A mystery within a mystery, involving Tom Bombadil.

[Bombadil]

I looked for any threads that match this, didn't find any, but sorry if I didn't look hard enough.

In the Fellowship of the Ring in chapter VIII Fog on the Barrow-Downs, there is an interesting and mysterious line about Tom Bombadil- hence the title of the thread a mystery in a mystery, Tom being an enigma in himself. The line comes after he saves the hobbits from the barrow-wight, and it is:

He chose for himself from the pile a brooch set with blue stones. many-shaded like flax-flowers or the wings of blue butterflies. He looked long at it, as if stirred by some memory...

(Just to clarify, the ellipsis at the end shows the quote continues, it wasn't written in a such a way, which if it were would add more mystery to it than it already entails.)

What is this memory? Being a big fan of the character of Tom Bombadil I wish I could say I had a clue. Perhaps the answer lies in the poem of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, but I do not own a copy - because I don't have 300 dollars to buy one! (btw, if anyone has a free copy of this poem if you could please email it to me, or put up a link). What could this brooch be that affects Tom Bombadil so?