Chapter 7: In the House of Tom Bombadil

In the House of Tom Bombadil continues one of the strangest trilogy of chapters in all of the Lord of the Rings — in fact it heightens the strangeness. While ultimately, the black-hearted Old Man Willow, whose influence controls nearly all the Old Forest with malevolence fits into the Lord of the Rings as a whole, Tom Bombadil really does not. The theme of the natural world wanting to strike back at men (and the other human races of Middle earth) is something that Tolkien will revisit in The Two Towers, until it climaxes in the March of the Ents against Isengard. But the character of Tom Bombadil, with his’s bright, primary colors and not-wholly realistic, painterly imagery, his constant breaking out into song and his boisterous ridiculous persona just doesn’t.

Tom Bombadil is not really a Hobbit…he is not really a Man…or an Elf…or a Dwarf. He is not a Maia like Gandalf or Melian the Wise (or Sauron, for that matter) from the Silmarillion and he is not one of the mighty Valar. He is absolutely singular and seemingly more powerful or “outside”the power and events of the Lord of the Rings. And it’s not only his character, which seems to be the spirit of Adam As He Was Intended to Be: humans mastering but living in harmony with nature. After all, in a way, doesn’t that also describe the Elves? It’s also the writing and tone of the chapter. It has a more primal fairy tale feel: like the Hobbit. It’s almost…psychedelic.

And if I can’t make much of Bombadil, what am I supposed to make of Goldberry? What the heck is she? The River-woman’s daughter? Some sort of water nymph? Are there whole races of sentient beings in the Lord of the Rings that are unbeknownst to Elves, Men and Dwarves? (And Hobbits?) It doesn’t seem too likely. She just doesn’t fit in — even less than Bombadil, because Bombadil at least interacts with the plot.

But maybe the Hobbits are like, tripping, and that is what leads to the weird tone?

No, no, hear me out! The whole deal with Tom Bombadil is that his place is enfused with a sort of magic. The food they eat, the water they drink, the very air they breathe puts them in a strange mood: until they stop talking like ordinary people and literally burst into random bits of song themselves. They are under a magic spell in Bombadil’s home. It is a benevolent, protective spell, but it’s very powerful: it must be powerful enough to effect their senses and that’s what might explain the psychedelic, technicolor tone of the chapter. Seeing it that way makes Bombadil (if not Goldberry) fit into the story.

Of course Bombadil’s outsider-ness will be referenced in the Council of Elrond in Book 2, chapter 2. Because, as he displays hear, the Ring has absolutely no power over him. Not only does it not make him invisible when he puts it on his finger, but he can plainly see Frodo when Frodo puts on the Ring. His magic is powerful enough that it supercedes even the most powerful magical talisman on earth.

But isn’t it curious that Frodo puts on the Ring at all. Indeed, Frodo literally gets up and tries to sneak out while wearing it! How very un-Frodo-like. And the fact that the Ring itself is able to exert this kind of influence on Frodo is telling: It’s as if the Ring itself wants to get the hell out of Bombadil’s house! We see first hand the weird effect it has on the unconscious mind exert himself strongly on Frodo.

There is a lovely bit of the casual world building that Tolkien pulls off so effortlessly when Bombadil tells the story of of the Barrow downs: the little kingdoms warring, the green walls and the white walls rising and the hills being crowned wiht fortresses, while the little kingdoms war with the sun shining red on their swords.

Really it is the history of Arthedain, Cardolan and Rhudaur, the three kingdoms of the Northern Dunedain, warring with each other for mastery of Eriador that he is telling him…acting under the political influence of the evil Witch-King of Angmar of course. We find all this out in the Appendice A.

I feel like you could write an entire epic fantasy Game of Thrones type series set in Eriador in the Third Age — Tolkien’s bits and pieces of history are so seamlessly woven into the story that they evoke and inspire.

Despite the odd tone, reading it after having read the Hobbit, it didn’t really bother me back in November 1982, when I first read this book. It is only upon re-reading that the whole adventure of the Old Forest-Tom Bombadil-the Barrow Downs jars. But it is what it is. Some people see it as a flaw: but I wouldn’t have the story any other way.