Zolotinka (Middle-earth)

The name Goldberry translated from English means "golden berry" ^[1] . John Bowers suggests that this name is associated with a mistletoe from Celtic mythology called "with golden berries" ( eng. Gold-berried ), which is considered by James George Fraser in the study " Golden Branch " ^[2] . There are several options for translating the word into Russian . V. Muravyov and A. Kistyakovsky translated the name as Zolotinka , and the translation of Alexander Gruzberg used transliteration ( Goldbury ). In the translations of N. Grigorieva, V. Grushetsky and V. Carrick, M. Kamenkovich , the archaic root “gold” and suffixes associated with the names of berries are used: in the first case - nick (in the words “strawberries”, “strawberries”, “blueberries” "), In the second - -wick (in the word" blackberry ") ^{[1] [3]} .

Water Lilies ( Claude Monet , 1908)

Zolotinka first appears in the poem "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil", published in 1934 (a revised version was published under the same name in a collection of poems in 1962 ). Among other adventures, it tells about the first meeting of Tom Bombadil with Zolotinka, the “daughter of the river” Vetlianka : she pulls him by the beard, and he falls into the river. At the end of the poem, Bombadil kidnaps Zolotinka and marries her ^[4] .

Her long golden hair flowed over her shoulders like river waves, her dress turned green like reed shoots and sparkled with silver like grass in dew, and her belt was made of gold - a chain of irises with pale blue eyes of forget-me-nots. At her feet, in wide vessels of green and brown clay, white water lilies floated, making it seem like she was sitting on a throne in the middle of a forest pond.

- The first appearance of Zolotinka in The Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien, J. R. R. Part 1. Chapter Seven. In the house of Tom Bombadil // Lord of the Rings . Book I. The Commonwealth of the Ring / Per. from English M. Kamenkovich , V. Carrick

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The character of Zolotinka is again included with her husband in The Lord of the Rings. The couple lives in a house located on the outskirts of the Old Forest ^[5] , in which Frodo , Sam , Pippin and Merry rested for several days. Zolotinka maintains a connection with nature as a whole and especially with water: it is surrounded by water lilies that Bombadil brought her, her dress “rustled like a breeze in flowering river grasses”, and the sound of her steps resembles “the murmur of a stream running through the stones in the night silence ". Her meaning in the novel is much greater than in the poem of 1934: now she looks like “a young and beautiful elven queen” ^{[6] [7]} .

Zolotinka appears for the last time in the poem Once Upon a Time, which was probably written after The Lord of the Rings and published in 1965 . Crowned with rosehips , she stands on the shore of the pond and blows on a dandelion ^[8] .

In a letter, Tolkien explains that the events of The Lord of the Rings take place “not in a“ magical land ”, but in the very real edge of the rivers in autumn at times. Zolotinka embodies the change of seasons in such lands ” ^[9] . For many researchers of Tolkien’s work, the appearance of Zolotinka in The Lord of the Rings anticipates Galadriel : both of them seem to be young elven queens, live in forests isolated from the outside world and are connected to water ^{[10] [11] [12]} . Zolotinka brings together two types of women in the novel - ordinary women Shira and Gondor (Rosie Cotton, Ioret) and “ Anglo-Saxon , noble women” (Galadriel, Arwen and Eowyn ) ^[13] .

The nature of Zolotinka and Tom Bombadil is not explained by the author ^[13] . Gene Hargrove is based on the outward resemblance between Zolotinka and Vala Yavanna (both blond and green), and their connection with the plant kingdom; Tom Bombadil in this case is the Valar -smith of Aule , husband of Yavanna ^[14] . Other researchers attribute them to Mayar ^[15] .

Due to her nickname “River Daughter” and her connection with the water element, Zolotinka is often compared with mollusks and nyxes ^{[16] [17] [15]} . The connection with Zolotinka’s water also facilitates the comparison of Tom Bombadil with Väinämöinen from Kalevala : both characters have a bride related to water (Väinämöinen has Aino) ^[18] . T.J. Taylor notes the connection between the features of Zolotinka and the ancient Greek myth of Persephone in how it is captured by Bombadil and in connection with the changing seasons, as well as with Etain , the heroine of Irish mythology ^[16] . According to John Bowers, the source for the image of Zolotinka was the 14th-century poem “The Maid of the Moor”, which in 1921 was included in the collection of poems and prose of the 14th century edited by Kenneth Sizem, a Tolkien teacher at Oxford University ^[19] . A character similar to Zolotinka is found in British folk tales - Sabrina, the river goddess from Severn , whose story was retold by Galfrid of Monmouth and entered the John Milton Komos ^[2] . The seeming innocence and “primitiveness” of the couple formed by Bombadil and Zolotinka also caused comparisons with Adam and Eve ^{[17] [13] [15]} . For Joseph Pierce, Zolotinka and Tom Bombadil are “fallen creatures” ^[20] .

According to Isabelle Panten, episodes with Zolotinka in The Lord of the Rings resemble an excerpt from George MacDonald ’s Golden Key story. In Tolkien’s novel, after rescuing from Old Willow, the hobbits take refuge in the house of Tom Bombadil, whose wife was in a green dress and sitting near vessels with water lilies, and the heroine of MacDonald, after she was nearly strangled by a tree, was sheltered by a woman in a green dress, which house had a pool with fish ^[21] .

Christina Jungberg claims that Zolotinka is one of the three deities of nature that are on the side of Good: she is the immanent goddess along with Elberet , the transcendent goddess and Galadriel, who combines these two aspects ^[22] .

Zolotinka is depicted in the illustrations of Ted Nesmith ^[23] , Greg and Tim Hildebrandtov ^[24] , Alan Lee ^[25] and Anke-Catherine Eismann ^[26] . Artist Angus McBride created her image for the board game Middle-earth Collectible Card Game ^[27] .

In the first radio show, The Lord of the Rings, in 1955, Zolotinka was introduced by the daughter of Tom Bombadil: in the novel, their relationship was not clearly defined and producer Terence Tiller had a misconception about her. Tolkien did not like this mistake most of all, but he admits that he did not take into account the absence in the Lord of the Rings of a description of the events mentioned in the 1934 poem ^{[28] [29]} . In the radio show “ Fairy Tales of the Magic Land ”, the episode “The Adventures of Tom Bombadil” contains chapters from the novel with the participation of Tom and Zolotinka, which were not included in the production of The Lord of the Rings 1981 ^[30] .

Zolotinka and Tom do not appear in any of the adaptations of the novel. The director of the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, Peter Jackson, explained that the reason for the absence of these characters in the film was that they “did not advance the plot,” based on Frodo’s journey ^[31] .

In The Fellowship of the Ring, Zolotinka is voiced by Kat Susie ^[32] and appears as a non-player character in Tom Bombadil’s house. In one of the assignments, Frodo must collect water lilies for her. In the multiplayer role-playing game " Lord of the Rings Online " Zolotinka can be found in the location "Source of Zolotinka" in the Old Forest. The game also has her sister Naruhel ( born Naruhel ), who is not in the Tolkien legendarium ^[33] .

Several statues of Zolotinka were created by the Irish company Mithril Miniatures ^{[34] [35] [36]} . Games Workshop released the statuettes of Tom Bombadil and Zolotinka for the board game The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game ^[37] .

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