The Return of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil

Greetings, gentle friends! A brief portion of my Thursday afternoon was devoted to finishing Tolkien's The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. Now I resolve to review all the poems one by one.

I. "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil"
Tom sings passages from this one in The Lord of the Rings. It deals with Goldberry, badgers, Old Man Willow, a barrow-wight, and Tom Bombadil, specifically in relation to sleeping and dancing. Also, it covers the marriage and honey-moon of Tom and Goldberry.

II. "Bombadil Goes Boating"
Tom here takes a boat up the Withywindle, meeting the mocking of animals and Hobbits all the way, eventually partaking of delights with his friend Farmer Maggot. Afterward he slips back to his home.

III. "Errantry"
It is about errantry. What should one expect? The road goes ever on...

IV. "Princess Mee"
Meaning aside, the words sound very nice together. Meaning considered, the imagery of this one is exemplary.

V. "The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late"
Hey diddle diddle and so on and so forth is arranged in a Hobbit poem. It is almost a dream come true, except I never dreamed it.

VI. "The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon"
Continuing with this Man in the Moon character, Tolkien provides a bit less overt silliness in favor of some more serious fun. I shall say no more, except that I like this poem very much.

VII. "The Stone Troll"
A troll has stolen a bone from Tom's late uncle Tim. Tom demands that it be put back. The troll decides instead to eat Tom, and Tom decides to kick the troll. Neither of these attempts work, so they go on their respective ways. I am not certain I am comfortable with the idea of Tom Bombadil's fallibility.

VIII. "Perry-the-Winkle"
All a troll really needs is a friend with whom to take tea. That sounds really insipid, when in fact it is not, but I would like to leave that false, humorously banal impression.

IX. "The Mewlips"
This one just might be my favorite. Mewlips are unspecified critters that live in unpleasant places that will eat you. The poem is even better than whatever your imagination might be conjuring.

X. "Oliphaunt"
I have read this someplace before. It is a silly verse about the mighty oliphaunt, traditional to the Shire, recorded for us by Sam Gamgee.

XI. "Fastitocalon"
If you spend much time around me, there is a decent chance I have related one of my favorite medieval tales to you. It is about sailors who land on an island to rest, except that the island turns out to be a whale, which proceeds to dive and drown the slothful men. This is the same idea, except with a giant sea-tortoise. I am partial to it for reasons now obvious.

XII. "The Cat"
How can a poem that starts out "The fat cat on the mat..." wind up being quite clever and interesting? The cat is dreaming of its fellows that happen to be lions and tigers (but not bears, oh my!). Just as the cat does not forget the power of its kind, neither should we forget that the only reason cats do not kill and eat us is that they are not large enough to do so. That last bit has nothing to do with the poem, mind you.

XIII. "Shadow Bride"
There is nothing quite like a morbid little romance. This is one of those.

XIV. "The Hoard"
Ah, the evils of greed and all that sort of thing! A dwarf crafts a treasure hoard underground, only to be killed by a dragon. The dragon keeps the hoard for an absurdly long time, only to be killed by a young warrior. Then an old king, consumed by love of the hoard, dies a lonely death, and the treasure is forgotten underground. This should be about as excellent as your imagination indicates, as long as your imagination indicates excellence. It is very "Middle-Earth," if I may say so.

XV. "The Sea-Bell"
Apparently this is intended to detail Frodo's melancholy dreams of his later days. I take Tolkien's word. I shall leave it alone beyond that. Note my italicization of "alone."

XVI. "The Last Ship"
Elven ships sailing from Middle-Earth, of course, are the subject here. Knowledge of both The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion are essential to making sense of this poem, or at least its allusions. It deals with a particular elf maiden (who, as far as I can tell, is not wearing butter-supple loins) who must decide whether or not to leave Middle-Earth.

That is all for this night. Farewell, be well, and may we meet again soon.