Saruman’s mind set a trap for Gandalf, but Tom set the hobbits free from Old Man Willow. What this demonstrates isn’t just that Tom is good and Saruman isn’t, but how two different understandings of knowledge work themselves out in different ways of life—one catches things to control them, and another frees them in order to commune with them. When Frodo asked Goldberry “Then all this strange land belongs to him?” he had something like Saruman’s attitude in mind; but when she said, “The trees and the grasses and all things growing or living in the land belong each to themselves. Tom Bombadil is
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