Preface

The Preface to The Adventures of Tom Bombadil presents the poems as a translation from the Red Book of Westmarch, and gives some background information that is not found elsewhere: e.g. the name of the tower at Dol Amroth and the names of the Seven Rivers of Gondor. The poems carry some fictional backstory, linking them to Hobbit folklore; they are all supposedly works that Hobbits enjoyed and were preserved in the margins of the Red Book, with several of them being attributed to Bilbo Baggins and Sam Gamgee.