When people learned that I was writing a book on Tom Bombadil, I heard some version of that question from the more knowledgeable of Tolkien’s devotees. It’s a fair question, and one that was even asked at the Council of Elrond: “‘Could we not...obtain his help?’ asked Erestor. ‘It seems that he has a power even over the Ring.’”¹

It’s a comic image, even an endearing one: Technicolor Tom fearlessly skipping up the mountain path into the Dark Land, singing his nonsense songs, sending Shelob scurrying, and Orcs—or worse—running away with their hands over their ears, until finally, after stomping up the side of Mount Doom in his yellow boots, he casually flings the Ring of Power into its fiery cracks, after which he stands back, to watch the Dark Tower, and everything else made with the power of the Ring, just melt away.

Could he have done it? Gandalf didn’t think so—but not because he lacked the power to do it, but because he’d forget to.

Gandalf’s answer has never satisfied me.

Still, I’m glad Tom didn’t do it; and I’m glad that he wasn’t asked to. That story wouldn’t have been nearly as good as the one we have. Perhaps that’s the point—it wouldn’t have been a good story. And maybe the same point applies to our world, and even to our lives. Our troubles, our daily struggles with evil, amount to a better story than one in which our troubles vanish with a casual wave of the Divine Hand.

Frodo wondered why he was given such a difficult task; remember: “I am not made for perilous quests. I wish I had never seen the Ring! Why did it come to me? Why was I chosen?”²

Gandalf tells Frodo that it is impossible to answer a question like that. People don’t have everything that they need before beginning a perilous quest. They must learn on the job. They begin with what they have and rise to the challenges they face along the way.

Frodo didn’t want to be a hero. He didn’t long for glory; he wasn’t Achilles, or even Boromir. But by the end he had risen very high—he was among the great of Middle Earth. Maybe not wanting to be great is a prerequisite of greatness. That’s an encouraging thought, at least for those who read about the trials of others while comfortably seated by a fire, with a beer at the elbow, and a pipe in the mouth.

Callings

Each one of us has something sitting right in front of us that really must be done, but we’d rather not do. Other people are meant for other things. But that hasn’t stopped anyone from saying, “I’d rather do what he’s supposed to do. Why can’t I do that?”

Callings come with boundaries, and Bombadil appears to be content with his. As Gandalf said, he lived within the boundaries of a little land.

But even Frodo had a Tookish side, a longing for adventure—for going places, and seeing things, for being swept up in something that would carry him far away. And it really was a nasty, uncomfortable adventure that made him great.

But travel isn’t the only adventure. Sometimes staying put is all the adventure anyone could ask for; doing the thing that must be done, that only you can do—that’s the real adventure. G. K. Chesterton amusingly begins his classic, Orthodoxy, with an account of an “English yachtsman who slightly miscalculated his course and discovered England under the impression that it was a new island in the South Seas.”³ Chesterton’s point is that we already are somewhere strange and fascinating enough to satisfy anyone romantic enough to long for adventure. But do we see it?

Seemingly, Bombadil did. And it wasn’t as though the coming of the Dark Lord was the first time that he’d seen the world go to Hell. He’d seen worse. When he spoke of the Dark Lord from the Outside, he wasn’t thinking of Sauron. He was speaking of someone even darker, and more powerful. Presumably he had something else to do in those days, too, beside save the world. And in The Lord of the Rings he is content to let Frodo save Middle Earth. But that didn’t prevent him from saving Frodo—twice. (So, it could be said that Tom actually saved Middle Earth—twice.⁴) But he did that by staying home and doing what needed doing when only he could do it.

And that is an encouraging thought.

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1. The Fellowship of the Ring, 259.

2. Frodo is mistaken, we come to see. He was made for a perilous quest. But it takes the rest of the story to make him the man (or the hobbit) for the job.

That’s the way being made for perilous quests works—it’s on-the-job training.

3. Orthodoxy, Christian Heritage Series (1908; Canon Press, 2020), 4.

4. Here’s a postscript to the postscript, a final thought that occurred to me as I was putting the last touches on this book: the first time that Tom saved the hobbits it was at a tree, and the second time that he saved them it was at a tomb. For those pondering what Tom represents, that’s an even more encouraging thought.