The other wizards......

[Falagar]

I posted two much later essays on the two other Istari a while ago, in another thread (you can read them here), which tell that the other Wizards actually helped in the war(s) against Sauron, trying to make the eastern tribes of men oppose Sauron. I'm just going to quote the end of the last essay here (their names were in this text Romestámo and Morinehtar):

They [the two other Istari] must have had very great influence on the history of the Second Age and Third Age in weakening and disarraying the forces of the East... who would both in the Second Age and the Third Age otherwise have ... outnumbered the West.

On the last essay Christoffer Tolkien notes:

At the words in the citation from this text in Unfinished Tales (p. 394) 'Of the other two nothing is said in published work save the reference to the five wizards in the altercation between Gandalf and Saruman' my father wrote: 'A note made on their names and functions seems now lost, but except for the names their general history and effect on the history of the Third Age is clear.' Conceivably he was thinking of the sketched-out narrative of the choosing of the Istari at a council of the Valar (Unfinished Tales p. 393), in which the Two Wizards (or 'the Blue Wizards, Ithryn Luin) were named Alatar and Pallando

-HoME XII, The Peoples of Middle Earth ("Last Writings")

...which tells a quite different story from the one given in UT.

[ September 27, 2003: Message edited by: Falagar ]