This week, in an extra-length episode of Shire Reckoning, we dive into the riddle of Tom Bombadil. Who and what is Tom? How do we understand his unique qualities from the text? How does he fit with the cosmology that Tolkien presents to us?

Show Notes

• Peg Wooden Dolls
• And his feet are faster -- Old Tom's Trochees (FR 1.viii.142) (Tom Hillman)
• The Bodley Medal
• Is it a critical mineral or a Tolkien invention? (The Guardian)
• Tolkien Fanfiction Survey
• Imagining 'Britain': Decolonising Tolkien et al
• Lothlórien: Gendered Spaces, Cartographic Nominalism, and Galadriel’s Queerness (Kampmann Walther)
• The Bright Sword and its Sharpness: Swords, Symbolism, and Medievalism in The Lord of the Rings (Gavin S. Davis)
• Gavin the Medievalist (YouTube)
• Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century (Dan Sinykin and Johanna Winant)

Shire Reckoning is a Next Word production. For bonus episodes and to support the show, visit Patreon.com/NextWord.

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Music by Corvus from Pixabay.