If I Only Had a Bombadil

I promised the people on Xenite.Org’s Middle-earth mailing list that I’d write something about Bombadil this week. So, let me start out by saying that the recent revelation that a second “X-Men” DvD may be produced with extra scenes for the first movie has gotten me to thinking. Maybe Peter Jackson can do a Bombadil segment after all.

Not that I want to start getting up everyone’s hopes. Nor do I want to inspire any more petitions. Principal photography is about to wrap up in a couple more weeks and, yes, they will do some extra filming afterwards, but Jackson seemed to make it clear long ago he didn’t think Bombadil is important to the story. So what incentive does he have to do a Bombadil sequence for an anticipated “Fellowship of the Ring” DvD?

Well, let’s dispense with all this “faithful to Tolkien” themism and consider that a Bombadil sequence would afford Jackson an opportunity to extend his vision of Middle-earth to include the Old Forest and the Barrow-downs. Regardless of who howls and gnashes their teeth over the absence of Tolkien’s beloved spirit of the vanishing Oxford countryside, the Old Forest and the Barrow-downs themselves are vital parts of the literary story. The Old Forest, like Sam’s revelation of a walking tree in the Northfarthing, prepares the reader for the Ents and Huorns later on in the literary story. I suppose one could ask if there is any need to prepare the viewing audience for walking trees. I dunno. We already have some vague idea of how the story ends. Why bother preparing us for that with films 1 and 2?

The Barrow-downs is a more complicated episode. In the literary story Gandalf noted that this was the most dangerous escapade Frodo experienced on his journey to Rivendell. People often wonder how this could be (well, in my email they do — just like they wonder if that walking tree was an Ent, and no, sorry, I don’t know). Why is the Barrow-wight a worse evil than the Nazgul at Weathertop? I would say that’s because the Wight actually had Frodo and the Ring in its power. The Nazgul went in with a half-baked plan to stab Frodo and turn him into a wraith. Of course, they had to make it up as they went along. Strider (Aragorn) had thrown them for a loop, and it was only a guess that he would head there. Undoubtedly when they found Gandalf there days before (and I’m talking about the literary story right now) they were reassured that their guess was correct. That’s why five of the boys sat around watching the road.

My guess is that the Nazgul always intended to stab Frodo. If Khamul had found him in Hobbiton he probably would have come back after dark and nabbed our dear Hobbit. How else should they have been able to take him back to Mordor anyway? Regardless of what Peter Jackson’s story reveals, or how closely it follows the book in this respect, the Nazgul are going to have to come across like terrifying and dangerous creatures. The audience has to feel somehow that if Jackson’s Nazgul were to get Jackson’s Frodo, they’d haul him back to Mordor. So, one must ask the question, would including the Barrow-wight diminish the effect of the Nazgul?

Something we learn from Bombadil is that the Barrow-wights were sent by the Lord of the Nazgul to infest the mounds of Tyrn Gorthad. Okay, what the reader is told is that “A shadow came out of dark places far away, and the bones were stirred in the mounds.” Where is the mention of the Lord of the Nazgul? Well, Appendix A says “It was at this time [1636, the year of the Great Plague] that an end came to the Dunedain of Cardolan, and evil spirits out of Angmar and Rhudaur entered into the deserted mounds and dwelt there.”

Okay, all one need do is turn to the Appendix to see where the Wights came from. Of course, the reader doesn’t know to do that during “In the House of Tom Bombadil”, and movies don’t have appendices (but DvDs can).

Bombadil basically recounts the entire history of Arnor from its founding up to its fall. So much is lost on the reader, and I believe this is intentional. I think Tolkien wanted to slip the history lesson past us so that when Aragorn whips out his broken sword at Imladris and Elrond recounts his lineage the reader can be surprised without feeling cheated. It’s not like we weren’t warned about that. In “Fog on the Barrow-downs” Bombadil continued the history lesson after rescuing the Hobbits:

‘Old knives are long enough as swords for hobbit-people,’ he said. ‘Sharp blades are good to have, if Shire-folk go walking east, south, or far away into dark and danger.’ Then he told them that these blades were forged many long years ago by Men of Westernesse: they were foes of the Dark Lord, but they were overcome by the evil king of Carn Dum in the Land of Angmar.

‘Few now remember them,’ Tom murmured, ‘yet still some go wandering, sons of forgotten kings walking in loneliness, guarding from evil things folk that are heedless.’

The hobbits did not understand his words, but as he spoke they had a vision as it were of a great expanse of years behind them, like a vast shadowy plain over which there strode shapes of Men, tall and grim with bright swords, and last came one with a star on his brow. Then the vision faded, and they were back in the sunlight world. It was time to start again. They made ready, packing their bags and lading their ponies. Their new weapons they hung on their leather belts under their jackets, feeling them very awkward, and wondering if they would be of any use. Fighting had not before occurred to any of them as one of the adventures in which their flight would land them.

This passage is very important to the story of the Ringbearers for several reasons. First of all, it represents a rite-of-passage for Frodo and his companions. They have just emerged from the Barrow-wight’s lair, but they have also learned that they will be responsible for getting themselves out of future scrapes. They cannot count on meeting friends like Bombadil along the way (and he had, in fact, been asked to keep an eye out for them by Gildor and the Elves).

Secondly, Bombadil is reinforcing his history lesson here, but though Tolkien reveals a little more this time the history is still vague. Bombadil is also reinforcing Gandalf’s history lesson from “The Shadow of the Past”, however. There, after revealing the fiery letters Sauron had etched into his One Ring millennia before, Gandalf told Frodo that the Ring had once been taken from Sauron.

…’The strength of the Elves to resist [Sauron] was greater long ago; and not all Men were estranged from them. The Men of Westernesse came to their aid. That is a chapter of ancient history which it might be good to recall; for there was sorrow then too, and gathering dark, but great valour, and great deeds that were not wholly vain. One day, perhaps, I will tell you all the tale, or you shall hear it told in full by one who knows it best.

Gandalf’s “one who knows it best” is undoubtedly Elrond, but Bombadil knows part of the tale and he shares what he knows with an inattentive Frodo (and inattentive readers).

A third reason for why the sword-giving pasage is very important is that it gives us our first glimpse of Aragorn. Well, our second, really. Gandalf has already mentioned Aragorn — named him fully — in “The Shadow of the Past”. But that discussion is long forgotten by now, and Frodo doesn’t remember the name of Aragorn. Nor do most readers, it seems. And Bombadil and Aragorn seem to know each other quite well, but Bombadil doesn’t reveal Aragorn’s identity. He only prepares the Hobbits to meet him. I believe that Bombadil’s vision of Aragorn’s family line implants a certain sense of trustworthiness in the Hobbits. Maybe it only takes root in Frodo, but that is sufficient.

Bombadil in fact plants other seeds in Frodo. For example, the second night the Hobbits stay in Bombadil’s house, Frodo dreams of “sweet singing running in his mind: a song that seemed to come like a pale light behind a grey curtain, and growing stronger to turn the veil all to glass and silver, until at least it was rolled back, and a far green country opened before him under a swift sunrise.”

Frodo’s dream concerns Valinor, and his eventual passage over Sea. Frodo suddenly wakes up and there Tom is, outside the window, whistling. On the first night in Bombadil’s house Frodo dreams of Gandalf, trapped in Isengard; Pippin dreams of the Old Willow; and Merry dreams of water spreading all round Bombadil’s house. Merry’s dream seems to be a foreshadowing of the Black Breath. Pippin’s dream might just as easily be a foreshadowing of his and Merry’s eventual encounter with the Ents. Frodo’s dream is simply a prophetic revelation of events which have befallen his friend and counsellor. It’s a warning, perhaps, to all three that grave danger lies ahead of them.

When Bombadil tells the Hobbits they will need swords if they travel east or south, they don’t seem to understand that he is foretelling their journey for them. They are deaf and dumb to all his wisdom, and really pay little heed to it, though his words seem to enrapture them. Bombadil in fact has a deceptively reassuring effect on the Hobbits. They feel safe with him, but he doesn’t necessarily feel they will be safe if they remain with him. He is no master of the Nazgul, whom he knows come from Mordor. And he is no master of the One Ring, which cannot master him, either. But he cannot stand between Frodo and his destiny, nor forestall the inevitable.

In discussing the symbolic importance of Bombadil Tolkien writes in Letter 144:

Bombadil is not an important person — to the narrative. I suppose he has some importance as a ‘comment’. I mean, I do not really write like that: he is just an invention (who first appeared in the Oxford Magazine about 1933), and he represents something that I feel important, though I would not be prepared to analyze the feeling precisely. I would not, however, have left him in, if he did not have some kind of function. I might put it this way. The story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad side, beauty against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against kingship, moderated freedom with consent against compulsion that has long lost any object save mere power, and so on; but both sides in some degree, conservative or destructive, want a measure of control. But if you have, as it were taken ‘a vow of poverty’, renounced control, and take your delight in things for themselves without reference to yourself, watching, observing, and to some extent knowing, then the question of the rights and wrongs of power and control might become utterly meaningless to you, and the means of power quite valueless. It is a natural pacifist view, which always arises in the mind when there is a war. But the view of Rivendell seems to be that it is an excellent thing to have represented, but that there are in fact things with which it cannot cope; and upon which its existence nonetheless depends. Ultimately only the victory of the West will allow Bombadil to continue, or even to survive. Nothing would be left for him in the world of Sauron.

He has no connection in my mind with the Entwives. What had happened to them is not resolved in this book. He is in a way the answer to them in the sense that he is almost the opposite, being say, Botany and Zoology (as sciences) and Poetry as opposed to Cattle-breeding and Agriculture and Practicality.

This is one of the most often-cited and most misunderstood passages in all of Tolkien’s writings, when it comes to discussing Bombadil. All too frequently people cite the first sentence and stop reading with the period: “Tom Bombadil is not an important person — to the narrative.” One need only read a few sentences further to see that Tolkien is not speaking about the plot of the story, or the progression of Frodo’s adventure: “…he represents something that I feel important….” And a little further on: “The story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad side, beauty against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against kingship, moderated freedom with consent against compulsion.” Bombadil is the “natural pacifist view” who has “renounced control” when “both sides…want a measure of control.”

How can someone who is “not important…to the narrative” also represent “something [the author feels] important”? That makes no sense, except when presented as discussion of what the story is about, not of what the plot of the story is. The story is about “tyranny against kingship”. Tom is neither a tyrant nor a king because he has “renounced control”. So J.R.R. Tolkien never suggested that Tom Bombadil was not an important part of the story. Quite the contrary, he “would not have left [Bombadil] in, if he did not have some kind of function.”

What is that function which Tolkien felt was so important? In Letter 153 Tolkien wrote:

I don’t think Tom needs philosophizing about, and is not improved by it. But many have found him an odd or indeed discordant ingredient. In historical fact I put him in because I had already ‘invented’ him independently (he first appeared in the Oxford Magazine) and wanted an ‘adventure’ on the way. But I kept him in, and as he was, because he represents certain things otherwise left out. I do not mean him to be an allegory — or I should not have given him so particular, individual, and ridiculous a name — but ‘allegory’ is the only mode of exhibiting certain functions: he is then an ‘allegory’, or an exemplar, a particular embodying of pure (real) natural science: the spirit that desires knowledge of other things, their history and nature, because they are ‘other’ and wholly independent of the inquiring mind, a spirit coeval with the knowledge: Zoology and Botany not Cattle-breeding or Agriculture. Even the Elves hardly show this: they are primarily artists. Also T.B. exhibits another point in his attitude to the Ring, and its failure to affect him. You must concentrate on some part, probably relatively small, of the World (Universe), whether to tell a tale, however long, or to learn anything however fundamental — and therefore much will from that ‘point of view’ be left out, distorted on the circumference, or seem a discordant oddity. The power of the Ring over all concerned, even the Wizards or Emissaries, is not a delusion — but it is not the whole picture, even of the state and content of that part of the Universe.

To Tolkien, therefore, Bombadil represents a symbolic part of the whole, necessary and vital to the completeness of the World. Without Bombadil Middle-earth is not what Tolkien intends it to be. Bombadil may seem playful and goofy, but he is a guardian and mentor to the Hobbits. He restrains the Old Forest, which had once attacked the Hobbits (and Merry notes when he leads the others into the Old Forest that “something makes paths. Whenever one comes inside one finds open tracks….” And Bombadil also watches over the Bree-folk, whose land is very close to the Barrow-downs, and who might be threatened by the Wights were they not held in check. And Bombadil also preserves the knowledge of Aragorn’s people, and he interacts with them and with the Elves. He recalls the beauty of an ancient Numenorean lady of Cardolan, and takes her brooch for Goldberry so they can honor her, and he fulfills Gildor’s request to help Frodo and the Hobbits on their journey.

Well, that hardly makes the case for including Bombadil in a DvD. It’s easier to make a case for including Bombadil in the whole story. After all, Tolkien included him. And Bombadil’s resonances are felt throughout the book, all the way to “The Grey Havens”. The story would have to be substantially altered to get rid of Bombadil. Let’s recap the key scenes where his influence is felt:

1. The barrow-blades. These are the most obvious impact that Bombadil has on the storyline itself. The barrow-blades are significant in scenes at Weathertop, the Ford of Bruinen, the Chamber of Mazarbul, Parth Galen, the Hornburg, Minas Tirith, Cirith Ungol, the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, and the Battle of the Morannon.
   
2. The Ents. People seem to forget completely that part of Treebeard’s conversations with Merry and Pippin concerned Bombadil and the Old Forest. In fact, Merry and Pippin discuss the Old Forest with Treebeard as he takes them to Wellinghall.
   
3. Aragorn. Aragorn doesn’t just overhear Bombadil’s last conversation with Frodo and the lads, he fulfills Bombadil’s prophecy. Bombadil is the bridge between Gandalf’s all-too-brief history lesson and Bilbo’s verse in Gandalf’s letter, which ends with “the crownless again shall be king.” The clues are there for the reader to put together. Bombadil is staying abreast of events. And his knowledge of the Ring matches Gildor’s. It seems everyone knows about the Ring, but no one bothered to mention that fact to Frodo.
   
4. Gandalf. Bombadil and Gandalf have a history, and when Gandalf brings the Hobbits home he turns off to visit Bombadil. It’s a convenient means of getting rid of the Wizard so that the Hobbits can take care of their own problems at home.
   
5. The Grey Havens. Frodo is given a glimpse of what lies before him in Bombadil’s house. Bombadil represents hope in the darkness.
   
6. The Barrow-wight. Although the Wight never returns to trouble Frodo, it is his first serious exercise in asserting his own will. Frodo gradually becomes a different person because of his resistance to the Ring, but his development in that respect begins with the Wight.
   
7. The ponies. This is the least important part of the story, but Bombadil eventually hears about the problems in Bree and he sends the ponies to Barliman Butterburr. (Out of curiosity: from whom did Bombadil get the news about events in Bree?)
   
8. The Old Forest and the Barrow-downs. When I began writing this piece, I mentioned that including the Old Forest and the Barrow-downs would afford Peter Jackson an opportunity to show more of Middle-earth. Why not show us the Old Forest? It isn’t just about trees that move around, you know. It’s a piece of Hobbit culture. In particular, it’s part of what makes the Buckland the Buckland. Hobbits in the Shire don’t have to maintain a High Hay to keep the trees out. Shirefolk say the Bucklanders are strange, different. And to a Hobbiton Hobbit, the Bucklanders are different. And then there are the Barrow-downs. This is the only region of Eriador where Aragorn’s people once lived that we actually get to see any Numenorean ruins. Weathertop doesn’t count. That’s supposed to be just a ring of stones on a hill-top, an old fortress.

But Bombadil is important in other ways as well. It is Bombadil who shows that the Ring cannot master everyone, and if it cannot master everyone then there is reason to hope that Frodo can withstand its influence for at least a while. He has to struggle with the Ring more and more as he gets closer to Mordor, but the Ring only wins in the final struggle, as Frodo stands before Sammath Naur. Even so, when Frodo succumbs to the Ring’s influence in Bree and at Weathertop the reader is reminded that Frodo, too, has his limits. He is not as powerful as Bombadil, not as sure of himself as Bombadil. Bombadil is a catalyst who sets up the conflict between Frodo and the Ring in a way that Gandalf cannot. Gandalf is himself afraid of the Ring. Tom isn’t.

The step from Buckland to Bree may seem rather simple, but in terms of advancing the story Bombadil provides the means for Frodo to sidestep the net which has been laid for him. The full scope of the search for the Ring is only made apparent in Unfinished Tales, where we are told that the Lord of the Nazgul is responsible for waking the Willow and arousing the Barrow-wights. Recall that when Tom first meets the Hobbits he is surprised to learn that the Willow is awake and active. “You let them out again, Old Man Willow! What be you a-thinking-of? You should not be waking. Eat earth! Dig deep! Drink water! Go to sleep! Bombadil is talking!”

The Willow and Wight are important to the plot because they help underscore just how perilous Frodo’s escape from the Shire really is. He is no longer safe anywhere, as Gildor points out. The Nazgul have found his home in Hobbiton, they are tracking him through the Shire, and they are on horseback. How are four Hobbits supposed to outrun four Nazgul on horseback? They can’t. So getting the Hobbits from the Shire to Bree forces a hard choice upon the screenwriters. The escape has to be acceptable, and it can’t drag on. The most oft-cited reason for not including Bombadil in the movie is that there simply isn’t time to include everything. Quite true. Yet if Bombadil is dropped that means that the plot has to be altered, or else a gap left in the storyline.

At one point Peter Jackson suggested perhaps he would leave in the gap, and just have the Hobbits scoot out of the Shire and show up at Bree. The audience would be free to infer whatever they wished about that. I’ve always liked this approach. And it would gel nicely with added scenes on a DvD that take up the slack.

If, on the other hand, the Hobbits are shown eluding the Nazgul quickly and easily (say, by sliding down an embankment in a possible homage to the Ralph Bakshi movie), then Bombadil’s role is assigned less importance. The Nazgul look weak and flimsy if all one has to do is duck down a hillside, but there is still Weathertop and the Ford of Bruinen.

I suppose in the final analysis what it really comes down to is how much the story has been changed from the book. Removing Bombadil surgically is simply impossible. You either leave in a lot of stuff which goes unexplained (such as the Hobbits’ swords) or you change the story to eliminate the discrepancies. Hence, the Barrow-blades are nonsensically given to the Hobbits by Aragorn (he would never do such a thing, but that is purportedly what the two-film script was going to do, and some people are guessing this is still what happens in “The Fellowship of the Ring”).

The biggest problem with having Aragorn give four magic swords to untrained Hobbits is that he still wanders around the landscape with a broken blade in his sheath. On the one hand, that makes him look pretty stupid. On the other hand, that makes him look very confident. And if Aragorn and the Hobbits just stumble across some old barrow where swords await them (ala “Conan the Barbarian”), well, you’re changing the story.

However the barrow-blades are handled, removing Bombadil forces other changes in the story. But then the point of the movies is to tell the journey of the Ringbearers, not to document Bombadil’s every silly song. We already know that Arwen has a larger role in the movies (although so far she doesn’t seem to have much of a role at all — she doesn’t accompany the Fellowship as some people feared, and very few spy reports have identified her in any scenes). The larger role for Arwen means that some other things have been changed.

And then we have a very strong suspicion that Saruman dies at the end of the second film. And the Uruk-Hai are no longer Orcs, they are pod-born creatures who emerge with plate-armor.

Okay, the point is, the story has already been changed. Maybe it’s too late to save Bombadil and add him into a DvD version. Or, maybe, just maybe, Peter Jackson has held back a surprise and he’ll do just that.

One of the greatest scenes in “The Wizard of Oz” movie (in my humble opinion) is the Jitterbug sequence. What’s that? You don’t remember the Jitterbug sequence? I’m not surprised. It was cut from the movie. But not everything connected to the scene was cut. When the Wicked Witch of the West sends the flying monkeys to capture Dorothy and Toto, she tells their leader, “They won’t give you any trouble! I’ve sent a little bug ahead to take the fight out of them.”

For about 23 years I wondered what the heck that line was referring to. And then I bought the fiftieth anniversary commemorative video. Mamma mia! What fantastic footage was revealed on that tape. And, sadly, the notes which accompanied the tape revealed that other scenes had been filmed and lost. The Jitterbug sequence only survives because the choreographer made a home movie of it (fortunately, he used color film). So, you not only get to see Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Burt Lahr, and Jack Haley doing the Jitterbug, you also see one of the tree operators (yes, the Jitter Trees in the Haunted Forest had people inside them) coming out for a breath of fresh air.

Sadly, we never actually get to see the Jitterbug, although it was there in the original movie as an animated pink and blue insect. And the dance number required five months of rehearsals and filming. The deletion of this scene was a crime against all film-making.

“The Wizard of Oz” is a great movie, and one of my all-time favorites. It’s almost nothing like the book. Well, there’s a tornado, and Toto too. People can enjoy both the book and the movie (I loved the book when I read it). Or not. But we can also hope the “Lord of the Rings” DvD collection offers at least as much extra magic as the Wizard’s 50th anniversary video. Because, you know, Bombadil is important to the story no matter how much it gets changed. He is.

This article was originally published on November 10, 2000.

See also:

• Why Do You Say Tom Bombadil was Affected by the One Ring?
• Why Is Bombadil Always Left Out?
• Why Did Peter Jackson Leave Out Tom Bombadil?
• What is Tom Bombadil?

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