Greetings, friends. Welcome to the inaugural edition of In the House of Tom Bombadil. Before I tell you more about what to expect from this newsletter, I suppose I should explain this Tom Bombadil business.
Who is Tom Bombadil?
He's an enigmatic character from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings series. He appears about midway through Book One of The Fellowship of the Ring. Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin spend two nights at his home. The chapter in which the story is told is titled "In the House of Tom Bombadil." Bombadil didn't make it into the Peter Jackson films, most likely because it isn't clear whether his story and the hobbits' encounter with him advance the plot at all. Moviegoers want action!
Tolkien scholars (yes, they exist) debate Bombadil's identity, the significance of Frodo's interactions with him, and other geeky issues. I'm intrigued by Jane Beal's take on some of these questions. In an essay from Journal of Tolkien Research, she argues that: