Gandalf, the servant of Secret fire?

[Eorl of Rohan]

Gandalf said, when facing the fire, "I am a servant of the secret fire, wielder of the flame of Anor."

I assumed that flame of Anor, the flame of the sun, means Narya the ring of fire.

But what is this secret fire? Id it the fire that brought reality and life into this world, the fire of Illuvatar that is set in the heart of Ea?

[davem]

The Secret Fire is, I suppose, the Holy Spirit, in its Middle Earth form. So Gandalf is saying he is a servant of God. The Flame of Anor could be Narya, but Anor is the Sun, & the Sun was made from the last fruit of Laurelin. So it is filled with the same Holy Light as the Silmarils, which is the light which originally came from Illuvatar & appeared in Arda in a pure form in the Two Lamps which were broken by Morgoth. This pure, 'single', constant light becomes 'divided' & fluctuates in the light of the Trees. It is then divided again, in the Silmarils & the Sun, & Moon. So you have a movement from a single, pure light, to lesser, weaker, fluctuating forms, a movement away from single to multiple ('The White Light may be broken' Saruman tells Gandalf. It may, but should it?). The light becomes weaker & moves towards darkness as it fragments. Maybe there is something in the confrontation between the Light of Glorfindel, who has returned to Middle Earth purified of his sin in the rebellion, with the Light of the Trees in his face, & the Nine 'fragments' of Darkness, the Nazgul, who cannot stand between his light & Frodo's invocation of Elbereth, the Star Kindler who brought Light into Middle Earth?

The same process happens with Language, as the Quenya of the High Elves is forsaken by the returning Exiles, under command of Thingol the King of the Grey Elves (ie, Elves who had never seen the Light of Valinor), the same Elves who Tolkien says could not learn Quenya (they had never been to Paradise & dwelt with the Valar in the Light of the Trees, so they could not understand the concepts which Quenya was designed to express, or see the world in the way the High Elves did.) Then Men arise, & in the Second Age, Sindarin is replaced with Adunaic, another 'fall' away from the purity of Quenya, language of the 'Speakers of Light'. The High Elves, are the Calaquendi -lit. Light speakers, the Grey Elves are Moriquendi, speakers of Darkness. Adunaic is a 'darker' language still, further from the Light. It 'decays' into Westron, which is corrupted by Orcs into its foulest form, & at the ultimate extreme there is the Black Speech of Sauron. As the Primal Light moves towards darkness, Language follows the same trajectory, but the Light still shines amid the darkness - Earendel bears the Silmaril above Middle Earth, Frodo bears the Phial, & Gandalf 'wields the Flame of Anor'.

[Osse]

It is true; Tolkien does use the Light a lot in his writings, and in most situations it has roots or references to the West, or the Valar. Gandalf simply means : I am a servant of Eru... the holy light... all things good.

Nice post Davem [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]


Osse

[davem]

Thanks, but all that really comes from Fleiger's Splintered Light, put into my own words. Its a book I'd recommend, along with her A Question of Time, to anyone who wants a deeper insight into what Tolkien is doing.

[The Barrow-Wight]

Past discussions of this topic can be found in our Huadh-en-Ndengin Index under Gandalf - Secret Fire

Since those discussions are all quite old, feel free to continue the discussion here.

[Osse]

Thanks for the link BW [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

[Lobelia]

Interesting discussion. Has anyone noticed, by the way, all the references to fire and Gandalf? He speaks of being "a servant of the secret fire", etc. He bears the Ring of Fire and he does fireworks for fun. And he smokes! (g) Fire seems to be his element and it's a nice touch that he should fall in battle with a fire spirit of the negative sort (can't call the Balrog a demon, exactly, since they're Maiar, of course!)

[Osse]

indeed Lobelia [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Eorl of Rohan]

Water is usually associated with wisdom by Tolkien, or so I thought. Water is the most marvelous of all creation, and it was made by the deep WISDOM of Ulmo. Melkor, he who arises in might, was the mightiest, associated with power. Manwe, the lord of the air, was closest to Eru's thoughts, associated with UNDERSTANDING. Ulmo, the lord of the waters, was the deepest in KNOWLEDGE. At least, I think the silmarillion said that. Also VILYA the ring of air was the mightiest of all like MAnwe.

THE ONE RING glowed like living fire, and misses the heat of sauron's hand, and it's inscription is seen again if it's heated int eh fire. THat maked FIRE - EVIL.

Olorin was the WISEST of MAIAR. I always wondered why OLORIN would be the race of FIRE maiar, which is usually associated with demonic and evil nature. He was the WISEST, so he would have been more fitting to be a water master. Maybe Tolkien was trying to tell use something, though he hates allegory?

Maybe he was trying to tell us that everything can be good or bad, as fire certainly can?

[Voralphion]

I always wondered why OLORIN would be the race of FIRE maiar, which is usually associated with demonic and evil nature.

Olorin was not a fire maia, I guess meaning one that is associated with fire such as the balrogs and Arien, but a maia who spent a great deal of time in the gardens of Lorien and in the Halls of Nienna. He was chosen specifically for the quest whereby he became gandalf by Varda and Manwe, so he could have done various tasks for them.

Also, just because fire is usually associated with evil, it doesn't mean it is. Many of the maia of fire were corrupted by melkor but not all. Arien was a fire spirit the Melkor was unable to carrupt, and ended up guiding the sun. She is probably not the only one who remained good, but just that no others were mentioned.

[Gryphon Hall]

Don't forget Narsil and Anduril. They also burst into flame, and were not evil.

Also that Sauron was originally one of the Maia of Aulë, who frequently worked with fire. So did his "children" the dwarves.

I don't have any proof, but personally I didn't think that the flame of Anor was Narya. Gandalf would not have taken such a risk informing someone that may get the info to Sauron. Probably just that, that he was an agent of Eru Iluvatar and that whatever fire the Balrog had was not "availing".

Pax.