Who is the oldest in Middle Earth?

[Radagast_the_Fool]

Now I'm sure this has come up before, but I'm a new member to this message board and I thought it might be fun to at least reintroduce this topic, as I couldn't find it in recent history. I was a member of another board until it started to die, and we had a huge discussion on this, mostly about Tom Bombadil, who is by most standards the oldest in Middle Earth. But was he really? There are so many briefly mentioned characters in Tolkien's works that the possibilities are endless. As Gandalf says: "There are older and fouler things than [Tom Bombadil] in the deep places of the world." =) Ok so he didn't really say that, but just think of the possibilities. You could also debate that Tom Bombadil may not have come from Middle Earth, so who would be the oldest born in Middle Earth? Treebeard? Let me know what you think.

[Andúril]

If I stand by my opinion that Tom Bombadil is some type of nature spirit, then I don't see why other spirits might not exist alongside him in other regions of Middle-earth.

Regarding those born in ME, what about Cirdan? Was it not the elves that taught the trees the art of speech, and thus sub-creating ents and huorns? Perhaps Treebeard, as the oldest of the ents, is indeed the oldest of all beings born in Middle-earth.

Refute mine wisdom

[azalea]

There is a really good essay on the web entitled "Who is Tom Bombadil?" I'm not sure of the address, but I got to it through The J.R.R. Tolkein Information Page. The essay makes the argument that he is Aule, and makes a very convincing case. I'm not completely convinced, though, because of Gandalf's words at Elrond's council about how he would in the end "fall" is all else fell to the Dark Lord. I don't think that term would be used since Aule would be stronger than Sauron. "Depart" would seem to be better of that were the case.

[Comic Book Guy]

This has been done recently in this (http://www.tolkientrail.com/entmoot/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2746) thread.