[Kalimac]

Lush, I like you more and more [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]. I love that Browning poem, "Old Gandolf with his paltry onion stone / Put me where I may look at him!" but had always assumed it was some sort of weird coincidence. Nothing that I've read of Browning suggests that he was into Icelandic sagas; medievalism was his line if anything. I think what we have here is a missing link - it seems unlikely that Browning would have read the same original sources as Tolkien, but he may have read a medieval or Renaissance-era story/poem/work of literature of some sort which contained the name Gandalf/Gandolf and just taken it from there, or as piosenniel says may have gotten it from the Italian (where they got it from is another question); maybe one of those situations where you're writing, the name just bobs up in your head and you put it down, only afterwards realizing where exactly it came from.

I say this because the connections between the old meaning and the character in the poem seem pretty tenuous at best. Gandolf in the poem is a deceased former Bishop who may or may not have envied the narrator of the poem all of his possessions and earthly delights - hard to say since the narrator is obviously a little biased. Bishops carry crooks/staffs, and you could tie that in with the old meaning if you like. It would be neat if that were the case, but I'm more inclined to lean towards the coincidence/got it from somewhere else theory. Browning just doesn't seem like a Saga-oriented kind of guy.

[ May 22, 2002: Message edited by: Kalimac ]