[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by davem

Perhaps we have here another example of Osanwe? Gandalf summons Shadowfax 'in thought' (as Aragorn will later summon the Dunedain. Of course this opens something of a can of worms - does Shadowfax have a 'soul'? Is he capable of Osanwe himself?

I like those cans of worms.

If Shadowfax is one of the Mearas who themselves were brought from Valinor, then there is the possibility that he is capable of osanwe. It is shown that Shadowfax reputedly will only bear the King of Rohan and that it is astonishing that he allows Gandalf to ride him; perhaps these horses do possess sentient thoughts. After all, we have giant eagles which are sentient beings, why should we not have horses? I wonder if it is mentioned anywhere whether the Mearas had links to the Maiar in some way?

Felarof, ancestor of Shadowfax, was reputed to be able to understand human speech; if so, then perhaps as Incarnates, these creatures could use some form of osanwe.

The following quote which Saucepan Man has picked up on has been interesting to me since I read osanwe-kenta:

He rose and gazed out eastward, shading his eyes, as if he saw things far away that none of them could see. Then he shook his head. "No," he said in a soft voice, "it has gone beyond our reach. Of that at least we can be glad. We can no longer be tempted to use the Ring. We must go down to face a peril near despair, yet that deadly peril is removed.

The instant I read this passage again, I thought of the possibility that Gandalf was trying to use osanwe in order to 'see' if Frodo was in any kind of trouble; this would also explain some of the strange dreams that Frodo might be experiencing, after all, he does not know about Unwill. And the fact that Gandalf gets to a point where he can no longer 'trace' Frodo also suggests that the borders of Mordor present much more then mere physical barriers. There is another passage in which Tolkien seems to write of Gandalf's mental struggle with Sauron, is this osanwe? :

"...The Ring now has passed beyond my help, or the help of any of the Company that set out from Rivendell. Very nearly it was revealed to the Enemy, but it escaped. I had some part in that: for I sat in a high place, and I strove with the Dark Tower; and the Shadow passed. Then I was weary, very weary; and I walked long in dark thought."

And in the following passage, is Aragorn referring directly to Osanwe? One of the features of osanwe is that it works more effectively when two people are close in terms of friendship, and that it can in many cases substitute for an excess of words in conversation (much in the way that old friends often complete sentences for one another and need few words):

"In one thing you have not changed, dear friend," said Aragorn: 'you still speak in riddles."

"What? In riddles?" said Gandalf. 'No! For I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to; the long explanations needed by the young are wearying." He laughed, but the sound now seemed warm and kindly as a gleam of sunshine.

"I am no longer young even in the reckoning of Men of the Ancient Houses," said Aragorn. "Will you not open your mind more clearly to me?"

Finally, where did Gandalf go to?

The following suggests some kind of void. Is it the void outside Arda?

Then darkness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time, and I wandered far on roads that I will not tell.

But then the following suggests that he was in a transcendent place, aware of the entirety of existence all at once. Was he aware that he was just one part of the universe? Or aware that he was the universe? or both?

I was alone, forgotten, without escape upon the hard horn of the world. There I lay staring upward, while the stars wheeled over, and each day was as long as a life-age of the earth. Faint to my ears came the gathered rumour of all lands: the springing and the dying, the song and the weeping, and the slow everlasting groan of overburdened stone.

This makes me think more deeply about Gandalf. Is he somehow much more than one of the Maiar? Does this have something to do with the Secret Fire?