[ Daily Tolkien ] Love in the trees

Suite 101 ^ | 01-31-2003 | Michael Martinez

[JameRetief]

Love in the trees

Tom Bombadil and the Ents have buried themselves in little niches and it seems there is no digging them up for new discussion. We should try to change that. The most common question asked about Bombadil is, "Why didn't the Ring affect him?" In reality, that question should be, "Why didn't Bombadil want the Ring." There is a difference. I believe the Ring did affect old Tom, at least to the extent that it roused his curiosity and drew his interest long enough that he had to satisfy himself regarding whether he was still his own master.

As for the Ents, about all anyone ever asks is, "Did the Ents find the Entwives?" And it should be noted that Tolkien provided answers for both questions. His readers were so intrigued by Bombadil and the Ents that they inquired about these matters more than once. And yet, I've now come to realize that we have all missed something important concerning both Bombadil and the Ents. I think that, perhaps, even Tolkien himself missed it.

In discussing the symbolic importance of Bombadil, Tolkien wrote to Naomi Mitcheson 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.

Mitcheson read the page-proofs for The Lord of the Rings before the book was published. She was literally the first of Tolkien's fans to ask him questions about the story and its characters. Her questions (and Tolkien's answers) ranged across a broad spectrum of issues. But the part of this letter which is most often cited by modern readers is what I provided above. Tolkien's brief comment on Bombadil's symbolic importance fuels raging infernos regarding Bombadil's overall importance to the book.

And yet, no one ever seems to ask the one question which would be easiest to answer: Was Bombadil happily married to Goldberry? Now, I am sure most people would immediately, "ABSOLUTELY!" What man wouldn't want a wife life Goldberry? For that matter, what woman wouldn't want a wife like Bombadil? Well, okay, maybe he got the better part of the deal. And yet, Bombadil's marriage to Goldberry touches on many issues which have piqued readers' interest through the years.

For example, one criticism often leveled at the story is that it's strictly a boy-tale, filled with guys going off on adventure, fighting terrible monsters, and leaving the girls at home. And yet, the Bombadil adventure only plays out like that in part. While it's true that Goldberry doesn't face down Old Man Willow or the Barrow-wight, she in fact exerts her will over something more terrifying and powerful: Bombadil. And before you snicker derisively, think to yourself whom you'd rather face in a duel: Bombadil, who spits Barrow-wights out before eating breakfast, or the nasty old Barrow-wight who couldn't even prevent Frodo from summoning Bombadil? I'll take the wight any day. At least I'd have a chance to call for help.

The only creature who masters Bombadil, other than Bombadil himself, is Goldberry. She owns him lock, stock, and barrel. When Elrond suggests that perhaps he should have summoned Bombadil to his council in Rivendell, Gandalf objects, pointing out that, "He would not have come." He goes on to explain his view of Bombadil: "Say rather the Ring has no power over him. He is his own master. But he cannot alter the Ring itself, nor break its power over others. And now he is withdrawn into a little land, within bounds that he has set, though none can see them, waiting perhaps for a change of days, and he will not step beyond them."

Why did Bombadil withdraw into his "little land", and when? People have asked those questions many times over. Of course, most readers seem to feel that Bombadil never had the freedom to move across the land, that he must always have lived in or near the Old Forest, since Time itself began (which would be a little too long -- Bombadil only claimed to remember the first raindrop in Middle-earth). Bombadil told Frodo and his companions that he was there when the Elves first passed by on their way to the West, and he was there when the Dark Lord came from Outside (presumably, when Melkor escaped from Valinor and returned to Middle-earth).

But Bombadil doesn't say that he had sat on the same hill for uncounted ages. He merely says he was around when ancient things first happened. He goes on to share considerable knowledge, for example, about the history of Arnor and its successor states, Arthedain, Cardolan, and Rhudaur. Could Bombadil really have learned so much about the Dunedain -- even to the point of recalling the beauty of a Dunadan princess or lady -- had he not traveled around and gotten to know people? And why would Gandalf say "now he is withdrawn into a little land, within bounds thathe has set", if Bombadil had never wandered farther afield than those "bounds he has set, though none can see them"?

Elrond's familiarity with Bombadil is revealed through a brief catalog of names he reveals for the old scalawag: "But I had forgotten Bombadil, if indeed this is still the same that walked the woods and hills long ago, and even then was older than old. Iarwain Ben-adar we called him, oldest and fatherless. But many another name he has since been given by other folk: Forn by the Dwarves, Orald by Northern Men, and other names besides." Well, the histories don't suggest that Dwarves spent any time in the Barrow-downs or the Old Forest, so why would they bother giving a name to Bombadil, unless he had traveled among them at some point?

Bombadil is often described as a free spirit. In fact, before writing The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien referred to Bombadil as "the spirit of the (vanishing) Oxford and Berkshire countryside". Bombadil existed before The Lord of the Rings, having been introduced to an unsuspecting world through a poem published in Oxford Magazine. He originated as a doll owned by one of the Tolkien children, and Bombadil's adventures were merely one collection in a series of collections of adventures Tolkien made up for his children. So Bombadil's pre-LoTR existence is very different from his LoTR existence. He is much less sophisticated and far-ranging, a bit more volatile. He is a classic adventurous young man, running around without a care in the world.

But the emphasis should be put on man when Tolkien incorporates Bombadil into the world of Middle-earth. In The Road to Middle-earth, Tom Shippey dismisses Bombadil as a rather unimportant episode in the story, but then settles upon the most intriguing aspect about Bombadil: "The thing we would like to know about Bombadil is what he is, but this is never asked or answered directly. In chapter 7 Frodo raises the courage to ask who he is, only to receive the answers, from Goldberry, (1) 'He is', (2) 'He is, as you have seen him', (3) 'He is the Master of wood, water and hill', and from Tom himself (4) 'Don't you know my name yet? That's the only answer.'"

After recounting Bombadil's poetic origin and resurrection in the pages of Hobbit adventures, Shippey concludes his introduction to Bombadil by saying, "What he is may not be known, but what he does is dominate." And, indeed, that is precisely what Bombadil does, despite Tolkien's assertion that Tom has foresworn the domination of other wills.

Is Tolkien therefore lying, or is Bombadil not dominating wills? I don't think Tolkien ever intentionally seeks to mislead his readers. For example, notice that Goldberry doesn't claim Bombadil as her Master. He is "the Master of wood, water and hill". That is, Bombadil masters things without wills. But Goldberry points out that he does not rule even the things he has mastered. "That would indeed be a burden", she says. "No one has ever caught old Tom walking in the forest, wading in the water, leaping on the hill-tops under light and shadow," she tells Frodo.

In that respect, Tom is very manly. He is the ultimate woodsman, the true sportsman, if you will, because he always rises to a challenge and always wins, but having won he graciously releases his opponent. He is confident in himself, and that confidence is all he seeks. He exudes confidence and everyone who meets him expresses tremendous faith in him and his ability to resolve any situation. Many months later, just as Shelob is about to pounce on him and Frodo, Sam thinks wistfully of Bombadil:

 

'It's a trap!' said Sam, and he laid his hand upon the hilt of his sword; and as he did so, he thought of the darkness of the barrow whence it came. 'I wish old Tom was near us now!' he thought....

How would Bombadil have fared against the Spider? We'll never know, of course, but most people would probably argue that Shelob would end up Spider Soup for Goldberry's next feast if she and Tom were ever to meet. He knows no fear, and only respects those boundaries he himself has set. And yet, Bombadil acknowledges his limitations. "Tom is not master of Riders from the Black Land far beyond his country," he admonishes the Hobbits when they ask for his continued help on their road. Maybe he is not master of giant spiders, either. Shelob, after all, had her own will -- as the Nazgul once did, even though they now moved under Sauron's will.

Bombadil thus allegorizes many of the things which Tolkien felt were good qualities in a man: he is honest, faithful, a good friend, a loving and devoted husband, and he knows not to exceed his own capabilities. Bombadil is so sure of himself because he has learned all he needs to know about himself. But though he has also learned a great deal about "wood, water and hill" -- enough so that he is their Master -- he is still curious, and still asks questions about things happening beyond his little land.

Bombadil doesn't sit silently in his castle, walling out the world. He is very much aware of what is going on around him. He continues to interact with at least some of his neighbors. In the poem "Bombadil goes boating", he visits Farmer Maggot in the Shire. And though Tolkien decided, while writing The Lord of the Rings, that Bombadil doesn't visit Bree, he knows Bree and he knows something about Barliman Butterbur, "the worthy keeper" of The Prancing Pony inn. Later on, after Bombadil has kept Merry's ponies for a while, word reaches Bombadil of how Butterbur had to pay Merry for those ponies after they were released from the inn's stable. How did Bombadil here that? Someone or something had to tell him, and the most likely source of news must have been an Elf or Ranger.

I think Tom must have gotten on well with the Rangers. Aragorn knew of him, and Bombadil knew of Aragorn (describing Aragorn for the Hobbits in a vision he gave them after freeing them from the barrow). Since the Rangers visited Bree often, and had kept watch over the Shire for many years, they would have had many opportunities to pass through Bombadil's land and exchange news with him. Bombadil, after all, also stayed in touch with Gildor Inglorion, since Gildor asked him to help Frodo on the way out of the Shire.

Bombadil therefore has friends, and he is not a true recluse. He remains interesting and yet powerful. And that may explain why Goldberry married him. In the poem, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, Goldberry tugs on Tom's beard, pulling him into the water and stealing his hat in a very girlish way:

 

There his beard dangled long down into the water: up came Goldberry, the River-woman's daughter; pulled Tom's hanging hair. In he went a-wallowing under the water-lillies, bubbling and a-swallowing.

'Hey, Tom Bombadil! Whither are you going?' said fair Goldberry. 'Bubbles you are blowing, frightening the finny fish and the brown water-rat, startling the dabchicks, and drowning your feather-hat!'

'You bring it back again, there's a pretty maiden!' said Tom Bombadil. 'I do not care for wading. Go down! Sleep again where the pools are shady far below willow-roots, little water-lady!'

Back to her mother's house in the deepest hollow swam young Goldberry. But Tom, he would not follow; on knotted willow-roots he sat in sunny weather, drying his yellow boots and his draggled feather.

This is a classic courtship ritual. The woman does the choosing, and she tests the man to see if she can dominate him. If she can, he fails her test and she's not interested in him. Tom won't play any girlish games, though, and he goes on about his business, dismissing Goldberry as if she doesn't matter to him. So, he passes the test, and later on, at the end of the poem, when Tom comes to take her away, Goldberry is ready to be his wife.

Tom's aloofness is not conceit, though. He is self-confident and knows where he is going and what he is doing. He has his priorities. He may, if a friend asks him to, set aside his own concerns for a while and attend to something else. He does so at Gildor's request, when he keeps an eye out for Frodo and the boys. But Gandalf is quick to point out that Bombadil would be a poor choice as guardian for the One Ring, should the Council of Elrond decide to hide the Ring again from Sauron. Gandalf's fear is that Bombadil won't understand why everyone would want him to keep the Ring, and that Bombadil might eventually forget about it.

Those concerns are entirely in keeping with Tolkien's portrayal of Bombadil as a decisive and focused man. Men can't really be trusted to watch after other people's affairs. They have their own concerns. There is a football game on today. Brother jack will have to wait to move that couch until tomorrow.

The neat thing about Tom and Goldberry is that she is his number one priority. She is safe in his house (as are all who visit there), and secure as long as Tom is around. And Tom won't leave her to face the world alone. He knows that Sauron is chasing the Hobbits. He even seems to know what the One Ring is. But he refuses to leave his land to help them further. It would be a great adventure, to be sure, and Tom would probably learn some new things. But "Tom has his house to mind, and Goldberry is waiting!" he tells the Hobbits.

For her part, Goldberry is the unspoken Mistress. Tolkien is careful never to give her either title or status, but there are clear boundaries between Tom and Goldberry. While it might seem that Goldberry is relegated to traditional roles in the household (washing and cooking), in fact, she is accorded the dignity of making crucial decisions. "This is Goldberry's washing day, and her autumn-cleaning" Bombadil tells the Hobbits. Tom doesn't assign her those duties. She decides when she will do those things.

In the evening, Tom and Goldberry take turns entertaining their guests. She prepares the food they serve together, and she sings songs by the fireside before retiring to bed. Although it is Tom who teaches the Hobbits much about the world's perils, Goldberry doesn't need to learn these lessons. The world outside Tom's door, with its evil-hearted trees and barrow-wights, is a truly dangerous place.

The image Tolkien paints, with Tom and Goldberry graciously providing food and shelter for the Little People, is as familiar to the reader as a family sitting down to dinner. Father Tom and Mother Goldberry are caring for their children together before they are old enough to go out into the world on their own. In fact, when it is time for the Hobbits to depart, and they realize they have forgotten to say farewell to Goldberry, they return to find her on a hill-top:

 

They rode off along a path that wound away from behind the house, and went slanting up towards the north end of the hill-brow under which it sheltered. They had just dismounted to lead their ponies up the last steep slope, when suddenly Frodo stopped.

'Goldberry!' he cried. 'My fair lady, clad all in silver green! We have never said farewell to her, nor seen her since the evening!' He was so distressed that he turned back; but at that moment a clear call came rippling down. There on the hill-brow she stood beckoning to them: her hair was flying loose, and as it caught the sun it shone and shimmered. A light like the glint of water on dewy grass flashed from under her feet as she danced.

They hastened up the last slope, and stood breathless beside her. They bowed, but with a wave of her arm she bade them look round; and they looked out from the hill-top over lands under the morning. It was now as clear and far-seen as it had been veiled and misty when they stood upon the knoll in the Forest, which could now be seen rising pale and green out of the dark trees in the West. In that direction the land rose in wooded ridges, green, yellow, russet under the sun, beyond which lay hidden the valley of the Brandywine. To the South, over the line of the Withywindle, there was a distant glint like pale glass where the Brandywine River made a great loop in the lowlands and flowed away out of the knowledge of the hobbits. Northward beyond the dwindling downs the land ran away in flats and swellings of grey and green and pale earth-colours, until it faded into a featureless and shadowy distance. Eastward the Barrow-downs rose, ridge behind ridge into the morning, and vanished out of eyesight into a guess: it was no more than a guess of blue and a remote white glimmer blending with the hem of the sky, but it spoke to them, out of memory and old tales, of the high and distant mountains.

They took a deep draught of the air, and felt that a skip and a few stout strides would bear them wherever they wished. It seemed fainthearted to go jogging aside over the crumpled skirts of the downs towards the Road, when they should be leaping, as lusty as Tom, over the stepping stones of the hills straight towards the Mountains.

Goldberry spoke to them and recalled their eyes and thoughts. 'Speed now, fair guests!' she said. 'And hold to your purpose! North with the wind in the left eye and a blessing on your footsteps! Make haste while the Sun shines!' And to Frodo she said: 'Farewell, Elf-friend, it was a merry meeting!'

But Frodo found no words to answer. He bowed low, and mounted his pony, and followed by his friends jogged slowly down the gentle slope behind the hill. Tom Bombadil's house and the valley, and the Forest were lost to view. The air grew warmer between the green walls of hillside and hillside, and the scent of turf rose strong and sweet as they breathed. Turning back, when they reached the bottom of the green hollow, they saw Goldberry, now small and slender like a sunlit flower against the sky: she was standing still watching them, and her hands were stretched out towards them. As they looked she gave a clear call, and lifting up her hand she turned and vanished behind the hill.

It is Goldberry who bids the Hobbits farewell, not the other way round. She sends them on their way with words of friendship and encouragement, but the severance is final. The Hobbits have passed through an adolescent adventure which can only lead to an inevitable rite of passage, one in which Tom (the Father) oversees their final transition into metaphorical adulthood. Goldberry (the Mother) has, as much as Tom, prepared the Hobbits to take on the larger world. And the allegory, whether intended or coincidental, of a harmonious family life lays a foundation of solid upbringing. The reader is morally assured that the Hobbits have been raised with the right values: they have been taught to be inquisitive, careful, and resolute. Any time they depart from their chosen path, they will remember Tom and Goldberry in some fashion, much as a child hears a parent's admonishment years later, after doing something the parent had warned the child not to do.

For this metaphor to work, Goldberry must be every bit as much a woman as Tom is a man. That is, she must be beautiful, alluring, warm, passionate, and nurturing. Goldberry is all of these things, and more. She greets the Hobbits from inside her home, where she is surrounded by white water-lillies in bowls. Her dress is green, streaked with silver, and she wears a gold belt. Frodo's first words to her are, "Fair lady Goldberry."

As the Hobbits get know her, they see Goldberry come and go. Sometimes she is there, sometimes she is away, and Tom merely explains she is going about her business. She is therefore a bit mysterious, and she keeps the (male) Hobbits interested by not always being there. Whenever Goldberry enters a room, she takes breaths away. The Hobbits watch her move gracefully about the room without saying a word.

When the dinner is finished, Tom and Goldberry give the Hobbits stools for their feet by the hearth, and Goldberry holds a candle in her hands after putting out most of the lights. She sits by the hearth and sings many songs for her guests. So, she is warm and friendly, very open, but a radiant source of poetic inspiration. Tom, of course, adores Goldberry, and he constantly brings her gifts, and awakens her by singing beneath her window. He may be his own man, but he makes it clear that he is also Goldberry's man. And Goldberry flows through Tom's home and heart like a fresh spring gushing from a mountainside.

In dream symbology, water is a sign of sexuality when it is associated with a beautiful woman. Tolkien carefully associates Goldberry with water, through her naming (as the River-woman's daughter) and Tom's gifts of water-lillies, as well as through her fluid movements, her enchanted dance in the rain, and her speech and idiom. Goldberry is very sensual, but she is reserved and distant. That is, she saves herself for Tom, and doesn't open herself up completely (sexually) for her guests. The reader may wonder how Tom can stay up so long talking with his guests when Goldberry is waiting, but the fact that Goldberry is waiting, and that Tom goes to her at night, shows they are not having any problems with their intimacy.

And finally, Goldberry takes charge of the meals. She selects the menu and announces when the food is ready. She also tries to satisfy Frodo's curiosity about Tom, and to allay the Hobbits' fears. "Let us shut out the night! For you are still afraid, perhaps, of mist and tree-shadows and deep water, and untame things. Fear nothing! For tonight you are under the roof of Tom Bombadil."

Goldberry serves as the mediator between Tom and the Hobbits, just as a mother often serves as a mediator between a father and his children. She opens Tom's house to his guest and bids them farewell. She keeps the house in order and sets the pace at which homelife runs. Things happen when Goldberry decides they should happen, and she and Tom have a very satisfied and fulfilling life together. For they each seek to please the other, and take no thought for their own wants or desires. Each is content.

But now contrast Bombadil's relationship with Goldberry to that between the Ents and the Entwives. The Ents and Entwives grew apart perhaps because the Ents were too aloof and too disinterested in the Entwives' priorities. Whereas Bombadil and Goldberry share a home, equally attending to their guests' needs, dividing the labor and responsibilities carefully, the Entwives eventually lived apart from the Ents.

Treebeard tells Merry and Pippin, in a somewhat wistful fashion, how he used to wander across hundreds of miles of trackless forest from Beleriand to the Anduin. He spent whole seasons in different parts of the northern lands. The Entwives, on the other hand, wanted to live settled, orderly lives. And that orderliness included dominating other things:

 

'It is rather a strange and sad story,' he went on after a pause. 'When the world was young, and the woods were wide and wild, the Ents and the Entwives –- and there were Entmaidens then: ah! the loveliness of Fimbrethil, of Wandlimb the lightfooted, in the days of our youth! -– they walked together and they housed together. But our hearts did not go on growing in the same way: the Ents gave their love to things that they met in the world, and the Entwives gave their thought to other things, for the Ents loved the great trees; and the wild woods, and the slopes of the high hills; and they drank of the mountain-streams, and ate only such fruit as the trees let fall in their path; and they learned of the Elves and spoke with the Trees. But the Entwives gave their minds to the lesser trees, and to the meads in the sunshine beyond the feet of the forests; and they saw the sloe in the thicket, and the wild apple and the cherry blossoming in spring, and the green herbs in the waterlands in summer, and the seeding grasses in the autumn fields. They did not desire to speak with these things; but they wished them to hear and obey what was said to them. The Entwives ordered them to grow according to their wishes, and bear leaf and fruit to their liking; for the Entwives desired order, and plenty, and peace (by which they meant that things should remain where they had set them). So the Entwives made gardens to live in. But we Ents went on wandering, and we only came to the gardens now and again. Then when the Darkness came in the North, the Entwives crossed the Great River, and made new gardens, and tilled new fields, and we saw them more seldom. After the Darkness was overthrown the land of the Entwives blossomed richly, and their fields were full of corn. Many men learned the crafts of the Entwives and honoured them greatly; but we were only a legend to them, a secret in the heart of the forest. Yet here we still are, while all the gardens of the Entwives are wasted: Men call them the Brown Lands now.

Whereas the Ents viewed themselves as only gentle shepherds of the trees, the Entwives believed they could improve the things among which they lived. Those trees favored by the Entwives -- apple trees, orange trees -- became domesticated, growing in orchards. The Entwives practiced agriculture as the Ents practiced a semi-nomadic forestry. Much like the classic history of strife between steppe nomads and the sedentary European or Chinese civilizations, the Ents and Entwives pursued different priorities. The Entwives, in fact, succumbed to the same desires as the Elves: desiring "order, and plenty, and peace (by which they meant that things should remain where they had set them)".

The Entwives became too dominant, too assertive. The Ents had to visit the Entwives. The Entwives turned their thoughts away from the ancient forests from whence they came. The Ents, in turn, shunned the open lands the Entwives sought out. The end result proved to be disastrous for the race. The Ents were nowhere to be found when Sauron's armies overran the Entwives. Of their fate, Tolkien can only sadly speculate that "the Entwives had disappeared for good, being destroyed with their gardens in the War of the Last Alliance (Second Age 3429-3441) when Sauron pursued a scorched earth policy and burned their land against the advance of the Allies down the Anduin..."

Unlike Goldberry, the Entwives refused to be submissive to their mates. Unlike Bombadil, the Ents refused to be dominant. Each gender became so used to living without the other that it was many years after the Entwives' lands were overrun before the Ents discovered their loss. They were too late to save their race.

And while some might infer from the loss of the Entwives that Tolkien advocated a domestic role for wives, it was, in fact, the need for domestication which led to the Entwives' undoing. They wanted everything to be fixed and permanent in just such a way that the Ents could not bear to live with them. Goldberry, at least, puts up with Bombadil's constant wandering across the landscape, so long as he comes home to her at night.

Both Bombadil and the Ents wield great power. The Ents can destroy vast fortresses, change the course of rivers, and alter the landscape by leading their herds of trees (or Huorns) to new "pastures". Bombadil's power is not so clearly revealed to the reader, but he works more subtly. Although the Ents command the trees and Huorns, Bombadil opposes domineering wills (such as that of the Old Willow) only sufficiently to ensure that everything remains safe and in harmony.

Both Bombadil and the Ents accumulate knowledge, but whereas Tolkien describes Bombadil in terms of "Botany and Zoology (as sciences) and Poetry as opposed to Cattle-breeding and Agriculture and practicality", the Ents (and Entwives) almost possess the exactly contrasting attributes: the Ents are treeherders, the Entwives are agriculturalists, and whereas Bombadil creates new poetry, the Ents are content only to preserve it.

If the differences between the relationships can be summed up in one word, it would have to be risk-taking; that is, both Bombadil and Goldberry risk something by allowing each other certain freedoms. The Ents and Entwives, on the other hand, were unwilling or unable to compromise on their needs and desires, and so ultimately they divorced each other. Such rejection would be unnatural in Tolkien's very Catholic point of view. To abandon the marriage would be a disgraceful, even sinful thing. More importantly, it removes all hope of nurturing the relationship and children from the home. There is no balance, no harmony, and the outcome of such a division is disastrous for all concerned.

Bombadil and Goldberry live right beside the Old Forest, but not inside of it. They are free to pass under the trees, but they can also roam the open hills. The Ents imprisoned themselves within the bounds of their receding woodlands, while the Entwives refused to leave the comfort (and false safety) of their highlands. Bombadil and Goldberry experience the best of both worlds, whereas the Ents and Entwives polarized their worlds.

When Gandalf takes his leave of the Hobbits, turning aside to visit Bombadil, he says, "He is a moss-gatherer, and I have been a stone doomed to rolling." Bombadil's rolling days are over. He has done what the Ents could not: settle down. Goldberry, for her part, has done what the Entwives could not: accept a place in her husband's world.

While I wouldn't advise anyone to go out and model their lives on Tom and Goldberry, their marriage nonetheless represents all that is best of relationships in Tolkien's worldview. In fact, Bombadil represents Tolkien's mythology: he is ancient, with a great history that touches upon others, but he has achieved a maturity in his old age which is stable and allows him to flourish. In the end, Bombadil will outlive the Ents because despite his moss-gathering ways, he remains flexible enough to make whatever changes are needed in his life. He is vibrant and young-at-heart. He has no regrets, and never looks back. Bombadil and Goldberry are making new memories.

All that remains for the Ents, as one-by-one they fall into long, permanent sleep, is the memory of the lives they had once shared with the Entwives.

Author: Michael Martinez
Published on: January 31, 2003
Michael Martinez is the author of Visualizing Middle-earth

[JameRetief]

The Daily Tolkien articles by various authors	The Tolkien Virgin articles by Mark-Edmond
ARTICLES 01-10	ARTICLES 01-10
ARTICLES 11-20	11) Of the Sindar
ARTICLES 21-30
ARTICLES 31-40
41) Love in the Trees

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Wow, what a romantic view of Bombadil!

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