Editing Goldberry (section)

== Origins ==

[[J. R. R. Tolkien]] never explored the specific details regarding Goldberry's origins. [[Tom Bombadil]] clearly identifies her as having been discovered by him in the river Withywindle within the [[Old Forest]], and her title "River-woman's daughter" strongly suggests that she is not a mortal human being. In a 1958 letter, Tolkien wrote that Goldberry "represents the actual seasonal changes" in "real river-lands in autumn".<ref name=Letters1 group=T>{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=letter 210 to Forrest J. Ackerman, June 1958 }}</ref> He conveyed this notion through a poem recited by [[Frodo Baggins]] in ''[[The Fellowship of the Ring]]'', specifically the lines "O spring-time and summer-time, and spring again after!"<ref name="south" group=T>{{harvnb|Tolkien|1954a|loc=book 1, ch. 7 "In the House of Tom Bombadil"}}</ref> 

For the scholar of literature Isabelle Pantin, the sequence involving Goldberry in ''The Lord of the Rings'' is reminiscent of a passage from ''[[The Golden Key (MacDonald book)|The Golden Key]]'' by [[George MacDonald]]: the heroine, Tangle, after having almost been suffocated by a tree believing herself being pursued by the [[Goldilocks and the Three Bears|bears of Goldilocks]], is taken in by a kindly old lady dressed in a [[mermaid]]'s finery and holding a basin full of fish. Pantin noted that Goldberry herself is reminiscent of the Goldilocks character: she has a similar hairstyle and her house appears to be as comfortable as that of the bears'.<ref name="Goldilocks">{{cite book |last=Pantin |first=Isabelle |title=Tolkien et ses légendes: une expérience en fiction |language=fr |trans-title=Tolkien and his legends: An experience in fiction |year=1999 |isbn=978-2-271-06876-7 |location=Paris |publisher=[[CNRS Éditions]] |page=124}}</ref>

The Tolkien scholar John M. Bowers writes that Goldberry recalls ''[[Maiden in the mor lay|The Maid of the Moor]]'', a late-medieval lyric familiar to Tolkien which contains the lines<ref name="Bowers 2011">{{cite journal |last=Bowers |first=John M. |title=Tolkien's Goldberry and The Maid of the Moor |journal=[[Tolkien Studies]] |volume=8 |issue=1 |year=2011 |issn=1547-3163 |doi=10.1353/tks.2011.0002 |pages=23–36|s2cid=170993279 }} (subscription required)</ref>

{{poem quote|What was hire mete?
The [[Primula vulgaris|primerole]] and the violet.

What was hire dring?
The chelde water of the welle-spring.<ref name="Butterfield 2016">{{cite book |last=Butterfield |first=Ardis |chapter=Poems without Form? Maiden in the mor lay Revisited |editor1=Cristina Maria Cervone |editor2=D. Vance Smith |year=2016 |location=Woodbridge |publisher=[[D. S. Brewer]] |title=Readings in Medieval Textuality: Essays in Honour of [[A. C. Spearing]] |isbn=978-1783270675 |pages=169–194 |chapter-url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/readings-in-medieval-textuality/poems-without-form-maiden-in-the-mor-lay-revisited/4B06F3D6F491C0C5F59C5301BFF71458}} (subscription required)</ref>}}