１５３番のPeter Hastings氏への手紙（１９５４年９月）より、トム・ボンバディルについての書き出しの部分の抜粋です。この手紙についての編者の注には、こうあります。
He(Hastings氏のことです） also cited the
description of Bombadil by Goldberry: 'He is.'
Hastings said that this seemed to imply that Bombadil
was God.
トムについての書き出しは、こうなっています。
As for Tom Bombadil, I really do think you are being
too serious, besides missing the point.(Again the
words used are by Goldberry and Tom not me as a
commentator). You rather remind me of a Protestant
relation who to me objected to the (modern) Catholic
habit of calling priests Father, because the name
father belonged only to the First Person, citing last
Saturday's Epistle - inappositely since that says ex
quo. Lots of other characters are called Master; and
if 'in time' Tom was primeval he was Eldest in Time.
But Goldberry and Tom are referring to the mystery of
names. See and ponder Tom's words in Vol.I p.142 (注) You
may be able to conceive of your unique relation to
the Creator without a name - can you: for in such a
relation pronouns become proper nouns? But as soon as
you are in a world of other finites with a similar,
if each unique and different, relation to Prime Being,
who are you? Frodo has asked not 'what is Tom
Bombadil' but 'Who is he'. We and he no doubt often
laxly confuse the questions. Goldberry gives what I
think is the correct answer. We need not go into the
sublimities of 'I am that am' - which is quite
different form he is*
She adds as a concession of a statement of part of
the 'what'
そしてこの後に、皆さんが手元にお持ちの抜粋部分が続きます。これが、この手紙の中に現れるトムについての全てです。
* は、トールキン教授自身による注 Only
the first person (of worlds or anything) can be
unique. If you say he is there must be more than one,
and created (sub) existence is implied. I can say 'he
is' of Winston Churchill as well as of Tom Bombadil,
surely?.
注（編者による）' "Don't you know my
name yet? That's the only answer. Tell me, who are
you, alone, yourself and nameless?" ' これが、であごるさんが指摘された部分です。