This article contains spoilers for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 2 episode 4.
Tom Bombadil is a pretty mysterious character – older than the stars, powerful in a fairly hands-off kind of way, and with a tendency to answer questions about his identity with increasing vagueness every time he is asked. But when the Stranger arrives at his home for a bath and some rest and recuperation in The Rings of Power season 2 episode 4, he encounters another character whose adaptation makes her more mysterious still – the unseen Goldberry.
In The Lord of the Rings as written, Goldberry is Tom Bombadil’s wife, and she is a magical but otherwise fairly straightforward character. She introduces herself to Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin as the “daughter of the River” and she is a fairly typical example of J. R. R. Tolkien’s idea of an attractive woman. She has long blonde hair, wears a green and silver gown with a gold belt shaped like flowers, she reminds Frodo of a “young elf-queen,” and she sings with a beautiful voice. The only slightly more unusual thing about her is that as she sits, she has her feet surrounded by bowls of water with lilies floating in them.
Like her husband, Goldberry is older than she seems. Tolkien says that her voice is, “as young and ancient as Spring.” When it rains, Bombadil tells the Hobbits that it is “Goldberry’s washing day.” implying a deep connection with nature. It’s a phrase Tolkien would have grown up hearing referring to laundry day, but since clothes would be dried on washing lines outside the house, Goldberry is not doing any human kind of laundry if it is raining all day! Tolkien wrote in a letter in 1958 that she represents the seasonal changes in river-lands, and Bombadil in the book says it is the day for her “autumn-cleaning,” so she is clearly some kind of spirit connected with nature and with rivers.
Bombadil and Goldberry’s meeting is described in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, and Other Verses from the Red Book, a collection of poetry relating to Middle-earth which was published in 1962. This is one of very few books about Middle-earth other than The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings that was actually published by Tolkien within his own lifetime, rather than being edited and published after his death by his son Christopher. Amazon Prime Video and The Rings of Power do not have the rights to this book and so cannot refer to it directly, but it does confirm things that are implied in The Lord of the Rings, which they do have the rights to: Bombadil and Goldberry are married, and she is the daughter of the river Withywindle. (The poem also describes how Goldberry grabbed Tom and tried to drown him, and later he grabbed her and carried her off to be his wife, so it may be something of a blessing that the show does not have the right to adapt that part!)
One of the odd things about Goldberry’s appearance in The Rings of Power is that she is a very long way from where we would expect her to be. Bombadil himself, whatever he is, could easily be wandering about various parts of Middle-earth back in the Second Age. At the Council of Elrond in The Fellowship of the Ring, Elrond specifically says that Bombadil “walked the woods and hills long ago,” and Gandalf adds that he “is withdrawn into a little land,” implying that he is did always stay in his small part of the lands near the Shire, and used to travel more. So finding Bombadil in Rhûn in the Second Age does not contradict anything we know about him.
Goldberry, however, is implied to be the daughter of a specific river, the Withywindle. This is a small river that runs from the Barrow-downs through the Old Forest, on the borders of the Shire, to merge with the Brandywine River. Tolkien is even less specific about her exact nature than he is about Bombadil himself, but he implies that she has a need for water and a love of water-plants, hence the bowls of lilies around her feet, and a deep connection with rain, rivers, and water in general. So what on earth is she doing in the desert?
Goldberry’s inclusion in The Rings of Power is rather a surprise. We had assumed, when Bombadil’s appearance was announced, that this would simply be a story that took place before they got married. Marrying Goldberry could even be assumed to be the reason Bombadil withdrew into a small area of land near the Withywindle. It is true that, as a river-spirit, there is not much indication of how old she is and she could certainly be around in this period, but since she is so strongly bound to a specific river near the Shire, we were not expecting to see her so far away from it.
And of course the other odd thing about her appearance in the show is that we do not actually see her at all. The Stranger is in the bath at Tom’s house and hears Tom singing one of his songs from The Lord of the Rings. Viewers clearly hear him say, “Don’t be bashful now Goldberry,” and a woman’s voice joins him in the song. Then a pot rattles and Bombadil comes in with the Stranger’s robe. When the Stranger asks Bombadil if there is somebody out there with him and says he thought he heard a woman singing, Tom bizarrely replies, “Woman? What woman?” When the Stranger tries to clarify, “is no one else here with you?” Bombadil unhelpfully confirms that, “you’re here. That is, I think you are,” and laughs. And that is the end of that. There is no indication of why he is being so cagey about his wife, no simple explanation that she is shy, and the subject is never brought up again.
Goldberry is voiced by singer/songwriter Raya Yarbrough, who is married to series composer Bear McCreary and has collaborated with him many times. Her voice will probably be most familiar to viewers from her rendition of the re-worked Skye Boat Song from the opening titles of Outlander, for which McCreary is also the composer. Other than being a beautiful voice, the notable thing about her casting here is that she is a singer, not an actress, which implies that we will not actually be seeing Goldberry on screen in this series.
It’s always nice to hear Yarbrough’s voice and it’s fun to hear Tom and Goldberry together, but her inclusion in this scene is rather weird, and very mysterious – it is not at all clear how the showrunners are interpreting her character or what, if anything, they intend to do with her. Goldberry in The Lord of the Rings is not particularly shy, but is downright sociable. She often leaves Tom and the Hobbits to talk while she goes to bed early, but otherwise she is the perfect early 20th century British hostess, welcoming her guests, making sure they are comfortable, and providing and joining them for a delicious dinner.
When Bombadil introduces himself to the Stranger in this episode, he does say that folks used to call him Tom Bombadil “back in the Withywindle,” so presumably Goldberry’s origin has not been changed and they still met in the river, and she is still the river-daughter. This also fits with Elrond’s reference to Tom having many names at the Council of Elrond. She still sings, one of her favorite pastimes in the book – but otherwise, the character seems completely changed, from a vibrant, social woman connected with rivers and water to a shy, mysterious, unseen presence living in a desert.
Perhaps she was included merely as a nod to The Lord of the Rings, and to make Bombadil even more mysterious than he already is. Showrunners J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay told us last summer that they wanted to bring Tom Bombadil into their story because “he is in touch with the deepest wisdom of Middle-earth,” and that they worked closely with McCreary to bring his songs and rhymes to life. Goldberry is certainly a big part of Tom’s songs and sings with him a lot in the book, so perhaps this was just a way to include more of the songs without bringing her into the story (or having her sit around surrounded by bowls of water in the middle of the desert).
Whether Goldberry will be heard any more in this season remains to be seen, but she is certainly the most enigmatic character we’ve met yet. Payne and McKay mentioned to us that the problem with putting Tom Bombadil in adaptations of The Lord of the Rings itself was that “he’s sort of an anti-dramatic character; all the drama stops when you get to Tom and you just sort of hang out and listen to him sing little songs.”
So far they are doing a good job of integrating him more fully into the plot of The Rings of Power, while also including his songs, but Goldberry seems to have presented more of a challenge. We hope they find something to actually do with her at some point!
New episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 2 premiere Thursdays on Prime Video, culminating with the finale on Oct. 3.
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