Another take on Tom Bombadil

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Nope, not halfir's. Indeed this theory - Bombadil = England - does not appear on halfir's list of wild and crazy Bombadil theories. It is, for all that, if not wild and crazy at least wrong.

https://intellectualhistory.net/thousan ... shed-essay

This is an essay on Bombadil from around 1982, penned by the historian J.G.A. Pocock (who is now aged 98). Pocock is one of the greatest historians of the second half of the twentieth century. But I think he gets Tom Bombadil all wrong.

Edit postscript: I'd counsel skipping the long introduction and jumping straight into the essay. But note that the essay, while it appears in hand-written form (from the days when authors wrote with a fountain pen!) has also been transcribed into standard text (so you don't have to struggle with the hand writing).

[Nieliqui Vaneyar]

Thank you for posting that, Chrysophylax Dives, it was certainly an interesting read...and even better in the printed transcription. I suppose one would have to born 'English' to fully understand or embrace the point Pocock is/was trying to make. It's a real shame that halfir (rest his soul) is no longer with us as I would have loved to see his lengthy, detailed, and complete rebuttal, refutation, and ultimate destruction of the treatise and the poor historian.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

@Nieliqui Vaneyar. I was looking at the introduction to the Pocock essay and think that the last paragraph explains the point well, although it is by no means simple and bound up with Pocock's 1957 work on early modern English conceptions of English history (it is, in other words, a bit technical). Pocock himself is a New Zealander (and, therefore, a fan of Peter Jackson's movies).