Month: December 2025

“Opposing The Fire That Devours and Wastes With The Fire That Kindles.” Gandalf Kindles a Flame in The Hearts of The Free Peoples of Middle-earth.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 741-743

Readers of my blog will know that it is my custom to make the heading of each post a quotation taken from the passage in The Lord of the Rings that I am thinking about. In this post, the last in this short series on Gandalf in which I have been thinking about the question that Pippin asked of himself as he stood between Gandalf and Denethor, “What was Gandalf?”, I have taken my quotation from a different source.

To help me in my reflections I have been using an essay that Tolkien wrote but never published, and that his son, Christopher, included in Unfinished Tales. The title of the essay is The Istari, and can be found between pp. 502-520 in that volume. In that essay Tolkien wrote this of Gandalf:

“Warm and eager was his spirit (and it was enhanced by the ring Narya) for he was the Enemy of Sauron, opposing the fire that devours and wastes with the fire that kindles, and succours in wanhope and distress; but his joy, and his swift wrath, were veiled in garments grey as ash, so that only those who knew him well glimpsed the flame that was within.” (Unfinished Tales p.505 Harper Collins 1998)

I hope that you, like me, will have found your heart warmed by this description of Gandalf, and that thoughts about many passages in The Lord of the Rings will have been evoked as you read it. Indeed, so much was fire associated with Gandalf that when he kindled fire with a word of command in the snows of the Misty Mountains to save the company from freezing to death he declared to them:

“If there are any to see, then I at least am revealed to them… I have written Gandalf is here in signs that all can read from Rivendell to the mouths of Anduin.” (The Fellowship of the Ring p. 283)

Perhaps it was this spirit that Círdan of the Grey Havens recognised when Gandalf first arrived in Middle-earth around the year 1,000 in the Third Age, for it was Círdan who gave him Narya, the ring of fire, that was at that time in his possession. Círdan had received Narya from Celebrimbor in order to keep it safe from Sauron but he never used it, knowing that he had no particular affinity to the ring, that there was nothing in his spirit that would mean that he could use the ring’s fiery capabilities. He knew that this quality of the ring would be needed in the struggle against Sauron and in recognising Gandalf’s “joy and swift wrath”, hidden though these qualities were beneath his “garments grey as ash”, he knew that he had found the true keeper of the ring of fire.

Gandalf opposed Sauron in two ways. On occasion, when necessity demanded it, he would literally fight fire with fire, opposing the power of darkness with light. In The Lord of the Rings the occasion in which we see this most clearly is in the battle against the Balrog of Moria, the “the flame of Udûn”, when Gandalf declares himself as a “servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor”. (Fellowship p.322). The Balrog knows what he means by these words and we read that the fire in it seems to die as it hears them. After a long struggle the Balrog meets its end at Gandalf’s hands and although Gandalf gives up his life in this battle it is the flame of Anor that prevails and Gandalf receives his life again from Iluvatar.

Gandalf can wield fire in battle when necessary but for much of his time in Middle-earth it is the second way in which he opposes Sauron that is most prevalent. He opposes the fire that destroys, not in open conflict but “with the fire that kindles and succours”. Gandalf warms the hearts of the peoples of Middle-earth.

Tolkien uses a word that is rarely used in the English language to describe the condition of so many that seek to oppose the Dark Lord. It is the word, wanhope. We still use the word, wan, to speak of something that is a poor version of the best, but wanhope is a stronger word yet. In Chaucer’s Parson’s Tale (c.1400), we read:”now comes wanhope that is despair of the mercy of God that comes sometimes of too much outrageous sorrow and sometimes of too much dread” (my translation of Chaucer’s Middle English). I am sure that Tolkien had the good parson’s words in mind in using this word in Unfinished Tales and in describing the state of mind of many who despair of prevailing in the struggle against Sauron. Gandalf was able to save Théoden from wanhope but failed to do so in Denethor. Théoden renounces his despair while Denethor gives into his. Eventually it is the unexpected and unlooked for good fortune found in the person of Gollum in the Cracks of Doom that will save Middle-earth from destruction but it is Gandalf’s tireless work that means that there is a world worth saving.

Further Thoughts on Gandalf’s “Fountain of Mirth”. Gandalf and The Shire.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp.741-743

This is the third post in a short series of reflections that I am writing about Gandalf based upon the observations that Pippin makes of him both in the scene that takes place in the throne room of Gondor at the beginning of The Return of the King, the final volume of The Lord of the Rings and the scene that follows immediately after. As we saw in the last piece Pippin’s thoughts about Gandalf are inspired by the comparison that he begins to draw with Denethor, realising that Denethor’s impressive demeanour does not go anywhere near as deep as the reality of Gandalf, even though this does not seem so at first glance.

Two weeks ago I wrote about Gandalf’s joy for the first time, a joy that Pippin sees as “a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing, were it to gush forth”, and in this post I want to think more about this.

The hobbits of the Shire know Gandalf as a strange figure who comes and goes among them from time to time. In many ways their main impression of him is as a kind of travelling showman. They know him best for his spectacular firework shows, such as he offered them at Bilbo’s farewell party. When in Lothlórien Frodo and Sam composed poetry by which to remember him after his fall in Moria it was this that Sam recalled most vividly. 

The finest rockets ever seen:
they burst in stars of blue and green, 
or after thunder golden showers 
came falling like a rain of flowers.

And if it were not Gandalf’s fireworks for which he was best known in the Shire it might have been his pleasure in pipe-smoking, something to which the hobbits had first introduced him. Indeed we might say that it was play and pleasure that regularly brought Gandalf to the Shire. Gandalf says as much in his telling of the story that we know as The Hobbit to Frodo and other members of the Fellowship in Minas Tirith after Aragorn’s coronation.

“I was tired, and I was going to the Shire for a short rest, after being away from it for more than twenty years. I thought that if I put them [dark thoughts about the return of Sauron and the potential threat of Smaug the dragon] out of my mind for a while I might perhaps find some way of dealing with these troubles.” (Unfinished Tales p. 416)

Gandalf associated the Shire and hobbits with much needed rest. But was it merely coincidental that it was on his way to the Shire that Gandalf met with Thorin Oakenshield and learned of Thorin’s desire to lead an expedition to recover the Lonely Mountain from the terrible dragon that lived there? It was in his meeting with Thorin that the thought of Bilbo Baggins first came into Gandalf’s mind.

“Suddenly in my mind these three things came together: the great Dragon with his lust, and his keen hearing and scent; the heavy-booted Dwarves with their old burning grudge; and the quick soft-footed Hobbit, sick at heart (I guessed) for a sight of the wide world.” (Unfinished Tales p. 417)

What Gandalf does is to play with the images that come into his mind, allowing them to take shape there and, in a sense, take on a life of their own. In many ways Gandalf does exactly what Tolkien the storyteller does. Both he and Tolkien journey into the imaginal realm and they play amidst the images that they find there.

It is essential here to emphasise that neither Tolkien’s play or Gandalf’s is a mere passing away the time between more serious tasks. Or maybe I should say that Tolkien was not just passing time when he journeyed into Faerie, the perilous realm, the imaginal realm. It was in that realm that both discovered and then sub-created his legendarium from what he saw.

In his telling of his story to Frodo and his companions Gandalf tells us a little more of his own journey into the imaginal realm, the journey that takes him to a place in which Smaug, Thorin Oakenshield and his companions, and Bilbo Baggins, somehow find themselves together. It is a journey that no-one else takes and it leads to consequences that no-one could have anticipated. For on his journey Bilbo finds the Ring of Power. Even at the time of that discovery no-one, Gandalf included, had any idea of the significance of Bilbo’s magic ring. Gandalf describes his own actions as no more than following “the lead of ‘chance'”, a journey on which he made many mistakes by his own admission.

We will come back to that journey in the next piece. In the meantime I invite you to think further about the relationship between play in Gandalf’s story and the events that ultimately lead to the discovery and then the destruction of the Ring and the fall of Sauron. I believe that they are intimately bound together.

I am grateful for the work of Dr Becca Tarnas for introducing me to the idea of Tolkien’s journey into the imaginal realm. I hope that her doctoral thesis comparing the Red Books of J.R.R Tolkien and Carl Jung will be published soon. In the meantime can I recommend her reader’s guide to The Lord of the Rings, “Journey to the Imaginal Realm”, published by Revelore Press in 2019.

“Pippin Perceived That Gandalf Had The Greater Power, and a Deeper Wisdom, and a Majesty That Was Veiled.” Pippin Begins to Ask The Question, “What Was Gandalf?”

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 740-743

This is the second post that I am writing about Gandalf in this short series based upon his arrival in Minas Tirith with Pippin. What I seek to write is, in effect, an attempt to answer a question that Pippin asked of himself in the throne room of Gondor as he stood between Gandalf and Denethor and felt the power of both.

“Denethor looked indeed much more like a great wizard than Gandalf did, more kingly, beautiful and powerful; and older. Yet by a sense other than sight Pippin perceived that Gandalf had the greater power and the deeper wisdom, and a majesty that was veiled. And he was older, far older.”

It is the contrast between Gandalf and Denethor that causes Pippin to deepen his perception, causes him to begin to realise that reality is more than can be understood through the senses. Denethor merely looked more like a great wizard than Gandalf. It requires the development of an inner eye for Pippin to begin to truly see. Perhaps it was his experience with the Palantír, the Seeing Stone, and maybe even his encounter with Sauron himself through that medium and the recognition of his utter vulnerability that accelerated Pippin’s journey towards a greater wisdom. And it leads him to a question.

“What was Gandalf?”

It is thanks to Christopher Tolkien that we have so many of his father’s papers that remained unpublished during his lifetime and in one that was published as an essay entitled, The Istari, in Unfinished Tales (Harper Collins 1998 pp. 502-520) Tolkien tells us much that is only hinted at in The Lord of the Rings. For example, take the insight that Pippin has “a majesty that was veiled”. In his essay we read this about Gandalf and the other Istari.

We read that during the Third Age the Valar sent with the consent of Eru, “members of their own high order” to Middle-earth. And that, although they were by nature spirits they were “clad in bodies as of Men, real and not feigned”. The point was that when in the First Age the Valar became aware of the coming of the Elves, the First Born, to Middle-earth, they went there from Valinor to persuade them to leave Middle-earth and to go with them to the safety of the Undying Lands, away from the threat of Morgoth. But they went in their full glory and terrified many of the Elves who refused to go with them. In sending the Istari in the Third Age the Valar determined not to repeat the same mistake.

“The emissaries were forbidden to reveal themselves in forms of majesty, or to seek to rule the wills of Men or Elves by open display of power, but coming in shapes weak and humble were bidden to advise and persuade Men and Elves to do good, and to seek to unite in love and understanding all those whom Sauron, should he come again, would endeavour to dominate and corrupt.” (Unfinished Tales p. 503)

Of the five wizards who came to the north of Middle-earth, two, the Blue Wizards, do not enter our tale. Even Tolkien did not know much of what became of them except that they may have gone into the East. Radagast the Brown, who makes a charming appearance in Peter Jackson’s Hobbit movies, riding his sleigh drawn by hares, seems to have given up so much power that he no longer had much to do with those who might oppose Sauron, preferring to live among birds and animals. Saruman, we know, came to reveal himself in majesty, becoming impatient with the free peoples of Middle-earth and with the patience of the Valar and of Eru. Eventually he even chose to ally himself with Sauron while plotting to replace him as Dark Lord through his own study in rings of power. Only Gandalf remained true to his original calling.

Tolkien was devoutly Roman Catholic and as I read these words about the mission of the Istari I cannot help but ask the question whether he felt that the Church should not go to the world, seeking to rule the lives of people “by open display of power”. Should the Church go to the world in “shapes weak and humble” as Gandalf did? Were the occasions in which the Church, and especially its bishops, sought to terrify ordinary folk, occasions in which it fell into the temptation of Saruman. Were the splendid palaces of the princes of the Church expressions of Isengard rather than Rivendell? Should the servants of the Church be pilgrims on the same roads as ordinary people as Gandalf is rather than mighty lords as Saruman became?