The fullest account of the Istari was written, as it appears, in 1954 (see the Introduction, pp. 17 – 18, for an account of its origin). I give it here in full, and will refer to it subsequently as ‘the essay on the Istari’.
Wizard is a translation of Quenya istar (Sindarin ithron): one of the members of an ‘order’ (as they called it), claiming to possess, and exhibiting, eminent knowledge of the history and nature of the World. The translation (though suitable in its relation to ‘wise’ and other ancient words of knowing, similar to that of istar in Quenya) is not perhaps happy, since the Heren Istarion or ‘Order of Wizards’ was quite distinct from the ‘wizards’ and ‘magicians’ of later legend; they belonged solely to the Third Age and then departed, and none save maybe Elrond, Círdan, and Galadriel discovered of what kind they were or whence they came.
Among Men they were supposed (at first) by those that had dealings with them to be Men who had acquired lore and arts by long and secret study. They first appeared in Middle-earth about the year 1000 of the Third Age, but for long they went about in simple guise, as it were of Men already old in years but hale in body, travellers and wanderers, gaining knowledge of Middle-earth and all that dwelt therein, but revealing to none their powers and purposes. In that time Men saw them seldom and heeded them little. But as the shadow of Sauron began to grow and take shape again, they became more active, and sought ever to contest the growth of the Shadow, and to move Elves and Men to beware of their peril. Then far and wide rumour of their comings and goings, and their meddling in many matters, was noised among Men; and Men perceived that they did not die, but remained the same (unless it were that they aged somewhat in looks), while the fathers and sons of Men passed away. Men, therefore, grew to fear them, even when they loved them, and they were held to be of the Elven-race (with whom, indeed, they often consorted).
Yet they were not so. For they came from over the Sea out of the Uttermost West; though this was for long known only to Círdan, Guardian of the Third Ring, master of the Grey Havens, who saw their landings upon the western shores. Emissaries they were from the Lords of the West, the Valar, who still took counsel for the governance of Middle-earth, and when the shadow of Sauron began first to stir again took this means of resisting him. For with the consent of Eru they sent members of their own high order, but clad in bodies as of Men, real and not feigned, but subject to the fears and pains and weariness of earth, able to hunger and thirst and be slain; though because of their noble spirits they did not die, and aged only by the cares and labours of many long years. And this the Valar did, desiring to amend the errors of old, especially that they had attempted to guard and seclude the Eldar by their own might and glory fully revealed; whereas now their emissaries were forbidden to reveal themselves in forms of majesty, or to seek to rule the wills of Men or Elves by open display of power, but coming in shapes weak and humble were bidden to advise and persuade Men and Elves to good, and to seek to unite in love and understanding all those whom Sauron, should he come again, would endeavour to dominate and corrupt.
Of this Order the number is unknown; but of those that came to the North of Middle-earth, where there was most hope (because of the remnant of the Dúnedain and of the Eldar that abode there), the chiefs were five. The first to come was one of noble mien and bearing, with raven hair, and a fair voice, and he was clad in white; great skill he had in works of hand, and he was regarded by well-nigh all, even by the Eldar, as the head of the Order. 1 Others there were also: two clad in sea-blue, and one in earthen brown; and last came one who seemed the least, less tall than the others, and in looks more aged, grey-haired and grey-clad, and leaning on a staff. But Círdan from their first meeting at the Grey Havens divined in him the greatest spirit and the wisest; and he welcomed him with reverence, and he gave to his keeping the Third Ring, Narya the Red.
‘For,’ said he, ‘great labours and perils lie before you, and lest your task prove too great and wearisome, take this Ring for your aid and comfort. It was entrusted to me only to keep secret, and here upon the West-shores it is idle; but I deem that in days ere long to come it should be in nobler hands than mine, that may wield it for the kindling of all hearts to courage.’ 2 And the Grey Messenger took the Ring, and kept it ever secret; yet the White Messenger (who was skilled to uncover all secrets) after a time became aware of this gift, and begrudged it, and it was the beginning of the hidden ill-will that he bore to the Grey, which afterwards became manifest.
Now the White Messenger in later days became known among Elves as Curunír, the Man of Craft, in the tongues of Northern Men Saruman; but that was after he returned from his many journeys and came into the realm of Gondor and there abode. Of the Blue little was known in the West, and they had no names save Ithryn Luin ‘the Blue Wizards’; for they passed into the East with Curunír, but they never returned, and whether they remained in the East, pursuing there the purposes for which they were sent; or perished; or as some hold were ensnared by Sauron and became his servants, is not now known. 3 But none of these chances were impossible to be; for, strange indeed though this may seem, the Istari, being clad in bodies of Middle-earth, might even as Men and Elves fall away from their purposes, and do evil, forgetting the good in the search for power to effect it.
A separate passage written in the margin no doubt belongs here:
For it is said indeed that being embodied the Istari had need to learn much anew by slow experience, and though they knew whence they came the memory of the Blessed Realm was to them a vision from afar off, for which (so long as they remained true to their mission) they yearned exceedingly. Thus by enduring of free will the pangs of exile and the deceits of Sauron they might redress the evils of that time.
Indeed, of all the Istari, one only remained faithful, and he was the last-comer. For Radagast, the fourth, became enamoured of the many beasts and birds that dwelt in Middle-earth, and forsook Elves and Men, and spent his days among the wild creatures. Thus he got his name (which is in the tongue of Númenór of old, and signifies, it is said, ‘tender of beasts’). 4 And Curunír’Lân, Saruman the White, fell from his high errand, and becoming proud and impatient and enamoured of power sought to have his own will by force, and to oust Sauron; but he was ensnared by that dark spirit, mightier than he.
But the last-comer was named among the Elves Mithrandir, the Grey Pilgrim, for he dwelt in no place, and gathered to himself neither wealth nor followers, but ever went to and fro in the Westlands from Gondor to Angmar, and from Lindon to Lórien, befriending all folk in times of need. Warm and eager was his spirit (and it was enhanced by the ring Narya), for he was the Enemy of Sauron, opposing the fire that devours and wastes with the fire that kindles, and succours in wanhope and distress; but his joy, and his swift wrath, were veiled in garments grey as ash, so that only those that knew him well glimpsed the flame that was within. Merry he could be, and kindly to the young and simple, and yet quick at times to sharp speech and the rebuking of folly; but he was not proud, and sought neither power nor praise, and thus far and wide he was beloved among all those that were not themselves proud. Mostly he journeyed unwearyingly on foot, leaning on a staff; and so he was called among Men of the North Gandalf, ‘the Elf of the Wand’. For they deemed him (though in error, as has been said) to be of Elven-kind, since he would at times work wonders among them, loving especially the beauty of fire; and yet such marvels he wrought mostly for mirth and delight, and desired not that any should hold him in awe or take his counsels out of fear.
Elsewhere it is told how it was that when Sauron rose again, he also arose and partly revealed his power, and becoming the chief mover of the resistance to Sauron was at last victorious, and brought all by vigilance and labour to that end which the Valar under the One that is above them had designed. Yet it is said that in the ending of the task for which he came he suffered greatly, and was slain, and being sent back from death for a brief while was clothed then in white, and became a radiant flame (yet veiled still save in great need). And when all was over and the Shadow of Sauron was removed, he departed for ever over the Sea. Whereas Curunír was cast down, and utterly humbled, and perished at last by the hand of an oppressed slave; and his spirit went whithersoever it was doomed to go, and to Middle-earth, whether naked or embodied, came never back.
In The Lord of the Rings the only general statement about the Istari is found in the headnote to the Tale of Years of the Third Age in Appendix B:
When maybe a thousand years had passed, and the first shadow had fallen on Greenwood the Great, the Istari or Wizards appeared in Middle-earth. It was afterwards said that they came out of the Far West and were messengers sent to contest the power of Sauron, and to unite all those who had the will to resist him; but they were forbidden to match his power with power, or to seek to dominate Elves or Men by force and fear.
They came therefore in the shape of Men, though they were never young and aged only slowly, and they had many powers of mind and hand. They revealed their true names to few, but used such names as were given to them. The two highest of this order (of whom it is said there were five) were called by the Eldar Curunír, ‘the Man of Skill’, and Mithrandir, ‘the Grey Pilgrim’, but by Men in the North Saruman and Gandalf. Curunír journeyed often into the East, but dwelt at last in Isengard. Mithrandir was closest in friendship with the Eldar, and wandered mostly in the West, and never made for himself any lasting abode.
There follows an account of the guardianship of the Three Rings of the Elves, in which it is said that Círdan gave the Red Ring to Gandalf when he first came to the Grey Havens from over the Sea (‘for Círdan saw further and deeper than any other in Middle-earth’).
The essay on the Istari just cited thus tells much about them and their origin that does not appear in The Lord of the Rings (and also contains some incidental remarks of great interest about the Valar, their continuing concern for Middle-earth, and their recognition of ancient error, which cannot be discussed here). Most notable are the description of the Istari as ‘members of their own high order’ (the order of the Valar), and the statements about their physical embodiment. 5 But also to be remarked are the coming of the Istari to Middle-earth at different times; Círdan’s perception that Gandalf was the greatest of them; Saruman’s knowledge that Gandalf possessed the Red Ring, and his jealousy; the view taken of Radagast, that he did not remain faithful to his mission; the two other ‘Blue Wizards’, unnamed, who passed with Saruman into the East, but unlike him never returned into the Westlands; the number of the order of the Istari (said here to be unknown, though ‘the chiefs’ of those that came to the North of Middle-earth were five); the explanation of the names Gandalf and Radagast; and the Sindarin word ithron, plural ithryn.
The passage concerning the Istari in Of the Rings of Power (in The Silmarillion, p. 300) is very close indeed to the statement in Appendix B to The Lord of the Rings cited above, even in wording; but it does include this sentence, agreeing with the essay on the Istari:
Curunír was the eldest and came first, and after him came Mithrandir and Radagast, and others of the Istari who went into the East of Middle-earth, and do not come into these tales.
Most of the remaining writings about the Istari (as a group) are unhappily no more than very rapid jottings, often illegible. Of major interest, however, is a brief and very hasty sketch of a narrative, telling of a council of the Valar, summoned it seems by Manwë (‘and maybe he called upon Eru for counsel?’), at which it was resolved to send out three emissaries to Middle-earth. ‘Who would go? For they must be mighty, peers of Sauron, but must forgo might, and clothe themselves in flesh so as to treat on equality and win the trust of Elves and Men. But this would imperil them, dimming their wisdom and knowledge, and confusing them with fears, cares, and wearinesses coming from the flesh.’ But two only came forward: Curumo, who was chosen by Aulë, and Alatar, who was sent by Oromë. Then Manwë asked, where was Olórin? And Olórin, who was clad in grey, and having just entered from a journey had seated himself at the edge of the council, asked what Manwë would have of him. Manwë replied that he wished Olórin to go as the third messenger to Middle-earth (and it is remarked in parentheses that ‘Olórin was a lover of the Eldar that remained’, apparently to explain Manwë’s choice). But Olórin declared that he was too weak for such a task, and that he feared Sauron. Then Manwë said that that was all the more reason why he should go, and that he commanded Olórin (illegible words follow that seem to contain the word ‘third’). But at that Varda looked up and said: ‘Not as the third’; and Curumo remembered it.
The note ends with the statement that Curumo [Saruman] took Aiwendil [Radagast] because Yavanna begged him, and that Alatar took Pallando as a friend. 6
On another page of jottings clearly belonging to the same period it is said that ‘Curumo was obliged to take Aiwendil to please Yavanna wife of Aulë’. There are here also some rough tables relating the names of the Istari to the names of the Valar: Olórin to Manwë and Varda, Curumo to Aulë, Aiwendil to Yavanna, Alatar to Oromë, and Pallando also to Oromë (but this replaces Pallando to Mandos and Nienna).
The meaning of these relations between Istari and Valar is clearly, in the light of the brief narrative just cited, that each Istar was chosen by each Vala for his innate characteristics – perhaps even that they were members of the ‘people’ of that Vala, in the same sense as is said of Sauron in the Valaquenta (The Silmarillion p. 32) that ‘in his beginning he was of the Maiar of Aulë, and he remained mighty in the lore of that people’. It is thus very notable that Curumo (Saruman) was chosen by Aulë. There is no hint of an explanation of why Yavanna’s evident desire that the Istari should include in their number one with a particular love of the things of her making could only be achieved by imposing Radagast’s company on Saruman; while the suggestion in the essay on the Istari (p. 505) that in becoming enamoured of the wild creatures of Middle-earth Radagast neglected the purpose for which he was sent is perhaps not perfectly in accord with the idea of his being specially chosen by Yavanna. Moreover both in the essay on the Istari and in Of the Rings of Power Saruman came first and he came alone. On the other hand it is possible to see a hint of the story of Radagast’s unwelcome company in Saruman’s extreme scorn for him, as related by Gandalf to the Council of Elrond:
‘ “Radagast the Brown!” laughed Saruman, and he no longer concealed his scorn. “Radagast the Bird-tamer! Radagast the Simple! Radagast the Fool! Yet he had just the wit to play the part that I set him.” ’
Whereas in the essay on the Istari it is said that the two who passed into the East had no names save Ithryn Luin ‘the Blue Wizards’ (meaning of course that they had no names in the West of Middle-earth), here they are named, as Alatar and Pallando, and are associated with Oromë, though no hint is given of the reason for this relationship. It might be (though this is the merest guess) that Oromë of all the Valar had the greatest knowledge of the further parts of Middle-earth, and that the Blue Wizards were destined to journey in those regions and to remain there.
Beyond the fact that these notes on the choosing of the Istari certainly date from after the completion of The Lord of the Rings I can find no evidence of their relation, in time of composition, to the essay on the Istari. 7
I know of no other writings about the Istari save some very rough and in part uninterpretable notes that are certainly much later than any of the foregoing, and probably date from 1972:
We must assume that they [the Istari] were all Maiar, that is persons of the ‘angelic’ order, though not necessarily of the same rank. The Maiar were ‘spirits’, but capable of self-incarnation, and could take ‘humane’ (especially Elvish) forms. Saruman is said (e.g. by Gandalf himself ) to have been the chief of the Istari – that is, higher in Valinórean stature than the others. Gandalf was evidently the next in order. Radagast is presented as a person of much less power and wisdom. Of the other two nothing is said in published work save the reference to the Five Wizards in the altercation between Gandalf and Saruman [The Two Towers III 10]. Now these Maiar were sent by the Valar at a crucial moment in the history of Middle-earth to enhance the resistance of the Elves of the West, waning in power, and of the uncorrupted Men of the West, greatly outnumbered by those of the East and South. It may be seen that they were free each to do what they could in this mission; that they were not commanded or supposed to act together as a small central body of power and wisdom; and that each had different powers and inclinations and were chosen by the Valar with this in mind.
Other writings are concerned exclusively with Gandalf (Olórin, Mithrandir). On the reverse of the isolated page containing the narrative of the choice of the Istari by the Valar appears the following very remarkable note:
Elendil and Gil-galad were partners; but this was ‘the Last Alliance’ of Elves and Men. In Sauron’s final overthrow, Elves were not effectively concerned at the point of action. Legolas probably achieved least of the Nine Walkers. Galadriel, the greatest of the Eldar surviving in Middle-earth, was potent mainly in wisdom and goodness, as a director or counsellor in the struggle, unconquerable in resistance (especially in mind and spirit) but incapable of punitive action. In her scale she had become like Manwë with regard to the greater total action. Manwë, however, even after the Downfall of Númenor and the breaking of the old world, even in the Third Age when the Blessed Realm had been removed from the ‘Circles of the World’, was still not a mere observer. It is clearly from Valinor that the emissaries came who were called the Istari (or Wizards), and among them Gandalf, who proved to be the director and coordinator both of attack and defence.
Who was ‘Gandalf’? It is said that in later days (when again a shadow of evil arose in the Kingdom) it was believed by many of the ‘Faithful’ of that time that ‘Gandalf’ was the last appearance of Manwë himself, before his final withdrawal to the watchtower of Taniquetil. (That Gandalf said that his name ‘in the West’ had been Olórin was, according to this belief, the adoption of an incognito, a mere by-name.) I do not (of course) know the truth of the matter, and if I did it would be a mistake to be more explicit than Gandalf was. But I think it was not so. Manwë will not descend from the Mountain until the Dagor Dagorath, and the coming of the End, when Melkor returns. 8 To the overthrow of Morgoth he sent his herald Eönwë. To the defeat of Sauron would he not then send some lesser (but mighty) spirit of the angelic people, one coëval and equal, doubtless, with Sauron in their beginnings, but not more? Olórin was his name. But of Olórin we shall never know more than he revealed in Gandalf.
This is followed by sixteen lines of a poem in alliterative verse:
Wilt thou learn the lore. that was long secret
of the Five that came from a far country?
One only returned. Others never again
under Men’s dominion Middle-earth shall seek
until Dagor Dagorath and the Doom cometh.
How hast thou heard it: the hidden counsel
of the Lords of the West in the land of Aman?
The long roads are lost that led thither,
and to mortal Men Manwë speaks not.
From the West-that-was a wind bore it
to the sleeper’s ear, in the silences
under night-shadow, when news is brought
from lands forgotten and lost ages
over seas of years to the searching thought.
Not all are forgotten by the Elder King.
Sauron he saw as a slow menace. . . .
There is much here that bears on the larger question of the concern of Manwë and the Valar with the fate of Middle-earth after the Downfall of Númenor, which must fall quite outside the scope of this book.
After the words ‘But of Olórin we shall never know more than he revealed in Gandalf’ my father added later:
save that Olórin is a High-elven name, and must therefore have been given to him in Valinor by the Eldar, or be a ‘translation’ meant to be significant to them. In either case, what was the significance of the name, given or assumed? Olor is a word often translated ‘dream’, but that does not refer to (most) human ‘dreams’, certainly not the dreams of sleep. To the Eldar it included the vivid contents of their memory, as of their imagination: it referred in fact to clear vision, in the mind, of things not physically present at the body’s situation. But not only to an idea, but to a full clothing of this in particular form and detail.
An isolated etymological note explains the meaning similarly:
olo-s: vision, ‘phantasy’: Common Elvish name for ‘construction of the mind’ not actually (pre)existing in Ea¨ apart from the construction, but by the Eldar capable of being by Art (Karmë) made visible and sensible. Olos is usually applied to fair constructions having solely an artistic object (i.e. not having the object of deception, or of acquiring power).
Words deriving from this root are cited: Quenya olos ‘dream, vision’, plural olozi/olori; Mla-(impersonal) ‘to dream’ olosta ‘dreamy’;. A reference is then made to Olofantur, which was the earlier ‘true’ name of Lórien, the Vala who was ‘master of visions and dreams’, before it was changed to Irmo in The Silmarillion (as Nurufantur was changed to Námo (Mandos): though the plural Fëanturi for these two ‘brethren’ survived in the Valaquenta).
These discussions of olos, olor are clearly to be connected with the passage in the Valaquenta (The Silmarillion pp. 30 – 1) where it is said that
Olórin dwelt in Lórien in Valinor, and that though he loved the Elves, he walked among them unseen, or in form as one of them, and they did not know whence came the fair visions or the promptings of wisdom that he put into their hearts.
In an earlier version of this passage it is said that Olórin was ‘counsellor of Irmo’, and that in the hearts of those who hearkened to him awoke thoughts ‘of fair things that had not yet been but might yet be made for the enrichment of Arda’.
There is a long note to elucidate the passage in The Two Towers IV 5 where Faramir at Henneth Annûn told that Gandalf had said:
Many are my names in many countries. Mithrandir among the Elves, Tharkûn to the Dwarves; Olórin I was in my youth in the West that is forgotten, 9 in the South Incánus, in the North Gandalf; to the East I go not.
This note dates from before the publication of the second edition of The Lord of the Rings in 1966, and reads as follows:
The date of Gandalf’s arrival is uncertain. He came from beyond the Sea, apparently at about the same time as the first signs were noted of the re-arising of ‘the Shadow’: the reappearance and spread of evil things. But he is seldom mentioned in any annals or records during the second millennium of the Third Age. Probably he wandered long (in various guises), engaged not in deeds and events but in exploring the hearts of Elves and Men who had been and might still be expected to be opposed to Sauron. His own statement (or a version of it, and in any case not fully understood) is preserved that his name in youth was Olórin in the West, but he was called Mithrandir by the Elves (Grey Wanderer), Tharkûn by the Dwarves (said to mean ‘Staff-man’), Incánus in the South, and Gandalf in the North, but ‘to the East I go not’.
‘The West’ here plainly means the Far West beyond the Sea, not part of Middle-earth; the name Olórin is of High-Elven form. ‘The North’ must refer to the North-western regions of Middle-earth, in which most of the inhabitants or speaking-peoples were and remained uncorrupted by Morgoth or Sauron. In those regions resistance would be strongest to the evils left behind by the Enemy, or to Sauron his servant, if he should reappear. The bounds of this region were naturally vague; its eastern frontier was roughly the River Carnen to its junction with Celduin (the River Running), and so to Núrnen, and thence south to the ancient confines of South Gondor. (It did not originally exclude Mordor, which was occupied by Sauron, although outside his original realms ‘in the East’, as a deliberate threat to the West and the Númenóreans.) ‘The North’ thus includes all this great area: roughly West to East from the Gulf of Lune to Núrnen, and North and South from Carn Dûm to the southern bounds of ancient Gondor between it and Near Harad. Beyond Núrnen Gandalf had never gone.
This passage is the only evidence that survives for his having extended his travels further South. Aragorn claims to have penetrated ‘the far countries of Rhûn and Harad where the stars are strange’ (The Fellowship of the Ring II 2). 10 It need not be supposed that Gandalf did so. These legends are North-centred – because it is represented as an historical fact that the struggle against Morgoth and his servants occurred mainly in the North, and especially the North-west, of Middle-earth, and that was so because the movement of Elves, and of Men afterwards escaping from Morgoth, had been inevitably westward, towards the Blessed Realm, and north-westward because at that point the shores of Middle-earth were nearest to Aman. Harad ‘South’ is thus a vague term, and although before its downfall Men of Númenor had explored the coasts of Middle-earth far southward, their settlements beyond Umbar had been absorbed, or being made by men already in Númenor corrupted by Sauron had become hostile and parts of Sauron’s dominions. But the southern regions in touch with Gondor (and called by men of Gondor simply Harad ‘South’, Near or Far) were probably both more convertible to the ‘Resistance’, and also places where Sauron was most busy in the Third Age, since it was a source to him of man-power most readily used against Gondor. Into these regions Gandalf may well have journeyed in the earlier days of his labours.
But his main province was ‘the North’, and within it above all the North-west, Lindon, Eriador, and the Vales of Anduin. His alliance was primarily with Elrond and the northern Dúnedain (Rangers). Peculiar to him was his love and knowledge of the ‘Halflings’, because his wisdom had presage of their ultimate importance, and at the same time he perceived their inherent worth. Gondor attracted his attention less, for the same reason that made it more interesting to Saruman: it was a centre of knowledge and power. Its rulers by ancestry and all their traditions were irrevocably opposed to Sauron, certainly politically: their realm arose as a threat to him, and continued to exist only in so far and so long as his threat to them could be resisted by armed force. Gandalf could do little to guide their proud rulers or to instruct them, and it was only in the decay of their power, when they were ennobled by courage and steadfastness in what seemed a losing cause, that he began to be deeply concerned with them.
The name Incánus is apparently ‘alien’, that is neither Westron, nor Elvish (Sindarin or Quenya), nor explicable by the surviving tongues of Northern Men. A note in the Thain’s Book says that it is a form adapted to Quenya of a word in the tongue of the Haradrim meaning simply ‘North-spy’ (Inka + nus). 11
Gandalf is a substitution in the English narrative on the same lines as the treatment of Hobbit and Dwarf names. It is an actual Norse name (found applied to a Dwarf in Völuspá) 12 used by me since it appears to contain gandr, a staff, especially one used in ‘magic’, and might be supposed to mean ‘Elvish wight with a (magic) staff’. Gandalf was not an Elf, but would be by Men associated with them, since his alliance and friendship with Elves was well-known. Since the name is attributed to ‘the North’ in general, Gandalf must be supposed to represent a Westron name, but one made up of elements not derived from Elvish tongues.
A wholly different view of the meaning of Gandalf’s words ‘in the South Incánus’, and of the etymology of the name, is taken in a note written in 1967:
It is very unclear what was meant by ‘in the South’. Gandalf disclaimed ever visiting ‘the East’, but actually he appears to have confined his journeys and guardianship to the western lands, inhabited by Elves and peoples in general hostile to Sauron. At any rate it seems unlikely that he ever journeyed or stayed long enough in the Harad (or Far Harad!) to have there acquired a special name in any of the alien languages of those little known regions. The South should thus mean Gondor (at its widest those lands under the suzerainty of Gondor at the height of its power). At the time of this Tale, however, we find Gandalf always called Mithrandir in Gondor (by men of rank or Númenórean origin, as Denethor, Faramir, etc.). This is Sindarin, and given as the name used by the Elves; but men of rank in Gondor knew and used this language. The ‘popular’ name in the Westron or Common Speech was evidently one meaning ‘Greymantle’, but having been devised long before was now in an archaic form. This is maybe represented by the Greyhame used byÉomer in Rohan.
My father concluded here that ‘in the South’ did refer to Gondor, and that Incánus was (like Olórin) a Quenya name, but one devised in Gondor in earlier times while Quenya was still much used by the learned, and was the language of many historical records, as it had been in Númenor.
Gandalf, it is said in the Tale of Years, appeared in the West early in the eleventh century of the Third Age. If we assume that he first visited Gondor, sufficiently often and for long enough to acquire a name or names there – say in the reign of Atanatar Alcarin, about 1800 years before the War of the Ring – it would be possible to take Incánus as a Quenya name devised for him which later become obsolete, and was remembered only by the learned.
On this assumption an etymology is proposed from the Quenya elements in(id) - ‘mind’ and kan - ‘ruler’, especially in cáno, cánu ‘ruler, governor, chieftain’ (which latter constitutes the second element in the names Turgon and Fingon). In this note my father referred to the Latin word incánus ‘grey-haired’ in such a way as to suggest that this was the actual origin of this name of Gandalf’s when The Lord of the Rings was written, which if true would be very surprising; and at the end of the discussion he remarked that the coincidence in form of the Quenya name and the Latin word must be regarded as an ‘accident’, in the same way that Sindarin Orthanc ‘forked height’ happens to coincide with the Anglo-Saxon word orpanc ‘cunning device’, which is the translation of the actual name in the language of the Rohirrim.
NOTES
1 In The Two Towers III 8 it is said that Saruman was ‘accounted by many the chief of Wizards’, and at the Council of Elrond (The Fellowship of the Ring II 2) Gandalf explicitly stated this: ‘Saruman the White is the greatest of my order.’
2 Another version of Círdan’s words to Gandalf on giving him the Ring of Fire at the Grey Havens is found in Of the Rings of Power (The Silmarillion p. 304), and in closely similar words in Appendix B to The Lord of the Rings (headnote to the Tale of Years of the Third Age).
3 In a letter written in 1958 my father said that he knew nothing clearly about ‘the other two’, since they were not concerned in the history of the North-west of Middle-earth. ‘I think,’ he wrote, ‘they went as emissaries to distant regions, East and South, far out of Númenórean range: missionaries to “enemy-occupied” lands, as it were. What success they had I do not know; but I fear that they failed, as Saruman did, though doubtless in different ways; and I suspect they were founders or beginners of secret cults and “magic” traditions that outlasted the fall of Sauron.’
4 In a very late note on the names of the Istari Radagast is said to be a name deriving from the Men of the Vales of Anduin, ‘not now clearly interpretable’. Rhosgobel, called ‘the old home of Radagast’ in The Fellowship of the Ring II 3, is said to have been ‘in the forest borders between the Carrock and the Old Forest Road’.
5 It appears indeed from the mention of Olórin in the Valaquenta (The Silmarillion pp. 30 –1) that the Istari were Maiar; for Olórin was Gandalf.
6 Curumo would seem to be Saruman’s name in Quenya, recorded nowhere else; Curunír was the Sindarin form. Saruman, his name among Northern men, contains the Anglo-Saxon word searu, saru ‘skill, cunning, cunning device’. Aiwendil must mean ‘lover of birds’ cf. Linaewen ‘lake of birds’ in Nevrast (see the Appendix to The Silmarillion, entry lin (1).) For the meaning of Radagast see p. 505 and note 4. Pallando, despite the spelling, perhaps contains palan ‘afar’, as in palantír and in Palarran ‘Far Wanderer’, the name of Aldarion’s ship.
7 In a letter written in 1956 my father said that ‘There is hardly any reference in The Lord of the Rings to things that do not actually exist, on its own plane (of secondary or sub-creational reality)’, and added in a footnote to this: ‘The cats of Queen Berúthiel and the names of the other two wizards (five minus Saruman, Gandalf, Radagast) are all that I recollect.’ (In Moria Aragorn said of Gandalf that ‘He is surer of finding the way home in a blind night than the cats of Queen Berúthiel’ (The Fellowship of the Ring II 4).)
Even the story of Queen Berúthiel does exist, however, if only in a very ‘primitive’ outline, in one part illegible. She was the nefarious, solitary, and loveless wife of Tarannon, twelfth King of Gondor (Third Age 830 – 913) and first of the ‘Ship-kings’, who took the crown in the name of Falastur ‘Lord of the Coasts’, and was the first childless king (The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A, I, ii and iv). Berúthiel lived in the King’s House in Osgiliath, hating the sounds and smells of the sea and the house that Tarannon built below Pelargir ‘upon arches whose feet stood deep in the wide waters of Ethir Anduin’ she hated all making, all colours and elaborate adornment, wearing only black and silver and living in bare chambers, and the gardens of the house in Osgiliath were filled with tormented sculptures beneath cypresses and yews. She had nine black cats and one white, her slaves, with whom she conversed, or read their memories, setting them to discover all the dark secrets of Gondor, so that she knew those things ‘that men wish most to keep hidden’, setting the white cat to spy upon the black, and tormenting them. No man in Gondor dared touch them; all were afraid of them, and cursed when they saw them pass. What follows is almost wholly illegible in the unique manuscript, except for the ending, which states that her name was erased from the Book of the Kings (‘but the memory of men is not wholly shut in books, and the cats of Queen Berúthiel never passed wholly out of men’s speech’), and that King Tarannon had her set on a ship alone with her cats and set adrift on the sea before a north wind. The ship was last seen flying past Umbar under a sickle moon, with a cat at the masthead and another as a figure-head on the prow.
8 This is a reference to ‘the Second Prophecy of Mandos’, which does not appear in The Silmarillion; its elucidation cannot be attempted here, since it would require some account of the history of the mythology in relation to the published version.
9 Gandalf said again ‘Olórin I was in the West that is forgotten’ when he spoke to the Hobbits and Gimli in Minas Tirith after the coronation of King Elessar: see ‘The Quest of Erebor’, p. 426.
10 The ‘strange stars’ apply strictly only to the Harad, and must mean that Aragorn travelled or voyaged some distance into the southern hemisphere. [Author’s note.]
11 A mark over the last letter of Inka-nus suggests that the final consonant was sh.
12 One of the poems of the collection of very ancient Norse poetry known as the ‘Poetic Edda’ or the ‘Elder Edda’.