Smaug_the_Mighty
Member
Hello Professor!
Over the past year or so I have been catching up on Exploring the Lord of the Rings, and I caught up a few weeks ago but unfortunately can’t often attend live as the recording is at about noon on a Wednesday here in Australia, and my work day tends to get in the way.
So I’d like to drag us all the way back to the Old Forest and Tom Bombadil, where our pace started to slow down from Showing The Meaning Of Haste to something closer to A Hobbit Walking Party, a much more comfortable pace for all of us hobbits who like to fill up the corners with all the wonderful details.
My question is: Does Tom Bombadil live in the Old Forest, or on the Barrow Downs?
I always imagined from the text that the hobbits leave the Old Forest behind and climb up and down one of the first of the Downs before reaching Tom’s house. I was quite surprised when you described Tom living in a clearing of the Forest in Session 28 of the podcast, and even more so when I found Tom’s house in LOTRO, also still very much within the Old Forest. (I was introduced to LOTRO by your stream, and I have been happily exploring Middle Earth ever since!)
It seems to me that when “suddenly the trees came to an end” and the hobbits “stepped out from the Forest”, they are not in a clearing but at the edge of the Forest, leaving it completely behind as they continue up, down, underhill to Tom’s house.
Then when they leave Tom’s house in Chapter 8, the text never mentions them continuing through more trees to reach the edge of the Forest, only describing hills and valleys. In fact, the text specifically states that “There was no tree nor any visible water: it was a country of grass and short springy turf”.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on my reading of these passages.
Thanks for the wonderful podcast, and all of the other amazing broadcasts that you and the team at Signum and Mythgard do. I’ve only been participating for around a year but I look forward to contributing, and enjoying the community you’ve all built, for many years to come!
Cheers,
Jenni Aldred / Smaug_the_Mighty
Over the past year or so I have been catching up on Exploring the Lord of the Rings, and I caught up a few weeks ago but unfortunately can’t often attend live as the recording is at about noon on a Wednesday here in Australia, and my work day tends to get in the way.
So I’d like to drag us all the way back to the Old Forest and Tom Bombadil, where our pace started to slow down from Showing The Meaning Of Haste to something closer to A Hobbit Walking Party, a much more comfortable pace for all of us hobbits who like to fill up the corners with all the wonderful details.
My question is: Does Tom Bombadil live in the Old Forest, or on the Barrow Downs?
I always imagined from the text that the hobbits leave the Old Forest behind and climb up and down one of the first of the Downs before reaching Tom’s house. I was quite surprised when you described Tom living in a clearing of the Forest in Session 28 of the podcast, and even more so when I found Tom’s house in LOTRO, also still very much within the Old Forest. (I was introduced to LOTRO by your stream, and I have been happily exploring Middle Earth ever since!)
It seems to me that when “suddenly the trees came to an end” and the hobbits “stepped out from the Forest”, they are not in a clearing but at the edge of the Forest, leaving it completely behind as they continue up, down, underhill to Tom’s house.
Then when they leave Tom’s house in Chapter 8, the text never mentions them continuing through more trees to reach the edge of the Forest, only describing hills and valleys. In fact, the text specifically states that “There was no tree nor any visible water: it was a country of grass and short springy turf”.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on my reading of these passages.
Thanks for the wonderful podcast, and all of the other amazing broadcasts that you and the team at Signum and Mythgard do. I’ve only been participating for around a year but I look forward to contributing, and enjoying the community you’ve all built, for many years to come!
Cheers,
Jenni Aldred / Smaug_the_Mighty