilbo’s 111th birthday. The story goes that one autumn day, Tom goes boating down the Withywindle,
making his way to the Brandywine to meet some hobbits. Along the way, he meets various creatures
until he comes to a small landing called the Grindwall, where he leaves his boat.
After being teased by some Bucklander hobbits, who shoot three arrows in his hat,
Tom eventually meets Farmer Maggot while walking along the Causeway. After joking with one another,
Farmer Maggot brings Tom back to his home where Tom meets the Maggot family. The
two talk through the night about news and gossip from the area - of the barrow-downs,
the tower hills, tales from Bree, and even the Dunedain Rangers and the Nazgul.
When morning comes, Tom has mysteriously vanished. His boat even still sits at Grindwall,
until three days later when otters and other animals decide to pull the boat
back near Old Man Willow, though they accidentally leave behind the oars.
While these poems are light-hearted, whimsical, and comedic in tone,
they do give us a bit of insight into Tom Bombadil and the hobbits. We are
told both of these poems come from Buckland, pointing to the fact that
Tom was more well-known among these hobbits than the general Shire population. Still,
it’s likely they had little to no understanding of Tom’s power or nature. They view Tom much
like the hobbits view Gandalf - mysterious, benevolent, unpredictable, but also comedic.
As for Tom’s involvement in the War of the Ring - perhaps slightly more serious in tone - that
tale begins on September 26, 3018. Merry, Pippin, Sam, and Frodo had been traveling through the Old
Forest and like Tom before them, Merry & Pippin had been captured by Old Man Willow. Fortunately,
Jolly Tom was searching for water-lilies for Goldberry at the time, and rescued the hobbits,
in a similar way that he once saved himself from the tree’s clutches.
They travel east with Tom to his house and would stay there for two nights. The fact
that Tom had once stayed at Farmer Maggot’s house goes well with what we are told during
the hobbits’ visit. Earlier, Merry had said Maggot would go into the Old Forest,
and that the farmer knew a good many strange things. Here, Tom speaks highly of Farmer Maggot,
saying he owes most of his recent knowledge of the Shire to him. It’s said that Tom seems to
regard Maggot as a person of more importance than the hobbits had previously imagined.
During their time in the house of Tom Bombadil, the mysterious being tells the hobbits many tales
and songs. Eventually, he would convince Frodo to tell him of the Ring. Tom puts the ring on
himself and does not disappear to the amazement of the halflings. He then takes the ring off,
flips it into the air, and makes the ring disappear. This alarms Frodo before Tom
produces it once more. Later, Frodo would put on the ring, but Tom would call to him - revealing
that he could still see Frodo while he was invisible to others. This tells us that Tom
has a presence in the Unseen World - just like other powerful beings like the wizards,
Nazgul, Sauron, and some of the most powerful elves. Tom bids Frodo to
come back to sit with the group, saying his hand was fairer without the ring.
The next day, the hobbits set out from Tom’s house as he gives them words of caution about
the barrow-downs. He also teaches them a song they should sing should they get into trouble.
And when the hobbits come under attack by the barrow-wights, Frodo sings the song,
and Tom comes to the rescue. He chases off the barrow-wight with a song,
breaking the spells upon the barrow in which the hobbits had been captured.
After returning the hobbits' ponies, he looks through the treasures held within the barrow.
Most, he leaves in a pile, free to all finders, for no wight would ever return to it. From the
treasure, he grabs four daggers, one for each of the hobbits. These daggers were
forged by the Dunedain of Cardolan during their war against the Witch-king of Angmar.
This particular barrow was the tomb of the last prince of Cardolan who died in 1409 TA. One of
these blades would ultimately fulfill its purpose, as Merry’s would help in finally defeating the
Witch-King. Aside from the barrow blades, Tom takes a blue-jeweled brooch for Goldberry,
which likely once belonged to the wife of the last Cardolan prince.
Tom would send the hobbits on their way once again, advising them to make for the Prancing
Pony in Bree. They would meet Strider at the inn before it is attacked, likely by men serving the
Nazgul. In the attack, the hobbits’ ponies are driven off, leading them to take Bill the Pony
on their journey to Rivendell. Meanwhile, Merry’s ponies return to the house of Tom
Bombadil - for they had apparently remembered the care they were given there. For a time,
they would be cared for alongside Tom’s own Pony - Fatty Lumpkin. While the hobbits are on
their journey, Tom returns the ponies to Barliman Butterbur at the Prancing Pony and returns home.
Tom would be brought up once again during the Council of Elrond. Elrond and his chief
counselor Erestor noted that perhaps Tom should’ve been present at the Council.
Gandalf replies that Bombadil wouldn’t have come and that he was possibly not fully cognizant of
the struggle of Light and Darkness and that unlike others believed, it wasn’t a matter
of Bombadil having a power over the ring, but rather the ring had no power over him.
When the idea is pitched that they could send the ring to Bombadil for safe-keeping,
Gandalf says he would soon forget it or even throw it away. Such things simply have no hold on his
mind. In the end, Glorfindel says that regardless, Tom Bombadil would likely fall to Sauron should
the worst come to pass - and Tom who was once among the first to wake would be the last to fall.
While the elves talk about him during the council, it’s worth noting that Tom was known to other
beings as well. Like the elves, the Dunedain know him as Iarwain Ben-adar, which means “oldest and
fatherless”. We also learn the Rohirrim called him Orald, meaning “very ancient” and the dwarves call
him Forn, “belonging to ancient days”. The fact that he was known to other races in Middle-earth
begs the question - did Tom Bomabadil at some point in his long history come into contact
with each of these races? Being in Eriador, the elves would no doubt make sense, and it’s possible
dwarves passing through Eriador could come across the jolly fellow. The Rohirrim, however, are the
most intriguing option to dwell on regarding how he came into their tales and history.
The last we hear of Tom Bombadil comes in the final stages of the hobbits’ return
journey. While Merry, Pippin, Sam, and Frodo go on to reclaim the Shire,
Gandalf goes to old Tom’s house, where he would spend the next two years in conversation with the
mysterious Bombadil. What these great and powerful beings discussed for that time, we can only guess.
Tom Bombadil would live on in previously mentioned hobbit poems, and would also inspire Sam’s made-up
protagonist in his poem “The Stone Troll”. With Sauron defeated at the end of the Third Age,
Tom and Goldberry are left to live in their home in the Old Forest for the ages to come,
their later days being just as mysterious as their first.
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