“Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo! Ring a dong! hop along! Fal lal the willow! Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo!” Tolkien’s most mysterious and enigmatic character, Tom Bombadil is probably one of the oldest creatures in all of Arda. He lives in the Old Forest, close to the Barrow Downs. There are many theories of his origins, him being a Maia, a man, Ilúvatar himself, or even the reader. He appeared as an old man with a wrinkled face and a bristling brown beard, wearing a blue jacket, yellow boots, and an old hat that featured a feather.
Then suddenly the trees came to an end and the mists were left behind. They stepped out from the Forest, and found a wide sweep of grass welling up before them. The river, now small and swift, was leaping merrily down to meet them, glinting here and there in the light of the stars, which were already shining in the sky.
The grass under their feet was smooth and short, as if it had been mown or shaven. The eaves of the Forest behind were clipped, and trim as a hedge. The path was now plain before them, well-tended and bordered with stone. It wound up on to the top of a grassy knoll, now grey under the pale starry night; and there, still high above them on a further slope, they saw the twinkling lights of a house. Down again the path went, and then up again, up a long smooth hillside of turf, towards the light. Suddenly a wide yellow beam flowed out brightly from a door that was opened. There was Tom Bombadil’s house before them, up, down, under hill. Behind it a steep shoulder of the land lay grey and bare, and beyond that the dark shapes of the Barrow-downs stalked away into the eastern night.
They all hurried forward, hobbits and ponies. Already half their weariness and all their fears had fallen from them. Hey! Come merry dol! rolled out the song to greet them.
Hey! Come derry dol! Hop along, my hearties! Hobbits! Ponies all! We are fond of parties. Now let the fun begin! Let us sing together!
Then another clear voice, as young and as ancient as Spring, like the song of a glad water flowing down into the night from a bright morning in the hills, came falling like silver to meet them:
Now let the song begin! Let us sing together Of sun, stars, moon and mist, rain and cloudy weather, Light on the budding leaf, dew on the feather, Wind on the open hill, bells on the heather, Reeds by the shady pool, lilies on the water: Old Tom Bombadil and the River-daughter!
And with that song the hobbits stood upon the threshold, and a golden light was all about them.
–J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, “The Old Forest”
The first of three dioramas I created for my end of year art exhibition. Based upon childhood memories of The New Forest, which I grew up exploring, and upon my own rather dark imagination.
This is made up of eight layers of pen and ink drawings, each spaced about 2cm apart in a box made from foam board and papered in pages from an old copy of Lord of The Rings which was going to be thrown out because it was missing pages.
