The Adventures of Tom Bombadil

 

Tom Bombadil was one of my favorite characters in The Lord of the Rings. I was sorry when he got left out of the movies, though I understand why they chose to do so given the length of the movies.

So I was happy when I stumbled across The Adventures of Tom Bombadil by J. R. R. Tolkien. The book was originally published in 1962. The edition I have, however, is the one edited later by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond.

The book is a collection of poems by Tolkien, only two of which are directly about Tom, and one of which seems to be about him. Tolkien had written the two poems before he wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Many of the other poems date before those works as well. Some were even included in those works. 

As is typical of Tolkien, for the book he revised the poems. Part of his tinkering was to make them fit in better with the world of the Middle Earth.

The way the edition I have is laid out is the first part of the book is the original 1962 book. In the second part of the book, Scull and Hammond provide the original/earlier versions of the poems, some of the variations of them over the years, definitions of some of the more obscure words Tolkien used, and commentary. The poem that seems to be about Tom but does not give his full name is in an appendix. It was not included in the 1962 edition. 

"The Adventures of Tom Bombadil" and "Bombadil Goes Boating" are the first two poems in the book. They are delightful. There are other amusing poems in the collection, including ones from LOTR - "The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late" (sung by Frodo and the inn at Bree) and "Olipahunt" (recited by Sam). 

A happy read - and one of the books on my list of books to read this year.

Saint Tolkien

As I had noted previously, there is a page on substack devoted to "Saint Tolkien". It explores various aspects of Tolkien's life and writings. But it also promotes him as a "saint".

The latest installment begins: 

The legacy of J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) as one of the founders of modern fantasy literature is well-known. “The Lord of the Rings,” says noted Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey, “is the best-loved work of fiction of the twentieth century.” The fame of his works became even more noticeable with the trilogy of films based on The Lord of the Rings produced by Peter Jackson, bringing Tolkien’s world to a new generation. Since Tolkien’s death in 1973, there have also been several publications of his works, including his Letters, which have made many aware that he was not only a prolific fantasy writer, but a devout Catholic as well. The assertion of this profile, however, is that Tolkien was not only a devout Catholic, but a saint.

The author, Kaleb Hammond, seems convince Tolkien is a saint, and optimistic that some day the Church might recognize him as such.

After reading a number of installments, I think Hammond has done an admirable job of examining the very devout Tolkien's faith. He and Holly Ordway in her fine Tolkien's Faith: A Spiritual Biography point to the the importance of faith in his life and works.

Now one could argue that Tolkien did seem to lead a virtuous life, and may well be in Heaven or on his way there, hence he would be a saint. But as for formal recognition by the Church as a saint, I am not convinced. Neither am I with Chesterton.

But I am not a Church official. Nor am I privy to the workings of the Holy Spirit. 

As for Hammond, I enjoy his research and observations, and I urge him to continue. 

It would be wonderful indeed if some day the Church adds a St. Tolkien - and a St. Chesterton - to the declared celestial rolls.

A Child of the Snows

 

We have been struck by a snow storm that has closed all the local schools. With that in mind, and because we are just out of the Christmas season, a Chesterton poem:

A Child of the Snows

There is heard a hymn when the panes are dim,
And never before or again,
When the nights are strong with a darkness long,
And the dark is alive with rain.

Never we know but in sleet and in snow,
The place where the great fires are,
That the midst of the earth is a raging mirth
And the heart of the earth a star.

And at night we win to the ancient inn
Where the child in the frost is furled,
We follow the feet where all souls meet
At the inn at the end of the world.

The gods lie dead where the leaves lie red,
For the flame of the sun is flown,
The gods lie cold where the leaves lie gold,
And a Child comes forth alone.

Read in 2025, Goals for 2026

Every year, I set reading goals, and then keep a tally of books read.

Some of those goals include reading works by Chesterton, Tolkien, Lewis, etc, and books about him and them.

The tally for 2025 (76 works) included a number of such works:

The Poet and the Lunatics by G. K. Chesterton
The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton
The Surprise by G. K. Chesterton
The Judgement of Dr. Johnson by G. K. Chesterton 

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Tolkien’s Faith: A Spiritual Biography by Holly Ordway

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy Sayers
Have His Carcase by Dorothy Sayers

And related:

Descent Into Hell by Charles Williams
Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset
Catherine of Siena by Sigrid Undset
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

The goals for 2026 include:

A book by G. K. Chesterton I have not yet read
A book about G. K. Chesterton
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil by J. R. R. Tolkien
A book by C. S. Lewis, possibly a reread.
A book by Charles Dickens I have not yet read (Our Mutual Friend?)

I'm sure there will be more read. 

Onward!

Happy New Year!

 

The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. - G. K. Chesterton

A Nativity Sonnet

I've been posting pieces by the great ones about Christmas. This sonnet is the one I composed this year to go out with my Christmas cards. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Over years many a Nativity scene
has added much not there that holy night.
The cast of those who played a role has been
expanded as faith and fancy deemed right.
That night the star was there to light and guide
in Bethlehem’s sky, as were angel choirs,
with stable, Mary and Joseph inside,
and the shepherds down from their hillside fires.
The Magi and Herod’s bloody soldiers
arrived later. Creative minds supplied
ass, kneeling ox, lambs, Santa, bowing trees,
drummer boy, midwife, and others beside.
Whoever was there, all have cause to sing,
for that day we welcomed our God and King.

"The Turn of the Tide" by C. S. Lewis

The Turn of the Tide

By C. S. Lewis

Breathless was the air over Bethlehem; black and bare
The fields; hard as granite were the clods;
Hedges stiff with ice; the sedge, in the vice
Of the ponds, like little iron rods.
The deathly stillness spread from Bethlehem; it was shed
Wider each moment on the land;
Through rampart and wall into camp and into hall
Stole the hush. All tongues were at a stand.
Travellers at their beer in taverns turned to hear
The landlord—that oracle was dumb;
At the Procurator’s feast a jocular freedman ceased
His story, and gaped; all were glum.
Then the silence flowed forth to the islands and the north
And it smoothed the unquiet river-bars,
And leveled out the waves from their revelling, and paved
The sea with the cold, reflected stars.
Where the Cæsar sat and signed at ease on Palatine,
Without anger, the signatures of death,
There stole into his room and on his soul a gloom,
Till he paused in his work and held his breath.
Then to Carthage and the Gauls, to Parthia and the Falls
Of Nile, to Mount Amara it crept;
The romp and rage of beasts in swamp and forest ceased,
The jungle grew still as if it slept.
So it ran about the girth of the planet. From the Earth
The signal, the warning, went out,
Away beyond the air; her neighbours were aware
Of change, they were troubled with doubt.

Salamanders in the Sun who brandish as they run
Tails like the Americas in size,
Were stunned by it and dazed; wondering, they gazed
Up at Earth, misgiving in their eyes.
In Houses and Signs the Ousiarchs divine
Grew pale and questioned what it meant;
Great Galactic lords stood back to back with swords
Half-drawn, awaiting the event,
And a whisper among them passed, “Is this perhaps the last
Of our story and the glories of our crown?—
The entropy worked out?—the central redoubt
Abandoned?—The world-spring running down?”
Then they could speak no more. Weakness overbore
Even them; they were as flies in a web,
In lethargy stone-dumb. The death had almost come,
And the tide lay motionless at ebb.

Like a stab at that moment over Crab and Bowman,
Over Maiden and Lion, came the shock
Of returning life, the start, and burning pang at heart,
Setting galaxies to tingle and rock.
The Lords dared to breathe, swords went into sheathes
A rustling, a relaxing began;
With rumour and noise of the resuming of joys
Along the nerves of the universe it ran.
Then, pulsing into space with delicate dulcet pace,
Came a music infinitely small,
But clear; and it swelled and drew nearer, till it held
All worlds with the sharpness of its call,
And now divinely deep, ever louder, with a leap
And quiver of inebriating sound,
The vibrant dithyramb shook Libra and the Ram,
The brains of Aquarius spun round—
Such a note as neither Throne nor Potentate had known
Since the Word created the abyss.
But this time it was changed in a mystery, estranged,
A paradox, an ambiguous bliss.

Heaven danced to it and burned; such answer was returned
To the hush, the Favete, the fear
That Earth had sent out. Revel, mirth and shout
Descended to her, sphere below sphere,
Till Saturn laughed and lost his latter age’s frost
And his beard, Niagara-like, unfroze;
The monsters in the Sun rejoiced; the Inconstant One,
The unwedded Moon, forgot her woes;
A shiver of re-birth and deliverance round the Earth
Went gliding; her bonds were released;
Into broken light the breeze once more awoke the seas,
In the forest it wakened every beast;
Capripods fell to dance from Taproban to France,
Leprechauns from Down to Labrador;
In his green Asian dell the Phoenix from his shell
Burst forth and was the Phoenix once more.

So Death lay in arrest. But at Bethlehem the bless’d
Nothing greater could be heard
Than sighing wind in the thorn, the cry of One new-born,
And cattle in stable as they stirred.

"The Nativity" - By C. S. Lewis

 

"The Nativity" by C.S. Lewis

Among the oxen (like an ox I’m slow)
I see a glory in the stable grow
Which, with the ox’s dullness might at length
Give me an ox’s strength.

Among the asses (stubborn I as they)
I see my Savior where I looked for hay;
So may my beast like folly learn at least
The patience of a beast.

Among the sheep (I like a sheep have strayed)
I watch the manger where my Lord is laid;
Oh that my baaing nature would win thence
Some woolly innocence!