Yes, I agree completely. And the same is true in chapters 6, 7, and 8 of the first book of TLOTR when we return briefly to this whimsical, inscrutable, dangerous and wonder-filled world of fairy tale.
Chapter 6; "The Old Forest". The hobbits flee their familar and beloved Shire and, crossing the Brandywine River, are lost in the Old Forest. They are overcome and snared by the enchantments of Old Man Willow and are rescued by a creature as strange or stranger, Tom Bombadil.
Chapter 7; "In The House of Tom Bombadil".
'Fair lady!' said Frodo again after a while. 'Tell me, if my asking does not seem foolish, who is Tom Bombadil?'
'He is,' said Goldberry, staying her swift movements and smiling.
Frodo looked at her questioningly. 'He is, as you have seen,' she said in answer to his look. 'He is the Master of wood, water, and hill.'
'Then all this strange land belongs to him?'
'No indeed!' she answered, and her smile faded. 'That would indeed be a burden,' she added in a low voice, as if to herself. 'The trees and the grasses and all things growing or living in the land belong each to themselves. Tom Bombadil is the Master. No one has ever caught old Tom walking in the forest, wading in the water, leaping on the hill tops under light and shadow. He has no fear. Tom Bombadil is master.'
Chapter 8; "Fog on the Barrow Downs". Immediately after the hobbits leave the protection of Tom Bombadil, Tolkien adds a twist to the traditional ending of the fairy tale. The hobbits are *again* ensnared by enchantment and must again be rescued by Tom. But after this second rescue, when the the hobbits beg Tom Bombadil to continue with them-- at least as far as The Prancing Pony in Bree-- he refuses, saying:
Tom's country ends here: he will not pass the borders.
Tom has his house to mind, and Goldberry is waiting!
These three chapters are a wonderful revisitation to the style and worldview of
The Hobbit, but better still, they initiate us and the hobbits from out of fairy tales to the wider adult world of TLOFR where, beginning with the Prancing Pony in Bree, they will have have to deal with the world of Men.
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