There are some fabulous, exclusive pieces up for grabs – including some things which, usually, money can’t buy! Time is running out on some of our auctions too, so best check them out now. Here are just three that might tickle your fancy:

Tauriel Poster signed by its artist David Powell / Rosie the Riveter

Autographed by David Powell, Senior Designer of Badali Jewelry and lifelong Tolkien fan.  Powell is the designer and original artist of this new Hobbit-inspired poster of Elf Warrior Tauriel.  Her pose resembles the WWII American propaganda poster Rosie the Riveter reflecting the power of the female worker at war time.  Measures at 18×24 inches.

Tauriel Poster signed by David Powell Auction

Hobbit Canvas Tote Swag Book Bag SIGNED BY Dwalin & Bifur

PICTURES OF AUTOGRAPHS ADDED

This canvas book bag/tote/swag bag is signed in purple sharpie by Dwarves Dwalin (Graham McTavish) and Bifur (William Kircher) at 2013 DragonCon for TORn’s Fundraiser. This NEW autographed tote sports the picture of the Misty Mountains drawn by JRR Tolkien for the 1937 cover of his (then) new book, The Hobbit.

Made by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt publishers, the bag is durable, measures at 14″ high x 12″ wide, and is not available at stores.

The winner may have to endure a bit of a delay in this UNIQUE bag’s shipment as it is still at DragonCon in Atlanta, GA with our TORn reps. They still have a long journey home after the Convention.

Signed Hobbit Tote Bag Auction

Children of Hurin Bookmarks signed by Dwalin

PICTURE OF AUTOGRAPH ADDED Discoloration is from the lighting when picture was taken.

Unavailable for sale, this limited special-edition Bookmark accompanied the 500 1st editions of JRR Tolkien’s The Children of Hurin at the special 2007 release in NYC. These 500 editions contained a bookplate with the signatures of Christopher Tolkien (editor) and Alan Lee (artist). This auction is only for one of those unique Bookmarks (NOT for the book).

This Bookmark is even MORE special now with an autograph by Graham McTavish (Dwalin) for TORn’s Fundraiser while at 2013 DragonCon.

The winner may have to endure a bit of a delay in shipment as it is still at DragonCon with our TORn reps. They still have a long journey home after the Convention.

Signed Children of Hurin Bookmark Auction

Or click here to check out all our auctions!

Members are eagerly watching the number of members at the top of the Message Boards as we inch closer and closer to our 10,000 member.  Membership is currently at 9,999, will you be number 10,000?

On the Main board this week, Ethel Duath continues to develop the fictional country of Tolkienia.

Whilst in the Reading Room, Rembrethil is leading us in discussing the Akallabeth.

On The Hobbit board Semper Fi is sharing their displeasure over the depiction of Bard the Bowman.

And in Off Topic Ethel Duath was shocked to discover she’d wandered onto Valinor.

We’ll share more topics next week. We hope you’ll come and join in the conversations!  Don’t forget, TheOneRing.net’s message boards has nearly 10,000 registered Tolkien fans, just like you.  Let your voice be heard!

If you like what we do, and would like to see your Tolkien community keep growing and growing, consider making a contribution to our Pledge Drive. Every bit helps defray our costs!

I’ve also been reading other what others have had to say in the media. This piece, by Tolkien scholar John Garth, is a good place to start if you’re interested.

Early in The Fall of Arthur, long awaited by fans of J.R.R. Tolkien and now edited for publication by his son Christopher, an army rides to Mirkwood where they see in a storm above it, Ringwraith-like:

wan horsemen     wild in windy clouds
grey and monstrous     grimly riding
shadow-helmed to war,     shapes disastrous.

But this isn’t Middle-earth: it is Europe on the brink of the Dark Ages, and the army is led by Arthur and Gawain. Mirkwood is simply the old name for Germany’s eastern forests, which Tolkien borrowed for the children’s story he was writing in the same period in the early 1930s, The Hobbit.

Tolkien was a writer of endless stories. And as with most of them, The Fall of Arthur is literally endless: unfinished. It’s been lying among his vast legacy of papers, almost unknown but for a paragraph in Humphrey Carpenter’s 1976 biography and a single reference in Tolkien’s published letters. Publication follows that of the more difficult The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún in 2009, which Christopher Tolkien probably elected to publish first because it was complete. Like Sigurd and Gudrún, The Fall of Arthur is in alliterative verse, a mode last fashionable in the 14th century.

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“The only way he knows how to resolve conflict is with those damn Eagles,” is one of the most persistent complaints about Tolkien. “They’re such a deus ex machina,” the complainer will add if he wants to make it absolutely clear that he went to college.

As a storyteller, Tolkien was no flailing amateur, hurling his characters into conflicts that he could not extract them from. Whether or not you like his style of resolution, it was quite intentional. He even coined a word – “eucatastrophe” – to refer to this type of sudden deliverance, which he detailed in his essay “On Fairy Stories”:

The consolation of fairy stories…the sudden joyous “turn” (for there is no true end to any fairy tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially “escapist,” nor “fugitive.” In its fairy-tale or otherworld setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.

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The day-to-day operation of the website, and the events we host, require a lot more resources than when we first started nearly 15 years ago. We sometimes find it hard to ask our readers for the help we need to keep running, so we began discussing what it is that makes TheOneRing.net worth helping out. It started out as a search for the Top Ten Moments of TORn, but the list got so long because each staff member had their own idea of important moments in TORn history. Here, instead, is something more encompassing: Ten Ways TORn helps serve Tolkien and Lord of the Rings fandom (listed in no specific order).

And, if you enjoy what we do, consider a donation (no amount too small, because every bit does help!) to keep us running!

If you can’t, that’s fine as well — keep reading, commenting and contributing. Because TORn is as much you as it is us!

If you’ve ever sent in an article, submitted a photo or report, posted on our messageboards, visited our chat, or commented on our twitter, facebook or g+, you’re the reason TheOneRing.net is among the largest and most-respected pillars of the Tolkien community on the web.

• Spy Reports

• Spy reports were a big part of our content when the website first started. From casting announcements to secret location pictures to leaked images of important plot points, spy reports were our bread and butter stories. Some of the reports were from random, anonymous sources, while others were official leaks from cast and crew. In fact, there were many production members who said they used TheOneRing.net to keep track of what some of the other filming units were doing. Other spy reports were just someone stumbling upon a film location and sending in a story or images and then we’d all try and guess what location it actually was. Some of our biggest spy reports were of Arwen at Helm’s Deep (which subsequently didn’t happen), Saruman’s prone body on a spiky wheel (which did happen), and TheOneRing.net was given the honor of introducing Thorin to the world. And very soon, we will be seeing stories from MrCere’s visit to the set from his Production Embed last year.

• Hall of Fire Chats and the Message Boards

• Literary discussions on the message boards and Hall of Fire chats – From the very beginning of TheOneRing.net, discussions of the books, chapter by chapter, has been a hallmark. After all, while we waited for news on who would be cast, where filming would take place, and rumors of what might be cut out, we had the books to talk about. Discussions worked by talking about one chapter at a time, and luckily, there are enough books with enough chapters, to keep those discussions going on for a long while. Since the beginning, we’ve looped through the books several times, but luckily, there are always new readers joining the discussion, and new interpretations to be had. And for something a little more dynamic, there are the Hall of Fire chats in Barlimans. Sometimes the talk is about a specific chapter, or a certain character, and sometimes it is about current events, such as new character images or reviews of a recently released trailer. No matter which forum you use, there is always someone to talk to about some aspect of Tolkien, the books or our fandom.

• TORns Live Videos

• We began with TORn Live, which consisted of Red Carpet interviews at premieres, awards ceremonies and special events like Cannes 2001 and SDCC. These would be recorded, edited and released online a few days or weeks later. But technology now allows for live streaming interviews and vlogs and the like. Quickbeam hosts a weekly TORn Tuesday event with interviews and discussions, while he interacts with a live chatroom. The Happy Hobbit ladies record and post their vlogs and post them within a day or two of their recordings, for a much quicker turnaround on video content. And right now we have the Road to DragonCon in full swing with live streaming from across the country.

• Conventions

• Convention appearances – Calisuri and Quickbeam hosted a panel at San Diego Comic Con in 2001, before the release of FOTR, and since then barely a year has gone by that TORn hasn’t had a presence at at least one convention. At many of the conventions we appear at we also have a presence on the exhibit hall floor where we have sold some of our classic TORn shirts. We love it when we get up on stage for a panel and half the people in the audience are wearing some of our older shirts.

•  

  

  Baggins Birthday Party sign

  Line Parties and Fan Events

• Line Parties and other fan hosted events – TheOneRing.net has always been a grass roots type of fan-site and that is no more apparent then looking at the Line Parties of years past. Whether it is just a few friends, or some hundreds of people signing up on the website to attend, fans like you all over the world hosted Line Parties. A few even took place over several days, and included costume contests and trivia games for prizes. Other fan hosted events over the years have been the Hobbit Day/Baggins Birthday Bash events on Sept. 22, the Tolkien Toast on Jan. 3 and the Tolkien Reading Day on March 25. TORn staff in Los Angeles have been hosting a Baggins Birthday Bash party for 11 years now, but there are fan groups around the world that have hosted similar events. Smaller moots happen around the world all the time, there is a very active group in Wellington and one in Croatia. If you are hosting a fan event in the next year or two, please feel free to tell us about it.

• The Oscar Parties

• Originally conceived as a fan event to help raise funds to buy TORn a new server, who could have imagined the Cast and Crew actually showing up to the FOTR oscar party? Even more surprising, who could have imagined the ROTK sweep and all those Oscars on stage at a fan hosted party?

• O.R.C and E.L.F.

• TheOneRing.net hosted conventions – The One Ring Celebration on the West Coast (O.R.C.) and the Eastern Lord of the Rings Festival on the East Coast (E.L.F.) were co-productions with a professional convention company, but they definitely had a TORn stamp on them. The conventions allowed us to combine our love of the films by interacting with cast and crew with our love of the books through academic discussions, the art shows and costume displays. We really did break the mold on how a commercial scifi convention is run and hope everyone who attended had a blast.

• Academic essays and editorials

• TORn has long standing relationships with many in the academic community who have posted guest essays and editorials. Over the year several staffers have posted in depth analysis to fan questions on the site as well. In fact, we have a whole section on the ‘old TORn’ (pre-crash) called Green Books for academic posts. This section had so much good stuff in it, we published a book called “The People’s Guide to J.R.R. Tolkien” and a sequel book as well.

• Driving fan initiatives

• After Return of the King was done and Peter Jackson moved on to do King Kong, the fans waited to see what would happen with The Hobbit afterwards. Months turned to years and still no word while studios went bankrupt, copyrights issues got tangled up and various lawsuits were filed for missing payments. Finally, a few fans decided they had had enough and started a petition to ‘Make the Hobbit Happen’. They brought it to TORn and we got thousands of you to sign so that a big pile of names was delivered to TPTB. A similar thing happened when there was talk that the production would be moved out of New Zealand. The fans could see no where else as Middle-earth, so the ‘Keep the Hobbit in NZ’ campaign was born, but this time on Social Media. And most recently, there was an explosion of Tolkien fan love over the #Votebilbo twitter event prompted by an MTV Audience Award.

• TORn Community

• This list compiles many of the things that TheOneRing.net does to keep you informed, entertained and engaged, but there is really just one thing that makes TheOneRing.net so important to keep around. And that is the community of fans that convene on our message boards, in Barliman’s chat, on Facebook and Twitter.

This site was built by fans getting together to discuss what they hoped for from Peter Jackson long before FOTR ever saw the light of day. The fact that a long existing fan-base gathered here meant engaged and informed discussion began from day one, including analyzing all the spy reports about casting and location details. We didn’t have to wait for the release of the films, or for several episodes of a new show to take off before we could discuss the minutia of every detail because our fan base was already well established.

And what is ‘fandom’ if not a community of like minded people passionate about the same thing. Sure, everyone has their own opinions, so every time a new image was released, or a new trailer appeared, the message boards and chatroom erupted into heated discussions. But as the years wore on friendships were made, some turning into marriage, and we all began meeting up at various moots, conventions, concerts, premiere events, trips to New Zealand or just coffee and a movie. How many of you newer fans were galvanized by the #Votebilbo campaign and now have a wider array of Twitter friends because of it? The fact that TORn was able to continue to exist during all those lean years between film productions is due mostly to you, the readers, sticking around to discuss anything and everything to do with Tolkien, and sometimes other bits of pop culture. We know that after the release of The Hobbit: There and Back Again we will see another decline of readership, but we also know that the community is strong, the friendships have been forged and all of you take that fandom with you where ever you go next.

So again, if you are so inclined to help support us and keep the website going, please do make a pledge or bid on one of the many cool auction items we’ve been posting about the past few days. On behalf of the All Volunteer Staff at TheOneRing.net, you have our deepest gratitude for all the support over the years.

We have some fabulous, exclusive pieces up for grabs – including some things which, usually, money can’t buy! Here’s just three that might tickle your fancy:

From the Sideshow Collectibles’ line of ‘The Lord of the Rings’, The Morgul Lord/ Witch-king of Angmar is the Lord of the Nazgûl and Sauron’s greatest servant. Sculpted with the mace and sword used in his faceoff with Éowyn of Rohan. Released in 2004, this piece is individually painted and finished.
This item is BRAND NEW in the original manufacturer’s box with all the original accessories.

Witch King of Angmar Statue Auction

Here’s a chance to own a UNIQUE, ORIGINAL piece of artwork by several world renowned Tolkien artists. This one of a kind 36″ x 12″ stretched, this unframed canvas panel is signed by many of the artists who participated in ‘An Unexpected Art Show’.

Presented by TheOneRing.net, ‘An Unexpected Art Show’ was a one night only gallery exhibit held Oscars weekend on February 22, 2013 in Hollywood, California. The show featured artists around the world who are inspired and influenced by J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth,”The Hobbit”, and “The Lord of the Rings”.

Acclaimed artists Tim Kirk, Donato Giancola, and Jerry Vanderselt signed and drew on this canvas for TheOneRing.net. Eleven other artists who attended the show also signed the canvas including LEGO artists OneLug, graphic artist Nancy Steinman, stained-glass artist Christie Wood, and more. Own this truly unique piece of artwork from this spectacular TORn event!

Unexpected Art Show Artwork Auction

The Book of Lost Tales was the first major work of imagination by J.R.R. Tolkien, begun in 1916-17 when he was twenty-five years old. It stands at the beginning of the entire conception of Middle-earth and Valinor, for these tales were the first form of the myths and legends that came to be called The Silmarillion. Picture is of the actual edition.

The Book of Lost Tales Volume 1 Auction

On the Main board this week, Ethel Duath invited us all to create an anthem for the fictional country of Tolkenia.

Whilst in the Reading Room, noWizardme wants to know which Tolkien book character would you have lunch with, and why? 

The Hobbit board is buzzing over why we haven’t seen any major images of Bolg, Dain or Beorn (apart from the blurry Sonic Hedgehog image of Beorn and a toy of Bolg).

In Off Topic we’ve been checking up on our friends in the Wellington area after the big earthquake last week.

And in the Pollantir, Maciliel wants to know how many books we have in our personal libraries.

We’ll share more topics next week. We hope you’ll come and join in the conversations!  Don’t forget, TheOneRing.net’s message boards have over 9,950 registered Tolkien fans, just like you.  Let your voice be heard!

If you have a Tolkien/Middle-earth inspired poem you’d like to share then send it to poetry@theonering.net

From The Dark
By Valiril Erquentien

The moon and sky is ever dark and leaf and stone create the marks
Upon the shadowed face as the call comes from the grave
But fear and horror take their holds, and forgotten is hope like dust in wind
The horn blows and all is silenced, when heavy footsteps tread the path

To Mordor, Sauron’s forge glimmering like a poisoned spear amongst the clouds
When broken bones and the bleeding dead is left a wandering road to rot
And to carpet the Dark Lord’s footsteps, as death and screams echo round
His evil crown shining dark and tattered cloak billowing in the foul wind

But forgotten hope comes riding in, shining bright amongst darkness dim
And the sword is broken and the Ring is dropped into dust shining gold
It should have ended that very day, to drop in molten rock bubbling with red
But no it lived to this day, to bring little folk from out the secret place

When smallest things make the change
From the dark evil looms menacing
But brave hearts and shining souls
Make the wandering path fair.

About the poet

My name is Dionne Lo, but I have an Elvish name,Valiril. I’m Singaporean, young and still in school.
I discovered Tolkien quite a long time ago, actually. I got bored, dug around in my older brother’s bookcase, looking for a book, preferably a huge thick one to take up all of my time. After finding Lord of The Rings, I discovered There and Back Again and then…the holiest of Tolkien’s writings (At least I thought it was.), Quenta Silmarillion, or The Silmarillion.
Aside from being glued to my laptop and books, I draw, sing, write, sleep and eat. I don’t really do much of drawing and writing, I eat more then I sing (And I sing a lot.) and sleep as often as time allows. I picked up on poetry quite recently and started to write quite a few. My first was ‘From the Dark’, a poem about the Last Alliance.

If you have a Tolkien/Middle-earth inspired poem you’d like to share then send it to poetry@theonering.net

Yes, we can all agree that’s fairly old.

However, if you’re interested in Norse myth, Shippey’s thoughts on Tolkien’s parallels with other early fantasists such as William Morris, Lord Dunsany and E.R. Eddison, as well as what he thought of meeting Tolkien himself, then you’ll find (like I did) this a worthwhile read.

Chat Session with Pr. Tom Shippey

Pieter Collier: Welcome Mr Shippey

Tom Shippey: Hi everyone, I’m still figuring out how this works but it’s coming…

Pieter Collier: Welcome Mr Shippey to the release party of the new Tolkien book! We will let you figure out everything first before start asking you questions!

Tom Shippey: I think I’m Ok to answer now, would anyone like to fire away.

Pieter Collier: Have you had a chance to read the Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun? What do you think of it?

Tom Shippey: Yes, I’ve read it – got a proof copy. It is about 80 years old and this shows in the language.

Rafael Juan Pascual: how does your academic background relate to the myths told in the legend of Sigurd and Gudrun?

Tom Shippey: a bit sideways – I’ve always been interested in Norse and Eddic poetry, and have published on it, but it hasn’t been a major topic for me. For one thing, I’ve never done time in Iceland, which you need for a proper grasp of the language

Trotter: Did Tolkien spend any time in Iceland?

Tom Shippey: no, I don’t think he did, though he did have Icelandic connections – through William Morris’s daughter, oddly enough.

Stephen Davis: As a Tolkien scholar, as well as having a heavy interest and background in Germanic and Northern European cultures and myths, particularly where they have influenced Tolkien’s life and work, how excited are you about the publication of Tolkien’s Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun in print? Indeed, how long have you awaited such a thing personally, given what you’ve known for so long about its impact on aspects of Tolkien’s legendarium?

Tom Shippey: well, we’ve known about the existence of these poems since the publication of the Letters, in 1981, and I’ve always felt they were the unpublished pieces I most wanted to read. It’s going to take a while to take it all in and see what difference it makes to our general understanding of the legends – and what has long been called the königsproblem, the main problem of Germanic philology.

[Read Full Transcript]

Join TheOneRing.net as we share ‘The Hobbit’ with schools to encourage literacy.

TheOneRing.net is raising money to send copies of J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic, ‘The Hobbit,’ to schools . In a time when education funding is on the decline, books like ‘The Hobbit’ are simply not purchased for children on a regular basis. As a result, those students are not introduced to the wonderful world of J.R.R. Tolkien, a world we have all learned to love and appreciate.

Today, we are honored to use our extensive international reach to announce the S.H.I.R.E. Project, a real world initiative to help improve the reading skills of children worldwide. The S.H.I.R.E. Project stands for Sharing the Hobbit to Improve REading.

Through helping Schools and Teachers get copies of The Hobbit, and other works of J.R.R. Tolkien, we can hope to expand the world of Tolkien to new readers and improve the reading skills of the world’s youth at the same time.

The first Teacher we want to help is Derek Wright who teaches at Alpharetta High School in Fulton County Georgia. Derek wants to help spread the love of Tolkien to his students, love of fantasy, and help improve the reading of his students. He needs 120 copies of The Hobbit to do this. So we’re calling on all of you to help us help Derek in his goals as a first year teacher.

Please help donate via this PayPal button to get Derek and his students those books. We are looking to raise $1000 to make this purchase. Please consider a donation of $10 or more! Thank you in advance and look for an update from us when we reach our goal!

Tom Bombadil – Master and Mystery

By Tedoras

            Mention the name of Tom Bombadil around Tolkien fans and you are likely to spark a debate: a debate which, in Tolkien fandom, remains one of the most controversial and longest-argued of them all. This is perhaps because even the most fundamental questions surrounding Tom Bombadil are hard to answer; certainly, he is the most enigmatic character in The Lord of the Rings. Because of his uncanny nature, Tom Bombadil remains unique among all of Tolkien’s characters: as readers, we have the same understanding of him today as readers did when they first discovered him—that is to say, while scholarly works on Aragorn and Frodo abound, we are no closer to uncovering the true Tom Bombadil today than we were almost sixty years ago. In writing this article, I hope to accomplish a few goals: first, to present a thorough character study of Tom Bombadil (i.e. to lay out what we know); second, to discuss the main or popular theories in the debate (i.e. to lay out what we think); and third, to draw a conclusion (or, rather, an inference) as to the true nature of Tom Bombadil. Whether you are a veteran of this debate or are just now being exposed to it, I hope you will join me on a journey of herculean proportions to answer the most testing of all questions: who (or what) is Tom Bombadil?

As Saruman coldly says in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: “Let us examine what we know.” Well, in this instance, that is very apt advice, indeed. Tom Bombadil, as many of you already know, stumbles upon the hobbits in the Old Forest in September of the Third Age 3018; he proceeds to rescue them from Old Man Willow, and then brings them along to his home deep in the Forest where he lives with his (also rather enigmatic) wife Goldberry. Tom is marked throughout these episodes with a light and cheery tone: from his colorful attire to his seemingly continual singing (and his ring a dong dillo’s). Yet Tom’s light-hearted nature—while ostensibly unwarranted, considering where he lives—is, in fact, well-attributed: he is a very, very old and wise man (or rather, being that looks like a man). We will, in time, return to look more closely at the importance and uniqueness of Tom’s personality, but for now, let us focus on his age.

Readers quickly become aware that Tom is a special character, even from our very first meeting with him. One of the reasons for this is his fantastic age. And while it may not surprise us that Tom is indeed old, just how old may. Frodo, who appears just as confused about Tom as we are as readers, asks him repeatedly, “Who are you?” (Tolkien 129). Tom replies that he is “eldest,” and then he proceeds to explain:

“Tom was here before the river and the trees…He made paths before the Big People, and saw the Little People arriving…When the Elves passed westward, Tom was already here, before the seas were bent…before the Dark Lord came from Outside.” (129)

Since Tom’s own information is arguably the most accurate about him, let us use the above quotation to determine just how old he is. First, we know Tom has lived in Arda since “before the river and the trees,” a reference to the Spring of Arda. The Spring of Arda is the period from 1900 to 3450 (in Valian Years, not solar years, mind you—though we will return to this soon) of the Years of the Lamps, in which the world was populated with living things. Secondly, he has been in Middle-earth since year 1 of the First Age, when Men awoke; additionally, he saw the hobbits migrating west around T.A. 1300. Tom also saw the Elves pass west: this refers to the Sundering of the Elves and, more precisely, to the First and Second Sunderings in the Years of the Trees 1105 and 1115, respectively. The “seas were bent” in F.A. 587 following the War of Wrath. Most interestingly, though, is that Tom was in Arda before Morgoth (and, in turn, all the Valar) came there during the First War, from year 1 to about 1499 of the Years of the Lamps. Thus, we know that Tom Bombadil was one of the first—if not the very first—inhabitants of Arda following the Music of the Ainur and the creation of Eä.

Now, knowing that Tom has existed (it is, as yet, impossible to say that he was born or created, or even that he entered Arda) since year 1 of the Years of the Lamps, we can calculate his exact age. We must note, however, the sort of ripple that exists in time in Tolkien’s works: each year in the Years of the Lamps and Years of the Trees is a Valian year (about 9.582 solar years). The First Age, with the rising of the Sun, marks the use of solar years in counting. So, we can use the range from 1 Years of the Lamps to T.A. 3018 (when Tom meets the hobbits) to calculate his age. We simply multiply 3500 (the number of Valian years in the Years of the Lamps) by 9.582 (3500 x 9.582 = 33,537), repeat this process for the Years of the Trees (~1500 x 9.582 = 14,373), and add the total number of solar years from all the Ages up until T.A. 3018 (590 + 3,441 + 3018 = 7049). So, by T.A. 3018 Tom Bombadil is already some 54,959 (solar) years old!

Beyond his age, Tom is characterized by a few other unique traits. First is his reaction (or lack thereof) to the Ring. “Show me the Ring!” he says to Frodo, who, surprisingly, hands it right over without any qualms (much in contrast to the very protective, hesitant Frodo we see later on). Tom proceeds to “put it to his eye and laugh[s]” (130). Yes, the reaction of Tom Bombadil to the One Ring, the most powerful and dangerous object in the world, is laughter—not worry nor despair, and certainly not fear. Then, when Tom puts the Ring on his finger, there is “no sign of [him] disappearing” (130). And how does Tom react to this instance? You’ve got it right: he laughs and, to further show how little he cares for the Ring, he does what appears to be a little sleight of hand with it before returning it to Frodo “with a smile” (130).

Not only is Tom unaffected by the Ring himself, but he notices its effects on others. When Frodo slips on the Ring (to check that is, in fact the Ring after lending it to Tom), Tom immediately notices the invisible hobbit sneaking off:

“‘Hey there!’ cried Tom, glancing towards [Frodo] with a most seeing look in his shining eyes. ‘Hey! Come Frodo, there! Where be you a-going? Old Tom Bombadil’s not as blind as that yet. Take off your golden ring!” (131)

Clearly, Tom is unaffected, personally or otherwise, by the Ring. And he is the only character in the whole of the novel to have this ostensible immunity to the Ring. It is certainly a powerful being that holds this trait.

Yet what do we typically associate with power and wisdom? Perhaps visions of age-worn, rather tough and callous individuals spring to mind—yet this is not the case with Tom Bombadil. As I noted before, Tom has a rather affable, light-hearted personality. He is certainly not a man of affectation: no matter the circumstance nor the people involved, Tom is always in a joyous mood, singing and bouncing around (or at least disposed to do so). Tom is so happy-go-lucky because he has no concept of fear. Take the following examples: (1) he rescues the hobbits from the clutches of Old Man Willow as if he were reprimanding a child, not challenging a great evil; (2) he lives in the Old Forest, a place ripe with fearful beasts and about which tales of fright abound; (3) he saves the hobbits from a barrow-wight, coming with song and a spring in his step to one of the most dreadful and dangerous mishaps in the story. Take this quotation from “Fog on the Barrow-Downs,” for example:

“’You won’t find your clothes again,’ said Tom, bounding down from the mound, and laughing as he danced round them in the sunlight. One would have thought that nothing dangerous or dreadful had happened; and indeed the horror faded out of their hearts as they looked at him, and saw the merry glint in his eyes.” (140)

It is plain to note: where others would fear, Tom Bombadil does not. It is not even that Tom is simply not afraid, nor that he has overcome his fear; rather, he has no concept, no idea whatsoever, of fear. He is entirely composed of the good-natured, light-hearted fibers that render him capable of laughing in the very face of the One Ring.

And this lack of fear (especially with regards to the Ring) is unique. Gandalf certainly shows a sense of fear on many occasions: from his fear of entering Moria, to his fear of the Ring and the Enemy. Galadriel and Elrond both fear the Ring, for in either using it or keeping it hidden they know it will bring about their ruin. Even the Enemy is not free from the grasp of fear: when he learns of Aragorn’s return and the possibility of united opposition to him, Sauron begins to feel afraid. While the fear that all of these characters experience may differ in many ways, fear it is nonetheless. And it is exactly this sense of fear that Tom Bombadil does not possess.

There remains now just one last point regarding Tom’s character that I believe is worth noting: his repeated association with the earth. Frodo, the night the hobbits spend in Tom Bombadil’s house, has a vivid dream of

“a song that seemed to come like a pale light behind a grey rain-curtain, and growing stronger to turn the veil all to glass and silver, until at last it was rolled back, and a far green country opened before him under a swift sunrise.” (132)

This dream—a clear reference to Valinor—is interrupted: Frodo awakens to see “Tom whistling like a tree-full of birds” and he notes “the sun was already slanting down the hill…Outside everything was green and pale gold” (132). Here, we note Tom’s stark association with the earth or, perhaps more prominently, his dissociation from Valinor. Tom interrupts this dream (in essence, the thought that he may be associated with Valinor), and he immediately brings Frodo back to the earth: to the birds, trees, and green of the living, mortal earth. The notion that Tom is more an earthly, temporal being is quite important: it is vindicated by what we have learned of his age, and it will greatly help us in deciding what Tom is and isn’t.

Knowing what we do about Tom Bombadil now, we can move on to the second half of this task: discovering who Tom truly is. We will be looking at the main and other popular theories of this debate, and one by one, we will see which, if any of the pre-proposed categories, Tom fits. After thoroughly examining all options, then—and only then—will we be able to make a final conclusion. (And, if we are lucky, such a conclusion may not be that we will simply never know the answer.)

Is Tom…

A Man, Elf, Hobbit, Dwarf, etc?

Tom is decidedly not a member of any of the races or kindreds of Middle-earth. We can most certainly eliminate him from all such groups (especially from Men and Elves, which would be the two most likely groups) by noting his age (i.e. he was around before them), his physical characteristics (size, beard, etc.), and how the Ring does not affect him.

A Vala?

It is certainly difficult to claim that Tom is one of the great Powers of the World for many reasons. First, all fourteen of the Valar are accounted for, and Tom is not named among them. Second, as we noted before, Tom was living in Arda before the Valar (led by Morgoth) entered the world. Third, Tom refers to himself as “Eldest,” a title to which all the Valar are beholding, not just he (if indeed he were a Vala). Lastly, we know that Tom calls Morgoth “the Dark Lord” (as quoted above). It is hard to imagine any of the Valar referring to their greatest rival, the embodiment of Evil, by this name: certainly, the Valar reserved such reverence in the title “Lord” for Manwe alone. Additionally, fans over at The Encyclopedia of Arda have noted that characterize we would expect to note that Tom is a Vala (such as Gandalf, one of the Maiar), do not.

A Maiar?

This theory is, in some ways, a rather attractive one. We know, first of all, that not all of the Maiar were named by Tolkien—this, of course, allows for hypothesizing that Tom is indeed one of them. However, some good counterpoints contest this argument. First, Tom is unaffected by the Ring. We know for certain that other Maiar, from Gandalf to Sauron, were affected by the power and draw of the One Ring. Additionally, remember the total lack of a sense of fear we discussed before? Well, a sense of fear regarding the Ring (or its fate, for the Enemy) pervades the Maiar involved with this struggle. Yet such is not the case with Tom. Also, it is interesting to note how these Maiar are all allied, with one side or another, while Tom remains independent from the conflict.

The One?

Some have even pushed the idea that Tom is The One, Eru Ilúvatar. Yet for all the auspicious remarks made about Tom (how he is “eldest,” etc.), this theory does not hold water either. At the Council of Elrond, we learn many of the reasons why this theory is false. Gandalf states that “he cannot alter the Ring itself, nor break its power over others,” a trait that we would assume the mightiest being of them all, the creator himself, would possess (259). Glorfindel also comments on the idea of giving Tom the Ring to keep safe: “in the end, if all else is conquered, Bombadil will fall, Last as he was First” (259). The notion that Sauron and his folk could defeat Eru (indeed, the notion that Eru is even capable of being killed, defeated, or otherwise harmed) seems rather ridiculous. Furthermore, evidence from Tolkien himself puts a final end to this theory: in Letter 181, Tolkien explicitly states that there is no embodiment of Eru, who exists apart from the World entirely.

A Spirit?

In many of his earlier writings on what would become The Silmarillion (as collected by Christopher Tolkien in The Book of Lost Tales), Tolkien had a concept of Middle-earth as much more similar to his idea of Faerie. Originally, many spirits and sprites (of all kinds and names) entered the World just as the Ainur did—and this notion was not entirely lost in the final published form of The Silmarillion. It is an attractive theory (for many reasons) to say that Tom is a sort of spirit.

The best route to take within this theory is to propose that Tom is a “nature spirit” (perhaps even a “Father Nature,” if you like). First, it makes sense that Tom would come from the Music of the Ainur—this is in accord with his inhabiting Arda from the very beginning. Second, the notion that spirits exist in nature is evident in Middle-earth: from Ents to Old Man Willow to the great prevalence of personification, nature is much more “alive” in Middle-earth than we take it to be. As noted before, Tom is starkly associated with nature and the earth. The way he lives so harmoniously with bird and beast (and how he seems to command nature in his dealings with Old Man Willow) certainly supports this theory. Additionally, we know that Tom is not concerned with the Ring (Gandalf notes that “he would not have come” to the Council of Elrond, and we noted before how remains “unallied” despite the times). He, actually, shows a total disconnect from the affairs of all other human-like beings; he is, rather, concerned only with the natural world. Tom’s neutrality greatly parallels the neutrality that we prescribe to nature. Since we, as fans, do accept the existence and the role of Ents such as Treebeard, I believe making the jump from a natural “spirit of nature” to a man embodying the “spirit of nature” is not so difficult nor controversial. Yet still, we must ask ourselves why, then, does the Ring not affect Tom, when it can certainly affect other aspects of the natural order?

An Incarnation of the Music of Ainur?

This theory is rather unique, and more recently developed than the others. Basically, we know that of all the above theories, only the notion that Tom is a “nature spirit” is relatively sound; branching from that theory, a fan known only as “Ranger from the North” developed a theory in which he posits Tom is “the incarnated spirit of the Music of the Ainur.” The “Ranger” notes two flaws with the basic “nature spirit” argument: first, Tom is not most closely associated with nature (he, personally, shows this discord by fighting against Old Man Willow and the darkness of the Forest); second, Tom is, however, associated with song and music throughout (the way in which he fights nature, for example, is with song). So, it is agreed upon by many (and I am of the same opinion) that Tom is, in fact, a spirit (an incarnate/embodiment) of sorts (i.e. that he has some relation to the Music). The question now becomes whether or not you believe he is more closely related to nature or to the Music itself.

“Ranger from the North” makes a stellar case for the latter. First, he works with the evidence from the “nature spirit” theory, showing how entirely probable the existence of other, extraneous spirits/beings is in Tolkien’s cosmology. Second, he shows how Arda itself is not the incarnation of the Music, distinguishing Middle-earth from the means by which it was created. Then, the “Ranger” makes a very clever comparison between Ungoliant and Bombadil: he notes how, since Ungoliant exists in many ways as an incarnation of the discord of the Music, she parallels Tom; these two are, he says, antitheses, and should be considered in the same way. Just as Ungoliant embodies the evil and darkness with which she was made, so too does Tom embody the light and happiness of the source of his creation. The “Ranger,” additionally, notes a detail of paramount importance: Tom’s name is not all it appears. Certainly, we hear “Tom” and think of our odd uncle or younger brother—yet such is not the case, says the “Ranger.” He notes the story of the great gong Tombo in the Unfinished Tales—coincidence that “t-o-m-b-o” are the first six letters of Tom Bombadil? Is it also coincidental that we find yet another association between Tom and music here? I think not.

The “Ranger from the North” has written extensively on his theory, and I seek not to describe all of his arguments. If you would like a much more detailed and thorough examination of the Music of the Ainur theory, I highly recommend reading what the “Ranger” himself has written here: http://www.whoistombombadil.blogspot.com/

So, we have reached the end of our journey through the “Bombadil Problem.” We have examined the arguments, waded through confusion, sorted out messes, and procured evidence. It is, in my opinion, certain that we must continue to think of Tom as unique, that we must give credit to the enigma that he (intentionally) is. The true “Master” here is perhaps the Professor himself: the truly contradictory nature of this enigma—his simplicity in character and simultaneous complexity in literature—was well crafted. The mystery of Tom reaches far back into the deeps of Tolkien’s mythology, and roots may be found stretching back to the Professor’s first tales of Faerie. While the “riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma” that we call Tom Bombadil will continue to challenge us, so too will it excite us. For through continued debate and discussion, we return time and again to the tales and stories we hold so dear, pouring of pages for hours, scouring word-by-word for some secret hint, trying to piece the puzzle back together. We know that the mystery about Tom was intentionally crafted, and that the Professor may have taken the truth about this character and his own motives in designing him to the grave, yet our drive to uncover more about this most enigmatic of beings is not diminished—why? Perhaps it is precisely because of Tom’s nature that we are fascinated by him: in a Middle-earth so divided by light and dark, good and evil (i.e. clear answers to the “who” and “what”), Tom exists as an uncommitted, uncategorized blank slate. He is the one being so open to interpretation, so predisposed to our imagination, so designed for our wondering. It is not surprising that we love Tom so much, that we pursue this debate so tirelessly, because we each craft our very own Tom Bombadil in our minds—and it is the Professor who intentionally left Tom open to such interpretation. Perhaps we can accept that Tom is simply a mystery—though, no doubt, we will continue discussing and searching for the “truth.”

All references to the text from:

The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien, single-volume edition, Houghton Mifflin (HarperCollins), 2001 (1994 edition of the text)

More information about Tom Bombadil, as well as links to other arguments, can be found below:

1)      http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Tom_Bombadil/Nature

2)      http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/t/tombombadil.html

The literary legacy that members of the Tolkien Estate want to protect

By:  Brian Tither

Introduction

I think that the reason why some members of the Tolkien Estate have sued Saul Zaentz and its subsidiaries over JRR Tolkien’s literary legacy is because of their overriding concern for protecting that legacy above all else. In particular I think that this is the intention of Christopher and Priscilla Tolkien, the surviving children of Tolkien. And as a former student of Tolkien’s academic speciality in Old and Middle English and Old Icelandic in New Zealand I personally support this intention after being frustrated at The Hobbit production being only valued for the other Hollywood productions and tourist dollars that it may bring into New Zealand. I am also frustrated at the way a lot of the people involved in the production seem to only value it for its enhancement of their individual film projects.

The literary legacy of JRR Tolkien

Tolkien was the Professor of Anglo Saxon at Oxford University in the years that Christopher and Priscilla and their deceased brothers John and Michael were children and Tolkien would come home and tell them stories based on the literature that he was teaching at Oxford. This came from Old Icelandic texts like Voluspa, which describes the rise and fall of Midgard, the Old Icelandic Middle-earth, where Tolkien got his names for his Dwarves, and The Saga of the Volsungs, where Tolkien got his ideas for Bilbo’s encounters with Gollum and Smaug from the God Loki taking off Andvari the Dwarf a ring which causes problems for its bearers and Sigurd’s slaying of Fafnir the dragon, which are supplemented by similar things in the Old English poem Beowulf. This was also supplemented by Tolkien getting his ideas for Beorn, which translates as ‘warrior’ from Old English and as ‘bear’ from Old Icelandic, and Bilbo Baggins, which translates as ‘dweller in a dwelling in a bag’ from Middle English and ‘dweller with a sword from ones in a bag’ from Old English, from characters such as Bodvar Bjarki, which translates as ‘the bear warrior’, and Hott Hjalti, which translates as ‘the small sword hilt’, from The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki, where Hott’s parents are described as living in what appears to be a house built in a hole in the ground.

Given that the name Hott and the Old English word holbytla for ‘hole-builder’ conflate together as hobbit, which means ‘small hole-builder’, and given the oral tradition that developed between Tolkien and his children, it is easy to see how Tolkien took it a step further with his children and got them to help him with creating a story from him one day writing down the words: ‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit’. And from there the story developed as an oral tradition between them until Tolkien decided to write it down in a manuscript and this was published as The Hobbit some years later after he happened to show it to someone who recommended that he got it published. Then he wrote The Lord of the Rings, in which he referred to the mythology, later published as The Silmarillion, that he had been creating since before his children were born, while incorporating a character that he and his children devised from a doll that they owned, which they named Tom Bombadil.

The legacy of the Tolkien Estate

But the story of his children’s involvement did not stop there because Tolkien consulted Christopher on virtually every turn of The Lord of the Rings as he wrote it, while Christopher went on to become a university lecturer in Old and Middle English and Old Icelandic as well. Then when Tolkien passed away he had Christopher appointed as his literary executor and charged him to complete The Silmarillion, which Christopher did. And he also appointed him with John, Michael and Priscilla to take care of other estate matters as well.

This included taking care of matters regarding his selling off the film rights to the books to Saul Zaentz, which Tolkien did to cover the high inheritance taxes that the books accrued upon his death, all which grew out of his experiences with being swamped by the royalty taxes that he had to pay due to the sale of the books from the popularity that he did not anticipate for them. And this included the estate ensuring that Saul Zaentz and its subsidiaries did not step out of parameters that were set by Tolkien to protect the literary legacy of his works, which by implication stretched into his academic speciality to the original texts where he got his ideas from that have no copyright on them. And this experience grew out of seeing what Walt Disney did to the works of the Grimm’s Brothers the latter who Tolkien had a particular affinity for because the Grimm’s brothers also created philological principles, which Tolkien applied in his academia and works. Hence Tolkien did not want to see tangible things like this in his works being turned into intangible things like theme parks, which by implication extends into things like video games and gambling outlets such as slot machines.

And there is a need to protect this literary legacy if this literature is not to become something only valued by the money that people might make out of it at the expense of accessing that literature to many. And one of the things that I have been perturbed about as a student of Old and Middle English and Old Icelandic is experiencing both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit productions consulting linguistic and Old and Middle English and Old Icelandic experts for the purpose of developing the movies without considering how such expertise comes from the collective intellectual property of teachers and students in these specialities, even though such intellectual property was strangely fused with Hollywood action movie conventions in the films. And possibly this is why The Hobbit movies have so far not had such experts promoting them like The Lord of the Rings movies had, which probably made it expedient for the first trilogy of movies to be nominated for Oscars in categories like Best Director and Best Film, which they won on the third movie, while the second trilogy so far has not received any such nominations.

The valuation of the legacy in New Zealand

Meanwhile, as I said above, The Hobbit movies have been only valued as a means to bring more Hollywood productions and tourist dollars into New Zealand and it has been seen by people involved in the production as only a means to develop their individual film projects. The latter was made clear to me in October 2010 when allegedly there was industrial action going on which was allegedly having Warner Brothers considering moving the production elsewhere. The impression I got then from such individuals was that if the production went offshore it would severely jeopardise their projects, which was enhanced to me by someone who spoke at The Hobbit rally, which occurred a few days before Warner Brothers decided to keep the production in New Zealand. This person referred to how The Lord of the Rings production created a community of filmmakers, which has left me the impression that this community has been dependent on both that and The Hobbit production for its existence.

Consequently I have decided that I will only support the film projects of individuals involved in these productions if they demonstrate to me sufficient appreciation for the intellectual property that was drawn on for these productions. And for me the benchmark that has been set for that is that shown to me by a prominent New Zealand Maori writer, some of whose works have been turned into films, who supported the teaching of Old and Middle English and Old Icelandic at the New Zealand university that he used to work for. He also left me with the impression that the term ‘Middle-earth’ should not be used as a means for cultural groups to promote their culture to gain tourist dollars without acknowledging the culture that Middle-earth comes from as Tolkien acknowledged and intended it, who said Middle-earth was a use of the Middle English middel-erde, which derived from the Old English Middangeard and is thus related to the Old Icelandic Midgard.

Meanwhile, universities have had to cut their Old and Middle English and Old Icelandic courses even when they have had a reasonable number of students doing them due to a reallocation of university funding from a government who has used The Hobbit production so far for political gain. And I think that this is abysmal given the free promotion that The Lord of the Rings movies got from the New Zealand experts in these specialities through public lectures that they delivered like other experts in the specialities in other places in the world on the release of each movie, which if it had of been picked up on by The Hobbit production might have meant that the media surrounding the movies would have been less focussed on the apparent lack of material in the first Hobbit movie and the technology used, which not all the movie viewers were happy with.

The actual legacy in New Zealand

Also, for the New Zealand world premiere of the first Hobbit movie such experts could have highlighted how it was part of New Zealand’s culture and heritage that our education system produced Kenneth Sisam, a graduate of both Auckland and Oxford Universities, who was Tolkien’s New Zealand born tutor when Tolkien first started learning these specialities. Sisam introduced texts to Tolkien that Tolkien said that he had previously never heard of before, which included the Old English poem Crist, which had words in it translated as: ‘Hail Earendil, brightest of angels/ above the middle-earth sent unto men’. This led to the first draft of the poem of Earendil the mariner that Bilbo sings in Rivendell the night before the Council of Elrond in The Lord of the Rings, which, in turn, Tolkien wrote after his first year of having Sisam as his first tutor, which was the beginning point of his legendarium.

In addition, these New Zealand specialists could have also highlighted how Tolkien alluded in his valedictory address, when retiring from being Professor of English language and literature, to the contribution that New Zealanders (and Australians) made to the Oxford School of English and the close contest which he had with Sisam for Professor of Anglo Saxon. The latter was also referred to in an interview just before the first Lord of the Rings movie’s release with an English born former lecturer in the speciality at a New Zealand university who was at Oxford when Tolkien was Professor there at the time the book was published who said that most undergraduates thought that Sisam should have been Professor.

Conclusion

This lecturer also told my classmates and me that the undergraduates at Oxford formed the basis for the Hobbits in Tolkien’s legendarium, them being derived from the undergraduates living in study groups with a tutor and a servant called a scout who looked after their personal needs assigned to each group. That is, Frodo Baggins and his cousins were based on the undergraduates, Bilbo Baggins on the tutor and Samwise Gamgee on the scout. And hence, whereas The Hobbit was something derived by Tolkien from his telling of stories to his children based on his academia, The Lord of the Rings was derived from his actual teaching of that academia. And I experienced an evolved version of that at university from a former PhD graduate of Oxford who got some of her Bilbos to teach Sams like me our letters like Bilbo does for Sam in the book. And according to one of those Bilbos my classmates and I are the envy of many who learn these letters around the world for having had this lecturer as a teacher, which is a sure foot in the door for any of her Frodos into universities such as Oxford and Cambridge. And it is such legacies that Christopher and Priscilla Tolkien are concerned with protecting knowing full well that without it their father’s legendarium would not even exist.

Brian lives in Wellington New Zealand on the main drag to both Victoria University where he was he was taught Old and Middle English and Old Icelandic at undergraduate level by an Oxford University PhD graduate and the Embassy Theatre where the red carpet rolled out for all New Zealand premieres for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies. He goes under the pen name of Brian Boru, which refers to his family descent from a famous Gaelic warrior-king of a millenium ago called Brian Boroimhe who is part of a Gaelic literary canon that he also wants to study.