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BL-HL-11: As ArcusCalion has already mentioned his doubts about this placement, this come not unexpected. I thnk we have to take the words in LotR; Appendix B by their face value, not by their implication: ‘appear’ does not mean ‘arrive’. Especially in the context of these annals it means that they became known to the people in Middle-earth. About the two Blue Wizards it is explicitly said that they their existence was unknown until the debate between Gandalf and Saruman in which Saruman mentioned the Rod of the Five Wizards. As the Annalse were clearly compiled much later, the mentioning of Istari here means not much that from that date on any think about them could be extracted from the stories preserved when the Annals were compiled to be put in these Annals. As the two Blue Wizards never work in the West (it seems that they only visited it once to fetch up Saruman for his journey into the east) it is natural that their appearance in Middle-earth (in the middle of the Second Age) was not recorded in these Annals concerned only with the history of the Westlands.
As JRR Tolkien felt free to change the date of the arrival of the two Blue Wizards, it seems clear that he as well saw no contradiction in this statement from LotR; Appendix B that was already in print.
That some other sources say that Saruman came first is true. But the sources seem to be all more or less contemporary, so which should have priority is not that clear.
Respcetfully
Findegil
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