In the final pages of “Fog on the Barrow-downs”, the hobbits — now armed with nice, shiny daggers — reluctantly take their leave of Tom Bombadil. Before we say goodbye to Tom, we give the greatest enigma in Middle-earth the full Prancing Pony Podcast treatment! We answer listener questions, respond to popular theories, and assemble a council’s worth of comments from our favorite scholars (including an unpublished letter by Tolkien himself) before making our final conclusions about what Tom Bombadil really is. A day may come when your hosts have an epic disagreement… is it this day?
Thank you to Jordan Ellis Rannells for sponsoring this week’s episode! Visit his website www.learntolisten.net, contact him on Instagram @jrbassist or email him at JordanEllisRannells (at) Gmail (dot) com for more information.
For Tolkien’s comments about Tom Bombadil in his August 21, 1954 letter to Nevill Coghill, see the Addenda and Corrigenda to The Adventures of Tom Bombadil posted by Wayne G. Hammond & Christina Scull to their blog here: http://www.hammondandscull.com/addenda/bombadil.html
For the essay “Who is Tom Bombadil?” by Gene Hargrove, originally published in Mythlore in August 1986, see http://www.phil.unt.edu/~hargrove/tombomb.html
Recommended Reading:
Rateliff, John D. The History of the Hobbit (HarperCollins, one-volume hardcover)
Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (Mariner Books, paperback)
Tolkien, J. R. R. Tales from the Perilous Realm (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, hardcover)
Tolkien, J. R. R. (Christopher Tolkien, ed.) The Silmarillion (Mariner Books, paperback)
Where did you find that music for the new segment? the council. Intriguing sound.
Thanks for all the content, keep up the great work!
Hi Nate – Thank you! We’ll keep making the show if you keep listening! The new music for The Council is a track called “Long Way from Home” from AudioHero.com. I kinda love it too.
I first read the Lord of the Rings when I was about nine years old; at the time, I don’t think I gave a great deal of thought as to who or what Tom Bombadil was. Now, almost forty years later, your recent episodes have given me a great deal of food for thought. My own conclusions are similar to your own; in particular, I am struck by Tolkien’s description of him in his unpublished letter as “the spirit of this earth made aware of itself.” (I also suspect that while Goldberry and her mother are evidently much younger than Tom, they may themselves be spirits of the natural world, in a not dissimilar fashion. In addition, while I do not agree with Gene Hargrove’s conclusion that Tom is Aule, I do agree that his current form is probably not his original one, and that his current appearance may specifically be one that the hobbits of the Shire would find familiar and non-threatening.)
On a more bizarre note, Tolkien’s words “the spirit of the world made aware of itself” reminded me of an entirely different character in a completely different fantasy setting: the character of Aughra in the movie The Dark Crystal (and related material). In the original movie, her nature is not defined, but the companion book The World of the Dark Crystal by J.J. Llewellyn and Brian Froud describes her as a unique being given birth by the world itself: “born from the need for rocks and trees for an Eye to see the world.” (It’s amazing the connection that the mind makes sometimes…)
That is an incredible connection between Tom Bombadil and Aughra! The Dark Crystal was one of my favorite movies as a kid, and one I’m long overdue for a rewatch of. Is that book still available, do you know?
Shawn – apologies for my delayed response! In answer to your question, the book The World of the Dark Crystal was originally published in 1982 at the time of the movie’s release, and then reissued in 2003; I do not own a copy, but I read the original edition at my (then) local library, and was recently able to borrow a copy of the 2003 edition via interlibrary loan. In addition, a new coffee-table book entitled Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal: The Ultimate Visual History was published in honor of the film’s 25th anniversary, and I do own a copy of that one, It provides a very detailed behind-the-scenes account of the making of the film, which I found extremely interesting. (I also still own my original and extremely weatherbeaten copy of the movie novelization by A.C.H. Smith, which I actually read before I saw the movie itself.)
I was a fan of The Dark Crystal when it first came out, but my interest was revived relatively recently when my wife and I heard Cheryl Henson and Toby Froud speak at FaerieCon in Baltimore in 2016. (Cheryl Henson is Jim Henson’s youngest daughter. Toby Froud is the son of Brian and Wendy Froud, and played the little baby in the movie Labyrinth; now he is a professional puppeteer and beginning filmmaker in his own right.) At the time, they were presenting the results of a Dark Crystal fan film competition, and their search for an author to write a new Dark Crystal prequel series of children’s books; now a related TV series is being produced for Netflix. (Information on all of the latter can be found at http://www.darkcrystal.com.) I had trouble getting into the new book series, but I hope that the TV series does well. In addition, my wife and I also attended a special 25th anniversary showing of the original film; it was strange seeing in again after all these years!
That was a very long answer, but I hope that it answered your question!
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The fact that Tom’s answer to “who is he” is that his name is the only answer leads back to that concept of his power related to knowing the true name of things.
If he knows the real name/song/words for each creature, then of course his nature is implied by his own name. Therefore, in his own perspective, there would be no better and more profound and complete answer than just “Tom Bombadil”.