The Hill

A term for the place where Tom Bombadil had his house, eastward of the Old Forest near the source of the Withywindle. Tom's house stood on a small grassy rise in the uplands beyond the forest, and over it rose a higher shoulder of land, a western outcropping of the Barrow-downs. Thus the house of Tom Bombadil was both up one hill, and down under another, taller, hill.

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The term 'Hill' is used only subtly in the canonical works for Tom Bombadil's home. When Frodo and his companions meet Tom for the first time, he sings of living, 'Down along under Hill' (The Fellowship of the Ring I 6, The Old Forest), and as they approach his home for the first time, it is described as being 'up, down, under hill' (ibid). Provisions given to the Hobbits by Tom are later described - apparently in Tom's own words - as coming from 'down under Hill' (The Fellowship of the Ring I 8, Fog on the Barrow-downs). To confirm that this 'Hill' was intended as some kind of name, it has its own entry in the index to The Lord of Rings - at least in earlier editions - where it is listed as 'Hill (Bombadil's home)'.

There are numerous other references to Bombadil living 'under Hill' that are spread across other works. For example, the poem "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil" says of Tom that: 'He lived up under Hill, where the Withywindle / ran from a grassy well down into the dingle.' In a manuscript chronology, Tolkien even names Tom's house as 'Underhill' (which might have been somewhat confusing given that Frodo came from a place with the same name, and was also using 'Underhill' as an alias, which perhaps explains why that name for Tom's house did not appear in the final text).

It is worth reiterating all these references to Tom Bombadil living 'under Hill' because, given the description of his house, it would more naturally be said that he lived on a hill rather than under one. The use of 'under' might simply be a description of the taller shoulder of the Barrow-downs nearby, or it might approach a glimpse of Tom's deeper essence.

To illustrate, when the meal on the Barrow-downs is reported by narrator of The Lord of the Rings, the description of food coming from 'down under Hill' is given in quotation marks, as if to draw attention to its strangeness. This might - just possibly - hint at Bombadil's greater nature, with some part of him or his power actually being contained within the hills around his home. This form of words might also help to explain Galdor's later comment (from The Fellowship of the Ring II 2, The Council of Elrond) that, 'Power to defy our Enemy is not in [Bombadil], unless such power is in the earth itself.'

So, the association of Tom Bombadil with a home somehow 'down under Hill' (or, even more oddly, 'up under Hill') is repeated often enough that it is clearly important, but the true significance of these curious expressions remains elusive.