Wizard Gone Missing

[littlemanpoet]

Maybe it's just that Tolkien niggled too much. I wish Gandalf had stayed mysterious instead of having his backstory all laid out with all that Istari/Maiar stuff.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Maybe it's just that Tolkien niggled too much. I wish Gandalf had stayed mysterious instead of having his backstory all laid out with all that Istari/Maiar stuff.

In that case though, wouldn't Tolkien have run the risk of Gandalf being the "usual" storybook wizard?
To me, the information about why he was there, his limitations, and sacrifices, are what makes him so endearing.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

In that case though, wouldn't Tolkien have run the risk of Gandalf being the "usual" storybook wizard?
To me, the information about why he was there, his limitations, and sacrifices, are what makes him so endearing.

Exactly. I would support that. This added a completely different dimension to Gandalf. And when you think about it, it is "latently" there from start, or there is "room" for it. It does not in any way disturb his personality, quite the opposite, expands it in wonderful way. Gandalf becomes much more "three-dimensional" that way than if he was just an "archetypal wizard" (boring, eventually).

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

In that case though, wouldn't Tolkien have run the risk of Gandalf being the "usual" storybook wizard?
To me, the information about why he was there, his limitations, and sacrifices, are what makes him so endearing.

I'd say that such a question underestimates Tolkien. What you are suggesting is that trading in mystery for endearment is a good exchange in your opinion. I contend that the trade-off isn't necessary.

Originally Posted by Jallanite

I am not sure what you are talking about with your “Celtic wizard” and “Germanic wizard″. There are lots of Germanic tales and lots of Celtic tales and the wizards in them are not alike, or perhaps better, very much alike. I don’t see this distinction you are making. You need to indicate which wizards you are talking about in which stories.

It's a minor issue; at the risk of going off on a major and useless tangent, the Celtic wizard is druidic, his milieu that of human sacrifice and unity with nature. The Germanic/Nordic (I must include the term) wizard with control of the elements - earth, wind, fire, ice, etc. Both have staves of oak, but their use of them is different in the general way I've described above.

The pictures you link are interesting. It's hard to know what was symbolized in medieval paintings and what was not; that is to say, did the red cloak mean anything more than its color? As for the late 1800s pictures, they reflect the Celtic strangeness that I think Tolkien didn't care for.

I'm not convinced that it's an issue of mysteriousness. I think of Gandalf outside the gate of Moria and there he seems very Germanic. So too on the Bridge of Khazad-dum. Even more so in his first treatment of Wormtongue and Theoden. Even the name, "stormcrow" is delightfully reminiscent of that Germanic feel. I suppose I pretty much like the portrayal of Gandalf throughout LotR. What I find disappointing is what one learns about him from the Silmarillion.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

I'd say that such a question underestimates Tolkien. What you are suggesting is that trading in mystery for endearment is a good exchange in your opinion. I contend that the trade-off isn't necessary.

Well, weren't you saying that Tolkien hadn't managed to successfully meld the "mystery" and the history?
I personally don't think the exchange was really done. I see "mystery" Gandalf in places later in the book, such as when he's up in the tree about to hurtle down on the goblins and wargs "like a thunderbolt". That to me is pretty evocative of "old-time' wizards.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

I'd say that such a question underestimates Tolkien. What you are suggesting is that trading in mystery for endearment is a good exchange in your opinion. I contend that the trade-off isn't necessary.

I never suggested that at all. Never. I just suggested that some people prefer an origin and some people don’t.

It's a minor issue; at the risk of going off on a major and useless tangent, the Celtic wizard is druidic, his milieu that of human sacrifice and unity with nature. The Germanic/Nordic (I must include the term) wizard with control of the elements - earth, wind, fire, ice, etc. Both have staves of oak, but their use of them is different in the general way I've described above.

Not a clue what you are talking about. Have you gotten your ideas from some single idiosyncratic book? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druid#I..._Welsh_records for druids in medieval Irish and Welsh tales. Which medieval story has a Germanic or Celtic wizard that has control of the elements “earth, wind, fire, ice, etc.” If it is just one story, that proves nothing, as it was general medieval European belief that everything was composed of the basic elements earth, water, air, and fire. I don’t see any particular difference why earth, air, water, and fire might not be mentioned in a story about either Celtic or Germanic wizards, although I don’t recall such a story. Wizards are far more common in Irish and Welsh tales than in Germanic tales if that counts. The druidic wizards of Irish legend are sometimes connected with sacrifice as the tales are set in pagan times. Medieval Germanic wizards are rare outside of Arthurian tales and I only recall two explicit Germanic non-Arthurian wizards, neither much like Gandalf. I am sure there are some more that I don’t now recall.,

The pictures you link are interesting. It's hard to know what was symbolized in medieval paintings and what was not; that is to say, did the red cloak mean anything more than its color? As for the late 1800s pictures, they reflect the Celtic strangeness that I think Tolkien didn't care for.

What are you talking about? My point is that the pointed hat is a modern idea, not found very much in genuine medieval pictures. And the wand or staff given to Merlin in some modern pictures is also not in most medieval pictures of Merlin or other wizards. Tolkien presumably included them because he wanted Gandalf to appear immediately as an iconic wizard as an iconic wizard appears in relatively modern sources.

I'm not convinced that it's an issue of mysteriousness. I think of Gandalf outside the gate of Moria and there he seems very Germanic. So too on the Bridge of Khazad-dum. Even more so in his first treatment of Wormtongue and Theoden. Even the name, "stormcrow" is delightfully reminiscent of that Germanic feel. I suppose I pretty much like the portrayal of Gandalf throughout LotR.

Was Merlin mysterious? Not much more than Gandalf. Merlin was the son of some sort of incubus or devil by a mortal woman. Most other wizards, whether Celtic or Germanic are mysterious as it is not explained where they got their powers from. Sometimes it is just explained that they got their knowledge from study.

The epithet stormcrow should sound Germanic as it was applied to Gandalf by the Rohirrim and so is to be understood as a translated Old English name.

What I find disappointing is what one learns about him from the Silmarillion.

There are are only two sentences about Olórin in The Silmarillion near the end of the section “Of the Maiar” in the “Valaquenta”. Gandalf as Olórin otherwise is mentioned once in the text of The Lord of the Rings and also in Appendix B which tells the most.

I was hoping you could say what you mean by a Germanic and Celtic wizard, but apparently you can’t, other than that a wizard feels either Germanic or Celtic to you, but possibly to no-one else.

[Formendacil]

For what it's worth, the "mysterious wizard Gandalf" that Elempi identifies with the first section of The Hobbit (prior to his return at the Lonely Mountain) belongs entirely to the earlier draft of the book where the wizard was called Bladorthin and "Gandalf" was the name of the Dwarf we know as Thorin.

The new names arrived around the time Thorin & Co. reached the Lonely Mountain--thus freeing up the name "Bladorthin" to belong to the king of the undelivered spears--and when the wizard returned to the stage he was Gandalf.

It's interesting to me that Elempi sees "Nordic/Germanic" writ heavily on the older parts of the wizard because in those parts of the story (and they are not greatly different from the finished book) he bears an Elvish name! Tolkien didn't change his name to the Norse "Gandalfr" until he reached the point where LMP thinks the Norse-ness waned.

(N.B. All the above derives from reading Rateliff's [i]History of the Hobbit[/b].)

[littlemanpoet]

Wow, Formy! I think you've done the most to explicate the differences I see. In my struggle to try to identify the differences, I have given them the opposite epithets from Tolkien's original names. I'm likely to be wrong in my epithets, but not in what I notice. I think it boils down to this: I like best Tolkien's evocation of the old European wizard (whether Celtic or Germanic or Nordic doesn't matter at all!), and very much appreciate Gandalf in all of Tolkien's evocations. Regardless of how infrequently Tolkien refers to Gandalf as Olorin, he did so; it was part of his milieu as published.

I do find it interesting and somehow informative (of what, I'm not sure yet) that Gandalf is an unfallen Maiar whereas Merlin is a demon-spawn: Tolkien has scrubbed his wizard clean of all the nasty origin.

[TheLostPilgrim]

Gandalf is sort of the inverse of Merlin:

Both advise and counsel but use different means. Gandalf always uses good to reach good ends. Merlin sometimes uses evil (IE the rape of Igrayne) to reach good ends. They share the aim of ultimately bringing the realms they inhabit to goodness, to right.

Perhaps Merlin was one of the Blue Wizards in latter days, with the stories being somewhat twisted through time.

[Ardent]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

...I do find it interesting and somehow informative (of what, I'm not sure yet) that Gandalf is an unfallen Maiar whereas Merlin is a demon-spawn: Tolkien has scrubbed his wizard clean of all the nasty origin.

I suspect that Merlin, taken as an archetype, was the victim of 'bad press'. The conquering Romans could not defeat them so they demonised them. What we have are stories told by the victors in the battle for Europe south of the Rhine.

Germania was the name given to peoples North of the Rhine, regardless of actual language or alliances. They did not call themselves Germans/Germanic.
The defining difference between Celtic (aka Keltoi, or Gaulish, Galician, Galatian...)and Germanic societies was the degree of Romanisation.
The name-calling cuts both ways. Some of those 'Germanic' peoples had names for Romanised peoples too, such as 'wealas'. This is a term that came to be associated with oath breaking (to 'welsch' on a deal) and with those tribes driven into Western Britain (Wales and Cornwealas). These people did not call themselves Welsh, we gave them that name.

It seems logical to suppose that apparent differences in their Wise men (I could say women too, but I am getting to Gandalf's roots rather than Galadriel's) were more the result of the changing agendas of their respective societies. The Romans kept meeting resistance to their rule across Europe. Someone or some group of people kept uniting forces against them on both sides of the Rhine. What better way to tackle these elusive tale-tellers and king-makers than to demonise them in new tales?

My point is that Norman tales calling Merlin "demon spawn", or your saying he has a "nasty origin", seems to me the same as calling Gandalf "Storm-crow" or "Lathspel"/"Ill-news". Ill news for who?