Goldberry

Goldberry is a character from the works of the author J. R. R. Tolkien. She first appeared in print in a 1934 poem, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, where she appears as the wife of Tom Bombadil. Also known as the "River-woman's daughter", she is described as a beautiful, youthful woman with golden hair. She is best known from her appearance as a supporting character in Tolkien's high fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings, first published in 1954 and 1955.

Like her husband, Goldberry's role and origins are enigmatic and have been debated by scholars. On her possible origins, scholars have compared her with a character in

Both Bombadil and Goldberry were omitted from

J. R. R. Tolkien never explored the specific details regarding Goldberry's origins. Tom Bombadil clearly identifies her as having been discovered by him in the river Withywindle within the Old Forest, and her title "River-woman's daughter" strongly suggests that she is not a mortal human being. In a 1958 letter, Tolkien wrote that Goldberry "represents the actual seasonal changes" in "real river-lands in autumn".^{[T 1]} He conveyed this notion through a poem recited by Frodo Baggins in The Fellowship of the Ring, specifically the lines "O spring-time and summer-time, and spring again after!"^{[T 2]}

For the scholar of literature Isabelle Pantin, the sequence involving Goldberry in The Lord of the Rings is reminiscent of a passage from The Golden Key by George MacDonald: the heroine, Tangle, after having almost been suffocated by a tree believing herself being pursued by the bears of Goldilocks, is taken in by a kindly old lady dressed in a mermaid's finery and holding a basin full of fish. Pantin noted that Goldberry herself is reminiscent of the Goldilocks character: she has a similar hairstyle and her house appears to be as comfortable as that of the bears'.^[1]

The Tolkien scholar John M. Bowers writes that Goldberry recalls The Maid of the Moor, a late-medieval lyric familiar to Tolkien which contains the lines^[2]

What was hire mete?
The primerole and the violet.

What was hire dring?
The chelde water of the welle-spring.^[3]

Appearances

Goldberry first appeared in Tolkien's 1934 poem, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil,^[4] re-worked into a 1962 poetry collection of the same name.^[5] The poem tells of how she drags Tom into the river before he escapes, returning later to capture her and make her his bride.^[5]

In The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of The Lord of the Rings, Frodo and his companions

Goldberry does not fit easily into any of Tolkien's definitions of sentient beings in his world, and like Tom Bombadil she remains an enigma.

The scholar Ruth Noel calls Bombadil and Goldberry "undisguised personifications of land untouched by humans".[12]

Another proposed explanation is that she is one of

Goldberry is sometimes discussed in critical commentary about the roles of women in The Lord of the Rings. She is presented as a hospitable domestic figure,^[9] a good hostess who feeds passing travellers.^[8] While the scholar of children's literature Melissa McCrory Hatcher called her "a mystical washer-woman",^[16] Hasser emphasized that the most significant point about Goldberry as a feminine figure is that she shares a cooperative and reciprocal domestic relationship with Bombadil, with a dynamic of equality that is not seen in other romantic pairings in Tolkien's body of work as the other Middle-earth peoples often have a clearer separation of gender roles within their societies.^[8] Hasser noted that Goldberry is the sole female character in The Lord of the Rings who does not have a personal agenda, and that she provides a feminine figure who is "pure, content, significant to the world around her, and wise" in its narrative.^[8]

Theological role

For several critics, the appearance of Goldberry in The Lord of the Rings foreshadows that of Galadriel's later appearance: both are beautiful and of regal stature, live in an isolated domain and are associated with water.^[8][17][18] Ann McCauley Basso compared Goldberry as a biblical Eve figure to Galadriel's Mary.^[9] In an entry on redemption in mythopoeic writing by the Catholic writer Joseph Pearce for the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, the apparent innocence and primitive nature of Goldberry and Tom Bombadil is analogous to Adam and Eve, as they represent the "Unfallen Creation".^[19]

Sacrament of marriage

The scholar Brandon Best sees Goldberry's relationship to Tom Bombadil as a model of the

Wind on the open hill, bells on the heather,
Reeds by the shady pool, lilies on the water:
Old Tom Bombadil and the River-daughter![T 3]

Robert Chapman-Morales notes that scholars such as L. Eugene Startzman and Jennifer Raimundo see Goldberry and Bombadil as embodiments of unexpected joy, an aspect of Tolkien's eucatastrophe.^[17][21] He quotes one of Tolkien's letters: "the government of a 'family' ... was not a monarchy ... It was a 'dyarchy', in which master and mistress had equal status, if different functions."^{[T 5][21]} He notes also that Basso describes the couple's marital joy,^[9] and he remarks on their "mutual respect when we see how different they are, yet how perfectly they work together".^[21]

Adaptations

Radio

In a twelve-part radio adaptation of The Lord of the Rings which ran from 1955 to 1956, the producer Terence Tiller wrote Goldberry as Tom Bombadil's daughter.^[22] This alteration annoyed Tolkien,^{[T 6]} though he conceded that the events described in the 1934 poem are not clearly summarized in the published version of The Lord of the Rings.^[22]

The chapters involving the Old Forest and its characters were omitted from Brian Sibley and Michael Bakewell's 1981 radio adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.^[23] In 1992, Sibley produced a radio series, Tales from the Perilous Realm, which featured short texts by Tolkien; the episode "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil" covered The Lord of the Rings chapters cut from the 1981 adaptation, including those about the Old Forest. Goldberry is voiced by Sorcha Cusack for the adaptation.^[24]

Film

In 1957 Tolkien was consulted about a cartoon of The Lord of the Rings, its first proposed cinematic treatment. On the subject of Goldberry, he said he would much rather that she be omitted from the adaptation than make a cameo appearance without context or meaning.^{[T 6]} The film director Peter Jackson omitted Goldberry and Bombadil from his films; he stated that this was because they did little to advance the story and would have made the films unnecessarily long.^[26]

Only one adaptation includes Goldberry, the 1991 Russian Khraniteli, where she is portrayed by Regina Lialeikite [ru] (as "Zolotinka"^[b]). The version uses a green screen technique to present her as much larger than the hobbits dining at her table.^[25]

Games and other media

Along with Bombadil, Goldberry appears as a

Goldberry appears in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game The Lord of the Rings Online. She is found in "Goldberry's Glade" in the Old Forest, where a quest to gather lilies on her behalf at the foot of Old Man Willow is given to the player by Bombadil.^[28] Her race is referred to as "River-maid", as the game also features Goldberry's sister Naruhel, an original character who is of a darker and crueller nature.^[29]

The 1969