Editing Tom Bombadil (section)

== Concept and creation ==

[[File:Gliederpuppe.jpg|thumb|upright=0.6|A [[Dutch doll]], a wooden peg construction giving a stiff doll with hinged joints, illustrates the type of toy that inspired the name Tom Bombadil. The one owned by the Tolkien family had a hat with a feather.<ref name="Carpenter 1987 p165"/> ]]

Tolkien stated that he invented Tom Bombadil in memory of his children's [[Peg wooden doll|Dutch doll]].<ref name="Beal 2018">{{cite journal |last=Beal |first=Jane |title=Who is Tom Bombadil?: Interpreting the Light in Frodo Baggins and Tom Bombadil's Role in the Healing of Traumatic Memory in J.R.R. Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings' |journal=[[Journal of Tolkien Research]] |publisher=[[Valparaiso University]] |location=Valparaiso, Indiana |date=2018 |volume=6 |issue=1 |at=article 1 |url=https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol6/iss1/1 |quote=Tolkien's inspiration for this character was a brightly-dressed, peg-wood, Dutch doll (with a feather in his hat!) that belonged to his second son, Michael.}}</ref>{{efn|Tolkien wrote: "The doll looked very splendid with the feather in its hat, but John did not like it and one day stuffed it down the lavatory. Tom was rescued, and survived to become the hero of a poem..."<ref name="Carpenter 1987 p165">{{cite book |last=Carpenter |first=Humphrey |author-link=Humphrey Carpenter |title=[[J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography]] |publisher=[[Allen & Unwin]] |location=London, England |date=1987 |page=165 |isbn=978-0-04-928037-3}}</ref>}}<ref>{{cite journal |last=Poveda |first=Jaume Alberdo |year=2003–2004 |title=Narrative Models in Tolkien's Stories of Middle Earth |journal=Journal of English Studies |volume=4 |pages=7–22 |url=http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/fichero_articulo?codigo=1975822&orden=74928|doi=10.18172/jes.84|doi-access=free}}</ref> His Bombadil poems far pre-date the writing of ''The Lord of the Rings'', into which Tolkien introduced Tom Bombadil from the earliest drafts.<ref group=T>{{harvnb|Tolkien|1988|pp=42, 115 ff.}}</ref> In response to a letter, Tolkien described Tom in ''The Lord of the Rings'' as "just an invention" and "not an important person – to the narrative", even if "he represents something that I feel important, though I would not be prepared to analyse the feeling precisely. I would not, however, have left him in, if he did not have some kind of function." Specifically, Tolkien connected Tom in the letter to a renunciation of control, "a delight in things for themselves without reference to yourself," "Botany and Zoology (as sciences) and Poetry".<ref name="To Naomi Mitchison" group=T>{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=#144, letter to [[Naomi Mitchison]], 25 April 1954 }}</ref> In another letter, Tolkien writes that he does not think Tom is improved by philosophizing; he included the character "because I had already 'invented' him independently" (in ''[[The Oxford Magazine]]'') "and wanted an 'adventure' on the way".<ref name="To Peter Hastings" group=T>{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=#153, draft of letter to Peter Hastings, September 1954 }}</ref> 

Tolkien commented further that "even in a mythical Age there must be some enigmas, as there always are. Tom Bombadil is one (intentionally)".<ref name="To Naomi Mitchison" group=T/> In a letter to [[Stanley Unwin (publisher)|Stanley Unwin]], Tolkien called Tom Bombadil the spirit of the vanishing landscapes of [[Oxfordshire]] and [[Berkshire]]. However, this 1937 letter was in reference to works which pre-dated the writing of ''The Lord of the Rings''.<ref group=T>{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=#19, letter to [[Stanley Unwin (publisher)|Stanley Unwin]], 16 December 1937 }}
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Tolkien said little of Tom Bombadil's origins, and the character does not fit neatly into the categories of beings Tolkien created. Bombadil calls himself the "Eldest" and the "Master". He claims to remember "the first raindrop and the first acorn", and that he "knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless—before the Dark Lord came from Outside".  When Frodo asks Goldberry just who Tom Bombadil is, she responds simply by saying "He is". Some critics have taken this dialogue as a reference to God's statement "[[I Am that I Am]]" in the [[Book of Exodus]], an idea which Tolkien denied as an influence.<ref name="To Peter Hastings" group=T/>