NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/alt/fan/tolkien/1570

Text File | 1992-12-27 | 1.7 KB | 34 lines

Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien
Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!kwadswor
From: [e-mail] (Kevin K Wadsworth)
Subject: Tom Bombadil again
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Keywords: Bombadil
     Hi.  I'm an old Tolkien fan, but am new to this newsgroup and recently
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Nntp-Posting-Host: magnusug.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1992 06:25:06 GMT
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"Tom Bombadil - Maia master of Old Forest.  Tom Bombadil was the Hobbit name
for the powerful and eccentric master of the Old Forest.  Called Iarwain
Ben-adar, which means both 'old' and 'without father' by the Elves, he was
probably a Maia spirit that came to Middle-earth in the Ages of Starlight.  By
the Dwarves he was called Forn, while men knew him as Orald.  He was a very
strange and merry spirit.  He was a short, stout Man, with blue eyes, a red
face and a brown beard.  He wore a blue coat, a tall battered hat with a blue
feather, and yellow boots.  Always singing or speaking in rhymes, he seemed a
nonsensical being, yet within the Old Forest his power was absolute, and no
evil was strong enough to touch him.  His spouse was Goldberry the
River-daughter.  Tom Bombadil played arole inthe Quest of the Ring by twice
rescuing the Hobbits who carried the Ring: first from Old Man Willow in the Old
Forest, and later from the Barrow Wights in the Barrow Downs."

References for this passage are LR I Ch. 6,8; LR II Ch. 6 and
_The_Adventures_of_Tom_Bombadil_ poems 1 & 2

Goldberry is also described as being a possible Maia.

     -Kevin