The White Council

240 To Mrs Pauline Gasch (Pauline Baynes)

[Pauline Baynes, who was illustrating THE ADVENTURES OF TOM BOMBADIL, pointed out that typescript of the title poem described Tom as wearing a peacock's feather in his hat, but the version in the galley-proofs had the reading 'a swan-wing feather'.]

1 August 1962 76 Sandfield Road, Headington, Oxford Dear Mrs Gasch,

I am sorry that you have been bothered by this detail. There have been a number of minor changes made at various times in the process of assimilating Tom B. to the LORD OF THE RINGS world.

The peacock's feather belongs to an old draft. Being unsuitable to the L.R. this becomes in the L.R. (I p. 130) 'a long blue feather'. In the poems as now to be published Tom appears (in line 4 of the first poem) with a 'swan-wing feather': to increase the riverishness, and o allow for the incident in the second poem, the gift of a blue feather by the king's fisher. That incident also explains the blue feather of the L.R. Poem one is evidently, as said in the introduction, a hobbit-version of things long before the days of the L.R. But the second poem refers to the days of growing shadow, before Frodo set out (as the consultation with Maggot shows: cf. L.R. I p. 143). When therefore Tom appears in the L.R. he is wearing a blue feather.

As far sa you are concerned peacocks are out. A swan-feather in the first poem; and a blue one after the kingfisher incident.

For instance, in the altercation with the kingfisher, I found that no variety likely to be in our parts of the world has a scarlet crest. (Scarlet BREASTS are more likely though ones I know are pinkish!) Also, more interesting, I found that the bird's name did not mean, as I had supposed, 'a King that fishes'. It was originally THE KING'S FISHER. That links the swan (traditionally the property of the King) with the fisher-bird; explains both their rivalry, and their special friendship with Tom: they were creatures who looked for the return of their rightful LOrd, the true King.

Do not be put off by this sort of thing unless it affects the picture! The inwardly seen picture is to me the most important. I look forward to your intepretation. The donnish detail is just a private pleasure which I do not expect anyone to notice. (E.g. the hanging up of a kingfisher to see the way of the wind, which comes from Sir T. Browne; the otter's whisker sticking out of the gold, from the Norse Nibelung legends; and the three places for gossip, SMITHY, MILL, AND CHEAPING (market), from a medieval instructive work that I have been editing!) With very best wishes

Yours sincerely Ronald Tolkien

In the end notes, Humphrey Carpenter explains the Thomas Browne reference:

Sir Thomas Browne, VULGAR ERRORS, III Chapter 10: 'That a Kingfisher, hanged by the bill, showeth where the wind la

Seanith