Tom Bombadil

[unseenu]

This is really weird I was thinking about tom bombadil on my way home and I come back and see this thread.Perhaps I'm developing a telepathic ability to pick up what's happening on this forum.

Harcore Bombadil fans may enjoy his theme tune:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo-0pTQs3YY&feature=related

Tom is one of those beings of supreme power who only seems to use it for being eccentric,but mess with him and you are doomed.I suppose he's a bit like the Doctor in that respect.

[Tonyblack]

This is really weird I was thinking about tom bombadil on my way home and I come back and see this thread.Perhaps I'm developing a telepathic ability to pick up what's happening on this forum.

Be afraid!!!!

[deldaisy]

I think that in Tom Tolkien has a cameo in the book.

I really like this theory. Tolkien as a bumbling, all singing, all dancing, eccentric hero in his own work.

Smashing idea and one I hadn't even thought of. I know little of Tolkien to be honest.

Is it just me that likes to find out about authors when I read a book thats important to me (and believe me sometimes you don't want to know... Asimov?????? !!!!!). My Dad taught me: "Consider the source!" (Now that I think of it.... he DID have a thing for condiments )

[Jan Van Quirm]

Tolkien did put a lot of himself into Bombadil WarlKicken - he loved hiking in the forests and mountains in Switzerland in his youth (in fact Ransome, the hero of CS Lewis' Cosmic Trilogy, was based on Tolkien, most especially the spiritual side of him) and he also loved his baccy and beer and knew a fair bit about mushrooms too... There was another member on here who speculated on whether he was supposed to be Tolkien or some kind of creator figure in the pantheon of Arda.

I think the Tolkien theory is the correct one in overview because there's been a lot of scholarly discussion about Tolkien in his academic life as well as the wealth of documentation and archives on Ea (the cosmos of LotR and Middle Earth which is supposedly a time/reality shift of the antediluvian Solar System and this Roundworld galaxy) that he left behind and that his son Christopher has been trying to tidy up ever since his death in the early 1970s. He's on record as saying the TB isn't any of the Ainur - the god-angels of Ea or Eru Iluvatur their creator and All-Father of the Universe and that TB was on Arda (the whole of the Earth) before any other living being or spirit entered it... so who else could it be? He never confirmed it one way or the other anyway, but he did base many characters in his he books on people he knew, most famously of his wife, whom he idolised, and transformed her into Luthien Tinuviel, half elf, half angel and the most beautiful being ever born on Arda (Arwen and Aragorn were both descended from her by various routes).

He sounded such a nice old chap, very thorough and attentive to detail and I think that he and Terry would likely have got on together pretty well - they certainly have the same widely read tastes and inclinations and aren't averse to bars and holding court

[high eight]

Tom Bombadil nees a ruddy good slapping. For misrepresenting English folk music and dance to generations of readers if for nothing else.

Oh, and for dressing like a tw*t.

[Jan Van Quirm]

No arguments there high eight (nice to see you about again ) but to be fair there are far more 'English' nuances there just with the hobbits than there were with him - he was always obviously and completely weird, even to the Elves

[high eight]

Oh, I realise that, Jan (And curses on Peter Jackson's head for making Merry and Pippin Scottish, or Irish, or whatever they were) - It's just that a lot of people think that English (as opposed to Celtic) folk song is all "fol-de-rol" and "yo-ho-and-up-we-throw" and Morris dancing is all bells and hankies

And I think that Tom Bomba-merry-down-ruddy-dillo is at least partly responsible for that. I'd love to know if it was intentional on Tolkein's part and, if so, was it from ingorance? Did he really think he was paying tribute to traditional song?

[Jan Van Quirm]

I admit I loathe the fal-lal-lal-lally and ring-a-ding-dillo's way too much and TBH as a poet he generally sucks like a Dyson unless he sticks to heroic rhyming couplets or saga structures.

I don't think he meant it to be taken as English culture as such because the overriding sources of his theming for language was mainly Welsh (for the Sindarin language of the Elves), some Saxon and Goth derivatives for the Mordorian languages and Fenno-Scandinavian myth for the cultural motifs and the rest is kind of mish-mash of faux fairy-tale really (things like Rapunzel for Luthien Tinuviel with her hair and ogre tales) and the more Celtic Arthurian (wild Merlin) and Atlantean motifs (drowning Beleriand and Numenor). I'm pretty sure that he used Aiken Drum as a model for TB as well, rather than the camper Morris dancing traditions

[spideyGirl]

O... and Morris dancing is all bells and hankies

It is though isn't it?

I also heard it was used to disguise the practicing fighting moves of rebels from the powers at be by looking like it was harmless dancing? A martial art of some sort

[Tonyblack]

You mean a bit like THIS?

[Penfold]

And maybe like THIS?

[Who's Wee Dug]

Eee by gum lad.

[high eight]

No, more like THIS - do that dance wrong and your crops will wither (and not just your crops)


Then again, there is this close relative of The Stick and Bucket Dance - The Beer Tray Dance.

[Jan Van Quirm]

Indeed - Terry has it absolutely right with the Lancre Morris Men in L&L. 'Tis all about keeping the evil spirits from interfering with the natural rythyms of country life and ensuring the good health and proper growth of crops and livestock. The blacked up faces in the Witchmen's dance is traditional in that part of the country to symbolise demons and possibly originated in the Southwest amongst the mining communities in Cornwall even before the Roman occupation with the tin trade in the Med and in Morocco (also later with the reverse slave trade where Moorish/Barbary pirates used to raid and take slaves from the south coast of England, which is probably when/where the black 'demon' aspect crept in... )

Some of the Morris dances are also tied in with the Mummers and the earlier 'mystery' plays which featured things like the Hobby Horse and Doctor/Witches which also source back to the Celtic festivals and mythology though tricked out in pseudo-christian themes like George and the Dragon Morris dancing is not cissy in other words

[high eight]

Indeed - Terry has it absolutely right with the Lancre Morris Men in L&L. 'Tis all about keeping the evil spirits from interfering with the natural rythyms of country life and ensuring the good health and proper growth of crops and livestock. The blacked up faces in the Witchmen's dance is traditional in that part of the country to symbolise demons and possibly originated in the Southwest amongst the mining communities in Cornwall even before the Roman occupation with the tin trade in the Med and in Morocco (also later with the reverse slave trade where Moorish/Barbary pirates used to raid and take slaves from the south coast of England, which is probably when/where the black 'demon' aspect crept in... )

Some of the Morris dances are also tied in with the Mummers and the earlier 'mystery' plays which featured things like the Hobby Horse and Doctor/Witches which also source back to the Celtic festivals and mythology though tricked out in pseudo-christian themes like George and the Dragon Morris dancing is not cissy in other words

The blackened faces were also a disguise - a lot of mischief went on (One side used to take a plough around to the squire's hall and if he didn't give them any money they used to plough up his lawn!) and it was useful to be difficult to recognise.

Singer/songwriter and story teller Bob Pegg live at the Ilkley Festival 1976, singing his song about mummers: 'Rise Up Jock'