Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow;

Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow.

This verse describes the surface appearance of the strange entity known as Bombadil. He seems a jovial (if not somewhat absurd) fellow, skipping and singing through the treacherous Old Forest at the Bounds of Buckland; but beneath the surface is hidden a Power that few, even the Wise, can comprehend. He is old beyond the count of years - indeed, the Elves once called him Iarwain Ben-adar, Oldest and Fatherless - and once leapt upon the hilltops across the wide lands of Middle-earth. Now, though, he has settled in the Old Forest with his wife Goldberry the River-daughter, and set for himself unseen bounds which he no longer crosses.