421 – Faith Manages

Summary

The Prancing Pony Podcast

Episode 421: "Faith Manages"

Date: July 12, 2026

Hosts: Alan Sisto & Shawn E. Marchese

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Episode Overview

In "Faith Manages," Alan and Sean take a deep dive into one of Tolkien’s densest lore passages, focusing on the many names, origins, and mysteries of Gandalf as revealed in the chapter "The Istari" from Unfinished Tales. This episode provides a thorough philological analysis of Gandalf’s titles, explores the in-universe and out-of-universe speculation about his true nature, and discusses the philosophical and linguistic intricacies behind his Quenya and Sindarin names. Interspersed throughout are characteristic puns, literary tangents, and insightful discussions about Tolkien’s worldbuilding, language invention, and frame narrative.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Philology Fair: Gandalf’s Many Names (04:13–17:20)

• The hosts embark on a "second philology fair," tracing the etymologies and meanings behind Gandalf’s various names.

  • Gandalf (06:10–08:07): Sourced from Norse mythology, Gandr means "magic staff" and álfr is "elf". So, "Gandalf" signifies "elf with a (magic) staff", despite Gandalf not being an elf, but rather being associated with them through his alliances.

    • Quote:

      "What Gandalf actually means is 'elf with a wand' or 'elf with a magic staff'." —Sean (06:41)

  • Mithrandir (08:37–09:51): Sindarin for "Grey Pilgrim" or "Grey Wanderer", from mith ("grey") and randir ("wanderer"). Tied to elvish roots for "wandering" and even associated with the name of the moon, Rána.

  • Olórin (11:10–11:57): Gandalf’s original name in Valinor. From Quenya olos/olor, meaning "dream" or "vision", but specifically the artistic, visionary sort of dream, not literal sleeping dreams.

  • Tharkûn (12:05–12:28): Dwarvish (Khuzdul) for either "Grey Man" or "Staff-man".

  • Incanus (12:36–16:34, 94:55–104:59): Later explored in depth, but addressed initially as either a Haradrim compound ("north-spy") or a Quenya/Latin term ("Mind-master" or "grey-haired").

    • Incanus is presented as a linguistic puzzle: Sindarin, Quenya, Haradrim, and even Latin influences intertwine, with Tolkien himself suggesting possible etymologies and punning with words like "incantation".

  • Greyhame (15:51–16:34): Old English hama ("cloak"): "grey cloak", the Rohirrim’s name for Gandalf.

2. Who Was Gandalf?—Speculation on Gandalf’s True Nature (17:20–27:31)

• The hosts examine an in-universe belief that Gandalf was Manwë himself, the Elder King, returned incognito. Tolkien’s narrator steadfastly maintains plausible deniability, a hallmark of his pseudo-historical framing:
  • Quote:

    "I do not, of course, know the truth of the matter...but I think it was not so. Manwë will not descend from the mountain until the Dagor Dagorath." —Alan, reading Tolkien (17:20)

• Discussion on the importance of narrative uncertainty and Tolkien’s penchant for leaving doors open for myth and speculation.
• On the Second Prophecy of Mandos and the concept of Dagor Dagorath, the end-times battle—only briefly mentioned and left for future deep-dives.

3. Elvish Dreams and the Name "Olórin" (36:14–56:41)

• Deep philological exploration of the root olor/olos—the elvish concept of "dream" is explained as "clear vision in the mind" and essentially lays the foundation for elvish artistic creativity.
  • Quote:

    "Olor is a word often translated dream, but that does not refer to most human dreams...it included the vivid contents of their memory, as of their imagination. It referred, in fact, to clear vision in the mind of things not physically present at the body's situation." —Sean reading Tolkien (40:06–40:33)

• The flipside of elvish recall: elves experience joys and regrets in vivid detail—"as though they're happening right now," a blessing and a curse.
• Artistic inspiration: Gandalf as Olórin inspired fair creations and wisdom in Aman before his journeys to Middle-earth.

4. Gandalf’s Travels and Focus in Middle-earth (60:16–91:29)

• Tolkien’s own notes, analyzed by the hosts, suggest Gandalf’s “main province” was the north/northwest of Middle-earth (Lindon, Eriador, Vales of Anduin), not the distant south or east.
  • "Gandalf had never gone [farther south than] Nurnen." (73:54)
• Discussion on why Gandalf showed such interest in hobbits—he alone foresaw their worth and importance, but also valued them for themselves, not their potential utility.
  • Quote:

    "He perceived their inherent worth...they’re people too, just by being, they have value." —Alan (85:14)

• Compare Gandalf’s humility with Saruman’s self-interest in Gondor; the stewardship theme surfaces again.

5. The Name “Incanus”—A Puzzle Unraveled (91:28–105:24)

• Different theories: Incanus as a Haradrim hybrid ("north-spy"), a Quenya construction ("mind-master"), or a Latin borrowing ("grey-haired").
• Discussion of the intentionality or accident in Tolkien's linguistic choices and on the inevitable parallels to real-world words.
  • Quote:

    “The coincidence in form of the Quenya name and the Latin word must be regarded as an accident...” —Tolkien (104:59)

6. Listener Question: Could Gandalf Sense Sam Wearing the Ring? (106:02–111:02)

• Sean and Alan field a listener’s question: did Gandalf know what happened to Sam at Cirith Ungol because he sensed the Ring’s use?
• Conclusion: No textual evidence exists that Gandalf could sense the Ring being used (outside of special cases like Amon Hen), highlighting the "northern courage" and risk at the Black Gate.

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Notable Quotes, Jokes & Memorable Moments

• On “Grand Elf” Misinterpretation:
  • “You did not just do that, Sean: Grand Elf? I thought you were trying to stay out of trouble!” —Alan (06:10)
• On Elvish Memory:
  • "Elrond’s line—I was there, Gandalf, three thousand years ago—means a lot more, because for him the memories are as vivid as if they’re right in front of him now." —Sean (42:12)
• On Gandalf’s Branding:
  • "Virtually all Gandalf’s names, except his real one from Valinor, have to do with his gray clothes, elderly appearance, or magic staff. He really should give his branding consultant a bonus!" —Alan (16:15)
• On the Blues Brothers/Istari:
  • "It's 106 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses—it's the Blues Brothers, man!" —Alan (70:23)
• Pop culture crossovers:
  • Several Dune references, Annie Lennox music references (“Sweet Dreams”), and the running "Galaxy Quest" whiteboard joke.

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Important Timestamps

| Segment | Time | |--------------------------------------------------------|-----------| | Philology Fair: Gandalf’s Names | 04:13 – 17:20 | | Gandalf: Manwë? – Lore Speculation | 17:20 – 27:31 | | Elvish "Dreams" and Olórin | 36:14 – 56:41 | | Gandalf’s Travels & Focus in Middle-earth | 60:16 – 91:29 | | Incanus: South, Names, and Language Puzzles | 91:28 – 105:24 | | Listener Mail: Sensing the Ring | 106:02 – 111:02 |

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Tone & Style

As always, engaging, pub-style camaraderie and humor ("bad puns" and literary wordplay), balanced with serious, scholarship-level analysis. The hosts are openly nerdy about Tolkien’s languages and love weaving together linguistic, narrative, and philosophical threads.

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Recap & Usefulness

This episode is a goldmine for Tolkien aficionados interested in the deep linguistic and philosophical underpinnings of Gandalf’s character and the mysteries surrounding the Istari. The "Faith Manages" theme shines through both in the exploration of Gandalf’s humility and mystery, as well as in Tolkien’s own recursive style of mythmaking, where even the author pretends not to "know" everything. The discussion is generously timestamped with segments, making it easy for curious listeners to jump to their topics of interest.

Highly recommended if you want to explore Tolkien’s invented languages, the subtle narrative enigmas embedded in the legendarium, or just indulge in some serious word nerdery with a side of laughter.

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For Further Listening:

• Next episode: The Chapter on the Palantíri – "the silent movie version of Facetime in Middle-earth".
• Stay tuned for special deep-dives, including Dagor Dagorath and the fate of the Blue Wizards in future seasons.

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(Ads, community announcements, and outros skipped as per instructions.)

Transcript

[Alan]

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[Sean]

the lord of the mark was the last appearance of orme himself maybe maybe folks pull up a bench in the common room and join us i'm sean marchese the real life lord of the mark and i'm here with the man of the west who will not descend from the mountain until doordash brings him

[Alan]

something to eat dagor dagorath doordash i mean it's a little confusing you know folks join us as we learn more about gandalf and get some alliterative verse as a bonus as we conclude our three episode look at the chapter on the istery in unfinished tales and i guess before we move any further sean we need to clarify it is eastery

[Sean]

isn't it yes it is istari we were corrected corrected sounds so bad i'm gonna i'm edit that out we were

[Alan]

assisted we were assisted we were reminded

[Sean]

by the esteemed mister christopher gilson editor of parma el dalambron that the stress actually goes on the first syllable so we've been saying istari since i've said it since like nineteen ninety one but it is actually istari we call that

[Alan]

time immemorial is what we call that yes exactly certainly feels that way it's because the a is a short vowel and i think that was my problem i always got it mixed up with

[Sean]

the parentiri but that actually has the accent mark over that has the accent

[Alan]

mark and istari does not so it is easter e not the istari yes all right yes so it's an istar and istari all right and with that

[Sean]

out of the way folks no matter whether you came to middle earth through the books the films the tv show or something else each and every one of you is welcome here in our common room the prancing pony podcast continues in our tenth season of reading and talking and occasionally mispronouncing our way through middle earth with conversations digressions and even

[Alan]

speculations thankfully middle earth is easy to pronounce not to mention a few puns and bad jokes here and there and our purpose though and this is really the important stuff our goal really is to dive deep into the lore to talk about the story our favorite characters and themes tolkien's inspirations and a whole

[Sean]

lot more and while we take the work seriously the same cannot be said about ourselves we're just a couple of old friends chatting at the pub and we are glad you've joined us indeed

[Alan]

and i'm sure you'll be glad you joined as well but before we get to today's chapter discussion well we've had first philology fair yes what about second philology fair now of course last time we got into the many names of the other shall we say less lovable istari this time it is all about the many names of everyone's favorite silver fox gandalf i know you thought i

[Sean]

was going to say me second favorite behind you but of course of course

[Alan]

now he doesn't have quite silver badger just doesn't have the same ring to it now gandalf doesn't have quite as many names as aragorn or turin there are several names given for him in a passage that faramir quotes in the window on the west many are my names in many countries mithrandir among the elves tharkoon to the dwarves o loren i was in my youth in the west that is forgotten in the south in canus in the north gandalf to the east i go not so lots of names to choose from sean which of those names do we want to start with today well why don't we

[Sean]

go ahead and start with the last one because it is the name we tend to use the most often and that of course is gandalf now that was said by gandalf himself if faramir is quoting him accurately to be his name in the north so like saruman we talked about last time we probably shouldn't be surprised to learn that the name gandalf comes from a germanic source as tolkien himself tells us in a passage in the section of this chapter that we're reading tonight that source is actually not old english but norse it's actually one of the names from the hobbit that tolkien actually got from a list of names in a poem in the poetic edda called the voduspa and although in that norse original source it's the name of a dwarf it actually means of course as we all know grand elf

[Alan]

you did not just do that sean grand elf i thought you were trying to stay out of trouble

[Sean]

what i thought that's what i heard no no i'm sorry i can't even keep that one going for a long

[Alan]

time of course oh man it doesn't

[Sean]

mean grand elf that would be a very very silly etymology indeed to assign to the name of one of tolkien's

[Alan]

most beloved characters it would indeed be silly wouldn't it

[Sean]

the gond element there tolkien tells us comes from norse gandr meaning staff or wand and especially one used in magic so what gandalf actually means is elf with a wand or elf with a magic staff which tolkien explains by saying gandalf was not an elf but would be by men associated with them since his alliance and friendship with elves was well known exactly now i did a little looking into this word gonder because that's what i do alan and it's really interesting this word gonder this norse root it's really closely associated with magic tolkien's not kidding here there's modern derivatives from this norse root in the scandinavian languages of today that include words for black magic witchcraft supernatural creatures there's actually even an english term from orkney and shetland which is gunfur which means a ghost and that comes from this same norse root so oh that's wild yeah it is it's very closely associated with magic and the supernatural so it's not it's not just any old staff or wand it is really a magic wand or magic staff interestingly also found in norse mythology in the name jormungandr which is the world serpent who encircles the earth and that creature's name apparently literally means world staff very

[Alan]

bendy world staff though if you can

[Sean]

very bendy indeed yeah now of course

[Alan]

as tolkien reminds us this name is just a quote substitution in the english narrative so remember that everything of course is just a translation it's you know old english is a translation of rohirric what we read is english is translation of westeron and in that same vein tolkien is saying that the name gandalf quote must be supposed to to represent a westeron name but one made up of elements not derived from elvish tongues which is how he justifies using this purely norse name the same way that he did with the dwarves from the

[Sean]

hobbit that's right so alan let's go ahead and move on to what is probably his second best well known name and that is mithrandir gandalf himself says that this name is what he's known as among the elves but we also know that the men of gondor call him that as well right and we're going to be talking about that a little bit later in this episode but this name mithrandir is sindarin it means grey pilgrim or grey wanderer and that comes from mith which means grey as in mithril and randir which means pilgrim or wanderer now i love this second part of this name because randir which means wanderer is actually related to one of the names of the moon if you remember i think it's like a blink and you miss it moment in the silmarillion where the moon is called rana the wayward one or the wanderer that is actually related to the rondir in gandalf's name mithrandir and it's also

[Alan]

the same element in the river gilraen if i remember correctly not the name gilraen aragorn's mom but the river because that had to do with like a netting hair netting but the wandering river i believe was the whole thing with gilrein could be could be i don't

[Sean]

remember that one off the top of

[Alan]

my head but so i remembered that i think because not that long ago we were talking about amroth and nimmerdel and she of course wandered as well and it sort of connected my mind because like the river doesn't really wander anymore but apparently it was called that because it like meandered a little bit near and formed a lake and then kept going yeah so anyway excellent very little bit of a little bit of a sidebar there all right love it so moving on in parma el de lambaran seventeen tolkien breaks down rondir pilgrim or wanderer a little bit more talking about that root that i just mentioned here rana which means wander and the suffix endear which means adult male right we see that name or that suffix i should say in a lot of men's names and it just means male or man of a male of any elf mortal or speaking race but here it's used as a gentle ending that is somebody who does something so you can interpret this as wandering man and now i want to know what sindarin is for burning so we can have a word for burning man

[Sean]

i'm sure somebody has a tattoo of it probably probably at the event i'm sure it's

[Alan]

got something to do with would it be naur right the element for nar or naur yeah yeah anyway moving on

[Sean]

moving on from that to this name that he had in his youth in the west that is forgotten by which of course we mean his original name in valinor which is olorin now we're told in the section that we're reading today that this name comes from quenya word olos or olor which means dream or vision i know we're going to get into this a little bit in the episode alan but tolkien tells us that he doesn't mean human dreams like ordinary dreams the dreams of sleep not what is meant by this root this is actually common elvish word for fantasy or construction of the mind and i know we'll get into that a little bit later but i think it belongs a little bit here also interesting we'll get into this a little bit too it is distantly related to the name lorien which we'll dive into later meaning

[Alan]

lore okay i can't wait to hear

[Sean]

more about that then there's a divergence in the root we'll talk about that but yeah very cool stuff very cool

[Alan]

indeed let's go and talk about some of his other names in that passage of faramir's tharkun is what the dwarves call him and it's kuzdul and it apparently means either gray man or staff man so the dwarves are either associating him with his gray clothing like the elves mithrandir or his magic staff like men gandalf but unlike men they can tell he's not an elf apparently dwarves

[Sean]

have enough experience with elves that they know an elf when they see one and gandalf is not one they probably

[Alan]

know what elves smell like and gandalf

[Sean]

doesn't smell they probably do absolutely all right well finally we get incanus which is apparently his name in the south now this is very interesting for several reasons including what exactly does he mean by in the south which we'll get into later yeah we will that's like

[Alan]

a whole section of the episode yeah

[Sean]

there's yeah but in a paragraph in this section tolkien tells us that the name incanus is apparently alien that is neither westrun nor elvish sindarin or quenya nor explicable by the surviving tongues of northern men a note in the thanes book says that it is a form adapted to quenya of a word in the tongue of the haradrim meaning simply north spy and he gives this as inca plus noush now that's one explanation

[Alan]

now you said noush there you said noush there but nus earlier that's a thing too isn't it yes yes because

[Sean]

if it comes from the horadric language then there is a there's an accent mark in one of the manuscripts over that s that suggests that it's pronounced

[Alan]

noush in kanush right but it might be sindarin but that's the root i

[Sean]

don't think there's a reason to pronounce the name in kanus that way i think just the root might it might be from that yeah that's fair and that's only one of the possible etymologies for this word there are a few

[Alan]

of them there is a quenya derived etymology that we'll get to later yeah

[Sean]

there is actually and this is given among other places in parma el de lambaran number seventeen tolkien here says that it could be from a quenya word meaning mind mastership we'll kind of parse that out a little bit later the

[Alan]

mind mastership that's a pretty heavy thing

[Sean]

i know right he's the master of

[Alan]

minds he's almost like a cult leader

[Sean]

exactly right yeah yeah people probably wondering why i'm laughing so hard at the

[Alan]

cult leader it's an inside joke we'll

[Sean]

explain some other time to make this even muddier here in the primary world though incanus is actually a latin word that means gray haired or hoary and tolkien made a note of this in the manuscript that's published in parma seventeen as well so he was definitely aware of that and i'm throwing one more thing out there that's just my own headcanon around this which is that i think that tolkien was probably also aware of how similar this name is to another latin word and that is incantatio meaning magic spell or enchantment this is the root of english exactly yeah it's the root of words like incantation or enchantment i just need to read your

[Alan]

note sean instead of guessing that's what i needed to do right yeah no

[Sean]

that's all right that's all right i'm glad you're getting there and like to be really clear there's no etymological relationship between incanus and this other word incantat and nowhere does tolkien say that but they do sound similar and this is the kind of thing tolkien does sometimes so i wouldn't put it past him to be kind of playing with this almost as like a folk etymology or even just a pun he's certainly not

[Alan]

above puns as we know exactly right

[Sean]

so you know you got this guy who's both incanus and he deals in incantatio you know it's a possibility just

[Alan]

throwing it out there now there is one more name of gandalf that we want to do a little bit of word nerdery on but it's not in the quote by faramir we mentioned earlier because it's a name that's only used in rohan and it is grahame that's simply the word gray and hame where a hame is a covering or a cloak it's from old english hama which ultimately comes from proto germanic hamo meaning clothes or skirt so virtually all of gandalf's names except for his real one from valinor have to do with his gray clothes his elderly appearance or his magic staff he really should give his branding consultant a bonus because he is clearly killing it yeah and he doesn't come off anywhere near as pretentious to that other guy the man of skill

[Sean]

yeah no and he's definitely got better branding than that that brown guy the bird lover beast lover road spirit i

[Alan]

have no idea what has brown done for you

[Sean]

i just don't get this branding at all radagast i'm sorry it's

[Alan]

a really there's no focus group because there's just no focus i mean there's

[Sean]

no no there's certainly not who's your

[Alan]

avatar radagast who is your avatar right

[Sean]

all right but anyway that was super fun thank you for giving me a chance to dive into that a little bit alan oh you bet man on the question of who is radagast let's talk about who is gandalf and let you pick it up in the chapter

[Alan]

who was gandalf it is said that in later days when again a shadow of evil arose in the kingdom and it was believed by many of the faithful of that time that gandalf was the last appearance of manwe himself before his final withdrawal to the watchtower of taniquetil that gandalf said that his name in the west had been elorren was according to this belief the adoption of an incognito a mere by name i do not of course know the truth of the matter and if i did it would be a mistake to be more explicit than gandalf was but but i think it was not so manwe will not descend from the mountain until the dagor dagorath and the coming of the end when melkor returns to the overthrow of morgoth he sent his herald eonwe to the defeat of sauron would he not then send some lesser but mighty spirit of the angelic people one koival and equal doubtless with sauron in their beginnings but not more oloren was his name but of oloren we shall never know more than he revealed in gandalf and then christopher transitions by pointing out this is followed by sixteen lines of a poem in alliterative verse wilt thou learn the lore that was long secret of the five that came from a far country one only returned others never again under men's dominion middle earth shall seek until dagor dagoroth and the doom cometh how hast thou heard it the hidden counsel of the lords of the west in the land of aman the long roads are lost that led thither and to mortal men manwe speaks not from the west that was a wind bore it to the sleeper's ear in the silences under night shadow when news is brought from lands forgotten and lost ages over seas of years to the searching thought not all are forgotten by the elder king sauron he saw as a slow menace all right well

[Sean]

thank you for that alan always nice to hear you get into a little bit of alliterative poetry it's so much

[Alan]

fun this is a little harder than the rohirric stuff it doesn't quite have the same rhythm it doesn't have that

[Sean]

northern cadence does it yeah the cadence

[Alan]

is different that's what it is but it's still lovely i especially liked from the west that was a wind bore it i liked that line i think the most but anyway yeah good stuff

[Sean]

well back to this question that's been asked by branding consultants and therapists and ourselves we've all been asking who was gandalf was he just a quick tempered fireworks expert an old man with a weird thing for hobbits well yes but the real question here that's right is he someone other than who he seems

[Alan]

to be yeah is he as some believe this was so interesting to see this out of the blue like there's no suggestion in any of the other texts that anybody believes this but i love it was he actually in fact the last appearance of manwe the text tells us this belief was actually held by many of the faithful and it came around during the later days so the later days i'm assuming since he showed up at third age one thousand that we're talking about the end of the third age so close to the time of the war of the ring

[Sean]

i think that's what that means yeah

[Alan]

and the faithful would be like just the men of numenorean descent probably i

[Sean]

mean you know we talked about this i think a couple of episodes ago like does aragorn know who gandalf actually is he knows he's from the west does he actually know that he is olorin of the maiar yeah that he's

[Alan]

a maia

[Sean]

maybe he's one of these people maybe it's people like aragorn people in numenor who know he came from the west yeah but don't know exactly

[Alan]

who he is all the dunedain essentially would be the faithful i mean because they're descended from the faithful you got the faithful and kings if even like

[Sean]

i don't even know that your rank and file dunedain even know that he came from from the west i mean you think like your typical member of the gray company knows that gandalf came in through the gray no that's true

[Alan]

i mean i wouldn't imagine that they do right i mean the whole point is that it's sort of secretive where they come from so right so they're just seeing this guy who like their grandparents told him about and he was old then and he's still old and now he's helping pull together the fight against sauron ooh that must be manwe right i don't know it's interesting i

[Sean]

mean that kind of thing you know

[Alan]

so he goes no no no no my name is aloran ah you say that but that's just your nickname that's just your cover story of course you're not going to say manwe i was in the west that is forgotten that's that's too on the nose but that also puts him in a position of i mean i can neither confirm nor deny but even if i deny you're

[Sean]

not going to believe me right that's

[Alan]

true yeah i'm not i'm not manwe i'm not you're dodo a lord and aha wink wink nudge nudge yeah sure

[Sean]

you are yeah very likely name sir well keeping in mind that this note that we're reading from is the same one that we ended last week with this is the one that accused legolas of achieving the least of anybody in the fellowship he did the least and then called out galadriel for being more a mere observer than manwe himself ouch

[Alan]

incapable of punitive action i think was

[Sean]

the line yes that was it like

[Alan]

man and not that's harsh not concerned something about at the point of action

[Sean]

the point of action yeah not concerned at the point of action which we said we're going to use on our

[Alan]

kids yes that is definitely yeah well

[Sean]

and i think it's interesting because like tolkien also sticks himself into the narrative

[Alan]

here right a lot here a lot

[Sean]

of i yeah this i do not of course know whether he was manwe or not like what do you mean

[Alan]

you don't know he wrote the story

[Sean]

man right but this is back to him you know that whole idea that he was discovering this right this whole this frame narrative of him being a translator of this it's fascinating i love that and man the commitment to the bit it's great that's exactly what it

[Alan]

is i of course don't know what do you mean of course right and then he says but even if i did it would be unwise for us to like be more explicit than gandalf himself was so even if i knew he was or that aloran was manwe i couldn't tell you i don't need

[Sean]

a defamation suit on my hands you know when the gandalf estate comes at

[Alan]

me yeah i'm sure it's a lot worse the nda is probably less about lawsuits and more about being turned into

[Sean]

a toad time and mandas yeah yeah

[Alan]

exact time yeah yeah but he says look even if i don't think he is right my if i had to take a guess he says i don't think gandalf's man way now it's a pretty strong disclaimer but it isn't a certainty he's not saying it's virtually certain let alone it's definitely not man way why is he leaving us room to actually think the possibility that he is

[Sean]

in fact manohi i think he just likes the mystery you know it's one of those things like tom bombadil he wants to have just a little bit of an unanswered question out there let

[Alan]

my readers do some crazy stuff yeah

[Sean]

i mean and i don't think that there's any truth to the idea obviously everything else we're reading tells us that gandalf is a loren and it tells us about how he came to middle earth and all that but i love that you know tolkien's commitment to this idea of this you know being this real story that he's inherited through the centuries yeah he refuses to answer it definitively even in what might have just been an essay he was writing for

[Alan]

himself right given how often he references himself right i that's not something we see in a lot of his other notes so that makes sense it's interesting because in a way you could have the headcanon that gandalf is in fact the second coming of manwe and you could not be proven wrong right that's true you could be told probably not you're probably wrong but you can't be definitively wrong if you think gandalf is manwe because tolkien's left the door open

[Sean]

he has left the door open and when you think about the fact that even things like the vala quenta and these works that we have in unfinished tales i mean these are all just these are all in universe documents right these are all things that have been written by the elves or handed down by the elves to men and written down by men so they're not any more authoritative than anything else no that's

[Alan]

true they're not this would change though if we were to interpret it that way very much the council meeting we had that we talked about last week absolutely where manwe calls elorin in and says hey i'd like for you to do this oh no no sir you don't want me i'm afraid of sauron that's exactly why i want you and

[Sean]

it also kind of ruins gandalf's kind of scrappy underdog story doesn't it very

[Alan]

much when you're the king of arda yeah i mean i don't think he

[Sean]

is i don't think he is either

[Alan]

to be clear it's a pauper story here you know he's just showing up in robes you know and trying to

[Sean]

be humble it's a cool thing that he does i love the fact that he refuses to say it definitively but i do i believe what we talked about last time i don't think that gandalf is manwe and tolkien actually gives us kind of an out here cause he says well you know look manwe won't climb down from taniquetil until the final battle the dagor dagorath and the end of the world so that is part of the evidence that tolkien is giving for why he's probably not manwek it's just not time for him to come down to middle earth yet now footnote time here christopher points out that this mention of the dagor dagorath is a reference to the second prophecy of mandas which is something he actually left out of the compiled silmarillion he did

[Alan]

and in the footnote he says sadly its elucidation cannot be attempted here which

[Sean]

is true yeah he's not wrong i mean we certainly can't get into it not if we hope to get this episode in under two hours or three

[Alan]

yeah yeah i mean it's the variant texts of the dagger dagger ath alone could take a good long time maybe we'll touch on it in the p five but it's probably even a little big for us to try to tackle the whole thing i think that might be a topic for an episode at the end of next season or i'm sorry not next season the end of the season after end of season twelve when i hopefully if all goes according to plan tackle the children of hurin with the nerd of the rings because turin plays a pretty significant role in just about all of the versions of the story so that's true if you're interested in hearing more tune in again in a couple of years there you

[Sean]

go all right there you go so anyway let's get back to tolkien's arguments against manwe being gandalf you know he correctly points out that manwe didn't even show up to defeat morgoth he actually sent his herald eonwe for that now we should add that even though eonwe is a maia and therefore technically lesser in might and power than the valar he is described as possessing and i'm quoting here might in arms surpassed by none in arda that is right he is like the best swordsman and weapon fighter of all of the einwei including the valar period yeah yeah now if

[Alan]

you gotta wrestle you gotta pull tulkas in but if you're gonna fight with weapons it is a on white tulkas

[Sean]

is like you said something about might in arms and then he just like flexes a bicep flexes he does i got your might in arms here yeah

[Alan]

yeah check out these pythons yeah so

[Sean]

he i got your might in arms

[Alan]

soldier boy that's right so you know if manwe sent a i should say just a powerful maia to morgoth's defeat wouldn't he also send a lesser but still mighty one to the defeat of sauron because sauron morgoth's of vala or was vala level before he became no longer considered part of the valar but he's of that level sauron is a lesser one so therefore wouldn't you send a lesser one which is really the convincing argument for sure that is a

[Sean]

very convincing argument you didn't go yourself for morgoth who's basically your brother in the thought of iluvatar right so why

[Alan]

would you go for his lieutenant why

[Sean]

would you go for his lieutenant yeah

[Alan]

and that's why instead manoi would choose somebody who is coeval and equal coeval just means basically from the same time period like they were born around the same time so they're the same similar

[Sean]

age yeah yeah exactly now the name of this lesser but mighty spirit was not manwe it was olorin right and we can't know more about olorin than gandalf himself revealed but we can professor you could just tell us right because you wrote this professor but again i think he's really just inserting himself into that narrative and really just you know he's playing a role as a translator here and saying look i don't know

[Alan]

yeah exactly and it goes along with the idea that look we can't be any more explicit than gandalf was if if gandalf didn't tell you more i can't tell you more yeah and and then after this really interesting text which i loved it was answering a question that nobody had ever really asked we move on to alliterative verse and the opening of this the wilt thou learn the lore very much reminded me of the way treebeard introduces the list of people and animals right learn now the lore of living creatures so it's a lore song this is how we teach

[Sean]

we teach in song yeah that's right now the verse still features five with only one returning so guess we know what happened to the blues yep yeah

[Alan]

and then we get another mention of dagor dagorath now i i believe but i could be wrong that when this was published which was nineteen eighty i

[Sean]

think it was eighty eighty one wasn't

[Alan]

it was it eighty one yeah it was either eighty or eighty one that these two were the first times this battle was mentioned by name it had been called the last battle or just i think one time the end in the silmarillion but had not yet been seen as the dagor dagorath until this

[Sean]

book right yeah and then we get a repeat of this being the hidden council of the valar and the reminder that you know we can't get there and manwe doesn't communicate with men yeah

[Alan]

he just does not now let's talk

[Sean]

about this he doesn't really does he i mean we're so used to the valar communicating directly with the elves in the silmarillion but i mean outside of ulmo speaking directly with tuor is there another case of any of the valar communicating directly with men i mean i

[Alan]

guess maybe you could make the argument that well that morgan not counting because

[Sean]

you know he he obviously got an audience well he's half and half right

[Alan]

that's true that's different he's he's half and if he weren't he would never have made it there i was thinking who had to have a chat with morgoth but that's a different kind of

[Sean]

direct communication yeah that is it really is and that wasn't exactly sanctioned by

[Alan]

the valar no iluvatar wasn't like hey i think you should probably go talk to this guy no i think that's the thing we get a lot of instances of the valar communicating with the elves i'm thinking for instance the dreams that ulmo sends we certainly get implications that laurian is involved in sending obviously there's direct communication when the elves are in valador i mean they live with

[Sean]

right yeah right but even when they're

[Alan]

in middle earth there's still some communication right but with men yeah other than the ulmo tour no i mean we

[Sean]

do get things like like like beren having his his moment of inspiration when he's in thingol's court and he suddenly knows what to say this must have

[Alan]

been words are put in his mouth

[Sean]

yeah yeah that's true but that's not really direct i mean that's that's inspiration that's not communication it is and we

[Alan]

get even moments like that in the lord of the rings that certainly feel like ooh this might have been a moment you know i even sort of feel like manwe was involved with the winds that blow aragorn up the anduin to reach the polenor yeah yeah and it starts and certainly something like the

[Sean]

clouds of sauron yeah and certainly something like frodo knowing the words to say to activate the vial you know the you know like clearly that is that sort of they call on elbereth so

[Alan]

varda is responsive in some way but manwe certainly is not it feels like

[Sean]

right interesting yeah well anyway back to this poem we get the delivery of that hidden counsel that's the it borne by the wind to the sleeper's ear yeah and it's a reminder of manwe actually taking counsel for the governance of middle earth you know we talked about this last time to what degree is he involved in governing middle earth in that classical sense of you know of

[Alan]

how exactly was it we decided that it was the archaic use of the word which meant control or sway so he was he wanted to know how middle earth was doing he wanted to know who was controlling and swaying it he wasn't interested in actually governing in

[Sean]

ruling he wasn't right right but yeah this is not government this is governance

[Alan]

yeah correct correct and it is an archaic use of the word for sure

[Sean]

right but again this is all in recognition of the danger posed by sauron and the fact that you know the valar do need to play some role

[Alan]

in this here and what a line sauron he saw as a slow menace it really is this is this is a slow burn i mean how long has it been since the defeat of morgoth and even since the defeat of sauron the first time three thousand years

[Sean]

before thousands of years yeah yeah it's

[Alan]

wild well we did skip a paragraph after the lines of verse and in that paragraph christopher explained that a more thorough discussion would include the bigger picture question of the valar and middle earth altogether especially after the drowning of numenor but there is no room he suggests rather than explaining he would just summarize

[Sean]

right no sorry let me explain no

[Alan]

no no let me sum up now sadly he says it must fall quite outside the scope of the book probably should fall outside the scope of our episode but is there anything you want to throw in there about that i mean that's a huge can of worms

[Sean]

it is absolutely a huge can of worms maybe something to discuss in a future episode or d five or something

[Alan]

yeah sounds good well in the meantime then talk to us a little bit more about this whole dream thing i know we touched on this in the philology fair but you've got a passage that touches on this i do and

[Sean]

as i jump back into the text here i'm actually starting in christopher's voice here and you'll hear when we get to jrr's voice after the words but of oloren we shall never know more than he revealed in gandalf my father added later save that olorin is a high elven name and must therefore have been given to him in valinor by the eldar or be a translation meant to be significant to them in either case what was the significance of the name given or assumed olor is a word often translated dream but that does not refer to most human dreams certainly not the dreams of sleep to the eldar it included the vivid contents of their memory as of their imagination it referred in fact to clear vision in the mind of things not physically present at the body's situation but not only to an idea but to a full clothing of this in particular form and detail christopher then points out that an isolated etymological note explains the meaning similarly vision fantasy common elvish name for construction of the mind not actually pre existing in ea apart from the construction but by the eldar capable of being by art made visible and sensible olos is usually applied to fair constructions having solely an artistic object that is not having the object of deception or of acquiring power christopher then does some word nerdery for us he says words deriving from this root are cited quenya olos dream plural olozi olori ola impersonal to dream olosta dreamy a reference is then made to olofantor which was the earlier true name of lorien the vala who was master of visions and dreams before it was changed to irmo in the silmarillion as nurufantur was changed to namo mandas though the plural feanturi for these two brethren survived in the valaquenta back to christopher these discussions of olos olor are clearly to be connected with the passage in the valaquenta the one about olorin living with lorien putting wisdom into the

[Alan]

hearts of elves of course i gave sean this passage i mean this is some like advanced level word nerdery and

[Sean]

thank you for it because i'm basically reading a dictionary entry which is like

[Alan]

your favorite thing to read i mean

[Sean]

it is kind of my favorite thing i kind of do love it yeah

[Alan]

yeah i mean i'm fairly sure there's a clause in your contract that if it says an isolated etymological note i have no choice in the matter i just have to hand over to you

[Sean]

that is true that is true and that is how it should be that's

[Alan]

right we worked that out ten years

[Sean]

ago all right yep well now christopher tolkien points out that this first note about the nature of the name oloren was something added later to the note earlier that ended with of oloren we shall never know more than he revealed

[Alan]

in gandalf how much later like christopher just says this note was added later okay you know it was added later probably there's some evidence for how you know that how do you know when it was added how much later yeah

[Sean]

what i wonder was it one of those marginal jottings something that was just sort of like scribbled in the sides

[Alan]

yeah that would certainly indicate it was later right because he wrote it to the side even if it's immediately after it's just interesting and then we're told that his quenya name of olorin must have been given to him by the elves in aman therefore it must have linguistic significance so we have to ask the question what is that significance yeah

[Sean]

well let's talk about it i mean we're told that the word olor is translated dream we're told specifically that this is not like you and i as humans alan think of dreaming like not these weird movies that play in our brains while we're asleep

[Alan]

sweet dreams are

[Sean]

made of this wow you went with annie lennox and it was that song surprised yeah you go with that annie lennox reference in a tolkien podcast all

[Alan]

right yeah i wonder why i would do that yeah who am i to

[Sean]

disagree though oh very well done very well i walked right into that no we're told that this word olor actually includes the memory of the elves as well as their imagination with the text saying that it refers to this clear vision of things that aren't actually present at the time it's as if they can think of something that's not actually there but they see it in more clarity than we would it's not like our memories where you think about how inaccurate witness testimonies and things like that are because we can only remember so many details elves must have this ability to remember their memories and experience them as though they're happening right in front of them again right that's the thing

[Alan]

experience them as though they are happening at the moment what yeah what an incredible gift that must be i mean i'm thinking you know i look back at some of my greatest memories some of my fondest memories the things that i remember with just joy and pleasure and happiness and i think wouldn't it be great to be able to not just remember that but to almost experience it again you know to see as though it's right in front of me but there's another side to that isn't

[Sean]

there there is and the way you just said that made me think of yeah what about all the stuff that you're kind of glad you forgot you know what about the bad memories experience again yeah i mean you know and think about the elves and the many traumatic things that they've experienced thousands of years of regret and mistakes and can you imagine having to relive that i'm

[Alan]

hearing elrond's line i was there gandalf three thousand years ago a lot differently now in light of that that's a really good point the realization that for him when he remembers that battle he remembers it like it's happening in front of him right now he remembers gil galad's death and elendil's death like they're happening yeah if he chooses to i would imagine it's a thing you could turn on or off i hope so that would be awful otherwise but think

[Sean]

of galadriel and her lament for valinor and oh same thing isn't remembering this place that she turned her back on she left there to come to middle earth and she'd just hop in and

[Alan]

have a swim we're gonna get so much trouble yeah what was it last week i would take a meteor i booked i already have my tickets for

[Sean]

the meteor saruman and radegast coming over on the same meteor like we've we've only got three meteor tickets you're gonna have to share seats it's a one

[Alan]

way trip but you can always swim

[Sean]

back yeah yeah just thinking about that regret that she's feeling and remembering it as though she's right back there seven thousand years ago almost that's wild i

[Alan]

mean she can literally remember the trees as they were as if they were in front of her right here in that moment but then she's also experiencing all those years of regret all those years of sorrow of absence of loss

[Sean]

and without that distance that we get in our memories where we can you remember something traumatic and the pain may still come back the grief may still come back but at least you can

[Alan]

flavor it's a different intensity i mean the thing about time heals all wounds maybe doesn't apply to elves in this context which is sad but also the joy i mean can you imagine being able to remember some of your best moments and remember them as though they're happening right now oh absolutely yeah wow

[Sean]

how amazing that must be but like so many things with the elves like you know you hit on it it's sort of a double edged sword isn't it you know yeah it really is this this great joy this great remembrance of beauty is going to come at the price of also having to remember all these regrets and these traumas so

[Alan]

then we move into the isolated etymological note why i called on sean well

[Sean]

thank you very much and this note gets more into the meaning of the word explaining the root olos which means vision or fantasy can we talk about this a little bit i don't have this in my notes but tolkien spells fantasy with a ph here yeah i

[Alan]

wondered about that i looked into this

[Sean]

this ph spelling was still kind of common in the late nineteenth century like the oxford english dictionary has some mentions of it in the late nineteenth century but it's not like this is tolkien's preferred spelling of the word fantasy think

[Alan]

about on various stories he never uses this spelling right and that was earlier

[Sean]

than this was written i think what he's doing here with the ph spelling i think he's actually trying to remind us of the greek root of the word fantasy here which purely by accident we talked about in a recent questions after nightfall the last one i was on just a few episodes ago and remember we talked about the fact that fantasy comes from this greek word which means to show to make something appear and this is a word that we get in words like epiphany or theophany like a god displaying themselves in all

[Alan]

their glory a revealed thing yeah yeah

[Sean]

reveal is a good word it's sort of this revelation of something i think between that and between this notion of this uncanny ability of the elves to show memories as if they're still here i think the intentions here are about tolkien's trying to connote visions granted by the valar he's trying to connote this idea of making an image more real than just an image in your mind i think it's an image but it's a true image and i think that's why he says it's not like the dreams of humans because obviously our dreams are not true we wake up and thankfully sometimes they're over yeah not so thankfully sometimes you want to go back to those dreams but they're not true and i think that's the intention here is that it's a vision that shows something true whether it's true memory or it's some sort of revelation by the valar i think think that's what he's doing here with the ph spelling that

[Alan]

makes sense to me and just by spelling it with that very old spelling he is doing something and yeah calling on the old greek root to try to remind us of that or maybe just even the mere suggestion that this is an old word this is a word that goes back that has a history and then yeah like you said those of us who understand it who know what that history is yeah so

[Sean]

anyway back to the text we get a more thorough explanation of this gift that the elves have this idea of a construction of the mind capable of being by art made perceivable by the senses and he says art here so

[Alan]

let's talk about that not magic right this is not because we had a conversation i don't know if we've had this conversation recently or not but we've talked about it a number of times before the whole magia goetia thing and this idea of a vision right of a false thing being presented you know of an illusion brings up the idea of goetia but he's not saying that it does yeah and i think it's because we it's a good construction only as we'll get to in a minute yeah so it feels like he's talking about art not this machine not some sort of yeah you know hocus pocus

[Sean]

and i think that goes back to the idea that it's not an illusion it is something true it's showing something that's real it's a sub creation of

[Alan]

something true it's a sub creation recreation right because we're taking this memory this thing that happened that we have a record of in our brain for the elves and constructing something in our minds that's perceivable by the senses so that's i think where we really get the big difference because perceivable by the senses when you and i have recollections they're just imaginings they're just in our heads

[Sean]

they're just in our heads we cannot

[Alan]

see them we cannot hear them no matter how well we recollect the words they're not audible our auditory nerves aren't being stimulated our visual cortex isn't being stimulated that's not the case with the elves when they dream that's true they're perceiving it with their senses at least with one imagines sight and sound i don't know that they're having to smell battle or you know taste the food of a feast i don't know if they're able to do that but the interesting idea of being able to have a perceivable perception that'd be pretty incredible

[Sean]

well i mean counterpoint here can't human beings make an idea in their head perceivable by the senses with art well yeah that's true isn't that what we're doing when we paint or when we write our podcast we're taking an idea and we're making it perceivable by the

[Alan]

senses there's only one sense that's okay

[Sean]

true but if you're painting something there's a sense there if you're working in film you're working with at least two senses two maybe there is yeah something that we as humans can do that is like this obviously lesser you know it's like the difference between fairy and drama and just regular old human drama

[Alan]

that's exactly what i was thinking primary world secondary world but then secondary world tertiary world yeah yeah it's really fascinating

[Sean]

and to think that gandalf's true name has all this stuff wrapped up in it these ideas this inspiration and art and fantasy and it's kind of beautiful

[Alan]

actually it very much is i think earlier we talked about why this is art and not goetia he explains the word is typically only applied to good constructions and that is specifically not to like attempts to trick so sauron's construction of golum's late wife would not be this art that is goetia that is yes that is deception illusion a deception it is a trick of the mind

[Sean]

you speak of lies deception i just watched galaxy quest that long ago again

[Alan]

explain as i were a child

[Sean]

you were speaking of lies deception but to think that any of you could have anything in common with cyrus your monte

[Alan]

cristo proved very popular we're gonna quote so many lines of that now oh

[Sean]

man anyway but no you're right i mean that is absolutely goetia because it is used to deceive and to dominate and that's very different that is well while all of that stuff that we just read and interpreted was in tolkien's words then christopher tolkien gives us a little bit more word nerdery connecting the olor or olos construction to the name of one of the valar with a reference to what was one of the original names of lorien and we're not talking about his original name in valaquenta here not iramo but olofantur this is going back to the book of lost

[Alan]

tales exactly and it's pretty cool because back then so irmo's name was was olafantor his brother namo his name was nurufantur so you can see the suffix the second half of both of their names is fantur that comes from the root fauna which we did get to keep in the name feienturi right the name that they still get in the silmarillion as brothers which means masters of spirits i love that so cool yeah

[Sean]

i do love that and that does survive into the silmarillion so there is that little bit of there that that etymology that kind of sticks around and also i do want to point out that even the name lorien itself is ultimately related to this olos olor root at a certain point in tolkien's development of the languages i think it was some point between the nineteen thirties and the nineteen fifties the roots split and so you start seeing these olo forms which mean dream like we've been talking about but then there's also lore forms l o r forms that mean sleep and so that's actually ultimately what the name lorien comes from is from those sleep roots but again they both derived from the same primitive quendian root early on in his language development that is wild really really fascinating stuff and again a very important root linguistic root and concept at the root of this name olorin and that's why i think it's so important to be able to dig into the languages a little bit when

[Alan]

you can oh i absolutely agree sometimes you have to travel the world in the seven seas to do so but

[Sean]

sorry you you

[Alan]

oh man no this really it is you have to i

[Sean]

think you've got an episode title for this you're going to have to go

[Alan]

with i think we might but we already had some ideas for that i

[Sean]

know we have a scheme going right now we do we do well christopher then connects this discussion of his father's with the passage in valaquenta that talks about how olorin lived in lorien and walked among them unseen and in a paragraph of christopher's that we skipped we actually learned that oloren was a counselor of irmo so again very closely related

[Alan]

to this vala exactly and of course we get in that paragraph also this idea that people who listened to olorin when he was in laurian for instance experienced thoughts of fair things that had not yet been but might yet be made for the enrichment of arda that

[Sean]

is interesting so there you go inspiration artistic inspiration that's what he's talking about

[Alan]

here the same exact thing that he then carries on into middle earth not so much artistic inspiration but inspiration in general right the kindling the fire to

[Sean]

do great things kindling of spirits yeah

[Alan]

absolutely exactly i love that i love that that's one of the reasons clearly why manwe chose him yeah and i

[Sean]

love the idea that maybe early on he inspired people and elves humans i guess elves and men to create things for the enrichment of arda which i think does feel more artistic it does and then later on he uses that to actually do some good in the world it's the artist kind of taking a stand for good and fighting against

[Alan]

the artist formerly known as gandalf oh

[Sean]

stop it you you stop it i

[Alan]

don't know what's going on with me today no actually though that made me think of the line that he talks with denethor when they're talking about how i'm a steward also remember when he says that even if what is it basically like if a flower is still living if there's still something budding in the grass when this is all over then i've done my job right so that reminds me a little bit even though it's not like stuff he creates as art but it reminds me of the conversation he has with denethor and he says the rule of no realm is mine neither of gondor nor any other great or small but all worthy things that are in peril and i would argue that includes art that includes beauty as the world now stands those are my care and for my part i shall not wholly fail of my task though no gondor should perish if anything passes through this night that can still grow fair or bear fruit and flower again in days to come for i also am a steward did you not know and that's a really definitely ties back to this idea of inspiration of art of making things for the enrichment of arda yeah and making sure

[Sean]

that there are still people somebody around to appreciate that and to make the next generation of art i love that

[Alan]

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[Alan]

now soon we'll get back to well too much time on inconus but before we do i want to take a minute to thank the amazing community that has grown up around this show over the past ten years after all there is thankfully a lot more talk going on at the prancing pony podcast than just us

[Sean]

that's right the ppp really does have a warm and welcoming listener community if you've got questions or you just want to talk about how much you love middle earth we'll be sure to check out our common room on facebook and across all social media so on facebook you're going to want to look for the prancing pony podcast and you're going to find a page that's there but you're really going to want to join this group that we've got for that great fan community and some fantastic discussions

[Alan]

absolutely and then on every social media platform other than facebook we are at prancing ponypod you can find our subreddit at r prancing ponypod and please be sure to check out my daily show today's tolkien times on all your favorite podcast apps that's where you can get your daily middle earth fix with everything from middle earth map mondays to first stage fridays so be sure to listen wherever you get your podcasts indeed well

[Sean]

let's get back into the text alan and let's go back to that passage where faramir quotes gandalf all right now

[Alan]

we're going to skip a bit here christopher tells us that there is a long note that sheds light on that bit in lord of the rings when faramir quotes gandalf about his many names he explains this note dates from before the publication of the second edition of the lord of the rings in nineteen sixty six and reads as follows and then the rest of this passage is all tolkien's note the date of gandalf's arrival is uncertain he came from beyond the sea apparently at about the same time as the first signs were noted of the re arising of the shadow the reappearance and spread of evil things but he is seldom mentioned in any annals or records during the second millennium of the third age probably he wandered long in various guises engaged not in deeds and events but in exploring the hearts of elves and men who had been and might still be expected to be opposed to sauron his own statement or a version of it and in any case not fully understood is preserved that his name in youth was oloren in the west but he was called mithrandir by the elves grey wanderer tharkoon by the dwarves said to mean staff man incanus in the south and gandalf in the north but to the east i go not the west here plainly means the far west beyond the sea not part of middle earth the name oloren is of high elven form the north must refer to the northwestern regions of middle earth in which most of the inhabitants or speaking peoples were and remained uncorrupted by morgoth or sauron in those regions resistance would be strongest to the evils left behind by the enemy or to sauron his servant if he should reappear the bounds of this region were naturally vague its eastern frontier was roughly the river carnen to its junction with kelduin the river running and so to nurnen and then south to the ancient confines of south gondor it did not originally exclude mordor which was occupied by sauron although outside his original realms in the east as a deliberate threat to the west and the numenoreans the north thus includes all this great area roughly west to east from the gulf of lun to nurnan and north and south from carn doom to the southern bounds of ancient gondor between it and nir harad beyond nurnun gandalf had never

[Sean]

gone all right so christopher tolkien started this passage by quoting that same faramir line from lord of the rings that we quoted back in the philology fair which of course was quoting gandalf you might have forgotten but the footnote points out that there actually was another time that gandalf mentioned his past name as

[Alan]

olorin and it's not just in the lord of the rings it's here in unfinished tales in the quest of erebor where we read of him saying to the hobbits this is after the coronation of king elessar but what i knew in my heart or knew before i stepped on these gray shores that is another matter o loren i was in the west that is forgotten and only to those who are there shall i speak more openly rude yeah exactly i'm not going to tell you anything you pathetic hobbits need to know basis you're

[Sean]

not there you're not those cool friends

[Alan]

of mine that's right you might have a classified clearance but this is top secret it you know we're not going to talk to you about this you

[Sean]

may bow to no one but you're not getting this that's right oh man

[Alan]

the thing i noticed in that passage though that i want to just briefly touch on is a reminder of something we talked about a couple episodes ago what i knew in my heart or knew before i stepped on these shores remember we talked about how they knew a lot but they had to give up that knowledge and then regain it slowly and this is sort of they

[Sean]

became incarnate exactly right that's right yeah good stuff what i knew before i stepped on these gray shores that is really cool i like that a lot yeah cause i mean you don't have to interpret that as meaning that i forgot it but i think that's exactly what it means i think it is yeah yeah yeah well then we get christopher's editorial comments about this note that are going to shed some light on that faramir passage as he explains that it dates from before the second edition which was published in nineteen sixty six but not any more specific than that

[Alan]

no we don't really know when between let's say nineteen fifty four and nineteen sixty six this note though takes up a lot it takes up the rest of this discussion point and all of the next yeah we got a few

[Sean]

things to say about it tolkien begins the note by pointing out that there's no certainty about precisely when gandalf arrived that that fits i mean the best we know is that he came around third age one thousand right exactly we know that he did come from beyond the sea that is valinor and he came around the time that sauron was rising but there's not much about him in that first millennium or so from one thousand to two thousand of the

[Alan]

third age is there no there's really not in the published tale of years we actually see only one thing in that entire millennium and it's early around third age eleven hundred that's when we read that the wise that's the istari and the chief eldar discover that an evil power has made a stronghold at dol guldur it is thought to be one of the nazgul other than that we have to wait until twenty sixty almost a thousand more years when we finally read that they did something again and in this case they didn't do much at all the wise fear that that power may be sauron taking shape

[Sean]

again right but it is three years after that when gandalf actually did it goes to dol guldur so yeah i mean it's still like a thousand years of basically just doing nothing exactly if we're to believe the historical annals the historical documents but

[Alan]

you have one job on this show sean it's stupid but

[Sean]

i'm gonna do it that's right but he's not really doing nothing though according to this note it says he likely wandered around is said to be in various guises and sort of testing the ground as it were kind of getting to know elves and men in anticipation of the fight against sauron that he's hoping to kindle at some point i

[Alan]

love this idea and the fact that he's going around in various guises is intriguing to me like you know that you're still going to be this old man in another couple hundred years when everybody around you is dead except for the elves so why with the disguise but i like it i like it and like you said he's just sort of you know testing the ground he's sort of getting the lay of the land like yeah who are the guys that i can who are the people i shouldn't say guys like as in men i just mean who are the the groups of people that i can count on in the build up to this inevitable fight against sauron yeah so

[Sean]

yeah i want to know what various guises he put on because i mean he's already in a guise as a man right yeah yeah like what are we talking about like you know you know glasses and a mustache like what kind of thing are we talking about

[Alan]

here groucho marx yeah or maybe he maybe he dresses up as a clown and goes someplace maybe so maybe maybe so yeah maybe he puts on a black robe and grabs like a scythe and he just we have legends of death but it's just him that's kind of creepy that is creepy i don't know what guises he would take i like it though i don't know maybe

[Sean]

he dresses in full lord of the rings cosplay he puts on pointy ears and a long flowing dress even star pendant i mean why not i would

[Alan]

love it i would absolutely love it yeah gandalf is arwen yeah that would be a great actual cosplay sean as gandalf as arwen well maybe not sean

[Sean]

as that somebody well it ain't gonna be me man somebody who's nicer to look at there you go and better stature yes i think that's a great

[Alan]

idea why won't you do it though sean i don't understand

[Sean]

i can't pull that off i can't pull off much

[Alan]

cosplay that's your problem sean you were never serious about the craft

[Sean]

sorry

[Alan]

oh

[Sean]

great that sucker oh that's wonderful too

[Alan]

much fun yeah i do like the

[Sean]

you should have a little whiteboard next to me for all the galaxy quest references just like mark one so it's

[Alan]

going to be a lot oh man yeah so tolkien goes to point out that in this note that gandalf's line saying he was elorin in the west is obviously plainly referring to the far west of valinor and part of his reasoning is that elorin is a quenya name not a sindarin name that makes

[Sean]

sense that does make sense yeah and so therefore the north in gandalf's statement that faramir quotes that has to mean northwest middle earth which is basically the part of the map that we're familiar with right the areas where people not corrupted by morgoth and sauron still are and the thought or the rationale for this is that well here's where the best resistance to sauron is likely to exist if i'm going to look for people who are going to take a stand this is where i'm going to find them in these these cultures these

[Alan]

peoples that's right now you might still find individuals who are really upset and want to rebel in the south and in the east but you're not going to find the quantity of people you're not going to find entire peoples that are willing to stand up to sauron

[Sean]

right and it's interesting when we think about what we talked about last time about the blues and that idea that maybe the blues came earlier and were out there fomenting rebellion in the east you know maybe this is this is partly you know gandalf is like hey the blues have that area covered i'm

[Alan]

going to stay here that's right absolutely i can just see i can see pallando now it's one hundred six miles to chicago we got a full tank of gas half a pack of cigarettes it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses it's the blues brothers man

[Sean]

wow how did we not make that joke

[Alan]

i mean seriously because they are actually on a

[Sean]

mission thank you yes literally on a

[Alan]

mission from god how did i miss

[Sean]

that

[Alan]

i am disappointed i'm not mad

[Sean]

sean but i'm disappointed i'm disappointed in both of us really i know how

[Alan]

did i not catch that anyway so tolkien then gives us an intentionally broad description like this is vague posting taken to the extreme of the northwest of middle earth and it's frankly a lot bigger than i thought it would be says the eastern border of this northwest of middle earth is pretty far to the east that's like saying the northwest of the united states the eastern border is the mississippi river i mean like

[Sean]

what it's a pretty big area yeah

[Alan]

but then again you remember northwestern university is like in chicago so it's like how is that northwest but it's northwest when the colonies were there so this northwest of middle earth the river river in the east that is its border is the river carnan to its junction with the river running and then all the way down to the sea of nornen in mordor it's in the south

[Sean]

of mordor yeah yeah which is why tolkien's next line is basically yeah i meant that and he explains that this idea of the northwestern regions of middle earth did not originally exclude mordor this

[Alan]

line about this not being his original realms is interesting because of course mordor wasn't that was we always think of sauron and mordor as almost like synonymous practically because by the time of the war of the ring they are but that was not originally his home base that was originally an expansion an area that he set up as a second base to threaten the faithful on the coasts you know when numenor was still you know that's right yeah and so that is still part of the northwest of middle earth which is interesting i just thought that was so fascinating because to me i'm thinking like misty mountains are the eastern border right you know and and maybe the southern border is the white mountains or maybe the the anduin right so the gondor is included of course yeah but that's it no no the southern boundary is further south than that it's the ancient confines of south gondor that's not southern gondor like we think of now like like le benin and stuff around polar gear no it's much further south than you think of when you think of gondor the river poros which actually reaches the anduin just above its mouths is the traditional southern border of gondor in the third

[Sean]

age but but if we're dealing with those ancient confines then we're actually talking about all the way down to the river harnen which reaches the sea some hundred fifty to two hundred miles south of the mouths of anduin that's a

[Alan]

long way that's a huge realm and of course they don't he doesn't really give us specific northern or western bounds he does give us like kind of a vague idea of here's some populated areas that you might be familiar with but it doesn't give us a boundary of the north of the west that's because well the western boundary is the sea and the northern boundary is like the arctic circle it's for o dwight right right and that's why he's able to sum it up gulf of lune all the way to nurnan karn doom all the way down to the border of south gondora near hara that's a

[Sean]

huge region that is a huge huge region as hoking wraps up this section of the note by explicitly telling us that gandalf had never gone further south than nornen so that was it that was as far as he went but

[Alan]

that brings up a question if he's never gone any further south than nurnen then what does gandalf mean when he says he's called incanus in the south since this is all the north but that's what the section is about that you're going to read sean all right

[Sean]

this passage the faramir quote in lord of the rings he means is the only evidence that survives for his having extended his travels further south aragorn claims to have penetrated the far countries of rhun and harad where the stars are strange it need not be supposed that gandalf did so these legends are north centered because it is represented as an historical fact that the struggle against morgoth and his servants occurred mainly in the north and especially the northwest of middle earth and that was so because the movement of elves and of men afterwards escaping from morgoth had been inevitably westward towards the blessed realm and northwestward because at that point the shores of middle earth were nearest to aman so this is going back to you know when beleriand was out there right closer to aman harad south is thus a vague term and although before its downfall men of numenor had ignored explored the coasts of middle earth far southward their settlements beyond umbar had been absorbed or being made by men already in numenor corrupted by sauron had become hostile in parts of sauron's dominions but the southern regions in touch with gondor and called by men of gondor simply harad south near or far were probably both more convertible to the resistance and also places where sauron was most busy in the third age since it was a source to him of manpower most readily used against gondor into these regions gandalf may well have journeyed in the earlier days of his labors but his main province was the north and within it above all the northwest lindon eriador and the vales of anduin his alliance was primarily with elrond and the northern dunedain rangers peculiar to him was his love and knowledge of the halflings because his wisdom had presage of their ultimate importance and at the same time he perceived their inherent worth gondor attracted his attention less for the same reason that made it more interesting to saruman it was a center of knowledge and power its rulers by ancestry and all their traditions were irrevocably opposed to sauron certainly politically their realm arose as a threat to him and continued to exist only in so far and so long as his threat to them could be resisted by armed force gandalf could do little to guide their proud rulers or to instruct them and it was only in the decay of their power when they were ennobled by courage and steadfastness in what seemed a losing cause that he began to be deeply concerned with them i really enjoyed

[Alan]

this passage thank you for reading this one sean it's a really interesting idea about south i mean this whole thing is just about the south and tolkien explaining this faramir's quote of gandalf is the only evidence that gandalf did actually travel beyond the boundary of south gondor and then he he essentially argues from absence of evidence that while aragorn went further south right the quote about the far countries where the stars are strange we don't need to assume that gandalf went with him or also went there that's fair i mean these weren't alatar and pallando where they did everything together

[Sean]

right they didn't always travel together yeah just because arrow aragorn went there there's no reason to believe gandalf did now there's a footnote here that's not from christopher but it's actually described as author's note so tolkien adds that this bit about the strange stars must apply strictly only to the harad and must mean that aragorn traveled or voyaged some distance into the southern hemisphere which leads me

[Alan]

to another question doesn't it where does

[Sean]

the southern hemisphere start right where's the

[Alan]

equator when now we kind of understand if this is supposed to be our world we understand how far south before the stars get strange you'd pretty much have to wander if you're at the equator you're going to be seeing stars in both the northern and southern skies but you're not going to be seeing right like the north pole you're not going to be seeing the pole star right right so if you go further south once you get past like the tropics so thirty degrees below the equator you're going to see an entirely different sky you're going to see constellations that you and i don't see here i

[Sean]

assume it's about there yeah i mean i don't know if we that sounds right the point is you have to go pretty far south of the equator you can't just go to the you can't just be technically in the southern hemisphere you gotta be deep in the

[Alan]

southern hemisphere i'm one foot in the southern hemisphere right right yeah stars are gonna be that strange you just lose out on a few of the ones in the far north it's like all

[Sean]

right is the toilet flushing the other way okay let's look up at the sky now no it's not that you gotta go further oh i like that

[Alan]

yeah it's an interesting question like we've never really talked about that and there's nothing in the text that explains like certainly climate gives us some ideas doesn't it i mean the dryness and heat in harad and khand and those areas certainly suggests equatorial heat and you know we're reminded that a filing is very mediterranean so we're talking about again we get little clues and hints just a

[Sean]

little bit yeah you can you can look at the like you said the way the climate is described and you can assume that probably maybe a little bit south of where the map ends like think about the the maps that we typically see of middle earth and

[Alan]

just like they sort of end where south gondor is you know yeah and

[Sean]

the river harnen and things like that like it's probably not too far past there to get to the equator but to your point you have to go a bit farther than that before you start getting into the southern hemisphere that's how a long long way that is

[Alan]

a very long way yeah interesting question like the stars to be strange had to be pretty far but after all these are northern legends tolkien points out because look the story took place in the north right i mean that's just right i can't change that folks so that's why the story is here and that was true even back in the first age in the days of the

[Sean]

fight against morgoth huh that's right and it's also true because because men and elves he says were moving west towards valinor if we think about you know the migrations of the eldar and the edain in the first age they're always moving towards valinor we talk about you know men following the sun back when it first rose in the west so they're going west and they're also going northwest because again back in you know in the first age the shore of the northwest the shores of valerian were actually closer to aman a lot closer than the southern shores were right and

[Alan]

that's why south is a very loose term rather than a tight definition tolkien reminding us look numenor had explored and even made settlements down the coast well beyond umbar right but that those had

[Sean]

become part of sauron's realms because either they were surrounded by enemies or in possibly even established by you know black numenoreans you know corrupted numenoreans that's right but still gandalf may have traveled to those parts of harad that were in contact with gondor in those early days so maybe that's some of what he's doing in that period of third age one thousand to two thousand he's got

[Alan]

a thousand years why not i mean that's a pretty long leave of absence from your job if i had a

[Sean]

thousand years i would i'd travel the

[Alan]

world yeah absolutely and the seven seas actually

[Sean]

before going back into the west

[Alan]

that's right well played sir so these regions of course the ones that he's going to in the the parts of harad that had been in contact with gondor there'd be a little more success of converting people into the resistance you know he's just going to go down there and tell them that rebellions are built on hope and they're good they're just going to come on over to the resistance and stand up against darth

[Sean]

sauron that's all it's going to take

[Alan]

that's right that's it no but i mean they are going to be more likely that's the point i mean the further south you go and the further east you go the further less likelihood you're going to get anybody but hey if we can just get even one town or or one region to to rebel against sauron even if they don't line up with gondor even if they don't come and fight for us if they just don't fight for sauron that's

[Sean]

a win yeah yeah that reduces the numbers that he's going to have in

[Alan]

the fight eventually yeah and of course they would also be regions where sauron was most active so there's risk involved but like tolkien points out whether he traveled south or not the the main point here is that his influence was the north specifically the northwest of that area and he gives us three specifically identified areas the first is lindon which is where cirdan was eriador which is where bree the shire and rivendell that's the area that we're all most familiar with and then somewhat interestingly the third area that he's most interested in is the vales of anduin i thought that was a little interesting yeah which is

[Sean]

again interesting because as you're saying like we tend to think of the misty mountains as like those the border torture

[Alan]

wilderness right the sort of like that's where the wildlands are you know the last homely house and all that and

[Sean]

i think that's bilbo's fault come on i think it is we have that parochial perspective from the first narrator that we have not first narrator i guess tolkien's the narrator but the first perspective that we have in middle earth which is usually bilbo's yeah i think you're everything east of the misty mountains was like oh wow this is this is

[Alan]

east oh it's it's that's where there's bad things wereworms and stuff yeah that's

[Sean]

right yeah there's fremen riding around on worms and thumpers and all kinds of weird stuff that's two weeks in a

[Alan]

row with some dune references right we had the duncan idaho reference you're shocked

[Sean]

that i came back on the podcast and made dune references right i know

[Alan]

i'd be surprised yeah oh man i love that i wonder if one of his veils of anduin interests is because of the hobbits right because that's where their origins were or maybe it's the other way around maybe he's interested in the hobbits because he knew about them for the veils of anduin that's an

[Sean]

interesting question no i don't know about that you know those hobbits out by the vales of anduin they're kind of

[Alan]

weird i don't know i mean in that third age one thousand two thousand period hobbits in the vales of anduin might be fairly normal i mean it wasn't just the weird storefolk that were

[Sean]

there i don't know maybe we don't

[Alan]

know it certainly wasn't gollum because i

[Sean]

do like the idea that he's it's somehow connected to the hobbits i think

[Alan]

that's very cool that's an interesting question

[Sean]

all right but we learned that his main alliances of course were with elrond and the rangers of the north though to what we were just speaking of like one of the things that made him unique was the fact that he knew about and did appreciate the hobbits

[Alan]

and we're given two reasons for this in tolkien's note here one is that he had some sort of wisdom some sort of almost premonition indicating their importance but the other one and i really like this other one this speaks to who gandalf is and it speaks i think to us it's very relevant today that he perceived their inherent worth that these beings had value you know that

[Sean]

they're people too they just yeah they

[Alan]

yeah just by being they don't have

[Sean]

to do anything and when nobody else was paying attention to them yeah yeah i love that i think that's really really powerful that it's not just because he knows they're going to be important that they have value just correct in and of themselves yeah yeah i really

[Alan]

like that i think it really does continue to speak to the humility that we see in gandalf even when he was a loren before you know when manoi was like hey i want you to go and do this and he's like no no no you don't want

[Sean]

me to do this it's like no i can't i'm not i'm not afraid

[Alan]

of sauron i'm not up for that yeah and it's that just repeated sense of humility and we see it all

[Sean]

throughout yeah well and this is an interesting twist and i think maybe a little bit related right the other side of that coin is that we're told that gandalf was less interested in gondor than somebody like saruman and for the same reason that saruman was interested in it you know the fact that gondor was this center of knowledge and power gondor is a great place the people there are great they are descendants of numenor they are lore masters they're descendants of numenor they're good people they have military power they have political power they have knowledge and lore i don't need

[Alan]

to worry about them they're good exactly but saruman's perspective is less about worry and more about i can take value from them i can gain from my

[Sean]

connections with them i can use their strength to stand against saruman their knowledge

[Alan]

will improve my knowledge and their power i can i can tap into that

[Sean]

power yeah right and again i think there's something there with like you know they're already power they're outwardly powerful everybody can see their value i don't need to mess around with them but man i'm really interested in these hobbits that people can't see their value that's so cool that this is gandalf and this is the way he thinks yeah really focusing on the little people yeah and

[Alan]

he's just practical like look they're already irrevocably opposed to sauron he said i don't need to convince these people to fight in the rebellion they are the

[Sean]

rebellion they are the rebellion they're here because sauron ruined numenor exactly they already distrust him they have everything they need

[Alan]

to know and they owe their existence to sauron being defeated if they can because the minute they capitulate they cease to exist as a nation he's right

[Sean]

there on their doorstep they're right there

[Alan]

yeah so the whole point for him is look there's no point in him advising or teaching these gondorian leaders until they're facing a losing cause right until they need him and that's the thing he doesn't need them to serve his job of uniting the men and elves of middle earth to fight against sauron but there will come a point where they need him and that's when he's willing to come and serve which is the flip of saruman that is like

[Sean]

servant leadership right there it's not about what i can do with them or what they can do for me it's about what i can do for them it's about me being there for them

[Alan]

ask not what gondor can do for gandalf ask what gandalf can do for

[Sean]

gondor yeah yeah and that's why he goes there at the end he goes at the end because they need him and boy do they oh and if

[Alan]

denethor would just listen yeah yeah yep

[Sean]

well the remainder of this section is some word nerdery on the names incanus and gandalf we covered those in the philology fair earlier in this episode so we're gonna skip over them now

[Alan]

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[Sean]

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[Alan]

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[Sean]

now we told you about the amazing ppp community after our earlier break if you're a part of that community and you want to enjoy something even more special come join the fellowship of the podcast on patreon you get to be in the best discord community around one that includes host hangouts and even live episode recordings which we're doing

[Alan]

right now that's absolutely right your support there folks is really important it's what enables me to work full time doing all of these shows the francisc pony podcast of course but also today's tolkien times the rings of power wrap up coming up this fall and over the holidays and my streaming show the ppp plays now when you join the patreon you can also get episode postscripts ad free episodes free merch and more and

[Sean]

you can join our questions after nightfall episodes or even appear as a guest in the north wing just go to patreon dot com prancingponypod to show your support and join the fellowship of the

[Alan]

podcast and don't forget to rate and review on apple podcasts and spotify and please recommend us to your friends you can do that directly on spotify these days just just share it directly from

[Sean]

the show that's right all right well we've got one more passage here in the episode alan and you are going to go ahead and read that and

[Alan]

take us home i will indeed so christopher begins by telling us about a later note he writes a wholly different view of the meaning of gandalf's words in the south in canus and of the etymology of the name is taken in a note written in nineteen sixty seven and once again christopher understates things it is definitely a wholly different view the rest of this is tolkien's words it is very unclear what was meant by in the south gandalf disclaimed ever visiting the east but actually he appears to have confined his journeys and guardianship to the western lands inhabited by elves and peoples in general hostile to sauron at any rate it seems unlikely that he ever journeyed or stayed long enough in the harad or far harad to have there acquired a special name in any of the alien languages of those little known regions the south should thus mean gondor at its widest those lands under the suzerainty of gondor at the height of its power at the time of this tale however we find gandalf always called mithrandir in gondor by men of rank or numenorean origin as denethor faramir etcetera this is sindarin and given as the name used by the elves but men of rank in gondor knew and used this language the popular name in the westron or common speech was evidently one meaning greymantle but having been devised long before was now in an archaic form this may be represented by the greyheim used by eomer in rohan and christopher explains my father concluded here that in the south did refer to gondor and that in kanus was like oloren a quenya name but one devised in gondor in earlier times while quenya was still much used by the learned and was the language of many historical records as it had been in numenor we come back to tolkien's words one more time gandalf it is said in the tale of years appeared in the west early in the eleventh century of the third age if we assume that he first visited gondor sufficiently often and for long enough to acquire a name or names there say in the reign of atanatar alkarin about eighteen hundred years before the war of the ring it would be possible to take incanus as a quenya name devised for him which later became obsolete and was remembered only by the learned then christopher wraps up the chapter with this on this assumption an etymology is proposed from the quenya elements in id and khan ruler especially in kano kanu ruler governor chieftain which latter constitutes the second element in the names turgon and fingan in this note my father referred to the latin word in kanus gray haired in such a way as to suggest that this was the actual origin of this name of gandalf's when the lord of the rings was written which if true would be very surprising and at the end of the discussion he remarked that the coincidence in form of the quenya name in the latin word must be regarded as an accident in the same way that sinderen orthanc forked height happens to coincide with the anglo saxon word orthancunning device which is the translation of the actual name in the language of fork the

[Sean]

rohirrim all right some word nerdery seriously

[Alan]

the chapter ends with more intense word

[Sean]

nerdery yeah and some of it is going to go back to some stuff we talked about in the philology fair at the beginning of this episode feels

[Alan]

like last week

[Sean]

i know yeah kind of does but yeah so while the previous passage and then we also talked about this in the philology fair and talked about incanus as a form adapted to quenya of a word in the tongue of the haradrim meaning simply north spy and that was that gloss of inca plus noosh this next passage goes in a completely different direction this nineteen sixty seven note presents as christopher says a wholly different view wholly different view

[Alan]

though i still like the idea sort of as gandalf as north spy i mean that's kind of cool double o gandalf you know yeah i'm seeing him i'm seeing the goldeneye game but with gandalf as as bond i love it

[Sean]

he does the he does the bond intro thing where he points his staff towards the camera and shoots you know

[Alan]

yeah yeah so here tolkien says it is just unclear what gandalf actually meant by his statement that was quoted by faramir gandalf says himself like i never went east right but he also appears to have traveled really only in the west he didn't have a passport so gandalf you know it seems unlikely tolkien says that gandalf ever went to harad certainly if he did he didn't go there long enough to get a name in their alien languages and that's an interesting point because you know i've been to foreign countries none of them have ever given me nicknames because i wasn't

[Sean]

there long enough that you know of

[Alan]

oh well that's terrifying that's terrifying

[Sean]

i'm just putting it out there oh man that's a good point none that they

[Alan]

told you to your face that's more

[Sean]

like it yeah all right but no it is it's an interesting point that you know you're not there long enough to get a name and so therefore tolkien argues that the south here in this statement about you know where he's called incanus that has to mean gondor or should mean gondor though you know the biggest version of gondor so that would include like you were talking about earlier alan you know this sort of the south gondor realm that's farther than we usually think of gondor the debatable

[Alan]

lands that are on our map yeah

[Sean]

yeah yeah but then how does that square with the fact that gandalf is always called mithrandir when he's in gondor that we see you know in lord of the rings whether it's denethor or faramir or anybody else who's of numenorean origin it's always mithrandir and it's certainly

[Alan]

never in canus you know and that's the thing look mithrandir is a sindarin name and that's the name that the elves use for him but the men of gondor they would of course know sindarin so that does still work but there is a hitch yeah what about

[Sean]

this westron name the one that tolkien says is a name that means greymantle now he never actually gives us the actual westron name in the original westron you know think about the appendices and some of the original westron what's his

[Alan]

name lubingi or what frodo's real name

[Sean]

yeah right or banazir banazir galabasi or any of those yeah no but tolkien tells us here that whatever this westron word might have been it may be represented by graham which is what he's called by the men of rohan that's

[Alan]

right and let's go back to the uses of grahame when aragorn is first interrogated by eomer he tells him gandalf the grey was our leader and that prompts eomer's reply gandalf gandalf grahame is known in the mark theoden then uses that name for him as well in a much more positive sense because at that point eomer's like yeah grahame is known but you don't want to name him theoden on the other hand you know here now i name my guest gandalf grahame wisest of counselors most welcome of wanderers a lord of the mark a chieftain of the aer lingus while our kin shall last and i give to him shadowfax prince of horses and then graham is used one more time it's by hama when he's speaking of gandalf to a guard after the wizard's

[Sean]

rapid departure on shadowfax now christopher then interrupts his father's note with some editorial commentary explaining that with his father's conclusion that in the south meant gondor the farthest reaches of gondor we now have to revisit the source of the name incanus because of course we're just not

[Alan]

done with his name yet the name that like nobody even seems to care

[Sean]

about like right but is the most interesting it is which is wonderful now in this version and we hinted at this in the pf earlier incanus must be quenya like olorin and therefore a name for him in gondor from earlier on when quenya was in more regular use by the learned this is another reference to the idea that quenya was the language of lore for numenor and

[Alan]

gondor exactly and then we come back to tolkien again as he reminds us of gandalf's appearance in the eleventh century of the third age reminder folks third age one thousand is the eleventh century right just as the twenty first century includes the year two thousand that's right

[Sean]

and he then assumes an arrival of gandalf shortly after that and for a long enough time to get a name and he specifically hypothesizes that this could have happened during the reign of atanatar

[Alan]

ii that's atanatar the glorious to you peasant he's the i'm so sorry that's right he's the lazy bum who enjoyed the riches of gondor and who replaced the original crown of gondor the plain war helm like the one worn by anarion killed in the siege of barad dur he's the one who turned it all gaudy and had it all covered in jewels yep that guy i remember that guy that guy it was the beginning of the end really i mean it was it was like really was it was just he didn't care about it was under his watch that the watch on mordor began to fail i mean it just he was just we've got it all what else do we

[Sean]

need you know right yep and he ruled gondor for a long time didn't he it was third age eleven forty nine to twelve twenty six so we're talking seventy eight twenty seven years of corruption and cosmic rule yeah huh and this started nearly half a century after the only time that the eastadier mentioned in the tale of years which was around eleven hundred when they suspected a nazgul of moving into dok uldur so the time certainly was exactly the wrong time to have incompetent leadership in gondor

[Alan]

well yes the wrong time to have incompetent selfish leadership but a time that that works with the idea of gandalf possibly traveling there true that is true because it's only fifty years after they're like well you know we think a nazgul might have moved into dol guldur so maybe i should go down to the biggest library and do a little bit of research maybe i should kind of check things out and he goes down there if that happened it would be possible for him to have that

[Sean]

does make sense gotten the konya name and maybe one of those times that gondor needed him as opposed to you know other times when they had more

[Alan]

competition that's another really good point so if he's there long enough he gets himself a name a name that would later become obsolete but obsolete simply because it's a quenya name and people just

[Sean]

don't really use quenya in gondor anymore no and then we conclude the entire chapter with notes from christopher that dive into the word nerdery of this quenya origin for incanus as opposed to the horadrim origin of north spy specifically he proposes an etymology that utilizes the elements innid which means mind or inner thought or inmost heart inner senses things like that and khan meaning ruler and as you read in the passage alan that's connected to kano and kanu and this element actually mutates a little bit when it shows up in the names of people like fingon and torgon yeah it's

[Alan]

that gon that gon suffix yeah it

[Sean]

becomes gon it becomes voiced yeah instead of instead of the unvoiced k sound in parma el dalambaran number seventeen this is the words passages and phrases of lord of the rings that we were quoting earlier there is a word in kanuse which means and i said this in the philology fair mind mastership and you get that from this idea of

[Alan]

mind plus ruler it's an interesting name for a guy who you don't think of as mastering the minds of others like that's not who he is he doesn't seek mastership i almost wonder if this is maybe referring to his own self discipline his own mastery of his

[Sean]

own mind that's how i take it if this was saruman i would feel

[Alan]

differently totally the other way around one

[Sean]

hundred percent because he's all about dominating people's minds especially when we see him later in the third age but yeah i think you're right i think it has to do with his mastery of his own mind maybe it's self control ability to keep calm in a crisis i don't know it could be lots of different things that is meant by

[Alan]

this in the same spot though tolkien also because he just can't leave well enough alone tells us that the word in canus is also latin and in latin it means gray haired now if that's the origin as christopher points out that would be very surprising and once again christopher with the understatement that's just what he does he points out that at the end of the note tolkien commented you know what no no that's just an accident it's just a happy accident right sure sure because i'm not so sure that the accident he cites here is any more an accident than this one exactly he references the cinder and orthanc meaning the same being the same word but with a totally different meaning as old english or thank for kite versus cunning device but come on you cannot tell me that that's an accident given that saruman is the resident

[Sean]

of orthanc right this is like atalante being an accident that it sounds like atlantis oh not an accident sure it

[Alan]

is okay professor if you say so

[Sean]

but again that's the beauty of the way that he builds his world isn't it is that he tells you it's an accident and so even if in the back of your mind you're like dude that is totally not an accident you definitely meant this but but he leaves that doubt doesn't he just like the doubt about whether gandalf is actually manwe or not he wants to leave that doubt in your mind multiple interpretations and that makes the world feel more

[Alan]

real butterbur it is said in the tale of years appeared in the west early in the eleventh century of the third age if we assume that he first visited bree sufficiently often and for long enough particularly at the end to acquire a name or names there about eighteen hundred years before the war of the ring it would be possible to take barliman as a quenya name devised for him which later became obsolete all right sean what does barlman have in

[Sean]

his bag for awful awful awful oh

[Alan]

it was it was i never take the crap seriously no all right well

[Sean]

alan today james c in alabama sent in a question and here's the question did gandalf perceive sam when sam put on the ring so talking about kirithon rule you know sam's taking the ring

[Alan]

choices of master samwise yeah right yep

[Sean]

did gandalf perceive sam when he put on the ring this could have given gandalf a greater reason to think that sauron did not have the hobbits when the mouth of sauron attempted to deceive him at the black gate so the question is did gandalf secretly know that the hobbits were not in custody because he sensed sam putting on the ring i mean it's a good question it

[Alan]

is a very good question i think

[Sean]

it's a very reasonable question and especially since gandalf gambles and is right i think it's fair to ask did he actually have some knowledge the thing is though i don't think there's any evidence in the text to say that gandalf can actually sense when somebody puts the ring on is there he did communicate

[Alan]

with frodo when frodo was atop amon hen but i wonder how much of that had to do with him also being on amon hen being in a place where there is some sort of magical power some sort of presence and ability that like amplifies or you know because he never communicates with him otherwise than that but there's that take it off you fool take it off clearly gandalf right but does he perceive it at any other point i think so remember galadriel i think doesn't she say something about you know thrice you have borne it don't put it on again

[Sean]

isn't that her i think so yeah yeah i think that was her that

[Alan]

would suggest that maybe a bearer of one of the three would know but i think the reason why i'm going to vote no is gandalf's super busy at those times i mean the same day that frodo is captured by the orcs of cirith ungol is the day the pelennor is overrun and faramir is wounded i mean there's a thousand things going on yeah and also i don't

[Sean]

know it was galadriel who said to frodo only thrice have you set the ring upon your finger since you knew what you possessed is that because she sensed it when he did it or is she reading it in his mind

[Alan]

when he oh that's a very good point so she you're not okay that's

[Sean]

a really valid point i think it's

[Alan]

the latter i think you're right because she's able to read his mind which includes his memories his thoughts his recollections so yeah no one hundred percent you're right i don't think it's that she perceived it it's that she read it

[Sean]

yeah because think of all the times that you know yes frodo did use it a few times in lord of the rings bilbo put it on all the time and not once did gandalf sense that this was the one ring

[Alan]

oh no the ring is being placed on a finger to avoid lobelia right

[Sean]

yeah yeah for five hundred years gollum was using it nobody sensed nobody knew

[Alan]

yeah how do you track him down you just i mean come on they could ping him one ping only vasily and they could track down gollum under the mountain if they could all detect

[Sean]

where they could sense exactly oh man exactly so i don't think that he can sense the ring from a distance and i think that makes the gamble more significant because it's that northern courage isn't it it's that they're gonna fight at the black gate even though they think that frodo might have been taken already they think they might be done for but they're gonna fight anyway i

[Alan]

think you're right i think what gives him hope i think what gives gandalf hope at the black gate is seeing the things that were taken from frodo because okay it's bad that frodo's been captured or maybe even killed but if sauron had the ring this battle would be over we wouldn't even be having this conversation with the mouth of sauron he would have come out with overwhelming force and destroyed all of us right true just the fact that they they clearly don't have the ring or they'd be threatening us with that instead of oh look at these things you know so i think that gave him some

[Sean]

hope yeah and so it's more of a judgment call gandalf knows that it's not just a pure gamble he's not just rolling the dice no he knows that yes he must not have the ring because if he did this would be a very different battle right now and so it's more about wisdom than it is about sensing anything yeah of

[Alan]

course he only makes that decision right there at the black gate i mean it's not like they made that decision before they left minas tirith you know so it was still very much a gamble but like it's all they had literally all they had as the the chapter the last debate you know gives us yeah i think you're right i don't think he could sense it i think amon hen was the only moment that he could and that was because of the combination of the ring and amon hen this special nature of amon

[Sean]

hinn yeah yeah i can buy that

[Alan]

good question though a lot of fun

[Sean]

i like that one yeah i agree

[Alan]

well folks thank you for joining us for another episode of the prancing pony podcast please come back again next week when we look at the silent movie version of facetime in middle earth it's the chapter on the palantiri folks yes

[Sean]

very strange analogy that is silent movie version of facetime there's no audio isn't

[Alan]

that the weirdest thing no that's true that is true yeah they probably developed like semaphores or asl to communicate well

[Sean]

we'll we'll get into it next time

[Alan]

they'd hold up letters they just like hold up a page can you read

[Sean]

yeah yeah everybody carries little whiteboards and they just show them like that like that one episode of buffy when nobody could talk anyway folks alan and i want to thank the members of team ppp that's our editor jordan renels our barlowman becca davis social media manager casey hilsey event and patreon community coordinator katie mckenna graphic artist megan collins video editor yonatan lacence and website guru phil dean

[Alan]

and please take a minute to check out the prancingponypodcast dot com that's where you'll find show notes outtakes prancing pony ponderings and our fully revamped ppp merch store where you can get all sorts of cool merch featuring the incredible chapter art that megan's been doing for us for nearly four seasons now we're up

[Sean]

all about the books here at the prancing pony podcast so be sure to also visit our library page and we try to make sure that any book that we've mentioned on the show is linked there so you can purchase it and we do get a small amount of compensation when you make your purchase so we thank you for that indeed

[Alan]

we do we also want to thank our patrons at the kir dan's contribution tier i'll start with demay in alaska chad in texas joseph in michigan kathy from north carolina brian in the uk jerry from washington irwin from the netherlands ben in minnesota anthony in texas zaksu in illinois joshua in massachusetts lucy in texas erica in texas james in massachusetts ann in kentucky and sean in new

[Sean]

jersey and there's also mason in california maureen in massachusetts olivia in london robert in arizona nick in wisconsin lewis in south carolina thomas in germany craig in california kevin in massachusetts joe in maryland d scott in california jeffrey in michigan paul in colorado david from connecticut teresa from texas and lynn in new jersey folks thank you all so very much for your support indeed thank you and make sure you don't miss any episodes of the prancing pony podcast subscribe now through spotify apple podcasts amazon music or your favorite podcast app and one last

[Alan]

thing as always please don't forget to send your thoughts comments and most of all your elvish language accidents to barliman at thebrancingponypodcast dot com now barliman does

[Sean]

have a lot of mail to sort through so we'll try to get to you just as soon as we're able

[Alan]

to as always though this has been far too short a time to spend among such excellent and admirable listeners but until next time farewell friends

[Sean]

welcome to

[Alan]

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