Tom Bombadil

Tom Bombadil is a character in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. He first appeared in print in a 1934 poem called "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil", which included The Lord of the Rings characters Goldberry (his wife), Old Man Willow (an evil tree in his forest) and the barrow-wight, from whom he rescues the hobbits. They were not then explicitly part of the older legends that became The Silmarillion, and are not mentioned in The Hobbit. Bombadil is best known from his appearance as a supporting character in Tolkien's novel The Lord of the Rings, published in 1954 and 1955. In the first volume, The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo Baggins and company meet Bombadil in the Old Forest. The idea for this meeting and the appearances of Old Man Willow and the barrow-wight appears in some of Tolkien's earliest notes for a sequel to The Hobbit. Bombadil is mentioned, but not seen, near the end of The Return of the King, where Gandalf plans to pay him a long visit. Tom Bombadil has been omitted in radio adaptations of The Lord of the Rings, the 1978 animated film, and Peter Jackson's film trilogy, as nonessential to the story. Commentators have debated Bombadil's role and origins. A likely source is the demigod Väinämöinen in the Finnish epic poem Kalevala, with many points of resemblance. Scholars have stated that he is the spirit of a place, a genius loci.