Tom first appears within the story after Merry and Pippin are trapped and squeezed by Old Man Willow and Frodo cries for help. He commands Old Man Willow to release them, singing him to sleep, and he shelters the hobbits in his house for a while. Here it is revealed that the One Ring has no power over him. He can see Frodo even when the hobbit wears the ring, and Tom does not turn invisible when he wears the Ring himself. He even tosses the ring in the air and makes it disappear, but then produces it from his other hand and returns it to Frodo. While this indicates a certain power over the Ring, this idea is dismissed within the second chapter of Book Two, "The Council of Elrond." Gandalf believes that Tom's carefree attitude could cause him to misplace the Ring, which could prove disastrous for the opponents of Sauron, the antagonist of the Lord of the Rings.
Before sending the hobbits on their way, Tom teaches them a rhyme to summon him if ever they fall into danger inside his borders again. This proves to be fortunate, as the four encounter Barrow-wights during "Fog in the Barrow-downs," the eighth chapter of the Lord of the Rings. After Tom saves them from the Barrow-wights, he gives each of them a long dagger taken from the treasure in the barrows. As the hobbits finally leave the Old Forest, he takes his leave of them, as he will not pass the borders of his own land, but before he goes he directs them to The Prancing Pony inn at Bree.
Tom Bombadil's origins in the cosmology of Middle-earth are unknown; he is arguably the only character in Tolkien's entire legendarium who does not neatly fit into any of the categories of beings Tolkien created. Speculative ideas about his true nature range from simply a wise Elven hermit to an angelic being (a Maia or Vala), to the creator, who is called Eru Ilúvatar in Tolkien's legendarium. Tolkien himself did not state if any of these was correct, but when a reader confronted him with the theory that Bombadil is Eru (God) (The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, No. 153), Tolkien said that he was not.
He appears in an unrelated Tolkien poem, written in 1934.[1]
Gandalf calls Tom Bombadil the eldest being in existence; this is also evident by his Sindarin name Iarwain Ben-adar (Eldest and Fatherless). Dwarves called him Forn (Scandinavian, meaning "Ancient" or "Belonging to the distant past"), Men Orald. All these names apparently mean "Eldest." However, Treebeard calls himself the eldest living being of Middle-earth and that he was there before anyone else. Bombadil is just called the "eldest." If Tom Bombadil is indeed not a normal being, but rather a supernatural being or "concept" this is not necessarily a contradiction (Treebeard is likely the oldest living being, while Bombadil could be an older supernatural being). Concerning Treebeard, Tolkien remarked: "[Treebeard] is a character in my story and even he does not know everything." It is possible, then, that Treebeard's knowledge omits Bombadil. Whatever the case, Tom Bombadil was almost certainly created to be an enigma.
In reference to Bombadil, Tolkien himself said that some things should remain mysterious in any narrative, hidden even to its inventor. He also placed the fate of the Entwives in this category, as well as the Cats of Queen Berúthiel, although hints of the latter story have emerged in posthumously released materials.
Tolkien invented Tom Bombadil in honour of his children's Dutch doll. These predate the writing of The Lord of the Rings. Tom Bombadil was, however, part of The Lord of the Rings from the earliest drafts.
