"In the House of Tom Bombadil" (II)

It's Goldberry's washing day, so the blessed rain prevents the hobbits from setting out and we are truly happy to spend another day under Tom and Goldberry's roof. Tolkien once again celebrates the simple pleasures of life: good food, good company, and a roof that provides shelter; indeed, simple pleasures that sadly are not available to everyone.

There is so much hinted at but ultimately indecipherable about this couple. Tom is old, older than everything that exists and the stories he tell to the hobbits go back eons ago; Tom, indeed, seems to he predates every single thing and being. His narrative is that of the history of the earth and its inhabitants. I find it interesting that he follows a chronological order, focusing on time and the events that come and go with it, while Goldberry's song is connected to place, to space. Time and space: the same thing according to quantum physics. I really must quote this part from the text, truly evocative and so revealing concerning how words in a song can create mental pictures:

"After they had eaten, Goldberry sang many songs for them, songs that began merrily in the hills and fell softly down into silence; and in the silences they saw in their minds pools and waters wider than any they had known, and looking into them they saw the sky below them and the stars like jewels in the depths. "

Tom's words also reveal how little the hobbits know about the world, even within the people in their own Shire. Farmer Maggot is more important than they had imagined:  'There's earth under his old feet, and clay on his fingers; wisdom in his bones, and both his eyes are open'. Knowledge coming not from books, but from experience, straight from the earth. Can we not read this as a celebration of matter?

We are also shocked to see that the Ring does not have any effect on Tom: he does not disappear when he wears it, and he can see Frodo when he uses it to check whether it is still his Ring. Can you imagine how much one could learn spending just a couple of evenings under Bombadil's roof? If only the hobbits could stay there, in that sheltering home, hiding the Ring forever from the clutches of the Enemy! But it cannot be. Tomorrow they will take to the road again. The quest goes on, but I want to stay here a little longer.


P.S. I have to teach a class in one minute, but I'll come back later, to post my morning encounter as I was going down the forest of the Alhambra. 
Here I am. While taking pictures of the forest...

... someone decided to cross my path.