The Adventures of Tom Bombadil

My friends! It is a fine night to speak by moonlight, is it not? If only the moonlight would come out this midnight. Let me light a fire.

I have acquired a new possession. You might ask me, "What on earth are you thinking, making purchases for yourself right before Christmas?" To that I respond, "Bah, humbug!" This possession I purchased from a local bookseller, wherein I spent a bit of my Wednesday afternoon. That was only part of my fun, though, for I had just come from the dentist and afterward it was time for me to visit certain excellent good friends. We talked about music and things, these excellent good friends and I, and we scoffed at the uncouth heathen, just like old times. Good old times. My new possession, though, which is a book, I found at the local bookseller behind some other books. It is called The Tolkien Reader, which I had discovered just the other day contains the otherwise impossible to obtain (for any reasonable price) The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. In fact, I took care to visit the Tolkien shelves just in case this particular book was actually present, and so it was. Happy day!

Also in The Tolkien Reader are The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Borhthelm's Son, Tree and Leaf, and Farmer Giles and Ham. Respectively, these are a play based on The Battle of Malden, literary criticism on fantasy and the like, and a short fictional work of some kind. I would say more, but I have not read them yet, though I have begun The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, which is precisely a collection of poetry pertaining to the title character, supposedly of Hobbit origin. The work of Bilbo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee seems to be featured prominently among the sixteen poems, the rest being folk songs and that sort of thing. They detail, among other things, tales of Tom Bombadil, of Goldberry, of Old Man Willow, and of various critters, both together and separately. In writing these poems, Tolkien well adopted the character of a Hobbit, as is plainly echoed in the verses, quite consistent with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, from which some passages are readily recognizable. Again, I should very much like to say more, but I am not finished reading them.

To conclude, we shall celebrate. Whereas before I had little hope of obtaining The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, now it is in my hand, at the moment quite literally. I hereby convey this excellent discovery to my noble readers who, being of good taste, will certainly be interested in these matters. We all know well that Tom Bombadil is a great being. Not many characters could have been so far out as to avoid any reference whatsoever in Peter Jackson's films, but that eccentricity is what makes him so extraordinarily delightful.

Old Tom Bombadil was a merry fellow;
bright blue his jacket was and his boots were yellow,
green were his girdle and his breeches all of leather;
he wore in his tall hat a swan-wing feather.
He lived up under Hill, where the Withywindle
ran from a grassy well down into the dingle.

And so on.