/lit/ - Literature

I'm rereading the Lord of the Rings, and I got to the part where Tom Bombadil appears, and I got an idea about his nature.

He doesn't actually exists.

You see, the Lord of the Rings is meant to be Tolkien's translation of the Red Book of Westmarch, itself the copy of a copy of a book that was written years after the events it describes. It's not supposed to be a literal account, but a myth, a legend.

We know from real history how myths distorts actual facts. The battle of Roncesvalles was a skirmish between Franks and Basques, but in medieval romance it became an epic struggle between Christians and Muslims. Alexander the Great was a Greek conqueror in Persia, but in medieval romance his role is greatly expanded and a lot of adventures are add to his history. Not to mention characters that are invented out of thin air like King Arthur.

Tolkien was harking back to this tradition, the Lord of the Rings is meant to be read like this, and what does it mean for characters like Tom Bombadil? Well, just like in medieval legends, shit got interpolated. We know that Tom Bombadil is a character of Hobbit folklore, so it's not hard to see a later scribe including his story in earlier chapters when he was sure no one would be able to call out his bullshit (it's harder to interpolate on later chapters when there is so much that can be independently verified by outside sources).

So his interpolator included Hobbit folklore about Tom Bombadil, the Old Forest and the barrow-wights to spice out the narrative between their departure of the Shire and their arrival at Bree, because he thought it would be fun, then Tolkien translated it and it got included in the Lord of the Rings, and now everyone is discussing if Tom Bombadil was God or not, because he was so out of place.

PS: I know that Bombadil was mentioned in later chapters, in the Council of Elrond and Many Partings, but these can be interpolations too. Notice that by the time the Red Book was written, there was no one who could say that anything added to these parts of the narrative was bullshit, because everyone who was present at the council of Elrond or at the journey back from the Quest of the Ring was either dead or departed from Middle-Earth.

I think I've finally solved the enigma of Tom Bombadil in the Lord of the Rings. He never actually existed in the first place, it was just Hobbit folklore being interpolated into the Red Book of Westmarch by later scribes.

The key to understanding this is to know that Tolkien wasn't giving an actual account of facts as they happened in the War of the Ring with his book. It was supposed to be a translation of the Red Book of Westmarch, itself a copy of a copy of a book written decades after the original events took place. Things get added in stories after all this time, we know it from real history. The Battle of Roncesvalles went from a minor skirmish between Franks and Basques to a epic struggle between Christian and Muslims in the "chansons de geste", in medieval Romance, a lot of mythological feats are attributed to Alexander the Great, and this was taken as history, and so on.

So when Tolkien writes the LotR/Silmarillion, he is actually writing mythological accounts of unknown (to us) events. That's why silly things like people turning into birds and swords talking "happen", because they are legends about the past.

So I can imagine some Hobbit scribe copying the Red Book, thinking that the part between the Hobbits leaving the Shire and arriving at Bree was too boring, realizing that no one would notice if he bullshitted a lot about it (easier than to interpolated something about the Battles in the Fields of Pelennor, that could be verified independently with other sources), so he adds a lot of adventures related to Hobbit folklore about the Old Forest, Tom Bombadil and the barrow-wights. And this gets included in Tolkien's account, to general confusion (as he would have liked).

Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo!
Ring a dong! hop along! Fal lal the willow!
Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo!

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