Speaker 1: Who is Tom Bombadil. In all of the Middle Earth legendarium,
Speaker 1: there is no other figure as puzzling and strange. From
Speaker 1: his interactions with Old Man Willow to his relationship with
Speaker 1: the One Ring, Tom proves he is one of the
Speaker 1: most powerful beings in Middle Earth. But where did he
Speaker 1: come from and what is his significance for the larger story?
Speaker 1: Join us as we explore the Bombadil Enigma. The Tolkien Road,
Speaker 1: Episode two sixteen, The Bombadil Enigma, An interview with Keith Matheson. Hello, everyone,
Speaker 1: Welcome to The Tolkien Road Episode two sixteen. Greta, Hey,
Speaker 1: how are you.
Speaker 2: Hey, John? I'm I'm super fantastic. How are you?
Speaker 1: I am doing pretty darn well.
Speaker 2: That's good.
Speaker 1: Excited for another amazing episode of The Tolkien Road, The
Speaker 1: podcast for Tolkien lovers, ravenous Tolkien fan all you tolkienkers.
Speaker 2: No, we're not gonna do that again. We're not doing
Speaker 2: that again.
Speaker 1: That's my thing. This is the podcast for Tolkien lovers
Speaker 1: right here, So all you people who are like, oh yeah, Tolkien,
Speaker 1: I like me a Tolkien story every now and then.
Speaker 3: M M.
Speaker 1: You gotta be utterly devoted, slavishly devoted to Tolkien to
Speaker 1: be worthy of listening to this podcast.
Speaker 2: Okay, you can stop playing down now we're we've established
Speaker 2: the fact that you're a Tolkien nerd. But we welcome
Speaker 2: all here. All are welcome.
Speaker 1: Well you okay, you know I never should have fired
Speaker 1: you for this job. I can't get rid of you.
Speaker 2: You can fire me anytime.
Speaker 1: No, it's impossible. People would stop listening.
Speaker 2: They would stop listening. You know, you'd be nothing without me. No, true?
Speaker 1: Maybe Okay, on this episode we are. On this episode,
Speaker 1: we were joined by Keith Matheson. Earlier this year, Keith
Speaker 1: published an article on his blog entitled The bombadill Enigma.
Speaker 1: It's a fascinating exploration of what we know about Tom Bombadil,
Speaker 1: and Keith's theory on the meaning of Tom Bombadil is
Speaker 1: one we think you'll find very interesting.
Speaker 2: I found it very interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, I.
Speaker 2: Mean honestly, like you know, there I enjoy. I enjoy
Speaker 2: being the other half of this podcast. I really do.
Speaker 2: But there are yes, I stand up for the tolkienkers
Speaker 2: out there. You're welcome. I will say that that. You know,
Speaker 2: there are some episodes that you know, like they're fine,
Speaker 2: they're good, like it was you know, not a complete
Speaker 2: waste of my time to be a part of it.
Speaker 2: But this episode, like y'all have to listen so good.
Speaker 2: Tom Bombadil is like he's fascinating in so many ways,
Speaker 2: and Keith knows what he's talking about. H. So y'all
Speaker 2: best tune in.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Yeah it was. We pre recorded the interview. It's
Speaker 1: a very It was a highly highly enjoyable discussion Keith.
Speaker 1: We really enjoyed h chatting with Keith, and we think
Speaker 1: you'll enjoy it too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so for sure.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to this episode's executive producer, Caitlin of Ta
Speaker 1: with Tolkien, and a shout out to all of our
Speaker 1: amazing patrons. Thank you all so much for supporting this show.
Speaker 1: If you are not a patron, you should become a patron.
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Speaker 1: Head on over to patreon dot com slash Tolkien Road
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Speaker 1: review that tells that tells the the AI, the algorithms
Speaker 1: that this is a worthy podcast, so which we are,
Speaker 1: which we are of course. So yeah, all right, well,
Speaker 1: you know, not a lot in the world of Tolkien
Speaker 1: news as of late, so maybe that's good. Well, I
Speaker 1: think we just you know, a couple episodes we probably
Speaker 1: single handedly convinced Latron Prime to you know, maybe rethink
Speaker 1: it all again. And you know, so I'm sure they're
Speaker 1: just back to the drawing board.
Speaker 2: I'm sure. So, yeah, they're too busy to anything out there.
Speaker 1: It's most likely explanations. All right, Okay, Greta, let's talk
Speaker 1: about the Bombadil enigma shall we do it? Yes, We're
Speaker 1: joined on this episode by Keith Matheson. A few months ago,
Speaker 1: Keith sent me an article he had written on Tom Bombadil,
Speaker 1: and I thought it was such a well done exploration
Speaker 1: of the character and the controversy surrounding him, that I
Speaker 1: invited Keith to join us for an episode of The
Speaker 1: Tolkien Road. Keith, welcome, Thank you, nice to have you here.
Speaker 2: Gus, thanks for being here.
Speaker 1: So Keith, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm I was born and raised in Texas. I've
Speaker 3: been in Florida since nineteen ninety two, the last ten
Speaker 3: years teaching the Little Christian College in Central Florida. Have
Speaker 3: a wife, an adult daughter with a granddaughter of a
Speaker 3: son nineteen in college. I'm a Texan and a exile basically.
Speaker 1: Gotcha, gotcha.
Speaker 2: I've heard that you can take the Textan out of Texas,
Speaker 2: but you can't take the Texas out of the Texan
Speaker 2: we have. We have a lot of friends from Texas
Speaker 2: and this just sticks.
Speaker 1: With them absolutely absolutely. Well, tell us about your journey
Speaker 1: as a Tolkien fan. We always whenever we have anybody on,
Speaker 1: we always want to hear you know, before we talk
Speaker 1: about the substance of why we're having them on. You know,
Speaker 1: we we we're a fan. We're really a fan focused
Speaker 1: podcast first and foremost, and you know ravenus fans. So
Speaker 1: I think I can tell from some of the things
Speaker 1: you know for this article and from some of the
Speaker 1: other things that you've written, that you you seem to
Speaker 1: be a pretty fit that profile pretty well of being
Speaker 1: a ravenus Tolkien fan. So tell us about your your
Speaker 1: journey as a Tolkien fan.
Speaker 3: Keith, I am a Ravenus fan. I was a late
Speaker 3: comer to Tolkien. We didn't have a lot of books
Speaker 3: in my house growing up, but we had we had
Speaker 3: an encyclopedia set, and for some reason, we had the
Speaker 3: complete work to Edgar Allen Poe. So I was either
Speaker 3: reading the encyclopedia articles or giving myself nightmares. I first
Speaker 3: encountered Tolkien's writings. I remember walking through bookstores back when
Speaker 3: I was a teenager and young adult and seeing Tulkien
Speaker 3: in the section and seeing that title The Lord of
Speaker 3: the Rings. But for some reason, it never clicked to
Speaker 3: me that I should read that. And then I don't
Speaker 3: remember why I first picked that book up, but I
Speaker 3: brought The Lord of that Rings home one day and
Speaker 3: decided I wanted to read this and just started reading
Speaker 3: it and quickly fell in love with it, and almost
Speaker 3: immediately re read the whole thing. And I just remember
Speaker 3: this book hitting me harder than almost any other fiction
Speaker 3: book did. It really hit me in the heart. And
Speaker 3: I just fell in love with it and began reading
Speaker 3: more and more in Tolkien's works, and finally I read
Speaker 3: The Hobbit for the first time as an adult. Came
Speaker 3: to that after The Lord of the Rings on the
Speaker 3: Filmarellion stard to look at other smaller works of Tolkien.
Speaker 3: Just got more and more involved. And then the movies,
Speaker 3: of course came out in the e in two thousand
Speaker 3: and one or so, I think that was the first
Speaker 3: one two thousand and one, and I went and saw
Speaker 3: those have a love hate relationship with them.
Speaker 1: And then.
Speaker 3: A few years ago I had the opportunity the students petition,
Speaker 3: since I knew what a rabid Tolkien fan I was.
Speaker 3: The students at my little college petition the administration can
Speaker 3: if they could have a Tolkien class, and so I
Speaker 3: was asked to teach them their great works in Tolkien.
Speaker 3: And I'm not a Tolkien scholar, but it was just
Speaker 3: basically a big classroom of pains with me leading the
Speaker 3: fan discussion. And then I was asked again this year
Speaker 3: if I would do it. So I'm in the middle
Speaker 3: of that class again this semester and learned a little
Speaker 3: bit more about it. But I've just I fell in
Speaker 3: love with Tolkien maybe twenty years ago, I think I
Speaker 3: encountered to me in my late twenties or early thirties,
Speaker 3: have just been pursuing reading secondary sources, finally started working
Speaker 3: on the history of Middle Earists and things like that,
Speaker 3: and yeah, just a little bit more and more every
Speaker 3: time I read it.
Speaker 1: Well, if you're not a if you're not a Tolkien scholar, Keith,
Speaker 1: and you sure do you sure do a good job
Speaker 1: of faking it. So yeah, yeah, well, I I feel
Speaker 1: like that's how a lot of you know, a lot.
Speaker 1: I feel like there's a lot of people who are
Speaker 1: maybe like you know, I know. In my case, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I've written two books on Tolkien, and but
Speaker 1: I never can feel like I'm worthy of calling myself
Speaker 1: a Tolkien scholar because it just seems like no nobody
Speaker 1: really matches up to that that description. I think it
Speaker 1: feels like being like the true sense of being like
Speaker 1: a scholar, in the sense of like if you're going
Speaker 1: to be you're more like just a constant student, you know,
Speaker 1: just trying to better learn what he was all about
Speaker 1: and what he wrote.
Speaker 3: Well, I when I say Tolkien scholar, I'm the people
Speaker 3: in my mind where people like Tom Shippy and Wayne
Speaker 3: Hammond and yeah, Christina Skull.
Speaker 1: There are definitely a few. There are definitely a few
Speaker 1: that are you know of a of a higher tier
Speaker 1: for sure. So but but yeah, like I said, you
Speaker 1: do a based on based on just this article alone,
Speaker 1: you do a pretty a pretty good job of faking it.
Speaker 1: So well, uh great, that's uh, that's interesting. So you
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings was first for you, and then
Speaker 1: and then the Hobbit sometime later, and then and then
Speaker 1: the silm Rellion and all other things. Yeah, so very cool, cool,
Speaker 1: all right, Well, Keith, what inspired this article on Tom Bombadil.
Speaker 3: Well, the first time I read Lord of the Rings,
Speaker 3: Tom Bombadil just stood out as odd. It was just
Speaker 3: a really really odd thing. Even that it wasn't very
Speaker 3: far into the book. But when you run into him,
Speaker 3: he just he destrikes you as an unusual character. And
Speaker 3: then it moves back into this deep medieval type fantasy
Speaker 3: at the end, and there's nothing else quite like him
Speaker 3: in that whole book. And so I just I became
Speaker 3: intrigued by him the first time I read the book,
Speaker 3: and every time I read it, I was more and
Speaker 3: more intrigued. And the more I learned about Middle Earth
Speaker 3: and the whole the all the creatures and types of
Speaker 3: beings that exist in Middle Earth, the questions started to
Speaker 3: rise in my mind what is he? And what is he?
Speaker 3: And that's when I started doing searches for articles online
Speaker 3: and elsewhere to see has anybody else thought about this?
Speaker 3: And I just ran across so many theories about who
Speaker 3: and what he was. And it's just been kind of
Speaker 3: a hobby, I guess you would call it. It's it's
Speaker 3: like a fun little mystery to puzzle to.
Speaker 1: It's like a subcategory of Tolkien scholarship. Is Bombadolology, I
Speaker 1: think so?
Speaker 3: And so I've been just fascinated with all the various
Speaker 3: theory is out there for the last two decades and
Speaker 3: more recently when I prepared to write this. What what
Speaker 3: caused me to write this was for a long time,
Speaker 3: I was just interested in this and I had noticed
Speaker 3: certain things, and I know we'll talk about that a
Speaker 3: little bit more, but I guess it was about six
Speaker 3: months ago something clicked and it hit me that all
Speaker 3: these pieces started to come together when I ran across
Speaker 3: this one little item that in my mind turned a
Speaker 3: lot of circumstantial evidence into potentially something more.
Speaker 1: Significant, very interesting. Yeah, well, well let's let's let's dive
Speaker 1: into your article. Your article is entitled let's see I
Speaker 1: had it pulled out. There we go, the Bombadilla Enigma.
Speaker 1: I thought it was the Bombadilla Enigma, and then I
Speaker 1: saw something else. So yeah, we're really focused on this character,
Speaker 1: Tom Bombadil and the enigma. I can't think of a
Speaker 1: I can't think of a character in all of Tolkien
Speaker 1: and all of Tolkien Dumb and all of Middle Earth,
Speaker 1: the Middle Earth legendarium, who is more more enigmatic than
Speaker 1: Tom Bombadil, you know, Tom Bombadil is. And so in
Speaker 1: this article you're exploring that. You warn at the beginning
Speaker 1: that you're gonna be engaging in some moderate to severe Tolkien.
Speaker 1: Nerdidis here. So uh, it's so this but this is
Speaker 1: the place for some you know, for the severe form
Speaker 1: of Tolkien. Nerdidis. You know for sure, So all of
Speaker 1: that is welcome here. So, you know, you start out
Speaker 1: by introducing, you know, this figure of Tom Bombadil. And
Speaker 1: for anyone who's read The Lord of the Rings, like
Speaker 1: you said, you know, we're gonna be We're gonna be
Speaker 1: familiar with this character. Maybe some people have latched onto
Speaker 1: him as more mysterious than others people. He tends to
Speaker 1: be a character that everybody who likes Tolkien or anybody
Speaker 1: who reads The Lord of the Rings has a strong
Speaker 1: opinion on. Some people are just like, don't even know
Speaker 1: why those three chapters are in there at all. And
Speaker 1: you know some you know, some people probably like you
Speaker 1: and me and Greta, are like, well, why didn't Peter
Speaker 1: Why didn't Peter Jackson include Tom Bombadil in in the
Speaker 1: movies at all. It's like a huge problem with you know,
Speaker 1: with his version of fellowship. So you have this big
Speaker 1: spectrum of people when it comes to, you know, opinions
Speaker 1: of Tom Bombadil. But he is truly an enigmatic and
Speaker 1: you know, just trying to trying to figure out where
Speaker 1: he comes from, who he is. There's a lot going
Speaker 1: on here, and so there's been a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of controversy about him. What do we know from
Speaker 1: the text Keith about Tom, Like, what are some of
Speaker 1: the things that that he says about himself? What are
Speaker 1: some of the things that the text says about him
Speaker 1: that gold Goldberry says about him? And we also got
Speaker 1: to just talk about Goldberry as a figure as well.
Speaker 2: And what an awesome name too. I mean, there's this
Speaker 2: they're fantastic character.
Speaker 3: Both of them are in the ratic. You really have
Speaker 3: to treat the two together. I think the first thing
Speaker 3: that's noticeable about Tom is the singing. That's the first
Speaker 3: thing that seems to strike you when they first encounter him,
Speaker 3: that they hear him before they see him, and they
Speaker 3: hear this singing and it's the somewhat nonsensical type of song.
Speaker 3: It reminds me a lot of the elves songs the
Speaker 3: first time you encounter them in the Hobbit Trolo Alali
Speaker 3: down in the Valley, type of silly syllables, and it's
Speaker 3: throughout the dealings with Tom. In the initial encounter he's
Speaker 3: either singing or even when he's speaking, it's a very rhythmic,
Speaker 3: almost song like prose when he's speaking, but he has
Speaker 3: a strange combination of characteristics. His height is described somewhere between.
Speaker 3: It's about the size of a dwarf, I think, because
Speaker 3: he's taller than a Hobbit shorter than an so he's
Speaker 3: dwarf sized. His clothing is just unusual because of the
Speaker 3: bright colors. He has a feather in his cap like
Speaker 3: Hobbit sheriffs, and you know whether that's significant or not,
Speaker 3: I don't know. But he sings like the elves, the
Speaker 3: silly touch songs in the Hobbit things. He has powers
Speaker 3: that are really what is the most enigmatic thing about him,
Speaker 3: because despite all of the strangeness, it's the effect or
Speaker 3: non effect of the ring on him that really strikes
Speaker 3: most readers. This ring. Gandalf doesn't even want to touch it.
Speaker 3: He doesn't want anything to do with it. We know
Speaker 3: he's very powerful. Gladrial same issue. Tom is playing with
Speaker 3: this thing like it's a toy. Puts it on his finger,
Speaker 3: he doesn't disappear. When Frodo puts it on, he can
Speaker 3: still see proto it doesn't affect that. And so I
Speaker 3: think that's what really gets people's interests started in him.
Speaker 3: Is the is the influence or lack of influence of
Speaker 3: that ring such a hu thing in this whole story,
Speaker 3: influencing everybody else. And then they start to the hobbits
Speaker 3: start to ask these questions. Proto asked Goldberry who is he?
Speaker 3: He is? And sometimes I when I'm reading that, I
Speaker 3: hear him saying, who is Tom Bombadil? And he is,
Speaker 3: but that that answer has caused people to write his
Speaker 3: questions about is he deity of some kind?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and just having like a similarity to like in
Speaker 1: in scriptural terms, I am who am as the you
Speaker 1: know what, how God refers to himself and in the
Speaker 1: Book of Exodus.
Speaker 3: Right that Exodus passage, I am has That's caused some
Speaker 3: people to latch onto that. And then she's repeats He's master,
Speaker 3: Woodwater and Hill, He's master, He's master. And then of
Speaker 3: course when when Frodo asks who he is, he one
Speaker 3: of the most enigmatic answers in the whole thing. Who
Speaker 3: are you master? Don't you know my name yet? That's
Speaker 3: the only answer? Tell me who are you?
Speaker 1: Alone?
Speaker 3: Yourself and name? Listen, I'm still wrestling with what he's
Speaker 3: getting at. Yeah, response, he starts to describe himself, and
Speaker 3: he takes himself back to the very origins of Middle
Speaker 3: Earth in his description of what he's seen and experienced.
Speaker 3: So of course then at the Council of Elrond gammed
Speaker 3: off and all the elves have commidents about him. But
Speaker 3: his characteristics are all over the place, something from looking
Speaker 3: like a hobbit to being the size of the door,
Speaker 3: singing like an elf. And then all these enigmatic words
Speaker 3: by him and about him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the and the very you know, curious curious
Speaker 2: responses by himself and Goldberry. I mean, it just deepens
Speaker 2: the mystery. Yeah, you know, Keith, as I was listening
Speaker 2: to you speak, that the one word that that popped
Speaker 2: into my head that I felt like was really described
Speaker 2: Tom Mambadil was otherworldly, like he just he doesn't seem
Speaker 2: to fit in Middle Earth, Like he just he's like
Speaker 2: above it, in it, but he's not, like he's not
Speaker 2: he's not. He's just kind of of another world, like
Speaker 2: he's just you know, it's like he's in it, but
Speaker 2: he's not in it, Like you know, he fits, but
Speaker 2: he doesn't it.
Speaker 1: And as I was reading it, you know, I was
Speaker 1: we talked about Tom, but and then we kind of
Speaker 1: laughingly just a few minutes ago referred to Goldberry and
Speaker 1: the enigma that she is as well alongside him, And
Speaker 1: then you have old Man Willow, right, and the enigma
Speaker 1: that Old Man Willow is in the Old Forest, and
Speaker 1: the interaction between Tom and Old Man Willow, and and
Speaker 1: then you just have the Old Forest all by itself
Speaker 1: at like it is the place where they all, they
Speaker 1: all seem to inhabit. It's almost like this is some
Speaker 1: kind of special special place, you know, within within the
Speaker 1: larger world of Middle Earth, that it's some kind of
Speaker 1: like an island, like it's like strange Garden of Eden
Speaker 1: or something like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, not quite.
Speaker 1: Not not exactly paradise, but you know, like but you know,
Speaker 1: like a maybe kind of twisted paradise or something. I
Speaker 1: don't know, but uh, I.
Speaker 3: Think people like Joseph Pearce have picked up on that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: when he connects Bombadilla and Goldberry was unfallen.
Speaker 2: Right, would you explain why the Ring doesn't have an
Speaker 2: effect on him? Right? I mean, they're they're immune to
Speaker 2: the effects of of fallen man of the you know,
Speaker 2: the results of the fall. So there's yeah, there's yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean the Ring is is certainly the most startling,
Speaker 1: like his his relationship with the ring is is certainly
Speaker 1: the most startling thing about him, the thing that stands out,
Speaker 1: uh the most. And then you have because nobody, nobody
Speaker 1: has that reaction to the ring within within the whole story.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can argue that some of the you know,
Speaker 1: maybe the eagles wood or the ense wood or something
Speaker 1: like that, but but they never it never really comes
Speaker 1: up for them, like it never really comes up for those,
Speaker 1: you know, for those types of beings. But yeah, Tom
Speaker 1: is just there's no effect, you know, it's it does
Speaker 1: not it's not even a it's not even a scary
Speaker 1: thing for him. It's just kind of like this is
Speaker 1: nothing to me, you know, for everybody else that's everything.
Speaker 1: So uh yeah, and at the Council of elrond Is
Speaker 1: you mentioned, he's also you know, he's given some interesting
Speaker 1: names as well. Uh you mentioned in your article he's
Speaker 1: known at For example, he's called by the elves as
Speaker 1: yottawayne ben Adaar, meaning oldest and fatherless, which is also
Speaker 1: one of those names that just leads you to think,
Speaker 1: like who is this right?
Speaker 3: You know, especially it becomes even more curious when you
Speaker 3: run into tree Beard and he's calling himself the oldest
Speaker 3: living thing and others are saying that about world, who's
Speaker 3: the oldest.
Speaker 1: Well, and then and speaking of tree Beard because of
Speaker 1: the effect that that makes me think of the effect
Speaker 1: that Tom has on old Man Willow right. And you know,
Speaker 1: old Man willow seeming to be this you know tree
Speaker 1: that is somehow animated right in a more human like way.
Speaker 1: It seems to have more of a personality than your
Speaker 1: average tree. And that of course makes us think of
Speaker 1: the ends, and and so you know, is there some
Speaker 1: kind of relationship between them? And then Tom Bombadil has
Speaker 1: that power over old Man Willow Right. He has the
Speaker 1: power to basically command Old Man willow.
Speaker 3: I haven't seen anybody write. I'm sure somebody has, but
Speaker 3: I haven't run across anybody writing anything substantive relating horizing
Speaker 3: that maybe Tom is related to the ants in some way,
Speaker 3: but there are similarities there both of them. Are these
Speaker 3: in the story, these singular figures within the midst of
Speaker 3: these forests. And I think, if I recall correctly, Gandalf,
Speaker 3: it's the very last, or at least Obamba did in
Speaker 3: the book says something about tree Beard and the nts
Speaker 3: when he says he's going to go talk to.
Speaker 1: Him but yeah.
Speaker 3: It's just it's another he's similar to dwarves, me and
Speaker 3: hobbits at hells of all are my rs unite it.
Speaker 3: There's he's a mixture of everything, it seems like, or
Speaker 3: at least somewhat. He has similarities with everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he and know what, he seems above them
Speaker 2: because he's master. So it's a it's an interesting combination,
Speaker 2: absolutely sure.
Speaker 1: Well, so Keith. One of the best one of the
Speaker 1: best things about your article is that you do a
Speaker 1: really uh great job of going through and talking about
Speaker 1: some of the very theories, right, some of the like
Speaker 1: I would say, you probably catalog anything that anybody's come
Speaker 1: up with, you know, for the most part. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm sure maybe there's some other because there's been so
Speaker 1: much ink spilled on this that there's other little ones
Speaker 1: out here, like very slight variations on certain theories. But
Speaker 1: you know, walk us through some of these theories that
Speaker 1: others have suggested to explain who Tom is and where
Speaker 1: he comes from.
Speaker 3: Well, as we were talking about earlier, there have been
Speaker 3: those who have suggested that he is God incarnate, Ahru
Speaker 3: incarnate in some way, the omnipotent supreme being in the Legendarium.
Speaker 3: Some have suggested that he's He and Goldberry. Are you know,
Speaker 3: among the the lare that, And the most common theory
Speaker 3: is Ala and Yvanna, that they are Tom and Goldberry
Speaker 3: in disguise, or ala is in disguise and Tom and
Speaker 3: Vana is in disguise in Goldberry. And there was a
Speaker 3: time several years ago where I really thought that might
Speaker 3: be the best answer to this. I'm much less convinced
Speaker 3: of that. I think there's more serious problems with that.
Speaker 3: Some like Robert Foster in his Little Dictionary, suggested he's
Speaker 3: one of the Mayor, and you find that theory in
Speaker 3: various forms out there. Some have pointed out that in
Speaker 3: the print version of the Silmarillion, the published Simarillion, as
Speaker 3: well as some of the earlier versions of it, Tulkien
Speaker 3: mentions other types of spiritual beings who came into Middle
Speaker 3: Earth along with the Vallar and the Mayar. And there's
Speaker 3: been a number of variations on that of different types
Speaker 3: of spiritual beings, And in the earlier writings in the
Speaker 3: Lost Road and Things, he lifts a large number of
Speaker 3: those kinds. That gets narrowed down by the time you
Speaker 3: get to the published simarillion, as you know, but it
Speaker 3: still opens the door to other types of spiritual beings.
Speaker 3: A nature spirit has been a common theory and that
Speaker 3: I think similar. It's a branch of that previous one,
Speaker 3: and that goes all the way back to a letter
Speaker 3: he wrote in nineteen thirty seven when he's talking about
Speaker 3: the original poems regarding Tom Bombadil. Some of the more
Speaker 3: recent theories that I've seen become a little more abstract,
Speaker 3: where some have suggested he's the incarnation of Arda, that
Speaker 3: he is an incarnation of Earth itself, and that ends
Speaker 3: up being rooted and some things said about him at
Speaker 3: the Council of Elron tying him to the power of
Speaker 3: the earth itself. And then there's a fascinating theory that
Speaker 3: he's an incarnation of the music of the imor that
Speaker 3: is tied in with the predominance of singing that's related
Speaker 3: to him. Then there have been some more what I
Speaker 3: would call breaking of the fourth wall type theory is
Speaker 3: where some of the theory that he's tolking himself I've
Speaker 3: seen mentioned in communists before, but I've never seen a
Speaker 3: full blown article about it. I'm sure one's out there.
Speaker 3: Others that are like that. Some have said that Tom
Speaker 3: represents the reader or the audience of the story, and
Speaker 3: I've seen at least one presentation of that that's enormous,
Speaker 3: really long, and one of the strangest theories I've run across.
Speaker 3: And I've only seen one blog post, really your website,
Speaker 3: arguing this is that he's not a good guy, that
Speaker 3: he's actually an evil spirit and he's waiting for the
Speaker 3: downfall of Saloon.
Speaker 1: I was shocked when I read that in your article.
Speaker 1: I was like, really, there's somebody that thinks that, and
Speaker 1: I think you do a pretty good job of refuting
Speaker 1: refuting that.
Speaker 3: I think that's among the easily refutable theories.
Speaker 1: I suppose somebody had to suggest that, you know, possibility,
Speaker 1: but it's in there. Yeah, it just doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: hold much water at all.
Speaker 3: And I'm not one hundred percent sure if that website
Speaker 3: isn't tongue in cheek, I can't quite tell. With it satire, yeah,
Speaker 3: but I think some people might take it seriously. So
Speaker 3: I just mentioned it just cars. And of course there
Speaker 3: are those who say that Tolkien put him in there
Speaker 3: and he's deliberately an enigma that's unsolvable.
Speaker 2: Wow, those are They're all like as I was reading
Speaker 2: through them, I kind of, you know, I would read
Speaker 2: one of like, oh that yeah, I was kind of
Speaker 2: thinking about that, and then you mentioned something I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: well that makes sense too. And then and then we
Speaker 2: got to the one about it possibly being Tolkien, and
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, yeah, that's what I want it
Speaker 2: to be. That's the one I was rooting for. I
Speaker 2: was like, I loved that idea, like a cameo in
Speaker 2: his own legendarium.
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about that one for a second. And
Speaker 1: you know, I think I think you spoke about this
Speaker 1: and you referred to you made a connection to this
Speaker 1: and Leaf by Niggle, if if memory service right, So
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't in my opinion, I don't think Tom
Speaker 3: represents Tulkien, but I wanted to just say that I
Speaker 3: don't think you can rule it out as impossible like
Speaker 3: the evil bad guy theory, because of something like Leaf
Speaker 3: by Niggle, where you do seem to have talking at
Speaker 3: least playing with the possibility of entering into this subcreated
Speaker 3: world after death. In Leaf Biden Niggle, it's hard to
Speaker 3: tell whether he's actually whether Niggle's entering into his own
Speaker 3: subcreation or whether in the afterlife God has created this
Speaker 3: thing for him to enter into. It's a little fuzzy,
Speaker 3: but he seems to play with that, and who could
Speaker 3: blame him. You know, he spent his whole life creating
Speaker 3: this amazing world with so much beauty in it as
Speaker 3: well as danger. But the thought of him wanting to
Speaker 3: enter into it, I don't think it is beyond the
Speaker 3: realm of possibility. But when he in his letters, when
Speaker 3: he does talk about any character being most like him,
Speaker 3: I think pharam Her is the one he most closely
Speaker 3: relates himself to, which is why I don't think it's
Speaker 3: Tom Bombadill is Tolkien, but I don't will it completely out.
Speaker 3: I could see him with a twinkle in his eye,
Speaker 3: playing that kind of joke on his.
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, yeah, well it's I think that's that's that.
Speaker 1: Let kind of leads us into the next, you know
Speaker 1: portion of your article where you speak about the history
Speaker 1: of Tom Bombadil not just as a figure in the
Speaker 1: history of Middle Earth, but but as a as a
Speaker 1: creation of Tolkien's right, is this is this storytelling figure
Speaker 1: that that goes that predates even even the Hobbit and
Speaker 1: a lot of the stories of the legendary. So you know,
Speaker 1: this was a figure that existed outside of Middle Earth
Speaker 1: for Tolkien for a long time. So tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about.
Speaker 3: That, right, And I think that does play a large
Speaker 3: part in what you were saying earlier about him singing
Speaker 3: kind of otherworldly, because he existed in a non Middle
Speaker 3: Earth world prior to the writing of The Hobbit and
Speaker 3: so forth he wrote. As you know, Tolkien wrote stories
Speaker 3: for his children. We see the Little Rover random story
Speaker 3: about the Lost Dog, just beautiful and fun little story
Speaker 3: the Hobbits originally written or perhaps poorly told to his
Speaker 3: children before it goes into print. And these poems about
Speaker 3: Tom Bondbabill that are written that already include Goldberry and
Speaker 3: Old Man Willow and the Barrel White. That little world
Speaker 3: already exists before he writes The Hobbit, before it, long
Speaker 3: before he writes Word of the Rings. So it's it's
Speaker 3: already there, but it's not part of the legendarium. It's
Speaker 3: a separate thing like the Father Christmas Letters or Rob
Speaker 3: Randon or some of the other little short fictional stories
Speaker 3: he wrote.
Speaker 2: Tom I'm sorry, go ahead, go ahead, I was just
Speaker 2: going to ask a quick clarific clarification question. Now, this
Speaker 2: was a poem. Is that correct that Tom Bombadil first
Speaker 2: appeared in Is that was his? Did I read that correctly?
Speaker 3: Or no?
Speaker 2: Was he in a story?
Speaker 3: That original version, the Little Story of Tom Bombasa was
Speaker 3: written in poetic form.
Speaker 2: Gotcha? Okay? So it was a story, not a poem,
Speaker 2: but it was a story written in poetic form Where
Speaker 2: Bombado first appeared?
Speaker 3: Is that correct?
Speaker 2: Okay? Okay? Yeah, I didn't. I did not realize that
Speaker 2: I hadn't earlier than that, So I did not even
Speaker 2: realize that he was created, you know, so much before it.
Speaker 3: Was nineteen It was published in nineteen thirty four, okay,
Speaker 3: The Adventures of Tom Bombadill And oh gotach? Okay. His
Speaker 3: son has a little doll with this clothing and colors
Speaker 3: of Tom Bombadill, and he writes this billy, kind of
Speaker 3: fun childlike poem story about this character that is his
Speaker 3: son's doll. Later, after The Lord of the Rings is published,
Speaker 3: he writes some additional poems and then publishes all that
Speaker 3: together kind of draws it into the legendarium by making
Speaker 3: it part of the Red Book of West March and
Speaker 3: selections out of it written by Okay.
Speaker 2: Okay, yes, thank you for clarifying that I did not realize.
Speaker 2: I just didn't realize that he had a history that
Speaker 2: predated Lord of the Rings.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, I mean, you know, it's Keith saying he's
Speaker 1: he's this figure that you know, it was kind of
Speaker 1: a a storically, it was almost like it was just
Speaker 1: a you know, kind of a playful thing with his
Speaker 1: with his kids for you know, for a long time,
Speaker 1: as so much of the Legendarium, you know, began began
Speaker 1: as and then.
Speaker 3: And then when you start reading the history of the
Speaker 3: writing of the Lord of the Rings where he basically
Speaker 3: just starts writing it soon, according to Christopher Talkien, doesn't
Speaker 3: really know where this story is going. It finds why
Speaker 3: it starts the way it does. And he says in
Speaker 3: a letter, and Christopher Talkien mentions this in the History
Speaker 3: of Middle Earth, that he inserts these characters he had
Speaker 3: already invented decades earlier because he needed an adventure along
Speaker 3: the way to the Hobbits.
Speaker 2: I love that expression.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he takes that little world of Tom Bombadill and
Speaker 3: Goldberry and the Old Man Willow and the Barrel of
Speaker 3: white Ploks. It writing the Path and the Hobbits and
Speaker 3: they walk into the old Forest and running too Tom Bombadille.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, But you also make the comment that that
Speaker 2: that's not the only place that Bombadell appears in Lord
Speaker 2: of the Rings. I mean, he keeps kind of his
Speaker 2: name keeps popping up throughout throughout the books, and even
Speaker 2: at the end, you know, there's a dream that that
Speaker 2: Freda remembers having had it, you know, at Bombadill. So
Speaker 2: it's not it's not like that's an isolated those three
Speaker 2: chapters are not. They're not like a standalone kind.
Speaker 1: Of Yeah, it's not. It's not an easy break between
Speaker 1: them like they he you know, he's definitely spoken of
Speaker 1: at the Council of Elrond, you know, a good bit
Speaker 1: and he's he's actually proposed is let's just give the
Speaker 1: ring to Tom. Let's just give the ring to Tom
Speaker 1: because it apparently has no effect on him, and maybe
Speaker 1: it'll just be safe, you know, maybe it'll just be
Speaker 1: safe until you know, until the end of the world there, right.
Speaker 1: But and and that that actually serves to refute the
Speaker 1: idea that he is and that he's like a Louvatar
Speaker 1: or even a valor, because they their basics response is well, yes,
Speaker 1: it'll probably be safe there, safer than it would be
Speaker 1: in a lot of places. But eventually even Tom will
Speaker 1: succumb to you know, will succumb to Suron.
Speaker 3: Right, right, And and I think more than one of
Speaker 3: them say the Ring has no power over him, but
Speaker 3: he has no power over the Ring, right, which I
Speaker 3: think that rules out, you know, the god figure in
Speaker 3: the Middle Earth legends, because surely the creator would have
Speaker 3: power over the Creator.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly exactly, But he's.
Speaker 3: He has mentioned a few other times, not a lot,
Speaker 3: but in Shilob's lair, Sam, I'm not sure which Tom
Speaker 3: was here. And the fascinating thing there is immediately after
Speaker 3: that statement, they remember the little vial of light that
Speaker 3: the lady will give him. And then of course at
Speaker 3: the end with Gandalf, he's going to talk to him.
Speaker 3: I've been looking everywhere to see if that statement about
Speaker 3: he's a he's a stone gathering moss, and I've been
Speaker 3: a rolling stone if there's anything anywhere that would tie
Speaker 3: that in the a clue, but haven't found anything yet.
Speaker 3: And then, of course, when as you were saying, when
Speaker 3: Proto finally crosses the sea into the west. That vision
Speaker 3: that he describes is echoes the dream he'd had in
Speaker 3: the house of.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well we've we've gone through all of the other
Speaker 1: other theories that have been proposed, and you, uh, you
Speaker 1: spend a little time, I'll say this before we dive
Speaker 1: into to your particular theory that that you put forward
Speaker 1: in this article. You you spend a little time with
Speaker 1: some of these other theories, and you you you divide
Speaker 1: them up into basically two types of two types of
Speaker 1: theories and talking about them, right.
Speaker 3: Uh, I just for the psych of classification, I divided
Speaker 3: them into theories where Tom breaks the fourth wall. Those
Speaker 3: would be theories such as he is Tolkien or the
Speaker 3: Reader or the audience that brings the outside world into
Speaker 3: Middle Earth. And the other type of theories are those
Speaker 3: where Tom exists entirely within Middle Earth itself. So that's
Speaker 3: just an easy way for me to remember the different times.
Speaker 1: Sure to group them together, because I mean we listed
Speaker 1: off ten or eleven, you know, different different variations, and
Speaker 1: so it helps to group them right like that. And
Speaker 1: I wanted to say, just in case there are those
Speaker 1: who aren't familiar with that idea of breaking the fourth Wall.
Speaker 1: I'm sure many listeners are, but there's probably some who aren't. Basically,
Speaker 1: what I think what you're describing, Keith, is this idea
Speaker 1: that sometimes in a story a character will will speak
Speaker 1: to the like, speak to the audience. That's kind of
Speaker 1: like the most well known way where it's just like
Speaker 1: you're like watching a movie and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it's like everything's happening in kind of the three dimensional
Speaker 1: world of the movie, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: one of the characters turned towards turns towards you and
Speaker 1: the audience and starts speaking to you directly, right, Ferris.
Speaker 3: Bueller's Day Off, Deadpool, those type of movies where the
Speaker 3: audience is constantly being brought into this and in some
Speaker 3: ways it's breaking the illusion and playing with that. You know,
Speaker 3: they step out of the Ferris Mueller stepped out of
Speaker 3: his little world and addresses you, Deadpool stepped out of
Speaker 3: the Marvel universe and addresses the audience, And that kind
Speaker 3: of thing almost be like a stage man becoming part
Speaker 3: of a play.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, yeah, and uh and and so this would
Speaker 1: be something very like like you're basically saying, like with
Speaker 1: the theory that he's Tolkien, or the theory that he
Speaker 1: is actually the reader or the audience that would be
Speaker 1: these kind of fourth wall breaking the fourth wall types
Speaker 1: of theories right.
Speaker 3: Where somewhere our world breaks into the world of Middle
Speaker 3: Earth intersects with it.
Speaker 1: Yes, gotcha, gotcha? So well, let's let's talk about what
Speaker 1: you put forward is your theory. So you spend a
Speaker 1: good kind of you spend a lot of time dealing
Speaker 1: with other people's theories and tracing the history of this
Speaker 1: of this character. Now, but you have you have, you know,
Speaker 1: a unique take on this, and so tell us about that.
Speaker 2: I'm so can I give you a time out super quick?
Speaker 2: I just wanted to back up a teeny bit because
Speaker 2: one thing I really appreciated about your article, Keith, was
Speaker 2: how you mentioned a lot of the letters that you
Speaker 2: brought in, a lot of letters that Tolkien himself had
Speaker 2: written and things that he specifically said about Bombadil, and
Speaker 2: I was curious if there is I feel like after
Speaker 2: I read through those, I was like, well, that's clear
Speaker 2: as mud now, thanks Tolkien. Like I've like, we've just
Speaker 2: complicated the issue further, We've done nothing cleared up. But
Speaker 2: I was just wondering because I know you mentioned a
Speaker 2: lot of letters, but was there just one particular one
Speaker 2: that kind of, you know, made a special impact on you,
Speaker 2: or one that kind of helped you further kind of
Speaker 2: develop your own theory per se.
Speaker 3: I think the first one that had me start thinking
Speaker 3: about this with I believe it's letter one forty four
Speaker 3: when he says he basically identify as Tom with a
Speaker 3: vow of poverty, renouncing control, taking delight in things for themself,
Speaker 3: and then he mentions that Tom's representing a natural pacifist.
Speaker 3: You vow of poverty and pacifism, and is what immediately
Speaker 3: started the wheels turning in my mind. But it wasn't
Speaker 3: enough for me to really think that's not conclusive because
Speaker 3: in other letters he said to represent it and embody
Speaker 3: other things, but based on knowing a little bit of
Speaker 3: church history, that got the wheels turning. The other letter
Speaker 3: that was very significant for what I ended up doing
Speaker 3: was one that's not found in his published letters, but
Speaker 3: one that's found in The Lord of the Rings Reader's
Speaker 3: Guide edited by Hammond and Skull. That it wasn't what
Speaker 3: got me started, but it was a major piece of
Speaker 3: the puzzle. So those were the two I think that started.
Speaker 3: And then the one where he says a letter one
Speaker 3: two when he says, the Lord of the Rings is
Speaker 3: of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work, unconsciously so
Speaker 3: at first, but consciously in the revision, and that the
Speaker 3: religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.
Speaker 3: All of these comments he's making in these letters were
Speaker 3: coming together in my mind and really influenced the direction
Speaker 3: my thought was taking on this and where I went it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very cool, Thank you.
Speaker 1: Well, So that that leads right in then to our
Speaker 1: you know, to your theory. Right, So you've you've you've
Speaker 1: kind of hinted at some of the ideas that you
Speaker 1: that you put forward. So tell us lay it all
Speaker 1: out here for us, your theory on on maybe not
Speaker 1: exactly who Tom Bombadill is, but but how we can
Speaker 1: better understand who he is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that, you know, based on what he
Speaker 3: says in letter one for two, where he says that
Speaker 3: certain religious elements are absorbed into the story and that
Speaker 3: it's fundamentally a religious and Catholic work consciously in the revision.
Speaker 3: Most readers know that Tolkien was devoutly Roman Catholic. But
Speaker 3: what I wanted to start exploring is I was preparing
Speaker 3: this and thinking about it was whether that had any
Speaker 3: implications for Bamba did On, And I started running across
Speaker 3: some of these things that I mentioned in the letters.
Speaker 3: Some had already read. They were just in the back
Speaker 3: of my mind. But I think that Bambadil and Goldberry
Speaker 3: are characters that do absorb certain specific elements of Tolkien's
Speaker 3: Roman Catholic religion into them, and they represent something that
Speaker 3: I think Tolkien believed was important to represent in Middle Earth,
Speaker 3: but he couldn't do it explicitly because from the Third Age,
Speaker 3: that's thousands of years before the Christian Age, he couldn't
Speaker 3: put it in there in any explicit form. So and
Speaker 3: then that's where all these other pieces started to come
Speaker 3: into play. The in Letter one forty four he speaks
Speaker 3: about a vow of poverty and passes, and Letter one
Speaker 3: fifty three talks about Bombadil representing a spirit coeval with
Speaker 3: the natural mind and love of nature and so forth,
Speaker 3: and Tom in the story itself, is constantly associated with
Speaker 3: music and singing. Those things immediately in my mind reminded
Speaker 3: me of the Franciscans and the Saint Francis of a
Speaker 3: sisi in the Franciscan order, because that's what that order.
Speaker 3: And he even more specifically was known for his radical
Speaker 3: vow of poverty, his pacifism, his love of nature, and
Speaker 3: for his mary almost frivolous, jolly singing. If you read G. K.
Speaker 3: Chesterson's biography of Francis, it's hard almost it's almost hard
Speaker 3: to imagine that Tulkien didn't read that biography and have
Speaker 3: that in his head when he was writing some of this.
Speaker 3: And I think that's all a lot of circumstantial evidence.
Speaker 3: And I had just been mulling that over for years
Speaker 3: but really not knowing what to do with it. And
Speaker 3: then the thing that finally made me think maybe I
Speaker 3: can put this into an article was when I was
Speaker 3: thinking about the use of dates in The Lord of
Speaker 3: the Rings and how the Fellowship leaves, and Joseph Pearce
Speaker 3: was one of the ones who brought this up. Where
Speaker 3: the Fellowship departs from Ribbondale on December twenty fifth in
Speaker 3: the traditional Christian obviously that's the traditional date of the
Speaker 3: birth of Christ. The ring is destroyed on March twenty fifth,
Speaker 3: which is the traditional date of the crucifixion, and so
Speaker 3: Tolkien seems to at times being playing with these dates
Speaker 3: as ways of absorbing a religious element into the story.
Speaker 3: And I started to wonder, is there could there be
Speaker 3: any significance to the dates associated with Tom. And I
Speaker 3: went back to a predictsbee at the end of The
Speaker 3: Lord of the Rings and looked up what it said
Speaker 3: about bombadal and in the timeline, the Hobbits meet Tom
Speaker 3: Bombadil on September twenty sixth, And that didn't spark anything
Speaker 3: in my memory. But I went and did started digging around,
Speaker 3: and lo and behold, I found out that September twenty sixth,
Speaker 3: for a long time was the traditional date of Saint
Speaker 3: Francis's birth, and there are a number of sources out
Speaker 3: there that listed as the traditional date for his birth.
Speaker 3: So coincidence possibly, but when you take that along with
Speaker 3: all the other things, it seems like maybe there's something
Speaker 3: more to this. In that day where they encountered him
Speaker 3: is the day of Francis with birth and all these
Speaker 3: things he says in the letter and characteristics of him
Speaker 3: that looks so much like Francis. That started to add them.
Speaker 3: And then I started looking at Goldberry, and there are
Speaker 3: interesting things there. He's always portrayed he's bringing her white
Speaker 3: lilies the first time they see him. And if you
Speaker 3: go back into the early medieval period, white lilies are
Speaker 3: commonly used as symbols of the Virgin Mary. I've gone
Speaker 3: back and looked at all these medieval artworks, and in
Speaker 3: the medieval paintings of the Annunciation, where Gabriel is announcing
Speaker 3: to her becoming birth of Christ, there's always these pots
Speaker 3: at her feet with white lilies in them. And you know,
Speaker 3: when you encounter Goldberry for the first time in the
Speaker 3: house of bonb the build, She's got all these lily's
Speaker 3: at her feet and Tom's bringing her more So, maybe
Speaker 3: if Tom absorbs some kind of Franciscan spirituality or Franciscan element,
Speaker 3: Goldberry perhaps and absorbs a Marian element, which might explain
Speaker 3: when Tom is just completely devoted to Mary, because that's
Speaker 3: another feature of Franciscan theology, is they are at the
Speaker 3: top of the list in terms of devotion to marriage
Speaker 3: and then other things. I started to notice Goldberry's song
Speaker 3: as they approach the house. She's said, let's sing the
Speaker 3: song of sun stars, mean and missed raining, cloudy weather,
Speaker 3: and so forth, And it occurred to me, you know,
Speaker 3: one of Francis's most famous songs is the Canticle of
Speaker 3: the Sun, and that whole song is about sun, stars,
Speaker 3: moon and mist and so forth. Is she calling them
Speaker 3: to sing the Canticle of the Sun in some weird symbolically.
Speaker 3: And then one of the other things that I didn't
Speaker 3: notice until very recently when I was rereading the story
Speaker 3: to for this Semester's class, is in the chapter on
Speaker 3: the Old Forest, when when Frodo and then they're walking
Speaker 3: through the forest, they're getting extremely discouraged, and then they
Speaker 3: see a hill, this treeless hill in the distance, and
Speaker 3: Tolkien describes it as rising like a bald head out
Speaker 3: of the encircling wood, and the passing to be making
Speaker 3: directly for it. And then just a few sentutes later
Speaker 3: he says, the wood stood all around the hill like
Speaker 3: thick hair that ended sharply in a circle round a
Speaker 3: shaven crown. You know, whatever where I'm going with this,
Speaker 3: that's that medieval tonsure where the ringdo of.
Speaker 2: Hair Francis himself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd never noticed.
Speaker 3: That before until after I'd written this and it started
Speaker 3: thinking about this, I thought, well, okay, these hobbits are
Speaker 3: walking through this creepy old forest. They see a hill.
Speaker 3: Tolkien describes it as looking like the head of a monk.
Speaker 3: What in the world is that all about? Maybe Tom
Speaker 3: Bombadil's the answer to that question in some way. So
Speaker 3: I'm not I should make it clear. I'm not saying
Speaker 3: that Bombadil is Saint Francis, right, or I'm not saying
Speaker 3: that Goldberry is Mary or Saint Clair of the Sissy.
Speaker 3: But I'm wondering if I'm thinking there's a possibility that
Speaker 3: these two characters are allowing Tom, allowing Tolkien to bring
Speaker 3: something in a particular type of spirituality into the story
Speaker 3: that he can't put in it explicitly, and do so
Speaker 3: in a very fun way.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's brilliant. I do too. You say,
Speaker 1: Tom then might be the embodiment or representative of something
Speaker 1: Tolkien believe was needed in the story, a particular aspect
Speaker 1: of Roman Catholic spirituality exemplified by the Franciscans, specifically poverty, pacifism,
Speaker 1: a love of nature, and a pension for joyful song.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, at some point, you know, you get all
Speaker 1: these uh coincidences, right, and at some point all the
Speaker 1: coincidences start to seem kind of like some kind of conspiracy,
Speaker 1: some kind of conspiracy. Right, how many coincidences do we
Speaker 1: need to at some point say something's going on here,
Speaker 1: like some something is pointing in uh, you know, in
Speaker 1: a specific direction here. That thing about uh, the hill
Speaker 1: being the bald head, you know, the taunture is that's brilliant.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, and it and it does seem
Speaker 1: that's exactly how Tolkien describes it there, you know, is
Speaker 1: that that famous Francisco So Tom So Tom like lives
Speaker 1: on this tonsureed head of a hill. Basically I don't
Speaker 1: know if.
Speaker 3: He lives on that hill, but they saw that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, yeah, and you know, the you know's the
Speaker 2: the fact of where this happens in the story, I
Speaker 2: mean makes the He makes a point of saying that
Speaker 2: they were becoming discouraged and you know, worn down, and
Speaker 2: Froto even thinks about turning around, like he's ready to
Speaker 2: throw in the towel, and then lo and behold, here
Speaker 2: comes Tom and you know, and it has a very
Speaker 2: it's definitely a source. It ends up being a source
Speaker 2: of refreshment and encouragement to the party. And I think
Speaker 2: there's a lot of people out there who you know,
Speaker 2: who find a lot of comfort and peace, and the
Speaker 2: writings of Saint Francis, and you know, and in the
Speaker 2: different visions that are you know, operations are being married,
Speaker 2: and in just knowing what we know about Tolkien, I
Speaker 2: feel like it makes so much sense. And just where
Speaker 2: they live has a very just calming, like almost a
Speaker 2: monastic type of of feel to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, it's like a it's like a retreat house exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And Keith, you're reading your article and reading this section
Speaker 1: on Saint Francis made me think one other thing, brought
Speaker 1: one other thing to mine for me. And it's a
Speaker 1: biographical note for Tolkien. Of course, his his basically father
Speaker 1: figure for his for most of his childhood was not
Speaker 1: his biological father, but it was. It was a Catholic
Speaker 1: priest named Father Francis. And so now Father Francis was
Speaker 1: not a Franciscan, but the name Francis, if you're going
Speaker 1: to be given the name Francis after you know, after
Speaker 1: the after the existence of Saint franc of Assisi as
Speaker 1: a as a Catholic, then that name somehow harkens back
Speaker 1: to Saint Francis of Assisi. He was he was that
Speaker 1: big a role, that big a figure in the history
Speaker 1: of of Christianity. And uh so that that's just another
Speaker 1: thing that made me think, like you know, Tolkien was
Speaker 1: it seems clear, clearer and clearer that Tolkien me. You
Speaker 1: know that Tom Bombada wasn't necessarily like created to be
Speaker 1: Saint Francis, but that he became a Franciscan figure over
Speaker 1: time and in the development of of Tolkien's own thought
Speaker 1: and writings, and and you know, and maybe in part
Speaker 1: he was also a tribute to this, you know, this
Speaker 1: man who was, you know, the father that that Tolkien,
Speaker 1: you know, the biological father, you know that the father
Speaker 1: figure that Tolkien needed and and didn't have because his
Speaker 1: biological father passed away when he was so young.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly exactly. And I feel like it also serves
Speaker 2: to support, you know, the fact that the Ring has
Speaker 2: no power over him, because we we have we have
Speaker 2: a good friend who's a Franciscan. Actually, and I still
Speaker 2: remember this one time where he was can.
Speaker 1: I can I can I read something? I'm gonna interrupt
Speaker 1: you because I need I need to interject something here. Okay, right, So.
Speaker 2: Here's what we're say because it's important.
Speaker 1: I'm actually gonna mention that. So, So Keith, I wrote
Speaker 1: a I wrote a book on music, and you know,
Speaker 1: in uh, in Middle Earth, and I actually specifically wrote
Speaker 1: a chapter on Tom on Tom Bombadil in that chapter,
Speaker 1: because he has such an interesting relationship with music, and
Speaker 1: I think a couple of years ago we talked about Tom.
Speaker 1: But I mean we we went chapter by chapter through
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings. So I'm sure there were several
Speaker 1: chapters we it's all blur now, but we I know
Speaker 1: we had the conversation you were about to bring up
Speaker 1: about our friend here is a Franciscan friar, and that
Speaker 1: that that kind of story found its way into my book. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so I'm gonna read what I'd written here, and
Speaker 1: I think it's what or do you want to? All right?
Speaker 1: So he says, well, I was planning on working this
Speaker 1: in and I got to work in a plug from
Speaker 1: my book, you know, even though this is about Keith
Speaker 1: and not about but but this it's from the section
Speaker 1: titled Tom versus Saron's Ring and it says, I say,
Speaker 1: perhaps it is that Tom is the embodiment of the
Speaker 1: care free song. A good number of his songs are silly,
Speaker 1: so much so that many readers find Tom annoying. Yet
Speaker 1: he is incredibly powerful all the same, though great figures
Speaker 1: like Gandalf, Elrond and Gladriel shudder from the temptation of
Speaker 1: Suron's ring. Is Zildur's Bane has no effect on Tom?
Speaker 1: How can this be? In a nineteen fifty four letter
Speaker 1: to Naomi Mitchison, Tolkien elaborated on Tom's purpose and Lord
Speaker 1: of the Rings. Though he first refers to Tom as
Speaker 1: being not an important person to the narrative, he nevertheless
Speaker 1: insists that he would not have left him in if
Speaker 1: he did not have some kind of function. Tolkien goes
Speaker 1: on to elaborate about the moral philosophy underlying the Lord
Speaker 1: of the Rings, yet finally admitting that the desire for
Speaker 1: control is one that even the good guys are highly
Speaker 1: susceptible to. He speaks then of a vow of poverty,
Speaker 1: implying that Tom has taken something along those lines. Here
Speaker 1: we go, I have a good friend who is a
Speaker 1: Franciscan friar. We have a good friend who is a
Speaker 1: Franciscan friar and avowed follower of the way of life
Speaker 1: modeled by Saint Francis of ASSISI. One of the vows
Speaker 1: he took when he became a Franciscan was a vow
Speaker 1: of poverty. Just what is the nature of such a vow?
Speaker 1: In essence, it is a refusal to take hold of
Speaker 1: anything with one's heart. I recall a moment when I
Speaker 1: saw the power of this vow in action. My friend,
Speaker 1: given the opportunity to accept some kind of gift, kindly
Speaker 1: refused it, making a suggestion about it, about who it
Speaker 1: could be given to. In a way, this vow was
Speaker 1: his richness. Possession of the gift threatened this vow, A
Speaker 1: vow which I saw in a stark spiritual moment, brought
Speaker 1: him true happiness, true freedom, true peace, and inner harmony,
Speaker 1: if you will. Though my friend's reaction was not perfect,
Speaker 1: I could tell he still struggled to maintain the vow
Speaker 1: to some degree, which is of course to be expected.
Speaker 1: It nevertheless yielded great insight into the nature of such
Speaker 1: a vow. If we follow Tolkien's line of reasoning, tom
Speaker 1: has fulfilled this vow perfectly and no longer must struggle
Speaker 1: to maintain it. If ever, he did struggle, so that
Speaker 1: whole thing of the vow of poverty was something that
Speaker 1: I resonated with me on kind of that same frequency.
Speaker 1: You do a much more thorough and better job of
Speaker 1: developing this question of the Franciscan relation. I means some
Speaker 1: of these, you know, the the tonsured hill, the date
Speaker 1: of the significance of September twenty sixth being the date
Speaker 1: that they meet Tom bombadil Uh, and that being the
Speaker 1: traditional feast day of San Francivissisi. You know, I guess
Speaker 1: all I'm trying to say is it looks like great
Speaker 1: minds think think alike on this key.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: That's why one thing I mentioned somewhere maybe in a
Speaker 3: post script on that article. I'm I'm positive others should
Speaker 3: caught some elements of this whole thing. I just haven't
Speaker 3: run it for us that developed. Yeah, yeah, sure, others
Speaker 3: have seen that valve poverty communist and thought, I think Francis.
Speaker 1: But yeah, well, and and that was my only like
Speaker 1: kind of connection on it was just, oh, valve poverty,
Speaker 1: that's you know what Franciscan's Franciscans take. But like I said,
Speaker 1: you do a like you really actually show that that
Speaker 1: may be much closer to the truth, right, this this
Speaker 1: idea that that Tom is almost like this avatar of
Speaker 1: a Franciscan spirituality.
Speaker 3: I think he's a he's a pre Franciscan Franciscan. He's
Speaker 3: representing something that will later be more fully exemplified by
Speaker 3: Francis in that order. But it's something I think Tolkien
Speaker 3: wanted in the story somewhere, and Tom was able to
Speaker 3: by using Tom, He's able to bring that element in
Speaker 3: and it becomes a significant part of the story. I think.
Speaker 3: I don't think I disagree with those who think Tom
Speaker 3: can be just removed from the story with no effect
Speaker 3: to it. I think he does become an important part.
Speaker 3: Even though he's not mentioned a lot later, He's he
Speaker 3: is a significant part of the replot at the very
Speaker 3: least rescuing them from the barrel Whites and giving them
Speaker 3: the swords that or late later become very important. Absolutely,
Speaker 3: But yeah, that nobody else in the story represents that
Speaker 3: complete detachment from possession and desire for power and control
Speaker 3: as he does.
Speaker 1: But but we know that that's such an important theme
Speaker 1: in the story. It may be the key theme of
Speaker 1: the whole you know, of the whole story of Lord
Speaker 1: of the Rings. Is this this question of that, here's
Speaker 1: this powerful object that the one thing you can't do
Speaker 1: is take it for your own. The moment you take
Speaker 1: it for your own, uh, and and you try to
Speaker 1: possess it, you try to control it, that's the moment
Speaker 1: in which you're going to be owned by it, right,
Speaker 1: It's going it's going to take possession of you. And
Speaker 1: and so tom really is hugely important in that sense
Speaker 1: because he shows he shows that it's possible to not
Speaker 1: for it not to have an effect on an on
Speaker 1: an individual, even though we don't know why, you know,
Speaker 1: he's able to pull that off. But it's but he's
Speaker 1: kind of like this, it's almost like he's an he's
Speaker 1: an eschatological figure in a way. He's like he's both.
Speaker 1: He both hearkens back to before anything was in the world,
Speaker 1: but he also points towards like perfect freedom, you know
Speaker 1: that they all want, that they all long for, and
Speaker 1: all the figures in the story struggle with, you know,
Speaker 1: struggle with the temptation of the ring. You know, we
Speaker 1: see Frodo all throughout the story, and everybody seems to
Speaker 1: exist on that spectrum somewhere, right, every figure seems to
Speaker 1: exist on the spectrum of how how dangerous is the
Speaker 1: ring to them. Even with the Hobbits. You know, you
Speaker 1: have Gollum who's completely given over to it, and then
Speaker 1: you have Bilbo, who's more given over to it. Frodo
Speaker 1: you know, becomes more given over to it over the
Speaker 1: course of having it with him. And then Sam seems
Speaker 1: to be the most capable of being detached from it,
Speaker 1: even though he's not perfectly you know, capable of being
Speaker 1: detached from it.
Speaker 3: So in fair im here maybe the closest among the
Speaker 3: regular Church is the closest to being able to go
Speaker 3: away with it. But even he, I think, experiences the
Speaker 3: temptation in his discussion with Sam, and proto he feels it,
Speaker 3: I'm like, which Bambadill doesn't even seem to feel it.
Speaker 3: He feels the poll he knows the honor he could
Speaker 3: get from his father, at least briefly, but he is
Speaker 3: able to to resist it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, yeah for sure. Well, Well, Keith, this has
Speaker 1: been this has been just a really fascinating discussion.
Speaker 2: Great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just I love talking about Tom Bombadill. He
Speaker 1: he he is a He's one of the best characters
Speaker 1: in the story. He's endlessly fascinating, and you know, part
Speaker 1: of it just feels like we just kind of scratched
Speaker 1: the surface on him.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, you know, part of me is wondering. You
Speaker 2: mentioned the beginning, how we mentioned that he's you know,
Speaker 2: he's obviously he's very much missed from the Peter Jackson films,
Speaker 2: And part of me wonders, especially after this discussion, if
Speaker 2: that's just because like he, like Jackson, just didn't want
Speaker 2: to get it wrong, Like he couldn't he couldn't quite
Speaker 2: figure out who this was, what what he was, how
Speaker 2: to portray him, you know, And part of me, honestly
Speaker 2: is like, I don't know. I think I'd rather not
Speaker 2: see him at all than see it done wrong.
Speaker 1: I feel like I've heard that. I feel like now
Speaker 1: that you say that, I feel like I heard that
Speaker 1: was actually Jackson's excuses. He was just kind of like
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to do with Tom Bombadil, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just didn't see how to mean he's.
Speaker 2: Intimidating, Like it's very because I mean, he's obviously it's
Speaker 2: I mean, it's part of the enigma. Right, he's great,
Speaker 2: and he's small. I mean he's you.
Speaker 1: Don't quite know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just put myself in in Peter Jackson's shoes,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, I don't even know how I would
Speaker 2: do this. I got it, How could I do this right?
Speaker 3: I got enough to.
Speaker 1: Figure out here. I can't like Tom, I can't figure
Speaker 1: out I can't figure out the enigma.
Speaker 3: Know, it would be so easy to get him wrong
Speaker 3: and make that very slowly looking part of the Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: It definitely it would be very difficult to uh, for
Speaker 1: anybody to get that, to get that character right for sure. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna close the last line from the
Speaker 1: article here, not the very last line. But I thought
Speaker 1: this was really good, you say, Keith, he Tom is
Speaker 1: a non Middle Earth being who was drawn into Middle Earth.
Speaker 1: Tolkien knew this, but keeping Tom Bombadil in Middle Earth
Speaker 1: allowed Tolkien another means to do something he felt was necessary.
Speaker 1: It provided him a means by which he might absorb
Speaker 1: the Roman Catholic religious element that was so important to
Speaker 1: him personally into the story of the Lord of the Rings.
Speaker 1: You know, I just I love this idea because I'm
Speaker 1: a I'm a big fan of like you know, all
Speaker 1: the like paranormal stuff you know in our own world,
Speaker 1: and like, you know, what's going on with these weird
Speaker 1: stories of things that happen and they just don't make
Speaker 1: any sense and there's no explanation for them, but there
Speaker 1: they are. The evidence is there for them, and it's
Speaker 1: almost like in this world, this fantasy world, Tom Bombadil
Speaker 1: is like a paranormal He's like a paranormal figure in
Speaker 1: the fantasy world of Middle Earth. He's like, no one
Speaker 1: knows exactly what's going on with him, and he doesn't
Speaker 1: actually make sense, but there he is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think that was that was the fascinating
Speaker 3: thing about that letter in the Lord of the Rings
Speaker 3: Reader's Dad where taught, where Tulkien himself said, he really
Speaker 3: doesn't he is otherworldly like you were saying. He's he
Speaker 3: comes from a different world and it just intersects with
Speaker 3: that world and it's you know, at the end of it,
Speaker 3: he says he's fatherless. He has no Tolkien wrote, Tom
Speaker 3: Bombadil is fatherless. He has no historical origin in the
Speaker 3: world described in the Word of the Rings. Right, he
Speaker 3: came in from outside, and so all the all the
Speaker 3: looking for his historical origin in that world might just
Speaker 3: be prooveless if what Tolkien says in that letter is
Speaker 3: is what he actually mean to say, it's a it's somebody,
Speaker 3: it's the stage human peeking behind the screen. There is
Speaker 3: a fourth wall being broken in here.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's like Tolkien was like, everything else is
Speaker 1: so organic in this in Middle Earth, and then I'll
Speaker 1: in Tolkien's is like and I'm just gonna put him
Speaker 1: right here. And uh.
Speaker 3: I think that's the thing that has caused this to
Speaker 3: be debated for fifty years when you know how much
Speaker 3: he prized consistency, right, and how how they kept him
Speaker 3: from ever finishing the silmar really and it's really hard
Speaker 3: to conceive of him leaving a character in that he
Speaker 3: knows isn't consistent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, Tom Baumbadil that the sunglasses come down slowly
Speaker 1: on Tolkien deal with it. Yeah yeah, all right. Well cool.
Speaker 1: So your website is Keithmatheson dot org and you actually
Speaker 1: have several other writings on Tolkiennian topic. Do you want
Speaker 1: to maybe briefly mention a little bit about some of
Speaker 1: those other articles.
Speaker 3: Well, the two that popped in mind initially is one
Speaker 3: I wrote about the Silmarillion, the Endings, where I was
Speaker 3: looking at the endings of the Silmarillion, the earlier versions
Speaker 3: of the Silmarillion and comparing those to the ending of
Speaker 3: the Quinta Silmarillion in the published version, and arguing that
Speaker 3: we might be able to make a case that this
Speaker 3: might be because Christopher mentions that there are some things he
Speaker 3: regretted in editing, and I'm just throwing out there the
Speaker 3: possibility that maybe this is one that had he not
Speaker 3: pushed to finish that thing so quickly, it might have
Speaker 3: been worth considering keeping the bulk of the original ending
Speaker 3: with the second prophecy of Mendos, and then the other
Speaker 3: one I wrote, which probably caused more aggravations of people
Speaker 3: than any of them, is one about my thoughts on
Speaker 3: Peter Jackson trilogy, where I just talk about the things
Speaker 3: I really love about it and the things that were
Speaker 3: more we'll say, just problematic. So those two gouts and
Speaker 3: responses from people, gotcha.
Speaker 1: And just just scrolling through, I'm seeing, you know, an
Speaker 1: article on on I Know Linda La which you call
Speaker 1: Tolkien's most beautiful work, as well as an article on Mythopia.
Speaker 1: Uh and in comparison of Tolkien and Lewis. So lots
Speaker 1: of good stuff, lots of good Tolkien stuff over here
Speaker 1: for you know, for our listeners to check out for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for ravenous Tolkien fans, absolutely yeah, more food for thought.
Speaker 1: Well, fantastic, Well, Keith, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3: Fantastic, Thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and just thank you for the time you spent
Speaker 1: writing this article and uh and and researching it putting
Speaker 1: it together. It's a really just an excellent, you know,
Speaker 1: an excellent uh, you know example of I think, how
Speaker 1: to approach a topic like this and dominate everybody and
Speaker 1: help us all understand what different people have said and
Speaker 1: then you know, introduce some new you know, some new
Speaker 1: thoughts and evidence into consideration and maybe help us arrive
Speaker 1: a little closer at what what exactly is going on
Speaker 1: with Tom.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, that's been great, absolutely great.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, thanks a lot, Keith.
Speaker 2: Keith, it's great, same same, take.
Speaker 1: Care all right. Correspondence time corresponding. Yeah, that was kind
Speaker 1: of a that was a pretty long interview, so we're
Speaker 1: going to keep the correspondence short and sweet this week.
Speaker 1: But the good thing is we got some got some
Speaker 1: fun correspondents, so good kind of correspondence I like, which
Speaker 1: is pretty much just uninhibited praise of how awesome this
Speaker 1: podcast is.
Speaker 2: So that's my favorite too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's that's that's definitely the uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the the the feedback. It's just nice and simple just
Speaker 1: to hear praise and you know, not have to use
Speaker 1: the noggin sometimes.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, but no, we're not We're not vain or anything,
Speaker 2: but it's nice to be reminded now and then of
Speaker 2: how awesome we really are.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, not vain at all, but yeah, not vain.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, so first off, we are going to
Speaker 1: talk about mention a couple of recent iTunes reviews. So
Speaker 1: first off, on October twenty eighth, we had Doink Doink
Speaker 1: one two three dollar sign that's awesome, awesome name, that's
Speaker 1: so good, said amazing, five stars. The best podcast I've
Speaker 1: ever listened to. I would definitely recommend you listened to it.
Speaker 1: Plus it's better than any other Tolkien podcast.
Speaker 2: Whoa boom that that's awesome. Wow, that's my favorite kind
Speaker 2: of review right there.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, short, sweet to the point and telling us how awesome,
Speaker 2: full of praise. Yes, yeah, yeah, thank you, Doink doink
Speaker 2: two to three dollars signs.
Speaker 1: Yes, thank you very much. Yeah, we uh we really
Speaker 1: appreciate it.
Speaker 2: And They have an awesome name too.
Speaker 1: What is that called?
Speaker 2: Is that like a handle or is it a suggest
Speaker 2: an iTunes name? What is it? Does it have a
Speaker 2: special name?
Speaker 1: Handle's fine handle?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1: One, two, three yeah yeah good so yeah, thank you
Speaker 1: so much, Thank you for the kind words. And then
Speaker 1: there was another another review on October twenty ninth from
Speaker 1: Proud Dad m cal via Apple podcasts UH Rediscovered My
Speaker 1: Love of Tolkien five stars. I'm twenty seven episodes into
Speaker 1: this podcast and the end depth look into each and
Speaker 1: every chapter, starting with the film Million and now The
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings has truly helped me rediscover my
Speaker 1: childhood love for everything Tolkien. And for that, I thank you.
Speaker 2: Oh that's great, awesome, And that's one of the things
Speaker 2: we you know, that we that we strive for here
Speaker 2: on the podcast. Yeah, just you know, either keeping that
Speaker 2: love going or reigniting it or helping people discover it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I always love getting those those kind of notes when
Speaker 1: when folks share with us that it's you know, we've
Speaker 1: we've helped to rekindle their love. You know, it's if
Speaker 1: we can get you back in touch with Tolkien. You know,
Speaker 1: we feel like we've done a good job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's a good day's work.
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely well.
Speaker 2: Thank you, proud dad.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Proud dad. L all right, we
Speaker 1: also have a shout out over here on Twitter from
Speaker 1: Carlow Marx Carlo Marx, Carlow, Carlow, that's right, okay, Carlo
Speaker 1: says at Tolkien Road, rereading the Hobbit and then Lord
Speaker 1: of the Rings been twenty years, found your podcast to
Speaker 1: go over each chapter. Good stuff. Thanksay, awesome, indeed very awesome.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Carlo. We really appreciate hearing from you,
Speaker 1: all right. And then, last but certainly not least, double
Speaker 1: check my list here. Last, but certainly not least is
Speaker 1: from Jonathan D one of our amazing patrons.
Speaker 2: M Hey Jonathan, hell lou.
Speaker 1: Jonathan Jonathan said, Hey, guys, hope you all are doing well.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to drop a note after listening to
Speaker 1: the latest episode. Before listening to The Tolkien Road, I
Speaker 1: would have considered myself someone who liked Tolkien. But after
Speaker 1: listening to your show and rereading and reading the film Million,
Speaker 1: which was much aided by your show, I am someone
Speaker 1: who loves Tolkien. Thank you for expanding my knowledge of
Speaker 1: the man and his writings. Keep up the great work.
Speaker 1: Awesome boom. That's when I'm talking. Jonathan knows where I'm
Speaker 1: coming from.
Speaker 2: Yeah, clearly, Well, he probably just felt the need to,
Speaker 2: you know, let you know that he's moved from like
Speaker 2: to love, just to so that you wouldn't like depatronize him. Probably,
Speaker 2: why would I ever do that, because if he's not,
Speaker 2: if he's just aker, I mean, I don't know, I
Speaker 2: don't I don't know where the wrath ends.
Speaker 1: If you're a patron, I automatically assume, I automatically assume
Speaker 1: you're a told lover.
Speaker 2: Right, Okay, I guess that's fair. So, yes, that's fair.
Speaker 1: That's you know, that's what we're here to do. Look,
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not out there to hate, you know,
Speaker 1: mirror tolkienkers. I'm here to say that that's what this
Speaker 1: podcast exists to do, is transform people who merely like
Speaker 1: Tolkien into people who love Tolkien.
Speaker 2: And Jonathan d is proof that that we are on
Speaker 2: the right track.
Speaker 1: Yeah, total total virtual air five to Jonathan right now.
Speaker 1: So he knows that guy knows what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he does. Well, good stuff.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Thank you all so much. It's always nice to
Speaker 1: just have some just have some praise, you know, just
Speaker 1: have people saying you guys rock, guys rock. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you appreciate that.
Speaker 2: We do very much.
Speaker 1: But we'd love to hear from you whatever you got
Speaker 1: to say, right, Tolkien Roadpodcast at gmail dot com, Tolkienrooad
Speaker 1: dot com, Facebook, Twitter, wherever you want to hit us
Speaker 1: up and you can find us. We we love hearing from.
Speaker 2: You, yes always.
Speaker 1: All right. I think that about that about wraps up
Speaker 1: this episode.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, cool, Well that's it's probably good. Just
Speaker 2: been on the longer side.
Speaker 1: Yeah, special special thanks to our amazing patrons.
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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being patrons, and thank you
Speaker 1: for listening.
Speaker 2: Yes, all of you, we really really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: And we will talk at you next time.
Speaker 2: Bye y'all, Bye bye again