OzMoot 2026 – Day 2 – Morning

Love and Power an Poetics of Tom Bombadil by Corey Olsen

  • Tolkien does modern poetry and traditional forms
  • Tom is heavily influenced by The Kalevala
    • Similar Meter
    • Similar Song Battles
  • TomB Original Poem
    • The History of TomB
    • A series of Hostile Encounters. Tom sitting beside river, attacked 4x times
    • First Goldberry
    • Old Man Willow
    • The Badgers
    • The Barrow-wight
    • Each encounter leds to a poetry-style sing off
    • The Turn and the Wedding with Goldberry
  • Intro to Bombadilish
    • First 4 lines of Tom
    • Is in Half line, each line has two halfs.
    • Basic Rhythm
      • English as a language naturally uses Iambic Rhythm
      • 2 beat.
      • Look at the 2 syllable words, stress on first sylable
      • Therefore Trokic
      • Spondee – Multiple stress after each other
      • Names always stressed
      • “lived down under hill” very stressed
      • Last 3 half lines very stressed-unstressed
  • 2nd 4 lines. Narrative Flow
    • Almost all just straight Trokic describing narrative flow
  • Next 4 lines – Attack from Goldberry
    • Last 2 lines broken up
    • Halting and has weakness
  • Tom’s response
    • He is giving a command.
    • Command is “Go down! Sleep again” – 3 beat spondee. That wins
  • Old Man Willow is Not a Tree
    • Old Man Willow is a man who lives in tree
    • or Rather a Wood-Spirit who lives in a Tree
    • This was still in early drafts of LOTR
  • Battles vs Old Man Willow
    • Willow starts strong
    • But Tom piles on stressed command words in reply
  • Tom goes a-Courting
    • Doesn’t to a three-beat spondee commanding Goldberry
    • Gentle wooing
  • The Wedding
    • 2-beat spondee at start of middle-4 lines talking about her wedding garments which Tom provided and gave to her
  • Happily Ever After
    • derry-dol and merry-dol are pet names for Goldberry
  • The Fellowship of the Ring
  • Initial lines – “Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo” and next 3
    • Is calling to Goldberry, saying almost home
  • New lines is even more directed to Goldberry
  • Except for the “Old Tom Bombadil water lilies bringing” and next line which is warning off Old Man Willow
  • Similar again next few lines, warning asides to Old Man Willow
  • The Hobbits run to him
    • “Whoa! Whoa! steady there” command and stopped Hobbits
  • Lots of Stressed line words
  • When arrives back in his house
    • Goldberry wearing Wedding gear, eating Wedding Feast
    • Constantly celebrating and recreating their courtship and marriage moment

The Hands of the King and the Royal Touch: Cutting Edge Research from The Gondor Journal of Medicine by Scott Kirton

  • In a 2nd hand bookstore found some copies of the Gondor Journal of Medicine
  • Aragorn’s healing power is what wins over the people. Not others things he does/is
  • The Royal Touch from kings, mainly to cure Scrofula
    • Scrofula. TB infection of Lymph nodes of the neck
    • Didn’t work directly, but would spontaneously would go away and Kings advisors picked patients who had good chance to cure
    • Legitimized the King’s Authority. Shows he was favored by God
    • Showed King was generous towards people
  • Decline due to skepticism and less claim of divine right of the kings
  • Hands of the King vs The Royal Touch
  • Analysis from the journal on how best to use the Limit resources of King to heal more people

Midsummer in Middle-Earth by Trudy Shannon

  • When is midsummer
  • Date various by different Legal, Astronomical and traditions
  • Strong Traditions in areas with long dark winters
  • Midsummer in the Shire
    • Lithe days built right into the Calendar
    • Fireworks from Gandalf
    • Bilbo leaves Rivendell on Midsummer
    • Free Fair on White Downs. Banquets
      • The Althing in Iceland was similar. Around 1000 people regularly attended
  • Midsummer in Numenor
    • 12 months or 30-31 days
    • Special day not attached to any month similar to Hobbit
    • King ascends sacred Mountain followed by crowd or many people. Only the King speaks
  • Midsummer Gondolin
    • The Gates of Summer . Refs the city’s 7 gates
    • No voice from midnight to the break of day. Dawn welcomed with voices
    • City is attacked on Midsummer
  • Croatia Celebrates the shortest Night and people stay awake all night
  • Midsummer forces Orcs, Wizards and Dwarves
    • Dwarves only sometimes celebrate it.
    • No info on Orcs, Wizards
  • Often times for Weddings

“Circle of Light” – A Faërie Rock Opera by Anna Grob

  • Music performance
  • She is doing a Rock Opera about the Fall of Gondolin and played some songs from it.
  • Some on Spotify
  • and Youtube

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