"J.R.R. Tolkien - Tom Bombadil - Preface" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tolkien J.R.R)

Withywindle; it was outside the Hay, and was so well watched
and protected by a grind or fence extended into the water.
Breredon (Briar Hill) was a little village on rising ground behind
the hythe, in the narrow tongue between the end of the High
Hay and the Brandywine. At the Mithe, the outflow of the
Shirebourn, was a landing-stage, from which a lane ran to
Deephallow and so on to the Causeway road that went through
Rushey and Stock.
Indeed they probably gave him this name (it is Bucklandish
in form) to add to his many older ones.
Tom's raillery is here turned in jest upon his
friends, who treat it with amusement (tinged with
fear); but it was probably composed much later
and after the visit of Frodo and his companions to
the house of Bombadil.
The verses, of hobbit origin, here presented
have generally two features in common. They are
fond of strange words, and of rhyming and
metrical tricks - in their simplicity Hobbits
evidently regarded such things as virtues or
graces, though they were no doubt mere imitations of Elvish practices. They are also at least on
the surface, lighthearted or frivolous, though
sometimes one may uneasily suspect that more is
meant than meets the ear. No. 15, certainly of
hobbit origin, is an exception. It is the latest piece
and belongs to the Fourth Age; but it is included
here, because a hand has scrawled at its head
Frodos Dreme. That is remarkable, and though the
piece is most unlikely to have been written by
Frodo himself, the title shows that it was associated with the dark and despairing dreams which
visited him in March and October during his last
three years. But there were certainly other traditions concerning Hobbits that were taken by the
'wandering-madness', and if they ever returned,
were afterwards queer and uncommunicable. The
thought of the Sea was ever-present in the back-
ground of hobbit imagination; but fear of it and
distrust of all Elvish lore, was the prevailing mood in the Shire at the end of the Third Age,
and that mood was certainly not entirely dispelled
by the events and changes with which that Age
ended.