Who the Hell Is Tom Bombadil?

*Lord of the Rings* Challenge bonus, week one

My old paperback of The Tolkien Reader, which features Tom Bombadil on the cover, as imagined by Pauline Baynes.

The Foreword to the Second Edition includes Tolkien’s famous (or infamous?) remarks on allegory:

But I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much…