ByVal Hull
Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow;
Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow.
Introduced by a string of rhyming song and soon described by the quote above, you would expect Tom Bombadil to be a comic relief character of some sort. Even the visiting hobbits poke fun at his propensity to bolster his speech with an excessive amount of exclamations along the lines of “derry dol,” “merry dol,” and “ring a ding dillo.”
But despite his unserious nature, or maybe in part thanks to it, Tom Bombadil remains one of the greatest mysteries of The Lord of the Rings and the entire Tolkien’s legendarium. The character defies explanation and sparks endless discussions, allowing people’s imaginations to run wild. And that, perhaps, is his greatest strength and the main reason for his existence and enduring popularity among Tolkien fans.
This article will try to explain why exactly Tom Bombadil remains such an evergreen topic for Tolkien fans. We’ll also spotlight some of the leading theories as to who he may be. So, if you’ve read the books (coincidentally, if you’re just looking to do it, we have this handy Reading Order guide) and were left confused as to the identity and purpose of this merry fellow, if you’ve seen Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy and are now wondering why it chose to omit Tom Bombadil’s character, or if you’re watching the second season of Amazon’s The Rings of Power show and would like to know what its interpretation of Bombadil gets wrong, you’ve come to the right place.
It’s in our human nature to seek answers and try to categorize things we come across. And this is precisely why Tom Bombadil being unknowable is a great hint as to his true nature and purpose.
Not everyone is aware of this, but the character of Tom Bombadil predates The Lord of the Rings and even The Hobbit by a good couple of decades. He first appeared in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, a poem published in 1934. The original inspiration for the character comes from a doll Tolkien’s kids used to play with. The poem itself touches on some of the same things Tom Bombadil later does in The Fellowship of the Ring – he marries the “River-woman’s daughter” Goldberry and confronts Old Man Willow and a barrow-wight.
Following the publication of The Hobbit several years later, when considering his next big project, which would later become The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien was apparently toying with the idea of making Tom Bombadil its protagonist. In a letter to Stanley Unwin from 1937, numbered 19 in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, here’s what he has to say on the matter:
And what more can hobbits do? They can be comic, but their comedy is suburban unless it is set against things more elemental. But the real fun about orcs and dragons (to my mind) was before their time. Perhaps a new (if similar) line? Do you think Tom Bombadil, the spirit of the (vanishing) Oxford and Berkshire countryside, could be made into the hero of a story? Or is he, as I suspect, fully enshrined in the enclosed verses? Still I could enlarge the portrait.
Here we have Tom Bombadil mentioned in the context of ancient and elemental things. We also get the closest thing to an actual explanation as to who he is, from the Professor himself, “the spirit of the (vanishing) Oxford and Berkshire countryside.” A lot of the people trying to puzzle out Tom Bombadil’s nature and how he fits into the story rightly point out that this exchange occurred a good 17 years prior to the eventual publication of The Fellowship of the Ring. Writing a story, especially one as deep and complex as The Lord of the Rings, is a very much fluid thing. In close to 20 years, you can expect early concepts to change multiple times, and as such a letter from 1937 shouldn’t be taken as gospel.
Neither should it be discarded in its entirety. Tom Bombadil as we see him in The Lord of the Rings, is clearly someone important. All the major characters seem to know him or at least of him. He has many names in different languages. The One Ring, an artifact that affects even the most powerful beings in that world, is a mere trinket to him. One that’s not even worth his attention. And while he’s ready and willing to help the little guy, so to speak, the affairs of the world are generally beneath him. Here’s a bit of what those present at the Council of Elrond think of Tom:
‘But within those bounds nothing seems to dismay him, ’said Erestor. ‘Would he not take the Ring and keep it there, for ever harmless?’
‘No,’ said Gandalf, ‘not willingly. He might do so, if all the free folk of the world begged him, but he would not understand the need. And if he were given the Ring, he would soon forget it, or most likely throw it away. Such things have no hold on his mind. He would be a most unsafe guardian; and that alone is answer enough.’
Tolkien, as the author, knows who Tom Bombadil is, but he refuses to give us a clear answer. Instead, he drops vague hints and allusions, contradictory ideas, and fragmented stories that work oh-so-well to spark our imaginations.
From everything we know about him, Tolkien wasn’t someone who just threw “orcs and dragons” on the page because he found them terribly cool. Like a Power Metal band with a vocabulary of about 20 words. There was clear purpose behind his words. This means that even if he knew who Tom Bombadil was, he didn’t want us to know. And that was the whole point.
Tom Bombadil wasn’t supposed to be knowable. He was supposed to be a mystery, an enigma, an endless font of wonder. This aligns perfectly with his originally being envisioned as the spirit of the vanishing English countryside. Sure, there may not be an Oxford or Berkshire in Middle-earth, but the idea of a world losing its magic and wonder is a persistent theme of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Orcs and other forces of Evil represent the ceaseless march of industrialization in those stories. And even in their defeat, we see certain wizards like Saruman adopting and iterating on their ways. We also see elves, and some select hobbits, leaving the known lands for a distant place from which they shall never return. They leave the world of Men behind and take the magic they represent with them.
Unlike them, Tom Bombadil isn’t going anywhere. He is the last holdout of this ancient, magical world where shadows held endless mysteries, dark forests teemed with magic, and science didn’t have all the answers. In that way, he is the spirit of the vanishing countryside, with its old ways and superstitions. When you consider the times Tolkien lived in, at the turn of the 20th century, the time of easily the most rapid advancement of human civilization, this theme of wonder being drained from the world makes perfect sense. Here’s what Tolkien had to say about the proliferation of “motor-cars” in his letter (#181) to Michael Straight from 1956:
Though the spirit of ‘Isengard’, if not of Mordor, is of course always cropping up. The present design of destroying Oxford in order to accommodate motor-cars is a case.
And Tolkien wasn’t alone in this wistful attitude. Many modern fantasy fans mistakenly believe that Tolkien pretty much invented fantasy as we know it. Their opponents often point out the clear mythological inspirations behind Tolkien’s works. Rarely do they also mention that there were, in fact, fantasy novels predating Tolkien. One of them is The King of Elfland’s Daughter by Lord Dunsany.
Published in 1924, The King of Elfland’s Daughter is a seminal work of fantasy that was describing elven societies decades before Tolkien entered the scene. The novel takes place in the land of Erl which borders the magical Elfland. Erl’s people want to be governed by a magic lord, and so its ruler sends his son Alveric on a quest to snag him an elven bride. When Alveric and Lirazel, the titular daughter of Elfland’s king, meet, they fall in love and Alveric takes her with him back to Erl. They get married and have a son, but Lirazel, being a creature of magic, can’t quite fit in with the people of Erl and is eventually whisked away back to Elfland.
Alveric goes on a lengthy quest to find Lirazel, but the border of Elfland has retreated and he can’t return to it despite his efforts. In the meantime, in his parents’ absence, their son Orion starts exhibiting the qualities of both a mortal man and a being of magic. He becomes the magic lord the people of Erl wanted. As he does, magic rushes back into Erl, no longer respecting the old borders between the lands. Ultimately, the King of Elfland uses the last of his magic to completely engulf Erl and make it into a part of Elfland to reunite his daughter with her loved ones but in a way where she can still be happy. This act severs Elfland’s connection to our real world, taking all the magic with it.
As that happens, those citizens of Erl who couldn’t accept all the magic around them congregate around the Freer (friar) in his church, living out their lives on this mundane island surrounded by a land of wonder:
Only the holy place of the Freer and the garden that was about it remained still of our Earth, a little island all surrounded by wonder, like a mountain peak all rocky, alone in air, when a mist wells up in the gloaming from highland valleys, and leaves only one pinnacle darkly to gaze at the stars. For the sound of his bell beat back the rune and the twilight for a little distance all round. There he lived happy, contented, not quite alone, amongst his holy things, for a few that had been cut off by that magical tide lived on the holy island and served him there. And he lived beyond the age of ordinary men, but not to the years of magic.
Here we have another work of a Tolkien contemporary dealing with the worlds of magic and reason clashing, and the world of magic ultimately retreating. For even when Elfland is joined by Erl, the two lands are removed from “our Earth.”
We know for a fact Tolkien was familiar with Lord Dunsany’s works. Even in that very same letter to Stanley Unwin, he mentions him by name and compares himself favorably to Dunsany in terms of coming up with nice-sounding fantasy names. With this established familiarity, it’s clear to see the inspirations and parallels between the works, be it a human king marrying an elven lord’s daughter, or sentient and at times malicious trees. In this context, Tom Bombadil becomes a reflection of the Freer – an island of wonder in a land quickly turning into one devoid of magic.
Looking at it this way makes it clear why Tom Bombadil was supposed to be an enigma for the readers. He’s the dash of magic in our own mundane world. And seeing how we’re wondering who Tom Bombadil really is to this day, with everyone seemingly having their own pet theory, it’s hard not to see him as one of Tolkien’s greatest successes.
However, unlike some other proponents of the enigma explanation for Tom Bombadil, we don’t use it as a way to close the page on the merry fellow. There not being a clear and definitive answer is precisely what, to us, makes Tom Bombadil so worthy of a discussion. When we try to puzzle out who he is, using incomplete information and contradictory sources, he’s fulfilling his role and bringing back magic into our everyday lives.
Over the years, there have been a lot of theories as to the identity of Tom Bombadil. Some of them are widely recognized by Tolkien enthusiasts and are supported by evidence found in The Lord of the Rings books, other supporting works like The Silmarillion, and even some of Tolkien’s personal correspondence. Others are more out-there and are seen mostly as “what-if” jokes. Like the theory that suggests that Tom Bombadil is actually a representation of the reader. Or, one where he’s supposed to be Melkor (also known as Morgoth) – the big bad of the setting and Sauron’s former boss.
Instead of highlighting every single theory, no matter how outlandish, we’ll simply focus on some of the more common and well-supported ones here. But if you’re curious about some of the other theories, you can find a pretty detailed breakdown over at The Lord of the Rings Wiki.
This theory is believed to be first articulated by Robert Foster, the author of The Complete Guide to Middle-earth, back in 1978. In the book’s entry for Tom Bombadil, Foster suggests the following:
Tom Bombadil A being, lord and master of the Old Forest. His race is unknown, although it is possible that he was a Maia ‘gone native’. Certainly his power, knowledge, and joy were great enough.
The Maiar in The Lord of the Rings are essentially primordial spirits created to help the Valar, the setting’s demigods, shape the world. Free to change their shape and with domain over various aspects of nature, the Maiar are a nebulous bunch and it’s not beyond the realm of possibility for one of them to end up as a rhyming forest hermit. After all, even the wizards of the setting are in reality Maia themselves.
While certainly a common belief among Tolkien enthusiasts, the opponents of this theory are quick to point out that it’s not consistent with what we know about either Tom or the Maiar. The biggest blow against it is the fact that all the other Maiar are susceptible to the One Ring and are able to recognize its immense power. Tom Bombadil, on the other hand, is completely immune to it.
Another theory with a lot of history behind it. It was presented by Tolkien scholar Gene Hargrove back in 1986, alongside some intriguing musings about Tom’s nature as a very much intentional enigma, as opposed to an anomaly that can be easily discarded.
This theory builds upon the Maia one but tries to make it fit better into the context of what we know about the One Ring, its origins, and its power. It also takes some cues from another one of the “out-there” theories – that Tom Bombadil is the capital G God. Within the setting that would make him Eru Ilúvatar. This theory is based on a single line in The Fellowship of the Ring where Tom’s wife Goldberry describes him simply as “Tom is.” This, when considered together with Tolkien’s personal Catholic beliefs convinced some people that Tom may be intended as an avatar of the setting’s God. Tolkien categorically denied this interpretation in multiple of his letters (#153, #181).
So while the notion of Tom being God is categorically false, he can still be a god. Or one of the Valar as they’re called in Tolkien’s works. The problem there is that the Valar are a known quantity. We know who they are and how many there are of them. Even in his original essay, Gene Hargrove concludes that Tom Bombadil can only be Aulë (with his wife Goldberry standing in for Yanvanna), the smith-god who created the dwarves.
While this interpretation explains some of Tom’s mysteries, it becomes quite shaky upon further examination. As the chief craftsman of the setting, it makes sense for Aulë to not be affected by Sauron’s creation. However, it makes considerably less sense for a master craftsman to have no interest in such an artifact whatsoever and instead prefer to hang around the woods, talking to trees and badgers. Not exactly peak dwarf behavior, that.
The theory that Tom Bombadil is a nature spirit, whether of the Old Forest or the world of Arda (Middle-earth) itself, is quite compelling. In fact, it’s so common that its precise origins are quite hard to track. Gene Hargrove’s essay linking Tom to Aulë traces it back to Tolkien and His Critics, a collection of essays on The Lord of the Rings put together by Neil D. Isaacs and Rose A. Zimbardo in 1968.
This theory has its roots primarily in Tom’s affinity for natural things, his mastery over the Old Forest, and the discussion in The Council of Elrond chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring. This explanation fits best when Tom’s limitations outlined during the Council of Elrond are taken as immutable truth. However, that whole exchange is filled with contradictions and suggestions that make it clear that those attending the Council may know Tom, but they don’t fully understand him. Their words are not those of the narrator.
Tom Bombadil has the power over the Old Forest, but also the barrow-wights outside it. He may have “withdrawn into a little land, within bounds that he has set, though none can see them, waiting for a change of days, and he will not step beyond them,” but then he very much does step beyond them, both to help the hobbits in the Barrow-Downs and to visit his friend Farmer Maggot.
Opponents of this theory also point out that Tom is explicitly stated to be the oldest and fatherless, and that he remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn. Which leaves us in a chicken-and-egg situation where we have a supposed nature spirit that predates nature.
Now we’re getting to some more modern theories. These tend to dig deep into Tolkien’s legendarium to find the kind of spirit or being Tom can be without falling victim to the shortcomings of other explanations.
This extensive article at lore-master.com goes over the major theories regarding Tom Bombadil before concluding that he simply has to be the embodiment of Airefëa – the Secret Fire or Flame Imperishable. This heavenly power of creation is the exact opposite of the empty Void and is the light that allows for life to exist.
Assuming Tom Bombadil is the Flame Imperishable makes him the direct opposite of Ungoliant and more powerful than it, as he was the spark that pushed back Ungoliant’s Void in the first place. And as we know that Ungoliant is more powerful than Morgoth, who is in turn more powerful than Sauron, it only makes sense why Sauron’s ultimate creation – the One Ring – is a child’s party trick to Tom. Throughout the legendarium, various powers and entities coveted the Flame Imperishable, but none of them could capture it. Which again tracks with how Tom Bombadil is the Master who can’t ever be caught.
The article goes into greater detail about the specifics of this theory and is generally a nice read for anyone looking to attain a greater understanding of Tom Bombadil. If we had to support any theory as the one most likely to be true, this would be it.
This is another relatively recent, but well-founded theory. You can find it described in full on the aptly-named whoistombombadil.blogspot.com blog. Like the previous theory, it comes with a deep examination of the earlier Tom Bombadil theories and should be your go-to if you’re just looking to understand the issue without sifting through tomes of primary sources.
This theory establishes that the setting has room for spirits unaccounted for in the rest of Tolkien’s legendarium who were neither Valar nor Maiar. The blog also pre-addresses some points of potential opposition to its theory, giving it a solid foundation.
The basis of it goes back to the fact that Eru Ilúvatar “communicates that he will give life, through the Flame Imperishable and the Music.” So, in a way, it can be considered a sister theory to the Flame Imperishable one, only now focusing on the Music part of the creation. It builds itself on considering the workings of spirits and how their aspects tend to be linked with their function. And since Tom Bombadil only speaks in rhyme, it’s definitely a theory that has to be given some respect.
Like its sister theory, this one also links Tom Bombadil with Ungoliant, naming the latter the Spirit of the Discord of Melkor. But from exploring the previous theory, we know that Morgoth, or as he’s otherwise known Melkor, needed help from Balrogs when facing Ungoliant. Which means he was the lesser of the two in power. This, to us, makes the previous theory more plausible, but it in no way discounts the Music one entirely.
With all these theories and interpretations, we hope you now understand why being unknowable is Tom Bombadil’s greatest strength. This rhyming merry fellow has been sparking debates and throwing heaps of fuel onto our collective imaginations for close to 100 years now. Giving a straight answer as to who he is and what his goals are would infinitely diminish him.
So, it makes sense why certain directors decided to avoid including him in their adaptations altogether – it would be impossible to do a character like this justice over the course of several quick movie scenes. And it explains why recent attempts to portray Tom Bombadil as just a guy with a clear origin, story arc, and goals tend to fall flat on their face. What do you think? Which theory is your favorite and why?
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