Tom Bombadil Is the Load-bearing Krusty the Clown Poster of Middle-Earth
On the surface, Tom Bombadil seems to be the most ridiculous, parenthetical character in all of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. However, in a way that I imagine Tolkien found rather humorous, in taking a closer look, Tom Bombadil becomes the load-bearing Krusty the Clown poster of the entire story. Without him, the whole tale falls apart.
I’d always been intimidated by Tolkien’s sprawling Legendarium. When I tried to read the Silmarillion, I gave up when I couldn’t keep straight all the ages of the world, the races of elves, the endless wars, and all the complicated relationships. Nevertheless, I found it intriguing enough that when I found some good Youtube channels that told the history of Middle-earth in a visually engaging, narrative fashion, I gorged myself on the lot of it (Shout-out to In Deep Geek and Nerd of the Rings). Now, coming back to read The Lord of the Rings for the first time in ten years, I’m discovering I have a much deeper appreciation for the books. Every hill and ruin has a story, every snarky aside or offhand remark has a reason behind it.
Unlike the dwarves of Khazad-dûm, I won’t delve too deep into these granular details here, and much of what I’m about to write is not “official” canon from Tolkien scholars, merely my observations. But I wanted to remark on what I feel is the notable contradiction that is Tom Bombadil. It seems to me that he doesn’t belong in this world and he knows it, yet, paradoxically, Tolkien intended his part in the story to be utterly critical, both from a storyteller's and a thematic point of view: without him, there’s a much greater chance the fellowship’s quest would have faltered and Sauron would have prevailed.
tom was here before the middle and the earth
I won’t waste time detailing who Tom Bombadil is. I imagine most people reading this will have some familiarity. Ostensibly, he’s the first person the hobbits meet upon leaving the Shire, an energetic “woodsman” in a blue coat and yellow boots who lives with his lady, Goldberry, in the Old Forest. Obviously, seeing Tom rescues the hobbits from Old Man Willow, he is a figure of some power.
The hobbits stay with Tom Bombadil for a couple of days, then Tolkien has Frodo, after the hobbits nervously listen to Tom tell crazy stories by the fire all day, ask with all the tact of a poor child actor: “Who are you, master?”
To which Tom replies:
“Don’t you know my name yet? That’s the only answer … 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 first 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.”
I find this passage really interesting for two, almost conflicting reasons.
First, as I’m coming back to the books now knowing more about the history of Middle-earth, I understand the references Tom is dropping here. Some authors write long world-building infodumps outlining their cosmology. Tolkien takes a different tack: he assigns all that responsibility to a groggy lunatic in a blue coat and yellow boots.
What Tom is really relating here is the history of the Middle-earth in reverse:
“Eldest, that’s what I am … I made paths before the invention of Men, and I saw the dwarves/hobbits arriving. I was here before the kingdom of Arnor, and their war against Angmar and the Witch King. When the Elves were invented and many of them went west to Valinor (the Undying Lands), I was already here, *before Eru (God) sank the island of Numenor so no Men could ever go to Valinor, and made the world round. I knew the darkness before Melkor (Sauron’s boss) showed up.”
*the world being made round could go a little earlier, as it sorta breaks the timeline, but it stands well enough.
Considering Melkor helped create the world, that’s like Tolkien’s saying Melkor arrived 8 a.m. Monday morning on opening day to start his first shift as “the devil” and found Tom Bombadil already minding the store.
But secondly, I find this part interesting as I think it’s Tolkien sharing a joke with the reader. Tolkien has a wry, academic sense of humor that he often hides in the story. For instance, if you do a deep dive into many of his character names, you could take the opinion that a few of them are low-key jokes. “Theoden” could be translated to “leader of people,” and thus his name is “King King.” “Shelob” translates into something like “she” + “spider.” And there’s many more examples. Tolkien was surprised by his own success, and was probably thinking, Who’s gonna know? It’s only my silly fantasy story nobody’s gonna read, right?
It seems to me that Tolkien has the same sense of humor about Tom Bombadil. When Tom says he’s the “Eldest” and “Tom was here before the river and the trees; Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn,” I think what Tolkien really has Tom saying is…
“My poem was published in 1934, before any of this existed.”
Though his book of poems wouldn’t get fleshed out and published until the 1960s, Tom Bombadil was one of Tolkien’s first creations from Middle-earth, concurrent with him starting the Silmarillion and The Hobbit in the 1930s. In fact, his physical appearance was based off of a “Dutch doll” owned by his son, Michael (1920-1984). About his inclusion in the story, in his letters Tolkien said Tom already existed and he put him in the early book as he wanted to include an “adventure (Letter 153, 1954).”
Much speculation has been made about Tom Bombadil’s place in Tolkien’s cosmology. Is he a Valar, one of the “gods” who “sang” the world into being and who still resides in Valinor? Is he a lesser “angel” Maia, like Gandalf or Sauron? Or is he a kind of nature spirit?
Technically, Tolkien likely did intend him as some sort of nature spirit—Goldberry, after all, is likely literally the spirit of the river Tom lives by—but Tolkien also probably wrote Tom into The Lord of the Rings as a lark because he liked the character, had him on hand, and needed a story beat. Hence, when the One Ring doesn’t have any effect on Tom Bombadil … of course it doesn’t: Tom Bombadil isn’t truly a part of this story.
A Dutch doll, or a peg wooden doll, of the sort Tom Bombadil was reportedly based on, which had a feather in its hat. (J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography. London, England: Allen & Unwin. p. 165.)
But for a guy who I’m saying knows he doesn’t belong in this story, Tom Bombadil sure does a lot of heavy lifting, storywise. He has another role to fill in the book aside from being an adventurous aside. He links disparate facets of the story together — the whimsical outset of the story with the more mature epic fantasy the story evolves into — both tonally and narratively.
ring a dong tone
The Hobbit is steadfastly aimed at a younger audience, and the start of The Fellowship of the Ring picks up tonally where The Hobbit leaves off. It’s light, airy; the hobbits are whimsical, even childlike sometimes. Even the “Black Riders”—the dread, undead wraiths under the thrall of the Dark Lord—are described as politely knocking on doors inquiring about Bagginses. As the story steadily “matures,” two books later these same Black Riders are grievous villains with melancholy histories, and the whimsical hobbits are at turns lying insensate on blood-soaked battlefields, or dying of exhaustion, thirst, and exposure in a dread, black wasteland.
It’s into this early, whimsical start of the story that Tolkien introduces Tom Bombadil. He would be out of place later, in Mordor, or battling on the Pelennor Fields. The villain Bombadil rescues our heroes from is not a dark wraith but Old Man Willow, a mean tree that lulls our erstwhile heroes to sleep so it can capture them like a Venus flytrap. In this section of the story, if there were, say, talking animals in the style of children’s books contemporary to The Hobbit, they wouldn’t feel entirely out of place.
When the hobbits leave Tom’s house, he warns them to avoid the Barrow Downs. Nevertheless, the hobbits, in cheeky, kids-book fashion, wander into the Barrow Downs anyway, stop for a nap, and quickly get captured by a Barrow Wight—a spooky, undead zombie, like a draugr from Skyrim (and Norse mythology). Tom rescues them again, and this time arms them with weapons from the barrow—the burial mound.
The first time Tom rescues them, from Old Man Willow, has a more fun, folkloric tone, and afterwards they spend a couple days eating and drinking to their hearts’ content in a magical fairy-like house. The second time Tom has to rescue them feels more like a near miss—they didn’t look both ways before crossing the street—and Tom becomes concerned, like he’s afraid they’ll wander out into traffic if he doesn’t take them by the hand. He’s almost annoyed they were so reckless. To me, this feels like an early transition point in the tone of the story, hinting at the “maturation” of the story to come. Tom hands them swords like he’s trying to say,
“This isn’t a kid’s book anymore, my friends. You have to take this seriously. You’re going to war.”
hey dol narrativo
The hobbits carry on to Bree, meet Strider (Aragorn), and are pursued by the Black Riders, who they confront at Weathertop. One of the Black Riders stabs Frodo and it’s revealed the Black Riders are dark wraiths (Nazgul) with spooky kingly raiments underneath real black cloaks—i.e.: they are the nine kings of men forever bound to the One Ring. Much later in the story, during the Battle of Pelannor Fields, Merry stabs the Witch King, the lord of the Nazgul, in the leg while Eowyn of Rohan stabs him in the face, killing him, therein helping to turn the tide of the battle, and perhaps the war.
How Tom Bombadil is relevant to this late part of the story relates to the Barrow Downs and the Witch King. There’s a historical narrative lying just beneath the surface that binds the light and airy outset of the story with the darker, more mature conclusion.
Here’s where we dial up the nerd factor.
The Shire is in the middle of what used to be the kingdom of Arnor, sister kingdom to Gondor. A thousand years ago, after the war against Sauron, the Witch King, who ruled the northern kingdom of Angmar—the same Witch King who stabs Frodo atop Weathertop—attacked and destroyed Arnor. Refugees holed up in the Barrow Downs, where they had traditionally laid their kings to rest. To root them out and despoil the land, the Witch King conjured wights to inhabit the barrows of their dead kings.
Fast forward a thousand years to the Dark Riders knocking on doors in the Shire with their pamphlets, asking folks if they’ve heard the good word about their dark lord and savior, Sauron. He is risen! The Witch King, hoping to waylay the hobbits, gives those same Barrow Wights a waking nudge, so that they’re alert and grouchy when our heroes come trudging past.
And here’s where we get to the relevant Tom the Bomb-a-dil details.
The weapons Tom Bombadil hands the hobbits aren’t just good for cutting steaks. Buried with a prince of Arnor, they’re blades forged specifically to fight the Witch King and his evil minions. These are the blades the hobbits then carry through the story, and thus, months later, when Merry jabs the Witch King on the battlefield, he’s not poking him with just any old sword, but a weapon forged and spelled to break the Witch King’s magical protections. There’s no other weapon on the battlefield that day which could harm the Witch King. Without his protections, Eowyn can then stab His Wraithness in his stupid ghostly face and make it hurt.
You have to put a few clues together to get the most out of this passage.
I found it interesting how a seemingly innocuous moment quite early in the books is so immensely important later on. And not only that, it’s barely noted. Tolkien, in his usual brevity, gives a mere few words regarding the spells on the blade, because one doesn’t need to know the history of the blade to appreciate what’s happening on the battlefield; it’s still beautifully written and captivating. Nevertheless, the current action, the history, and an understanding of how it was established much earlier in the book, is masterfully woven together so that there’s the surface meaning for a compelling story, and another layer that adds depth and weight to the brief events. This is especially elegant as it also ties in with Tolkien’s larger theme of “evil will eventually defeat itself,” as the blade that kills the Witch King would have stayed buried if the wights he’d conjured hadn’t captured the hobbits in the first place. These elements interweave in surprising ways that I personally find satisfying, and it’s Tom Bombadil who does the weaving.
I’ve either read or edited innumerable books where the story’s background is important but it is not “lived in.” I could make an analogy to older movie-making techniques: the background is a matte painting; the background is a rear-screen projection—they add believability and context but the characters can’t touch or interact with it. Not so with Tolkien. Every stone and leaf has a story. How the characters interact with them often is the story. One could argue that this level of detail isn’t necessary, and, ostensibly, that’s true, yet I’m gratified that this level of detail exists for those who wish to seek it out.
Because seeking it out is exactly what I did. Before then, I wasn’t really a big booster of Tom Bombadil. I liked him and found him intriguing, yet from a storytelling perspective I thought he was kinda redundant, a drag on the early book. Oh, how I was wrong. In doing a deeper dive into Tolkien’s larger tale, I’ve enjoyed how intricately so many of the story details knit together, I’m amused that Tolkien included a character he liked that he’d based on his kid’s action figure, and I’m impressed at the gall Tolkien had at resting the entire weight of his world upon this maniac’s shoulders—this lunatic dancing in a blue jacket and yellow boots who knows he’s not even supposed to be a part of this story.
The joke’s on me though, as Tom bears the weight well.
